ka7oei

4 of 5 Kiwis won't stay on the LAN

ka7oei

April 2021

Another site visit was made (not by me - it's a 120+km drive each way) - with enough time to take things apart and do a more thorough investigation:

Kiwi #2 was found to have low supply voltage: We

… (more)

Another site visit was made (not by me - it's a 120+km drive each way) - with enough time to take things apart and do a more thorough investigation:

Kiwi #2 was found to have low supply voltage: We found that the power cable had been crushed/stretched (but not shorted) and it had rather high resistance: With 5.05 volts at the power supply, there was only 4.35 volts measured at the PCB connector. We ended up removing about half of the power cable for the time-being as we no longer trusted it. I'm guessing that #2 went offline coincidentally a few days before the others, largely for this reason.
As per suggestions, we did check the power supplies. Even under start-up load, nothing seemed amiss: The supply for Kiwis 1-3 is a pair of diode-OR'd 3 amp-rated linear supplies (International IHB5-3) and couldn't find anything strange about it (about 4.95 volts at the Kiwi PCB when it's up and running): We were wondering if one of the two supplies had crowbarred - but this wasn't the case. (We have had one of the two supplies crowbar in the past due to lighting and it was still enough to run the three Kiwis as the actual fold-back current of these 3 amp supplies appears to be a bit north of 4 amps).
I believe that the power supply for units 4 and 5 is a 4 amp switcher (with lots of added filtering on the AC input and DC output to avoid RFI and a lot of bulk capacitance on the output for impulse loads).
Just to be safe - and since it had been a problem child for a long time (even before it was used on the current, dual 3-amp ORed supply) we backed up the newest KiwiSDR (#5) and put the image on KiwiSDR #2, just in case something was amiss.

The reason for Kiwis 3-5 to do what they did all at the same instant (except for #1) when conditions could not be ascertained to be quantifiably different than in the past when updates were done is unknown - but the reason for #2 is quite clear, now.

* *

On the next "official" site visit (where there are several of us with a carload of gear and parts) I'll bump up the output of at least the dual 3-amp supply to about 5.25 volts - something that has been suggested here before.

Thanks for everyone who made comments and suggestions.

73,

Clint, KA7OEI

(less)

Advice on sharing RX antennas with 3 SDRs in the most effective way

ka7oei

April 2019

It's worth mentioning that at a quiet location, even a KiwiSDR connected directly to a (nominally) unity-gain antenna is not quite sensitive enough to hear the IRU-defined noise floor - much less if… (more)

installing Kiwirecorder on Ubuntu 16.04?

ka7oei

May 2019

Although it is getting to be a bit dated - and is catered mostly toward use for WSPR decoding, there is this:

http://ka7oei.blogspot.com/2018/10/a-quick-and-probably-incomplete-guide.html

This may help… (more)

Advice on sharing RX antennas with 3 SDRs in the most effective way

ka7oei

April 2019

It's worth mentioning that at a quiet location, even a KiwiSDR connected directly to a (nominally) unity-gain antenna is not quite sensitive enough to hear the IRU-defined noise floor - much less if… (more)

OpenWebRX [using a transverter/down-converter with the Kiwi]

ka7oei

April 2019

With power supplies: If, by its heft, you can believe there to be an iron block inside, it's a transformer type. If it feels like it's (mostly) empty, it's a switching type. If its AC input voltage… (more)

S-Meter Calibration

ka7oei

April 2019

As the operator of the Northern Utah WebSDR, I've always made it a point to make sure that the S-meter reading reflects the signal at the main antenna port for any receiver, +/-1dB in the middle of… (more)

Important: updated assembly guide (v1.1) for the aluminum enclosure

ka7oei

March 2019

I have a bit of follow-up related to the KiwiSDR case fan. It would appear that at least some the noisiness is likely related to insufficient/poor lubrication after all.

Having powered down my Kiwi… (more)

Ethernet filters

ka7oei

March 2019

I noticed the DXE devices when they first appeared - and have wondered about them. I did notice that they didn't support POE (hence the claim of galvanic isolation) which means that they would be of… (more) little help when it comes to quieting the oft-noisy IP cameras that are becoming increasingly common, nor would they help in preventing the conduction and radiation of power supply noise from a POE-powered wireless link radios (e.g. for Internet or "Mesh" operation) - or from the power inserters/Ethernet switches that power these devices, which are often bad or worse than the device being powered in terms of RFI.

This makes me suspect that the DXE devices are simply back-to-back Ethernet transformers - with some care taken in the design to allow operation at Gig-E speeds.

For quieting Ethernet connections I have, for some time, just used the "flat" Ethernet cable (often called "Cat-6" or "Cat-7", regardless of whether they really are...) wrapped around large-ish ferrite toroids. It would seem that one can wrap this "flat" cable rather tightly without upsetting its geometry as it will still work fine at Gig-E speeds when "spliced" inline with a Gig-E circuit, provided that one uses a Gig-E rated double-female RJ-45 connector.

