@ekvin @tindall

Oh. That website is giving me *ideas.* Along the lines of what @woozle wants. Mostly because about a month ago the clock in my lab decided it should be four hours off. I'm not even sure I can tell it not to use WWV, so I think it'll always be off.

@woozle @tindall

*waves*

Alas, I don't have any radios set up anymore. The migraine kind of killed that hobby. Nowadays I mostly play around with electronics. They (usually) make less noise.

@vfrmedia @grimmware @SetecAstronomy

Yeah. I learned to read the status lights instinctively. And while some of the other techs only used their portable radio when they needed it, I tended to have mine any time I was poking things.

There was also this amazing piece of software for those older systems that would decode the control channel from a scanner or other receiver, and show you all the talkgroup-channel assignments. It was a nice way to keep an eye on the health of the system. Especially if you were messing about.

@vfrmedia @grimmware @SetecAstronomy

Those "oopsie" moments are always fun...

When I was a 2-way radio tech, my mentor was explaining the proper reverence to treat a particular piece of kit with, and how he had accidentally evacuated the entire county courthouse one day (with court in session) by setting off the appropriate tone on the tornado siren...

I know I did something big and oops, but my memory is being a jerk and refusing to tell me what it is. Probably accidentally rolled a customer (ie: an entire county) over to their backup controller without coordinating with them first or something. *Everything* on the radio system goes down for a minute or so when you do that. Panicked phone calls happen. It's ... fun.

Apparently it's field day.

Oops.

If I miss one more they're going to take away my license /s

@adamd Wish I had known about that tool when I was a radio tech. I was into all sorts of monitoring stuff for the sake of satisfying my own curiosity. One of my fellow techs would have *loved* this. He was big on keeping track of his local goings-on.

Having seen it all reassembled, I'm rather wishing I had gone with 1.2k or 1.5k for the resistor, to dim the light a little more. But if it's a real problem in the car I can always put it back on the bench and do it again.

I have a CB radio in the car, a radio I've owned forever. But it's got just the right balance of features and not-too-fancy that I always end up using it if I try anything else. Well, the car went in for service the other week and I took it and the amateur radio control head out because I thought they might have to pull the center console for troubleshooting. They didn't, but the radio has been sitting on the floor in here for about a week now. And I was reminded that the back light for the RF/SWR meter has been burnt out for ... probably longer than it's worked, at this point. (Yeah, I've had this radio a while.)

So after some disassembly I determined it was using a small 12v incandescent bulb, as I suspected. The filament long gone. Thankfully the bulb was mounted in a little silicone insert/diffuser making it really easy to remove from the meter in the radio. I acquired some 3mm warm-white LEDs, and with the help of a 1k resistor, replaced the burnt out bulb.

Knowing that I'd probably not have any spoons free when the new GPS receiver arrived, I went ahead and found the pinouts for it (it uses a mini-din 6 connector) and made up an adapter to connect it to the existing DE-9 adapter that plugs into the radio. It needed a +5v power source, so I just cut the old power adapter off the dead Garmin and wired it in.

Well, some fool* dismantled the interior of the entire rear half of my car. So I guess I get to go put that back together now.

*Me. I am that fool.

Once the antennas were reinstalled, I hooked the NanoVNA to the CB antenna and swept it. It wasn't quite centered perfectly on channel 19, but it was close enough. The best SWR was around 1.3:1. Re-connecting the radio and calibrating it's internal SWR meter showed that for channel 19 it was about 1.5:1. Much better than the 3:1 or 4:1 I was seeing before.

I did notice when I swept it, that I would have better SWR on the higher frequency channels than the lower. If I ever get involved in a real conversation I'll have to keep that in mind. But I mostly use it to listen to what's going on on the road.

I did not sweep the 2M/440 antenna, as it terminated in the trunk and both antennas were also mounted on the trunk lid. I would have had to fold both back seats down, and at the moment the bottom seat cushion for the back seat still needs to be reinstalled from the whole GPS debacle.

Overall I am happy with where things are now. Just waiting for the new GPS receiver to arrive.

