Friday 23 October 2015

Brain Bender

All week I've been trying to work out what this is supposed to do all week. It came from the base of the my vertical HF Antenna. It's some kind of inductor that has one end connected to the shield and the other end connected to the actual antenna. The centre of the coax is connected to the same point on the antenna through the middle of the inductor. To see me dis-assemble the antenna or if you have any suggestions keep reading past the break.

Sunday 18 October 2015

Right down to earth

So this afternoon I finally thought to check on why my HF radio isn't working very well. I finally had the great idea to check the resistance between the actual antenna and the bracket that holds it's base. This bracket is what I've connected all of my earth wires to and should be separate to the rest of the antenna.

Guess what...

It aint... Looks like the reason I've been having such poor reception is because the antenna is actually being held to ground. So it turns out that any reception has actually been the result of a bad thing. Keeping positive though. I am going to say it's something to do with the impedance at RF being not = to 0 ohms.

So over the course of the week keep an eye out for how I fix this problem with too much grounding as opposed to my original theory of not enough.

Cheers,
Rex

Thursday 15 October 2015

I've got the power

I've finally got more work done on the Mill. I was hoping to get a shot of the control box powered up with the laptop running the control software next to it for the cover photo. However it seems that I need to keep playing with the software a little longer.
Instead you get a photo of the finished product as it stands. I know the wiring isn't the neatest or prettiest. But you can take my word for it that it does work now. Follow on after the break to see how I got to this point.

Monday 12 October 2015

Marble Madness

During my cleanup the other weekend I found this old Logitech Marble Mouse among my collection. I have used this in the past and I vaguely recollected that it was fairly nice to use. To see if that was still the case I have been using it at work for the last week or so. To see how I've been getting along with it follow along after the break.

Saturday 10 October 2015

Turning a new leaf

I got some good work done on improving the flora at home today. The driveway where I had been parking the Jeep has pretty much completely lost any grass cover it had. Also any water that had been getting on it has pretty much been running straight off. To help reduce this hydrophobic effect I have turned over to soil to about half a shovel blade. This is as far as was easy so I am going to leave it there for now.

Once I'd turned it all I watered it as much as I could for now. Currently the rain in finishing the job somewhat. The plan is to keep water up to it for the next week. Then next weekend I'll turn it again, but this time turn through some manure to help improve the soil and make it easier for grass to grow again. Then I'll keep water up to it for the next week and if there hasn't been any grass start to grow, I'll turn it again and then buy a bag of seed. From then on it should be just looking after it like any new lawn.

This was how it was about 1/4 of the way in. As you can see it went from being solid, reasonably packed, to big clumps, then I broke it down further to much smaller pieces. As the grass begins to grow I'll keep updating here.

Cheers,
Rex

Wednesday 7 October 2015

Testing a car stereo

I have been cleaning up over the last few days and among the stuff I found this car stereo in my collection. Now my brother has some issues with the stereo in his car so I figured that seeing as I don't have an immediate use for this one I could probably pass it on if it worked. Follow on after the break to see how I tested this head unit to see if it was worth using.

Thursday 1 October 2015

It works

No more leaks.
A huge thank you to my brother today, without whom the Jeep would still be parked in Mum and Dad's driveway with a line missing. As I have been a bit unwell the last few days

As you can see from the photo it is in a new spot. Actually nearly the same spot we first saw it in on this blog. Which is rather fitting as this is likely going to be the last we see of it as I am now looking for a new owner so I can focus on other projects that will take me in the direction I am hoping to be travelling. Particularly this dinghy that is still waiting for a trailer to be built. Which will probably be happening sooner rather than later as it is warming up nicely, providing good motivation for getting it mobile and sailing.

Cheers for now,
Rex