Personal
I live at 221 Pleasant Plains Road, Stirling, New Jersey 07980 USA with my wife Susan. We have two children, Jennifer and Michael. My main sports are birding and skiing. I also enjoy cooking. I am an exercise junkie, and work out at the Summit YMCA three times a week.
You can email to this address or call me at home at 908-580-1319.
Professional
I work at Interet Corporation as a computer programmer. My main languages are Python, C and Fortran (yes, Fortran 77), plus a bit of C++ and several Unix mini-languages.
Please do NOT write to me at my work email jim@interet.com, as I am about to retire.
Software
I am a big fan of the Python programming language, please check it out. Python is an easy to use programming language with advanced features like classes and structured exception handling. It is mature, powerful, practical and free. It runs on Windows, Linux, Unix, Macintosh and other systems.
Ham Radio Projects
I got my first Amateur Radio license as a teenager. Amateur radio operators are licensed in the U.S. by the FCC to operate radio transmitters. We "hams" use our stations to chat with other hams around the country and around the world. My teenage license expired when I got busy with college. I got re-licensed later, but that license expired when I was raising my kids. In 2006 I got my most recent license, and I got my old call back, N2ADR.
I am interested in digital radio and Software Defined Radio (SDR). There is a lot of activity in this area. For an excellent list of SDR projects, see this list by Christophe, F4DAN. I am building a homebrew station using SDR techniques. The software for these projects is available under the General Public License (GPL). The main projects are listed below, and there are more on my home page.
SSB/CW Transceiver
My SSB and CW transceiver is my current Ham Radio station. It is based on an FPGA surrounded by an Ethernet controller, an ADC and two DAC's. The receiver digitizes the antenna voltage, and the transmitter uses direct digital conversion to RF. There are no analog mixers. This project was published in QEX magazine in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue.
SSB/CW Exciter
My SSB and CW exciter is also based on an FPGA. The design is entirely digital. The output is generated by a DAC and there are no analog mixers. For SSB, audio data from the PC is sent to the exciter using Ethernet. For CW, the key connects to the hardware, the FPGA provides a shaped carrier at the output frequency, and the PC is only used to provide a sidetone. This project was published in QEX magazine in the May/June 2008 issue.
QUISK
I have written SDR software called QUISK which works with sound card samples, the SDR-IQ by RfSpace, and with Ethernet/UDP samples from my SDR transceiver and my SSB/CW exciter. Quisk is also a transmitter and a complete station control solution. It can be used with different hardware by editing its configuration file, and adding hardware and widget files both written in the Python language.
I got my first Amateur Radio license as a teenager. Amateur radio operators are licensed in the U.S. by the FCC to operate radio transmitters. We "hams" use our stations to chat with other hams around the country and around the world. My teenage license expired when I got busy with college. I got re-licensed later, but that license expired when I was raising my kids. In 2006 I got my most recent license, and I got my old call back, N2ADR.
I am interested in digital radio and Software Defined Radio (SDR). There is a lot of activity in this area. For an excellent list of SDR projects, see this list by Christophe, F4DAN. I am building a homebrew station using SDR techniques. The software for these projects is available under the General Public License (GPL). The main projects are listed below, and there are more on my home page.
SSB/CW Transceiver
My SSB and CW transceiver is my current Ham Radio station. It is based on an FPGA surrounded by an Ethernet controller, an ADC and two DAC's. The receiver digitizes the antenna voltage, and the transmitter uses direct digital conversion to RF. There are no analog mixers. This project was published in QEX magazine in the Jan/Feb 2011 issue.
SSB/CW Exciter
My SSB and CW exciter is also based on an FPGA. The design is entirely digital. The output is generated by a DAC and there are no analog mixers. For SSB, audio data from the PC is sent to the exciter using Ethernet. For CW, the key connects to the hardware, the FPGA provides a shaped carrier at the output frequency, and the PC is only used to provide a sidetone. This project was published in QEX magazine in the May/June 2008 issue.
QUISK
I have written SDR software called QUISK which works with sound card samples, the SDR-IQ by RfSpace, and with Ethernet/UDP samples from my SDR transceiver and my SSB/CW exciter. Quisk is also a transmitter and a complete station control solution. It can be used with different hardware by editing its configuration file, and adding hardware and widget files both written in the Python language.