Battery Day

Lately, the batteries in my iPhone and MacBook Pro have been discharging rapidly. The iPhone is over five years old and the MacBook is over six years old, so I figured it was time to replace their original batteries.

Amazon sells replacement battery kits for $15 and $50 respectively. Both kits include all the tools required for the task.

I viewed how-to videos on YouTube. The only difficult part of the tasks seemed to be removing the old batteries, which were attached to the iPhone and MacBook cases with a two-sided tape-like adhesive. In the past, I've handled worse do-it-yourself computer tasks successfully, so I ordered the batteries from Amazon.

Saturday was Battery Day.

The iPhone battery replacement was not too bad. Working with the tiny screws with my 68-year-old eyes was the most difficult part of the task.

Removing the two-sided tape was a little tricky. You are supposed to grab the tape at one end of the battery and pull it out from under the battery, but the tape kept ripping in my fingers tips. I finally used a needle nose plier to get a good grip on the tape and pull it out.

The job took about 30 minutes from start to finish and was a success. The iPhone is now like new with regard to its battery discharge rate.

The MacBook Pro battery replacement was easier than I expected because the glue holding the battery to the computer case had dried out over the past six years and it did not take much prying with a small chisel to free the battery. It took about 45 minutes to do the job and like the iPhone, the MacBook Pro's battery discharge rate is like new now.

I would have completed the MacBook battery replacement more quickly except that I had a big surprise when I opened the case: dust all over the interior of the computer including large dustballs, as you can see in the photo above. It took an extra 10 to 15 minutes to remove all the dust before I screwed the cover back on to the MacBook case.

I was very pleased with the results. Besides saving money, I also saved time by avoiding a visit to the Apple store.

Noise Gone At Last

As I wrote here in June 2016, I am very happy with my ELAD FDM-S2/SW2 SDR receiver, but there was a problem: interference from the MacBook Pro battery charger/power supply. The interference was so strong that only the strongest AM stations are above the noise.

I eliminated some of the noise when I reconnected an antenna switch to ground (after it had become mysteriously disconnected), but that did not eliminate the noise completely.

I installed ferrite cable clips on the charger's cable, but that made no difference. I wrapped the cable 20 times around a toroid ferrite core, but that made no difference.

The only solution that worked was to use the ELAD-MacBook Pro combo without the battery charger. This gives me a few hours operating without the interference, but sooner or later, the battery would need to be recharged.

A few days ago, I was using my MacBook and the battery was getting low. I was too lazy to go upstairs to fetch my charger, when I noticed my daughter's MacBook Air battery charger/power supply on the kitchen table unused. So I decided to try it even though it is a different model than the one bundled with my MacBook Pro (45W vs. 85W). Despite the difference, it charged my MacBook Pro without working up a sweat.

I wondered how my daughter's 45-watt charger would perform with the ELAD receiver, so I took it to the radio shack, made all the connections and voila! the 45-watt charger was clean. No noise at all!

I did a little Googling to see if there were any gotchas about using the wrong charger with my MacBook Pro and found this, which claimed that the charger, "will not charge the machine at all while in use, and will only trickle-charge the machine while asleep."

That was just the opposite of my experience, but to make sure I was correct, I used the 45-watt charger while running the ELAD FDM-SW2 software and it took my MacBook Pro's battery from 75% to 99% in about an hour.

That was good enough for me. I Googled the 45-watt charger, found it for sale here for $55 and ordered it as fast as PayPal could handle it.

Gone

Thank you for your suggestions on how to fix the interference problem I encountered while using the ELAD FDM-S2 SDR receiver with my MacBook Pro computer.

The source of the noise seemed to be the computer's battery charger/power supply, but all my attempts to fix the problem failed until I noticed that my Heath coaxial switch was not grounded. I assume its connection to ground had been disconnected while I was rearranging the furniture and I forgot to reconnect it.

Reconnecting the switch to ground made a big difference and eliminated most of the noise on the AM/MW band.

Nine New Ones!

Tuning around the AM band with my new ELAD FDM-S2 SDR receiver last week, I logged three new stations:

- WGYM on 1580 kc in Hammonton, NJ, transmitting 1 kW 168 miles to the SSW.

- WACK on 1420 kc in Newark, NY, transmitting 500 W, 232 miles to the WNW.

- WQFG689 on 1710 kc in Jersey City, NJ, transmitting 10 W, 85 miles to the SW. WQFG689 is a TIS for Hudson County, NJ.

Friday night, I tried recording the whole AM band for two minutes at 10 PM EDST. I spent a few hours listening to the recording and logged six new stations:

- WNEB on 1230 kc in Southbridge, MA, transmitting 1 kW, 73 miles to the NE

- WICH on 1310 kc in Norwich, CT, transmitting 5 kW, 45 miles to the WSE.

- WEMG on 1310 kc in Camden, NJ, transmitting 250 W, 162 miles to the SW.

- WWRU on 1660 kc in Jersey City, NJ, transmitting 10 W, 85 miles to the SW.

- WTTM on 1680 kc in Lindenwold, NJ, transmitting 1 kW, 162 miles to the SW.

