Friday, 16th May, 2025

Had an email yesterday saying ISP was going to do maintenance. Last time this happened we didn’t have internet for three days whilst I tried to get our case escalated, for them to fix it in one second. Surprise surprise, we wake up to the same thing this morning. So now I’ll have to go through the same song and dance again. I’m hoping I can point them to my last case and get them to escalate quicker. Still will have to do the “turn it off and on” etc. first though.

I was out walking on Wednesday and on my way back to the car I saw a spot by an old lady hill walker/radio operator. She only does VHF, which id struggled with in the day. However I didn’t take my radio out my bag because (a) I was late getting back to the car and wanted to press on and (b) I had no idea where her hill was and assumed it was miles away. Turns out she didn’t get any contacts on the hill, and maybe I could’ve been one. I feel bad I didn’t take 30 seconds to get the radio out and listen whilst walking.

I’m giving the Atari 1040STE to a friend at work for his son who’s very much into retro computing. I’ve done nothing with it for the last 9 months and it’s just clutter. It’s better as nostalgia in my mind than actually using. The boy has recently installed all versions of windows from 3.11 up in virtual machines as he’s interested in old OSs. Plus the hackerspace has about 5 Ataris should I suddenly have the need for one.

Thursday, 15th May, 2025

I came to update actual budget by syncing my accounts but that didn’t work. That’s okay as the authentication usually expires after 3 months and you renew it. However it still didn’t work. I think that happened last time but I don’t remember what I did to fix it. So I thought I’d restart the service. Well docker was complaining about services. Maybe people removed the latest tag on containers? This was whilst at work and then I had to do some work, so I never finished it. I should finish it. Also thought about migrating all the docker containers to lxc using the proxmox scripts but then Id just be replacing one system that I only partially know with another one. Really I should minimise things I use.

Keep thinking about sorting out all my servers and VPSs and just consolidating them. Perhaps to my home server? My websites are static on GitHub or somewhere so I don’t need to host them, everything hosted is just for my use.

So many chores though. So I’ll just leave it and do nothing.

Sometimes I go a long time between writing stuff on this site and actually reading it. I often write on 1Writer on my phone when I’m somewhere and have downtime. I think git push it (using a Shortcut) and Github does the rest. Then one day I randomly browse to my site and enjoy reading what I’ve written, plus I like the look of it. There are still things I’d like to tweak…such as some minimum nav bar to visit the other pages as I don’t remember them without looking at the repo for what files I have. But I sort of like that too. Seems like this month I wrote my longest post to date. Thanks stats page.

Monday, 12th May, 2025

I’ve not started but I think I’m done with rock tumbling. Maybe I’m over thinking it. Maybe I don’t need to build my own tumbler and should just buy the £30 used national geographic one from eBay. I’d like to know stuff about rocks, and when we go to a beach people ask me what things are and I go “oh that’s a gherfledoohabah” and they coo.

The other day I asked ChatGPT for hobby suggestions. I don’t really need more things to fill my time but I was just curious. It didn’t suggest anything interesting. So I opened up eBay and looked at typewriters and now eBay sellers are offering my discounts on endless typewriters.

Maybe I should just do normal things. Like read a book, or develop black and white film. Probably using a radio on a hill is random enough for one person.

Enjoying GTA V. I’ve mostly forgotten the story, so it’s like watching a movie but you play. Like how computer games have been forever. Also stops me mindless browsing the internet looking for solutions to problems that don’t exist.

Oh I guess I could learn morse code.

Then Jack shared this post about emacs. Which is me before using emacs. However, I’ve looked this way before and always chosen not to go down this route. In the past I’ve maybe walked 100m down the road but then turned around and gone back. I’ve install Doom and various other starter kits, I’ve read a few pages of the manual and done some tutorials. I’ve acquired books and not read them. Articles like this mean I pass by the start of that road occasionally, I think of grand journeys and wild adventures and all the things that road could lead to. Then I look at my watch and think “it’s not time” and move on. I have a reasonable system setup - mostly around VS Code. I don’t really write much, and I don’t use text editors at work (except logseq for notes). So whilst there is some capacity to use emacs, I’m not really sure what for, other than to learn and “enjoy” emacs itself. Oh and to use some of the greatest software ever written that’s older than me, but I don’t need it.

