Monthly Archives: March 2016

A Grand Day at ARRL HQ

A friend of mine, Paul, N1PSX, and I drove to ARRL HQ yesterday for a visit.  It was Paul’s first trip, and the first time in a long time for me (my father and I visited in 1982 when we … Continue reading

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VK0EK Heard Island Success on 80-meters

Propagation and fate smiled on me.  Shortly after I could hear VK0EK’s 80 meter signal at about S-3 (local noise level S-2), I was able to work them a few minutes before local sunset.  Grey line propagation with a bit … Continue reading

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ISS-Above on 7″ LCD

I finally had a chance to tie the Raspberry Pi Foundation 7″ LCD/Touchscreen onto a RPi 2 running the ISS-Above firmware.  The results were outstanding.  It makes for a nice desk piece, with only a single power supply wire exiting … Continue reading

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ISS-Above: Coolest Tool for ISS Pass Prediction – EVER

While looking for interesting things to display concerning the ISS during our upcoming ARISS contact, I stumbled across a now commercial product that started not long ago as an overfunded Kickstarter campaign. ISS-Above. ISS-Above is a Raspberry Pi based product with … Continue reading

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Getting the RPi 3 to work with Bluetooth

After solving the display rotation issue, I was anxious to get rid of the USB based keyboard and mouse, and move onto Bluetooth based devices.  I had followed a RPi blog instruction to update various parts of the OS, and … Continue reading

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Quest for 250 Confirmations Completed

With the arrival of a LotW confirmation from 3C7A (Equatorial Guinea), my LotW count reached 246.  I have 4 QSLs in hand from S01WS (Western Sahara), E40VB (Palestine), DV1UD (Philippines), and XW3DT (Laos).  That will put me at the 250 … Continue reading

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Fixing an Upside-Down RPi3 7″ LCD Display

The Raspberry Pi Foundation announced their new RPi Model 3 this month, upping the processor speed and memory yet again.  They also announced the availability of an “official” 7″ LCD with touchscreen. I couldn’t resist picking up one of each … Continue reading

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A Small Step Forward for 12-m WAS

While the DXCC counts continue to creep up slowly, my WAS activity has been stuck in the mud needing Hawaii on 30m, plus Delaware and West Virginia on 12m.  Yesterday, I stumbled across Glenn, W3WTE, on 12m, and received confirmation … Continue reading

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DXCC Results for Feb 2016

The march continues slowly.  As of Feb 29, 2016 (Happy Leap Year), 244 countries have been confirmed in LotW, with another 4 QSL cards in hand, making a total of 248.  In terms of band-point for the Challenge, 1150 are … Continue reading

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