VK4ZXI

  Why otherwise good HDMI cables won't always work with modern devices and how to test them. A friend had trouble connecting a modern 4K TV streaming dongle, Chromecast with Google TV, to an older 4K TV. The problem lay with the HDMI cable. It had worked with the previous device, a DVD player, I think, but not the newer 4K dongle. I was mystified by how the cable did not work, so chased it up. HDMI cables are very high-tech and work at very high data rates and bandwidths. As such, the possible length of a cable has always been an issue, something I discovered trying to run long leads to home cinema projectors. The physical construction of the cable has a big impact on the data rate it can handle. Like network cables, HDMI cables use shielded twisted pairs of wires, including a shield ground for each pair. There are three signal pairs and a clock pair. As well there are other wires for digital control signals. There are, or should be, nineteen wires in total. The HDMI standard has b...

  To access movies and TV shows. 1 Need USA VPN to access blocked torrent sites. Either expressvpn or nordvpn. Nordvpn is best for UK TV. They are both about $100 per year. You can use them for streaming. However, you can use a free one just to access torrent sites. 2 Install utorrent.  3 Check the torrent sites Magnetdl (check movies or the shows for the latest or search for old ones), YTS and Torrentgallery for current movies. 4 Click the Magnet link to download the file. Utorrent handles it auto. Files are in downloads. If you move the file while utorrent is running, right-click in utorrent and click "remove" to cut file link to utorrent. 5 Plex is an excellent way to access stored movies. But it takes a bit of setting up. There are Plex apps on all streaming boxes that can be linked to Plex on your own computer. Just run the Plex server program. There are lots of tutorials for Plex on the web. 6 Without Plex, just click on the file using file explorer. 7 If you have probl...

 Transients and dynamics in power supplies for SSB or CW transceivers How to estimate control loop bandwidth from the transient response time? https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CdA40ixBkA Richtek Load Transient Tool RD0004 is available at Element14 for about $50. https://www.richtek.com/en/Design%20Support/Reference%20Design/RD0004?utm_source=Social&utm_medium=Youtube&utm_campaign=Video025

Starlink Satellite Internet Gold Coast Queensland Australia My Starlink satellite internet order arrived a couple of days ago, February 2022, after a wait of about nine months. I think the wait was due to my location being serviced by Starlink. I set it up in the driveway temporarily and it worked very well, up to 250 Mb/s downloads. The antenna is now installed with a view of the sky above the house roof and connected as the main internet, replacing the slow NBN FTTN (Fibre to the node, VDSL). Cost The cost in Australia is about $800 for the hardware, then $139 per month. The monthly cost is reasonable given that we pay $100 for Telstra NBN FTTN. I will continue the NBN for a month or so, to make sure the Skylink is reliable enough. Mounting The Skylink antenna needs a clear view of the sky as the low earth orbit satellites can be anywhere in the sky. While the antenna is a circle and looks like a dish, it is made up of about 1000 small electronically steerable antennas using beamform...