LVB Tracker 7 days since Dayton Hamvention

Here we are Sunday morning 7 days since the Hamvention. My past post was 3 days till Hamvention and I was so busy I just didn't have time to post since then.

Sue and I are going to breakfast a little early this morning so the story will continue when I get back.

73's Mike

LVB Tracker 3 days till Dayton Hamvention

25 circuit boards are built. Finished them last night (Monday). Tonight I flashed the pics. Also still testing the 15 built on Sunday. Next we need to prep 25 lcd displays and crimp 25 din cables. THEN we will be able to build the last 25... And pack and leave for Dayton THE SAME DAY??? I am so tired...

LVB Tracker 5 days till Dayton Hamvention

Actually there is less that 3 days for building. Wednesday will be a finish any tracker building day. Pack-up the truck to go day and travel day.

Michael and Ryan spent the night but won't be doing breakfast with us. Their not happy cause we're going to Bob Evans.

Rufus got a long walk this morning. We checked out Riverview Elementary School grounds. We were probably gone 50 minutes. Poor Rufus was too dry to mark and a bit tired when we got home.

Last night I got the din cables ready for assembly. This morning after breakfast we will probably assemble 15 trackers and start testing them. We will resume circuit board assembly but only after all trackers that can be built are built. I can build 4-5 an hour once all the parts are ready and they are.

8:56am getting ready for breakfast.

1:10am Monday morning:
14 trackers are built and are being tested. All that is left on the 25 circuit boards started Wednesday is to mount the heat sink, clean the flux off the solder side, voltage check and inserting and flashing the PIC. All pics are flashed using the serial port. A max232 is plugged in and removed after flashing. All trackers are shipped ready to go with USB only. The USB module can be removed and a max232 installed for serial port usage. Will probably get all that done tomorrow evening but I don't know if we can assemble and test 25 trackers in such a short amount of time. There is a strong possibility we will finish assembly and test at Dayton in the hotel room at at the booth. We really need more than 15 to sell. The success of AMSAT's effort at Dayton could be affected if we cannot meet the demand for trackers. Last year we sold 33.

At 1:14am Monday morning I'm going to bed!!!

LVB Tracker 6 days till Dayton Hamvention

A week from now the crowds will be streaming into Hara arena. Cant' Wait!

Am considering cancelling the trip to Dayton for the volunteers meeting. Will make the final decision after talking Joanne Kopas. Johanne is one of the great persons who steps up during times of adversity. I have worked for her before and look forward to working with her this year.

More later. got to clean litter boxes and get ready to take my wife to breakfast.

9:14am

9:29pm Successful trip to Dayton and a good Hamvention volunteers meeting. Got my credentials and am ready to attend as a volunteer. DARA gives a good deal to volunteers. For 6 hours of work you get a hat, free admission which is good for all the prizes and AN ONSITE PARKING PASS. Course you can get that by buying a flea market spot or two and THE FLEA MARKET IS ALMOST SOLD OUT THIS YEAR... 1500 SPOTS SOLD... Now if you spend the entire weekend there add just one day, Thursday... You can get your 6 hours in, get ur free pass and park onsite for the rest of the weekend. I work 5-6 hours Thurs, Fri and Saturday and will probably help some on Sunday. I love working the inside exhibits on Thursday. You get to help folks get set up... not physically but administratively. Possibly get to know the exhibitors... Mayby get a peek at what is new. It's neet walking into a dark empty HARA complex early (7:00am) and watch it come to life. Icom, Kenwood, Yaesu and some of the other big exhibitors start setting up Tues or Wednesday but their booths are so massive it takes them till Thursday afternoon to finish. Then Friday morning getting there early again you have 2 hours to walk around helping with last minute details before the crowds rush in a 9am. From then on it's just a lot of work but remember you can get your 6 hours in on Thursday then just be an attendee for the rest of the weekend. But I also enjoy helping attendees find the bathrooms, payphones, atms and where the heck is WB0W set up at? Hara is a big place with no logical layout... takes me a few moments getting my bearings.