Sunday, 11th May, 2025

I eventually stopped faffing about with websites, installed GTA V, and started playing. Except then it was 10:30pm and I went to bed late! 😴 Somewhat recently they released an enhanced edition, so I installed that. Not quite sure if I can tell the difference, or maybe it’s becoming old enough that your memory of it is much better resolution than what it actually was. I should look it up, maybe need settings adjustments.

I bought it when it first came out but never finished the story. The first time round I somehow ended up in the situation where no more missions appeared and I couldn’t progress. Or perhaps I did something wrong. Next time round I stopped for some reason…can’t remember why, maybe distracted by something else then it was too long to come back to. I do remember getting annoyed at remembering all the missions again and finding them boring. I’ve only done a couple so far and I only vaguely remembered them so it’s not too bad. Until I think of something productive to do, I like playing the game as it’s engaging. We will see how long it lasts.

The weather has been lovely and I’m missing going hill walking. I’m scheduled Wednesday off to go out and I still have my Friday off. Friday’s have turned into poor days to go out as I have to be back for school pick up or at best (for me) about 4:30pm, but this is rare as depends if my wife can pick up. As I’ve nearly done everything close to my house it’s soon getting difficult to go out and be back in time. So I’ve been thinking about swapping the day to another when I can get back at 5pm. Probably no one at work cares if I still get everything done and so I’d like to swap to Tuesday this week but as I’m also having Wednesday off I worry it’ll somehow be frowned upon. But the weather is meant to be lovely…and I have the vets on Friday morning.

GTA V also reminds me of when we lived in California, as it was basically the same area, Bakersfield, LA, and the coast there.

Saturday, 10th May, 2025

I’ve listed that 2m amp I fixed. Admittedly for a stupid price but that’s as I can’t decide if I want to sell it or not.

Also can’t decide if I should by a tumbler or make one. Making one is becoming more expensive! Although I think I have to make a 3 barrel one to make it cost effective.

This evening has been a disappointment. Looked at tiddlywiki things for a while…thinking I could use it as a single site, but then looking at it again and remembering why I haven’t done that before. Then mindlessly looking at static site generators. I don’t really want to make more websites, I want to make fewer. Should’ve written up the SOTA activations instead. Maybe I should just add non-radio blog posts to my radio blog. There’s not going to be that many tbh.

Didn’t order any tumbler parts…keep thinking a reasonably priced used one is going to show up and then get it, or also that I’ll have to spend a fortune on grit and various things, only to then be bored of it immediately. “Cool shiny rocks. Now what?”.

Friday, 9th May, 2025

I’d like this blog to be my main one… but I worry I’ll ruin it somehow by doing that. I don’t really want to waste time looking at other static generators and themes etc. to then not like any of them. I suppose I could just move back the quarto blog I had. Ugh I don’t know. I’d also like the radio posts to be part of it. Although that site has established itself as a standalone blog and I think I should leave it that way.

I also thought about importing everything into tiddlywiki and seeing how that looked.

Time for another cup of tea. ☕️

Thursday, 8th May, 2025

I got distracted the other night (haha) and made a little web app for finding unactivated POTA (parks on the air) sites. Other people have made these and better ones but I also found out some had data errors and ended up scripting a search across 10,000s sites worldwide to make a list and report it to the organisers.

What was I doing?

This guy has some really interesting projects, and very well documented online. A guy a work is building the 5600 synth, and this led me to the site.

Think I’ve decided on the tumbling barrels - using 110mm soil pipe and end caps. Although the same guy at work has a national geographic tumbler and said just buy that. But that’s no fun. I should order the parts so I can make it this weekend.

I was reading the thread on Forever Notes system on mpu, and it makes me want to get a Mac. It’s because it reminds me of how useful a Mac is out of the box for people. Windows may have gotten slightly better but it was really only an OS and not an ecosystem. Perhaps it used to be better with MS Works that often came with computers but it’s not useful as is. You can pretty much go everything with the stock apps. Now you probably don’t want to but I think that fact sets the bar high for 3rd party apps and why they’re often so good.

