Eindecker Model IV

Roughly 100 years ago, most airplanes had at least two wings. Biplanes. Anthony Fokker went against this trend. Based on his experience flying radio control airplanes, he was well aware of the "Ugly Stick" type of model airplane. So he created a full-size ugly stick, which became known as the Fokker Eindecker. Most people are aware of the Model III: Round engine in the front, machine gun that could fire through the propeller arc, wing-warping for roll control.

My model is about the lesser known Model IV variant of the Fokker Eindecker: Upright cylinder engine, ailerons. The cylinder block in front of the pilot provided a certain amount of protection from incoming fire, but unfortunately prevented mounting a machine gun, so the Model IV was mostly used as a reconnaissance plane. For this reason, Manfred von Richthofen had little use for the airplane. Nor had his brother, Lothar. But his girlfriend, the Baroness von Kräsch, loved the plane, which is why my model includes a replica of her in the control position.

Today, there is no surviving example of the Fokker Eindecker Model IV, mostly because I made it all up. My model is actually an 80% sized copy of the Balsa USA Eindecker 40 model which I had built several years ago. That one used an OS Max 40, this one uses an OS FS 26.

ISS SSTV

SSTV image sent by international space station on 145.800 FM on April 11, 2015.

Each image was sent in about 3 minutes, with 3 minute pause between images.
This pass was very low and thus short. First image had a little noise as ISS rose over the horizon. Second image started as ISS already vanished below horizon, so missing most of it.

Another pass, only about 15 degree max. elevation, resulted in this image:

Final pass on April 12, very low, only got end of what could have been an interesting image:

Audio Attenuator for PSK/RTTY/SSTV/...

Been using a RIGblaster plug  & play interface between the computer and the radio for digital modes. Works OK, but to get the proper output level to drive the radio, the computer volume needed to be quite low, around 10%. Since the same computer is also used to play music, I always had to adjust the volume way down for radio use, then back up to listen to music.

Finally got around to build a simple attenuator. The junk box happened to contain a 4k potentiometer with nice knob, so I used that. Computer output connects to the pot, and its wiper goes to the RIGblaster. The computer (laptop) output volume is now simply set to "100%", which is easy to reproduce, and the attenuator was once adjusted to give proper audio drive to the radio.

People with more patience should be able to put a smaller trim pot inside the RIGblaster, but I preferred to keep that as is and instead plugging the attenuator in-line.

 In the picture, the pigtail on the right side of the black box goes into the computer's headphone jack. Audio from there is then attenuated, fed via the blue/green plug into the rigblaster and on into the radio.