Though my mind, all night, was full of thoughts of what I could do with radio today, when morning came around I was just not feeling all that energetic, so I didn’t head out for a park.
I hooked up the outdoor EFRW antenna to the Pebble HF and tried tuning across the band, starting at 14000 in CW mode, changing over to SSB as I got up to the top end; then back down; back up and down again and yet again, trying different modes and filter settings. I heard nothing but birdies, birdies wide and narrow, birdies of many tones, close together, one after another as the S-meter read S5 to S9 with static. There might have been a tiny faint CW signal once, around 14047. I tried a different wire antenna with similar results.
As a check of radio conditions I hooked up a (tr)uSDX to the same antennas and heard both CW and SSB signals as expected. Background noise S2 – S3. Now I am puzzled. What’s going on here?
Though the UI menus work, and it transmits all right, my first impulse is to suspect a hiccup somewhere in the firmware; it’s a Software Defined Radio after all. I’m glad I bought the ISP programmer; now I need to download the latest firmware, make up a header-to-header jumper, and read up on exactly how to make the transfer. Pretty sure programming via ISP is a different procedure than flashing a (tr)uSDX via the USB port. Do I still use avrdudess?
Well, there’s this, from the Pebble HF Documentation page:
Getting that PC board back out of the case is kind of scary … it snaps into place when you put it in and press down, but there isn’t much you can get a grip on to remove it again. The BNC connector is the only handle, and using it to pry the board free bends the board alarmingly before it finally unsnaps.
Well, more about this later, I guess; watch for an update, and thanks for visiting!
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