Friday, January 29, 2016

Friday Already?

Still waiting for the "4-pin" cable from the Maestro RR people so I can finish installing the new Kenwood radio into my Jeep. They're in Canada, so it might be here today, but I'm betting it won't be here until next week.

And the two switches on the steering wheel that control the radio channel selection (left switch) and the volume (right) switch haven't shown up yet, either.

The USPS "tracking number" claims they were delivered last Saturday, but my buddy where my mail drop is hasn't seen them.

I dropped the vendor a note, and he sent another set out on Wednesday, so they also might be here today since he's in AZ.

And of course, it's supposed to rain some this weekend, starting on Saturday night. *IF* the parts get here today I should be able to swap out the radios tomorrow before it starts raining.

And on the Iowa, we were (FINALLY!) able to get audio routed from one of the "Red Phones", through the "Coke Machine", and the transmitter audio switchboard, down to transmitter #3, and were able to get 500 Watts output from the transmitter into the dummy load. We then noticed that the Power Output knob was backed off a bit, and once we ran that up to max, we were getting 1000 Watts out.

The Power Output control knob is VERY nonlinear in it's action, and turning it down just a few degrees drops the power from 1000 Watts to 400~500 Watts. We don't really need full power out of the transmitter, and considering the two antennas we'll be using, we don't WANT 1000 Watts, as the tour route gets to within 5 or 10 feet of the antennas, and we have to limit the RF exposure to our guests.

4 comments:

  1. Good luck with the parts... sigh

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  2. They didn't show up today.....

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  3. Man, if you ever need to get some extra income you do it in the radio arena. I bet you would make a fortune just setting up things for people like me, who have no clue about all that.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. That's what I was doing after I was laid off from Boeing.

      I was 90% to the point where it was going to be full time, and then I was made an offer from the new owners of Sea Launch, where I'd been assigned for Boeing, and my wife wanted me to take the offer for the "benefits".

      Turns out the only "benefit" we got that was better than her benefit package was for eye care and glasses.

      Delete

Keep it civil, please....

For Phil......

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