On 2/4/2015 12:38 PM, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 12:26 PM, John S wrote:
On 2/3/2015 2:17 PM, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
I haven't seen a post on this group since the 27th of January.
Was it something I said, or what?
Just gotta make sure this newsgroup is still working! :-)

de Irv, VE6BP

Hi, Irv -

I did not think you were interested in some of my research projects
because they are in the 70cm band. If it does interest you, let me know
and I'll describe my project.

Cheers,
John N1JLS

John,

There are definitely people interested in 70cm band projects. Please -
post away!


At the moment, after 5 years off air due to illness and an inability to
construct antennas to fit the tiny balconies where I am now
'incarcerated' (i.e. senior's care villas), my current goal is to get on
HF for starters -- and even that is not easy here. Once I can get back
on the air again -- any day now as I am expecting my MFJ loop antenna to
arrive (see my post "Preserving Components..., Jan 18th), then I will
consider other VHF and UHF bands. It's not that I'm not interested in
any of your research projects -- but I've got to start with my dear old
HF. I'm also located facing south, so I can't currently even hit the
local repeaters for 2M contacts with all my local ham chums -- they are
all in the wrong direction from my balcony. In March, if all goes
according to plan, I will be moving to a new east-facing suite which
might just be enough for me to hit the local repeaters. The fact that
I don't respond to all posts doesn't mean I am not interested -- I love
antennas and read every post by everyone -- even the trolls! :-)

In any event, it's nice to see a little activity on the group after
the recent drought! At least it turns out that it wasn't something I
said.

de Irv, VE6BP

Of course the dry spell had nothing to do with you, Irv. In fact, you
just stirred up some conversation. I was lusting for some conversation
as well. Let's just see where this goes.

73,

John N1JLS

On 2/4/2015 11:57 AM, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 12:26 PM, John S wrote:
On 2/3/2015 2:17 PM, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
I haven't seen a post on this group since the 27th of January.
Was it something I said, or what?
Just gotta make sure this newsgroup is still working! :-)

de Irv, VE6BP

Hi, Irv -

I did not think you were interested in some of my research projects
because they are in the 70cm band. If it does interest you, let me know
and I'll describe my project.

Cheers,
John N1JLS

John,

There are definitely people interested in 70cm band projects. Please -
post away!

Thanks for your reply, Jerry.

History:

My thought was to have a remote transmitter for measuring rainfall. Yes,
I can buy one, but then I don't have a reason to do all this.

I decided to use a Silicon Labs si4420 device for both receiving and
transmitting. I would use the 70cm band and include my call sign on
every transmission. It would be inside the base of a very old tipping
bucket rain gauge using a 3-cell AAA supply. The trigger is a momentary
contact when the bucket tips, indicating .01 inches of rainfall.

Present:

Okay. Well, it turns out that the si4420 wants a 27+j136 balanced load
seen at its terminals. This is where the antenna investigation comes in.

So, I need to show a balanced input of 27+j136 from an antenna separated
from the chip with two traces of some impedance (TBD) to the chip. Some
lumped matching components can be used, but I have tried to minimize
them for home construction purposes. I don't have the room to put in
very many cm of micro strip transmission line.

My goal is to make it as simple as possible and be able to make it in my
shop by hand.

Thanks, Guys.
John N1JLS

On 2/4/2015 2:02 PM, John S wrote:
On 2/4/2015 11:57 AM, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 12:26 PM, John S wrote:
On 2/3/2015 2:17 PM, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
I haven't seen a post on this group since the 27th of January.
Was it something I said, or what?
Just gotta make sure this newsgroup is still working! :-)

de Irv, VE6BP

Hi, Irv -

I did not think you were interested in some of my research projects
because they are in the 70cm band. If it does interest you, let me know
and I'll describe my project.

Cheers,
John N1JLS

John,

There are definitely people interested in 70cm band projects. Please -
post away!

