Dual Booting Debian and Windows XP

I've been running Debian Linux on my personal computers for years. Recently my son found a Dell Optiplex 745 (one of the small format machines that I prefer) at a very reasonable price – with a valid license for Windows XP. It was time to upgrade both software and hardware.

As my old Dell GX270 (with Debian Lenny) was working just fine, I decided to try for a dual-boot install on the new box.  I found this tutorial online.

I downloaded gparted, as suggested, and burned the iso to a CD. I then cleaned up the Windows XP installation and did a defrag. I ended up with the large majority of the 80Gb disc free.

I then booted gparted and followed the tutorial to shrink the Windows partition to ~ 20Gb. A re-boot proved Windows XP was still happy.

 

I downloaded the latest Debian Testing – Wheezy – as a netinst (network install) iso and again burned a CD. After connecting the new machine to the network, I booted the netinst CD and did a routine install for a desktop. Things went well until the install asked me if I wanted to install the grub bootloader on the MBR. At this point grub was supposed to detect the Windows XP partition and edit the grub menu accordingly. But it did not. I had no choice but to continue with the Wheezy installation.

Wheezy booted fine, but I had no easy way to boot to Windows. Some quick research revealed a problem with grub detecting the Windows partition during the Wheezy install. The note said that running (as root):

grub-update

would repair the problem. It did. Grub detected Windows XP and added it to the bootloader menu.

I then had a dual-boot machine with Debian Wheezy (testing) and Windows XP. Both run fine.

I would not normally bother with Windows, but there are still several Amateur Radio Windows applications which do not have a functional equivalent in Linux – notably antenna modeling software.

Plus, it was interesting to try my first dual-boot..

WB5BKL - Nick

2012 Flight of the Bumblebees

This year, I returned to the same site as in in 2011 – just a couple of miles to the west of Longhorn Cavern State Park here in Texas.

The location offers good views to the north and west and there are nicely placed live oaks and cedars to support wire antennas. I used a fishing pole and 5 pound-test line to toss a small sinker over the trees. I can't imagine why anyone would want to use anything else – but then I have been fishing for a long time. This year I did it in four casts. But, it usually it takes more...

This view is to the north.

 I hung a 20m dipole E-W and then a 40M half-wave in roughly the same direction. I used a KI6J half-wave tuner to match the 40M antenna.

I did get hot while hanging the wires. It was over 90 when I arrived at 11 and 104F at 4 PM when I quit – not as bad as last year when it was 107 as the FOTBB finished!

I used the K1 and an AME Single Lever Paddle. I had several liters of water, sunscreen and bug repellent. There was a nice breeze most of the time. I sprayed both myself and the ground near me with the DEET bug stuff. Worked great – though the wood ants on the cedar were curious about the K1.

After working 20M for a while, I tried 40M with no luck. I then hooked up the 40M half-wave as a long wire for 15M and used a 20M half-wave as a single radial to see if the K1 could find a match. It did and I made 7 Qs before returning to 20M.

The closest Bumblebee to me was Scott, W5ESE at Pedernales Falls State Park, about 30 miles SSE. I could just barely detect him, and he could barely hear me – but on different bands, so no QSO for us. My closest state worked was New Mexico and best DX was Maine. I made 54 QSOs and worked 26 SPCs.

Here is a photo of Packsaddle Mountain from my FOTBB location. This is the nearest SOTA site to me (W5T/EF-003) and I would love to activate it but access is a problem. So near, and yet so far.

Douglas Adams inspired my Bumblebee number.  I had a great time once again. Thanks to all those who heard me.  Had fun.

WB5BKL – Nick

BB #42

Elecraft K3 P30 and P35 replacement

For a little over a year, I have had an intermittent problem with the K3. The problem occurred at boot-up (power-on) and at least two error messages were consistently displayed: IO TST2 ERRPL1 Once these errors appeared, the radio was unusable.

I contacted Elecraft Support and learned that these errors were most probably due to a connector failure. The culprits seemed to be the connectors between the front panel and the RF board. At Elecraft's suggestion, I purchased some DeOxit and treated the connectors. My experience was similar to other K3-owners on the Elecraft e-mail reflector – this fix only lasted a few months.

As I was getting paranoid about watching the display during boot, I decided to bite the bullet and see about a better fix.

Elecraft support advised that the best repair for this fault was to replace the original 28-pin P30 and 5-pin P35 tin-plated connectors with gold-plated ones and offered to send me the parts (at no charge) or to arrange repair. Though I am no longer a spring-chicken, I can still do through-hole soldering, so I decided to try the repair.

Important Note: I am NOT recommending you try this yourself. My advice is to return it to Elecraft. Personally, I weighed the K3 time lost, shipping + repair costs and probability of a botched job on my part and decided to give it a shot.