I want a Mac because I want my computer to be useful and not a collection of random shit that is sort of fine. The problem always comes back to that I don’t have “my” computer. It’s mine but everyone uses it, and I don’t think they care or want to use a Mac. So then I go down the rabbit hole of laptop or Mac mini and KVMs or VNC or etc. and then things just start to fall apart. I could try out just using an iPad. My iPad has been acquired by my daughter and has basically been destroyed after it fell on the garage floor but even before then it was sticky and yuk. Now I’ve abandoned it. In fact I should probably reset it and set it up on her account…then at least she can’t authorise things for herself and still be constrained by screen time. So she’ll love that.

Of course the real issue is that I don’t really need it. Or use half the stuff. I also want to spend less time on a computer. I’m not sure I really have that many notes for a system. I usually just add a new note and have one big list.

Tuesday, 6th May, 2025

Off with the kids today as it’s in service day. Lovely weather and slightly annoyingly were over subscribed with friends and activities and the boys want to play at the skate park all day but we have to leave. Oh well better than everyone fighting at home.

Cats got neutered yesterday, all fine but the body suit for the girl lasted 10 minutes and so now she has nothing. They want to go outside but can’t and so are going crazy. Managed to give her the medicine this morning, probably need to order more Dreamies treats for further medicine!

Up late looking at rock tumblers. A couple of old looking ones on eBay, that I might get, mostly for the rubber tumblers. I’ve not priced up the grit to see how much I’m going to be spending. Pricing up my home build one doesn’t actually seem to be cheaper than a bought one, and I mean a quality one from the US not a crappy knock off. So now I’m torn. Mostly the cost is that tumbler containers aren’t cheap and I can’t find any used ones.

Unrelatedly but also relatedly (in my head) is that I should restart my old blog. So then I can post about rock tumbling. Except I won’t. I think building my own will be more rewarding.

I should do something…maybe I’ll order the parts tonight. I don’t even have any rocks.

We went to the beach this afternoon and we collected some rocks. I can guarantee you, I have no idea what I’m looking for. So we’ll see.

Monday, 5th May, 2025

Think I might make my own rock tumbler. The ones sold in the UK are a bit rubbish or extremely expensive. The most recommended ones are sold in the US and whilst they are a reasonable price, with shipping I bet they’re not at all. Plus building one wil be fun. It’s just a motor and rods with a frame. A friend suggested I could control it with a rpi or ardunio, but given it just turns on for a week at a time that seems excessive and extra scope I’ll never make! I can tell myself I’ll add it later - and won’t but that won’t matter, probably I’ll have got bored by then anyway.

Saturday, 3rd May, 2025

The garage/radio shack area really needs a good sorting out and tidying. It’s so inefficiently packed that I bet I could store all the stuff in half the space. I really want to free up some more desk top space to actually build stuff there. Or have one area for a project in progress and another area clear for quick things. Like I’m soldering this NinoTNC for packet radio, and that’s been on my desk in the office for months making a huge mess. Also tempting fate for items to get lost. Be nice to have a space for that to sit whilst I chip away at it and then work on other stuff. Perhaps even soldering one side and other work the other side. I’d also like a pillar drill but not sure there’s space for that. There is one at the hackerspace but that’s a 25 minute drive and not always in the mood to drive for nearly an hour to drill a hole.

If I am going to get into tumbling, I’ll need space for all that stuff too and it would be nice to have space ready for the containers etc. I think a few stacking boxes for the shelves will help with that.

Possibly even tidy away the film developer stock I have 👀.

Perhaps I’ll ask ChatGPT a good sorting method for amateur radio detritus and see what it suggests…adapters, components, wire, built stuff, portable, cables…so many cables…

Then I can clear up the office, which I want to get more shelves for to put books or lego or whatever up high.

Took the new/old radio out yesterday with the notion of doing lots of 2m but I’m not sure I had it setup correctly and I had to use my handheld…which made bringing the radio and battery etc annoying. Usually it’s just is it wide or narrow FM and I’m sure I checked that several times. But when you’re on a summit, sometimes you don’t think clearly. I should probably plug it in at home and listen in to the lunchtime net to make sure it does work. Or maybe enlist the kids to transmit (quietly) from the garden.

