Radio, railways, stuff...

I seem to be collecting projects but making no progress on any of them! Well, ok I have five on the go, of which one is started and one nearly, and three are in boxes still. Since Es’Hail-2 (QO-100) went up I've been planning to set up a receiver for it, and later on hopefully a transmitter as well. One thing at a time (or in my case it seems no things at any time!) So, I have an acceptable LNB, not a good one but should suffice until I get a more decent one. I now have a bias tee, some relevant connectors, I have a roll of CT125 satellite cable somewhere and I am now waiting for a 120cm satellite dish and pole to arrive. If this arrives today I may even get it working by tomorrow, otherwise next week. The Creed 444 is the one project that has at least had some progress. For that, I now just need to wire up the 50-way D connector to the signalling unit and then it should type to itself, otherwise it will need adjusting as that's all that is left if the text is still garbled. Then there is a box full of bits to construct a Minitiouner receiver which will receive ATV (and will hopefully receive it from QO-100 too). All the bits are there ready to solder up. And there is a box of bits to make a low power 5.6GHz ATV setup. All that needs is a box! And finally, a box of bits to make up the QRP Labs 40MHz QRP transceiver. I've only had that since the National Hamfest - of 2017! Hmmm...

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 stuck fast and no amount of fiddling would move it. After pouring over the workshop manual there seemed to be a lever in the wrong position. Moving this freed it up and it does now move with keypresses, even though the letters are wrong. Nearly there then... the ribbon is not rotating but there is at least one broken spring so hopefully that's an easy fix. All I need now is a proper TU.

Getting to grips with the Creed 444... everything seemed fine and it all rotated ok by hand so with the help of eBay I got the proper power socket and wired it up today. Things did not go entirely to plan... 1st attempt. Lots of loud noise from the motor. Well, at least it spins... the motor has a height adjustment at the rear which engages the worm with the drive gear at the front and this was completely undone. Adjusted... 2nd attempt. The lights went out! Hmmm. So, a tiny strand of copper wire had linked between the earth and live on the plug. Yes, the same one I had just soldered up carefully. Grrr. 3rd attempt and it runs. Key presses work the sequence, the WRU works too. As yet no print as I need to put a ribbon on and some paper in, but more importantly sort out the data side of things. I wonder what the WRU says... I could work it out by hand but I'll leave that until I get it to print. Equally, I wonder if I can find a blank one to put my callsign into... now that would be an ideal candidate for 3D printing! (can I use this as a reason to buy a 3D printer...) The motor and gear makes a particular whirring sound and a useful Youtube video of someone testing one of these beasts sounds the same, so that's good. There is a rattle which I need to locate but I still need to take the unit apart anyway and make sure everything is properly oiled. I wonder if the kids will believe that we used to use similar machines as input/output terminals on the mainframe at work in the 1980s!