Finally I’ve been able to get some shack time. It’s been a little busy with the household chores
but now that list is down to a reasonable level, time for some bench work.
The trip to Dayton and FDIM was very rewarding. Picked up my Siglent Spectrum Analyzer, IOT
kit from Kanga, attenuators, test cables, and a few books.
Putting the IOT kit together went smoothly, or so I
thought. Everything went smoothly as far as establishing a WiFi connection and
communicating to the board with my phone. Frequency changes appeared to be
working well but, I was getting a very poor signal output. As I checked things out, I thought I blew the
output port somehow as the signal now was completely lost. So I wired up the B output port to a header
and in the process of that I was getting intermittent output on that port and
then the 1st port began to work.
Closer examination of the dds chip revealed that the pins in the output
area were slightly offset from the pads. So a little solder and heat with a
touch up from solder wick seems to have cured the problem. Take a look at the upper right corner of the
chip in the picture.
Not sure exactly where I’m headed with this project,
but at the moment it’s a learning exercise for something down the road. I find
it interesting to be able to control something from a phone or computer via
WiFi.
As well I’m working on getting ready for portable hf
operating. Rig is ready to go but
antenna I’ve just started to work on. I
bought a no tune end fed half wave antenna kit from qrpguys that is almost
ready to try out. Just need to source
some #22 or #24 wire and make a couple of insulators.
Between all that I’m trying to learn how to use the Spectrum
Analyzer. Great addition to the
bench. So far I've just been observing the signal output of dds chips and the IOT board output. One other thing I tried out is connecting a 40meter BPF to the tracking generator and the SA input. The ability to adjust the filter in real time is a really nice feature. I'm now thinking about using the SA on
the LBS project I built a couple of years ago. Should prove to be interesting
checking out that rig.
73, Peter
Nice to hear you had a good time at FDIM and have some new toys to play with. Wish I could have made it this year, but had some family events to attend instead. A continuous scan mode is something I added to my SNA Jr. and find it to be really nice for adjusting filters. Would make a nice addition to the PARC SNA.
ReplyDeleteI broached the subject at the last hb meeting about scanning in real time but for one reason or another it was not an easy thing to add in for the PARC SNA. I need to ask again to understand exactly why.
ReplyDeleteMaybe we will see you next year at FDIM.