As previously announced, Lazy Dog Engineering will NOT be at Dayton this year.  Anne can’t get the weekend off from her “day job”, and I’ve found that it’s a mistake to try to attend a hamfest of any size without her.

OK, there’s also the matter of dog boarding.  Last year I asked the Hara Arena people if Cody could accompany us.  They said no, only service animals are allowed inside the buildings.  I told them he is a service animal, he’s our spokesdog!  They didn’t care, so I tried telling them he’s my “sniffing nose” dog (I have very little sense of smell most of the time) but they didn’t buy that either.

I could have put a curse on the Hara Arena, similar to the legendary Billy Goat Curse, which has prevented the Cubs from winning any sort of championship since 1945 (Billy Salanis, owner of Chicago’s iconic Billy Goat Tavern, took his pet billy goat to see a World Series game at Wrigley Field.  They were ejected because of the goat’s odor, so Mr. Silanis pronounced the following curse “Them Cubs, they ain’t gonna win no more”).  But Cody and I are both bigger than that.  Especially Cody, who thinks he’s a Great Pyrenees.

But I digress.  You want to know about the discount.  From now through the Sunday, you can order an LD-1B2 at shop.lazydogengineering.com or Amazon.com for $256.50 (plus shipping and handling), or an LD-1-TR for $381.50 (plus S&H).

New PPA (Perfect Portable Antenna) products are now available at the Lazy Dog Engineering store, including an improved design,  upgrade options for the radiator wire, and a new 40-meter version (80-meter version coming soon).

I have never been satisfied with the previous PPA’s binding post terminations.  I was never able to find just the right terminals to attach to the binding posts.  I ended up using automotive-style crimp-on terminals, but was never satisfied with the resulting appearance and have been looking for an alternative for a long time.

The wire has been another issue.  I started out using 24-gauge speaker wire (split apart) because of it’s small size, light weight, and flexibility, but using speaker wire seemed less than ideal.  A few months ago I switched to 24-gauge stranded “hookup” wire with black insulation.  It cost a little more, but looked better and was reasonably flexible.  However, I kept looking for something better.

Eventually, I stumbled onto a couple of interesting products offered by Davis RF.   The first one that caught my eye was Flexweave antenna wire.  It’s available bare or insulated with black or green insulation.  12-gauge Flexweave consists of 259 copper strands, and 14-gauge Flexweave consists of 168 strands.  It really is as flexible as they say, almost as flexible as paracord.  I decided to use black 14-gauge Flexweave soldered directly to the coupling network’s PCB as the counterpoise in all of the new PPA’s and to offer black 14-gauge Flexweave as an upgrade option for all models.

Flexweave is really an amazing product, but it isn’t ideal for all applications.  It’s larger and heavier than the 24-gauge hookup wire, so it isn’t what I would pick for backpacking or motorcycling.  I wouldn’t choose it for airline travel these days, either!  Fortunately, Davis RF has another great product:  Polystealth stranded copperclad steel wire.  Yes, that’s right, it’s like stranded Copperweld!  It comes in 13-, 18- and 26-gauge versions, each consisting of 19 strands and insulated with black, abrasion-resistant polyethelene.  The outer diameter is smaller than the 24-gauge hookup wire, and it seems more flexible.  I don’t know what the breaking strength of the hookup wire is, but the Polystealth is rated at 25 pounds.  I’ll bet it’s stronger.  If you choose the Polystealth upgrade option, your PPA will have a Flexweave counterpoise and a 1-foot (approximate) Flexweave stub.  The 26-gauge Polystealth radiator will be NEATLY spliced to the stub, and the splice will be covered with black shrink tubing.  This makes a very neat, lightweight package.

If you order the standard version with no upgrades, your PPA will have a Flexweave counterpoise and a 1-foot (approximate) Flexweave stub.  The 24-gauge black hookup wire radiator will be NEATLY spliced to the stub, and the splice will be covered with black shrink tubing.  This is identical to the Polystealth upgrade, except that hookup wire is used instead of Polystealth.

We don’t currently have a huge stock of either Polystealth or Flexweave, so your PPA may be backordered for a few days if you choose either upgrade.  However, Davis RF ships promptly so we should be able to fill all orders within a week.  Most orders will probably be filled within a day or two.

