OK, I have to apologize again.  Late last week, when I uploaded the new installer to Lazydogengineering.com, I either uploaded the wrong file or I forgot to click the “publish” button.  In any case, it turned out that installer didn’t install the USB drivers correctly, and I didn’t download the installer from the website to make sure it worked.  I tested the file I thought I had uploaded.  The file I tested worked, the one I had uploaded (or at least the one I thought I had uploaded) didn’t. 

It is fixed now.  I tested it by downloading it from the website and installing it on a 32 bit computer and a 64 bit computer, and it worked correctly in both cases.  There should be no more problems until my next mistake.  That isn’t scheduled yet, nor is my next apology, because I schedule all mistakes and their apologies retroactively.

73 de NI9N

A while back, I mentioned the Siberian cats my wife and I breed. These are wonderful cats, loaded with personality, and HYPOALLERGENIC!!! We currently have two kittens available, a male and a female born September 6. Most breeders have a waiting list for Siberian kittens, so this is a great opportunity for anyone who wants a cat but is allergic or has allergic family members. These kittens have great pedigrees, including many champions and grand champions, and are TICA-registered.

Most people think hypoallergenic cats must be hairless. Nothing could be further from the truth! Hairless cats are NOT hypoallergenic. Also, most allergists will also tell you that there is no such thing as a hypoallergenic cat. Also not true. Another common misconception is that people are allergic to the dander and not the hair, but must people are not allergic to either the hair or the dander. Most cat allergies are actually a reaction to a particular protein (FEL-D1) which is secreted in cat saliva. Cats lick themselves both to wash and to cool themselves, and the saliva dries on their fur leaving a residue which is often mistaken for dander. The residue contains FEL-D1, but Siberian cats only secret about 10% as much of it as other cats. That’s often a low enough level to prevent allergic reactions. For example, I am highly allergic to cats. I can usually tell within 5 minutes if there is a cat in a house, because I start to get congested. I have no problem at all living with six Siberians. Of course, everyone with allergies is different, so we encourage prospective buyers to visit our house to see if they react to our cats. We also will take back any kitten who does cause a reaction, and will refund the full price in that case. We have never had anyone return a kitten for any reason.

The hypoallergenic quality of Siberians is unique, but they have a lot of other great qualities: Great personalities, luxurious fur (triple coated, and they do shed in the spring), large size (up to 25 pounds, but our largest is currently around 10 pounds) and they are known for their jumping ability. In short, they are wonderful pets for anyone who loves cats, and particularly for those who thought they’d never be able to have a cat.

Here are pictures of the kittens:

“Simba” (male) at 12 weeks

“Ziva” (female) at 12 weeks

“Simba” and “Ziva” are both very playful and affectionate, and get along very well with our dogs Cody and Einstein. We give all our kittens temporary names, but when they are sold their new owners get to name them whatever they want. They typically learn their permanent names pretty quickly.

Here are pictures of their mom and dad:

Sasha (CICA Boyarnia Sasha Boyarovna), mom

Boris (CICA Esenin Boris Yaroslavovich), dad

Our kittens are priced $900 without breeding rights. If you’re interested, contact me via this website.

Yes, Lazy Dog Engineering is still in business. More about that in a moment. First, I have to announce a new software release, available at the Downloads page, or directly from http://www.lazydogengineering.com/uploads/LD1TRSetup.msi . The previous installer for the transmitter/transceiver (which was also the installer shipped with all radios shipped from early October on) had a problem with the included USBXpress drivers which prevented them from installing correctly. Obviously, I must apologize for this. The problem has now been corrected, so if you’ve had driver trouble please download and run the new installer.

As I said at the top of the page, we’re still in business. However, I have not been keeping up with email for the last couple of months. I can’t fully explain it, but I’m pretty sure that I can put it behind me now. I will say that I’ve been feeling a bit overwhelmed for several reasons, and often just haven’t been able to bring myself to look at my email. Of course, that only makes things worse. I’m going to ask that anyone who has been trying to get in touch with me by email try again, because I don’t know if I can find all the emails I’ve missed. There is also a phone number on the “contact” page of the Lazy Dog Engineering website, and I always pick up or promptly return calls at that number.