We got home tonite 10 minutes before 9pm.... Course the big dog Rufus (BOO) has to go on his walk (about 5 hours late). And now were burning up the minutes typing this blog... And you know spending 7 hours on the road gives you lotsa time to think. And I'm thinking there is no way I'm gonna get 40 trackers built and tested before leaving for Dayton Wednesday afternoon (2 days till Hamvention). If I had Monday and Tuesday off MAYBE. Tomorrow, Mothers day, I'm gonna loose about 4 hours... and I'm beat... Surprized I didn't have any trouble falling asleep driving today. I have 15 pc boards from the last build ready and also have 14 displays ready. All I need to do is crimp connectors on 15 din cables and I can start assemblying 15 trackers. Better to have 15 trackers than fail building 40 and have none ready. So tonite I think we are gonna try to do that. I hafta build them anyway cause we got to have some for Dayton. I also gave some thought to taking parts to Dayton and do some assembly and testing in the hotel room. Problem with that is the AMSAT folks are a social bunch. There's the pizza party Thursday evening, the banquet Friday evening then we usually get together casually Saturday night too. Course that is part of Dayton. Some of these folks you only see at Dayton.

So I'm gonna stop wasting time on the blog here and get to work... At least until dinner arrives. It will probably be a late night too!

9:53pm OMG that's late... time flies!

LVB Tracker 7 days till Dayton Hamvention

The tracker pc boards are about 75 percent complete. Tonight we mounted the crystal, all the caps and the reset button. The transistors, voltage regulator/heat sink and idc connectors need to be mounted next. Then they need to be cleaned, the pic plugged in and flashed.

Saturday, May 9th I'm working for DARA. I volunteered again this year to work the inside exhibits floor. The volunteers meeting is Saturday in Dayton so I will be traveling there in the afternoon returning in the evening.

I sure hope the pcb's can be completed Sunday. I have never tried to do this many in so short a time. Looking back I should have told Gould the boards are arriving too late but I didn't. I arranged to have Wednesday off and will probably be really busy finishing up.

I am very tired.

Good Night!

12:04am

LVB Tracker 8 days till Dayton Hamvention

After soldering in the 6 1n4148 diodes I wanted to make sure we had enough idc connector strips. Did a quick count and decided to cut them for the build. Ended up not having enough. With no time left for running around town I decided to order from Jameco, our normal supplier and use express shipping. Since the shipping was going to be costly we did and inventory of all Jameco supplied and found out we had enough of these parts to complete the current build of 25 boards but not enough for the next build so we had to stop and do a Jameco order. Last night we had to order parts from Allied and the Bolt Depot.

I wanted to get the ic connectors mounted. These are time and effort consuming cause first you hafta tack solder them in place then on the second pass you hafta solder all 66 pins, 1650 total pins to solder. For the first time in my life I was STARTING TO FALL ASLEEP WHILE SOLDERING!!!

So the sockets are done and so am I. At 11:09pm I'M GOING TO BED!

LVB Tracker 9 days till Dayton Hamvention

9 days to go... So much needs to happen between now and next Wednesday. It will take a miracle to get it all done. I should just build the 15 trackers I have all the parts for and just that. But we are trying to build an additional 25 boards. 100 bare boards arrived today. But we are holding out for that miracle.

We have 25 boards on the bench now and have all the resistors done. Will do the 12v zener then goto bed. Am very tired and tonight's effort included a power nap. Enjoyed listening to the Indians game during tonight's build. These things help keep me going... Am very tired.

LVB Tracker 10 days till Dayton Hamvention

Tonite we finished 20 button assemblies, last evening 13 for a total of 63 built since Sunday. Calls on Skype both evenings stole a little time but were important. Wednesday the printed circuit boards should be here. We have about 25 more button assemblies to build but have more than enough to build trackers for Dayton. I would really like to finish this phase of the project. But considering the future interruptions of the Star Trek movie coming out Thursday and a Hamvention volunteers meeting in Dayton Saturday afternoon we should pospone the assembly of the remaining button assemblies and focus on building boards. Need about 25 boards to compliment what is already built for a total build of 40 for Hamvention. Sounds like a plan.

LVB Tracker 11 days till Dayton Hamvention

10:43pm Building button assemblies since about 8:30. Estimate I might get 20 done tonite. Gould WA4SXM is on Skype... he says the printed circuit boards will be here Thursday, May 7th. So there ya go!

