The HamShack Expedition Console, an Introduction

    As mentioned in my previous post, I've been experimenting with remote deployed websites on a raspberry Pi using Python (Flask library), and Chat GPT. I've learned that most AI tools get you close, but not quite there, but with proper prompting, they get better. I give "Assistant" (the name i gave my instance of Chat GPT) feedback.

 Right now, I'm building an app i can use to track certain observations, and publish them out as they happen. My idea is to provide a dynamic experience that allows live tracking of an expedition for an experience that will be eventually included in a citizen science project. Then I will condense the experience to a video that will auto publish to YouTube. I want to document an experience in an interesting way, create valuable scientific data that I can share with a larger community interested in that data, make it entertaining enough that people regularly enjoy what I publish.

 I guess what I'm creating is a publishing app. It will have a web app driven front end, where content is generated and sent via API to the end project. After feeding Assistant some documentation about some of the radios and systems I had it create some documentation around this project. We're calling the project "HamShack" and it's what we refer to as an "Expedition Console". Here's what it looks like so far:

NOTE: Content below was generated with the help of Chat GPT.

Building the KG4GVL HamShack Expedition Console 

Rev 1.0 (Concept)

Purpose

Create a portable expedition console integrating amateur radio,

Raspberry Pi computing, GNSS navigation, imaging, and scientific field

observation into a modular platform.

Project Roadmap

1.  POTA field operating station

2.  Raspberry Pi4 field computer

3.  Nature/science observation platform

4.  Fully integrated KG4GVL Expedition Console

Design Philosophy

The Raspberry Pi is the mission computer. The QCX+ remains the

operator’s CW radio. The QDX serves as the digital-mode radio. Eventually there will be two radios: the primary will be A QRP Labs QMX, and a backup like the QCX+ 20m. 

The QLG2 provides authoritative time and location. When the radio changes, the GPS satellite receiver will change too. The system should continue

functioning even without Internet access. Power supply focuses on Battery operation with various charging methods.

Core Hardware

Mission Computer - Raspberry Pi4 - Flask web dashboard - SQLite

database - Python services

QCX+ - Manual CW operation - POTA - CAT integration where appropriate

QDX - FT8, WSPR and other digital modes - USB audio and CAT -

Computer-assisted operation. 

QLG2 - GNSS position - UTC time - Maidenhead grid - PPS for future

precision timing

Camera - Field documentation - Geotagged images - Wildlife observations

Suggested Software Layout

/******

--REDACTED--

******/

Mission Profiles

POTA: - QCX+ - GPS - Logging

Digital: - QDX - FT8/WSPR - Propagation experiments

Science: - GPS tracking - Photos - Species observations - Future

eBird/iNaturalist support

Guiding Principles

-   Modular design

-   Radios remain independently usable

-   Offline-first operation

-   Expandable architecture

-   Reusable software services

-   Flask provides the interface, not the application logic

Future Ideas

-   Offline maps

-   Battery monitoring

-   Solar integration

-   Weather sensors

-   SDR support

-   Expedition reports

-   Automated logging

Prepared collaboratively by KG4GVL and ChatGPT (Assistant) as a living

design document.

***END***

The App/overall system we develop will be something I hope the ham radio community will support. I've specifically redacted some details from this document so that readers will be curious enough to check out Github when we get the application far enough along that it's useable. 

What do you think? 

Finally, please consider supporting my blog via the paypal link in the upper right hand corner. This will allow me to get some of the hardware and ChatGPT services I'll need to feed this effort.

A special thank you goes to 

1. The SolderSmoke podcast for encouraging me in the design of radio systems.

2. The Ham Radio Workbench podcast for introducing me to some of the tools and design philosophy I'll be using to create this thing.

3. QRP Labs and Hans Summers, G0UPL. His phenomenal line of kits encourage experimentation and use. I love them. Every ham radio operator should own one of his radios. 

Finally, please consider supporting my blog via the paypal link in the upper right hand corner. This will allow me to get some of the hardware and ChatGPT services I'll need to feed this effort.