In testing, I've verified the following in a fixture that allowed the insertion of an Ethernet cable/device and inputted a signal on one side with a spectrum analyzer on the other side, terminating in 50 ohms:

Using 10-12 turns on the following cores (approx. 33mm O.D., 23mm I.D., except where noted):

- Mix 77: >=20dB across AM BCB and onto 160 meters (Fair Rite 5977003801)
- Mix 31: >=20dB from 160 meters through 30 meters (Larger core - Fair Rite 2631803802 - I haven't found a convenient source for the 33mm O.D. in this mix)
- Mix 43: >=20dB from 40 meters through 10 meters (Fair Rite 5943002701)

For a particularly troublesome situation, three cores with 10-12 turns each - two Mix 43 and one Mix 31(or Mix 77, which works almost as well at 40 meters ) in series, but each separated by about 1.5 inches (3-4cm) to prevent cross-coupling seemed to work well from 160-10 meters with well over 30dB isolation (>50dB measured at some frequencies) and about 20dB to 6 meters. I've used a similar scheme with a Mix 77 core to keep my 630 meter and 2200 meter transmissions from getting into devices.

Because these are simply common-mode chokes, they have no effect on (properly made) signals on the Ethernet cables themselves - and can be used to pass DC (as in POE).

For higher frequencies (VHF, UHF) it gets increasingly difficult to effectively quash radiation on cable, but more common split ferrites designed for the frequency range, placed as close to the offending device(s) as possible, are the best bet.

73,
Clint
KA7OEI (less)

Ethernet filters

ka7oei

March 2019

I noticed the DXE devices when they first appeared - and have wondered about them. I did notice that they didn't support POE (hence the claim of galvanic isolation) which means that they would be of… (more) little help when it comes to quieting the oft-noisy IP cameras that are becoming increasingly common, nor would they help in preventing the conduction and radiation of power supply noise from a POE-powered wireless link radios (e.g. for Internet or "Mesh" operation) - or from the power inserters/Ethernet switches that power these devices, which are often bad or worse than the device being powered in terms of RFI.

This makes me suspect that the DXE devices are simply back-to-back Ethernet transformers - with some care taken in the design to allow operation at Gig-E speeds.

For quieting Ethernet connections I have, for some time, just used the "flat" Ethernet cable (often called "Cat-6" or "Cat-7", regardless of whether they really are...) wrapped around large-ish ferrite toroids. It would seem that one can wrap this "flat" cable rather tightly without upsetting its geometry as it will still work fine at Gig-E speeds when "spliced" inline with a Gig-E circuit, provided that one uses a Gig-E rated double-female RJ-45 connector.

In testing, I've verified the following in a fixture that allowed the insertion of an Ethernet cable/device and inputted a signal on one side with a spectrum analyzer on the other side, terminating in 50 ohms:

Using 10-12 turns on the following cores (approx. 33mm O.D., 23mm I.D., except where noted):

- Mix 77: >=20dB across AM BCB and onto 160 meters (Fair Rite 5977003801)
- Mix 31: >=20dB from 160 meters through 30 meters (Larger core - Fair Rite 2631803802 - I haven't found a convenient source for the 33mm O.D. in this mix)
- Mix 43: >=20dB from 40 meters through 10 meters (Fair Rite 5943002701)

For a particularly troublesome situation, three cores with 10-12 turns each - two Mix 43 and one Mix 31(or Mix 77, which works almost as well at 40 meters ) in series, but each separated by about 1.5 inches (3-4cm) to prevent cross-coupling seemed to work well from 160-10 meters with well over 30dB isolation (>50dB measured at some frequencies) and about 20dB to 6 meters. I've used a similar scheme with a Mix 77 core to keep my 630 meter and 2200 meter transmissions from getting into devices.

Because these are simply common-mode chokes, they have no effect on (properly made) signals on the Ethernet cables themselves - and can be used to pass DC (as in POE).

For higher frequencies (VHF, UHF) it gets increasingly difficult to effectively quash radiation on cable, but more common split ferrites designed for the frequency range, placed as close to the offending device(s) as possible, are the best bet.

73,
Clint
KA7OEI (less)

WSPR, who is running it?

ka7oei

March 2019

At the Northern Utah WebSDR, we have 14 "receivers" spread across three 8-channel Kiwis, leaving the first two (full-bandwidth waterfall) channels free for users. This gives us six channels with full… (more)

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ka7oei

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4 of 5 Kiwis won't stay on the LAN

Advice on sharing RX antennas with 3 SDRs in the most effective way

installing Kiwirecorder on Ubuntu 16.04?

Advice on sharing RX antennas with 3 SDRs in the most effective way

OpenWebRX [using a transverter/down-converter with the Kiwi]

S-Meter Calibration

Important: updated assembly guide (v1.1) for the aluminum enclosure

Ethernet filters

Ethernet filters

WSPR, who is running it?