I’ve gotten a couple of emails asking if we’re going to be at Dayton this year.  We had planned to a few months ago, but my wife Anne now has a job that requires her to work most weekends.  Even if she had that weekend off, it would be almost impossible for her to get all three days off, and the Hamvention would require us to be there all three days.  I’d have to go by myself, at least on Friday, and it would be very difficult for me to handle the booth on my own. So, unfortunately, the answer is no, not this year.  I hope we will be able to go next year.

We will be offering some Dayton specials through our internet store, though.  They’ll be announced later in the week, and will be valid Friday, Saturday and Sunday.  Some products may be backordered for a few days because I will have to reorder PCB’s soon, but the backorders should be filled within a week.  Two weeks at most!

The software upgrade I wrote about yesterday is now available at http://www.lazydogengineering.com/Downloads.html.  Please give it a try!

If you’re waiting for a radio you’ve ordered, it will ship on Monday with the new firmware and software.

I’ve been working on a major upgrade for the control software and firmware, which should be ready for release tomorrow.  I’m a little behind on shipments, because I really didn’t want to ship radios without this software when it was so close to completion.  Of course, then I started adding little improvements to it, so one week became two.  I think it was worth it, though! 

This update will completely eliminate the startup “ritual” of clicking on step size, then LO Phase, then the fine slider.  But that’s not all!  It will also:

Make the TX button in HDSDR v2.11 (NOT 2.13, not yet, anyway) work CORRECTLY and RELIABLY!!!!!!!!  Unfortunately, there’s nothing I can do about the 1.5 second delay when switching from transmit to receive, and from receive to transmit.

The LO Phase, TX Support, and Band Selection menus work correctly, and indicate which option is currently selected.

When using HDSDR, it now starts up on the last LO frequency and Tune frequency, which it was set to when it was shut down.

The TX and Mute buttons on the Lazy Dog control panel are fully functional again.  This will be useful for those who want to use PSDR and other SDR software, other than HDSDR.

The external PTT switch functionality has also been restored.

These fixes and improvements make it a lot more usable, and I think all users will

I’ve recommended E-Mu audio interfaces as the best value I’d found for SDR use for the past two or three years, but I have to withdraw that recommendation.  The problem isn’t the product, it’s the company.   Read the rest of this entry »

If you haven’t installed HDSDR v2.13 (the new version), don’t do it yet!  At least, not without saving the installer for the old version somewhere!  Installing it will disable transmitter support, and the only way to get it back is to go back to the old version. Read the rest of this entry »

Version 2.13 of HDSDR was released yesterday.  It includes extensions to the ExtIO API to support (among other things) T/R switching.  This is great news!  Within a few days, I hope to have a new ExtIO DLL which will do away with the undocumented T/R switching “feature” we’ve been relying on up to this point.  As I read the API, once I’ve implemented the new functions clicking the TX button in HDSDR will switch everything RELIABLY to transmit, or back to receive.  But wait, there’s more!  It looks like clicking the TX button on the Lazy Dog control panel will also switch EVERYTHING to transmit or back to receive, AND if you wire an external PTT button to the accessory jack on your LD-1TR, pressing it will ALSO switch to transmit and releasing it will switch to receive.  I’ve been waiting for this for MONTHS!!!!  I wish I had time to jump into the code this afternoon, but I don’t.  Sometime in the next couple of days, though, I will … and it shouldn’t take long to implement the new functions, so watch for a new software update by the end of the week.

73 de NI9N

We’re launching a new website for our Cattery: borislavsiberians.com

No content there yet, but there will be soon! In the meantime, here are our three-week-old kittens Gidget, Widget and Digit.

This installment will show you how to set up and use Virtual Audio Cable and an application like MixW to use “digital modes” like PSK31 and RTTY. The setup is similar for other digital mode applications, and consists of setting up two or three virtual cables with Virtual Audio Cable (VAC) and using them to connect the audio output of HDSDR to the audio input of the digital mode application (and to your speakers or headphones, if you like to listen to digital modes), and to connect the audio output from VAC to the audio input of HDSDR. Read the rest of this entry »