Sunday, December 18, 2011

Geek News

--The automagical feedback compensensational widget I was struggling with all last week? Finally got enough signal to it on Friday; what I had earlier was close and should have worked, but the factory techs kept musing over just how fussy the thing was, so I took them seriously and found a signal tap hot enough that I could pad the level down to exactly the +5.00000 dBm called for.

At which point, it continued to not work, in very much the same semi-inert manner as before.

With that in evidence, I convinced the manufacturer that I might not be guessing when I suspected the thing was unhappy. They overnighted in a whole new board (costs more than I paid for my car!). After it showed up Saturday afternoon, I went through the entire setup procedure once more -- and it worked! Not with particular verve or huge improvement, but it did work.

Naturally, by then it was too late in the day to proceed to Step Two, which involves the riggers changing some connections high on the tower.

But, hooray! Progress has been made -- and now I have a whole entire day off.

Back at it Monday, when we'll take that next step. There's no looking back after that, or not much. Think positive!

5 comments:

perlhaqr said...

Congratulations on forward progress. Also, I have sent you email.

Tango Juliet said...

Best of luck!

Hat Trick said...

Having only worked with the low signal levels in sensitive receivers that +5 dBm got my attention.

Glad you're making progress and got a day off today. Best of luck with the remainder of this and your other projects.

rremington said...

I can picture the "conversation" on the phone now: "I did it EXACTLY like you wanted and IT. DOESN'T. WORK! It's YOUR problem, not mine."

Ritchie said...

"Well it passed final test before we shipped it." Wait, I have some idea how that could have come about.