More 20m

So the Ethernet interface on the shack PC decided not to work at all today. It's managed by the network-manager stuff so no ideas why it had decided to go funny. Actually, it has been off colour for a few weeks now as at boot it does not see the Internet i.e. it fails to find a route but does see locally. Anyway, I've never liked network-manger, I would far rather get control of it all myself. I realise it's there for a reason but I favour a more handraulic approach. After battling it into submission and removing it from the startup scripts editing /etc/networks/interfaces has cured its tantrum. For now anyway! But I am wondering what is up with the PC now as USB failures yesterday and then a collapse of networking today... everything important is backed up so no worries there. However, I am not of the camp that these things fail slowly as I have had PCs running for years and years before. I may well use this as an excuse to get a midi-tower system I can dual boot (Windows and Linux) and get a couple of PCI cards into.

Been having fun with the Pluto today. It has been working fine, though not used very often with SDR Console on my acquire Windows 10 laptop but today I needed an SSB source to find a fault on the TR-9130 which had gone deaf on SSB. The Pluto made an ideal source and helped me to find out I’d got the gain and RIT controls mixed up and so had turned the gain right down! D’oh. So, after putting the TR back on the shelf it gave me the opportunity to finally fiddle with the Pluto. First off, when transmitting on SDR Console the transmission breaks at a regular short interval. Googling (well, actually these days DuckDuckGo’ing - does that work?) found some info which I tried but to no avail. Someone mentioned that it worked fine in SDR Angel so I downloaded this and after watching YouTube I managed to get a decent output. Not sure what I’ve done wrong with SDR Console but that will wait for now. But I really wanted to use the Pluto on the Linux box. Some time ago I had a go at installing the Gnu Radio software along with the modules that…

Well I fiddled with the teleprinter some more, wondering if I could at least get it to print with just 30-0-30VDC - it needs 80-0-80. Nothing. I tried connecting directly to the relevant pins for the receiving relay but could not feel any resistance when this was applied. Odd, because I could measure its resistance with a multimeter, so what's up. Strangely the next time I tried I could no longer measure the resistance. Might have been me. Then it occurred to me that on the 444 everything comes out on the 50-way D connector and you can get directly at the receiver coil, and I can see the relevant ohms. So, re-wiring the lash-up and still with 30-0-30V and with a resistor in series just in case and it burst into life. Almost. It did print, or rather tried. It got most of the letters wrong, but is at least trying. Most likely the voltage is just not quite enough, or my lash-up resistor is denying it sufficient current but I'd rather not risk the coil right now. However, and more of a concern was that although it went through the motions, the carriage did not move. It was…