Catching Up with Ham Radio

The last few days I have been very busy with tedious non-Ham Radio activitives, on this short break from that, I will dump what is in my head.

I put together an external Audio Isolation Transformer for my 30m Grabber Direct Conversion Receiver.  This should remove the 60 and 120Hz hum-bars as displayed on the 30m Grabber. The transformer is not exactly a 600 Ohm Audio transformer, but it will work for now.

I also put in a Stereo Jack with the correct wiring so that I can now do away with the previously used adaptor. I made the mistake when building the receiver by not installing a stereo jack in the first place.

The temporary fix if ready, it works on my bench, now all have to do is find time to goto the receiver site and plug it in.

Also, I was reading Joachim's blog, where he describes the DCTL (Distributed Capacitance Twisted Loop) antenna - it is recommended reading.  I like loop antennas!, with my new understanding of the DCTL, I may try it.

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Frustrations with Audio

Frustration with Linux Audio System is getting the best of me.

I have been working with Large UNIX Systems for more than 30 years - I have specified, configured, installed and managed many multi-multi-million dollar UNIX systems and nothing is as frustrating as "audio set up and configuration" on a simple Linux system - currently I am using Ubuntu 8.10 with many (maybe conflicting) audio subsystems. I started out looking at  and using Linux for a personal workstation when it was still called Minx.

My problem is there does not appear to be a simple solution to this problem. I do not like MS Windows, but at least the sound system on most Windows systems - just WORKS.

Several years ago, with an older Linux (Red Hat) system - sound was not easy to configure, but it was not difficult either. Now, everything about a Liunx sound system is just plain HARD.

Currently, I would grade the XP Windows Sound System with an "B+", and would grade the Linux Sound System (Ubuntu 8.10) with an "F".

I have OSS, ALSA and PulseAudio all installed which maybe the problem, but nothing suggests that another configuration is more correct.

One minute the Linux sound system appears to work, then the next nothing works, a reboot is necessary to correct the problem, restarting the daemons does not seem to fix the problems. Simple configuration change do not take place when you expect, they may take effect sometime later, when you are not expecting changes. It is difficult to keep up with what is happening to the sound system.

The Linux Sound system is all magic, there is nothing that I have found that diagrams the sound system and attempts to provide help when things do not work.  The forums describe the Linux sound system as delta's on previous information - it is hard to collect enough information to configure the sound system - when it does not work as published.

I would like a simple app that diagrams the sound system from input jacks, to kernel, to application and onto output jacks, with diagnostics showing where sound is coming from and going to.

I am sure for new Linux users, this is as frustrating as anything.  It will cause users to return to MS Window. From what I have seen, the Linux Sound System is the most effective externally generated advertisement for Microsoft that exists to date.

Sorry for the Rant, .  .  .  .  maybe I will figure it out someday.

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Sound Card Is Now Working

I fixed my QRSS Grabber, WSPR and PropNet Transmit problem - the sound card "Wave" output was muted. The "spots" are now working.

I still have a problem, I do not seem to get any PropNet spots on the PropNet list or map, all spots are from my receiving others. So far, I can not confirm that my PropNet Transmit is working? All look well, and the Transceiver goes into transmit mode with RF ouput as indicated on the meter. Go figure??