Hardware on K0SSK's blog

TR-25 CW radio kit from WA3RNC

Sat, 02 Oct 2021 00:00:00 +0000

There is no escape from the fact that Ham Radio might be an expensive hobby. This is why I am really grateful to folks like G0UPL and WA3RNC who come up with affordably priced kits so new hams may try SOTA without having to break their piggy banks.

While I am a huge fan of QCX-mini with only 3 watts out I find it a bit underpowered and lacking band agility - QCX is a single band transceiver. I was in a situation a couple of times when an antenna farm on the summit of a mountain I was trying to activate was making a lot of noise on either 40 or 20 meter band forcing me to use the other one. On top of that 20 and 40 meters band signals propagate differently. Switching bands allows you to shift zones where your signals are heard so you may reach folks who were in a shade on another band.

This is why as soon as I heard about TR-25 - 5 watt CW-only 20/40 meter transceiver kit I was sold on immediately. Just in case - I’m not sponsored by WA3RNC in any way and paid a full price for the kit.

QCX-mini CW radio kit from QRP Labs

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 00:00:00 +0000

Hans G0UPL made yet another addition to the family of QCX transmitter kits. QCX+ is good as I wrote previously but QCX-mini is even better!

I was not lucky enough to get my hands on the kit from the very first batch but patience is gold. On a bright side revision 2 PCB I received does not require a hack with an additional capacitor in parallel with C38.

I’ve received the kit, built it and I love this tiny rig!

Same way as with my previous post I will try to avoid repeating the excellent build and operating manuals but I do have a few nits to pick.

Bonus: WSPR beacon mode test.

QCX+ CW radio kit from QRP Labs

Tue, 25 Aug 2020 00:00:00 +0000

Hello friends! Not a SOTA activation report this time. I took a break and spent some time with a soldering iron in my hands!

SOTA is not only about hikes and operating radios but also about building your rigs and antennas. When a heap of dead and cold components turns into a radio one can use to make contact with people hundreds miles away it is pure magic. This never gets old. So I couldn’t be happier when Hans G0UPL announced he’s updating his excellent QCX transceiver kit.

I’ve immediately pre-ordered the upgraded version.

GoogleWiFi + Pi-hole and NordVPN

Sun, 31 May 2020 19:41:19 +0000

Hello friends, as I promised in my previous post I’m going to tell you about configuring GoogleWiFi router with a Raspberry Pi server acting as DHCP and DNS server / VPN gateway. While part related to NordVPN is vendor specific I feel it would not be too hard to use similar setup with any VPN provider. Feel free to skip VPN related part.

I’m not sponsored by NordVPN, instructions provided as is and as any information from the Internet should be used carefully.

Debugging DHCP using tcpdump

Mon, 25 May 2020 19:19:03 +0000

With lot of time spent home during stay-at-home order active in my area I decided it’s a time to overhaul my home network setup.

I think I’ll get into details in the following posts but at this time I want to tell about an issue with DHCP leases I was able to track down using tcpdump.

ATmega8 Blinking LED and Interrupts

Sat, 28 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Several days ago I decided to clean up drawers in my desk at home and, of course, found several artifacts: old Univercity notes, Parker pen I was presented by my sister several years ago and some ATmega8A AVR microcontrollers.

I had several vacation days and caught a cold. So I couldn’t help but installed Atmel Studio and CodeVisionAVR to play with LEDs a bit.

RaspberryPi with Root Partition encryption, unlocked using a flash drive

Fri, 20 Dec 2013 00:00:00 +0000

Why unlock using flash drive: Because you don’t have keyboard or monitor connected to your RPi, do you?
Information: I was using Pezz’s gist, which helped me a lot. Thank you very much, Pezz.
Why Arch linux: because I wanted to try Arch, default kernels of Raspbian and Pidora lack(lacked? Maybe already have) needed encryption modules.

SD card preparation

Download Arch linux image from here: RPi downloads

On your desktop check list of devices:

$ ls -lah /dev | grep sd

brw-rw---T   1 root disk      8,   0 Aug 11 15:43 sda
brw-rw---T   1 root disk      8,   1 Aug 11 15:43 sda1
brw-rw---T   1 root disk      8,   2 Aug 11 15:43 sda2
brw-rw---T   1 root disk      8,   3 Aug 11 15:43 sda3
brw-rw---T   1 root disk      8,   4 Aug 11 15:43 sda4

Now insert SD card into card reader on desktop, and check list once again. You’ll see a new device we’ll write Arch linux image to.