[Monday run: 3.4 miles; Today: 3.4 miles]
After receiving new transmit driver and PA transistors, I got those installed in the SS-40Tx board and it is once again putting out about 5 watts. The driver transistor has been in and out a couple of times and the circuit board is starting to show the wear. But I got this one in and I hope that will be the end of the desoldering/soldering for awhile.
My external DDS frequency source seems to work for both RX and TX. I need to now switch my focus to the Arduino programming side. After writing my blog post about user interface, I kind of got stuck trying to decide how it should work. I think the most direct way forward is to use a switch to turn RIT on and off. I also need to change the display during transmit to show the actual frequency. That means I need to detect the tx/rx switch, and the RIT switch: two new switches.
I did a little bit of work on a new enclosure box to hold all of this. I’m not 100% sure how many switch and things I will end up with, so I haven’t moved ahead with putting things in the box.
On my job front, we heard recently that they are aiming to be using their new system by September 2019. That is the management intent. The technical people are all busy trying to make that happen. But I think they see it as an ambitious and maybe impossible goal.
Our little group is not in the loop on the project schedule, so all we hear is second hand. In fact, we don’t hear much at all because the regular contact points are all off at training or doing new-system work. I have started to hear a little bit from the conversion team directly, asking a few questions about how things work. I expect more of that as things accelerate. At least it gives us some insight into what they are doing.