Yesterday, when I went down to the shack, the hard drive in the Mac iBook G4 that I’d been using in my shack for logging and PSK31 was making a terrible noise. I turned off the computer and turned it back on, but just more of the same.

This wasn’t totally unexpected. A couple of months ago, I had some hard drive problems, and I had to get somone to “repair” it with some heavy-duty software. Although the hard drive seemed to be work OK, I always suspected that it was just waiting to go. Yesterday, it went.

I called the shop where I bought the thing (I bought it used), and asked what it would cost for them to put in a new one. They told me “$80 for the drive, $120 for the labor.” Yikes! I don’t think the computer is even worth that much, even with a new hard drive. For one thing, the battery is probably going as well, and since the computer is only a G4, it can’t run the latest Mac OSX.

I Googled around for some guidance on perhaps replacing the drive myself. After all, $80 for a new hard drive isn’t such a bad deal. I came across the page, “Installing iBook G4 12″ 800 MHz-1.2 GHz Hard Drive Replacement.”

Now, I see why it costs $120. This Web page describes 42 different steps— and that’s just to get the drive out. You have to repeat those 42 steps in reverse to get the computer back together again! None of them seem really hard, but I’m not sure that I want to spend the two or three hours to do this.

So, my “Mac in the shack” days may be over for now.

On the Elecraft mailing list, there’s been a discussion of a new program called CW Skimmer, which the website describes as a “multi-channel CW decoder and analyzer.”

Its features include:

• a very sensitive CW decoding algorithm based on the methods of Bayesian statistics;
• simulatneous decoding of ALL cw signals in the receiver passband – up to 700 signals can be decoded in parallel on a 3-GHz P4 if a wideband receiver is used;
• a fast waterfall display, with a resolution sufficient for reading Morse Code dots and dashes visually;
• the callsigns are extracted from the decoded messages, and the traces on the waterfall are labeled with stations’ callsigns;
• a DSP processor with a noise blanker, AGC, and a sharp, variable-bandwidth CW filter;
• an I/Q Recorder and player.

Most of the folks taking part in the discussion bemoaned the loss of yet another skill, mostly referring to contests and DX pileups, I guess. One guy even went so far as to say, “This changes everything.”

It might change contesting a bit, but I can’t get too excited about it. If it does really give someone an advantage in a contest, then everyone will soon have it, so at that point it’s not an advantage. And in a DX pileup, anything is fair, if you ask me.

All in all, I rather like it. The ability to scan 10 kHz of spectrum for signals is very cool, if you ask me, and the CW decoding seems to work really well. What do you think?

A couple of years ago, I bought an iMac to use for business purposes. (I am a freelance Web developer.) It’s a great computer.

Down in the shack, though, it’s another story. I’ve been plugging along with an old Windows98 laptop that I bought used about five years ago. I’ve never done anything really fancy with it—I’ve mostly used it for logging. I was going to try PSK31 at some point, but was concerned that the sound card in it wasn’t good enough.

Recently, though, the computer has really started to show its age. The latest thing to break was a little plastic clip holding the Ethernet cable in place. The connector wouldn’t stay put, and I was in effect off the Net.

I took it in to the place where I bought the computer, Affordable Computers, and they sold me a replacement card for $30. Unfortunately, when I got it home, I found that I still couldn’t connect to the net. I took it back the next day, and it turns out that the card they sold me was bad. Fortunately for me, they found another card—this one an Ethernet-only card—that did work and only cost $15.

While I was in there, I noticed that they were selling some used iBooks for $539. How could I resist? So, now I’m the proud owner of an iBook G4, with Mac OSX. In fact, I’m writing this blog entry on it right now.

It’s in pretty good physical condition, and everything seems to be working just fine, except for perhaps the battery. I left the battery to charge over night, and this morning, it was only at 50%. I left the charger on throughout the morning, and did get it up to 100%, but it seems to be discharging very rapidly. I just went to battery power about ten minutes ago, and it’s already down to 90%.

Oh well. I guess I’ll be heading back there real soon. The one nice thing about buying the computer from a dealer is that they offer a warranty on the battery. Good thing, too. Batteries for these laptops are $100 and up.

UPDATE 10/18/07:
Great news! I took the iBook back to the store this afternoon. I told the tech that the battery didn’t seem to be holding a charge. He said, “Let me take a look at it.” He took it into the back room and returned in about ten minutes. He handed it back to me saying, “I popped a new battery into it. You’re all set.” I’m very happy. :)