Topic: We need a lot more stations

[DaleReid]

Hi guys,
I'm sitting here watching a heavy downpour with thunder about once a minute, and visible light (not strokes) from the discharges about 1/10th of the thunders.

My WeatherTap shows a reasonable amount of strikes, but so far the Real Time display hasn't shown anything within a hundred miles of me.

With Mauston, Rochester, St. Cloud, Appleton, North Dakota and all of the Illinois stations on line, you'd think we would have the ability to pick up a few of the strikes.  I see these stations painting lots of activity hundreds of miles away, but nothing here.

We need to encourage our ham and weather buff friends who haven't been bitten by the bug to get soldering, and fill in the map across the Midwest and other sparse areas.

Of course I need to get my efield on line, too.

Dale

[JonathanW]

I agree.  I've put a post up on the Amateur Radio group on LinkedIn, which has nearly 5000 members.  There are probably Facebook groups and other forums (e.g. QRZ) where posts might get some interest.  Especially linking to the realtime map could be interesting, I'd think.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Thing is, I believe we need either 6 or 8 stations (in the US - 16 in Europe) to record a strike. If I've got activity, from a cell 500 mi away processing and would have been the 6th to detect the one by your house, then the strike didn't score. Each station can only handle so much at one time, and station density is a real factor.
At some point, we'll cross a line in some regions where each operator will have to decide if they're going to 'down gain'. Become more regional, in order to promote network effectivity, and leave the strikes in other regions for other stations. We're almost approaching that in the Midwest with that wonderful semi-circle from Texas to KY to N Dakota...
I turned off H field this afternoon, ran on E field with half gains (about 2x2 or 4x1) for a few hours, and was still scoring strikes 500-1000 miles away in between all the nearer cloud charges... which again wouldn't show as strikes... too weak for other stations to catch, and probably weaker H fields.

In other words, become more oriented to focusing on the other two effectivity distances on BO participants, than on the long range.  That was fun, for awhile, until you guys came along and started picking up slack areas. Now, if I'm running 'high gains' and stay 'loaded' with activity, I'm not necessarily helping the network....
Mike

[piconut]

I would love to set one up but I have no soldering skills and can't read a schematic so I'll have to wait until I can buy one that is already built. 

[Maumelle Weather]

At one point a fellow weather enthusiast who had contacted me was looking into Blitzortung who lives west of me in either Hot Springs or Hot Springs Village, but I haven't had a chance to get back with him to see if he took the plunge or not.  I'll check and report back.

John

[PaulMy]

Ditto.  I have been following all the threads but unfortunately I don't understand most of the jargon used in these projects nor have any knowledge on any of the components, etc.  For me it would have to be a plug and enjoy!
 
Paul
 
 

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Ditto.  I have been following all the threads but unfortunately I don't understand most of the jargon used in these projects nor have any knowledge on any of the components, etc.  For me it would have to be a plug and enjoy!
 
Paul
 
 

I think most of the jargon is due to the fact that a lot of us have those damned inquiring minds... when we are told to put a component in a specific place, our first thought is something like 'Why?' And that's from some of our backgrounds...
Yet, when it comes down to it, we all have to learn the language for any field we pursue...

but in the final analysis, this project is really a cook book... follow the instructions explicitly, watch it run, learn what amplification is (usually that left button on a car radio.... up is more... down is less),.... you don't have to know beans about the capacitance of a probe... or why an antenna works, or how a filter works.... follow the cook book, learn enough to operate it, sit back, and watch the pretty flashing lines.

[DaleReid]

Piconut:
You can juggle but not solder?  I would have thought it the other way around!

The problem is, fewer and fewer people have the chance to do something like build a few HeathKits or have any chance to actually repair something which in the past required a bit of skill in soldering, which used to be relatively easy to find by seeking out a ham operator (indicated by a larger tower and more antennas than needed to get the local TV stations).

Now many of the hams are still very interested in the nuts and bolts, but that hobby has been blessed/cursed with pre-made miniature equipment that would be impossible to put into a kit, and some would have spurned the chance to build something and call it a new found skill.  Great things are available for surprisingly reasonable cost.  And that hobby has hams who enjoy doing those portions of their license provides and have no interest or talent in soldering.  Or constructing.  Or in the hardware.

