Selamat Menyambut Ma'al Hijrah 1430

Doa Akhir Tahun:

Maksudnya:

Allah SWT berselawat ke atas penghulu kami Muhammad SAW, ahli keluarga dan sahabat-sahabat baginda dan kesejahteraan ke atas mereka. Wahai Tuhan, apa yang telah aku lakukan dalam tahun ini daripada perkara-perkara yang Engkau tegah daripada aku melakukannya dan aku belum bertaubat daripadanya. Sedangkan Engkau tidak redha dan tidak melupakannya. Dan aku telah melakukannya di dalam keadaan di mana Engkau berupaya untuk menghukumku, tetapi Engkau mengilhamkanku dengan taubat selepas keberanianku melakukan dosa-dosa itu semuanya. Sesungguhnya aku memohon keampunanMu, maka ampunilah aku. Dan tidaklah aku melakukan yang demikian daripada apa yang Engkau redhainya dan Engkau menjanjikanku dengan pahala atas yang sedemikian itu. Maka aku memohon kepadaMu. Wahai Tuhan! Wahai yang Maha Pemurah! Wahai Yang Maha Agung dan wahai Yang Maha Mulia agar Engkau menerima taubat itu dariku dan janganlah Engkau menghampakan harapanku kepadaMu Wahai Yang Maha Pemurah. Dan Allah berselawat ke atas penghulu kami Muhammad, ke atas ahli keluarga dan sahabat-sahabatnya dan mengurniakan kesejahteraan ke atas mereka.


Doa Awal Tahun
Maksudnya:

Allah SWT berselawat ke atas penghulu kami Muhammad SAW, ahli keluarga dan sahabat-sahabat baginda dan kesejahteraan ke atas mereka. Wahai Tuhan, Engkaulah yang kekal abadi, yang qadim. yang awal dan ke atas kelebihanMu yang besar dan kemurahanMu yang melimpah dan ini adalah tahun baru yang telah muncul di hadapan kami. Kami memohon pemeliharaan dariMu di sepanjang tahun ini dari syaitan dan pembantu-pembantunya dan tentera-tenteranya dan juga pertolongan terhadap diri yang diperintahkan melakukan kejahatan dan usaha yang mendekatkanku kepadaMu Wahai Tuhan Yang Maha Agung dan Maha Mulia. Wahai Tuhan Yang Maha pengasih dari mereka yang mengasihi dan Allah berselawat ke atas penghulu kami Muhammad. Nabi yang ummi dan ke atas ahli keluarga dan sahabat-sahabatnya dan kesejahteraan ke atas mereka.

Barangsiapa yang membaca doa akhir tahun ini, maka syaitan akan berkata:
"Hampalah kami di sepanjang tahun ini".


73's.

Merry christmas

To all my friends and visitors celebrating have a very Merry Christmas and Happy new year.

Please remember this :-

Don't drink and drive,
You might hit and bump and spill it. :-)

73's.

9W2BOE WEDS!

Zafry had the bersanding ceremony on Sunday, 14th of December.

Picture courtesy of 9W2AXN!

From left: 9W2OBR, 9W2AXN, 9W2BOE and XYL, YL of and standing next to 9W2PGU, 9W2GU and 9W2ULL.

Insyallah kekal selamanya. AMIN.

Eid-ul-Adha Mubarak.

 

 

Selamat Hari Raya too all celebrating.

Etch tank

Get a small fish aquarium to use as an etch tank. Big enough to place your biggest PCB into it. This one is 8"x5". Also get some air tubing and suckers to hold the tubing to the base of the tank.
You can get a small air pump, as displayed, or get a bigger one...More power, more bubbles. :-)
Heat one end the the air tubing with an open flame and then seal it using pliers.
This is what is looks like after it is sealed.
Using a fine sewing needle make holes in the tubing towards the sealed end. If holes are big, the bubbles will be big, I prefer many smaller holes and finer bubbles. Make holes the length of the tank.
Use the sucker the hold the tubing do the base of the tank.
I made a cover from cardboard and made a hole for tubing to fit thru. the board was cut at the back about 2" and rejoined using masking tape.
The cover is more of a protection from the bubbles splashes escaping the tank and staining anything around it.
Use water to test the tubing, once satisfied the the bubbles, (size of bubbles and the length of tubing where the bubbles released), drain water and replace with Ferric Chloride.

