NEVER A DULL MOMENT

As I am typing this Sue and I are eating dinner at our favorite eatery in Munroe Falls, our home town, The Crooked River Grill. I know it's crazy but it's been a crazy day starting Friday evening.


Rufus (BOO) started acting funny. He couldn't jump up on the couch. He would start but give up. Then he would go sit in front of Sue and just stare at her. Then he would come over to me to get petted. So I took him for a walk. It was a long walk and everything was fine. Back at home he couldn't get comfortable laying on the floor. Finally we all fell asleep. Around 2am Sue got up to goto the bathroom. All the dogs wanted out so she put BOO on his rope and let the doxies out. Doxies finished and came back in... Sue couldn't get Rufus to come back into the house. For an hour he sat or layed in the front yard just lookin around sometimes laying down. I got Rufus to come back in but again he couldn't get comfortable and then would sit in front of the door. Last time he did that he ended up at the emergency doggy hospital (two months ago). We even got the inflateable bed out hoping I could get him to sleep next to me on it. He did finally get comfortable next to the bed and we all got back to sleep around 4am. Good thing it's the weekend. So in the morning we went on a walk... he did pretty good. Once we were at home while I was in the shower and Sue was in the kitchen. BOO decided to jump up onto the couch and then the bay window. He was successful but let out a loud yelp. That alarmed Sue, she came downstairs to tell me. Now we were sure something was not right and decided we were either going to the vet or the emergency center. Getting BOO out of the window was a painful experience with lots of yelping. I could not get him to jump into Sue's car nor could I help him either... lots of yelping. So I took him back into the house and proceeded to build a ramp. Two hours later the ramp was done and after a short walk Rufus was able to get into Sue's car. Four hours and almost $300.00 later we know his back is OK, joints OK but lotsa gas in his intestines. They sent us home with some drugs and instructions. No jumping for a week, bland diet and no walks....




But at leas now we know he is OK.

Problem is the weekend evaporated and I built only ONE button assembly.

WE ARE ONLY 2 BEHIND

Today I called Martha at the AMSAT office. We are only 2 trackers behind! That is good news. We'd really like getting caught up... the goal being to build 10 a month. Well we are working on ten right now and that will, barring a bunch of orders, get us on track.

Tracker build process has been a bit slowed lately... waiting on lcd displays. Well Matrix Orbital came thru again. Our project requires lcd displays that use the Japanese font. Matrix Orbital stopped offering the Japanese font opting for the European font instead. That wipes out the degrees symbol that we need. But they came thru again and sent us 100 displays that arrived last Friday! Thanks Matrix Orbital!



Over the weekend I worked on getting things ready to sell on eBay. Also fixed a returned tracker developed a problem. Sunday was Family Day!

Monday evening built 10 lcd display cables (see Saturday, Jan 31, 2009 blog for pics).

This evening (Tuesday) started on the button assemblies. Less wire only 5 conductors compared to 12 for the lcd cable but the prep is more complex and the point to point wiring slows me down. But we got the wires cut an stripped and on Wednesday if I don't go the the second session of the Photoshop class we'll get the button assemblies done. If not then it will be Thursday.

Goin to bed... Good Night!

Cold is over, Now Broncitus... Wonderful

Wow, was it Mondays post where I got the cold? Holy cow...

Well the cold pretty much botched last week and the entire weekend. bummer.

Tonite I'm going get 6 tracker ready to ship tomorrow. I will not go into detail here in an effort to save time.

73's Mike

Think I'm getting a cold! Building LVB Trackers

11:14pm
Well I think I'm getting a cold. Back of my throat is scratchy and it seems to be crawling up the back of my nose. Wonderful.

Bernie called today. He is my airplane mechanic who is going into nursing. He's been working on planes for 30 years and is tired of not being able to make a living. So he's taking tests to get into nursing school. The one he took last week he passed but didn't place as high as he would like to. The school offers short courses that will help him do better when he takes the test again. So we will not be doing the annual inspection this week. Ok by me!!!

