QBFreak

@QBFreak@mhz.social
123 Followers
131 Following
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Nerd. Radio amateur. Cranky old man. Reformed QBasic addict.

I like to play with computers. I tend to be my own sysadmin. I tinker with electronics. I've been known to use Amateur Radio, and once worked in two-way radio as an occupation. If it has the Motorola name on it, I'd love to collect it. One of my favorite things to do is automate something or make two things work together. Often this involves writing code.

My carousel of interest spins onward, but always revolves around technology.

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QBFreakJun 25, 2022

Apparently it's field day.

Oops.

If I miss one more they're going to take away my license /s

Show threadQBFreakMay 4, 2022
Having seen it all reassembled, I'm rather wishing I had gone with 1.2k or 1.5k for the resistor, to dim the light a little more. But if it's a real problem in the car I can always put it back on the bench and do it again.
QBFreakMay 4, 2022

I have a CB radio in the car, a radio I've owned forever. But it's got just the right balance of features and not-too-fancy that I always end up using it if I try anything else. Well, the car went in for service the other week and I took it and the amateur radio control head out because I thought they might have to pull the center console for troubleshooting. They didn't, but the radio has been sitting on the floor in here for about a week now. And I was reminded that the back light for the RF/SWR meter has been burnt out for ... probably longer than it's worked, at this point. (Yeah, I've had this radio a while.)

So after some disassembly I determined it was using a small 12v incandescent bulb, as I suspected. The filament long gone. Thankfully the bulb was mounted in a little silicone insert/diffuser making it really easy to remove from the meter in the radio. I acquired some 3mm warm-white LEDs, and with the help of a 1k resistor, replaced the burnt out bulb.

Show threadQBFreakFeb 12, 2022
Knowing that I'd probably not have any spoons free when the new GPS receiver arrived, I went ahead and found the pinouts for it (it uses a mini-din 6 connector) and made up an adapter to connect it to the existing DE-9 adapter that plugs into the radio. It needed a +5v power source, so I just cut the old power adapter off the dead Garmin and wired it in.
QBFreakFeb 12, 2022

Well, some fool* dismantled the interior of the entire rear half of my car. So I guess I get to go put that back together now.

*Me. I am that fool.

Show threadQBFreakFeb 12, 2022

Once the antennas were reinstalled, I hooked the NanoVNA to the CB antenna and swept it. It wasn't quite centered perfectly on channel 19, but it was close enough. The best SWR was around 1.3:1. Re-connecting the radio and calibrating it's internal SWR meter showed that for channel 19 it was about 1.5:1. Much better than the 3:1 or 4:1 I was seeing before.

I did notice when I swept it, that I would have better SWR on the higher frequency channels than the lower. If I ever get involved in a real conversation I'll have to keep that in mind. But I mostly use it to listen to what's going on on the road.

I did not sweep the 2M/440 antenna, as it terminated in the trunk and both antennas were also mounted on the trunk lid. I would have had to fold both back seats down, and at the moment the bottom seat cushion for the back seat still needs to be reinstalled from the whole GPS debacle.

Overall I am happy with where things are now. Just waiting for the new GPS receiver to arrive.

Show threadQBFreakFeb 12, 2022

Having success there, and a desire to avoid further contortionist acts that anything on the interior of a car requires, I moved on to the antennas.

Simply removing the antennas caused one of the NMO mounts to come apart. I'm pretty sure when Dad has removed and reinstalled the antennas in the past, he's over-tightened the antennas, which will lead to this.

Once I had everything apart, I cleaned the trunk lid around the antennas thoroughly. I put rain caps on them when I visit the car wash, and they cover an area around the mounts as well.

Having done all that, I carefully reassembled the mounts. I lack the fancy tool to keep the center of an NMO mount from spinning when tightening the outer nut, but I've found that a pair of tiny needle-nose pliers works wonders. Especially the curved kind. I cranked down on the nut on each mount as much as I dared, without crushing the integrated washer and grinding it into the trunk lid. Hopefully they wont come lose again.

Show threadQBFreakFeb 12, 2022

Both speakers are fixed for the amateur radio in the car. Initial fiddling found that one worked if I jiggled with the cables. The one that didn't ... I had a flawed testing methodology, so it very well may have.

Both speakers used a short custom 3.5mm mono to RCA adapter that I had made, and both were made with some really nasty looking audio cable I salvaged from who knows what. The kind that's hard to solder because it's half plastic on the inside.

So I just outright replaced them. New wire (just some zip cord, it's not like noise is an issue) and new connectors. I also took care to not overheat the 3.5mm connectors when soldering them, as that has a tendency to make them go intermittent (they were cheap, and the plastic insulating the various conductors isn't as heat resistant as it should be IMO).

Everything seemed to be fine with the new adapters. Especially once I figured out that the "A" transceiver needed to switch to a mode without RX PL to unsquelch 🤦‍♂️

QBFreakFeb 12, 2022

Just looking at the old install photos from my car, before I go try to figure out what's up with the speakers for the 2-meter rig.

Apparently I used a different model speaker under each seat 🤦‍♂️

No clue why. Probably something to do with the one I wanted to use not fitting under the passenger seat. Still, irritating.

Show threadQBFreakFeb 12, 2022
The empty shelf held the power supply, and another scanner. The purpose of the second scanner eludes me at the moment. I may have been experimenting with recording certain talkgroups on the trunked system? I have a vague memory of that.