Merry Christmas Roberto

It is nice that you are taking care for your freind and try to help him.

From what you write, my spontanious impression is that your friend might noit have made the modiication to make the contrast adjustment of the display a bit userfreindlier (adding a 6.8 kOHm R betwenn sliber and ground), because the adjustment of the proper contrast can be a bit difficult without the mod. What I try to say is that your friend might only have a "blue scree", because he has not properly adjusted the LCD display contrast. You won't see anything on the LCD over? wide range of the potentioneter (without the above mentioned mod) and that might misleadingly suggest that the enrire processoer does not work.

I have made the mod at the CPU with an inductor,? not with an additional diode, but for my opinion that is not the cause of the blue screen anyway, because if the CPU would not start properly you would see white blocks on bluebackground, but not nothing at all.


Good luck and nice holidays, Roberto

Klaus DL2QB

I can tell you Mr. Erhart Kaiser is an experiences builder, from many years, so we appreciate even if you try to help him by written instruction, how to proceed.
For example to have a "troubleshooting list" related to this kind of issue.
Again, thank you very much indeed.
Roberto

Dear friends, good evening and Merry Christmas all!
My german good friend has built his QCX, but on power on appears only blu screen without any charachter printed on.
He knows the "quick double" power on issue, and it is not. He has installed diod as per Hans Summers' website instructions, but it has not resolved the problem.
I'm writing this post in lieu of him in order to try to help him.
He lives in Waldachtal, black forest, close to Freudenstadt or Stuttgart. He is able to drive to reach someone of you that may help him.
I will be glad to know if someone of you may try to fix his problem.
Thank you very much in advance.
You can write me at my address roberto.pietrafesa on google dot com server. Than I will communicate any good new to Mr. Erhart DL1GKE.
Have a Merry Christmas again.
Sincerely 73 de IZ7VHF.

Barry

I use the gps regularly indoors, sitting on a table next to a downstairs window. It tracks very quickly. The unit Hans has designed integrates the antenna and gps electronics on one board. Only 4 wires comminicate data and power to the gps. Unless you live in a real cave, no need to remote the antenna.

Proceed with care using gps with QCX. I learned the hard way. I would switch to practice mode before plugging in GPS. Then follow instructions to set up mode for wspr prior to exiting practice mode. Do read down the list to see what other tips users provide for wspr with qcx.?

Curt

Yes a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.. Here's My Own Holiday Storyline.My 66th Birthday Was 19 Dec. My QCX-20 is SN 1900, and as Far As I Can See My Pkg. Was Shipped To Me On My Birthday. ? And I Have No Reason to Mentally Or Actually Have That Changed.. Checked When I Left for Family and it's Still In Transit to Be Here PayP NYr the 2nd?? N7PB Paul OldNormanBates Seattle WA cn87uq RememberTubes ?

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Thanks, will report back. Feeling a bit like a rookie?. Guess I got cocky since most of the kits U have built over the years fired up first time.

Thank you David! That's pretty cool and pretty easy to set up. I'll leave it up through the new year.

Merry Christmas to all.??
--
73
NE5U

Mike

Showing 120 kts yet today and lower altitudes.I think it is being pushed lower due to the fast air currents.It will probably rise in slower wind speeds.
Can only imagine such a small balloon and payload caught up in such fact moving air.
Interesting flight so far.
Jim

Wes,

The antenna analyzer is only looking at the SWR (reflection) and will not give you an accurate indication of the transmission characteristics. Since you have a good test set, use the tracking generator in the HP 8935 and look at the transmission.

I normally use my MiniVNA or an Array Solutions VNA-2180 to look at the "as built" filters. For higher frequencies, I have an older HP spectrum analyzer that is good to 3 GHz (nice when setting up my UHF repeater filters).

If I did not have those available to me, I have used an oscilloscope with a 50 ohm load. Feed the filter with a steady (or at least, known) signal level and record the voltage to the load into a spreadsheet. Do the math in the spreadsheet and generate a graph. Much more time consuming than setting up your instrument and doing a direct measurement...

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Paul KE7HR

That's moving right along for a party balloon!

Merry Christmas and thanks for letting us ride along on the flight.

73
John K5MO

On 12/24/2017 2:33 PM, Bob Sutton via Groups.Io wrote:

I was playing around on the bench and decided to check the charicteristics of a couple LPF boards I have put together. I used my Fox Delta Antenna Analyzer to feed the In port of the LPF with a 50 ohm dummy load on the Out. Was surprised to see a pretty much flat line all across the band spectrum. The FD analyzer measures reflected power, is this where I am going wrong? I see on the website others have used feed thru testing, which I was just too lazy to set up on my HP 8935. Any thoughts from you folks who have done some tech measurements on these little guys?
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Wes

AE6ZM

Hereford, AZ

?

DEAR Mike,
I see it on my grabber here in New Mexico,? Go to and you will see it.? it is right on frequency.
73 Dave WA5DJJ

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Al,

Yes I did and the same thing happened to me.? I had some unknown (although physically larger) choke which worked OK so far.? It was green and about the size of a 1/2 W resistor but more dogbone shaped. It has a color code of brown, green or blue .... hard to tell and then gold.? So I might not have enough inductance but I will have to use it and see if there are any problems.

Thanks,

Jim Ford

If you decide to move the 100 uH inductor you may find it's open after unsoldering it. It happened on mine and it turned out I had a spare. It's a very delicate part. If it fails during the transfer, you can get by with other value of inductors; the value is not that critical.

Good luck!

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Luc,?

I just now flipped the power switch several times ... only to find that after a few times it DID come up!? Thank you for the tip.? I will now do that mod.

Jim Ford N6JF

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Luc,

No I did not do that mod because I never had a problem before.? Perhaps I do now but it would not seem just changing the hex code would cause that but who knows.? I will look at that now.

Thank you,

Jim Ford N6JF

Jim

did you do the startup mod ?
see??under
"Unreliable microcontroller start-up at power-on, solution by Peter G3JRH"

Luc - ON7DQ

?

On 12/24/2017 11:25 AM, K2TL Jim wrote:

OK..great!? But I need WiFi in the house so I can't put the router in a steel box, Hi.? Ethernet cables can radiate too, even shielded ones. But WiFi always seems to be the bigger culprit.
--
/de K2TL.. since 1964/
_._,_._,_
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I was careful and avoided the cheap units and bought the units that came in a steel cabinet, the WiFi itself is not the issue, it's the electronics in the box that radiate lower frequency energy, CAT6 radiates a lot less than CAT5 and I bought 1000' of higher than normal twist CAT6 cable. In my previous home noise from the computers was a major issue so when I bought the house I now live in I replaced all the equipment with items that would minimize RFI, it paid off, my receiving antenna also helps it's a shielded loop and I feed it into the house with quad shielded cable to minimize pickup, that made a huge difference.

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Cecil - k5nwa