I'm still working on the eField antenna project which until a few ugly things came along to distract me, I thought I'd have probing the ether right now sniffing out St. Elmo.

Dale

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

Re: the Jargon... of course.
Why not just ask what the heck we're talkin' about?  Somebody'll respond, maybe by PM if it might take a paragraph or two...
After awhile, you'll know more than you realize..

[piconut]

Piconut:
You can juggle but not solder?  I would have thought it the other way around!

Yep!  Up to 5 balls now!  Yikes.   And actually, I do own a soldering gun and can do basic soldering (joining two wires together) but I don't own a fancy solder gun or any of those solder removal tools or the like.  I guess my concern is that I will build it, and it won't work, and then I won't know how to figure out why it is not working or fix it.  I'm mechanically inclined and can repair things (I fixed a vacuum cleaner today) but I don't own or know how to use an oscilloscope.  So I'm kind of on the fence about the while thing.

[DaleReid]

Piconut:
I have no solder removing suckers, but only once during the whole project have to use the very easily obtainable and cheap solderWik to undo a flow across several pads on a chip.  And actually it looked damned good when I was done.  This all being done with an older Unger 777 iron with a much bigger tip that I would have liked.  It's like playing golf with a golf nut.  You have a minimal amount of clubs and hit irons on the fairway because you don't own woods, yet your score isn't too much afield.

I too have the fear of putting a couple hundred bucks into something that might not work and little way of fixing it, or having one of the other enthusiasts here being able to figure out what when wrong either.

But mine blinked appropriately on first power up, and has been happy since (except that one little lightning strike that took out many things around my house, but RED survived and again is sniffing about after a power supply replacement.)

I'm just trying to be encouraging.

One thing you CAN'T use is a soldering GUN, although now some smartalec is going to do it for bragging rights!

[piconut]

Piconut:
I have no solder removing suckers, but only once during the whole project have to use the very easily obtainable and cheap solderWik to undo a flow across several pads on a chip.  And actually it looked damned good when I was done.  This all being done with an older Unger 777 iron with a much bigger tip that I would have liked.  It's like playing golf with a golf nut.  You have a minimal amount of clubs and hit irons on the fairway because you don't own woods, yet your score isn't too much afield.

I too have the fear of putting a couple hundred bucks into something that might not work and little way of fixing it, or having one of the other enthusiasts here being able to figure out what when wrong either.

But mine blinked appropriately on first power up, and has been happy since (except that one little lightning strike that took out many things around my house, but RED survived and again is sniffing about after a power supply replacement.)

I'm just trying to be encouraging.

One thing you CAN'T use is a soldering GUN, although now some smartalec is going to do it for bragging rights!

Okay, I had to Google the difference between a soldering gun and a soldering iron.  I have a gun.  I would need an iron. 


The real question is how to troubleshoot or fix one of these if I make a mistake?   Anyone live near Austin Texas?

[Dr Obbins]

I agree that more stations will help the cause, but as I posted over in the Blitzortung forum, a simple software change could improve detection by as much as 20% per station. As alluded to here, we need to set our stations up for either long range and go into interference mode as a storm gets close. Or set it up for closer storms and then miss many long distance strikes. When my station is set up for long range, 20 - 30 % of the recorded strikes have the minimum of 6 stations reporting. So if only 1 of those 6 stations had the gain cut back, those strikes would not get registered. 

I believe that solution is to set the stations up for long distance. Then when it goes into interference mode, turn on the filters automatically. Wait 2-3 hours then turn them back off. This way we have the best of both worlds. Unfiltered long distance coverage AND short distance filtered results keeping the station able to send data. Looking at Europe and their coverage I understand why they think this feature is not needed. But here in North & South  America, and Australia this feature will allow much better coverage with out the saturation of stations that Europe has.

[JonathanW]

Isn't that something the E-field, H-field combination is supposed to help with?  E-field for close in, and H-field for distance?

Egon was talking about split interference mode (individual for each input), which combined with automatic mode for gain and filter selection I thought allow for both kinds of operation.

Of course, keep in mind I'm still away from home and haven't yet built my station.

I agree that more stations will help the cause, but as I posted over in the Blitzortung forum, a simple software change could improve detection by as much as 20% per station. As alluded to here, we need to set our stations up for either long range and go into interference mode as a storm gets close. Or set it up for closer storms and then miss many long distance strikes. When my station is set up for long range, 20 - 30 % of the recorded strikes have the minimum of 6 stations reporting. So if only 1 of those 6 stations had the gain cut back, those strikes would not get registered. 

