Returing??? Dunno. Retired? YES!

 Haven't blogged here for a long, long time!  Like since 2013...  And a lot has happened!  The biggest change in my life is that I RETIRED from the phone company (Ohio Bell, Ameritech, SBC then AT&T) after 51 years service!  That was a great ride and probably the best decision I made as a senior in high school back in 1969.  I wanted a job that was stable and would provide enough for a comfortable life.  Working for the phone company did all that and more.  But I didn't take advantage of the more and realized that while riding on AT&T's Falcon 900 from Akron to Dallas!  Another story!  So now I have 8 hours more a day to do all the things that retirement brings.  After a year of retirement I think I've adjusted.  I really liked working at AT&T.  Good money for a default person.  Work wasn't hard and once in a while I could use my talents to help someone which was a big rush!  So I think I might start blogging. Not than anyone will read it but I can go back and relive some of my life that I did write about.  Like a diary...  FWIW

Things that are happening

Trying to break out of the mold where I sit in front of a computer all weekend getting nothing or not much done.  I have wasted an enormous amount of time doing this for quite some time for numerous reasons I'm not going to bore you with.

Last week to prepare for a trip to the Ft Wayne Hamfest I actually hard mounted the control head of my Kenwood TH-D710A to the dashboard of my truck.

Don't worry, I bought a replacement plastic bezel on eBay so if I need to restore the vehicle before it's totally junk, I can do so.

For years I used AVMAP Geosat GPS's to drive the Kenwood radio.  AVMAP partnered with Kenwood writing code for their GPS's enabling the call sign's of received stations to be displayed on the moving map display.  I thought this was way cool and bought the Geosat 4.  Got a Geosat 5 when it came out and then a Geosat 6.  Lotsa bells and whistles but compared to the Garmin gps's the AVMAP's just suck.  After 3 models and more than 1200 bucks spent I decided to go simple.  I never use all the neat features anyway.  So I bought a Green Light Labs GPS-710 which glues to the back of the TM-D710A's control panel.  So for best performance you gotta get the gps where it can see the sky.

The other issue with the AVMAP GPS and the TM-D710A, they never seemed to work all the time.  I attributed that to my inability to get the programming right so both units could talk correctly to each other.
I wanted something that JUST WORKS.  So a week ago Thursday I installed the GPS-710 and mounted the control head.  Looked nice but IT DIDN'T WORK!   I wanted this to work for my trip to Ft. Wayne.  I don't drive much (thank goodness) and everytime I go on a trip I seem to be fiddling to get the GPS/TM-D710A working.  I doesn't work and I resolve to fix it some time.  A time that never comes and now after spending more money I have something that didn't work.

I was sure there was some kind of firmware problem with the radio.  The radio has firmware, the control head has firmware as well as the TNC that's in the control head.  And Kenwood occasionally puts out user installable updates.  I was sure I messed it up the last time about a year ago.  Checking the Kenwood site I saw a control head update I didn't have.  The next problem was finding the cable that connects the radio to the pc.  That process took days sifting thru boxes of stuff packed away a year ago during a cleaning spree.  Finally found the cable and applied the updates.  STILL DIDN'T WORK.  Now I'm trashing Kenwood cause they can't make a radio the works.  One good thing is that I was getting very familiar with the menu tree in the radio and can breeze thru it without helper documents.

I set the radio to beep when my position was transmitted and turned on SmartBeaconing.  Every time I turned a corner the beep would go off but no transmit.  It was like the PTT from the TNC was not connected somehow.  I thought the PTT was part of the data stream between the control head and radio.  Or perhaps there was some TNC command got overwritten by a wild write or something.

One thing that bugged me during the install was the cable that connects the head to the radio had a flaw.  The jacket of the cable no longer was clamped inside the RJ45 connector.  I didn't think too much about it other than it looked like shit and someone or some process failed to build a good cable and that cable was on my radio.  It got me thinking though....   The TNC (in the control head) tells the radio when to transmit.  The TNC was trying to transmit cause I was hearing the beep.  What if the PTT was a discrete signal on the cable?  What if the conductor was one that was stressed where the jacket worked free.  SHIT !  I tried another cable and, IT WORKED!!!  every time I hit the BCON button the radio would transmit.

