Today, I got to drive home without windshield wipers in a rainstorm.  Fortunately, no crashes and no tickets.

The problem has been a lingering problem and even slowed my drive to work last week because I had to stop and shake the connector to the wiper’s pulse board.  After the drive home today, I decided it was time to fix it.  I knew there was content out on the internet and I found this video from Road Rage Customs that basically said to replace the board.  I also knew that there was a resoldering fix.

Lemme think here… drop $21 on a new board or touch it with a soldering iron?

This is the top of the board. Not much here, just some resistors and capacitors.

This is the problem.

BEFORE. This is before I soldered the pin, with the camera lens looking through a loupe. Notice that the solder has pulled away from the pin a little.

This is the cleaned, resoldered and cleaned (again) pin. Looks way better.

I also cleaned the grease off these. I’m not sure what they are for.

After re-installing the board, I tested the wipers and they worked except the driver’s side wiper was a little loose.  I removed the cover and tightened the bolt holding the wiper arm down and tested again.  Works!

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I’ve written before how I don’t understand how I can buy a chip on a board from China for $5, or I can buy the chip alone, in quantity, for $15.

Yesterday, I ordered parts.  I looked at eBay, and ordered over 7,000 parts – resistors, capacitors, LEDs, and transistors (plus two more breadboards).  The purchase was less than $60 and the shipping cost for all of it – from 8 different sellers in China – was $7.59.

I balked at the idea of ordering microcontrollers and chemicals from China (thanks to reading some counterfeit chip blog posts back in 2012), so I ordered 5 PIC16s, some thermal grease, and a few other small items from Newark.  $8.72 to ship these things from South Carolina.

This time, my decision to purchase a ton of SMD parts from eBay wasn’t just motiviated by price.  It was also motivated by the fact that out of the three major webstores I look at – Mouser, Newark, and Digi-key, only Digi-key comes close to having an assortment in the price reach of a hobbyist (they have assortments in the $9 and up range, Mouser starts over $100, and Newark starts over $200).  Maybe it has something to do with Digi-key’s founder – he is an amateur radio operator.

The difference is that the stuff I ordered from South Carolina, while shipped in two packages (a true WTF? moment there, as 5 chips, 9 battery holders, and a 6.5g tube of thermal grease should fit in a small box, not two) will be here two days after I order it.  The stuff from China is expected to be delivered 6/19 or after, for orders placed in the late morning of 6/3.

Honestly, every month has been busy since January.  I don’t expect much time to work on stuff this weekend, and then two weekends will be busy with other things going on, so the timing of the deliveries from China will likely be fine.

One thing of note, I will likely be testing every. single. part.  I wouldn’t be doing that if I ordered from Digi-Newark-Mouser, but since the true origin of the parts that I ordered is unknown (except for the 5 PICs, thermal grease, and battery holders), it seems that I’d be better off with an ounce of prevention (of problems).

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As what was on twitter last week, I took a vacation day on Friday and went up to the Hamvention.  I didn’t buy much, just a small kit and a rockbound 6m FM rig. The radio was $5 (it makes it feel so much better to mention the price when talking about the fact that it is rockbound).

The first thing I looked into was the 6m rig.  I plugged it into the power supply and a dummy load with a watt meter and hit the TX… nothing.  I even tried yelling and whistling into the microphone (which didn’t – and shouldn’t have – made a difference).

I took a look inside.  I figure there is at least $5 worth of parts in here, so it isn’t a loss.  Or I could try to fix it, but I’m not sure that would be worth my time.

The better part of Hamvention was meeting several twitter friends in person and catching up with a few local (and non-local) friends that I don’t see often.  That definitely made it a good trip!

H/T to K0KDS for the pic!

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I have several “irons in the fire”, but nothing big to post this week.  However, I do have several things coming:

My third free PCB from Dangerous Prototypes has shipped and it is a Bus Pirate v3.  I tried playing with the Bus Pirate Arduino Shield and Bus Pirate Demo Board.  I’ve not had much luck and I haven’t tried troubleshooting it yet.  Associated with this, I’ve updated my Seeed Studio wish list

I printed a PCB for an upconverter that I haven’t yet even attempted to build yet.  Once I do, It’ll make it here.  Additionally, I just loaded a desktop with Debian, so expect I’ll be talking about doing something with that as well.

It’s membership dues time at the club, so I’ve been working on that.  I built an Access database to help handle things, but now I need to sit down and actually do work.  Have no fear, I won’t post many details about that here :-).

I am getting ready to get into packet radio. I bought a KAM+ a year (or so) ago, and I want to get it up as an APRS IGate.  Coverage around my place is pretty crummy, so I would like to improve that.  Eventually, I’ll probably replace the KAM+ with something else so I can play on packet (and I have some ideas).