73,

GB Hoyt KG4GVL.

Different Things, Hamshack, AI Coding

 I've been slowly cleaning my shack, and doing very little operating. I turned the radio on Last Saturday, but all the real hams were at Hamvention, so I didn't hear nuffin'. I'm in the middle of re-finaling my QDX radio, and I did some testing on a 2m J-pole I have for my mobile radio. What I really need is a way to Charge my 10AH SLA battery, so I can power my radio off of that. I probably need a combo current meter and voltage meter.

Yet another project...

I did do some python coding using Chat GPT to help me get a raspberry pi camera to take a picture. My goal with that is to take a pic, post it to a web page, and notify interested parties, perhaps some widget on this blog to indicate that I'm live in the shack. Right now, I've got a script to take a picture, one to take a live video stream (no audio), and I'm working on a very simple app to take a picture and post it to a web page. Here's a couple pictures of my workbench. They are of a streaming video from my Pi Camera. At the bottom of the right corner of the monitor, you can see the Pi, and the camera. I have it pointed at the QRP Labs QDX I'm working on. You can see the empty final pads on the radio on the video monitor. The weird colors in the top image is because of the way the initial script interpreted the RGB values. Once I added a step to convert the RGB values, the colors came through correctly.

First Image, Funky Colors

Ahhh That's better!

I'll probably have to migrate my shack computer to something more heavy duty than the RPI 2b that I've had for about 10 years i guess. I got it from my dad on a trip home for the 4th of July one summer. This has been the most interesting thing I've done with it. I have a RPI 4b now, with 2gig ram. There's a good chance I might do a "cyberdeck" type build in my portable shack box with that one. That's still in the design phase. I think I know what I want with it, to include a bluetooth keyboard, close to full size, battery operation for all the things inside, built in antenna with tuner/feedline. Once I have a system set up, I think it will get easier to make another. The key to what I want is to build around the radio. I've considered building a radio dedicated to this, perhaps 3 band (40/20/15m) all mode (not an optional feature), the on board computer needs to do digital coms and logging for all modes at the same time. 

I sense an Uber Project coming on....

WSPR Fun/Radio Woes

 My shack is an evolving mess. 

I've got several things going on, and plans for the future.

One of these plans involves taking my QRPLabs radios to the field. I have 2 QCX+ radios assembled, one for 40m one for 20m, both are relatively unmodified. The 40m one has a TCXO module installed to help with frequency stability. I have a TCXO for the 20m radio as well. In addition, I have an unmodified (yet)  QDX that I'm working on. I have a bad habit of blowing finals in this radio after about 20 contacts or so, not sure if it's the finnicky nature of the BS-170 finals due to over voltage from my "12v" gel cell battery (measures about 12.8 fully charged), or the finnicky nature of the BS-170 finals due to mismatched swr, even if just a teeeeeny bit. I'm considering a couple mods, one of which is to double up on the BS-170s. the idea being that the strange voltages are better handled  by 8 transistors than 4. People using the QMX series of radios especially seem to like this mod. Another involves installing a diode across L14 to help suppress transient voltages generated during the transmission cycle. Me, I'm thinking of taking my 8xAA battery holder, removing one of the AA batteries, and replacing it with a wire. Should keep me below 12 volts. QDX doesn't do too bad on the current draw department, but it is finnicky when it comes to those finals! The best idea may be to implement Barb, WB2CBA's solution, and just change the final transistor scheme all together. I can solder SMT stuff.... 

All of this is so that I can finally activate a Parks On The Air (POTA) station. My plan is to take  the QCX twins and the QDX to the field, activate a park, and work on fine tuning a station from that. I got a buddy from Church who's also a ham, and who also wants to try POTA in the field too. He's also a boy scout troop leader, and wants to tie that in as well. 

Once I know what I'm doing in the field, I'll get a QMX+ for POTA/general use. I'd even consider selling all my other radios to get it. SSB/CW/DIGI all in one radio, and it's a kit to boot!! Also, I'm waiting for Hans to decide to start shipping them with the 8 BS-170 finals, as opposed to the 4 (please?). 