After another search I found my crimping stuff, crimped a new RJ45 onto the cable and put it all together.  So now look for WB8CXO-9 on aprs.fi       FWIW

NOTE:  The problems I had with the AVMAP GPS's were, in my case, inability to program and troubleshoot a systematic problem.  The folks at AVMAP put a lot of effort working APRS into their product.  I have always been treated well by the AVMAP folks here in the states.  Don, W6GPS does a great job supporting the AVMAP/Kenwood products.  Not all products are for all folks.  I look forward to seeing what the next device brings to the APRS function.

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FOCUS...  One of the problems when you're drowning in 40 years of collected junk is you find stuff from your past that is forgotten about.  So this weekend while searching for the Kenwood programing cable I came across a box that contained my Heath GC-1000 Most Accurate Clock.

All my geek friends had one.  I built mine in the 80's and used it to keep my PC clock on time.  I love clocks that are self setting and ACCURATE. I also found the spare front end transistors I bought cause the receiver in my clock went deaf.  So I thought.  I wonder if this clock will power up?  It did and the receiver was mostly dead.  Seeing the front panel function brought back the excitement I once had for this device.  I had another GC-1000 somewhere that I bought off of Ebay many years ago.  Easily (for a change) I found it and plugged it in.  Receiver worked but it would not decode data.   Well my old GC-1000 decoded data so I swapped receivers.  Now we're decoding data and in about 15 minutes the clock when HI SPEC!  But in my case, NOTHING IS SIMPLE and comes with a long story.

The GC-1000 RUNS HOT!  All the electronics take the whole 1 amp output of the 7805 which is an inefficient linear voltage regulator.  The transformer also runs hot.  Jeff Thomas from Resonant Instruments created a web site that discussed the heat issues with the GC-1000.  http://www.amug.org/~jthomas/gc1000.html
So perhaps 5 years ago mabey longer I bought a PT5101N Integrated Switching Regulator module and all the electrolytic caps and modified my clock per Jeff's suggestions.  Removed these parts:

Installed the switching regulator and new electrolytics:

You can see above where the circuit board is discolored by the heat from the 7805 and it's heat sink just below the blue electrolytics.  In my case the regulator worked fine but as with my luck there were associated issues.  There is a little circuit board that mounts on top of the 7805 heat sink.  With the heat sink removed there is no natural mounting for this board.  First thought was just let it float or wrap it in tape.  Tacky...  Found some 4-40 stand-offs and mounted the board wondering why the solution escaped my when I originally replaced the 7805.

Here's the inside view of the GC-1000.  The orphaned circuit board can be seen to the right next to the blue electrolytics.   Pics used here on my blog were taken from Jeff's site.... Thank You Jeff, it was so much easier than taking my clock apart to take my own pics.  So now I have a working cool running GC-1000 that keeps accurate time.

Now for the REST OF THE STORY....
Put the clock in service and started to write a blog (this was a few days ago).  I looked up at the clock to see if it had locked into HI SPEC.  The clock was dead....  Apparently the metal standoffs that I used to mount the little circuit board had shorted the 5 vdc line from the regulator.  Reworked the standoffs with some nylon washers and got the clock back.  It's always something.


Overall it was a good weekend.  At least I got some things done. In spite of the time it took to blog!  Now to drag myself over to the workbench to build............  LVB TRACKERS.........

Post Dayton Hamvention UPDATE

Well I did pull and all-night'r  Wednesday into Thursday morning finishing up 30 LVB Trackers for Hamvention.

Normally I leave for Dayton Wednesday afternoon getting into Dayton around 9pm.  Thursday morning up at 6 to get to Hara to start Inside Exhibit volunteer work for DARA.  This year I didn't need to work for DARA till Friday but I really like being inside on Thursday for set up day so I left home around 4am arriving at HARA around 8AM....  AND I FELT TERRIBLE.  Felt that way before leaving home.  Got real lucky and made it.  Felt terrible the rest of the day but still enjoyed being there.  Spend mid morning to late afternoon helping set up the AMSAT booth.  This year we saw a few changes.  The worse not having Gould Smith, WA4SXM there to direct the setup of the booth.  And then having a totally new booth arrangement this year.  But we had two great AMSAT leaders this year Alan Biddle, WA4SCA and Steve Belter, N9IP filled in for Gould and did a great job with an all new booth layout.  And we had plenty of volunteers to help out with setup.

