| Field day? What's that? | |
| Club gathering | |
| Home station | |
| Home station with club attribution |
Poll ends at .
Jon Angliss
- 28 Followers
- 23 Following
- 161 Posts
I have to admit, one of the things that I love about field day has nothing to do with the "contest."
In years gone past, with club members that long ago quit, we used to do all kinds of crazy stuff. The club used to setup at a local park, and we used to see what we could do with things like wiring up the fence around the children's park, or even the actual playground equipment itself.
That doesn't even count the attempts to stand up the 160m vertical that was as floppy as a wet noodle.
I don't think it'd be past the realm of the impossible to knock something together. A quick digikey search for usb switch has found a number of components that do exactly that. For example the Maxim MAX4906EF or onsemi FSUSB42UMX. Both have a pin for controlling which device has access to downstream USB connections.
Both of these devices are really targeted for use inside handheld electronics like cellphones. But I'd need to build power circuit and associated components as well.
I'm working on a building out a radio box, with everything under the face plate. I want to have a Pi connected to GPS, sound card, and the radio. But occasionally I want to be able to use a regular laptop. My idea is having an external USB port I can connect the laptop to, which would connect to the switched USB hub, as would the Pi. If the Pi is powered on (toggle switch on the face plate) the Pi would have the accessories. If it was not toggled on, the external USB port would have them.
Does anybody know of a USB hub/switch that allows you to share multiple USB devices between two computers, but it will automatically switch the primary connected device to a certain device if it detects the PC is on? Meaning, USB hub has a sound card + GPS + something else connected on the hub side. PC1 and PC2 are connected. If PC1 is powered on, it always has access to the hub. If PC2 is powered on, nothing happens until PC1 is powered down. I don't want a button.
ARRL is telling me they'll auto-renew my membership using a card that expired last year. The user portal doesn't have any card listed.
The awesome platform they rolled out last year is still giving.
If I setup the antenna in the backyard, it means I end up sitting out back to operate.
If I setup the antenna along the side of the house, I can sit in the office, but means I have to have the window open for the antenna to pass through. This is less fun in the summer in Texas.
So I think to solve at least one of these issues, I'm going to build out the case and make it so I don't have to fight that side of things.
Antenna setup doesn't usually take long. Just need to figure out op location
I realize why I don't get on the radio as much as I'd like; It's a PITA. Not because of radio stuffs in general, but just my setup.
I don't have a fixed antenna, meaning I have to bust out the mast and EFHW whenever I want to use it, so that needs setting up.
My radio (FT-891) lives in an Apache 3800. Not setup as a go-box, just nestled comfortably with all the accessories and LDG Z-100 Plus. So I have to set that up.
Then there is operating location... I don't really have one.
Looking for laptop suggestions. Preferably nothing crazy expensive, mostly web browsing and some light weight dev work, occasional movie/TV watching via Jellyfin. Linux compatible would be great. Going to be ham radio used as well.
I was thinking maybe a refurbished or second hand ThinkPad, but open to suggestions