ECHOLINK and WINE: Works very well

I've been away from Echolink ever since my eeemachines PC went toes up and wiped out the Windows XP operating system. Echolink had always been a bit difficult to get running, even under Windows, so when I returned the eeemachne to life with Ubuntu, I never really even considered trying to get Echolink running on it. There is no Linux version of Echolink. But then, yesterday, somehow I got inspired. Something told me I should give Echolink a try using the Linux WINE Windows emulator. After all, I'd found that LTSpice worked great under WINE. I went to the Echolink download site, and hit the button. Ubuntu Karmic Koala (the version I am using) automatically fired up WINE and put the new windows program in the appropriate place. Echolink started right up. That night I was able to check into the Sunday evening QRP group for the first time in years. It was great. Now I'm on Echolink in the morning, talking to hams in Western Australia. The cheers for Jonathan Taylor, creator of Echolink! And three cheers for Ubuntu (especially Karmic Koala)!

The Arduino Documentary

Arduino The Documentary (2010) English HD from gnd on Vimeo.

Embedded controllers may seem a bit far afield for SolderSmoke. After all, I kind of gave up on surface mount, and have pretty much resigned myself to "hardware defined radios." (Someone sent me a picture of a T-shirt that kind of captured the sentiment: "I PROGRAM IN SOLDER!") But still, for a number of reasons I find Arduino intriguing. Aside from the amazing things you can do with this device, I like the homebrew, hands-on aspect of it. As you will see in the documentary, there is a real spirit of international collaboration in Arduinoland -- Italians, Spaniards, Colombians, Americans all working together on the project (the documentary itself is also available in Spanish). I also like it because it has its roots in Italy. So, even if you are not into embedded controllers, check out the documentary. I think you will like it.

SolderSmoke Podcast #129

January 8, 2010
SolderSmoke Podcast #129

http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke129.mp3

Introducing Cappuccio (pictured above)
"On the Cover of the Hot Iron"
Old tech, new tech:
Hammarlund HQ-100
Lafayette HA-600 (A)
WSPR: VK6 on the grey line, also Wake Island, and Alaska
How I fixed a broken GPU chip using a light bulb!
EMRFD's cool mod of the SBL-1 Diode Ring device (from W6JFR)
MAILBAG

Please send me reports on the audio quality. I made some changes...

Black Boxes No More! Cracking Open CPU Chips!

You guys have to see this. These guys have opened up some old CPU chips and have drawn the circuit diagrams for all the transistors. Then they made models of the circuitry. And they can runs programs on the models! From the site:

Have you ever wondered how the chips inside your computer work? How they process information and run programs? Are you maybe a bit let down by the low resolution of chip photographs on the web or by complex diagrams that reveal very little about how circuits work? Then you've come to the right place!

The first of our projects is aimed at the classic MOS 6502 processor. It's similar to work carried out for the Intel 4004 35th anniversary project, though we've taken a different approach to modeling and studying the chip. In the summer of 2009, working from a single 6502, we exposed the silicon die, photographed its surface at high resolution and also photographed its substrate. Using these two highly detailed aligned photographs, we created vector polygon models of each of the chip's physical components - about 20,000 of them in total for the 6502. These components form circuits in a few simple ways according to how they contact each other, so by intersecting our polygons, we were able to create a complete digital model and transistor-level simulation of the chip.

This model is very accurate and can run classic 6502 programs, including Atari games.

http://www.visual6502.org/

I had some technical (operator!) problems with Audacity this morning. Podcast 129 should be out tomorrow morning.

10% Discount Coupon for SolderSmoke -- The Book

http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm

Enter code READ2011 at checkout. (Offer ends January 31, 2011*)

Solar Flux Graph

The projected 2013-2014 peak doesn't look that great, but at least it appears that we are climbing out of the bottom of the cycle.

SolderSmoke Podcast #129 has been recorded and should be out in a day or so.

Propagation Improving

Yesterday spaceweather.com was reporting that a big sunspot was coming around the solar rim. I guess it arrived! Last night my WSPR sig was picked up by VK6XT during what must have been a gray-line situation, but this time with me going into sunset. Then, just about all night I was being picked up by VK2DDI. So, there may be hope for this solar cycle. 2011 seems to be off to a good start!