Reviewing this draft on August 30th I realized most the details about Hamvention have been forgotten.  So I post this FWIW like the rest of my blog.

2 days till 2013 Dayton Hamvention - Yep building LVB Trackers

At aprox 2:30 pm I finished building 31 trackers for AMSAT NA to be offered at the 2013 Dayton Hamvention.  A lot has happenned to get here.

Gould Smith, WA4SXM who is the project manager for the LVB Tracker project is in poor health and will not attend Hamvention this year.  I have always loved working for and with Gould on this project.  We have in the last 7 years shared a hotel room at Dayton for Hamvention, at the Pittsburgh Symposium and in Orlando for a Shuttle launch.  Gould set up the AMSAT booth at Dayton for many years.  Two volunteers are doing that job this year.  Last year Martha wasn't at Dayton, this year no Gould.  I HATE CHANGE.

DARA is adding an aisle in Ball arena where the AMSAT booth is located.  This change eliminates the opportunity to have 6 booth spaces in a row.  This year at Dayton we will have 6 booths 3 on either side of an aisle.  Will be very different.  I sure hope there is a carpet linking them both together just like Kenwood, Icom and Yaesu booths to give the booth continuity.  We also will not be on the end adjacent to ARRL so we lost that connectivity.  AMSAT got screwed.  But we will make the best of it.   I HATE CHANGE.

I got an OLED display to try on the LVB Tracker. Well it didn't work.  John Drago, W8FAA modified the firmware that allows the OLED display to work.  It looks sooo cool.  Bright, high contrast with unlimited viewing angle.  Since I ran out of Matrix Orbital LCD displays and since it cost almost $100 for shipping last time I sorta decided all trackers offered at Dayton this year would have OLED displays and if they were well received make that change permanent.  I talked to Gould about it and he thought it was a good idea.  We are also offering 3 colors, green, blue and yellow.  Something AMSAT resisted thru the years.  Now I think they may be looking for change.  And this may rejuvenate  the product to boot.  Unfortunately the OLED displays are thinner than the LCD displays.  This means I had to cut down the PEM fasteners so the OLED didplay would sit close to the front of the enclosure.  Ken Baker made me a grinding jig.  Took me 2-3 days in my spare time to finished modifying the cases.  I sent one to Mark Hammond, N8MH.  He really liked it and took a great picture of the OLED tracker on top of his original LCD Tracker

Well AMSAT featured this on their website and made a big deal about it.  Which is OK but now I hafta make it happen. But they are done.  All that needs to do is testing and packing.  

My dachshund boy MORK blew his back out last month.  This means his back legs stopped working real well.  He ended up getting a very expensive operation with a very long recuperation period.  Normally Mork and Mindy sleep all day with Sue while she reads or watches TV.  So his recuperation is with Sue.  Biggest change is he doesn't jump up and down to get in the chair.  I lift him.  Change his diapers called Wicky-Wags and take him outside to poop.  So how do you know when he's gonna poop?  That's another story.  But we have his BM's logged and know when to expect it.  So Sue is for the most part trapped in her chair by Mork. I sit in her chair when she needs go to the bathroom.  I'll take him to my chair to give Sue breaks.  But for the most part I also do all the things Sue does.  Now in addition to building trackers I'm doing the laundry.  I also do the meals unless I take Mork and let Sue do it.  Our neighbor Mike is going to stay with Sue and help her with Mork so I can goto Dayton.  I still don't like leaving them.  Mork is starting to walk with help and I hate leaving him at this critical moment.   If I wasn't so entrenched with AMSAT and Hamvention booth operations I would have cancelled.  But I've seen what happens when a volunteer can't produce and don't want to do that if it can be avoided.

All I can say is it can be worse.  I just hope it doesn't get that way.  I may end up pulling an all-nighter to get everything done.....  Dunno

73,

Mike, WB8CXO

Life is Good... Because it hasn't gotten worst YET!

I was bearing down on trying to get 10 LVB Trackers before Christmas.   Martha from the AMSAT office reminded me the office would be closed for the holidays and that shipped trackers would just sit till after the holidays.  So I backed off.  Momentum lost!  The holidays are a little buzy and I worked for the extra cash.