I believe that solution is to set the stations up for long distance. Then when it goes into interference mode, turn on the filters automatically. Wait 2-3 hours then turn them back off. This way we have the best of both worlds. Unfiltered long distance coverage AND short distance filtered results keeping the station able to send data. Looking at Europe and their coverage I understand why they think this feature is not needed. But here in North & South  America, and Australia this feature will allow much better coverage with out the saturation of stations that Europe has.

[Dr Obbins]

Isn't that something the E-field, H-field combination is supposed to help with?  E-field for close in, and H-field for distance?

Admittedly I am not an expert on any of this. The E-field antennas are still new on the scene and, from what I can see, there are not any definitive results on their performance yet. As you mentioned, Egon is still developing the software for a 2 antenna setup.

Today and tonight is an perfect example of how my idea would benefit the system as a whole with out any additional investment. My station is set up 10*4 with a total relative gain of 1600. It is picking up 96% of the total network strikes (1,635) in the last hour. Of those 1,635 - 386 (21.8%) have the minimum number participants reporting the strike. So if my station, or any of the other 5 stations did not report these strikes, the strikes would be unnoticed by the system and would not appear on any of the maps. But today we had some somewhat close storms and my unit went into interference mode for 6 hours while I was at work and could not manually adjust the gains.

Now if I turn on the "Auto Adapt to Noise" and the "Auto Amplitude Filter", the gain will automatically drop from the 10*4 to 4*2 with a total relative gain of around 300. The "effective L" percentage will drop down into the 50% range as the station is not picking up as many of the available strikes. I would venture to say that most of the strikes that are not be picked up anymore are probably the ones that have the minimum number participants reporting the strike. Thus the system as a whole would be missing out on ~20% of the strikes tonight. But if the "Auto Adapt to Noise" and the "Auto Amplitude Filter" had been turned on today, my station would not have been in interference mode for 6 hours. If the software could trigger these filters automatically, the station would have still reported strikeds for these 6 hours.

With out knowing the details of their current situation I see at least 8 RED stations with ferrite antennas (out of 31 total stations reporting) operating at under 35%. These stations may be able to increase detection if the gains were turned up however they risk interference mode.

Right now, as pointed out in this thread, the main obstacles to more stations coming on line are cost and assembly skills. I feel that a relatively easy software addition could increase the whole network's performance by ~20 - 30% with the current equipment in place by bypassing these obstacles. The software has to be modified to accommodate the new E-field antennas, so why not spend the time to add this feature also?

[dfroula]

My experience is that neither the auto-noise adjust nor the auto amplitude filter have any effect on reducing the point at which the Red system enters the interference modes. The auto-noise adjust feature raises the threshold (lowers the effective gain) in response to an increased noise floor rather than a high rate of strikes. Nearby storms do not manifest as a noise floor increase, just lots of overlapping strike detections for which no definitive time stamp can be assigned.

The auto amplitude filter just filters out repetitive pulses within a certain frequency range (some types of man-made noise). Again, this is not a characteristic of near-by storms and does not affect the gains in any case.

I agree with Dave, a simple function to apply a second set of gains and thresholds that can be triggered by either or both interference modes would do a lot for keeping a system tuned for long-range detection usable when storms get near and eliminate the need for manually "riding the gains", which most of do from time to time.

I have my system tuned so that only average-intensity storms within 300 miles or so drive the system into interference. However, severe storms or many high-intensity storms around the country at greater distances can easily drive the system into interference mode with storms > 300 miles away, unless I keep an eye on the gains.

Regards,

Don
WD9DMP

Isn't that something the E-field, H-field combination is supposed to help with?  E-field for close in, and H-field for distance?

Admittedly I am not an expert on any of this. The E-field antennas are still new on the scene and, from what I can see, there are not any definitive results on their performance yet. As you mentioned, Egon is still developing the software for a 2 antenna setup.

Today and tonight is an perfect example of how my idea would benefit the system as a whole with out any additional investment. My station is set up 10*4 with a total relative gain of 1600. It is picking up 96% of the total network strikes (1,635) in the last hour. Of those 1,635 - 386 (21.8%) have the minimum number participants reporting the strike. So if my station, or any of the other 5 stations did not report these strikes, the strikes would be unnoticed by the system and would not appear on any of the maps. But today we had some somewhat close storms and my unit went into interference mode for 6 hours while I was at work and could not manually adjust the gains.

