Arduino Sidecar (instead of a Shield)

In my last post I described my Arduino Keyer Kludge.  In that project I didn't use the standard "shield" board that normally sits atop the Arduino board.  I had used a shield in an earlier project and I didn't really like it.   I prefer to have all the electronics and connections on the top of the board -- this makes for easier experimentation and modification.  

Above you can see my "sidecar" technique.  I build the circuit on a piece of copper clad board using isolation pads superglued to the copper (aka "Manhattan style").   For the Arduino board, I just superglue a piece of balsa wood to the copper clad board, and attach the Arduino board to the balsa with small wood screws.  Electrical connections from the Arduino to the sidecar just go from the Arduino pins to the appropriate points in the sidecar circuit via small-gauge wire.  

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

Paddle Output Arduino Keyer Kludge (video)

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.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

SolderSmoke Podcast #153 -- SPECIAL FDIM PODCAST

SolderSmoke Podcast #153 is available for download:

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke153.mp3

June 22, 2013 

Manassas Hamfest
Building a Balanced Modulator in LTSpice
Peter Parker's Minimalist SDR receiver
Alberto I2PHD's SDRadio program
My Arduous Arduino Adventure:  Sig Generator
MAR-1 amplifier chip
WSPRing again (the sound of WSPR)
Broadening my Barebones Superhet for phone
Cliff Stoll on Kludge vs. Kluge
FDIM INTERVIEWS:
G3RJV on one and done projects, Sodder vs. SoLder, Regens
G3VTT plays SolderSmoke for his students
NM0S on new Four States PTO rig
K0NEB on kit building techniques
NH6Z on high performance SDR
KK7B on hard rock rigs, modular construction and understanding
I2RTF Saluti a tutti!
W7EL on EZNEC, Dilbert, and escaping the Cube Farm
W1REX on QRP as a creative outlet,  Knack to the Max!

 

SPECIAL THANKS TO SOLDERSMOKE'S DAYTON CORRESPONDENT:

BOB CRANE, W8SX

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

A Billion Pixels From Mars

Don't miss the hi-res version.  Link and background info here:
http://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/news.php?release=2013-205&cid=release_2013-205


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

Feynman's Red Book (on the Sino-Indian Frontier)

Today I bought a copy of "Feynman's Tips on Physics."   I wasn't sure about buying it, but this story in Ralph Leighton's foreword convinced me:  

"At a lonely border post high on the Himalayan frontier, Ramaswamy Balasubramanian peered through his binoculars at the People's Liberation Army soldiers stationed in Tibet ― who were peering through their scopes back at him. Tensions between India and China had been high for several years since 1962, when the two countries traded shots across their disputed border. The PLA soldiers, knowing they were being watched, taunted Balasubramanian and his fellow Indian soldiers by shaking, defiantly, high in the air their pocket-sized, bright-red copies of Quotations from Chairman Mao ― better known in the West as "Mao's Little Red Book."

Balasubramanian, then a conscript studying physics in his spare time, soon grew tired of these taunts. So one day, he came to his observation post prepared with a suitable rejoinder. As soon as the PLA soldiers started waving Mao's Little Red Book in the air again, he and two fellow Indian soldiers picked up and held aloft the three, big, bright-red volumes of The Feynman Lectures on Physics.

One day I received a letter from Mr. Balasubramanian.  His was among the hundreds I have received through the years describing the lasting impact Richard Feynman has had on people's lives.  After describing the "red-books" incident on the Sino-Indian Frontier, he wrote, 'Now, twenty years later, whose red books are still being read?' "   

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

The Jamesburg Dish

Mama mia!  That's an antenna!  This is the skyhook that the very hip people in yesterday's video (scroll down) are using to send very cool messages to Gliese 526.  With a setup like that, they may have a shot at a QSO!  

More on the antenna here: http://www.jamesburgdish.org/

As I suspected, real hams (not the hipsters!) are doing the tech work. 
 
Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics" http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

LONE SIGNAL: SETI gets cool. Perhaps TOO cool! (VIDEO)

Slashdot alerted me to this new SETI-like effort to communicate with extraterrestrial civilizations.  It is called LONE SIGNAL.  Check out their video (above and here:
http://youtu.be/M-XcrnSKUog )

http://news.discovery.com/space/alien-life-exoplanets/crowd-funded-radio-beacon-will-message-aliens-130612.htm

The project has many features that put it in the traditional SolderSmoke area of interest, especially  "the use of a re-furbished radio telescope."   But one look at their video (click above) made me think that perhaps these folks are just too cool for a project like this.  I somehow can't see ANY of these people using a soldering iron.  On the other hand, if WE had videos like this, maybe we'd be able to bring more young people into ham radio!  Yea!  Why can't we be cool too? How about it, ARRL?


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