The New Year brought an interest in MotoTRBO and I acquired a couple radios at reasonable expense from eBay.  These are commercial radios that require programming via a PC... No keypad programming allowed.  MotoTRBO is a digital mode not as popular as DStar but there is a growing worldwide following.  A local repeater group shut down their DStar machine and now I hear TRBO data NOISE on their analog 440 repeater channel.   So instead of building trackers when the new year started I was intensely trying to learn about TRBO and CPS programs.   There is no one place where you can learn everything needed so I ended up googling the net reading everything available and trying to figure MotoTRBO out.  I'm not quite there yet.  But because of the Tracker build I need to put the TRBO experience ON HOLD!

So yesterday after domestic chores were done I forced myself to the workbench.  Installed the PICS, shorting clips and heat sinks.  The boards are ready for flashing.  Well that induced a string of roadblocks I have yet to clear.  Starting with the 12 year old PC that I used to flash and test that WOULD NOT BOOT!  LVB Trackers require a legacy COM port for flashing so most modern desktops and laptops don't count.  The problem was a missing file in the SYSTEM folder.   Thought I would use an old Dell laptop, couldn't find the power supply... Later found one but without the special power cord.  Resurrected another SFF desktop finally finding its power supply only to see it boot into Ubuntu.  The young geek neighbor was over for the evening and between the two of us we couldn't fix the snowballing problems my original PC had.   It's the one I really wanted to use cause I didn't want to rebuild all the little things I've been using.   

Tonight after work (I work Sun-Thursday) I elected to spent the evening with Sue unloading the dozens of TV shows recorded while I was downstairs building trackers or other ham radio projects and I'm juggling 3 at the moment..........

I did go flying Saturday afternoon.  A New Years resolution to try to fly more.  It's good for both myself and the plane.  I will fly more this year!

Apologies to everyone waiting on trackers.  I just don't have the time to do everything I need to do and the tracker builds take a big chunk of time.  

73

Mike, WB8CXO

LVB Trackers - I hate building assemblies

After a few bumps in the road I managed to get 50 LCD cables built.  Mostly had problems finding things after totally destroying infrastructure here in my messy basement work shop/ham shack.  But late yesterday I couldn't find the cutting patterns I've used for cutting the button assembly wires.  So I had to find my original measurements and refine them by building several button assemblies adjusting the numbers.  Took most the day before I could feel good about cutting and stripping 300 wires for the button assemblies.  Just finished that and have had it.  I know I made progress but it doesn't feel like it.  So I'm going to bed.  Tomorrow, Sunday, is my first day of work.......

LVB Trackers - We're BACK ! ! !

Building almost 30 trackers for the Dayton Hamvention was the usual maximum effort again this year.  Mom being sick and later passing away definitely put me in a spot I've not looked forward to since she got sick about 5 years ago.  I actually cut the wires for the LCD cables while pulling an all-night'r in her room when she was in hospice.  I often found myself working on tracker builds in hospitals and at Mom's place the last few years to get them done.  Rufus has been sick off and on the last year too which wasn't a time hogging thing but was a mental drain.  My wife Sue, KB8AOF is still recovering from a stroke she had in Jan 2011.  But things could be worse so we are thankful for the good that is happening.  My fear is the worse is ahead...  MUCH WORSE...  FOR US ALL ! ! !

The good and bad of things is that we didn't sell more than 6 trackers at the AMSAT booth at Dayton this year.  About 20 trackers were sent back to the AMSAT office after Hamvention.  That stock lasted all summer and most the fall.  The backlog of orders started to build about 6 weeks ago.

