Chitika: beacon

Showing posts with label beacon. Show all posts

Wow. Very cool. Don't get hung up on the legalities or the environmental consequences. Just enjoy the simplicity and the technique. All the details are on this very nice Italian site. Google will translate it for you, but the pictures and the schematic tell most of the story. Bravi!

http://air-radiorama.blogspot.it/

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

SolderSmoke Podcast 154 is available for download!

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke154.mp3

August 11, 2013

-- Alligators! Real Alligators! (see picture below -- look closely)

-- Ten meter beacon project (with Arduino and Reverse Beacon Network)

-- Telescope repair: Chap Stick as lubricant, and the perils of macular pucker!

-- HW-101 saved from cannibalism!

-- The Wonders of WSPR and our need for instant feedback and gratification.

-- QST Review of SolderSmoke, The Book.

-- MAILBAG

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Named for an Italian bar, produced by cool people in Ivrea who wield soldering irons and wear T-shirts that say "Make it Simple." You gotta love Arduino!

Today I will finish connecting my Arduino Uno to my Doug Demaw Lil' Slugger 10 Beacon rig. Code (computer code!) by K6HX.

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Ooops -- I got my keyer terminology wrong in this video. The K1EL keyer just needs a "paddle keyer" input, not an iambic keyer. One line is brought to ground for dots, another for dashes. (With an iambic keyer, if you make both contacts at the same time you get a string of alternating dots and dashes.) My homebrew cootie keyer did the job, but I wasn't very proficient, hence the need for this digital kludge. I also got the name of the Arduino guru wrong: he is Massimo Banzi. Mi dispiace Massimo.

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

I've succumbed to the lure of the tiny computers and microprocessors. This weekend I was playing with the Arduino that I bought (supposedly) for Billy. You see, I have a little microprocessor-based keyer in my ten meter beacon rig (Demaw's "Lil'Slugger") . It works fine once you get the desired Morse sequence into it, but getting that done is difficult and frustrating for someone (like me) unaccustomed to an iambic keyer. So I was thinking that this would be easier just to replace the keyer with an Arduino. I was right. With some help and advice from Billy, I got the Arduino going, and got the little LED blinking. Then I took some code from Mark K6HX, modified it for my call-sign, and loaded it into the Arduino. No problem at all. Kind of fun. And it opens your eyes to all the possible applications of this little board.

Unfortunately, in the course of fooling around with the interface between the board and my rig I think I did damage to my Arduino. I managed to blow out the blinking (pin 13) LED on the board. I could live without that, but now the ICs get very hot (especially the little surface mount chip just below the 16 MHz crystal). Anyone hope of fixing this? (I've already ordered a replacement board, but I feel guilty about this.)

Here's a good article describing the pros and cons of Arduino, Raspberry Pi and Beagle Bone:

http://blog.makezine.com/2013/04/15/arduino-uno-vs-beaglebone-vs-raspberry-pi/

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Chitika

Message in a Bottle -- Beacon in a Bottle

SolderSmoke Podcast #154

A Visit to the Arduino Factory (video)

Paddle Output Arduino Keyer Kludge (video)

Adventures with Small Computers

AHMED HASSAN MOHAMMED

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