NanoVNA Custom Software

[bd139]

The end game is nothing is solved <snip>

Anyway I’ve run out of time to write this post as I’m having a shit and writing it on my iPad so I’m going to wipe and use the remaining half an hour of my day to do something productive. Thanks for assisting with the constipation.

Well it appears that your constipation is twofold. One, potentially gastrointestinal, but Two, definitely mental. Hopefully I helped with at least one of them?

The bowel yes. The peristalsis invoked by your utterings was cathartic and I'm 1.1Kg lighter (2.4lb in dumbass units). Thank you indeed.

Again, I am happy that you felt the need to come rushing to Joe's defense, while he continued to make himself look like an addled old codger, running people around in circles with incorrect guidance on how to decipher his heiroglyphic instruction set. But in reality, what you are doing is generally referred to as "elder abuse". You are perpetuating his mania by validating it with a bit of your own, all while ignoring the points that were made with regards to what Joe seems to enjoy doing in this thread, which is pretend like he is sitting on the Rosetta Stone, and offering up the key to anyone willing to tolerate his dementia long enough for him to extend it.....When and if he feels like you have earned it.

I would refer you to my partner, a rather prominent psychologist, academic and doctor on why you are wrong. However I just dumped her, partly because the academic rigour in her sector is near zero and most of what they come out with is reasonable sounding ideas that they desperately try and fit data and conclusions to to validate their existence. Quite frankly that doesn't sit well with me as it's intellectually dishonest. So coming out with any popular psychology, which is built on the pillars of this excrement, is not a viable point to argue from.

You (and his) odd need to continue bashing HAM radio license holders is curious indeed. Joe gets a pass on this, because as mentioned, he appears to be suffering, (quite a bit acutally), from a sort of God complex. You, on the other hand, are admittedly just here for the entertainment.

Oh I'm not here for the entertainment. My day job is in the IT sector as you probably know. Technically at the moment I'm a somewhat tenured contract greybeard but I've been in the trenches of course for many years. And I've seen some of the most insane, degenerate, disgusting people in those trenches. I figured I needed a technical escape from that and some tie back to the previous career as an electrical engineer so after futzing with test gear for ages, I jumped through the hoops and got all the ham licenses here. A monkey could pass them, although some monkeys did not. This involved at the end of it, unfortunately, meeting hams. And they make the worst of the people I've seen in the IT trenches look like good mating material to keep the human race going forward. I mean where else other than a hamfest (or possibly Comic Con) can you queue up for 30 minutes in the burning sun with people nearly slipping off this mortal coil, the whiff off unwashed hair and armpits, lasagne flavoured vapes, gout and heart problems and if you happen to have your adult daughter with you, the wandering eyes of people who's only encounter with a woman was Mrs Hand and her five daughters.

All a ham license does for the majority of the holders is give them some perverted sense of value in a society that rejected them because they are rejectable. Some proudly walk around with a name badge and call sign on showing their importance, some dress up as close to police officers as they can and end up directing traffic at a car boot sale and some decorate their gardens with monstrous towers and fuck up the CATV / Internet for 2 miles in each direction. They only do this because the real world rejected their fantasies of power and control because they had that much of a personality disorder that it's the only bit of society that would accept them. And why would they not accept them...

Now a number of us when we did our licenses kept in contact, via sensible means aka WhatsApp and email like the rest of society. No one bothers now because of the racists, the misogynists, the perverts, the personality disorders and the general association with such folk.

On top of that it's a kick in the teeth because I did actually build my own receiver, transmitter and gear from scratch! (oh and a K2). All I get is people whining I'm 25Hz off frequency. I'm literally sending you this signal on a transmitter made of 11 parts I put together myself. You're sitting there on your fat stinky ass in front of several thousand dollars of Elecraft K-line stuff that you don't actually know how it works pissing on everyone. Yeah nice job.

So that's why I dislike the whole ham thing. And I think it's justified. I was attending hamfests until recently just to rip off their shit and sell it on ebay and make loads of money but I can't be bothered with that now any more either because I might catch something itchy off them.