- CKAT on 600 kc in North Bay, Ontario, 455 miles to the NW.

All were heard using an 80 meter inverted Vee antenna.

I am very happy with my new radio, but there is a problem: interference from the MacBook Pro battery charger/power supply. The interference is so strong that only the strongest AM stations are above the noise.

The cable between the charger and the computer is the problem because the noise disappears completely when I disconnect the cable from the computer even though the charger is still powered.

I installed ferrite cable clips on the cable, but that made no difference.

I wrapped the cable 20 times around a toroid ferrite core, but that made no difference.

One solution that works is to use the ELAD-MacBook Pro combo without the battery charger. This gives me a few hours operating without the interference, but sooner or later, the battery will need to be recharged.

Anyone have any other solutions?

Running Windows and Mac OS X in Parallel

WGYM: My first new logging with the ELAD FDM-S2 SDR Receiver.

I have owned Macintosh computers since they were originally released in 1984. Way back when, I had a clunky DOS emulator on one of my desktop Macs. I cannot recall why I bought it because I don't remember using it much... maybe because it was so clunky.

Windows emulators/enablers for the Mac have been around for awhile. I have never had a need for one until now, so I had not paid much attention to them and had to educate myself quickly.

I read a few articles comparing what was available and found myself on Parallels' website where there was a link to download and try out their enabler for 14 days. I downloaded and installed the enabler without a problem, but there was not much I could do with it because it needed Windows.

My computer at work runs Windows 7, so I am familiar with that OS and figured I would be more comfortable running 7 on my Mac rather than another version of Windows. But I asked around about Windows 10 because the Parallels enabler was being touted as ready for Windows 10 and folks on the Yahoo ELAD group (elad_sdr_en) said the FDM-S2 software ran fine on Windows 10. So I ordered Windows 10 from Amazon and received the installation USB flash drive two days later.

There were no gotchas installing Windows under Parallels, nor installing the FDM-S2 software onto Windows under Parallels.

I connected the ELAD FDM-S2 receiver to my MacBook Pro, powered up the receiver and started the software. The software started up on my Mac just as quickly as it started up on the Windows laptop I tried it out on and has run perfectly under Mac-Parallels-Windows since I have installed it four days ago.

Some observations:

• I can run Windows 10 and Mac OS X simultaneously, which is something I did not expect.

• Windows 10 starts up faster on my Mac than does Windows 7 on the Lenovo laptop at work.

• The FDM-S2 software crashed a number of times on the Lenovo laptop running Windows 7. It always crashes if I try to expand the GUI window beyond a certain point and it has crashed numerous times while playing back on-the-air recordings. So far, the FDM-S2 software has not crashed on my Mac.

• I have a shortcut on my Mac's desktop for the FDM-S2 software, which loads Parallels, Windows 10 and the FDM-S2 software with just one click.

But Cupertino, we have a problem!

It works, so, so far, so good!

I bought an ELAD FDM-S2 SDR Receiver at Hamvention.

Its software is Windows-based, but the gent in the ELAD booth assured me that it would run on a Mac under a Windows emulator. Even if it did not, I had some old Windows laptops at my disposal that I could use, although I preferred to run it on my Mac because empty space on my radio desk was lacking,

Back at my Hamvention hotel room, I checked the contents of the box containing my purchase. In addition to the receiver, there was a USB stick containing the SDR sofware and documentation, two BNC-to-SMA adapters to mate the receiver's HF and VHF SMA connectors to antennas, a USB cable, a USB Y-cable, a cloth bag for storing and transporting the receiver and four stick-on feet to attach to the receiver.

After returning home and catching up, I installed the software in a laptop running Windows 7. The installation was quick and easy without any problems.

I connected the receiver to the laptop and to my 80-meter inverted Vee antenna, then I powered up the receiver and started the software. The software loaded quickly and soon I was staring at an impressive graphical user interface (GUI), but I could not hear a thing and the display indicated that nothing was being received, as seen in the image above.

My first thought was "dead on arrival" and I was not a happy camper. Thumbing through the manual did not provide a solution and then I noticed an on/off button in the lower left corner of the GUI! I clicked it once and, voila!, I could hear plenty ― what a relief!

Without reading the manual, I fumbled around and managed to tune the receiver to the AM broadcast radio band. My first impressions were that the receiver was as sensitive and perhaps more sensitive than my Elecraft KX3 on the AM band.

That was promising, but I did not play with the receiver much because I wanted to concentrate on getting the software up and running on my two-year-old MacBook Pro Retina 15-inch laptop.

New Hardware

Source: Kansas Historical Society (http://www.kshs.org)

Two new pieces of hardware showed up at WA1LOU last week.

My sister gifted me with a C.Crane CCRadio 2E Enhanced AM/FM/WX/2-Meter Ham Band receiver.

I gifted myself with a MacBook Pro Retina, 15-inch, Late 2013 laptop computer.

I plan to review both items here real soon now, but I will leave you with my most impressive impressions of both.

The AM radio part of the CCRadio 2E is outstanding and the MacBook Pro is fast!