I did use the QCX twins on WSPR over night, produced some excellent results:

20m WSPR Reports from EL98aa

40m WSPR Reports from EL98aa

I used my QLG-2 GPS satellite receiver to keep my QCX+ 20 in sync with the time. Both stations were set to run from about 11:30 PM local time to 8AM local time (2026-02-07 04:30 to 13:00 UTC). After 8 hours of operation, the QCX+ 40 was ahead of the time disciplined QCX+ 20 by about 8 seconds. Here's a picture, right before I halted operations 40's on the bottom, 20's on the top:

QCX+ 40 Lives IN THE FUTURE!

So I guess I'll need to figure out how to get two wires from the QLG-2 to the radios to sync the time.

Speaking of the QLG-2, it's a neat bit of cheap kit! I did make one mistake though, and soldered the header connector for the LCD display on the wrong side of the board. After asking the QRP Labs Group.IO guys, I figured out how to desolder the header and reset on the correct side. now it's good to go! Just need to figure out a case for it so i can pack it in the POTA station. 

Anyway,

ham radio priority 1 is a POTA activation.

ham radio priority 2 is to repair my Kenwood TS-140s station, starting with the Power Supply. My high power power supply is broken, and it looks like it's beyond me as far as fixing it goes right now. It pops fuses. I think that means something is wrong with the huge MOSFETS attached to the back or maybe it's as simple as a failed MOV. Not sure, and I don't think i have all the tools i need to check it out to fix anyway. I'll probably just buy a new Power supply, because I need stable 13.8 volts at 20Amps for my base radios at minimum. Once I have power again, I'll  need to replace all the electrolytic capacitors in my TS-140s. It's a great radio, but it's gotten squirrely on me. All indications indicate it needs new capacitors. And a new memory battery. Both of those are easy, if tedious fixes. Battery may be the hardest things to fix, it's a CR2025, but the OEM replacement needs two thick wires tack welded directly to the battery, which then gets soldered onto the board. I don't think i need to do all that, I mean, I can buy a replacement off ebay fairly inexpensively. Old solder can be stubborn though... Someone please buy me some chipquik solder to help these stubborn old joints flow.

I have other ham radio plans too, but until these two priorities are met, Everything else is on the way back burner.

More QDX Progress, More QCX Spots, and Repairs.

 

After solving my no spots problem by hooking the antenna in the right place, I moved on to further experiments, in anticipation of having a GPS to hook into the radios. I decided to run the QCX+20 and QCX+40 to their respective antennas, and see if i could get spots on both systems.

It worked!

KG4GVL, that's me!. I decided to shut down after about 24hrs of operation and continue work on the QDX. I installed more iron donuts, until I only had one left to do. It's a trifilar (three wires tightly wrapped together) transformer. More about that below... Then I reviewed the alignment and operation procedures. I need to decide what computer to run with it. I'll probably start with my home laptop, just to get it working, aligned, and post some QSOs with RTTY, maybe even try some FT-8 and FT-4. Eventually, I'll have this in my POTA station, paired with a raspberry PI for logging and operations. 

In the mean time, I've got some cleaning up to do in the shack. I just got a package from QRP Labs with some excellent goodies inside:

• a GLG2 GPS receiver for the QCX boys
• a couple TCXO boards for my 20m and unassembled 40m rig
• a couple volume Pots. Notice the missing volume knob on the top radio in the vid above? it went bad, and the one in my unassembled kit came broke in transit.

I've started assembling the GLG2, had some minor setback getting an SMA connector on the board, but i have a plan for that.

I also decided to just finish the QDX. There was so little work left on it. I got it done, then after making sure it didn't blow up with power applied, I brought it inside. It sat around a day or two, then I decided to figure out if it worked. I got a battery pack of AA batteries, and hooked it up. It turned on, and after downloading WSJT-X for Windows, I got the radio connected, hooked up to a dummy load, and listening around. It works!

