NanoVNA Custom Software

[xrunner]

Didn't you also have a ham working on a club radio with a Jesus iron that messed up the board? 

Hmmm ... I don't recall that at the moment. Not to say it didn't happen, there's just been so many incidents. 

I doubt I'll be seeing too many more repairs. The HAM that moved to Alaska was sort of a facilitator in these cases. He was on the radio all the time and sort of steered people with repair needs to me. He did ask me first though. He would even bring me their radio and pick it up.

There's still a few that have my number, but they're mostly harmless. Most of the ones that would end up needing a repair can't call me, and I rarely get on the air anymore. Now I can concentrate on my own projects. 

[joeqsmith]

May have been BD139.   Doing a search gave me a link to a large ham thread were you both were talking about repairs.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/how-alive-is-ham-these-days/msg3078764/#msg3078764

Here is his kit built radio.  Reminds me of the old Heathkits.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/other-blog-specific/ham-radio-is-it-dead-in-2019/msg2700968/#msg2700968

Another fun thread. 
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/cb-and-ham-radio-techs-love-their-bird-wattmeters/msg4367434/#msg4367434

[bd139]

May have been BD139.   Doing a search gave me a link to a large ham thread were you both were talking about repairs.

https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/how-alive-is-ham-these-days/msg3078764/#msg3078764

Here is his kit built radio.  Reminds me of the old Heathkits.
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/other-blog-specific/ham-radio-is-it-dead-in-2019/msg2700968/#msg2700968

Another fun thread. 
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/cb-and-ham-radio-techs-love-their-bird-wattmeters/msg4367434/#msg4367434

FTDX3000 not TS2000. Got ham radio amnesia. Good find!

Oh and don't get me started about that Elecraft K2 and hams. Was great fun building that and it was indeed "the last proper Heathkit experience" you can get. But they sent out duff J310 JFETs. This turned into a fairly heated debate. They sent out some replacement parts from the US immediately but after looking at the circuit I figured I wasn't going to wait the two weeks. Dug around in the junk box, found some J309's, did some measurements and thinking, a lost art, and just shoved those in. Works fine, bias was as predicted in LTspice. Posted this on their mailing list and it turned into a small argument over it absolutely not possible that it was working. It was measurably working. But clearly that was impossible. The person in question, ugh.

Finished board. Still happy with that 

[xrunner]

Another fun thread. 
https://www.eevblog.com/forum/rf-microwave/cb-and-ham-radio-techs-love-their-bird-wattmeters/msg4367434/#msg4367434

Putting together an Elecraft kit radio? Never heard of any local HAMs doing anything even close to that complexity. Again, I'm not saying a few where I live couldn't, or that any local HAM hasn't ever done it, but I've never heard of it where I listen. And if they had done it, they would have bragged about it. I've never heard of any local HAM putting together any sort of kit electronics - ZERO - in the 14 years since I got back into it. Even one LED and a resistor. Maybe I'm around the wrong group of HAMs, but most just do not do these things here.

They buy things already supposed to work together and hook them up. Such as PWR supply - radio - SWR meter - antenna. I've tried to get a few bored HAMs (retired) to use something like an Arduino to make a project. Like one time a guy wanted to thermostatically control a fan he had pointed at a PWR supply. I said why don't you learn the Arduino and do that project, then you will be empowered to do a lot more things on your own. I'll help you! Nope. Wouldn't have any of it.

I'm not a psychologist, but it's almost like they don't want to do anything that could result in failure. They don't want to be seen as not being able to do something or figure it out. So, they just don't do it. They don't like to talk about any sort of technical topic that they don't know already, because then the other person would seem to be smarter than they were (at least on that topic).

Of course politics and religion they talk about, because there is no "failure" involved. It's just opinions on subjective topics. But once the microphone is in their hand, they will let the opinions fly.

Of course they will fail at simply hooking up HAM gear, but they're willing to risk that or they couldn't talk to other people on the radio, but that's as far as it goes.

[bd139]

Same situation here.

Oh yeah our local 2m net which appeared to switch between growing strawberries, bitching about your wife and being offended that a black person walked past

[joeqsmith]

I'm not a psychologist, but it's almost like they don't want to do anything that could result in failure. They don't want to be seen as not being able to do something or figure it out. So, they just don't do it. They don't like to talk about any sort of technical topic that they don't know already, because then the other person would seem to be smarter than they were (at least on that topic).

Of course politics and religion they talk about, because there is no "failure" involved. It's just opinions on subjective topics. But once the microphone is in their hand, they will let the opinions fly.

Of course they will fail at simply hooking up HAM gear, but they're willing to risk that or they couldn't talk to other people on the radio, but that's as far as it goes.

If they fail plugging things in, it's behind closed doors, not in front of their peers.   

