“There is no trouble so great or grave that cannot be diminished by a nice cup of tea” —Bernard-Paul Heroux

Sunday, 17th March, 2024

To limit how much we have to think, for many decisions like what to buy, we often rely on habits – that is, we simply repeat what we did last time when faced with a similar situation. -– Richard Shotton, [The Illusion of Choice]​(https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/60784553-the-illusion-of-choice)

Did a nice little radio consutuction project last night and tested it with the analyser. Seems to be working well. Was a transformer for a end fed half wave antenna, if you were wondering. I took some photos so I should write a short post about it on my radio blog. Which reminds me, that I sat down on the computer to find a 3D model for an insulator for the wire. That was 7 tabs ago already…

Saturday, 16th March, 2024

I did nothing and now the domain renewed. I do use as it my secondary domain for services as my primary one is blocked at work. Of course I still have two other domains I keep which I could’ve used instead…oh well. I’ll think about it again next year.

Spoke to my boss about part time and she was supportive. That’s good. Just need to talk to HR and then actually do it. Still can’t help feel like I’m going to be the one cheated in the situation…I’ll still do the same amount of work, I’ll just do it in 4 days instead of 5 and maybe faff about less. I just have to pay for the day off. Plus fight my natural instinct to maximise income now because who knows what’ll happen in the future. It’s reversible so that’s fine. Anyway, one step at a time.

Someone semi-nearby is selling a full loaded satellite setup, radio, antenna, rotator the lot. Probably circa £3k though 😨 I suspect, like him, I’d do it for a while and then think “that’s nice but I’m done now”. So probably a good price relative to what he would’ve paid new for it all. Plus I’m not sure where I’d keep it all. Think I’d get greater satisfaction from building more of it myself as a temporary, one afternoon I play satellites in the garden then pack it up. Which is what I’ve started doing.

Bought a control cable for my fm radio, need to get it hooked into the computer and the software to do the Doppler correction and then connect it to a white stick dual band antenna. Be interesting to see if I can make any contacts that way. I know some people have done and they were then less interested in bespoke sat setups. If that doesn’t work, I can make (or buy) so called eggbeater antenna which have a wide radiation pattern that is like a dome covering the whole sky.

I’ve also got my handheld dual band antenna to use, just I’m incompetent at aiming it. But practice and maybe some headset to free up a hand would help. But this could also be used with a homebrew rotator. That might take me a while to make but I still think it’ll be more fun than just spending a fortune.

Wednesday, 13th March, 2024

The same thing that happened last year. I get obsessed with radio things and then have zero time for anything else. Like writing here or my DayOne family journal or playing games or anything. It’s not bad but I’m also not really doing anything. I’m jumping from one idea to the next, watching videos, reading blogs, then doing nothing other that staying up too late and being tired the next day.

I’ve started making a big list in dynalist of all the possible things I’d like to do, with links and notes. I need to then pick one and actually do it. I’m getting the wire and cores and bits to build a portable antenna for the KX2 (which I’ve not really used and really need to read the manual), but that should be first. I keep having slight regrets about the KX2 and see cheaper radios that probably “would do” but I think once I start to use it I’ll want to keep it. There was another radio, that I nearly bought which can do almost everything and is pretty small. The ICOM 705. Technically I could do everything with it…HF, VHF, UHF, satelitte…I’d need a few other things to help it and whatever but I could have it in the office, it’s tiny, and then the other amps and whatnot in the garage. Whilst it is portable it looks a bit chonky and slightly precious for taking up a mountain, however, it could be done. I could even automate all the systems with NodeRed, relays and whatever. However, I think it’s just my brain creating a scenario where I need to buy another radio. I could sell the one I have, but the net result would be more expensive.

I would like to be able to use the radio in the office, particularly in the winter, as the garage is cold. My dad suggested building a partition in the garage so I could heat a small space, that’s probably a good option but not sure how I’d close it off without a door, or it has a door but then it starts to become a big space. He suggested a heavy curtain but I think that would just get messy and annoying. It could double as a darkroom though…except there’s no space for any equipment as I have the 3D printer and loads of other things in there.

Really I’d like a flex radio as they make it super easy to use remotely, just they are eye-wateringly expensive. I don’t have the antenna to justify it either. Speaking of which that’s another area I’d like to fix. Ah, so many things to do, and hardly any time. This is why I need to organise myself.

I started thinking about the 705 following a conversation on the matrix radio chat I’m in. One guy was talking about selling off various bits and bobs and consolidating down to the 705 to do lots of things. It seemed smart. I’ve recently bought a 2m/70cm FM rig and that’s fine but I can’t do SSB with it, so if I wanted to use SSB sats then I’d need something else. Given the 705 can do 2m/70cm SSB, it’s more than capable as it’ll also do FM. The only thing it can’t do is duplex (send and receive at the same time on two bands - typical on satellites.) However, that’s easy to overcome (either just ignore it!) or have a cheap SDR and computer to listen. Given I want to have doppler control then I have a computer nearby doing that so an SDR isn’t an issue either. Can even have a remote SDR in the house that’s always hooked up to listen with.