Now if I turn on the "Auto Adapt to Noise" and the "Auto Amplitude Filter", the gain will automatically drop from the 10*4 to 4*2 with a total relative gain of around 300. The "effective L" percentage will drop down into the 50% range as the station is not picking up as many of the available strikes. I would venture to say that most of the strikes that are not be picked up anymore are probably the ones that have the minimum number participants reporting the strike. Thus the system as a whole would be missing out on ~20% of the strikes tonight. But if the "Auto Adapt to Noise" and the "Auto Amplitude Filter" had been turned on today, my station would not have been in interference mode for 6 hours. If the software could trigger these filters automatically, the station would have still reported strikeds for these 6 hours.

With out knowing the details of their current situation I see at least 8 RED stations with ferrite antennas (out of 31 total stations reporting) operating at under 35%. These stations may be able to increase detection if the gains were turned up however they risk interference mode.

Right now, as pointed out in this thread, the main obstacles to more stations coming on line are cost and assembly skills. I feel that a relatively easy software addition could increase the whole network's performance by ~20 - 30% with the current equipment in place by bypassing these obstacles. The software has to be modified to accommodate the new E-field antennas, so why not spend the time to add this feature also?

[Dr Obbins]

Today there is a 50% chance of storms, so I turned the filters on before I left for work to keep it out of interference mode. The station is receiving only 48% of the strikes as opposed to the 98% yesterday. Also it is showing only 0.8% of the minimum number participants reporting the strike - down from 21% with the filters off. So today about 20% less strikes will be detected by the network.

[dfroula]

My comment below isn't quite true. The auto-noise adjust will affect the interference mode point, but only if you have a high local noise floor caused by interference. In my experience, the lightning rate has little or no effect on the noise floor between strikes. I guess extreme lightning rates might be indistinguishable from noise at a certain point and trigger the gain adjust. It seems that under normal conditions, auto-noise adjust is keyed of the signal level between strike detections.

Don
WD9DMP

My experience is that neither the auto-noise adjust nor the auto amplitude filter have any effect on reducing the point at which the Red system enters the interference modes. The auto-noise adjust feature raises the threshold (lowers the effective gain) in response to an increased noise floor rather than a high rate of strikes. Nearby storms do not manifest as a noise floor increase, just lots of overlapping strike detections for which no definitive time stamp can be assigned.

The auto amplitude filter just filters out repetitive pulses within a certain frequency range (some types of man-made noise). Again, this is not a characteristic of near-by storms and does not affect the gains in any case.

[92merc]

Come this fall with all of my summer activities out of the way, I'm toying with the idea of offering my services to help get more stations out there.  I want to get some experience in making my own E Field boards first as well.

I have a few of concerns about offering my services.

1) I'm not concerned about doing it for a profit.  I actually enjoy it.  So all I'd be asking for is the actual costs.  Buyer buys from Egon, send to me.  I need a few bucks for solder, flux, etc.  Buyer pays to ship back.  This is the easy part.

2) All I have is a volt meter to test boards.  So if something doesn't work right, I'm not sure where that'll leave me.

3) Setting up the account once board is done.  I'll probably need a "test" GPS antenna and a few other parts.  Then I suppose I'll need it running on my bench for a few days to make sure all is well.

4) Support:  As all the messages show above, even after getting the boards done, it's not a plug and play system.  You'll have to constantly tweak things.  I don't want to be stuck supporting the system after I've built one.

My plan is to wait until fall when I have the time and approach one person and go from there.

[dfroula]

I volunteered to build two systems. I had very positive experiences both times.

1.) One person had everything drop-shipped to me as he ordered it. The other accumulated all the parts and shipped everything together. Both methods worked fine. Both provided funds for incidental items, like solder, stand-offs, misc. hardware, etc. In one case, shipping costs were reimbursed, in the other, shipping was prepaid. No issues with either method. Be sure to define what it is you will provide - just bare board assembly or a turn-key system. Both stations I built for others were turn-key, including packaging in enclosures, winding and testing the antennas, and constructing the antenna enclosures and shields. But, I agreed to do it when asked, and it didn't add much additional work. It made testing easier also.

