SolderSmoke Podcast #171 is available:
http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke171.mp3
Bench Report:
Pete’s Small Screens (in Color!)
Si5351s
Bill’s Graph Paper Frequency Readout
Bill’s Broadened Barebones Barbados RX. DIGITIZED!
Another AD9850 DDS using M0XPD Kanga UK Shield
New 13 dollar Color Display (Prettier than Graph paper!)
Pete and Ben’s Article in QRP Quarterly Available free here:
http://www.qrparci.org/qqsampl
The DEEP SPIRITUAL REWARDS of DC Receivers
The Importance of Good Power Supplies
SPRAT Article on HW8 Design Error
Latest Edition of Hot Iron
Elecraft KX3 — Has one of the best receivers in the world
Our book: “SolderSmoke — Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics” http://soldersmoke.com/book.htm Our coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmoke Our Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20
Hey guys. Great show as always. I’ve really enjoyed listening to SolderSmoke. Having first gotten into microcontrollers, CPLDs and embedded systems, before discovering the beauty of building RF circuits, I feel like expressing something using the words of To quote Shahriar (from TheSignalPath) that he spoke during his interview on TheAmpHour episode #228: “My only fear with the arduino ecosystem is that sometimes it can give people the wrong impression that they have accomplished something, but in reality they haven’t. Even though the outcome is very impressive but they didn’t do that. The outcome is just a part of the ecosystem they became a part of, its not what they did.” I encourage you to listen to the full episode, he is a brilliant man and an amazing RF engineer. It’s just not the same as homebrewing. It’s different if you write the libraries and build the controllers yourself, but just copying and pasting other peoples code together, editing a few variables, failing to give them credit even and then acting like you’ve built something on your own is silly. I’m not saying that you have done any of this and nothing against the arduino, it is a fantastic tool that many use to get a start in electronics. I think its really cool that you guys integrate it into ham radio too! I’ve been really inspired by the builds you guys discuss. But lets try and keep perspective here. It is YOUR show, and I don’t want to discourage you from speaking about what you enjoy. I just had to get that off my chest. I’m sure my logic is flawed. Arduino will eventually bore you, so its best to just do it and get it out of your system. 🙂 So please, don’t read my words as angry or hateful in anyway. I still have a lot to learn about homebrewing RF circuits, so I’m going to start listening to the older SolderSmoke episodes until this arduino stuff is out of your system. Keep up the good work and please don’t be discouraged. Maybe no one else feels this way but I felt the need to share this perspective which I sincerely hope wasn’t too rash or rude. Saludos
Pete ….i started 🙂