At any rate, this is the season for New Year’s resolutions and new beginnings, so I’m going to “reboot” and do EVERYTHING better this year. That means more blogging, more posts on different kinds of DIY projects, and new or improved products. Here are a few things I have planned:

• A TDOA (Time Difference of Arrival) direction finder for 2 Meters. This technique has been around since the 1970s if not earlier. To the best of my knowledge, it was first used for helicopter homing receivers during the Vietnam war, but was adopted by hams almost immediately. Traditionally, a 555 Timer IC is used to generate a waveform that operates a pair of PIN diode switches, to rapidly switch back and forth between two antennas roughly ½ wavelength apart. This creates a phase-modulated signal at the input to the FM receiver, resulting in a tone. The amplitude is dependent on the phase difference, which approaches zero when the antennas are broadside to the transmitter location. My version updates the traditional one by using an MSP-430 Launchpad to generate the switching waveform. This nifty little microcontroller development kit is available from TI distributors for $5, an irresistible price. Also, a tape measure antenna is used, similar to the tape measure beam recently published in QST.
• A USB CW keyer using an MSP-430 Launchpad
• A USB “tuning knob”, also using an MSP-430 Launchpad
• An Az-El tracking mount using stepper motors, for satellite antennas or for telescopes.
• Linux (and possibly Mac-OS) support for Lazy Dog SDR’s
• New SDR products which don’t depend on the soundcard. I’m not sure exactly what form these will take, or when they’ll be available. Stay tuned.
• Improved portable Zepp antennas

One more thing: I’ll be blogging here on at least a daily basis, so check back frequently. I will probably write one or two more posts today.

73 de NI9N

For the past few weeks, I’ve been absolutely horrible about responding to emails, blogging, and moderating this blog and the Lazydog group on Yahoo.  I don’t have an excuse, and it stops now.  I do have a big apology for anyone I’ve inconvenienced or offended.  Lazy Dog Engineering is definitely still in business, if anyone was wondering, and is still shipping all products.  I’m really, really sorry.

As I said, I don’t have an excuse.  There is a reason, though, and it might sound familiar to some of you.  Some weeks back, I got very busy preparing for a hamfest and juggling client projects.  I began neglecting my emails and blogging, just for a day or two.  I should have known better.  I get a LOT of email, mostly not related to Lazy Dog and some of it spam.  If I don’t keep up with it daily, it can get overwhelming very quickly.  It did get overwhelming, to the point I could barely bring myself to pull out my iPhone to look at it. 

When I get in situations like that, I tend to procrastinate.  I kept telling myself I would catch up with it “this afternoon” or “tomorrow”.  There was always something important and interesting to work on, so I just kept putting it off.  Well, that stop now, and I mean right now.  I’ve been meaning to write this post for some time, but kept putting it off, too.  Here it is, and I’ll be working on the email for the next couple of days, or whatever it takes. 

I hope that anyone I’ve inconvenienced will forgive me.  I have not delayed any shipments.  I do owe a couple of refunds, which will be going out tonight. 

73,

Pete

When I assemble a batch of PCB’s, I always do all the surface-mount assembly first followed by the through-hole parts.  That’s really how it has to be done, because most through-hole parts can’t tolerate going through a reflow oven.  Once when I was with the University, I absent-mindedly (being a Professor, I strove to comply with the stereotype) put a board with both surface-mount and through-hole parts into the reflow oven.  It came out looking like something Salvador Dali might have painted.

Anyway, the through-hole parts go on last.  I’d love it if everything were surface-mount, because the through-hole parts are far more time-consuming.  I finished up the surface-mount portion of fifteen transmitter boards last night about 11 (long day, good thing I love my work) and then went to bed.  This morning I started to on the through-hole assembly. 

By now, anyone reading this who has ordered a transmitter or transceiver is probably thinking “oh, no!  He’s found a design problem!  I won’t get anything for another (indeterminate but long period of time)!”  As a former boss used to say, “Not to worry!”  I don’t think that’s a complete sentence, but that’s what he always said.

I soldered in all of the inductors on each of five boards (using all the inductors I had wound so far), and then the transformers.  No problem.  Then I started with the six-pin female headers, but I didn’t count them first.  There are six on each transmitter, so I put two of them on each of five boards, and soldered all the pins.  Then I put two more on each of the five boards.  Still no problem.  Then I started putting the last pair on each of the five boards, but I only had one pair left!  That means I have one LD-1TX ready to go, four more THAT CLOSE to being ready to go, and another ten almost ready to go.  To quote the philospher H. Simpson, “Doh!”

If you’re one of those who has paid the full amount and is expecting a TX or TR, you should have already received an email explaining the situation.  The one completed one will go to the person who placed the first order.  I’ll be ordering more headers this afternoon, and they should arrive on Tuesday morning.  The remaining fourteen should be ready to go Tuesday afternoon or Wednesday morning.  Sorry about that!

73 de NI9N

I’m in the middle of assembling a batch of transmitters. I stenciled solder paste onto 15 PCBs this morning, can’t believe I started that many at one time! It’ll go a way toward catching up with the backorders, though.