LVB Tracker 12 days till Dayton Hamvention

We should be excited that it's only 12 days till Hamvention... I wish I could go back two months. I hope the stress to get ready for Hamvention does not spoil the event for me. It did one year... I spent two weeks building a portable repeater for Hamvention just prior to the event. Saturday morning someone said something to me that just pissed me off. I stayed in the hotel room most of the day steaming finally dragging myself to Hara mid afternoon. And this was probably in the late 70's when I was much younger with good brain chemistry! Found Bill Andrus and his girl friend. We sat down and had a great chat. I learned several things like... my friends and I were called the "the fat people" ha ha .... Then we went to dinner together. But there is one thing I learned when I had to get off of zoloft to get my airman's medical back... some things are not that important to get upset about. And to just walk away from bad situations.

11:03am
After walking Rufus this morning I fertilized the lawn. Haven't done that on years and it looked like it. Trying to get the weeds under control. Now we're back from breakfast and there's one more thing I need to do. Update the Crooked River Grill website. Started on it yesterday at breakfast. This morning at breakfast started moving files to the server and ran into a snag. One of the pages got messed up.... It's online so I need to tend to in NOW.


GOOD RIBS ! ! ! !

11:26am To work on the website....

2:18pm Website changes are complete. NOW WE CAN RESUME LVB TRACKER BUILDING!!

5:07pm 13 button assemblies built!

12:40am Monday. We have built 30 button assemblies. one-third of the way to our goal of 87. That should take us thru the end of the year. Going to bed.

LVB Tracker 13 days till Dayton Hamvention

Another boring Saturday blog... Guess that's a poor way to start but that's the way I feel about it.

12:35pm

We're still working on cutting and stripping wires for the button assemblies. At this point I think it's too much trying to do 90... well actually, we're doing 87... it's all the switches I have. But then we have 6 assemblies from the last build.

This morning we had to ship a tracker to a member who's original unit never arrived. I sure hope it was insured.... I'd hate to loose 200 bucks and the time I put into building it. Also sent out my PCR1500 to Gould for use at the AMSAT booth at Hamvention.... something about SuitSat. To those unfamiliar with packing and shipping.... it can be a chore and is here. Took all the idle time before going to breakfast. Home from breakfast around 10:30 then off to get a haircut. And later this afternoon when the grass dries out IT HAS TO GET CUT!!! Many of the neighbors have cut their lawns twice already so you can guess how ours looks. I hate doing it especially when there is no time due to the tracker project. And the CRG website needs the Mother's Day Menu added. Worked on that a little during breakfast. Have a plan of attack and hopefully that won't take too much time. Another issus is sleep.... I can't seem to get enough... Last evening I was stripping button assy wires.... someone on my repeater brought up a website in Canada on Echolink... The connect message from that node said something about SVXLINK... a linux version of Echolink GOT MY ATTENTION... So over to the pc I went and while researching SVXLINK....I FELL ASLEEP!!!! ZONK CITY!!!! Woke up about 11:30pm and went ot bed.... sucks.... In my younger years I could get by with 4 hours a night... NOT NOW... sucks...

12:50pm back to the tracker project...

2:32pm
We FINALLY finished stripping the wire that is a common to all the switches. Again, 90 is too many... you get a sense of getting nowhere while stripping away... and before you strip the wire they need to be marked for stripping after they are cut.

Above is the jig used to build the button assemblies. The lower part of the pic we see the common wire connected between 4 switches. It's the first wire applied in the building process. Above that we see the common wire after it is stripped. Then at the top is the completed button assembly.

2:46pm Back to work... the remaining 4 wires need to be stripped. Fortunately the ends of the wires are all that need stripped. The bad part is they need to be marked before stripping which is another step... 90 is too many but if we can get thru this we'll be ahead of the game for a change. Boards won't be here till the end of next week so this is time well spent. I hope.

3:42pm UP button wires are stripped and ready for assembly. Will try to do another before breaking to cut grass.

4:28pm LEFT button wires are stripped and ready for assembly. It gets darker later now. Do you think I could put off cutting the grass for later? I'm on a roll ! ! ! Rufus will need a walk any time now but I shall proceed anyway.

5:16pm UP button wires are stripped and ready for assembly. I'm on a roll!!! Right button is all that is left so I'm gonna work on them until interrupted by someone.

6:00pm RIGHT button wires are stripped and ready for assembly. UNBELIEVABLE... It must get easier with practice... or... as I worked the wires got longer. Perhaps the added length made it easier to do them... Don't matter... Hopefully later tonite I will get started assembling button assemblies. It would be awesome to get them done this weekend.