If you actually believe that what Joe has offered up here is a clean path to success, for those who wish to investigate the worthiness of his "software", for whatever reason they choose, then please, by all means, defend that position with a solution of your own, for example on how to locate the one file, that appears to be required to arrive at a successful installation: "ni-labview-2020-runtime-engine_20.1.1_offline.iso" . That file does not appear to exist anywhere in NI's website, yet without it, the entirety of his offering is fruitless.

Like I said I don't give a fuck. I actually give a minuscule proportion less of a fuck now it's NI LabVIEW. I mean I've done my time on that before and it hurt me. But I reckon I could find that if for a moment I started giving a fuck. I mean it basically says "install the LabVIEW runtime" yeah? Sure I can work that out.

I would have gladly wandered off into the distance, biting my tongue, had he not replied to my post with "those pesky stepper motors, watch the video", which caused me to watch the video again, only to discover that I had already done what he described in the video, report that in a subsequent post, and then be led off in another direction by that reply. THAT is when I realized that this guy has no desire to help anyone succeed, but rather, he takes pleasure in assiting in their failure to get his software up and running.

This is the Internet. Expectations of accuracy and no legwork on the part of the consumer are never guaranteed. I mean how many thousands of circuits out there are absolute garbage trash and junk designed by complete and utter morons, some quite famous (Forest Mimms is the biggest fraud ever for example). You have to fill in the gaps yourself.

A while ago I published a design on here for a fully analoge scope excercising unit which bounces a little ball on the screen in X-Y mode. This was a fairly simple quadrature oscillator and a couple of triangle oscillators and two summing amplifiers. Someone built it and got pissy in DMs that it didn't work. I don't care! Fix it yourself.

By the way I assume you meant "assisting" rather than "assiting" there.

At that point, it, much like you proclaimed, became sport fucking for me. My only desire now, is to try and flood this thread with as many posts as I see fit, highlighting his dementia, while hopefully making other potentially interested parties aware that they have no hope for success IF they follow his "instructions" because the requisite file(s), required for success, do not exist, at least not publicly.

Perhaps the problem is with your demeanour, not the recipient. I mean you're doing a lot to ruin your own credibility in that statement. I mean you have switched to "pee all over the furniture" because no one fed you. It'll be humping the cushions next.

P.S. Points awarded for the: "I was around before AOL came in and screwed it all up for everyone" quip... That did indeed make me chuckle a little bit. Bravo.

Thank you. Takes a bow

[Grandchuck]

Your rapier wit is amazing!  Not kidding!

[cyp_eev]

My only desire now, is to try and flood this thread with as many posts as I see fit, highlighting his dementia, while hopefully making other potentially interested parties aware that they have no hope for success IF they follow his "instructions" because the requisite file(s), required for success, do not exist, at least not publicly.

You are just making an ass of yourself.. 

A direct search on Google for "install solver64" returns (somewhere on 6th place) a thread from NanoVNA-V2@Groups.io
https://groups.io/g/NanoVNA-V2/topic/89931588

Albert, a 77 years old man, was asking for help installing Solver64. I posted there a short installation guide, I wanted to prevent Albert and maybe others from doing a complete LabVIEW installation, as suggested by some other users. The links for the LabView runtime and NI-VISA are still working.
Albert just asked friendly for help, was not complaining and he finally succeded.

But you?..
Obviously it takes just a tiny effort to find the files Joe has specified or to search independently.


Thanks Joe! Great job!

[Slide_Lock]

The bowel yes. The peristalsis invoked by your utterings was cathartic and I'm 1.1Kg lighter (2.4lb in dumbass units). Thank you indeed.

Glad I could help.

I would refer you to my partner, a rather prominent psychologist, academic and doctor on why you are wrong. However I just dumped her, partly because the academic rigour in her sector is near zero and most of what they come out with is reasonable sounding ideas that they desperately try and fit data and conclusions to to validate their existence. Quite frankly that doesn't sit well with me as it's intellectually dishonest. So coming out with any popular psychology, which is built on the pillars of this excrement, is not a viable point to argue from.

Interesting you will tolerate the "pilars of excrement" that Joe slathers around in, in fact, you attempt to validate it by defending him with a sort of man on man love fest vigor, I heretofore had not witnessed in this forum, yet you have zero tolerance for someone like me who is simply calling a spade a spade.