Thanks for your reply, Jerry.

History:

My thought was to have a remote transmitter for measuring rainfall. Yes,
I can buy one, but then I don't have a reason to do all this.

I decided to use a Silicon Labs si4420 device for both receiving and
transmitting. I would use the 70cm band and include my call sign on
every transmission. It would be inside the base of a very old tipping
bucket rain gauge using a 3-cell AAA supply. The trigger is a momentary
contact when the bucket tips, indicating .01 inches of rainfall.

Present:

Okay. Well, it turns out that the si4420 wants a 27+j136 balanced load
seen at its terminals. This is where the antenna investigation comes in.

So, I need to show a balanced input of 27+j136 from an antenna separated
from the chip with two traces of some impedance (TBD) to the chip. Some
lumped matching components can be used, but I have tried to minimize
them for home construction purposes. I don't have the room to put in
very many cm of micro strip transmission line.

My goal is to make it as simple as possible and be able to make it in my
shop by hand.

Thanks, Guys.
John N1JLS


John,

I've looked at similar chips with the idea of building an expensive
single-channel 440 Mhz FM rig. Not that the existing rigs aren't cheap
- just something to do.

You might want to look at a couple of PDFs on the silabs website:

https://www.silabs.com/Support%20Doc...Docs/an422.pdf
https://www.silabs.com/Support%20Doc...Docs/an421.pdf

The first is a datasheet on the 4420 (and others); the second has all
kinds of good information including PC board antennas (see figures 2.7
and 2.8).

Silicon Labs has a lot of good information on their website. However,
there's so much sometimes it can be hard to find exactly what you want

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry, AI0K

==================

OOps! Sorry about the duplicate post. I seem to be having
slow server problems or something.

de Irv VE6BP

Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 12:26 PM, John S wrote:
On 2/3/2015 2:17 PM, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
I haven't seen a post on this group since the 27th of January.
Was it something I said, or what?
Just gotta make sure this newsgroup is still working! :-)

de Irv, VE6BP

Hi, Irv -

I did not think you were interested in some of my research projects
because they are in the 70cm band. If it does interest you, let me know
and I'll describe my project.

Cheers,
John N1JLS

John,

There are definitely people interested in 70cm band projects. Please -
post away!


At the moment, after 5 years off air due to illness and an inability to
construct antennas to fit the tiny balconies where I am now
'incarcerated' (i.e. senior's care villas), my current goal is to get on
HF for starters -- and even that is not easy here. Once I can get back
on the air again -- any day now as I am expecting my MFJ loop antenna to
arrive (see my post "Preserving Components..., Jan 18th), then I will
consider other VHF and UHF bands. It's not that I'm not interested in
any of your research projects -- but I've got to start with my dear old
HF. I'm also located facing south, so I can't currently even hit the
local repeaters for 2M contacts with all my local ham chums -- they are
all in the wrong direction from my balcony. In March, if all goes
according to plan, I will be moving to a new east-facing suite which
might just be enough for me to hit the local repeaters. The fact that
I don't respond to all posts doesn't mean I am not interested -- I love
antennas and read every post by everyone -- even the trolls! :-)

In any event, it's nice to see a little activity on the group after
the recent drought! At least it turns out that it wasn't something I
said.

de Irv, VE6BP

On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Jerry Stuckle wrote:

On 2/4/2015 11:50 AM, Spike wrote:
On 04/02/15 13:04, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 4:15 AM, Spike wrote:
On 03/02/15 20:17, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:

I haven't seen a post on this group since the 27th of January.
Was it something I said, or what?
Just gotta make sure this newsgroup is still working! :-)

de Irv, VE6BP

There isn't enough traffic in the RRA* groups to warrant the current
set-up. RRAM averages less than one post per day from individuals. They
would be better merged into one group, with RR.info carrying the
interminable blogs.

However, that would mean dismantling an empire, so I don't see it
happening.

