The Amp Hour Electronics Podcast

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The Amp Hour #142 – Kickstarter, IndieGoGo & Ignite – Jasperated Jimswinger Jobbery

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[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sWrFqvRvC4k[/tube]

  • Chris will try to check out the museum at Edwards Wright-Patterson Air Force Base.
  • Chris will be on the lookout for mullets in Dayton. They and rat tails characterize wonky hairstyles from the 80s.
  • Dave just did his Ignite talk in Sydney about videoblogging

[tube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XwAVYbV5rLk[/tube]


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Comments

  1. radio: Dave is wrong (as always) 😀
    Baofeng uv-b5
    ~$43-50 including shipping

    http://hamgear.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/review-baofeng-uv-b5-baofeng-uv-b6/
    http://www.brickolore.com/2013/01/baofeng-uv-b5-best-kept-secret.html

    Currently the best of sub $100 radios. You can bounce FSK off ISS with it 🙂
    I even saw some Hams compare it to older kenwoods/icoms and it came on top 😮
    small tip – dont order usb programming cable, its just an ordinary usb-to-serial 3.3V that will set you back $6, better to eat a good chocolate for that money 🙂

    Mu camera: HaHa, called it on hackaday in _third_ comment 😛 The closest Chinese sensor with same resolution is >$500.
    I also called Ouya and it looks like its gonna deliver :/ But at least half a year too late to be relevant. Chinese are already shipping $45 Android TV dongles with better specs based on RK3188 (4 core A9 + faster GPU). Mobile is moving so fast Tegra 3 will be too slow for any gaming in a year.

    poll: as IBM discovered a long time ago safest bet is going into Support 🙂 One off custom designs/solutions pay the best.

    • I think Dave is right, but not in the way you mean. Cheap high performance gear from China is bad for ham radio. Great for communicating by RF, but bad for the ham traditions of using something you developed or adapted yourself, and in the process learned something.

      • Dont know about that. Plenty of people hack those Chinese radios to bits. You have schematics flying around, chip datasheets, source code for alternative firmwares, hardware mods fixing shoddy Chinese “engineering” (usually cost cutting attempts that end up removing vital parts like caps from harmonic filters hehe).
        They are great to quickly and cheaply ‘get your boots on the ground’.

        • Yup, rasz has it right. I’m not going to just go build a radio first. I need to get comfortable first. That’s like handing someone a box of parts as a beginner and telling them to make an MCU dev board or handing them an Arduino and telling them to go figure out WHY they should want to go build their own (once they have realized the power of having electronics on hand).

          • Well, except for a few minor details.

            This is the route many take after getting their ticket, me included. However, 2m/70cm FM is a chat room for the most part and only supports a few limited digital modes. If you are into ARES or SkyWarn or events coordination for example, this is all good. It’s no coincidence though that teens, such as Scouting troops, are first shown the HF bands – as the thrill of making intercontinental QSOs is powerful marketing juice. Plus, HF offers all the Digital modes and much more. Don’t get me wrong, I like 2m weak signal and want to explore EME, but HF is where it’s at.

            Building a kit is a rewarding experience. It will give you an excuse to solder, challenge yourself in terms of how well and how fast you can do the kit (100+ component kits that is) and will leave you with a very functional piece of equipment, albeit QRP. If you learn Morse code, or build a SSB rig to use for say PSK-31, you will get a lot of fun hours out of that 5W transceiver. Antennas are a non-issue because you have the attic at a minimum if your neighbors (or Wife) frown on anything in the backyard, or you just don’t have a backyard for a 40m dipole.

            At the same time, purchasing and fixing-up an old Icom/Yaesu as Dave suggested is another part of what Ham radio is all about.

            • I agree, I plan to pick up a bargain buy at the Hamfest. Hopefully the boat anchor (as Greg Charvat refers to them) can be made to work eventually 😀

  2. Chris, we are buying you a rig at Hamvention! A General Class with no rig is like a EE working in the clothing business. Cue Sam Kinison screaming clip….

  3. I wonder how they will do with the Mu Camera “without the complicated optics” which is often just a single Germanium lens (still not too cheap). Hilarious how he is talking about ditching the most expensive parts: In fact this would apply to termal imaging sensor and the optics. After removing that a TIC is rather an expensive low volume low resolution camera thats mainly more expensive than a consumer camera because of the low volume (often FPGA based).
    Hes talking about hiring another SW guy? I bet they are tinkering with the phone sw and don’t have a clue of the HW challenge they’re up to.
    And the legal challenge: This thing must be fixed to 9Hz or lower frame rate, otherwise selling to civilians will get nasty, even to their listed countries.

    I bet their short schedule only tells when the shit will hit the fan

  4. Dave & Chris, I was really surprised when I was mentioned on this weeks show during “Workbench of the Week”. Just to be clear I have a Hitachi V-152B 15MHz analog oscilliscope not a Tektronics.

    The other equipment in the picture includes a HP 333A Distortion Analyzer, Sound Technology ST1000A FM Alignment Generator, Cenco Audio Oscillator (1965 with vacuum tubes) Fluke 8050A DMM and Fluke 1900A Frequency Counter.

    Since the picture was take I’ve added a HP 8640B Signal Generator and a Leader LAG125 Audio Generator.

    In case anyone is interested, my bench is often messy by the end of a project. Everyone can get an idea of the work I do by visiting my web site http://www.faultlineaudio.net

    Thanks
    Chris
    Chris

  6. maybe thinking of Indians that they live only in slums is not the right thing , I am from India and i feel bad about this :/

    • We agree that’s not the right thing. The stereotype Dave was referring to was that we were taking advantage of less fortunate people, not that everyone in India lives in slums.

  7. Chris,

    While you’re in Dayton, make sure to go downtown to Mendelsons, and go to the third floor. It’s a massive surplus store of electronic equipment and parts. Also, the first floor has everything you’d ever want to setup a chemistry lab too.

    – Craig

  8. Light pens are also one of the biggest tech cringes in movies – Die Hard 2, when the bad guy uses a light pen to move the horizon position so the plane crashes.

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