All a ham license does for the majority of the holders is give them some perverted sense of value in a society that rejected them because they are rejectable. Some proudly walk around with a name badge and call sign on showing their importance, some dress up as close to police officers as they can and end up directing traffic at a car boot sale and some decorate their gardens with monstrous towers and fuck up the CATV / Internet for 2 miles in each direction. They only do this because the real world rejected their fantasies of power and control because they had that much of a personality disorder that it's the only bit of society that would accept them. And why would they not accept them...

Perhaps for some, but for others, it is a pre-requisite to be able to communicate on small slices of particular RF bands, to help those in need, or crisis, outside of the normal local and federal emergency relief sphere. It's too bad that you were unable to embrace that part of the "hobby"... Perhaps there were not enough hero worshipers to keep your inflated ego satiated in the obviously weird circle of HAM licensees you chose to ooze around in? It's a big world out there. Had you taken off your blinders, or perhaps engaged your cranial peristalsis in an attempt to evacuate the anger and discontent from your vacuous brain, you might have met some of us....Who knows either way because you have obviously moved on to browner pastures.

On top of that it's a kick in the teeth because I did actually build my own receiver, transmitter and gear from scratch! (oh and a K2). All I get is people whining I'm 25Hz off frequency. I'm literally sending you this signal on a transmitter made of 11 parts I put together myself. You're sitting there on your fat stinky ass in front of several thousand dollars of Elecraft K-line stuff that you don't actually know how it works pissing on everyone. Yeah nice job.

So that's why I dislike the whole ham thing. And I think it's justified. I was attending hamfests until recently just to rip off their shit and sell it on ebay and make loads of money but I can't be bothered with that now any more either because I might catch something itchy off them.

Nah, I think you just dislike anyone not exactly like you. If someone has interests or takes positions not in line with your own narrow view of the world, you belittle and denigrate them. You and Joe sound like two peas in a pod, hence the man on man reference I eluded to earlier. Do you guys do that weird Zoom meeting thing where you are naked from the waste down, while talking in stereo to each other?

A while ago I published a design on here for a fully analoge scope excercising unit which bounces a little ball on the screen in X-Y mode. This was a fairly simple quadrature oscillator and a couple of triangle oscillators and two summing amplifiers. Someone built it and got pissy in DMs that it didn't work. I don't care! Fix it yourself.

Thank you for validating all of my previous points in this post. After all, it would not be complete without the requisite "I developed the flux capacitor that took Marty McFly to the moon" holier than thou chest thumping on your part. Again, two peas in a pod.... Brilliant.

Perhaps the problem is with your demeanour, not the recipient. I mean you're doing a lot to ruin your own credibility in that statement. I mean you have switched to "pee all over the furniture" because no one fed you. It'll be humping the cushions next.

Not quite, I mentioned it before, but since you probably flushed your brain cell when you did the whole peristalsis routine, I will say it again so you can keep up: I am just calling a spade a spade.

[Slide_Lock]

A direct search on Google for "install solver64" returns (somewhere on 6th place) a thread from NanoVNA-V2@Groups.io
https://groups.io/g/NanoVNA-V2/topic/89931588

Yeah not sure if you are stoned, or just another boot licker like bd139? That thread references files that were (past tense) found on github. Once it was disclosed that the requisite fiiles were now on dropbox, along with a readme that stated that very specific files were required, and that Joes github had evaporated, that thread seemed like a dead end.
Also, if you had bothered to read my first post, I did ask nicely, here, just like ol Albert did....there.

[xrunner]

All a ham license does for the majority of the holders is give them some perverted sense of value in a society that rejected them because they are rejectable. Some proudly walk around with a name badge and call sign on showing their importance, some dress up as close to police officers as they can and end up directing traffic at a car boot sale and some decorate their gardens with monstrous towers and fuck up the CATV / Internet for 2 miles in each direction. They only do this because the real world rejected their fantasies of power and control because they had that much of a personality disorder that it's the only bit of society that would accept them. And why would they not accept them...

Hey bd139 - nice to see you back for a spin. 

[AVGresponding]

On top of that it's a kick in the teeth because I did actually build my own receiver, transmitter and gear from scratch! (oh and a K2). All I get is people whining I'm 25Hz off frequency. I'm literally sending you this signal on a transmitter made of 11 parts I put together myself. You're sitting there on your fat stinky ass in front of several thousand dollars of Elecraft K-line stuff that you don't actually know how it works pissing on everyone. Yeah nice job.

