Under Construction
My first telescope
I started out in college as a math / physics major. Had the job market not been so questionable at my expected graduation date, I would have probably stayed with that path. Consequently, I changed my major to Electrical Engineering after my sophomore year— and I took all of my technical electives in the math department. The projects described on this page reflect some of my previous and ongoing pursuits.
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VHF Front Panel
Ahead of its time, a DSP-based HF/VHF receiver that ran on Microsoft windows. With its “front panel” displayed on a user’s computer screen, this was truly a software-defined-radio (SDR).
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TS&H Hybrid
Fast-hopping type-1 PLL for Navy JTIDS hybrid spread-spectrum communication system, as partially described elsewhere on this site. This PLL changed frequencies in less than 6 sample-times (theoretical limit is 1.) This project was a substantial motivator for my first book that came out in 1994.
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In late 1999, I co-founded Magis Networks, a company specializing in high quality-of-service (QoS) media streaming for the home in the 5 GHz unlicensed band. What a technically challenging and fascinating experience!
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Venturing into telescope making, of course one of the first things that you need is a good spherometer for characterizing spherical surfaces.
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Telescope designs on paper. At the beginning of my telescope building investigations in the fall of 2009, I looked into the design details of a number of different telescope types. As is almost always the case, no single telescope design is ideal for all usage cases. My plan is to build a number of different telescopes, refining my craft as I go, and increasing the useable aperture as my skill-level permits. This first set of paper designs is intended to explore a number of the designs discussed in Astronomical Optics by Daniel J. Schroeder and Telescope Optics by Rutten and van Venrooij. The paper designs were analyzed using OSLO. Additional entries to this project will be added as they become available.
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Astrophysics
Extract the orbit of Mars for yourself. Using digital camera photos of Mars against the celestrial sphere of background stars over a period of several months, compute the orbit of Mars and the Earth for yourself.
In Work.
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Low-Weight Precision Ranging (Non-GPS)
Low weight and low power precision telemetry system for model planes and rockets.
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Moon Bounce Communication
In Work
Test
