[hpsdr] Fitting Alex

[Bruce Beford]

Chris-

I am using Roger's 3-board end-plate as well. For the ribbon cable to
Mercury clearance issue, I chose to use a fine file to slightly widen the
back panel slot for Mercury, adjacent to the ribbon connector. This was
slightly widening the slot to the right, towards Penelope. This allows the
ribbon cable to fold back between Mercury and Penelope, and on to Alex.

For the 3-wire cable between Mercury and Penelope, I similarly widened the
cutout adjacent to the 4 pin connector on Mercury. I then CUT OFF that tall
8-pin connector, and instead used  a lower profile right-angle female
connector on the Penelope end of the cable. The one I used was cut down from
a larger PC-mount female connector, meant to mount on the edge of a PC
board. I has two benefits: 

1. It is much smaller, and the pins for soldering onto the cable are bent
upwards at 90 degrees, so it fits right against the microphone connector on
Penelope.

2. It has all 8 female pins installed, so it grips the male header pins on
Penelope much more securely.

Now the end plate fits fine. However, PowerSDR still does not report back
the proper power level out of PennyWhistle/Alex. With 14.5W out, PowerSDR
only shows 107 mW. I am sure there is a bug in the power display calculation
that needs to be addressed. (and I'm sure it will be.)

73,
Bruce, N1RX



 1315572119.0