So that's why I dislike the whole ham thing. And I think it's justified. I was attending hamfests until recently just to rip off their shit and sell it on ebay and make loads of money but I can't be bothered with that now any more either because I might catch something itchy off them.

Nah, I think you just dislike anyone not exactly like you. If someone has interests or takes positions not in line with your own narrow view of the world, you belittle and denigrate them. You and Joe sound like two peas in a pod, hence the man on man reference I eluded to earlier. Do you guys do that weird Zoom meeting thing where you are naked from the waste down, while talking in stereo to each other?

The word that eluded you there is "alluded".

[bd139]

Interesting you will tolerate the "pilars of excrement" that Joe slathers around in, in fact, you attempt to validate it by defending him with a sort of man on man love fest vigor, I heretofore had not witnessed in this forum, yet you have zero tolerance for someone like me who is simply calling a spade a spade.

I'm not defending Joe at all. I'm merely stating that the spade is the spade and you have to get used to it and work around the spade. What is not ok is coming in and telling everyone that the spade needs to be a pitchfork. Everyone of course knows the moment it's a pitchfork it's going to get rammed up their own ass. Because it's the cycle of "nothing is ever good enough".

Perhaps for some, but for others, it is a pre-requisite to be able to communicate on small slices of particular RF bands, to help those in need, or crisis, outside of the normal local and federal emergency relief sphere. It's too bad that you were unable to embrace that part of the "hobby"... Perhaps there were not enough hero worshipers to keep your inflated ego satiated in the obviously weird circle of HAM licensees you chose to ooze around in? It's a big world out there. Had you taken off your blinders, or perhaps engaged your cranial peristalsis in an attempt to evacuate the anger and discontent from your vacuous brain, you might have met some of us....Who knows either way because you have obviously moved on to browner pastures.

Notably I was not unable but I was unwilling to participate in that part of the hobby because it's a US specific thing and not what everyone else does on the planet. Also the people involved in it, who I will get to later, are quite stupid. I mean as far as the US goes I can't help that you live in a third world country as far as emergency response is concerned but we have pretty damn good 4G coverage everywhere here and for everything else we have satellite based InReach and Emergency SOS as well. And there's actually people on the end of it who will respond unlike your government apparently. In fact in the UK, we have an equivalent thing to ARES called RAYNET. They have the same mentality and the drills as the US lot but the emergency services do not need or want them to be around. So they sit around perpetually waiting for doomsday looking for anywhere they can help out with radios. This turns out to be really important things such as: taking payments for car boot sales, handing out water at cycle races and sitting around eating burgers and generally being fat asses. Recently they were fired from directing traffic at hamfests due to incompetence and were replaced with the local Army cadets who have somewhat higher level of competence and order. As they're all retired or unable to function in society as it stands they don't have a lot of money either so the result is usually some lurid decoration of a caravan, as depicted below. Occasionally if they get a bit of money a camper will be decorated in full police livery with RAYNET spooged all over the side, to the eternal embarrassment of the incumbent partner who is eternally waiting for someone to whisk her away from this weirdo she regrets marrying.



Referring to my point about dressing up as police officers, here's another one. Clearly the police wouldn't let him in, which is amazing because they're mostly morons here, or he was scared of actual emergencies in some way and wanted to look pretty but not do anything useful.



I can see him driving around in his 20 year old Discovery making NEE NAW NEE NAW noises.

As you can imagine I don't want anything to do with them. I also question the legitimacy of civilian responders when it comes to actual emergencies because it's near impossible to train, validate and moderate responders in any meaningful normalised way unless there are professional standards involved and in the US that is certainly not the case. In fact a lot of the time, and I know this after reading a few horror stories over the years, that a lot of time the ham community gets in the way of actual real responders. Ah hell lets throw a meme in:



Anyway back to the point about the rest of the planet, so true story. I'm in the middle of the Terme Pass in Kyrgyzstan earlier this year, somewhere that the average COPD crippled operator wouldn't be able to get near without needing an emergency response even at ground level, and someone in the group lost their footing and injured their back. We're at 12,000ft. Put your money where your mouth is, and don't avoid any further point where you need to be accountable for your perspective like the first few comments and tell me what you'd do in this situation. Here's about 5 minutes before it happened.