I really want to build a QRP transciever.  I’ve been looking at plans so I can find something.  However, I may just buy a Rebel and add an e-ink shield to it.  It looks like the Rebel Alliance (love the name, BTW) has paved the road to using an LCD screen.  I want more and different, and certainly my code would be on GitHub.

I have been wanting to get back into getting frequencies from the Ten Tec Omni.  I know this is do-able, but I need to purchase a connector and do more research.

I haven’t forgotten about my logging project with the WF32, it’s just been on hiatus because of life.  I want to get back into that and get back onto HF mobile.  I have a few additional thoughts that may be interesting to add.

I’ve also been blogging a lot more on my other blog.  January is a busy in the transportation engineering and planning fields – the Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting is in early January.  Just from that and intertwined conversations, I think that’s set me up for 8 blog posts, and that’s in addition to normal work that sometimes creates blog posts.

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Edit: I forgot about one thing: I’ve been wanting to play on 70 cm a little, so I’ll have some antenna builds to show.

I’ve had a sudden want and need to print a few PCBs.  I’m not going to re-hash the toner transfer method that everyone else has documented, but I will note three things that I’ve learned:

1. Sanding the PCB with 600 grit sandpaper and cleaning with denatured alcohol is a must (you could probably use acetone or isopropyl alcohol too, the idea is to get any oil or dirt off the copper
2. HP Banner and Flyer paper works fine for this.  That may be documented somewhere, but everything I see says to use a photocopier and manually feeding magazines through it.  I’m using my own laser printer, so the idea of feeding magazine pages through it is a bad idea to me… now, if I was using a copier at the library or drugstore or gas station, I would have no reservations.
3. This method is never perfect.  Never.
4. Drilling sucks.  Design for SMT, if you can.

I’m working on several things, including a small guitar amplifier and an upconverter for my RTL-SDR.  The upconverter is one where the PCB layout was supplied and I printed it.  I put it on larger PCB than it called for, hence the crappy looking surround.

There’s some discoloration too, but that doesn’t seem to be an issue.

Prior to this, I did print two other PCBs.  These were designs I did in Eagle.  Both look like the PIC16 below (okay, the other, a real-time clock, was larger!).  In both cases, these are just breakouts so I can use them with a breadboard.  I forgot that I have a set of small drill bits somewhere.

Yeah, this PIC16 is dinky!

Moving forward, I will be using both the software and techniques used by Contextual Electronics as noted on this page on kohanbash.com.  The videos are EXTREMELY HELPFUL!  I may still print prototypes at home, but with all reality, I may just print the layout on normal paper and set the parts on the paper to fit them and then send the PCB off to a service.

A side note on printing these things at home.  Rocking trays full of dangerous chemicals for long periods of time is only fun when you’re developing photos, and that ship has sailed (with my film camera, developing tanks, dark bag, and bulk film loader on the boat).  If I do this a lot, I may end up building something that rocks the tray, as it would be pretty simple to build.

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Happy New Year!

I’m no different than about 99% of all other bloggers out there that I have at least one post on at least one of my blogs devoted to New Years Resolutions.  I decided to take a different approach this year.  The main reason behind this is that there’s a lot of other things going on, and a contest score or number of contacts is just a number – the larger goal is to have fun.

Last Year’s Recap

The goals from last year were:

• Learn CW well enough to casually contest.
• Work a VHF contest this year
• Participate in more contests this year
• Operate more!

I’ve learned CW a little bit, and enough that I tried to make a QSO with a fellow SKCC member.  I’ve been closer and closer, but I haven’t had the time to do anything like QRS nets (which IMO would really help hone my receiving skills).

I didn’t work a VHF contest this year, and I don’t think I did more contests, although I did a few that are new to me – the CQ WPX and CQ DX.  Both were fun, and that 10m opening to Europe during the CQ DX contest in October rocked.  I really wanted to play on the 10m contest in December, but a poorly timed vehicle breakdown screwed that up.

Operating more wasn’t as difficult as I made it.  After a while of working two jobs, I had no time to get into the shack unless I was using my scanner to scan portions of textbooks for PowerPoint slides.  During that time, I noticed that the “morning group” on the repeater was there, but there were several times I was driving home and nobody was out there, so I finally decided to put my IC-706 in my truck and started hitting DX on 10m during my afternoon drive (and also a few after doing morning traffic counts, which put me on the road to the office at 9:00 AM).  It’s amazing what a hamstick will do on 10.  I haven’t even tried 6 or 20 yet, and the 40m hamstick isn’t tuned.

There are a few things that never made it to the goal list last year.  One is that I started work on a mobile logging system, and the idea netted me a free ChipKit WF32 through Dangerous Prototypes.  I fixed my Ten Tec Omni base station rig (which was nice when that second job was on hiatus for longer than expected).  I presented about Arduino microcontrollers twice (to the Cincinnati FM Club and the Oh-Ky-In Amateur Radio Society).

I also learned a lot about electronics.  A lot more than I would have expected.  I never thought I’d be building with and using decade counters and DDS chips and the like.

