[hpsdr] Excalibur, PennyWhistle and Beagleboard?

[Vern Kollas]

Good afternoon to all....

I suppose this should be 2 posts instead of one... but one is "easier"...  :-)


I now have both the Excalibur and Pennywhistle kits.  For Excalibur, I am thinking about not installing the BNCs so I can safely tuck in away behind a blank plate on Pandora.  Is there any reason I shouldn't do this?? I do not have a GPSDO at this time, so not sure I would need access to the in/out ports right now.

For Pennywhistle, I am thinking about playing with the optional negative feedback to limit the output to 5W.  It seems that there are quite a few "QRP" amps out there that like a 5W input to get 100W out.  If I go this route, what would you think about me using Pandora for the heatsink instead of the one supplied??  My K2 just mounts the finals to the case for the QRP, 15W output on the base rig.  The surface area for the bottom plate is smaller than that the sides of Pandora.  Just curious to see what others thought of this.   The other thing I was curious about is that with Alex possibly coming along "soon", Is playing with with the output of PW worth messing with?  If I would get a "QRP" amp kit, such as an HF Packer or the like, how would you suggest it would integrate with Penny, PennyWhistle and Alex??  Most of these QRP amps have an LPF already built-in, so that would take the place of Alex for now, but how could I use this later?    Just trying
 to get a good picture of how all of the puzzle pieces will fit together.


Now, in regards to the BB, I finally purchased one with the goal of using in with my HPSDR.  There are a few places that are working on an option for it to hook up to a Sony PSP-sized display and touchscreen.  This would be a perfect combo to create a "standalone" rig.  I am thinking about linux of some sort, probably the "recommended" OE Angstrom distribution or Ubuntu.  Then maybe starting with ghpsdr or something along those lines.  What do you all think??  Anyone with beagleboard experience that can point me in the right direction??  The beagleboard.org site and others seem to assume you already know A LOT more about linux, cross-compiling and the sorts, so I am feeling a little lost right now.  I do have some linux experience, but not much when it comes to starting from "scratch" like this.


As always, thanks in advance for the advice/help...

73!! 

Vern -- KC8YOH



      
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