Location is: https://www.openstreetmap.org/?mlat=41.70705199241638&mlon=75.27044534683228#map=15/41.7080/75.2706

That is all the mapping data there is.

Nah, I think you just dislike anyone not exactly like you. If someone has interests or takes positions not in line with your own narrow view of the world, you belittle and denigrate them. You and Joe sound like two peas in a pod, hence the man on man reference I eluded to earlier. Do you guys do that weird Zoom meeting thing where you are naked from the waste down, while talking in stereo to each other?

Oh I get on with most people absolutely fine and dislike virtually no one. In fact the list is pretty much limited to pedophiles, scientologists and hams. Some people have even met me on here in real life and don't seem that offended by me! Anyway which narrow view of the world is this?

As for the zoom meetings I do not use my camera, because a lot of the time I don't have a top on either. Sometimes I haven't even got out of bed when I go on a zoom call and I sleep in my birthday suit. Sometimes I'm having a shit. I mean I get paid to sit on zoom calls all day so I might as well do it from the comfort of where I choose wearing what I choose or choose not to.

Thank you for validating all of my previous points in this post. After all, it would not be complete without the requisite "I developed the flux capacitor that took Marty McFly to the moon" holier than thou chest thumping on your part. Again, two peas in a pod.... Brilliant.

I don't think you've got the point yet. I will write it in simpler terms: no warranty expressed or implied. In more complicated terms, all open source licenses, which are generally a lot less generous than Joe and myself are on these matters as we are willing to help people (check all our threads). Here's the BSD license for example:


THIS SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED BY <COPYRIGHT HOLDER> AS IS AND ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTIES, INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, THE IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE ARE DISCLAIMED. IN NO EVENT SHALL <COPYRIGHT HOLDER> BE LIABLE FOR ANY DIRECT, INDIRECT, INCIDENTAL, SPECIAL, EXEMPLARY, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES (INCLUDING, BUT NOT LIMITED TO, PROCUREMENT OF SUBSTITUTE GOODS OR SERVICES; LOSS OF USE, DATA, OR PROFITS; OR BUSINESS INTERRUPTION) HOWEVER CAUSED AND ON ANY THEORY OF LIABILITY, WHETHER IN CONTRACT, STRICT LIABILITY, OR TORT (INCLUDING NEGLIGENCE OR OTHERWISE) ARISING IN ANY WAY OUT OF THE USE OF THIS SOFTWARE, EVEN IF ADVISED OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH DAMAGE.


In simpler terms, you're on your own, possibly backed up with some help if you're lucky.

Not quite, I mentioned it before, but since you probably flushed your brain cell when you did the whole peristalsis routine, I will say it again so you can keep up: I am just calling a spade a spade.

Did you get your biology textbook from Texas?

[joeqsmith]

I don't think you've got the point yet. I will write it in simpler terms: no warranty expressed or implied. In more complicated terms, all open source licenses, which are generally a lot less generous than Joe and myself are on these matters as we are willing to help people (check all our threads).

Our friend's view on help differs from my own.  They expect help to be in the form of simple spoon fed answers.  Similar to how you get your ham license.  I see more value in requiring people who ask for help to actually use their brain to solve their own problems.  This isn't something normally required of hams and many get upset when you start asking them to think.   I suspect many view their license as some sort of college degree or continued education in engineering.   Asking them anything technical brings that into question.   Look at what triggered them:   

And if you search NI's site for the error you posted, what does it tell you?

Code Description −1073807202 VISA or a code library required by VISA could not be located or loaded.

And notice how we have seen this before in your earlier post.   What do you think this means?

Once they realized I wasn't going to pamper them like they are apparently accustomed to, they threw a tantrum.   Most professionals I expect would have read that error code and realized where they fucked up.   Especially in the case of our friend who pointed out they had been unable to locate the correct files and assumed....   

While I did make a screen capture on how to download the files after Veteran68's post,  what I stated about it being wasted time on our friend appears true.  Getting the software running is simple.  I seriously doubt they will learning to use it with no technical skills beyond what was required to obtain a license.

[bd139]

If they think a ham ticket is an engineering qualification then they're misguided. It's a retard filter and not a very good one! 