I even have proof:

This screenshot shows WSJT-X with my QDX hooked up, decoding myself! It was a rush to receive my signal. I'm transmitting with my QCX+ in the shack, and here I am at the kitchen table, hearing myself with a dummy load!

Perfect.

Now on to more ham radio shenanigans.

QDX Progress, Tuning with Nano VNA, and You're Never Too Broke to Pay Attention

A few related experimental thoughts....

Improving the performance of my QCX+ on 40m in WSPR beacon mode is a goal of mine. Over the past month, you've seen the blog posts here. I started by doing a simple tune up of my antenna (or so I thought), then transmitting during a time when propagation was expected to be poor due to a geomagnetic storm. I got the expected poor performance.

The next evening, i changed nothing and turned the radio on. I started getting better spots, but nothing amazing.

The third night I ran the experiment, I got my Nano VNA out and spent about 20 minutes tweaking the controls on the MFJ-941E to get the best match  possible.

 I should have realized something was up, because while this wire is usually difficult to tune on 40m, it was being especially so. 

Hmmmmm 

in the mean time, while I was waiting on spots to trickle in, I heated up the soldering station and wound some iron donuts for the QRP Labs QDX I bought a little while ago. 

This radio will feature in my efforts to get on the air as a Park activator in Parks On The Air. It's 5 bands, and does many digital modes including RTTY, and FT-8. My plan is to build a shack in a box, with the QDX, my QCXs, and at least one Raspberry Pi running some sort of radio software. Eventually I'll move from the QCXs and change them to a QMX+. More research and saving  is needed!

Consider hitting the paypal donate button above, and label it "QMX fund" :D

or just send me new Yaesu FTX-1 "Field" . that would be good too.

After installing a couple iron donuts, I checked the spotting network, and saw not much.

I decided to look a little closer, starting with the antenna wire, tracing the signal backwards so to speak.

• The antenna is still in the air
• it comes inside
• it's plugged into the tuner.
• in the wrong spot

What?

 I had the wire hooked into a coax plug, not the long wire plug of the tuner.

that means I tuned the tuner to NO ANTENNA. and I still got SOME spots.

not as many as I should, but there you had it.

After correcting that minor issue, I had a lot more fun getting spots.

I set the beacon on, and let it run over night, getting a lot better results.

From:

To:

to:

To Finally:

worldwide on 40m WSPR! 

Five watts to an end fed antenna about 85 feet long.

One of the things I've tried to teach my kids over the years is "you're never too broke to pay attention". That day, I learned that lesson again.

Worked All States

 24 years a ham, and I've not accomplished Worked All States (WAS).

Right now I sit at 47 confirmed states in LOTW.

WAS is a serious challenge for me, and the three states I have left present logistical and technical problems.

First, let's consider the most curious of the 3, Vermont. This is a state where I have multiple QSOs, but only paper QSLs. I guess no one in VT uses Logbook of the World.

crazy!

Second is the state with only a few Hams, South Dakota. There's only around 2100, but the guys there are working, not hammin' it seems on the the weekend.

The third is the state that is pretty far from me, Alaska. It's the most challenging technically. This is mostly due to Aurora effects, and the geomagnetic eccentricities of the planet. I have only heard an AK station once or twice. I think it's a little funny I have a confirmed QSO with Hawaii but not Alaska.

go figure.

gotta just keep pluggin' away. Sooner or later, in the middle of this sunspot peak, we've got to catch a break.

Until then, I'll be happy to hunt POTA stations. Parks on the Air is one of those groups that exists because of the internet. It also makes ham radio fun for a lot of people, including me. I haven't activated a park yet, but I'm working on creating a station just for that. It will have portable logging, and be entirely self contained. I will be able to open the lid, take out and deploy an antenna, tune it up with a VNA, turn on the radio and get on the air!

Ten QSOs later and I fulfill my mission.

Lunchtime Ham Radio Shenanigans

Antenna over the edge

 Today (2024-02-02) on my lunch break,  I managed a QSO with Vern (NJ8L) in Newark, OH! Our QSO with each other count is up to three! The first 2 times look like SKCC contest QSOs on 40m. He confirmed both of those with me, so I look forward to the new band confirmation. 

