PowerSDR seems to be working!

For some reason I couldn't hit any beacons in JT65, however I realized for some reason my sound card was outputting strangely to PowerSDR when I monitored it from a 2nd PC.  THe JT65A transmission was duplicated all over the waterfall.  I dropped the output to mono and it fixed it, weird.  Though mono breaks PSK31.  Good news is I finally hit some beacons for the first time for JT65A and PSK31.  Starting to feel better that this is working correctly after some of the issues I've gone thru.  I also like the new PowerSDR 1.19.3.15 from SV1EIA which seems to be pretty stable on my system.

PSK31 and JT65 monitors

VE3ODZ-1 (FN03ha) Heard KB1MTS(FN42) on 3576.50 KHz -10dB at 01:47:00Z using JT65A

N9DSJ-2 (En52ti) Heard KB1MTS(FN42) on 3576.50 KHz -14dB at 01:47:00Z using JT65A

New PowerSDR

Finally have transmit working!

Well after working with Alex and a couple other's (thanks for the help!), I finally got the calibrate and transmit working with the Motherboard.  I was  seeing 8.6v on the adjust line input on the LM317 adjustable regulator.  After doing a lot of trouleshooting, I found that due to all the adjustments I was making with the heatsink, one of the pins had broken and was making poor contact.  Once I resoldered the pin, all the problems went away.  My next challenge is to get it mounted into a case :)

Hopefully make my first contacts this weekend...

Logic Analyzers are your friend...

Just wanted to post about how handy a logic analyzer can be.  Last Saturday spent several hours trying to debug why the SPI output to a HT1632 LED controller was working on my Arduino but couldn't get it working with my PIC.  After spending a few minutes with the logic analzyer and decoding the bits coming up from the PC that were true SPI, I then connected it to the Arduino and noticed the output there was NOT SPI per the LED documentation but just simple bit banging.  This also identified my ouput was noisey and not correctly switching the bits states to low.  After sorting out the output settings on the PIC and switching the port to the correct output mode, I can now finally communicate with the LED controller.  Definitely recommend the USB SX module... good price and great features (including 1wire, SPI and I2C decoding.)

Hardest soldering job of my life so far...

Feeling pretty good right now, just finished soldering one of the hardest devices I have ever done so far... A Microchip PIC18F97J60 100pin TQFP surface mount PIC.  Used the solder wick method, and only issue I had was one pin near the bottom shifted a bit due to too much pressure with the solder wick.  However was able to move it over carefully with a needle and the PIC fired up and is running my program. Now whether I find one of the ports dead 6mos from now is another story...  The pins are about the size if the "I" in the word "LIBERTY" on a penny.

Watch out for P20 and K1!

Just a heads up for those putting the boards together... I hope this will save someone else's sanity :-)  Make sure there are jumpers on both P20, and K1 (pin 1 and pin 2.)  P20 enables the 12v side to enable receive and transmit.  K1 controls transmit, so if pin 1 and pin 2 are open (not jumpered), it will instantly get stuck in transmit.  After a couple of hours of frustration, I remembered this the hard way...

PowerSWR Annotated

I attached some temporary jumpers now for testing, they will be replaced later when I have my SMA connectors to make cables.

Note on the drawing below, P1 and P2 are both single windings meaning only one pass thru of a wire larger than 30 gauge.  S1 and S2 are 13 windings of 30 gauge wire.  Also be careful with the pins for the header as pin 1 and pin 3 are reversed on the motherboard versus the Power SWR board.  When in doubt, look for ground with a meter, and work from there when figuring out pin numbers.

Minifilter Set A annotated

160m

80m

40m

20m

17/15m

12/10m

Annotated Toroid locations

I hope these help, they are from my notes so I believe they are correct, if anyone spots any mistakes, please let me know and I can update them:

 

T2 (top)

T3 (top)

T4 (top)

T5 (top)

Toroid orientations from a previos post (top)

Motherboard with SI570 calibrated

Nice to see everything is where it is supposed to be... 

PowerSDR calibrated against WWV

Filter example

Attached is an example of one of my filters, in this case it's the 160m.  Really no importance to colors other than to show what ones I ended up using with minifilter set A.

Filters added and first receive test

I will have to take some better photos of the filters (sorry for the awful pic), but it's working :-)  Now that receive is running, next challenge is to get transmit working.

Bench testing

Nice to see some stations on the waterfall

Time for testing and filters

Well connected it back to the SoftRock, and so far no flames, and the test looks good below.  Can't wait to get the replacement U4 so I can see the voltage. Time to start making a filter or two to test receive before moving on to the last bit for transmit.