Got a lot finished up this week……………………………………………..

As always, first the chronology:

1/15/23 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to church with Kathy.  Home and lunch.  Polished shoes then downstairs to do the blog.  Up and a nap then out to the shop to check and start MIke’s car.  Brought the truck over and took Kathy to the Longhorn Steakhouse for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

1/16/23 – Monday – Up at the usual time.  Kathy went off to shop with her daughter this morning.  I downloaded some technical documents and head to the shack.  Took a break for lunch.  Then back to continue work.  Everything is good except the accuracy of the test equipment is not what it should be.  I’ll need to work around that before I finalize things.  Kathy and Julie came home.  Julie took Mike’s car back up to their house.  That was a good thing.  We ordered Chinese from the place near Kroger since the place in Taylorsville is closed on Monday.  Food was not as good as Taylorsville but it was food.  Then a shower before bed and in bed to watch a movie.

1/17/23 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time.  Chores around the house.  Kathy went to her woman’s church group and I played in the shack all day.  Managed to get the circuit finished up so my Arduino will measure and read out on a LCD display the voltage of a battery.  Got the drawings all done.  Had dinner then did some banking.  Otherwise the usual evening routine.

1/18/23 – Wednesday – Up a little late today.  Chores around the house then down to the shack and I got the differential amplifier working with the Arduino.  All is good.  Out to dinner with the Kennedy’s for Patrick’s birthday.  Then usual evening routine.

1/19/23 – Thursday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and down to get my hair cut.  Back and picked up Kathy and up to Costco to do some shopping.  Stopped at Bob Evans on the way home for lunch.  Home and unloaded the stuff and put the truck away.  Took a nap and worked in the shack.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

1/20/23 – Friday – Up at the usual time.  Down to the office to deal with insurance companies.  Kathy was out for a dermatology appointment.  Worked on radios and amplifiers.  Got a lot done.  Also used the treadmill twice today.  Usual evening routine.

1/21/23 – Saturday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and down to the shack.  Finished breaking down the Fender Amp from church and got to the cooling fan.  Ordered one for $9 and it’s from China so shipping will be $18.  Did some research on Allstar and sent Alex a email to see what his thoughts are.  Had a great dinner.  Otherwise, usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

Mike took my advice and parked his Land Rover in the Morton building and continued to drive the Vibe. Bad mistake on my part. I had to check on it and sure as shit the battery died. So I was stuck putting a new battery in it. He had Julie drive it home Monday and they got it turned in this week. Still don’t have a car for him yet but they are looking. At least we are rid of the Land Rover. Don’t buy one.

If I haven’t mentioned it before, I’m working on a Go Box. What is that you might ask? Well, it’s a box with radios in it that you can cart out to anywhere and operate on various frequencies. Several reason you might want to do that. First in the event of a natural disaster and backup systems have not been deployed yet. Second, every year we exercise our portable stuff in the HAM community in what is called Field Day. You take your radios out to the field and operate for 24 hours. Third, we have a thing called POTA. Parks on the Air. You take you equipment out to a National or State park and operate from there. People look for you and at times you can have multiple people calling at the same time. So why do I mention this? Well I have the spare HF radio and some stuff to go with it. I got my battery for Christmas. I need a box for it all to mount in and antenna. I’m looking toward tax refund time for that. In the mean time I am building the circuits to use commercial AC and have battery backup so if the AC fails the battery will automatically take over the load. Then the microprocessor will watch the battery voltage and if it starts getting to low it will shut things down before there is damage to the battery. And if in the mean time the AC comes back, it will automatically recharge the battery and have it ready for the next event.

So I’ve got the monitor circuits working and sent for the MOSFET transistors to switch the DC. That’s a challenge because it might be as high as 20 amps at 12 volts or higher. Anyway, it’s a fun challenge.

Our friends Patrick and Leeta had dinner with us at Cattleman’s Steakhouse on Wednesday evening. We took them out to celebrate Patrick’s birthday and to thank them both for all they do for us.

Another project I’m working on is replacing the fan in a portable sound system we use at church. It’s made by Fender, the same people that make the guitars. Anyway, it was a real pain to get into it. They had this rubber cement all over everything. I assume to keep it from vibrating apart. But I got it apart Saturday and confirmed that the fan was bad. I found one online for $9 but it is in China. So it will take awhile (Probably several weeks) before I’ll get it. In the mean time the amp will be in pieces all over the dinette table.

Last but not least. Leeta told me Wednesday evening that they want the repeater here in Spencer County put on the Allstar network. So I started looking into that. I have an email for our friend Alex who does their IT stuff looking at it. If he is OK with it I’ll order the material and get started on that.

Well I think that sums up the week. As always, hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Stay that way. Blog at you again next week.