Happy Face Due to Great QSO

Here's The scoop: while contemplating participation in the yearly FYBO event this weekend,  I decided to go ahead and bring a radio to work to test my setup.  I used my QCX+ on 20m running about 3 watts. During my lunch break, I set up in about five minutes, and called CQ, an EFHW (End Fed Half Wave) antenna carrying RF into the ether. The antenna I used might be this one: EFHW Part 3 Bigger is Better? It certainly is at least the same design RF wise.

I did receive some spots, but not a lot. I also tuned a little bit, and heard NJ8P calling CQ at 14.061 MHz. I answered and we conversated for a couple minutes before I returned to my desk. Tomorrow, I might just make it outside to Freeze my Buns off. 

I'll be seein' you on the air!

Antenna Grounding and Feedback

So I have a new shack, and with a new shack comes new problems.

Right now the issue seems to be feedback getting back to the radio and causing interference to the radio. I've got two antennas up, and there's a third I scrapped.

First antenna up was a 20m Off Center Fed Dipole (OCFD), I used a 4:1 W2DU balun at whatever ratio (1:3 I think?) the online plans told me. Results were middlin' and I think it caused some problems. I definitely could have used an antenna analyzer to help me deploy that. I've scrapped it for now, the housing for the balun came unglued, so it will need some work. There's also some debate as to whether i need a voltage balun or current balun, or possibly both here. Honestly most of the documentation i've found about OCFDs sounds more like magic than easily replicable  science. I don't know. I'll try again in the future, but I also need to take another look at my skeleton slot fed dual band dipole project I started a loooooong time ago, but never finished. I'll apparently need a ferrite bead current balun for that.

Then I deployed a long wire. It's half an 80m dipole. it's doing OK, but is very tuning touchy. I don't know if that's because my station ground is lacking, or what. Right now, my ground is simply the return to main. I'm sure that's part of the issue, but I'm not sure what to do about it. I am tempted to run a wire to the ground rod outside that's from the old shack. My latest research on station grounding has me second guessing that though. 

My third antenna is a 20m Delta loop. It's served me well in the past. I have it deployed as a nearly equilateral triangle with 450ohm ladder line. I've tuned everything from 20 and up, and had some nice contacts. It gives me the least amount of feedback, and to get the feedback to stop, all I have to do is turn the power down a little.

That's it for now, a tour of my shack and projects.

lots to do.

Satellite Thrills

 In October of last year, I managed my first confirmed OSCAR contact. OSCAR stands for "Orbiting Satellite Carrying Amateur Radio". So far it's been awesome and heartbreaking, like everything else I do in ham radio, LOL.

First Pass Where I Made a QSO

My gear, a Kenwood TH-G71a and Baofeng GT-3

 

Things I've learned so far:

• Weekend operations are a challenge. It's hard to hit the FM birds with a 5w HT and rubber duck antenna, even if the antenna is a "gain" antenna. Persistence and high angle passes are essential.
• Don't forget to QSL! Lots of people are on LOTW, and confirming your contacts for awards is easy.
• Move around a little. People like it when you activate different places.
• The satellite community is an amazing group. They all know each other, and have been very welcoming to me so far.
• Everyone gets testy when the birds get swamped. It helps to take a minute to listen.

 Projects I need to do for the birds:

• Hand held tape measure yagi. I'm pretty close to achieving this. I've built a tape measure antenna for 2m before, and  have cut the booms, I have a tape measure, and need some dowel rods, and other odds and ends.
• Really could use a Yaesu FT-818. Actually could use two ( the "Yaesu FT-1636" ) to work the linear birds. I especially want to work AO-7.
  
• It would be nice if i could get my mobile radio working again to get 10w into AO-27. 

Here's where I've worked and activated so far:

 

it's pretty common for people to use a grid tracker spreadsheet to mark what they have.

So far, I've worked 3 countries (USA, Panama, and Mexico) with my HT's. I can't wait to work something else!