[TenTec] Foot in my mouth...

[Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP]

Al, last things first.
This is not my work; not at all.
The information I have came 100% from Rob Sherwood.

Several of the screen shots I am referring to will be shown in his
presentation at Dayton during Contest University.
More information and certainly with more accompanying sound bites were in
his 2011 presentation he gave at his local club in Boulder.

Our problem (well my problem, but I assume others have the same) is I have
just been focused on receiver issues and haven't been paying attention to
what's developing with the new transmitters.  It's shocking.  The prices are
going up while the quality is going down.

The logistics of sharing this information are a bit tough, because the audio
files are so huge.
The audio file accompanying the presentation is 90MB or so.

I have extracted just the transmitter section screen shots from the
presentation, but I haven't yet extracted the audio piece that goes with
them.
We need to get it into a more workable file size.
I'm not very good at audio editing.

This isn't the only presentation with good information in it.
There have been bits and pieces in a few of his previous presentations
showing other rigs.

I have all of these presentations and audio files on my web site in a
protected area.
I would like Rob's permission before I start chopping up his presentation.
For now I can only offer the huge contiguous files.

I think right now Rob is busy getting ready for Dayton.
Haven't seen him post here for a while.
Maybe he can chime in here when he returns.

Now on the power supply issue, I had the same thing.
I wanted a tiny power supply for my Argonaut 515 but was unable to find a
low-cost switching P.S. that would not interfere with the RX.
I ended up buying a small linear P.S. which is a lot heavier, of course.

73
Rick, DJ0IP


-----Original Message-----
From: tentec-bounces at contesting.com [mailto:tentec-bounces at contesting.com]
On Behalf Of Al Gulseth
Sent: Tuesday, May 15, 2012 3:18 PM
To: tentec at contesting.com
Cc: Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP
Subject: Re: [TenTec] Foot in my mouth...

Rick,

As far as I'm concerned, no apology is needed. You're causing others to
"think outside the box" and hopefully helping everyone involved to
eventually find a realistic solution. (BTW I wish the FCC _would_ actually
enforce Part 15 standards for consumer electronics. I recently did a little
power supply experimenting with my old Argonaut: I made a coaxial power
connector to RCA adapter and tried a couple of small switching power
supplies. The first was a 12V 1250 ma "wall wart" which had a small gauge
zip cord cable, and the second was a 12V 4.16A "brick" which used a standard
computer-type IEC power cord and had a coaxial output cable with a ferrite
choke "bump" molded on the cable a couple of inches from the connector.
Needless to say, there was a stark contrast: the "wall wart" totally wiped
out any possible reception. 
The "brick", on the other hand, produced only low-level noise and possibly a
few "birdies" (which seemed to be coming from the PS enclosure itself as the
noise level went up if I touched the enclosure.) The bottom line is that it
wasn't so bad that it couldn't be used for casual operating in my opinion. 
(My comparison "standard" for the test to determine what was coming from the
power supply and what was coming from elsewhere was a battery.) This just
goes to show that the issues we're discussing can be overcome with decent
engineering and manufacturing practices!)

Also, in a previoust post, you said:

<snip> I honestly think people here don't realize that there are some rigs
on the market today that nobody can generate a clean signal with....  I will
pick out some screen shots and send to you.  Then maybe you'll understand
why I am so passionate on this.<snip>

I'd like to encourage you to not just send those screenshots to one person
but rather to post them to a website or maybe even make them into a YouTube
video (since that's where things seem to go "viral".) Maybe if more people
see your work it will help raise awareness of the issue.

TNX/73, Al



On Tue May 15 2012 5:36:52 am Rick - DJ0IP / NJ0IP wrote:
> What was I thinking? (!)
>
>
>
> No, I do not want government regulating our transmitter technology.
>
> I've had worse ideas, but this one was right up there!
>
> I guess I was just thinking out loud and got carried away in the wrong 
> direction.  Sorry.
_______________________________________________
TenTec mailing list
TenTec at contesting.com
http://lists.contesting.com/mailman/listinfo/tentec