When Good Caps Go Bad

I've been helping out the guys in Springfield, IL get the W9DUA DSTAR gateway back up and running. We were successful reviving it after some Linux magic and Google-foo I performed a few weeks ago. We did notice that the server would reboot occasionally. Weird, but hey this is amateur radio not public safety.

After a few more hiccups it was time to investigate. Steve, K9CZ brought the server to me to take a closer look. After putting it on the bench and doing some more testing, I got to the point where I could scare it into a reboot on demand. Nothing in the logs, memory was properly seated, Dell diagnostics all passed, and reverting the last OS patch didn't help.

Hmmm....looking around some more...I found these four capacitors on this Dell SC440 motherboard. Yep, they are toast. Something bad has happened in this server's past. I yanked the hard drive and have it in a new machine now...after some more testing it should be back up and running by the weekend.

When capacitors go bad, bad things happen.

WAS most wanted?

This weekend I finally snagged Nevada. Not one of the smallest states in the US, but certainly one that has been elusive to me since getting back into HF in 2013. I had worked a ham in Nevada earlier last year, but my multiple requests for LoTW or a paper card fell into the noise. But this weekend I worked a Nevada station that promised a paper card straight away.

This got me to thinking...with the magic list of DXCC most wanted, is there a WAS most wanted list? I worked every state and received quick confirmations in short order except for Delaware and Nevada. And watching the psk streams go by, I sure see a lot of people asking for NV, and DE. Of course, it depends on where you're located.

Raspberry Pi Sales > 5 Million

This is pretty huge. With a goal of selling a few thousand computers....this UK group has now surpassed 5M in sales of the Raspberry Pi. This is a very small, fully functioning computer. I've got 4 of these doing various tasks around town. They are amazing little things.

http://techcrunch.com/2015/02/17/raspberry-pi-sales-pass-5-million/

KN0WCW - working the FISTS USA Club

I'm back up and running on HF after getting purchasing a very lightly used KX3 from Elecraft to replace my smoked radio! The radio arrived last Wednesday and I was back on the air that night. I've made a few casual contacts using various digital modes. I even worked K1N late in the week with 12 watts with CW on 20M. While not truly QRP, it does show that you don't need a kilowatt to bust a pileup!

Also a notable contact was with KN0WCW/2 - that's KNOW CW - the club call for the FISTS CW Club NA Chapter. Cody was the operator of the night from 2 land. I was slightly embarrassed even answering his call...my CW is rookie level at best, even with the great keyer on the KX3. I couldn't get the /2 to come out right no matter what I did! Cody hung in there with me and we had a nice QSO. I didn't keep him too long so he could log some more. Good job there Cody!

A Fun Weekend

The weekend started with a great surprise on Friday at lunchtime. My good friend Dennis KE9UA invited me over to his QTH to try to work K1N. Dennis is a serious DXer. The picture above shows the gorgeous SteppIR in his backyard. This picture was taken as I headed out after working K1N on my first call. Yep, barefoot at 100 watts on 20m. What a hoot! I smiled the rest of the weekend, and I'm smiling now writing this three days later.

Saturday morning brought me back to the big city to take a look at the WX9WX dstar machine. Coverage wasn't as good as expected, and because of the great logging of the G4KLX software I could see that we had a problem. The duplexer we were using wasn't providing enough isolation, resulting in receiver desense. I usually check this when building a new system but somehow forgot this step this time. A quick swap to a much better duplexer and the problem was solved.

Sunday was a day of rest...church then grilling of steaks, took a nap, then tinkered in the barn until it was too cold to be outside. A nice 2M net with friends on the Clinton IL repeater rounded out a fun weekend. I love this hobby!