@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

vk3xe

@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social

Relatively new ham. Portable ops is my jam. Starting to get the hang of CW, sometimes GLAARG VE (as N3TJ), and interested in tinkering and building. Mod for mastodon.hams.social. Friend of blahaj

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vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

Well that's a surprise, turns out removing voltage from the enable pin on this buck converter doesn't turn it off. 1k of pull down resistor doesn't do it either? (Shorting to ground does though)

vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

Back to pulling out my hair tonight and I think of checking to see there isn’t a short between power rails… and there was. I’m used to overcurrent protection on the power supply or magic smoke letting me know I’ve made this mistake, but no this time the switching regulator was just protecting itself. I’d say I need a good collection of bodges to make this board work but the @jpm has me beat there this week

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@jpm yeah I suspect I’ll have learnt that lesson now!

vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

I have the day off and a blue box of crimes just got delivered. The parts I don’t have are already out for delivery too

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@decryption lol no

jpm, to random
@jpm@aus.social avatar

Contains: 100% isopropanol

sniff sniff

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@jpm many, many companies think these are superfluous

jpm, (edited ) to random
@jpm@aus.social avatar

USB hotplate pulling double-duty this morning, before I build up a few more of the PCAL6534EV breakout boards

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@jpm holy shit hope you have used up all of your luck for the week

jpm, to random
@jpm@aus.social avatar

Seeing photos of the Newport Workshops Open Day today has me wondering if the Russell Place Substation will be open in Open House Melbourne this year?

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@jpm if you see it open please let me know

vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

Got chatting with a colleague about GPS nerding and I said the line when people are going to get deep is when they switch from saying GPS to GNSS to which they replied what is GNSS and I taken them down the rabbit hole

M0CUV, to hamradio
@M0CUV@mastodon.radio avatar

A reminder to operators: A CQ call can be directed to a specific part of the world by the addition of a prefix or well-recognised area, which means “only respond if you have that prefix or are in that area”. So CQ JA suggests I’m only looking for contacts in Japan. CQ VK is Australia; CQ NA is North America etc. I don’t think there’s an official list of areas. Thanks to the Austrian, Italian, and Ukrainian stations who responded to my CQ JA - but I was trying to reach Japan!

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@M0CUV I like it specific like this. “CQ DX” is a lot more vague especially when you live on a big island that’s not close to anything

vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

Now at the stage of PCB cramming where I wonder if I really do need mounting holes (keeping to to 100x100mm for discount pcb reasons)

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@jpm believe me I’ve thought about it, one of the issues is I still don’t have a great way of doing single sided boards

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@jpm @vk2gpu I have managed to rework the board for today so I can avoid this, but have a tiny project I’m thinking of trying 4 layer on for the experience

gsuberland, to random
@gsuberland@chaos.social avatar

ever wanted a tour around a 138kV substation?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-RBp8jOUA1U

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@jpm I didn’t know they could still fire it up! Now I really need to see it

vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

Oooh new PCBs out for delivery. This is for the second revision of my microcontroller controller relay switching powerpole distribution board and nice timing so I can hopefully get it setup over the Christmas break

vk3xe, to adsb
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

I know there are plenty of folks here who are nerds but what about ? Are there open AIS networks like that have been built for capturing ADSB data?

M0CUV, to random
@M0CUV@mastodon.radio avatar

Could any of you fine folk recommend a meter I could plug into a UK mains socket that would give a reasonably accurate voltage reading? Possibly also to accept a device and measure its power usage? Want to see how under/over voltage my supply is as my EV matt:e is tripping out. Thanks!

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@M0CUV I’m not in the UK but I’m using wifi plug from athom.tech to keep an eye on voltage and current for my evse (these plugs ship with open source firmware that is very easily replaced)

vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

Haven’t been operating much as I’ve been busy planning my mobile station as well as a few related side quests. The car in question is an EV so watching the main 12v battery voltage to see if the engine is running isn’t a great signal (the car also periodically charges the 12v battery when the car is off)

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

Have got an open source device (OVMS) plugged in to the OBD port which I have extracted the car operating mode and if it’s charging the main 400v battery, and this has GPIO out which I’ve built a PCB with an esp32 and a series of relay switched PowerPole connections to control when stuff on the radio battery gets power which is when the car is on but also when I want to do stationary radio stuff

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

Still haven’t planned out when to start the DC to DC charger for the radio battery as charging when the car is running makes no sense. Current working idea is to wait for a signal that the 400v battery is charging but have an override button if I’m having a big radio session and want to charge sooner

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@decryption I’ve considered that if I wanted to charge the radio battery faster but the main reason for the third battery is to reduce interference. Some of the radio signals are only 5W so doesn’t take much to drown them out

vk3xe, to amateurradio
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

I’ve been curious about playing with pagers for reasons but have thought of a Rube Goldberg level idea of having a computer in my car fetch update sota spots over hf (via winlink maybe?), and then have that paged back to me so I don’t miss out on s2s opportunities when outside mobile coverage

vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

According to AI 121.500 is a popular amateur calling frequency (see I can invent facts too)

foone, to random
@foone@digipres.club avatar

Today in fun international standards:

It turns out Argentina uses the same power plugs as China & Australia, at (roughly) the same voltage and frequency...

Except they use the pins differently. Line and Neutral are swapped compared to China/Australia.

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@foone also in china earth is at the top of the socket and in Australia it’s at the bottom, and so Chinese plugs look very wrong to me

vk3xe, to random
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

A3. Two main things grind my gears. People who don’t understand a lot of younger hams don’t have space for antennas so it’s very compromise antennas with digital modes or nothing, and the hobby is not great at self promotion. 3 years ago I didn’t see the point of it and why on earth would someone use morse code?

vk3xe,
@vk3xe@mastodon.hams.social avatar

@ai6yr oh since I’ve got my licence and got in to SOTA I very much get it, just sharing what I thought as someone who knew about amateur radio but didn’t see the point of it

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