Having success there, and a desire to avoid further contortionist acts that anything on the interior of a car requires, I moved on to the antennas.

Simply removing the antennas caused one of the NMO mounts to come apart. I'm pretty sure when Dad has removed and reinstalled the antennas in the past, he's over-tightened the antennas, which will lead to this.

Once I had everything apart, I cleaned the trunk lid around the antennas thoroughly. I put rain caps on them when I visit the car wash, and they cover an area around the mounts as well.

Having done all that, I carefully reassembled the mounts. I lack the fancy tool to keep the center of an NMO mount from spinning when tightening the outer nut, but I've found that a pair of tiny needle-nose pliers works wonders. Especially the curved kind. I cranked down on the nut on each mount as much as I dared, without crushing the integrated washer and grinding it into the trunk lid. Hopefully they wont come lose again.

Both speakers are fixed for the amateur radio in the car. Initial fiddling found that one worked if I jiggled with the cables. The one that didn't ... I had a flawed testing methodology, so it very well may have.

Both speakers used a short custom 3.5mm mono to RCA adapter that I had made, and both were made with some really nasty looking audio cable I salvaged from who knows what. The kind that's hard to solder because it's half plastic on the inside.

So I just outright replaced them. New wire (just some zip cord, it's not like noise is an issue) and new connectors. I also took care to not overheat the 3.5mm connectors when soldering them, as that has a tendency to make them go intermittent (they were cheap, and the plastic insulating the various conductors isn't as heat resistant as it should be IMO).

Everything seemed to be fine with the new adapters. Especially once I figured out that the "A" transceiver needed to switch to a mode without RX PL to unsquelch 🤦‍♂️

Just looking at the old install photos from my car, before I go try to figure out what's up with the speakers for the 2-meter rig.

Apparently I used a different model speaker under each seat 🤦‍♂️

No clue why. Probably something to do with the one I wanted to use not fitting under the passenger seat. Still, irritating.

The empty shelf held the power supply, and another scanner. The purpose of the second scanner eludes me at the moment. I may have been experimenting with recording certain talkgroups on the trunked system? I have a vague memory of that.

I just unearthed this photo. Sadly I'm not in the radio world anymore, so it sits in the shed, forgotten these days.

Left to right, top to bottom:

* Stereo, for audio from the computer in the room.
* The empty hole is for a Uniden BCT-8 scanner, driving Trunk-88 on the PC. It decoded the control channel of the local trunked radio system and let me keep an eye on it. I was one of the main techs that supported that system, so I found it a useful tool
* Motorola Astro Spectra with W9 control head, 800Mhz. Used for monitoring/testing the Type II/SmartZone systems we supported in the area
* Motorola XTL-5000 with W9 control head, 800Mhz, Used for monitoring/testing the P25 systems we supported in the area. Super handy for asking "Is it up?" of the one that was far away and the users were less than helpful
* Radio Shack HTX-10 10-meter AM/SSB/FM, having nothing more advanced than my tech ticket, 10M was the only HF band I could do voice on (IIRC)
* Yaesu FT-7900R 2M/440 transceiver

@vfrmedia Yeah, it's suspended under the "package shelf" (or rear dash, or whatever it's called). Up out of the way where most things in the trunk wont touch it. The fuse block I added is located there too, as I had the radio and GPS receiver to power. I feel like there was a third item but I can't remember what it is.

I have a circuit breaker connected directly to the battery, and then a pair of heavy gauge wire running to the fuse block/distribution in the trunk.

I still need to find a source of switched ignition and run it back there to drive a relay, but I've gotten good about turning the radio off when I'm done with it.

@vfrmedia Not sure where the photo of the install with the CB went. Oh well.

@vfrmedia

@vfrmedia

I've got a mid-size sedan (by US standards), so it wasn't too much trouble to fit the control head for the radio on a flexible tablet mount in the front. It bolts to the floor using one of the seat bolts on the passenger side. The CB uses an upside-down pegboard drill holder and it's original bracket to suspend itself from passenger side of the center console.

I'll have to see if I can find photos. I'm sure I've gone some.