The Simplest FT8 Transceiver You’ll Ever Build

September 25, 2021 by Jenny List 49 Comments

Probably the most interesting facets of amateur radio in 2021 lie in the realm of digital modes. Using the limitless possibilities of software defined radios has freed digital radio communication from the limits of what could be done with analogue electronics alone, and as a result this is a rare field in which radio amateurs can still be ahead of the technological curve. On of these newer digital modes is FT8 created by the prolific [Joe Taylor K1JT].

And it’s for this mode that [Charles Hill] has created an easy-to-build transceiver. Its brains are aTeensy 3.6, while the receive side is a Si4735 receiver chip and the transmitter is a Si5351 programmable clock chip driving a Mini-Circuits GVA84 power amplifier with an appropriate filter. The interface is via a touchscreen display. It relies on existing work that applies a patch on-the-fly to the Si4735 receiver chip for SSB reception, and another project for the FT8 software.

The charm of this transceiver is that it can be assembled almost in its entirety from modules. Some radio amateurs might complain that homebrew radios should only use the most basic of components assembled from first principles, but the obvious answer to that should be that anything which makes radio construction easier is to be welcomed. If the 100 mW output power seems a bit low it’s worth remembering that FT8 is a weak signal mode, and given the right propagation conditions the world should be able to hear it despite the meagre output.

We’ve featured quite a few radios using the Si47XX series, which can be made into very tidy receivers indeed.

A Toy Jeep For After The Apocalypse

September 25, 2021 by Jenny List 2 Comments

When your friends are off to the post-apocalyptic Wasteland Festival and present you with a defunct Power Wheels clone toy Jeep to make ready for the festivities, what are you to do? If you happen to be [Victor Frost], soup it up with new electrics and uprated steering, and send it forth into the hideous no-mans land.

These toys usually have one or two 12V high-speed motors driving plastic gear trains for the rear wheels. This one is a two-motor model and unexpectedly comes with a steering motor for parental remote control. All its electronics were dead, so rather than do a complete motor upgrade he instead doubled the voltage and installed decent motor controllers with an Arduino sending them instructions. Otherwise it received an upgrade and stiffening of its chassis and steering components, and the kids plastic steering wheel was replaced with a wooden one.

The result is not quite Mad Max as while it’s faster than the original there’s still something of the pedestrian about it. But it seems to be a load of fun, and we can’t help admitting we’d like a go in it. If you’re hungry for more, this isn’t the first such story we’ve covered.

Is There A Simpler Aircraft Than This Electric Paramotor?

September 22, 2021 by Jenny List 52 Comments

The dream of taking to the air has probably ensnared more than a few of us, but for most it remains elusive as the safety, regulatory, and training frameworks surrounding powered flight make it not an endeavour for the faint-hearted. [Justine Haupt] has probably delivered the simplest possible powered aircraft with her Blimp Drive, a twin-prop electric add-on for her paragliding rig that allows her to self-launch, and to sustain her flights while soaring.

It takes the form of a carbon-fibre tube with large drone motors and props U-bolted to each end, and a set of brackets in the centre of laid carbon fibre over 3D-printed forms to which the battery and paraglider harness are attached. The whole thing is lightweight and quiet, and because of the two contra-rotating propellers it also doesn’t possess the torque issues that would affect a single propeller craft.

We’re not fliers or paragliders here at Hackaday, so our impression of the craft in use doesn’t come from the perspective of a pilot. But its simplicity and ease of getting into the air looks to be unmatched by anything else, and we have to admit a tinge of envy as in the video below the break she flies over the beach that’s her test site.

If you recognise Justine from past Hackaday articles, you’re on the right track. Probably most memorable is her rotary cellphone.