Before every step, I made sure that WB5BKL, the K3, tools and Earth were all at the same potential. I had a binocular magnifier, excellent illumination, an anti-static mat and a trusted soldering station available.

First I pulled the front panel assembly and then the bottom panel (I've gotten good at pulling the front panel assembly over the past year). I elected to snip off the pins as close to the plastic separator as possible. Then I carefully heated the solder joint and pulled the remainder of the pin. I later learned that it would might have been easier to remove the plastic separators – and then pull the easier-to-grasp pins.  Oh well.

Once all the pins were pulled, the most tedious task remained – most of the holes were still filled with solder. I used a fairly good solder-sucker I purchased at Frye's. This one was spring-loaded and my biggest problem was making sure the inlet was perfectly perpendicular to the RF board and heating the joint and pushing the solder-sucker trigger at the same time. Sort of like rubbing your stomach, patting your head and whistling “The Eyes of Texas” simultaneously.

All but about 5 cleared immediately. I spent quite a bit of time getting the final ones clear. I used a pin off the old connector to check the holes for clearance. I was afraid that if even one was tight, I might damage the new connector. I was also thinking that the board was through-hole plated, so the use of any force was probably a bad idea.

Finally, they were clear. I did several close inspections for solder bridges and then inserted the new connectors.

 

Soldering them was relatively easy. Another close inspection followed, revealing that I had missed one pin on the 5-pin connector! Yikes! Another inspection followed – and then one more. I checked the bottom of the board and touched up a couple of pins where it appeared that I had been skimpy with the solder.

One more inspection and then it was time for re-assembly.

I admit to being apprehensive about the first power-up, but everything seems to be working just fine.

Is it a permanent fix? I have no idea. Ask me in a year or so.

WB5BKL – Nick

Mounting an AME Mini-B Single Lever Paddle

In 2011, I bought an American Morse Equipment Mini-B Single Lever Paddle kit for use in the Flight of the Bumblebees.

The paddle is nicely made and the kit went together well, but there is one 'feature' that would make me rate it 4.5 out of 5 on eHam.  There is only one mounting screw.

The FotBBs event encourages portable operation, so I set up near Longhorn Cavern State Park here in Texas.  At the start of the contest it was 104F and at the end 108F.  I had to hold the paddle to keep it from rotating from my heavy-handed keying.  After a few QSOs the K1 began inserting a few extra dits and dahs.  I finally noticed that the combination of sweat and my brushing against the exposed dot and dash adjustment screws were the cause.  I decided that this year, I would mount the paddle more securely.


I decided to place a stop inside the key base instead of outside (which would have been much easier).

 First I traced the shape of the bottom of the paddle on paper using a pencil lead as shown here.  On the same paper, I made sure I knew the location of the single screw.




I then carefully cut out the tracing and transferred the pattern to two tongue depressors I had glued together (they were handy and two were about the right thickness).  I then carved away everything that did not look like the hole in the base  :-) , leaving an opening for the cable connection.






I glued the stop to my small clipboard and drilled holes for the single screw and a tie-wrap for the cable.




 Here is a picture of everything assembled.  I hope that this and lower temperatures will make the 2012 FotBBs more enjoyable.

Nick - WB5BKL

Airhead Idiot Light Repair

Not really Amateur Radio related, but recently the turn signal idiot light on the 1974 R90/6 sidecar rig went intermittent and then failed.  I opened up the instrument housing hoping that it was just a bulb but found that the problem was corrosion at the bulb connection.

BMW used a printed circuit board-like material to connect the various lamps within the instrument housing.  I guess it was a good/cheap engineering solution at the time, but after 38 years, it's now problematic.

The issue is with the thin strips of copper foil that make the connections to the bulb holders.  Corrosion ate through one of the strips.  A new replacement assembly is NLA, so I decided to repair it.

Here are images of new and used with the copper 'tabs' visible.  The bulb holders plug into the rectangular holes, contacting the foil tabs on each side.

With the bulb holder in place, a VOM revealed that the problem was only on one side.  A foil tab was missing (the bottom hole, right- side in these views).


My solution was to first carefully clean the metal tab on the right side of the bulb holder.  Then I carefully lifted the top plastic film away from the copper portion of the flexible printed circuit and carefully cleaned a spot on the remaining portion of the broken copper foil.

Using a tiny soldering iron and high-quality rosin-core solder I connected a very small piece of stranded hookup wire between the two.

Problem solved.  And the holder can still be removed for bulb replacement.

If you need to try this repair, here are several thoughts:

If you are not pretty darn good at electronic soldering, I would get everything ready and take it to an expert.  Also, removing the bulb holder assembly and holding it up to a light makes circuit tracing much easier.  The wire I used was from a scrap piece of LAN cable.

Nick - WB5BKL