100% agree on all your points.

[joeqsmith]

Not too surprised our friend has gone silent.   Assuming they were were able to install the correct files and have the software running,  I doubt our friend will own their behavior and ask more detailed questions on how to run it with the same username.   

Hello, my name is Billy Jim Bob, Extra Class.  I'm new to this software and need help.   Wait for it.    

[xrunner]

Not too surprised our friend has gone silent.   Assuming they were were able to install the correct files and have the software running,  I doubt our friend will own their behavior and ask more detailed questions on how to run it with the same username.   

Hello, my name is Billy Jim Bob, Extra Class.  I'm new to this software and need help.   Wait for it.   

Have you considered a pay-for support offering? You could make a killing. 

[joeqsmith]

Not too surprised our friend has gone silent.   Assuming they were were able to install the correct files and have the software running,  I doubt our friend will own their behavior and ask more detailed questions on how to run it with the same username.   

Hello, my name is Billy Jim Bob, Extra Class.  I'm new to this software and need help.   Wait for it.   

Have you considered a pay-for support offering? You could make a killing. 

I would have to charge enough to avoid having to deal with the hams and their "I can't locate the files" stupidity.   So what's that, 50 cents an hour??    

I don't mind donating my time to help the future generation of engineers.  As long as I am able, the plan is to keep the software free and take no advertising or Patreon donations for the channel.   Believe me, using this business model doesn't attract a lot of investors.     

[bd139]

You could get a premium rate line for Hams. Make them feel special. And just keep them on hold.

[Kean]

Hopefully he remains silent.  He was not contributing any value to the thread, other than a bit of humor which was really thanks to bd139.

[joeqsmith]

You could get a premium rate line for Hams. Make them feel special. And just keep them on hold.

It's funny.  I've been reading various books and papers written by people who were amateur radio operators.  Many of them had higher level degrees.  Most PHD level.  Most of these papers have been from the 1960s and earlier.   When I was a youth, I knew two hams that built all sorts of radios.   Guessing that over time the FCC has changed the requirements for their No ham left behind agenda which has reduced the overall skill level.   

I still run across hams who have an interest and the skills to construct, and in some cases design, their own equipment and radios.   I'm not talking code oscillators and stringing up dipoles.  I call these hams the 1%ers because they are so rare.  This small group is worth helping.     

The problem is sorting them out.  Then again, if your first question is "I can't find the correct files so I grabbed what I felt would work and now I can't understand why your shitty software doesn't work",  I think we have our answer.  As our friend suggests, this thread is loaded with them and if I choose to try and help,  I always try to lead them to solving their own problems.  Seldom works.   

[joeqsmith]

Hopefully he remains silent.  He was not contributing any value to the thread, other than a bit of humor which was really thanks to bd139.

It's possible someone reported them and they had a warning from the admins.  I've been there more than once and have had my timeout.   I've never felt the need to report anyone myself.  Certainly not our friend here.  Their only value is to serve as a constant reminder of what being a ham is about.

[bd139]

You could get a premium rate line for Hams. Make them feel special. And just keep them on hold.

It's funny.  I've been reading various books and papers written by people who were amateur radio operators.  Many of them had higher level degrees.  Most PHD level.  Most of these papers have been from the 1960s and earlier.   When I was a youth, I knew two hams that built all sorts of radios.   Guessing that over time the FCC has changed the requirements for their No ham left behind agenda which has reduced the overall skill level.   

I still run across hams who have an interest and the skills to construct, and in some cases design, their own equipment and radios.   I'm not talking code oscillators and stringing up dipoles.  I call these hams the 1%ers because they are so rare.  This small group is worth helping.     

Agree. Yes things have certainly changed over the years. It's sad. Some of the best RF books out there are written by hams as well. In fact one of my favourite books is W7ZOI's Experimental Methods in RF design, which I think taught me more about small signal BJT models than any university textbook did.  But really I think this is really the relentless march of technology and the economic situation. The barriers to entry are now low. Buy a 2m HT or HF set, throw a pre-made antenna up in a tree. You can buy all of these on credit or a reasonable amount of money now. You don't need to really understand how they work and there is no financial pressure to trade buying something for creating something from trash. Some of this is the inherent complexity in some of the manufacturing of these radios which turns it into the opaque black box that does magic like a smartphone and some of it is actual intellectual disinterest in the matter. The latter is a big problem in society I find. It has become fashionable to say you're stupid at math and science rather than embarrassing so there isn't the foundation on which to build higher concepts.