Back in April while I was heavy into the Dayton build I received a certified letter from the airport.  Since I was behind on rent and they found hazardous materials (propane aircraft preheater that has been there for 30 yrs) they wanted me out in 30 days.  This was definitely not the kind of news I needed just weeks before Dayton.  I called a lawyer and let him handle it so I could focus on the build.  We got the hanger rent taken care of and put it on auto pay but the stockpile of STUFF that had overflowed into the hanger surrounding the plane had to go.  This STUFF had been accumulating for the last 10 years because my garage is full of STUFF.  And the house is full of STUFF.  My wife Sue has a key to the hanger so she started putting her STUFF in the hanger too!  In the old days you just threw it all away.  But today with eBay, Craig's list and Free Cycle you sell and recycle everything for $$$.   A few of my ham friends tear old radio and computers apart and scrap the metals and plastic parts.  Well this is a good thing but ITS VERY TIME CONSUMING.  I dawdled all summer on this.  AirVenture at the end of July puts everything on hold.  Then the AirVenture afterglow (recovery) seems to consume August.  Besides its the lazy hazy days of summer.  Rufus got real sick over Labor day and the first day of my vacation that week started at the vets putting Rufus down.  The leaves start falling in September too.  The airport reminds me my hanger is still a mess...  The fire inspector is well... pissed.  But I find out I'm not the only tenant with a messy hanger.  So now my days off are spent either at the airport cleaning the hanger or at home cleaning the garage.  An old friend who has since passed left a bunch of stuff in the hanger that I had to clear out before I could get to my stuff.  The leaves are now starting to make a mess.  My next door neighbor never made it home from Florida this summer and it didn't look good for the fall either.   He has a yard tractor with a rear bagger and he being a good neighbor takes care of my leaves too.  Now with rake in hand I gotta do it.  While helping my old friend Ken Baker with some of his machine shop projects he tells me he's a Husqvarna dealer and could get me a good price on new Husqvarna stuff.   A few weeks later the leaves on my and the absent neighbors yard are getting worse and blowing all over the place.  20 years ago I didn't care about leaves or snow or the grass but now I'm anal about it.  Now I don't have a house beautiful yard but I like to keep it maintained to a minimal extent.  With winter looming and snow a threat and my snow blower all worn out an broke I,m starting to think about a new snow blower.  Since last winter was great cause a lack of snow I figured we'd pay the piper this year.  So I started looking at Husqvarna snow blowers...  then thought of the leaves and Joe and his lawn tractor.  Anyway I ended up ordering a (too) big Husqvarna lawn tractor with rear bagger and a 42" snow blower attachment.  Way over kill but that's the way I do things.  Now I hafta clean out a spot in the garage for this thing.  That took two weekends.   One of the obstacles in the garage were two file cabinets that have been there for 10 years waiting to become the pillars for my work bench top.  Yep that work bench that has been the catch all table top for all kinds of stuff.  It's been unusable at least since before the LVB tracker project started.  I've been building trackers on a 2 by 4 foot folding table which actually worked out but always got junked up between builds.  And since I haven't built since May it was junked up.  With the garage needing to be cleared out the focus was on moving these filing cabinets.  This ended up taking 3 weekends to accomplish.  They're down here...  the tracker building table is totally gone.  Now all the stuff that was tucked in every conceivable space here in the basement has now overflowed into the patio and in plastic storage cases everywhere.

So now the LVB Tracker backlog is 10 trackers.  One build...  Last Wednesday I started building but the infrastructure I had used for the last 5 years was totally gone.  Nothing is where it was.  I usually start a build by stuffing circuit boards...  COULDN'T FIND THEM.  I did find the LCD cable wires that I cut last February so I started by crimping connector inserts onto the wires.  Did over 1000 crimps.
After the first half hour my left shoulder started aching.  I'd rest it in front of the computer and fall asleep.  Yesterday after getting all the domestics done I spend the afternoon crimping.  My shoulder started to ache then stopped and I got the crimping finished.  Now the fun part of LCD cable building starts.  The actual assembly.  I COULDN'T FIND THE HOUSINGS.  Found what was left from the last build but used them up last night.  So today after getting past the domestics the project was finding the housings.  FOUND 'EM  in a box out in the patio.  Also found the circuit boards.  Spent the rest of the afternoon just before dinner finishing the LCD cable assemblies.  Even though I found the circuit boards, building wire assemblies take longer so I decided to get that past me.  First part is to cut wires. COULDN'T FIND THE CUTTING PATTERNS.  That data was backed up but not current so I needed to recreate that data.  COULDN'T FIND MY METRIC RULERS.  Then fell asleep in front of computer.  SUCKS TO BE ME!


Now we're back at the bench re-inventing the button assembly wiring.  On the second pass and I think I have the numbers pretty much nailed dow.  Hope this is the last roadblock the recent upheaval in my workroom will create but I doubt it.