It's too bad OWO censors their groups.io reflector.  I would have liked to have had an open discussion with Tom W8JI, about his thoughts on transient protection.   He certainly had an opinion on the subject but once others started to point out where he was wrong, he went silent.    I suspect much for the reasons you mention.  Or, it's because OWO would pull my posts not allowing a dialog to take place.   

https://nanorfe.com/forum/ESD-safer-circuit.html

[bd139]

Sound like an unhealthy community although I certainly understand the approach.

As for transient protection, isn't it just an SA612 on the front end? Just stick another one in 

[joeqsmith]

The LiteVNA has TVSs on both ports.   Not sure that would save you when you transmit into one of the ports.   Never gets old.

[bd139]

Not sure I can face watching that after watching a YT the video of a smoked front end on a Rigol DSA815TG 

Nice to hear if someone actually giving a crap about robust engineering at least.

[xrunner]

Not sure I can face watching that after watching a YT the video of a smoked front end on a Rigol DSA815TG 

Oh I have one of those, that would make a grown man cry. You know they really should print the Max Power Input right there by the input connector so these things don't happen.

Oh wait - it is there!

MAX +20 dBm

 

[bd139]

Bold of you to assume that someone both read and understood that! 

Through safety squints: “Hey Bob it says 20 something. Must be watts”. CEEEEE CUUEEE CEEEEE CUUEEE. Sniff sniff. Hmm burning.

[joeqsmith]

To be fair, even a 5W CB could have damaged it.... but we know it was a ham! 

[xrunner]

Bold of you to assume that someone both read and understood that! 

Through safety squints: “Hey Bob it says 20 something. Must be watts”. CEEEEE CUUEEE CEEEEE CUUEEE. Sniff sniff. Hmm burning.

HAMs I talk to can't relate to "dBm". Like on the Spec-An +20 dBm is the Max power input - they wouldn't know what that is.

They generally know that a cable loss or attenuation of 3 dB is 1/2 power loss, and 10 dB increase in power is ten times more. But they don't do dBm at all. Haven't a clue.

So I'll say so-and-so's transmitter was supposed to output +50 dBm and I found it was only +47 dBm - they don't understand that. They ask me "why do you say dBm instead of watts? I just say "Because that's how I was taught."

[bd139]

That'll be because dB is a relative logarithmic measurement and they understand neither what logarithmic or relative measurements are! Add the poor understanding of SI prefixes and even the reference point in dBm is unlikely to be understood.

There must be a way of making some easy money out of that though. Perhaps create a knowledge cult of dBm and then sell a conversion device that turns a smaller number into a bigger one somehow

[joeqsmith]

Still, we have the internet and there are several conversion calculators available to the ham....  Oh right as our new friend reminded us, they have trouble navigating the internet.   

Maybe just remember that 20dBm is 100mW which was the amount of power from their childhood walkie talkies.  Have any better ideas on how to remember it,  keeping in mind, they need to remember it longer than what it takes to pass a test?

[bd139]

I'll have you know my childhood walkie talkies could kick out a bit more than that (Midland shit + completely illegal Italian CB widowmaker tube amp) 

But yeah no looky no findy. Monkey expect spoon fed. I'm sounding like grugbrain now https://grugbrain.dev/

[kd7eir]

I'm an extra class ham. I ran into several roadblocks trying to get Solver64 installed and working.

Did I whine and moan? No. I dug, and dug, and dug until I found the information I needed to get the job done. In the end, I not only got Solver64 working on my own, but I gained a lot of valuable knowledge that will serve me going forward.

It's a shame that so many of my fellow hams have no desire to tackle an issue and work it to resolution. Needing help is fine, but you need to do your due diligence before asking for help, and you need to be humble in your requests.

[joeqsmith]

Outside of learning how to install it,  what have you used the software for? 

[kd7eir]

I'm currently using it to help me tune various long wire antennas as well as testing filters.

[joeqsmith]

Assuming you are using the 4.x rather than 3.00,  let me know if you find any problems with it.   4.02 should be fine.

Sounds like you are mostly playing around below 300MHz.  What drove you to buy the V2Plus or LiteVNA?   IMO, the original NanoVNA would have been a better choice.

[kd7eir]

I am using 4.02. I chose the LiteVNA because I plan to start setting up some microwave links in the Arizona - New Mexico area in the next year or so.

[joeqsmith]

If you start a blog post a link here.  I'm interested in reading more about it.

[kd7eir]

I will certainly do that.

[@rt]

I just got mine… the H version.
Has anyone written anything completely different for the device itself?

I previously had the Mini600, which was based on STM Discovery board,
and I did a plasma demo intro for it just for a bit of fun.

I haven’t looked into this one much. Are there any dramas compiling its source?

[joeqsmith]

I just got mine… the H version.
Has anyone written anything completely different for the device itself?
...

The thread is more about software that interfaces with the VNA, not firmware that runs on the VNA.   I suggest you join the group.io reflector for the NanoVNA and ask there.   Another group you may want to consider is for the firmware developers and beta testers.    Feel free to post here but I doubt you will get too many responses.