When you normalise stupid, you get people who can't navigate simple problems. And rather than self-education, they expect to be spoon fed. Until recently I had the same problem with a couple of hundred outsourcers who couldn't rationalise even what the description of a problem was before attempting to solve it!  . The same people wonder why they stumble through life from fungible position to fungible position and never meet their personal goals. This leads to lots of hand waving about unfairness but in reality they don't care enough about their own capabilities to improve them.

The problem is sorting them out.  Then again, if your first question is "I can't find the correct files so I grabbed what I felt would work and now I can't understand why your shitty software doesn't work",  I think we have our answer.  As our friend suggests, this thread is loaded with them and if I choose to try and help,  I always try to lead them to solving their own problems.  Seldom works.

Yeah that.

On that note I'm about to log into work and will see 100 people on Slack saying "X doesn't work" with no thought past the statement that it doesn't work. We're shutting the support channels down next week so they have to raise a ticket with a stupid question in it so we can close it with "stupid question" and get some metrics on it 

[joeqsmith]

I had this video running in the background.  It's some ham training on the NanoVNA.   There were a couple of times I perked up.  It was held on-line and the old timers did not understand the software.  So they have their microphones on and the guy giving the talk has to keep pausing because of the viewers phones ringing, feedback....  The best parts are when he asked them a question and you could hear a pin drop.   You could tell the old hams were totally lost.  Guessing they viewed it as a social event.   For example, the link is a question on resonance.  My jaw dropped.   

https://youtu.be/UlXgZpgE6qk?t=2667

Of course these same people are the ones who use "mhz", can't find files,  don't know if there are two states and it's not true what it is?..... 

I agree with your comment about the normalizing stupid.  On a large scale, I'm sure it's easier to heard sheep.   I mean, if you can't train a dog, maybe you shouldn't be expected to lead humans.       

For hams, it seems I mostly interact with older people who maybe made it to extra class and that is the height of their technical education.  Maybe there is no motive to learn anything beyond their Q&A booklet as they already reached the top.  In their small world, they are the kings.  The lower classes in their circle look up to them.  Now you have a case of self importance.  All is fine until they come outside to play..   They can't argue at any technical level so they have to go with something they know.   Maybe run a grammar or spell checker   

[joeqsmith]

Also, back on topic, I fucked up the S-parameter import to address that bug I saw in Fred's QT data.  Worse, it fucked up even good files.   Pisses me off to have to add workarounds for QT's export.   I have it fixed and expect to upload an update soon.       

[bd139]

I had this video running in the background.  It's some ham training on the NanoVNA.   There were a couple of times I perked up.  It was held on-line and the old timers did not understand the software.  So they have their microphones on and the guy giving the talk has to keep pausing because of the viewers phones ringing, feedback....  The best parts are when he asked them a question and you could hear a pin drop.   You could tell the old hams were totally lost.  Guessing they viewed it as a social event.   For example, the link is a question on resonance.  My jaw dropped.   

https://youtu.be/UlXgZpgE6qk?t=2667

Of course these same people are the ones who use "mhz", can't find files,  don't know if there are two states and it's not true what it is?..... 

I agree with your comment about the normalizing stupid.  On a large scale, I'm sure it's easier to heard sheep.   I mean, if you can't train a dog, maybe you shouldn't be expected to lead humans.       

For hams, it seems I mostly interact with older people who maybe made it to extra class and that is the height of their technical education.  Maybe there is no motive to learn anything beyond their Q&A booklet as they already reached the top.  In their small world, they are the kings.  The lower classes in their circle look up to them.  Now you have a case of self importance.  All is fine until they come outside to play..   They can't argue at any technical level so they have to go with something they know.   Maybe run a grammar or spell checker   

The silence in that video is hilarious  .

