Sunday, December 29, 2013

HF-One MKII: Not Looking Good

A refund:
"I just gor my money back. 
Crazy guy, crazy company, crazy people........... bad story"

MicroSD Card Microcontroller

Bunnie talks about hacking MicroSD cards:
"An Arduino, with its 8-bit 16 MHz microcontroller, will set you back around $20. A microSD card with several gigabytes of memory and a microcontroller with several times the performance could be purchased for a fraction of the price."

Keystone Cops

Too funny...



Via Bayou Renaissance Man

Saturday, December 28, 2013

Avoid Category Names That Suck

Avoid Category Names That Suck when designing your web site. A couple of key points:

1. Don't get cute with the names.
2. Don't make users guess.

I'm pretty good with my "labels," but my static pages above could use some work. The Baofeng page just sort of evolved. I'm happier with the ReadMe and The Radios pages as I built them to meet specific needs.

Friday, December 27, 2013

TYT TH-9800: Unboxing

Martyn does a quick unboxing and overview of the TYT TH-9800.

Extremes

Trying to save seconds... in a distribution facility.



Trying to save hours/days... the speaker wasted a day walking to get medicine from a person that didn't have it.



Via LifeHack

TYT TH-9800: Landing

Brndnstffrd comments:
"I just received an email stating that the radio is out and available for preorder, and is expected to be arriving here in the US in 2 weeks!

http://www.kightradio.com/TH-9800-Quad-Band-Mobile_p_20.html"

Martyn Allison (Radio-Mart) says:
"We now have the TH-9800 in stock in very limited quantities and will also be accepting back orders, I plan to have a you tube video over the next 2 or 3 days and we have already started a Yahoo Users group for this model 
http://www.radio-mart.net/TYT-TH-9800-Quad-Band-Transceiver.html"
Yahoo Group is here.

Hans has a copy of the manual for your reference here.


FINsix: Shrinking the Power Brick

FINsix wants to change power adapters by increasing the frequency at which they work:


"4x smaller and 6x lighter than today's adapters
Built-in USB port replaces phone/tablet chargers
Charges laptop and 10W devices simultaneously
Wall plug form factor eliminates bulky AC cable
Only occupies a single socket when plugged in
Compatible with all major laptop brands
Ideal for mobile professionals and students 
Product Description
The FINsix laptop charger is a full-powered AC adapter that is four times smaller and six times lighter than what is typically found on the market today. The reduced size allows for a form factor which plugs directly in to the wall and only consumes the space of one socket. This eliminates the bulky "inline brick" implementation as well as the thick AC-side cord that is commonly found on laptop chargers. Also, with its auxiliary USB port for powering other devices, this adapter replaces your phone and tablet chargers as well."


Via Technology Review via Ace of Spades HQ

Old School Typewriter Fonts

Old School Typewriter Fonts - create cool labels for your projects.

Via the Retrotechnologist

Thursday, December 26, 2013

Bayesian Morse Decoder

 A Bayesian Morse Decoder
"To demonstrate the Bayesian decoding capability I tuned my KX3 on W1AW frequency 3.58105 Mhz at 8:00 PM EST today and let two identical FLDIGI copies of the same v3.21.75 software running from the same audio source. I have a SignaLink USB connected between KX3 and my ThinkPad laptop running Linux Mint OS. 
On Fig 1. below I have the legacy SOM decoder on the left side and the new Bayesian decoder on the right . The legacy decoder makes a lot of errors and CW bulletin is not really readable. On the right side I have enabled Bayesian decoder and you can actually read the bulletin, though the lack of proper word spaces make this still a bit difficult to read. In any case Bayesian decoder provides significant accuracy improvement with real life noisy CW signals."
Via Slashdot