8 Tips for Debugging Electronic Circuits

Jameco’s eight tips for debugging circuits include:

1. Understand the circuit.
2. Do a visual inspection.
3. Use the right tools.
4. Check power supply and ground connections.
5. Consider signal tracing and analysis.
6. Conduct incremental testing and isolation.
7. Learn from documentation and community resources
8. Develop a methodical approach

For a more complete description, visit the Jameco website. My advice would include a combination of #2 and #4. After doing a visual inspection, the first thing I do is to check all the cables and connectors. It’s been my experience that bad cables and connections account for approximately 80% of electronics problems.

A New Choke Cookbook for the 160–10M Bands
Using Fair-Rite #31 2.4-in o.d. (2631803802) and 4-in o.d. (2631814002) Toroids

This article by K9YC is chock-full of information about RF chokes for HF antenna systems, including circuit theory and practical construction techniques. The introduction reads:

Common mode chokes are added as series elements to a transmission line to kill common mode current. The line may be a short one carrying audio or control signals between a computer and a radio, video between a computer and a monitor, noisy power wiring, or feedlines for antennas. This application note focuses on the use of chokes on the feedlines of high power transmitting antennas to suppress received noise, to minimize RF in the shack (and a neighbor’s living room) and to minimize crosstalk between stations in multi-transmitter environments.

Bluetooth multi-path distortion

I’ve started using a set of Bluetooth ear pods to listen to podcasts on my Android phone when walking around town. (I do a lot of walking.) I’ve noticed that when I’m walking around downtown, sometimes the sound will go out in one or both ear pods.

At first, I thought that might be because my hand or my body was shielding the Bluetooth signal when my phone was in my pocket. Thinking more about it, though, I’ve decided that I’m losing the signal due to reflections from buildings as I walk by them. It’s multipath distortion!

I should have realized this right off the bat, as I’ve been teaching this very thing in my one-day Tech classes for at least the last ten years.