2.) I believe there is a reasonable expectation that the builder will provide a working system, even if it's a volunteer effort. This implies some good assembly and soldering skills, as well as basic troubleshooting of bad components or assembly problems. I would not have felt comfortable offering to assemble a kit if I weren't confident I could do component-level troubleshooting. Usually, a voltmeter should be sufficient. All my builds worked the first time, so I wasn't faced with the issue.

3.) I had a few spare GPS and ferrite antennas for testing and troubleshooting. Be aware that running two Red systems from the same physical location will split the detection rates between the two stations! Setting the account up was no issue - just be sure they get a login as soon as they place the kit order with Egon. Then, figure out who will register the unit once you plug in the controller to the network. I assembled the controller first, as it can be registered without the amp connected and gave time to correct any registration issues.

4.) I kind of enjoyed the optimization and assistance phase, rather than throwing the equipment "over the wall". One client graciously accepted my advice, though probably I gave much more than was needed. The other just took the system and ran with it. Both were good experiences. At some point, you may need to cut the cord. Just be sure that you specify you are offering to build an operating system, not providing lifetime tech support. The forums are there for that. Again, not an issue for me.

If you wait until Fall to make the offer, there may be fewer takers. Nothing like tornado season to stimulate interest!

Regards,

Don
WD9DMP

Come this fall with all of my summer activities out of the way, I'm toying with the idea of offering my services to help get more stations out there.  I want to get some experience in making my own E Field boards first as well.

I have a few of concerns about offering my services.

1) I'm not concerned about doing it for a profit.  I actually enjoy it.  So all I'd be asking for is the actual costs.  Buyer buys from Egon, send to me.  I need a few bucks for solder, flux, etc.  Buyer pays to ship back.  This is the easy part.

2) All I have is a volt meter to test boards.  So if something doesn't work right, I'm not sure where that'll leave me.

3) Setting up the account once board is done.  I'll probably need a "test" GPS antenna and a few other parts.  Then I suppose I'll need it running on my bench for a few days to make sure all is well.

4) Support:  As all the messages show above, even after getting the boards done, it's not a plug and play system.  You'll have to constantly tweak things.  I don't want to be stuck supporting the system after I've built one.

My plan is to wait until fall when I have the time and approach one person and go from there.

[DaleReid]

First of all, Bravo to considering helping those who want to participate, but cannot.  I can't think of a more altruistic thing to do for the hobby.  I may do the same, or at least consider it but right now I'm glad I didn't offer to do so earlier, or there would be anxiously awaiting, but disappointed, enthusiasts.

Second, somewhere in the tangle of strings I think someone (Mike?) made a comment that the RED boards can only receive a certain number of strikes per second or minute.

With the range we have, and a couple of the days that very hot storms were slowly marching along feeding on heat and humidity to generate our sparks, I saw my RealTime map zapping lines out every which way.

I understand that if too many strikes occur in  short period, the software will conclude a local noise source is the cause, and shut down the station for a  period of time.

I wonder if anyone knows how many sustained strikes per second can occur and the system still be happy?

How long does the software make the interference mode last?  If there are improvements in the most recent versions, perhaps the 'time out' that my board is given by the system could be shortened, and get back in the game again.  The reason I ask this is if I go to the RED controller board web page, and open the signals area, I'm getting clean good signals while the status tab tells me I still need to sit in the corner with my dunce hat on.

I'm sure these values that are programmed into the system have been very carefully scruitinized by the design team, but maybe those values were chosen to be way on the safe side, and with improvements made so far with the tweaking he's done, a bit of nudging down of the interference time out.  Just thinking out loud and asking.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

I think it would help open the door to more users if BO could make available a version of the kit that has the surface mount parts already on the boards. Would not cost very much to have a board stuffing house do that for batches of boards.

The cost would be prohibitive, at the present time. It's been explored. This isn't a commercial venture where hundred of boards are produced. There is some hope down the road, however, with some future concepts being explored.

[Cutty Sark Sailor]

First of all, Bravo to considering helping those who want to participate, but cannot.  I can't think of a more altruistic thing to do for the hobby.  I may do the same, or at least consider it but right now I'm glad I didn't offer to do so earlier, or there would be anxiously awaiting, but disappointed, enthusiasts.