So many things to do. 📋

This afternoon and evening I sorted out the garage and radio shack. Well most of it, the workbench and drawers at least. The shelves haven’t been touched but they’re fine for just now. So I now have two spaces on the work top, one is where the soldering will sit, as I talked about this morning, and the other is just a general work area. The radios are in a drawer, antenna too, all sorted out. I threw away a few things but not much, mostly it was just packing it away more efficiently to use the space better. It would be handy to have a computer in here. I started thinking about setting something up, or wondering about having a laptop and then plugging into a monitor - that would probably be a good option. However, I do have the server in here right now. I could just connect a monitor to it. I’d probably want to reinstall and not run proxmox, although probably I could run a VM and then connect the monitor to it or something. It could be my Linux workstation for doing stuff, and then when I’m elsewhere I can just remote into it, either VNC at home or SSH when away and everything would be there. I’d probably want to move all the services elsewhere, perhaps on to the wyse box I bought. Notionally that was for the radio but I feel like I’ll never use it for the radio. Plus I’d be better off going down the rpi route as that could then mean I would use the touchscreen setup I have and actually do something useful with it. Assuming I do anything at all. I like the idea of having the server stuff on it, and that can sit under the stairs with the main house switch. The only thing to think about is streaming media, as that’s all on the current server, but I’m sure mounting a share would be fine.

Not sure when I’m going to do all this computer admin. The alternative is to not bother and just bring a laptop into the garage when I want to do something. Simple. I would like a consistent place to SSH into for doing stuff - like the little streamlit apps or other random things I do. I have too many computers. There are two in the garage just doing nothing.

Speaking of too many computers, my desire for a Mac Mini M4 has waned somewhat. MacOS is a bit …controlling? Unique in style? I don’t know, maybe all the different keyboard shortcuts would be annoying. The photos thing is the main reason to get one but even then, I’m not sure I’d bother.

I’ll leave the computer stuff for now. I’m pleased with tidying up and will see what I feel like doing next. Perhaps if I can find a cheap monitor, I’ll mount it to the wall and then use it for whatever…would work either way, laptop, server, etc. I thought about a rpi 500 but that’s just another computer and I don’t need more. Maybe I should sell something…

Still got the fuji lenses to sell. Thought about selling the G90 radio too, but it has a convenient tuner in it, so not sure I should. I had wondered about a ft891, as a 100W HF radio but it’s not as light as I thought, and I already have the ft857. I mostly just like going up the hills, making a few contacts and chasing the points. I wonder what I’ll do once I have the 1,000 points. Suspect I’ll go out but just not obsessively every moment I can find 😅 But instead pick my favourite places, or try for new ones and test out different antenna. At the start of the week was my holiday with mates down in the Lake District and we climbed lots of hills - well I did, they skipped some as too much for them! We had a lovely day out together on the Tuesday up one hill. We spent ages at the top and I had two masts, even the flag on top!, and mostly spent it chasing other summits across the bands. It was just with the KX2, which is still my favourite radio for SOTA. By the end we could hear Argentina blasting through but they couldn’t hear us. I did wonder if they would if I had 100W but I suspect not. Going from 10-100W is 10 dB but that’s only 1-2 S point. So the difference between 57 and 59 reports. Maybe the difference between 50 and 52 but I suspect not. Some people have 40-50W amps they bring with the KX2 to get a little more oomph. That’s fine if you have a resonant antenna but the convenience of a random wire and the KX is too hard to miss.

The challenge is going to be finding suitable times to get out to the big hills now. They need long days to get there and back and my usual Friday off just doesn’t cut it, even if my wife begrudgingly picks up the kids. So hoping for some swapping to Tuesdays or Wednesdays so I can leave early and then get back later. Once it becomes the summer holidays, I’m not sure what I’ll be doing. We’re away a bit but then when I’m back at work and everyone is at home, will it be acceptable to go away on my Friday off? I suspect not…perhaps once to do something. I’ve started a calendar to work out what I should do when. I should look at the summer and see how many days I’ll actually get. It’s probably only 3, as 6 weeks off and I think 3 weeks over the time we’re away.

Friday, 2nd May, 2025

Seems like I only wrote four days in April. Just didn’t feel like it, or want to. I did think about a reboot of my main site blog with some other new SSG, maybe that bash one but I didn’t do anything

I’ve been watching a lot of videos on rock tumbling…I really want a rock tumbler now. I keep thinking that I’d like to collect some rocks from my walks and then polish them up in the tumbler. The process reminds me of film development, except it’s weeks/months vs. minutes. I think the kids would like it, although the 7 days of tumbling per stage might be less interesting for them. Anyway, there’s a disappointingly few good tumblers available in the UK, and the decent stuff is in the US. Or maybe it’s a more popular hobby in the US and everyone online is US based. I’m sure there must be some in Europe - although thanks to brexit that won’t help that much - so I’m waiting for a quote on one of these setup for 240V.

