Update…

I am not a very good blog­ger. That said, I have the very best inten­tions. Here is a quick run down of the things I have been doing:

1. Con­test­ing: PJ4Q M/​S in CQWW CW last fall. Hope­ful­ly our results are still top 5 in the world, which is quite a feat con­sid­er­ing our com­pe­ti­tion in this bru­tal­ly com­pet­i­tive clas­si­fi­ca­tion. Robert S52R, Steve PJ4DX, Peter PJ4NX , Scott W4PA (our ring-leader) and myself made a pret­ty good show­ing. Of course, snorkeling.

2. Play­ing with Rasp­ber­ry Pi and high-qual­i­ty audio DAC hard­ware. I am try­ing to pro­duce a lit­tle web-play­er for the liv­ing room sys­tem that is con­trol­lable via iPhone and web-based tablets. I am using Volu­mio and the IQAu­dio DAC+.

3. Just received in the mail a nice kit from Hay­seed Ham­fest for the RAN­vert­er Pi SDR upcon­vert­er. It turns an R820T-based tuner receive don­gle into an SDR for HF recep­tion, and can be attached to an inex­pen­sive Rasp­ber­ry Pi com­put­er and con­trolled via ethernet.

4. I have also tak­en pos­ses­sion of a Fun­cube Don­gle Pro Plus and have been very impressed. I am slow­ly assem­bling parts for a satel­lite down­link sta­tion, and it is next on my list to play with (once con­test sea­son is over with.) I am very inter­est­ed in the SATNOGS project, and want to con­tribute soon. As Ward Sil­ver N0AX said to me in PJ4 2013, “…satel­lites are the future of ham radio.”