My copy of QST came yesterday. I wasn’t expecting it until next week. It’s a big deal (in a small way) because Lazy Dog Engineering has a small ad in it, for the first time. I can’t remember the page number, and don’t have the magazine handy at the moment.

73 de NI9N

The first four LD-1TX transmitter modules were shipped yesterday!  I will assemble at least five more tomorrow, and may try for ten.  Also, I’ve just finished uploading two videos to Youtube.  The first one shows how to install an LD-1TX into an existing LD-1B or LD-1B2.  The second shows how to connect it to your sound cards, etc., and set it up for use with HDSDR.  If you’ve just received a transmitter, please contain your excitement long enough to watch both videos.

73 de NI9N

I took the first transmitter modules to the Post Office a little while ago, looking forward to finally shipping them. When I got there, it was closed! It’s Columbus Day (official, not traditional), so there’s no mail service. Oh, well. They’ll go out first thing in the morning, and that will feel very good! The next order of business is to fill all the backorders and have an inventory in time for the Fort Wayne Hamfest. Also, development of Linux support for the LD-1TR. I’ve got a couple of other little projects to develop, too, such as a touchpad keyer using an MSP-430 Launchpad and a USB controlled antenna switch also using a Launchpad. Stay tuned!

Finally! I’ve spent the last four days revising the control software to prevent accidental out-of-band transmission. I lost at least a day due to Visual Studio problems which made it impossible to use the debugger. I finally gave up and switched to a laptop to debug the host software, but then gave my desktop one more try. By some miracle, the debugger had started working again. I hate it when something starts working and I don’t know why!

Anyway, the control software is now in sufficiently good shape to ship (perhaps that’s the origin of the phrase “ship shape”?) and I’m now putting together an installation disk to ship with each transmitter. Whatever happens, the first four are going out the door tomorrow! I should have five more ready to go by midweek, and I’ll be contacting those who have reserved them at that time. I plan to keep building them as fast as I can until all the backorders are filled.

I’ll be putting a video showing how to install the transmitter module on Youtube tomorrow, so it will be available before anyone receives a transmitter. Please watch it before installing yours, it may save you some trouble.

On Saturday I attended the first Fort Wayne Regional Maker Faire as a “commercial maker”. That means I had a booth, and had merchandise to (software defined receivers) to sell. I also had the usual demos set up, as if it were a hamfest, including the transmitter for the first time. I didn’t really expect to sell anything, and I didn’t. I will probably go to next year’s Maker Fair, but not as an exhibitor. I really had no business reason to be there, but it was certainly enjoyable. The weather happened to be rather chilly for early October, so I would have left earlier if not for my booth. I had planned to be there both days, but ended up not going back on Sunday.

Here’s one way a Maker Faire is different from a hamfest: if you’re at an outdoor Maker Faire on a cold day you might be able to find someone demonstrating a turbojet engine (with afterburner) which he built from scratch. Then you stand in the exhaust plume to warm up. OK, the afterburner isn’t actually working yet, but it was still nice and warm standing behind it. This jet isn’t suitable for actually powering anything (e.g., a go-kart) yet. He’s been working on it for 7 years, and must have a very understanding wife. It’s a radial-flow engine, for those who know what that means. Most turbojets (and turbofans, which have been much more common since the 1960s) are the axial flow type, but radial-flow engines in which the compressor is basically a centrifugal pump were used in some early jet aircraft including the German ME-262 fighter and the American XP-59.

A local model airplane club also had a booth, where they displayed (among other things) a couple of model-sized jet engines. I was told that an RC airplane powered by one of those can go 200 MPH. Of course, if it crashes that’s thousands of dollars down the drain.

These bicycles are maybe a little more practical. Maybe. A little.

1. Mobile Conference Table, or Human-Powered Bus?

2. If you think you’re a hamster, this one might be for you!

Rose-Hulman Institute of Technology displayed several of their racing human-powered vehicles. The Fort Wayne IEEE section taught attendees how to solder, and there were an assortment of booths showing off robotic projects, Arduino and other microcontroller projects, and this unusual X-Y plotter:

Some of the exhibits were purely artistic:

	This is supposed to be a sort of human-powered yard-maintainence vehicle.
	The sign says it’s the “Sashimi Tabernacle Choir”. It plays a recording of the Hallelujah Chorus from Handel’s Messiah.
	“What do you suppose the artist is trying to say?”
	“I don’t know, what do you think the artist is trying to say?
	A metal sculptor had some whimsical, steampunk-looking “spacecraft” from an alternate version of 2012
	Here’s the explanation of the “spacecraft”.