 

The tank is use to speed up the etching process. I tape a length of string one the back of the PCB and let it float on the etching solution. You will know it is done when you can see the PCB design  Refer to my older post.

I stopped using the air stone as it does not last and disintegrates over time.  You can also purchase from fish shops air tube that produces fine bubbles. Where is the fun in homebrewing in doing that... :)

Spotted!

This jelopie was spotted in HKL some time back. Time, about 5pm on the 14/11/2008. 9W2BUS you been spotted! By the looks of this jelopie, I think 9w2XL might know him. Pertonas call sign Oscar Lima. Maybe one day we can eyeball.

Team KBz

Team KillerBeez, came in 3rd for division 2 World Cup Asia 2008 Paintball tournament. Congrats to 9W2AXN, 9W2ULL, 9W2BOE, 9W2XSV, 9W2CAY, 9W2ALX ,9W2PGU and Speck..

Image used without prior permission. :-)

Converting PC power supply unit for Workbench

This is a very simple project, for those interested in testing circuits and other misc uses.
Since the PC power supply outputs 3 voltages, 3.3, 5 and 12V, you will need 4 terminals, 1 for ground.

Make sure the AC in not plugged it.
Begin by trimming off all the connectors.

Yellow is 12V.
Red is 5V.
Orange is 3.3 V.
Black is Ground.

Green is usually for on and off the power supply. Refer to the side of your power supply. Sometimes it is the gray wire. Solder a Green and a black to wire to a switch.

Take 2 wire strand of each colors and trim off the the tip. Untangle em. Solder all, 2 strand of same color together. So now you have 2 yellow, 2 red, 2 orange and 2 black. You dont really need 2 strands but you never know when you need more amp. :) This will ensure your cables dont melt. Solder these to the terminals. Label the outputs on the casing.

Use an orange wire (3.3V) to power up your LED.
You can get a 1K resistor and connect solder it to a LED and a black wire for ground. This will indicate to you that the supply is on or off.

Close everything back and give it a shot. :)

Another Public holiday

26 days after Eid, we in Malaysia now have another public holiday.

Happy Deepavali to all celebrating, Especially my friends.

RAE 2008 - 2

Too all those SWL's who want to sit for RAE, Register soon, as the closing date is 24 October 2008 and the Exams will be held on 17 December 2008.

Download your RAE application form.

73's and good luck.

Selamat Hari Raya

Wishing all visitors to this blog, Selamat Hari Raya. Kalau ada silap salah, saya mohon maaf zahir batin. Happy Holidays.

Maulana tutup berapa hari ah?

No posting

It's been a while since my last post due to the modem being down and then the line was down.

Hope to post something by next week after Raya. Selamat menjalankan ibadah puasa.

9M2DS Silent key

I am sure many if not all of you already know that on Thursday, 28th Aug at 19:00, 9M2DS aka Pak Dollah went silent key. He suffered heart attack day earlier and was warded in KLGH by is son.

Al-Fatiha.

RAE results

RAE session 1 for 2008 will be out some time next week...

UPDATED
Click the link here to view the PDF result file.

Congrats to Pingu (nuk-nuk), Zafry and Mamat for passing the RAE.

9W2MRZ Weds

On Wednesday, 9W2MRZ, aka Zack, took the plunge. Hmmmm..who's next. Will post some pics when i get hold of some.

PSU 15V 22A

My very first project as an amateur radio operator was a power supply unit. It is transformer based. And i build this from the schematics from the net. Also i did not have knowledge of UV PCB back then, so it was build on a vero board.... Not recommended. I added a volt and ammeter not in the schematics. The volt meter is connected across the +ve and -ve DC output and the ammeter is thru the DC +ve output. Also i recommend a bigger or 3 or 4 22000uF capacitors in parallel and a 18V 22A transformer instead of 15V.