It would be even better if trolls like you weren't posting to the
newsgroups. Then we might get back some of the people who left in the
past.

You (general) won't get them back by diluting a diminishing user-base
over several largely redundant groups, but you just might do it by
forming a general group that has some real activity in it.


They won't come back as long as the trolls (which caused them to leave
in the first place) are still around - no matter how many or few
newsgroups you have.

Come on, people left .misc and .policy because of the trolling.

The other groups in the hierarchy were relatively healthy.

What really happene is people went elsewhere, and after a certain point,
it was easier to give in and go elsewhere since that's where the traffic
was.

If the trolls were such a problem, then the existence of the moderated
newsgroup would fix that. But they've never had much traffic.

Michael

On 2/4/2015 2:56 PM, Michael Black wrote:
On Wed, 4 Feb 2015, Jerry Stuckle wrote:

On 2/4/2015 11:50 AM, Spike wrote:
On 04/02/15 13:04, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 4:15 AM, Spike wrote:
On 03/02/15 20:17, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:

I haven't seen a post on this group since the 27th of January.
Was it something I said, or what?
Just gotta make sure this newsgroup is still working! :-)

de Irv, VE6BP

There isn't enough traffic in the RRA* groups to warrant the current
set-up. RRAM averages less than one post per day from individuals.
They
would be better merged into one group, with RR.info carrying the
interminable blogs.

However, that would mean dismantling an empire, so I don't see it
happening.

It would be even better if trolls like you weren't posting to the
newsgroups. Then we might get back some of the people who left in the
past.

You (general) won't get them back by diluting a diminishing user-base
over several largely redundant groups, but you just might do it by
forming a general group that has some real activity in it.


They won't come back as long as the trolls (which caused them to leave
in the first place) are still around - no matter how many or few
newsgroups you have.

Come on, people left .misc and .policy because of the trolling.

The other groups in the hierarchy were relatively healthy.

What really happene is people went elsewhere, and after a certain point,
it was easier to give in and go elsewhere since that's where the traffic
was.

If the trolls were such a problem, then the existence of the moderated
newsgroup would fix that. But they've never had much traffic.

Michael


People left the other groups because of trolling, also. Back about 20
years ago, all of these were healthy and active. Then some time in the
late 1990's (I forget exactly when - it's been too long), trolls started
showing up - and people started leaving.

As for the moderated group - there are other reasons why people
(including me) don't post there.

--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry, AI0K

==================

On 2/4/2015 2:43 PM, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
OOps! Sorry about the duplicate post. I seem to be having
slow server problems or something.

de Irv VE6BP

Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 12:26 PM, John S wrote:
On 2/3/2015 2:17 PM, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
I haven't seen a post on this group since the 27th of January.
Was it something I said, or what?
Just gotta make sure this newsgroup is still working! :-)

de Irv, VE6BP

Hi, Irv -

I did not think you were interested in some of my research projects
because they are in the 70cm band. If it does interest you, let me know
and I'll describe my project.

Cheers,
John N1JLS

John,

There are definitely people interested in 70cm band projects. Please -
post away!


At the moment, after 5 years off air due to illness and an inability to
construct antennas to fit the tiny balconies where I am now
'incarcerated' (i.e. senior's care villas), my current goal is to get on
HF for starters -- and even that is not easy here. Once I can get back
on the air again -- any day now as I am expecting my MFJ loop antenna to
arrive (see my post "Preserving Components..., Jan 18th), then I will
consider other VHF and UHF bands. It's not that I'm not interested in
any of your research projects -- but I've got to start with my dear old
HF. I'm also located facing south, so I can't currently even hit the
local repeaters for 2M contacts with all my local ham chums -- they are
all in the wrong direction from my balcony. In March, if all goes
according to plan, I will be moving to a new east-facing suite which
might just be enough for me to hit the local repeaters. The fact that
I don't respond to all posts doesn't mean I am not interested -- I love
antennas and read every post by everyone -- even the trolls! :-)

In any event, it's nice to see a little activity on the group after
the recent drought! At least it turns out that it wasn't something I
said.

de Irv, VE6BP


Heck, Irv - I thought it was such a good post that it was worth seeing
again


--
==================
Remove the "x" from my email address
Jerry, AI0K

==================

"Irv Finkleman VE6BP" wrote in message
...