Last evening was a total bust. I was surfing on YouTube and somehow got on this guys site where he has all the Star War movies listed on 10 minute segments. What I don't get is how he stitches them together. Well you know how that went... I started with the last 20 minutes of Star Wars then The Empire Strikes Back and fell asleep towards the end of Return of the Jedi. Don't know what I like about those old movies. I thought the original Star Wars was so cool I watched it about 7 times in the movie theaters. The last time the movie house had stereo audio and the battle for the death star was awesome in stereo. Now I'm wondering if I just like the movies or like them because it takes me back to a better time. When I was much younger, carefree, single.

Sue called me today just as I was trying to leave work. She wanted to know when I was getting home. Mork was in the side yard and rolled in dog poop... Had it all over him and needed a bath. So that's what I came home to. Mindy got into it too so we had two shitty dachshunds to give baths to.

Took Michael, the 12 yr old, from across the street with us to dinner at the Crooked River Grill. Got home around 8:15 I guess.

So as far as the trackers go I did the voltage test, applied their serial numbers, installed and flashed the pics. Two of the boards were assembled into cases and are in test.

I will post pics tomorrow of the completed board.

That's all for tonite.

We are looking good!!! Building LVB Trackers!

11:40am

Well today is going to hell real quick... It's so easy to let the days time slip thru your hands. Did all the normal things and I started before 7am walking Rufus. Then fed the cats. And of course ended up downstairs behind 8 computer screens. Back upstairs to let the Mork and Mindy out for the second time today. Was reading the MicroCenter flyer that arrived in the mail yesterday and thought "maybe I should go up there and pick up a few hard drives" I need one for a Unbuntu project and Barb's laptop will probably need one since it stopped booting a few weeks ago. Now Sue wants to load up the dogs and take them too! This is good cause I won't spend much time in the store if they're waiting on me. Bad cause I will not be able to browse for too long. So that takes some of the excitement out of making that trip.

Had a great breakfast at the grill. Our friend Dolores sat with us. She is a hoot and I even enjoy her storied the second and third time anyway. So breakfast is done and I am here wondering what to do. Need to goto the airport and get the plane ready cause by mid week it will be in the 50's and Bernie will want to do the annual. Especially if I'm not ready.

I know... get off the computer and JUST DO IT ! 11:49am

3:10pm
Sue and I took the dogs up to MicroCenter. I picked up a couple hard drives and mice. Always seem to need either. You would never think we were in the middle of a recession. MicroCenter was packed with customers all buying lotsa stuff. Desktops, latptops and accessories keeping 6 registers busy... Amazing!!! Arrived safely at the house, just ate a turkey sandwich while reading email and now I'm going to the airport... PERIOD... Outside temperature is not as high as yesterdays but it's now 38 F here at the house. So later! 3:14pm

5:30
Just back from the airport. Cleaned up the hangar a bit. Removed the battery to bring home for charging. Removed the cowling and opened up the wings and fuselage for inspection. Oil and filter should be here Monday or Tuesday. Temps this week should be in the 50's.

Took Rufus for a walk. Pretty nice outside. Much of the snow is melted except where it was piled up. We were able to walk in the fields surrounding the middle school for the first time in 2 to 3 weeks. Wonderful. Came home and Sue was in her housecoat so that means we're not going out anymore.

Nothing more for this evening.

WEEKEND ! ! It's Saturday! Building LVB Trackers

08:30am

Saturday morning... man the weeks seem to fly by but not as fast as the weekends. IT'S WARMING UP ! ! ! 45 degrees outside. Walked Rufus and took Mork and Mindy out front. The snow is still piled up about two feet or so. MELTING but still too high for the doxies. So they roam the sidewalks which I keep clean with the snow blower. Sue has already left for the Crooked River Grill... Something about having trouble sending them an email so she wanted to try the connection at the restaurant. She needs to send out the next coupon for Valentines day so she might get that started too. As it turned out Road Runner Business Class email servers were down this morning.


This weekend I hafta work on LVBTrackers. The boards started last Saturday are still not done. The 7805 5 volt regulator needs to be soldered in and heatsink installed. The flux needs cleaned off the bottom of the boards. 7805 voltage checks. Yes, I had one put 12v on the output one time costing a pic and a lcd display. So just after cleaning and before pic loading I check for 5 volts. Then the pics are installed and flashed. Then they are ready for installation. I was hoping to get 5 or 6 ready for shipping by last weeks end but discovered I only had 2 boards ready to go so hopefully we can ship the beginning of the next week and will probably still be behind the demand. Be careful what you wish for !!! Gould tried to warn me.

