Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby tittiger » Wed Mar 05, 2014 2:51 am

It has been at least 30 years since I have touched an HP or done any serious math.
All I am looking for is a succinct primer with the basics on how to use the HP41 as a basic scientific calculator.

(I wanted to use it for the equations needed for the general HAM license rather than my algebraic entry calculator.)

Nothing I have looked at even comes close.

Thanks in advance
Joe
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby Garth » Wed Mar 05, 2014 3:11 am

HP was writing outstanding manuals in the days of the HP-41. If you got a used 41 with no manual, or if you've lost yours, you can read it online (indexed at http://www.hp41.org/LibView.cfm?Command ... egoryID=12) or get it on the DVD at http://www.hp41.org/ArchiveDVD.cfm or get the HP Museum's DVD set at http://www.hpmuseum.org/cd/cddesc.htm. I got my 41cx in 1986 and just started reading from page 1 of the manual pair, and by the time I got to the end, I knew the calc quite well, even though I never got to the "hard part" (because there was no "hard part," as they were so well written). Then I added modules, and experienced the same thing.
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby tittiger » Wed Mar 05, 2014 3:21 am

Thanks Garth I have already been there. For one they are not searchable (I need one piece of info right now and that is how to enter 2.45 x10neg 9th power) it would literally take me 40 hours to read the darn thing. I did it when I was 18 and an engineering student but that was 37 years ago.

I was hoping that there was something much more specific to my needs.

Best
Joe
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby Garth » Wed Mar 05, 2014 3:27 am

You seem to be close to my age. I took the test for General-Class amateur radio license, if that's what you mean, in 1976. I have not been active in many years, but I maintain my license anyway. Actually I got the technician-class license first because my code speed wasn't up to 13, but the written test was the same. I don't know how the classes are worked today. I did eventually get up to about 30.
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby tittiger » Wed Mar 05, 2014 4:55 am

We are lucky today Garth. The Morse code requirement was done away with a few years ago.
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby Garth » Wed Mar 05, 2014 5:19 am

I really enjoyed the code, partly because of the simpler hardware, but also because that's where I found the more-serious hams. I got tired of hearing on the voice bands about their wives' gardens or how much she spent on that thousandth pair of shoes. I wanted to talk technical.

The inexperienced always think the code is super impersonal, but it's not. I could tune across the band and hear and recognize the "voices" (hands) of various ones I knew, and you can tell their inflections and laughs and so on. One man I talked to in New Zealand many times (I being in California and using two watts' output) lived out in the sticks and seemed to have made his equipment from parts that fell out of the sky in the last world war. He was funnier than a rubber crutch.

The speed is also much better than one might think, with lots of abbreviating, and the fact that going slower gives you time to figure out how to say the same thing in less words. Then there's the fact that you can get through on less power and bandwidth, and if there's another QSO going on just 250Hz away, with the right filter you can keep it out and just hear the person you want to. One of the many modifications I made to my HW-8 was full break-in, so I was receiving between dits, regardless of speed.
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby tittiger » Wed Mar 05, 2014 5:36 am

I can appreciate all of that, wish I had gotten into HAM 30 years ago.

Today if you you want to do CW for various reasons you can use your PC to generate the code for you.
There are even error correcting digital protocols. One in particular is used to bounce VHF off of the moon. :-P
Things have changed in that past 20 years with HAM.
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby tittiger » Wed Mar 05, 2014 5:54 am

FYI I finally did find the manual and sections that will help me in short order. Took forever to find them but they are book marked now...

http://www.hp41.org/LibView.cfm?Command=Image&FileID=7871
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby Garth » Wed Mar 05, 2014 5:59 am

When I got into ham radio nearly 40 years ago, they (not I, since I was a low-budget teenager) were doing moonbounce, satellite, repeaters, SSTV, TTY, amateur television, etc., and there were automatic keyers based on logic ICs, but no one had a home computer yet to do the keying. It would make it faster, but I could key it by hand faster than a lot of people could listen to it (ie, not decode it with a computer), and as long as the timing wasn't too sloppy, it was nice to quickly be able to recognize various people's "voice," ie, their hand. I have little idea what hams are doing today, but I've had a mild interest in getting back into it. One friend was trying to get me interested in VLF, around 170kHz! I worked in applications engineering at a VHF/UHF power transistor manufacturer in the mid-1980's, and we had about $100,000 worth of equipment per engineer in the lab at that time. It'd be great to have that kind of equipment at home. Most of what I worked on though was for military radar and communications.
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby tittiger » Wed Mar 05, 2014 6:50 am

I got in cheap, and have only a set of HT's so far. They come out of China and are only $49. They do what the $400 HT's did a few years back I am told.

I use a PC program called CHIRP to program them.

http://baofengtech.com/
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby Garth » Wed Mar 05, 2014 7:56 am

Hmmm... I think I'll pay the higher price for something from Japan or other country that has better quality. "Made in China" often means "Don't buy this. It will break down quickly." The best warranty is the long one (years long) that you don't have to use.
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Re: Primer on using as a scientific calculator

Postby tittiger » Wed Mar 05, 2014 11:57 pm

I agree. Someday I will probably upgrade to a higher quality radio. These are good to learn on for someone on a budget.
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