To those who want to built this here are the schematics or you can get newer designs from http://users.belgacom.net/hamradio/homebrew.htm.

Click to enlarge

This design is no longer available on that site. Below my finished product.

9M2CJ father Silent key

My deepest condolences to Thiam (9M2CJ) and his family, on the demise of his fundamental this morning.

And the winner is....

TEAM V17-B

Congrats to Team V17-B for winning the Selangor Open foxhunt.

Sorry i couldn't make it due to prior commitments.

Weekly Friday Eyeball Location Changed

Next Friday's eyeball will be held at Maulana's. Pass the word around to other, in case they don't know. Location is not that far from AP2. Click map to enlarge image. Refer to map below on how to get there. Set you GPS to 3°9'11"N 101°37'19"E.

On a break.

Guys i am taking a mental break. So much to do lately. So i will leave you guys with a couple of jokes. The second one will be easier for programmers to understand.

Joke 1
When the Software industry had badly gone down, three
software giants Sun, SCO(UNIX) and Microsoft started
producing condoms and named them Java-condom , CondomiX
and MS-Comdome respectively.


A customer using Java-condom complained to Sun that
the condom doesn't fit correctly.
Sun replied:
"Wait till we get the ISO standard".
They boasted that it will fit to any size irrespective of
underlying structure.


Well, the customer switched to CondomiX and found that
by the time he finshes reading the instructions, given
along with condomiX, his wife was sleeping and he himself
was forgetting why he is using CondomiX.


Finally he swiched to MS-Condome. To his surprise it was
very good.....and comfortable!. He used it happily.
Six months later he found that his wife was pregnant. He got
angry and complained to Micrsoft. He got his reply from
Microsoft:

























PATCH IS COMING SOON..!


Joke 2

Micro was a real-time operator and dedicated multi-user. His broad-band
protocol made it easy for him to interface with numerous input/output devices,
even if it meant time-sharing.

One evening he arrived home just as the Sun was crashing, and had parked his
Motorola 68040 in the main drive (he had missed the 5100 bus that morning),
when he noticed an elegant piece of liveware admiring the daisy wheels in his
garden. He thought to himself, "She looks user-friendly. I'll see if she'd
like an update tonight."

Mini was her name, and she was delightfully engineered with eyes like COBOL
and a PR1ME mainframe architecture that set Micro's peripherals networking
all over the place.

He browsed over to her casually, admiring the power of her twin, 32-bit
floating point processors and enquired "How are you, Honeywell?". "Yes, I am
well", she responded, batting her optical fibers engagingly and smoothing her
console over her curvilinear functions.

Micro settled for a straight line approximation. "I'm stand-alone tonight",
he said, "How about computing a vector to my base address? I'll output a
byte to eat, and maybe we could get offset later on."

Mini ran a priority process for 2.6 milliseconds, then transmitted 8 K. "I've
been dumped myself recently, and a new page is just what I need to refresh my
disks. I'll park my machine cycle in your background and meet you inside."
She walked off, leaving Micro admiring her solenoids and thinking, "Wow, what
a global variable, I wonder if she'd like my firmware?"

They sat down at the process table to top of form feed of fiche and chips and a
bucket of baudot. Mini was in conversation mode and expanded on ambiguous
arguments while Micro gave the occassional acknowledgements, although, in
reality, he was analyzing the shortest and least critical path to her entry
point. He finally settled on the old 'Would you like to_see_my_benchmark
routine', but Mini was again one step ahead.

Suddenly she was up and stripping off her parity bits to reveal the full
functionality of her operating system software. "Let's get BASIC, you RAM",
she said. Micro was loaded by this; his hardware was in danger of overflowing
its output buffer, a hang-up that Micro had consulted his analyst about.
"Core", was all he could say, as she prepared to log him off.