Continue reading “Is There A Simpler Aircraft Than This Electric Paramotor?” →

Farewell Sir Clive Sinclair; Inspired A Generation Of Engineers

September 16, 2021 by Jenny List 74 Comments

It is with sadness that we note the passing of the British writer, engineer, home computer pioneer, and entrepreneur, Sir Clive Sinclair, who died this morning at the age of 81 after a long illness. He is perhaps best known among Hackaday readers for his ZX series of home computers from the 1980s, but over a lifetime in the technology industry there are few corners of consumer electronics that he did not touch in some way.

Sinclair’s first career in the 1950s was as a technical journalist and writer, before founding the electronics company Sinclair Radionics in the 1960s. His output in those early years was a mixture of miniature transistor radios and Hi-Fi components, setting the tone for decades of further tiny devices including an early LED digital watch at the beginning of the 1970s, miniature CRT TVs in the ’70s and ’80s, and another tiny in-ear FM radio which went on sale in the ’90s.

Continue reading “Farewell Sir Clive Sinclair; Inspired A Generation Of Engineers” →

Ask Hackaday: What’s The Best Way To Heat A Tent With A Laptop?

September 16, 2021 by Jenny List 49 Comments

For Europeans, August is usually a month of blistering heatwaves, day after day of cloudless skies and burning sun that ripens fruit and turns we locals a variety of shades of pink. Hacker camps during this month are lazy days of cool projects and hot nights of lasers, Club-Mate, and techno music, with tents being warm enough under the night sky to dispense with a sleeping bag altogether.

Sometimes though, the whims of the global weather patterns smile less upon us hackers, and our balmy summer break becomes a little more frigid. At BornHack 2021 for example we packed for a heatwave and were met with a Denmark under the grip of the Northern air mass. How’s a hacker to keep warm?

Continue reading “Ask Hackaday: What’s The Best Way To Heat A Tent With A Laptop?” →

An RF Remote Is No Match For A Logic Analyser!

September 16, 2021 by Jenny List 7 Comments

The Neewer NL660-2.4 Video Keylight has a handy remote control, which for [Tom Clement] has a major flaw in that it can’t restore the light to the state it had during its last power-on. He’s thus taken the trouble to reverse engineer it and create his own remote using a suitably-equipped Arduino clone.

The write-up is a step through primer for the would-be RF remote hacker, identifying the brains as an STM8 and the radio as an NRF24 clone before attempting to dump the firmware of the STM8. As might be expected the STM is protected, which only leaves the option of sniffing the connection between the two chips. The SPI pins are duly probed with a logic analyser, and the codes used by Neweer are extracted. As luck would have it there is a handy board called the RF Nano which is an Arduino Nano and an NRF24 in an Arduino Nano form factor, so a proof of concept remote could be written on an all-in-one module. You can find the result as a GitHub Gist, should you be curious.

We’ve seen Tom a few times before, particularly in his European BadgeLife work, as part of which he’s put a lot of effort into bringing browser-based WebUSB and WebSerial development to his work.

Overengineering A Smart Doorbell

September 12, 2021 by Jenny List 19 Comments

Fresh from the mediaeval splendour of the Belgian city of Gent, we bring you more from the Newline hacker conference organised by Hackerspace Gent. [Victor Sonck] works at the top of his house, and thus needed a doorbell notifier. His solution was unexpected, and as he admits over engineered, using machine learning on an audio stream from a microphone to detect the doorbell’s sound.

Having established that selling his soul to Amazon with a Ring doorbell wasn’t an appropriate solution, he next looked at his existing doorbell. Some of us might connect directly to its power to sense when the button was pressed, but we’re kinda glad he went for the overengineered route because it means we are treated to a run-down how machine learning works and how it can be applied to audio. The end result can sometimes be triggered by a spoon hitting a cereal plate, but since he was able to demonstrate it working we think it can be called a success. Should you wish to dive in further you can find more in his GitHub repository.

How would you overengineer a doorbell? Use GNU radio and filters? Or maybe a Rube Goldberg machine involving string and pulleys? As always, the comments are open.

Continue reading “Overengineering A Smart Doorbell” →