At the moment, after 5 years off air due to illness and an inability to
construct antennas to fit the tiny balconies where I am now 'incarcerated'
(i.e. senior's care villas), my current goal is to get on
HF for starters -- and even that is not easy here.

Sorry to hear that, but it comes to us all in time.

What about getting hold of a weather balloon and using it to
tow a long wire aloft (but sort out your own earth / counterpoise
arrangement)?

gareth wrote:
"Irv Finkleman VE6BP" wrote in message
...

At the moment, after 5 years off air due to illness and an inability to
construct antennas to fit the tiny balconies where I am now 'incarcerated'
(i.e. senior's care villas), my current goal is to get on
HF for starters -- and even that is not easy here.

Sorry to hear that, but it comes to us all in time.

What about getting hold of a weather balloon and using it to
tow a long wire aloft (but sort out your own earth / counterpoise
arrangement)?

Weather balloons are made for one usage and after a couple of days will
not hold helium worth a damn.

To last for more than a few days it has to be made of sturdier stuff like
the advertising balloons.



--
Jim Pennino

On 2/4/2015 1:39 PM, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 2:02 PM, John S wrote:
On 2/4/2015 11:57 AM, Jerry Stuckle wrote:
On 2/4/2015 12:26 PM, John S wrote:
On 2/3/2015 2:17 PM, Irv Finkleman VE6BP wrote:
I haven't seen a post on this group since the 27th of January.
Was it something I said, or what?
Just gotta make sure this newsgroup is still working! :-)

de Irv, VE6BP

Hi, Irv -

I did not think you were interested in some of my research projects
because they are in the 70cm band. If it does interest you, let me know
and I'll describe my project.

Cheers,
John N1JLS

John,

There are definitely people interested in 70cm band projects. Please -
post away!

Thanks for your reply, Jerry.

History:

My thought was to have a remote transmitter for measuring rainfall. Yes,
I can buy one, but then I don't have a reason to do all this.

I decided to use a Silicon Labs si4420 device for both receiving and
transmitting. I would use the 70cm band and include my call sign on
every transmission. It would be inside the base of a very old tipping
bucket rain gauge using a 3-cell AAA supply. The trigger is a momentary
contact when the bucket tips, indicating .01 inches of rainfall.

Present:

Okay. Well, it turns out that the si4420 wants a 27+j136 balanced load
seen at its terminals. This is where the antenna investigation comes in.

So, I need to show a balanced input of 27+j136 from an antenna separated
from the chip with two traces of some impedance (TBD) to the chip. Some
lumped matching components can be used, but I have tried to minimize
them for home construction purposes. I don't have the room to put in
very many cm of micro strip transmission line.

My goal is to make it as simple as possible and be able to make it in my
shop by hand.

Thanks, Guys.
John N1JLS


John,

I've looked at similar chips with the idea of building an expensive
single-channel 440 Mhz FM rig. Not that the existing rigs aren't cheap
- just something to do.

You might want to look at a couple of PDFs on the silabs website:

https://www.silabs.com/Support%20Doc...Docs/an422.pdf
https://www.silabs.com/Support%20Doc...Docs/an421.pdf

The first is a datasheet on the 4420 (and others); the second has all
kinds of good information including PC board antennas (see figures 2.7
and 2.8).

Silicon Labs has a lot of good information on their website. However,
there's so much sometimes it can be hard to find exactly what you want


Thanks, Jerry. I have those documents and have read them. Good stuff there.