Micro soon recovered, however, when Mini went down on the DEC and opened her
divide files to reveal her data set ready. He accessed his fully packed root
device and was just about to start pushing into her CPU stack, when she
attempted an escape sequence.

"No, no!", she cried, "You're not shielded!"

"Reset, Baby", he replied, "I've been debugged."

"But I haven't got my current loop enabled, and I can't support child
processes", she protested.

"Don't run away", he said, "I'll generate an interrupt."

"No, that's too error prone, and I can't abort because of my design
philosophy."

Micro was locked in by this stage, though, and could not be turned off. But
Mini soon stopped his thrashing by introducing a voltage spike into his main
supply, whereupon he fell over with a head crash and went to sleep.

"Computers!", she thought, as she recompiled herself. "All they ever think of
is hex!"

Fox hunting! Yagi!

To find the fox you need to build a directional antenna. Yagi is usually used. Test the antenna after you build it, an make sure it is DIRECTIONAL. A friend of mine built, i think the world first omni-directional yagi.

Below links to some sites to help you build a yagi. Take care building it, measurement must be precise. If you are the adventurous kind, check the net to build an attenuator. This will help you find the fox more accurately.

Tape measure Yagi
http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/tape_bm.htm
http://www.open-circuit.co.uk/tape.php


Attenuator
http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/p_atten.htm
http://home.att.net/~jleggio/projects/rdf/a_atten.htm


Sign up quickly, only 20 days left...Happy hunting..73's.

FOX Hunt (Selangor Open)

Fox hunt, Selangor open is being organized. To enter and more details, Click This Link!

PSU Blown

A freak thunderstorm struck my area about 7 days ago. My PC's PSU is blown. PC was plugged in but not turned on. So until i get a replacement (which may take some time), there wont be any posting from me. Currently using a borrowed PC. Moral, remove power point of pc even if not turned on. Malaysian storms are getting worse. luckily only the pc's psu was fried. Printer and modem safe. Thank GOD for the lightning arrestor installed. Hopefully the motherboard and other accessories are not fried.

73s...

RAE Class

For those wanting to sit for the up and coming RAE, may want to attend a class to refresh your memory. Follow this link for more info.

Best of luck in the exams.

Soldering Lead Dispenser

Download template here.


Went to a shop that frames pictures at Jalan TAR and Jalan Ipoh, and got this cardboard sheet from there. One sheet was for RM$16 for 8' x 4' size. Had it cut into 4' x 4' size as shown on the left. And it would not fit in my car. Had to carry it back all the way to my saltmine in The Mall. Then got my xyl to come to my saltmine with the other jelopy to take it home.

Bought this brass rod long time ago to make an quarter wave antenna but never got around to doing it. The rod is 3mm thick and about 1 meter long.

I did a template of the dispenser in Gimp. Actually i am using a different template than the one shown. :)

Using the template i cut the baord about 1cm larger than the template size. Cut two pieces one for each side one smaller piece for the base and one narrower piece for the back. You will understand everything soon enough.

If you make you own template, cater for the board thickness. If you can cut the board at 45 degrees angle that would be the best. My new template already caters for the board thickness so you don't have to cut 1cm extra.

Get 6 nuts, the hole must be big enough for the brass rod to comfortably fit through it.

Then cut as shown. For this i wish i had a Dremel with the cutting blade. But it didn't take long with a hacksaw. I placed the nut in a vice vertically and cut 1 off the 6 sides off.

Make hole where the black dot is and then place the template on the board and using a marker mark dot. Make sure template is aligned. For the other board turn the template around.

Draw lines away from the dot you marked earlier at 90 degrees. I used an ell. Then align the nut's straight side to the left. The dot must be visible through the nuts hole. Remember to mirror the nuts on the other board. I used crazy glue to hold the nuts in place.

The project is now taking shape. Again using crazy glue. Need to hold parts in place with some pressure for about 15 seconds or so. Then leave overnight to dry completely.