That last comment reminds me of the local radio club I decided to go to just once. There was a technical elite in there. Well he thought he was. The only thing that made him elite was the fact that the rest of the club was thick as dog shit. So on the first time I go there he's "repairing" this poor guy's Kenwood TS-2000's LPFs. Of course one of the LPF toroids (on 80m as it always is) was smoked by a poor mismatch and the operation principle of "yeah high SWR - just turn the power up some to get more signal out". So he's got the LPF board out and is going at it with Jesus' soldering iron. Something from the 1950s by the looks. Was about a foot and a half long. In the process of getting the toroid out he managed to not only tear the damn pads off the board but one of the traces and leave a charred crater. This was patched up by soldering a bodge wire to the board afterwards. The toroid was rewound with far too thin wire as well, badly (I am a bitch for getting toroids right). I nearly died inside. Much applause from the assembled idiots. The owner was happy and I'm sure he got it home and smoked it instantly, if it even worked. So after this spectacular display of incompetence, when asked for some feedback for his ego, I gave him a critical assessment. As a mere foundation class operator (newbie scum) I was railed almost instantly by his ego in a tirade in front of the other people. I felt it was best at that time to let them all burn so I kept my qualifications and experience on the matter quiet and let him go on. Can't argue with stupid people. But I learned how the hierarchy worked and a lot about hams and clubs. Needless to say I didn't bother going back again.

Can remember his callsign. G-something Ron. Wore an RSGB name badge like it actually means something. Body odour problem.

[joeqsmith]

I think Xrunner posted a similar story about a ham "repairing" a radio.  Too bad you didn't video record your interaction with the local king.  It would have made for a good YT video.   

I think the problem in that video was the presenter talked about the material being at a 12th grade level.  He said he was a professor, so I'm sure he was aware of the no ham left behind.  He needs to dumb it down even further.  It's a complex topic so I'm not sure how he's going to pull it off, but looks like he is trying his best to help educate the masses.  Interesting as he talked about recently learning the basics himself.   Rare you run into hams like this.   

[bd139]

Yeah. I think xrunner had to bug bomb one as well 

The hams like that also tend to either grow really long beards, use CW only on QRP calling frequencies and whine about competitions (lowest asshat density) or just leave the hobby entirely.

[xrunner]

Yeah. I think xrunner had to bug bomb one as well 

The hams like that also tend to either grow really long beards, use CW only on QRP calling frequencies and whine about competitions (lowest asshat density) or just leave the hobby entirely.

Ah yes! Fond memories ... not. Yea that was a Yaesu FT-757 HF transceiver. Was delivered for me to check out. Sat it on the bench and took a nap. When I got up I opened the cover ... to see a movement inside. Because of my deep technical expertise I realized radio parts aren't supposed to move on their own.

Quickly ran with it outside and there were live cockroaches inside. Had to bug-bomb it before proceeding. The ham got a Royal chewing-out from me later (over the phone).

Here's another one I haven't shown before, again brought to me by a local HAM several years ago. He bought it at a local HAM-fest. A JRC NRD-515 shortwave receiver. These are really nice receivers. If it would have been in good condition I'd have probably tried to buy it from him. Alas it was in absolutely terrible condition. Looked like it had been used in a jeep in Afghanistan by the local Taliban. The cover was just bent to all living f*ck. Whole thing just beat to shit. Some of the knobs just about couldn't be turned. Main thing was the audio sounded tinny and as crappy as could be. Just a really sad thing to see.

I eventually found that a main IF filter was just simply gone, and a wire had been soldered in place to bypass the missing filter. It wasn't a filter for CW, SSB, or AM bandwidth. It was in another part of the IF chain.

The filter was a JRC part - unobtainium now, and I told the ham all this. "Sorry bro - you lost this bet!" He sadly took it home ... probably to be passed on as quickly as possible to the next unsuspecting schmuck at another HAM-fest.

[joeqsmith]

Didn't you also have a ham working on a club radio with a Jesus iron that messed up the board? 

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Solver64, 4.02 is live.  I added the Google search, cut and paste instructions so we don't leave any more hams behind that can't locate the correct files.


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For those outside of the USA, in regards to my sheeple / dog and leadership comment.  My new lab partner came to us a three YO.  PO must have really been a piece of work.  Guessing I did more training with her in the first few weeks than this poor dog in the video has had it whole life.   Sad is they gave up the other one, just like what happened with my new partner we found sitting in a kill shelter.  If you can't train and take care of them, don't get one.