Tuesday, February 23, 2010

Replacement of the IM-103 hand mic RJ-45



The RJ-45 locking tab on the original mic broke allowing the mic connector to easily come loose from the rig. I thought the replacement would be pretty straight forward. Looking at the factory connector, I could see a blue, white, gray, green, and black wire. So, when I cut off the old connect, I surprised to find a blue, white, red, green, and black connector but no gray!

The gray connector was the silver ground with a factor coating! The last picture shows my attempt twist all the silver ground wires together. After triming to length and carefully sliding the wires into their appropriate places in the new connector, I clamped them into place.

I'm glad to report the mic works!

So...you'll be back in a "jiffy" ...

How long is a jiffy.  Well, that depends on your profession.

a) 1/100 of a second if you're a computer scientist

b) 1/60 of a second if you're an electrical engineer

c) the time it takes light to travel the radius of an electron if you're .... a what?

Do you know?

How far can light travel in a vacuum in 1/299,279,458 of a second?

Friday, February 19, 2010

Thursday, February 18, 2010

Loop Corners are Dressed Up

Finished dressing up the corners and ponder this "tie-down" as a possible strain relief strategy. I worry that it is too "stiff" and will not give enough in a strong wind. I'm now thinking a "cheap" bungie cord may be the answer...one that stretches real easily. If it were to break, the nylon cord is backup and loose so the corner should not come down.

 
 
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The Great Winter Antenna Party

Tuesday, February 16, 2010

Monday, February 15, 2010

Friday, February 12, 2010

Remote Rig from March Issue of QST

Well...this is a very interesting idea--but not cheap!

It does appear you need two (2) of their devices at $400+ each. You take the control head off the IC-706MKIIG and connect it and a key to make your "portable station." Back at the base (remote) station you cable the base unit to the second device. The two devices then talk to each other via the internet. Unless I'm missing something, which I'm sure I am, you now have $800 in "remoting equipment" BUT you don't need computers at each end. At the portable station, you just use the remote head just as you would if you were in front of the rig.

No latency? Interesting idea that you could traverse how many nodes across the internet with no latency? I think Einstein said that "an event" can't occur simultaneously in two locations. Could be they have discovered something quite exciting?

Snow on the Mountain

 
 
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Sunday, February 7, 2010

Pigeon: Impossible


For a little more see Pigeon Impossible

For a LOT MORE see the Pigeon Impossible Blog
Even if you are only modestly interested in animation, this site is worth a visit. 
Follow some of the links totally awesome clips!

Friday, February 5, 2010