BOO Puppy is GONE!

Morning came finding Rufus pretty much where he was all night.  I could see he was very weak. He didn't make any effort to get up and when I helped him up he couldn't stand up for long nor could he walk.  This alone is heartbreaking cause you know in your realistic self that he's not going to make it. Sue called the vet making a 10 am appointment.  When the time came I got a blanket and lifted him onto it.   Rufus probably lost 10-15 pounds in the last 6-8 months and my new knee has been getting stronger since it was replaced almost a year ago so I was able to lift him and carry him to the car.  Wasn't easy but doable.

It's too difficult to write about the process.  I will say the process is very humane.  Rufus is the second pet I had to put down this year so I knew what to expect which made it easier I think.  He was so weak he didn't fight it which was my biggest fear anticipating the event for the last year.  I wanted to be with him when he left.   As he passed his tail started wagging like he was a happy dog.  When it stopped he was gone.  His head heavy in my hands.   I sure hope someday I find out how it was... Why the wagging tail?

                                          Rufus 1997-2012

Bye Bye Rufus

It's just after 2am Tuesday morning after Labor Day   I normally work Sundays for the extra pay   Sundays are normally quiet days just a lot of driving to a bunch of Central Offices doing what I call "dumb stuff".  but for the last several Sundays there has been critical issues to deal with making it a bit more interesting. So for working Sundays I get Fridays off which is kinda nice   Anything that has to be done on a weekday gets scheduled on Friday.  Mostly doctor appointments   Sue and I are getting old so we go to the doctors a lot.

But for this years Labor day weekend I worked 4 hours on Saturday OVERTIME, my normal Sunday and Monday, the Labor Day Holiday for the big bucks.  The extra pay is nice but you sorta feel outta place with everyone else.  Sunday had to change out a grid board in a 5 ess switch.  I never did that before not being #5 switch trained.  With help I was able to do it without causing more trouble and I learned a lot.  Today I traveled to about 9 Central Offices two of them was there twice so I did a lot of driving which was great in that the traffic was light due to the holiday, the weather was warm and with the season change real close I realized I best enjoy the last weekend of summer... So I did!  Saturday was a short day starting at noon.  Had a DS3 trouble first thing in  central Office I'm not familiar with.  Also my forte is not in toll but I can get buy.  Fortunately the ticket was cancelled as I was trying to find all the elements in the office.  The rest of the day went fast doing "dumb stuff".   Now today I was able to keep a customer in service when an unneeded temp cord was placed.  Sometimes I can make a difference.

So working a holiday weekend where everyone else is off sorta sets the tone.

Rufus came to us in November 1997.   He was a Lab-Retriever mix boy who followed Adam home from school.  Adam's Mom would not let him keep him so I brought him home.   Until this time Sue and I were just cat owners, total of six.  I had forgotten that dogs require more attention than cats.  They BARK!  Should be walked.   Rufus was about 9 months old still a puppy.  Puppies can have separation-anxiety issues.  We don't like cages so you never know what you'll find when you get home.  But Rufus was a pleasant pup and we didn't mind his imperfections.  He kept Sue company when she was on disability in 2001.  During that time he got into this habit where any time Sue's van left the house he wanted to be in it.  so if it wasn't too hot he was with us.  But in recent years he lost his interest in bye bye car.   We think it became too difficult to jump up into Sue's vehicle.  For the last year and a half Rufus had been plagued with fatty tumors growing in his butt.  In May 2011 our vet tried to remove them.   By November they were back.  In January this year the vet didn't feel another operation would help and might even cause more problems. There is a great veterinary clinic on the west side that probably would have tried for several thousand dollars.  They helped Rufus 3 years ago removing removing his spleen so we know what they charge.   So with Rufus being 15 we decided to go with our vet and let things run their course.  Sparing the messy details Rufus got sick Sunday morning.  Mostly massive diarrhea.  He has had this before and bounces back in a day or less.  We think he gets to a point where he cant pass stool.   The vet was closed for the holiday so our first opportunity is today.   If he will eat something we'll give him more time   If not off to the vets.   My fear is they will not have may options for us.  

This has me so bummed out I can't sleep.  But I have fretted about this for about 6 months so it's probably best for all if we let him go!