This Year

I want to do some portable operating.  That generally means CW (generally… easily).  I have more trips for work this year than in years past, so having something better than an HT to go with me would be nice.  That being said, I need to finish my CW education and obtain a portable rig.

I want to do more ‘casual’ contacts.  By ‘casual’, I mean not-in-a-contest and not-in-a-net (which is fine, since I generally get on one net on 2m).  I want to do more QSOs while on my way home from the office.  This means two things:

• Finish the mobile logger.
• Figure out a better setup such that as soon as I’m on I-471, I’m either searching or calling CQ (maybe an expansion of the mobile logger?)

I want to play with more technology.  Every year, something new comes out, like the Raspberry Pi, then the Beaglebone Black, and now the Arduino Yun.  There’s been new Arduinos, like the Due and the Leonardo.  The Chipkit WF32 is awesome (wifi FTW!!!).  The Ten Tec Rebel was released.  The future there is exciting.

I want to integrate things together.  I want to be able to easily log from my desktop, laptop, or my Nexus 7.  Yes, I want LoTW support.  No, I’m not going to begin writing it… yet.

I want to build more things.  This past year was great – I built several small things.  There’s a few more things I have in mind that I want to get done and to the blog.

Speaking of the blog, last year I started (without a goal, mind you) doing posts on a weekly basis.  I want to continue to do that this year.  The other thing on the blog: new design.  The design I have is a free design.  It’s okay, but I did start on a new one and I should finish it sometime soon.

Non-Radio Goals

That part above about ‘a lot going on’ is truth.  The goal I can think of that isn’t radio related is that I want to complete my first half-marathon (that’s 13.1 miles) this year.  That goal’s pretty much low-hanging fruit since I’ve already registered for it and have been ahead of my training schedule.  The extension of that is I’m considering running a full marathon by the end of 2015.  I may hold off, but we’ll see.

There’s a few more non-radio things going on, but nothing too detailed…yet.

Well, I think that’s it.  I hope 2014 is a great one for all of us.

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Merry Christmas to all of you. I hope the big man brought you something nice!

This is a mish-mosh of notes, which is what happens when you spend a weekend moving furniture and fixing cars instead of playing with radios.

A Christmas Story Movie Amateur Radio Connection

Jean Shepard, W9QWN and K2ORS, was the narrator and co-scripter of A Christmas Story.  He got his start at WSAI-AM in Cincinnati in 1948.  From 1951 to 1953, he went to KYW in Philadephia, after which he returned to Cincinnati at WLW.

Talk To Santa Nets

For the 8th consecutive year, the 3.916 Nets will be giving good boys and girls a chance to talk to Santa Claus via the magic of ham radio.   The ‘3916 Santa Nets’ will be held on 15 different evenings starting Friday, November 29 through Christmas Eve, December 24th.    The Santa Nets are open to all licensed amateur radio operators who wish to invite kids to their shack to talk to Santa.  Third party rules will apply. LINK.

Christmas Short Story

Larry Makoski wrote another installment of his Christmas story from last year.  This one is in five parts (so far, I admit that when I’m writing this the last two released parts are still queued in the Press App on my phone!).  I’d give it 5 stars.  Link to part 1.  Link to part 1 of last year’s story.

WATwitter Christmas Edition

I hope to be on the air during the holiday break.  Watch for me on twitter, and watch for others using the #WATwitter hashtag.

Additionally, I may get on for Straight Key Night.  If I do, I’ll turn the power down to limit the amount of people abused by my CW “skills” 😉

QST

I have several projects “incubating”.  The most prominent is the EasyLogger with the WF32.  I have another ‘on the brew’ that is more interesting and useful.  I also saw an interesting use of a PIC12 that I may extend to a PIC16 (since I have one that has no use… yet).  There are several radio projects coming as well.  2014 will be an interesting year on this blog.

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If you look back into a few of my past pictures, like this:

The bottom of the board

You can see a bit of glare on the board.  Sometimes it’s bad, sometimes it isn’t.  Most of the time, I see it and move the camera to NOT show really bad glare.  This is caused by the florescent lights above my workbench.  I needed to get a picture of another board, and the glare was worse than above.  Since my cell phone (which tends to be my primary camera) needs the light, I decided to deal with the issue.

The way to deal with this is to use a diffusing disc to diffuse the florescent light and eliminate the glare, like in the diagram below.

Diagram of arrangement you see in the image below.

And yes, you can hold this with one hand, take a picture with the other hand…

I think I spent $25+ on my diffusing disc at a specialty camera store.  However, I’m fairly sure it is no better than the $12 one at Amazon.  Additionally, I could use a clip light to put more light on the workbench and still eliminate the glare.  The point of the diffusing disc is to scatter the light.

Using this diffusing disc, the glare reduction is pretty obvious in this more recent image:

Look ma, no glare!