Other than that the middle bedroom needs to be accessed so I can get into the attic. There is a critter up there just making all kind of racket and who knows how much damage. Hopefully the warm weather will flush the critter out, probably a squirrel, and I can discover how they are getting in and block it. I use to like squirrels but after the first time a few years ago they invaded the attic I hate them.... We even stopped feeding the birds cause the squirrels horned in on their feed.

Also need to goto the hangar to get the plane ready for inspection... So it will be another busy weekend.

9:23am Off to breakfast!

Spent a bunch of time at breakfast this morning. Sue could not log into the road runner business email server from home so she took off for the restaurant about an hour early to see if it would work on their business connection... it didn't. So after breakfast I tried to set up the account on my laptop and it failed too. Tried to use Sues laptop and it failed when attempting to login. So we called the RR Business Class tech support number and guess what... they are having server problems and have no idea when they will get them fixed.

11:15am

So we finally got home... Let the dogs out, fed the dogs & cats, took the scrap papers to the school, cleaned the snow out of the bed of my truck.

1:04pm Now I am stuck on the computer.

Doing email! Matrix Orbital replied to yesterdays email so we have that issue in work. Replied to them.

Skip, WB6YMH set up an AR Newsline server on IRLP where all you need to do is connect (node 0016) to it and it spills out the current AR Newsline recording. Neet... but it wouldn't work on my node 4710. Seems there is an environmental file that need some editing. The email message gave the wrong location for the file. But I found the file, edited it and still no go. Searched the IRLP Yahoo Groups for the fix.

1:33pm
Well I give up on the AR Newsline server node... made the changes called for and it doesn't work. Nothing I do is easy.

Hungry...


2:58pm
Got the AR Newsline server node working. For some reason I added "ALLOW_EXPERIMENTAL_SERVERS=YES" to the /home/irlp/custom/environment file instead of "ALLOW_EXPERIMENTAL_NODES=YES" and guess what... IT WORKS ! ! ! All a repeater user needs to do is enter dtmf "0016" and when connected to node 0016 Amateur Radio Newsline will be heard. Included are breaks to keep the repeater timeout timers reset. Pretty neet. This is provided by Skip, WB6YMH.

3:08pm Now onto building trackers... It's so easy to get distracted...

3:38pm
7805 regulators are mounted and soldered in. Now to install their heat sinks!

4:10pm
7805 regulator heat sinks are attached. The compressor is running storing air for the flux cleaning step. The picture below shows the pcb with all the parts mounted and soldered. All that's left is flux removel, pic installation and flash and usb board installation.





4:22pm Begin board cleaning.

5:16pm Board cleaning pretty much complete. This is also a time for me to give the solder side of the boards a good look over. It amazes me what I miss. Rufus wants his afternoon walk so I gotta go anyway. Before and after boards pics to follow.

5:37pm Dog is walked. Now dinner.

11:03pm Well the evening when to hell. Got into one of them internet research tyrades where you get stuck looking stuff up. Then K8CNN called me on Skype so we've been there. But I did get the boards cleaned and inspected. See the b4 and after pics below:

Some folks probably think it's a waste of time, effort and material cleaning the flux off of pcb's. Well I don't and clean them... The one to the right is uncleaned -------------------------->













<--- Here's a close-up of the upper right corner. You can see the flux puddled around each connection. Just looks nasty!













To the right ------->
is the cleaned board. The glare is bad so look at the close-up picture below of the top right corner.








<-----Top right corner. Looks much better. Enough said!









11:19pm

FRIDAY FRIDAY FRIDAY Building LVB Trackers

I haven't posted for a few days. Wednesday I go to school taking a class on PhotoShop. It's been real cold lately so all I wanna do when I get home is get warm. I fixed the heat and massage in my recliner so Mork and I like to veg in the chair. Don't really need the heat with Mork in the chair I think he's thermonuclear or something. He's a dachshund and definitely a hot dog.

Below is Mork on top of the blanket with Mindy underneath in one of their QUIETER moments (thank goodness).





Got a call from Bernie my airplane mechanic. He wants to do the annual next week during the heat wave. Sounds great so I ordered some oil and filter Thursday night from Sky Geeks.