Second, somewhere in the tangle of strings I think someone (Mike?) made a comment that the RED boards can only receive a certain number of strikes per second or minute.

With the range we have, and a couple of the days that very hot storms were slowly marching along feeding on heat and humidity to generate our sparks, I saw my RealTime map zapping lines out every which way.

I understand that if too many strikes occur in  short period, the software will conclude a local noise source is the cause, and shut down the station for a  period of time.

I wonder if anyone knows how many sustained strikes per second can occur and the system still be happy?

How long does the software make the interference mode last?  If there are improvements in the most recent versions, perhaps the 'time out' that my board is given by the system could be shortened, and get back in the game again.  The reason I ask this is if I go to the RED controller board web page, and open the signals area, I'm getting clean good signals while the status tab tells me I still need to sit in the corner with my dunce hat on.

I'm sure these values that are programmed into the system have been very carefully scruitinized by the design team, but maybe those values were chosen to be way on the safe side, and with improvements made so far with the tweaking he's done, a bit of nudging down of the interference time out.  Just thinking out loud and asking.

Ok, most of that issue is at the server end, a lot due to internet connection speeds and losses, and delays to get there. You'll find the 'threshold' interference settings at the bottom of your controller status page.
The current settings appear to be
Burst interference (quick bursts of pulses) an average of 30 over 2 seconds.
Normal interference 15 signals/sec average over 60 seconds

The original settings for red for normal interference, were I believe, 30 sigs/sec over 60 seconds. Don F or Greg H might remember.
That had to be slowed down.

[DaleReid]

Yeah, the cost would be steep.  I know one of the reasons that some specialized miliatary stuff, even after development, is many times more expensive because of overbuilding and all, but also they buy ten, knowing that after that inventory is used, there will be a Mark II and then Mark III.  They can't afford (we can't afford) to have sixty sitting on a shelf when the design may change tomorrow.

I have an idea.... Remember those barn raisings the Amish have, and the quilting bees where a whole bunch of people get together and do a part of each step?  We need to get a day where everyone with a soldering iron and skill to use it can surface mount say fifteen or twenty boards.  Easy to do, especially if someone brings the Coors!

Or remember the pictures of the Russian eye docs with patients needing cataract surgery?  There were maybe eight of the patients laying on a big merry go round, and each doc did one part of the surgery, and passed it on to the next one as the table turned.  Apparently they could do the surgeries that the citizenry of their country needed much more economically!

But seriously, if there were those who were very worried about the surface mounts, what would be wrong with having some young eyed, steady handed volunteer be willing to do that and send on to the final recipient for the rest of the pretty standard bending and soldering of the components?

Just tossing out some ideas here.s

[Dr Obbins]

I volunteered to build two systems. I had very positive experiences both times.

I am pleased to say that my station was one of those builds and the experience was positive on this end also. For those considering letting someone else build your system, here were my thoughts on having someone else build my $300+ investment:

1. With out having the proper equipment and experience, there was definitely risk in building the system myself. Many things could go wrong and it could end up being a big "learning" experience. I was prepared to take that chance, build it myself, risk everything. So while there was also risk in someone else building the system and have things go wrong, I felt that risk was far less a risk. And in the worst case something did go wrong, he was in much better position to fix it - even if I had to purchase more parts. Don did a great job and there weren't any issues. Everything works as designed.
 
2. Because he was volunteering his time and skills, I wanted to keep the imposition to a minimum. He provided the complete parts list including items purchased in the USA and they were all ready and available before the build started. As mentioned the project was turn-key which allowed him to fully test the system before delivering it. Also a few $$$ were included for his supplies, unforeseen items and hopefully a six-pack. 

3. One of the hardest parts for me was being patient. Luckily a two week vacation was already planed at the time, so I went away and my mind was occupied with other activities. The whole process of ordering the parts and the build took about 2 months.

4. Because he had all the parts and it was proven up and running before he shipped it to me, it was basically plug and play on my end. The installed settings were good enough to get going and with help of others on this forum and some trial and error it is up and running well.

In summary, if you would like someone else to build the system, he is doing you a favor and helping you out, so try to help him also. Remember that with any project things can go wrong, even to the best assembler, and be willing to accept that it will be up to you to put in any additional $$ if needed. Give him time and space to work at his own pace. In the end it is just a hobby that we all do for fun.