Today’s walk had a lot of lovely looking red rocks - I don’t know what they are but I’m sure I could’ve found out. I didn’t take them home but next time I’d like to.

Tuesday, 22nd April, 2025

My trip away with my friends is coming up this weekend. Hoping to do lots of radio summits in the English Lake District. The only issue is that it’s prone to rain, so I just hope it stays dry.

Nothing like a deadline to get me to finish various antenna and radio projects. Although most likely I’ll not use half the stuff.

A guy in New Zealand wants to try and arrange a summit to summit contact. Which would be amazing but I think it’ll mean I’ll have to be on a summit at 5:30am! Need a spreadsheet to figure out the times and make sure we actually arrive the same time and talking about the same day 😅

Feels like I’ve not really had anything to do at work for a while. But in that because I’m not reacting to something that’s happened and I get to choose my own story, but you get so used to working in a reactive way, it’s hard to change to proactive. There is plenty to do but deadlines are ages away…

Monday, 14th April, 2025

My broken monitor is a work one and I asked what they wanted me to do with it. “Bring it in and we’ll give you a new one” was the answer. So that’s nice. I was looking at a 27” 4K monitor, but a free 24” 1080p one will be just fine.

My radio blog has one post per hill but some days I do more than one. I keep thinking about changing the structure so it fits better with one post per day, regardless of number of hills, but then would I have to change the old posts to fit? All it means is that instead of writing up my trips I fiddle faddle about with a test site and make no decisions or progress. Even if I just posted the photos I took and no text that would be better than nothing. In fact, I might just do that. Plus a screenshot of my route and contacts I made.

Can always come back later and write stuff if I want. Or lunch time at work etc. it’s my website, I can do tf I want with it 😅

Last week I tried to be more proactive about taking my camera and actually taking photos. We had a trip away and I took it with me. Didn’t take that many photos, as I often didn’t take it out the house, but did take some. Myself, my wife and our friends all took photos with our iPhones (various models, mine is probably the newest with iPhone 13). I liked all the iPhone photos better. A few of mine were nice but mostly I didn’t like them. Maybe I need some new colour profiles on the camera, or I could edit them in lightroom etc. but I’ve lost interest in all that. I like taking a photo on my phone, maybe editing it and hitting auto, or quickly adjusting something (but mostly don’t need to) and it looks good. Phone to desktop isn’t the greatest, unless I get a mac though. Am I going to sell my camera and buy an iPhone 17 in September? The camera can take good photos, it’s me I know, but not sure I’m going to do anything. I never did sell the lense either. I did think about a X100VI as I often just pick the 23mm, but meh… I don’t want to be another person with an iPhone taking photos but then again, what does it matter.

Remember when I was quite into stoicism. Now I can’t even spell it. Four years ago I made a tiddlywiki with all of Marcus A. Meditations as tiddlers. Was mostly fun to process the text files, as I never read it.

I should just take film photos but film is too expensive in my opinion, however, I do like the photos so there’s that again. Other thoughts include a Ricoh GRIII for taking with me up hills to capture the scenery better than my phone but is it really better?

Blahblah blah time for bed…

The cats keep escaping at night and waking everyone up, we might need to put child locks on the kitchen door 😅

Saturday, 12th April, 2025

Coming up two weeks since I last wrote anything. Was feeling like it was a chore, so didn’t bother. Plus it’s been school holidays and we’ve been away.

Thinking of resurrecting my old blog with a new SSG system. Sometimes I want a blog that’s not radio focused and not journal-y but just a regular one for regular sort of posts. Probably I’ll never use it.

Need to rejig my radio summit write ups, one post per summit can be tiring when I do several in a day. It also doesn’t read as well as a trip report. Plus I can make use of the API to load my points and list automatically vs. me maintaining a separate list. Although this does have its advantages.

So much admin to do…and for what? Tidying pixels online…

Then there’s the SINGLE BLOG to rule them all. 💍 where I have everything all together. Also not going to happen.

My iPhone 13 (I think) keeps going flat during the day. It never used to. Can’t believe the battery degraded that much. Looking at the app info on the battery settings page, I think WhatsApp is to blame.