[hpsdr] a busy weekend...

[George Byrkit]

Phil,
Penny is at V 1.8.  And it's a Penelope, not a PennyLane, FYI.

I do understand that you cannot mix versions, especially with this new set of firmware, as
too many things have changed, mostly related to how the Atlas bus is used for various
things, mostly thanks to Joe K5SO, I think.

George, K9TRV

-----Original Message-----
From: Phil Harman [mailto:phil at pharman.org] 
Sent: Sunday, June 09, 2013 10:04 PM
To: George Byrkit
Cc: hpsdr at lists.openhpsdr.org
Subject: Re: [hpsdr] a busy weekend...

Hi George,

Good to hear you are making progress.

If you don't have the latest firmware in your Penny board that will
prevent Mercury from working.

The symptom you have that Mercury works with Penny removed is the clue.

That is why you need to update all the boards at the same time to the
latest revision.

73 Phil...VK6APH


> ***** High Performance Software Defined Radio Discussion List *****
>
> So I finally got some time this weekend to play catch-up from Dayton.
>
> First, right after Dayton, I was quite tired from staffing the TAPR booth
> for 2.5 days!
> Then I did some KISS Konsole upgrade work, as Phil was coming out with new
> firmware.
> That's when I realized that the Pandora box with
> Metis/Mercury/Penelope/Excalibur/LPU that
> I took (Hercules inside, but not finished wired up) for display wasn't
> working any more!
>
> I looked at it a bit last weekend and had decided that likely Mercury was
> causing some
> problems.  This weekend, with the help of Phil VK6APH and Dave KV0S (and
> their incredible
> patience with a frustrated Ham -- me), I was able to get quite a bit
> further.  First, I
> realized that only D3 and not also D9 and D10 were lit on Mercury.  I
> remembered something
> about the 122.88mhz oscillator sometimes having a cracked solder joint...
>
> So out came the soldering iron and the trusty lead/tin solder (I don't do
> that fancy
> non-lead stuff; I must hate the environment and children...).  A short
> while later and
> Mercury had its lights flashing.  But neither KISS nor PowerSDR would
> work...  I unplugged
> Penelope and things sprang to life.
>
> It's harder to fix and trouble-shoot when you are hit with a
> double-whammy!  Two problems
> are always harder.   But at least RX is back...  And the boards all have
> the latest
> firmware, and I can see that KISS will work with the latest firmware.  I
> think it's likely
> I may need a PennyLane to replace Penelope, however.  I tried re-soldering
> the oscillators
> on Penny and that didn't improve anything, unfortunately.
>
> Any ideas are welcome, however, and I'll try what I can in the evenings
> when I'm not
> working!
>
> And I hacked up the end plates on a Hammond enclosure, and now have my
> TAPR Hermes board
> mounted in an enclosure!  I did the hole layout 'by eye', and it turned
> out much better
> than I had hoped.  It's much easier when there's no amp in there!
>
> Once I get a PennyLane in from TAPR (they still have a number of them), or
> get my Penelope
> fixed, I'll be able to verify that KISS Konsole is working with the latest
> firmware, and
> will then upload some new installers, and commit the code changes to SVN.
>
> 73,
> George Byrkit, K9TRV
>
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