Also got an email from Matrix Orbital, where we get lcd displays for the LVBTracker. It was anautomated email sent because Clare Wagner, the sales rep who helped me so much, is no longer there. It would have been nice if a real sales person would have responded... now I hafta re-establish a contact with them and hopefuffy get what we (AMSAT) needs for the LVBTracker.





IT's FRIDAY FRIDAY-FRIDAY-FRIDAY-FRIDAY-FRIDAY


Oh yes... Friday night I goofed off and spent my entire evening upstairs with Sue and the dogs and kitties catching up on all the stuff recorded on the DVR. Sue really puts up with my hobbies and supports me 100%... She is the best!!!!

LVB Tracker board assembly

Parts arrived today from Mouser... Lotsa parts in a big box that looked like it wouldn't go too much farther without falling apart. Anyway... we got to work.


First were installed the 4 NPN transistors... see below.








And then the connectors... see below.





All this while in QSO with Tom K8CNN.



We also assembled two trackers and they are currently in test.

Called Martha at the AMSAT office to find we are currently 7 units behind. I don't have that many displays available but I hope to ship 5 by weeks end.

Didn't get much sleep last night so we will leave little else said... Your Welcome

73's

Mike, WB8CXO

Sunday Morning Building LVB Trackers

Well, I guess blogging isn't that difficult so we will continue...

A beautiful Sunday morning... Sun is shining and its 36 degrees outside, a heat wave. Got the dog walked and yesterdays blog done.

Today is Feb 1st which means the plane need its annual inspection. Can't fly it...


DE PLANE...



My mechanic is real busy right now so we're gonna wait and push the annual into the warmer months. That way we can fly it into the private field where he does his work. Don't have much time to fly anyway... too busy building trackers and other things. First trip of the year will probably be in May to Dayton a few weeks before Hamvention for a volunteers meeting. Great Fun! But I still hate not having the plane available.

Just had another Echolink QSO with Richard W9RRB. It was the first time someone returned his call. He was concerned something wasn't working right on his end. We had a short chat... I'm glad I answered him... sometimes I'm busy and don't which seems to be a rampant problem with may stations.

It's 9:14am time for breakfast at the Grille.

Wow, it's 10:36am and we're home from breakfast and my wife didn't force me to go shopping. So we'll start on the trackers and see if we can make some progress...

11:00am and the machined IC sockets are all completely soldered on. This was after tack soldering the sockets in place last night. That takes about 20 minutes. Now we can start mounting more parts. Capacitors, the 4mhz crystal and connectors.





11:34am the 4mhz crystal and 10k trimpot are installed. See picture below.







12:39pm, 4 bypass caps and the xtal load cap installed. Plus I checked my email and ebay auctions. See pic below. Hope the pics are not too redundant.





2:10pm the picture below shows 6 signal diodes and 1 12volt zener diode installed. These are located mostly on the lower left corner of the board. I usually install these with the resistors since they have the same footprint but I temporarily misplaced them and when ahead with the ic sockets. The idea being to mount the parts that have the same height so that the board does not skate around while soldering. Someday I may build a soldering jig to place the board in then it won't make much difference. The diodes are a pain cause they come on tape and they need to be cut and bent. Need bending jigs for that too! Some day ! ! !







Here are some of the boards with the diodes ready to be soldered...





My wife Sue wants me to go shopping. So we have the first interruption of the afternoon.
2:28pm...



3:31pm back from the pet store. We snuck Rufus out of the house and took him with us. Dogs are allowed in the pet store but all three of ours are too much. But Rufus is a good boy so he gets to go...


Rufus (BOO)




Now to mount the electrolytics...



6:06pm the electrolytics and reset switch are all mounted and soldered up. BOO wanted to go on his late afternoon walk so we had a 20 minute break in the action





Well, that's it for me today. The Super Bowl is about to start and Sue has prepared a snack spread for us to enjoy. The parts from Mouser should be here tomorrow (Monday) and that will bring the 4 NPN transistors that will allow us to finish the boards built this weekend. Also arriving are the 8 conductor connector shells that will allow us to finish the four or so trackers that we wanted to ship out last month. Hopefully that will get us closer to being caught up.

73's
Mike, WB8CXO