I got some styrofoam and stuffed it into the hole of each spool. Then cut of the excess and used a screw to make a hole somewhat in the center of it. The screw was short, (man i hate short screws) :) so i drove the screw on the other side. This is so that the brass rod can be inserted in with ease and does not expand the hole. Man this is beginning to sound vulgar. Cut brass rod to size measuring each of the 3 spool position individually. It may look same but may be off by 1 or 2 mm depending on your board.

The completed product on the right. Can be used as shown on the left. But i had other ideas. You can make it shorter with less spacing between spools. My spacing is based on the biggest spool size and my stubby fingers. So i have enough space to remove the spool should i need to.









This is how i decided to use it. Was thinking of removing the soldering iron holder and mounting it to the side of the box but decided against it. Fire dept. did not approve that idea. :)


73's happy homebrewing, 9w2gu going QRT.

New Toy

After collecting some spare cash, ran down to Pasar Road on Wednesday and got meself a Hakko Presto. The only model they had was the one with the cover. The one without the cover might have been cheaper. Also got Kester 0.5mm soldering lead. Total spend RM100.00. Far much less than what Uncle Chow (9M2CF) spent last week. ;-) All Prestos come with 0.5mm tip, still looks a bit big. Might change it to 0.25mm tip later. That alone is about RM35.00, but lasts a very long time.

My new Hakko Presto 20W/130W iron. Button for 130W.

Doesn't comes fitted with plug.

Kester 0.5mm 500gms.

Nine Whiskey Two India Charlie Echo WEDS!

9W2ICE (Arshad) aka BOB has finally tied the knot. My warmest wishes love goes out to both MR and MRS BOB. Live long happy and prosperous.

Sorry dear, you no longer a YL dear.




After the nikah ceremony.

9W2ICE at his Henna ceremony.

Practicing Morse

Go to this site and build the circuit, program it, hook it up to your keyer and start sending CW.

Or download the schematics and PCB from here.

CW Lessons

k7qo.iso.zip file is 350,578,272 bytes. Read the PDF file first before anything else. (Note this is a newer version, i have not download it yet. may not be simila to what i have). To me this is a good way to learn morse. There are other software that teach you morse. Remember when you were a kid and started to speak. By hearing your parents you picked up the language. This method is same. Important thing is not to count the dit and dah. Once you are proficient you will be hearing word instead of letters. Just like reading this post. You are not reading the individual letters but the whole word.

Best of luck.

73's.

MORSE

Hopefully by now you have made your iambic keyer. Now to learn morse code (CW). But you need to first build a circuit to practice your morse on. You can download the diagram from here or go the the author/creator's site for more info. Later i will be posting morse lessons for download.

de.

PIC Lessons

When i first started this blog, it was my intention to educate to those interested in PIC Programming. But now I am contrubiting to the PIC lessons blog with my Sifu, 9w2bsr, Basir. So why reinvent the wheel. Those interested can visit that site and maybe even give suggestions on how to improve it. But if you still want to ask me questions you can do so here or email me.


Thanks.

Hook Line and Sinkers

Making you own sinkers. Sometimes strong under sea currents move your sinker around and give you the impression that you have a bite. Well I have made my own sinkers using lead from car’s dead lead acid battery. Though my design is simple, you could make better ones. My idea is that the sinker should lie flat. It never moves even with strong currents. But the drag on retrieve can be a bit high. Below are the sample of some of the sinkers made by me and my friends.

	First you need to get and clean (as much as possible) the lead plates from the battery.
	Then in a TIN can melt it. Should be done in open area. Lead vapors are poisonous.
	Steel band used as a mould. Then the basic shape is formed.
	Place the mould on a piece of wood. Open area aligned to the top.
	Do the same for the other side and secure it firmly with some string. Then pour molten lead into the opening. To make a hole for the line, I use the bone from a palm tree leaf, dip in coconut oil and quickly drive it thru the molten lead before it hardens. It hardens in about 2 or 3 seconds. Leave to cool down naturally.
	Sample of my homemade sinkers.
	This one made by my friend using aluminum as a mould. Much soother surface.

Gallery.

I love this quote:-

“A bad day of fishing is better than your best day at work.”

Tight lines.