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Ham Radio

Project inertia

[Today’s run: rest day]

A lot of hobby projects I read about sound interesting. Work projects come up on the schedule and they sound challenging. Sometimes I just have a hard time getting started.

I don’t know if it is the planning. It probably is the planning. Anything that sounds like it is going to take 6 months or a year to complete is just way big and maybe I shouldn’t start.

They tell me the key to that situation is to break large projects down into smaller parts. And those smaller parts break down into chunks that you can manage in a single session or maybe two sessions. And then you have to have some intermediate results, some blinky lights, a program that prints “Hello World” on the screen, a radio section that creates a sine wave, or the ending chapter of your book.

So… I’m getting closer on my GPS disciplined frequency standard. I finally ordered a negative voltage regulator chip and it arrived with some other stuff on Saturday. So now I need to lay out some simple circuit boards and get my voltages all going. I still need to install various boards that I have floating around. And I need to put in a switch for the rs-232 port that allows me to talk either to the GPS or to the oscillator controller.

Once I get this one done I have a few other projects that are on-deck:

  • I need to re-cap an old Hallicrafters sx-99 receiver. I have tested the tubes but otherwise nothing has happened yet.    progress 5%
  • I’d like to build a wattmeter using the log amp chip (w7zoi et. al.)  progress 5%
  • My tower project is still ongoing. I have a hole in the ground and need to build a rebar cage and get the concrete in.  progress 8%
  • I have a microcontroller project that has not gotten very far:  building an iambic keyer with an ST8S-Discovery board.  progress 10%