I’m tired of reading 5 radio manuals to figure out how to do something, only to then forget it later, if I had, say 2, then that would be perfect. Argualy I could get down to one with just the 705. Feels appealing. Also reminds me of the One True Camera, and to a lesser extent, a single computer. There’s always compromises…

I think I’ll try planning it out, what I’d want to do and how I would do it. Then see.

I watched some videos of saveitforparts and I flip between wanting to have a garage like his - choke full of random stuff - and a clear garage that you actually keep a car in.

Sunday, 10th March, 2024

Happy Mother’s Day here in Scotland 💐.

Sent my mum some flowers, probably overpriced but she always likes them. M&S usually don’t disappoint so rely on them each year. Kids are getting old enough that I don’t have to go to great lengths at home. But also trying to not rely on “special” days to get gifts or do something. My wife reads a lot so if I see a book recommendation that I think she’ll like, I’ll just buy it.

I usually get good recommendations from bookstore.org newsletter. I feel slightly bad that I never buy from them and always go to Amazon - but Amazon is always cheaper.

Saturday, 9th March, 2024

Since my summit radio activation, I now seem to be back into full radio obsession! The problem is I have about 10 potential projects open across a million tabs and I don’t know what to do first.

Friday, 8th March, 2024

I updated about 5 weeks of transactions in my Google sheets in about 20 minutes, which I think is decent. The accounts with the fewest transactions take the longest. Then my query formula updates, I spot mistakes and fix them and it’s all done. I don’t have time for plain text accounting 😅

I’ve had a headache all day and it won’t go away. Tried paracetamol and ibuprofen but no luck.

Thursday, 7th March, 2024

Today I got up, took the kids to school, drove to a summit (not a mountain, a hill of 539m/1700 ft), walked up it, played radio for nearly an hour. Spoke to 37 people in 14 countries up to 1500 miles away. I came home, had a lovely cup of tea, and wrote up a blog post about it. Then normal life resumed.

It was great. Really fun making contacts on the mountain with 5.5m of wire getting blown around whilst I crouched behind an outcrop to shelter from the howling gale. I was back home by 1:30pm and felt like I’d had a whole day already. Plus my legs feel like they did something.

I wanted to sort out my logs on the computer and then write a blog post, and that computer time went by super fast. Definitely unwise for me to start the day on the computer. If I do do this part time thing then I think it should be radio construction/hikes/etc. first, then fiddle about on the computer until school pick up.

Had a really long chat with a lady in my team at work who also works part time, about pay and work and life. Felt like a rare occurrence but a good conversation. We both want to be paid fairly but not ambitious to chase after pay rises. However, I feel like the only way to get paid “fairly” is to chase after pay rises.

The only thing with the radio hobby (and me being me), is that it’s quite expensive. I tell myself that once I buy all these things then “I’ll be done”, but we all know that’s not how it works. I’m only “done” when I cool off on a hobby and am focused on something else. I’ve had my X-E4 for a while now and not interested in getting a new camera (briefly with the X1006 but that’s not even available to buy). Hopefully building various antenna is maybe how I can do things but not spend too much.

Ordered the internal tuner mod for the KX2 from the states. That’s another $250 🙄 but then I’ll be done! Well except I sort of want the telescopic antenna it has for taking with me when I don’t/can’t use a wire antenna.

Wednesday, 6th March, 2024

I finished making my antenna for my trip out on Thursday. It’s a very simple “random wire”, which like all random wires isn’t random. It’s a very specific length, but from an outside perspective appears random. “5.5m? That’s random”.

A little bit of buyers remorse is setting in on the KX2, it’s meant to arrive today and I’m sure once it set it side by side with my current portable setup I’ll be blown away. Was also reading some of the features and it’s packed with stuff. Everyone I know with one, everyone on forums, discord, YouTube, absolutely love theirs, so I’m hoping I do too.

If it does arrive today I could take it with me tomorrow but, it doesn’t have a tuner (yet) and my wire antenna needs one. I could make a resonant one but I don’t have time, especially if I’m working out how the KX2 works as well.

Ordered 48 creme eggs to work from Amazon as they were on sale. My intent is to give most of them away.

Monday, 4th March, 2024

Bought that KX2 on ebay…👀 won it with my highest bid, which is perhaps slightly more than I was hoping it would go for but using a random number probably helped me win it. For about 5s I thought I was going to get a good deal but someone else bid. Anyway, doesn’t matter, bought now. Looking forward to it as a lovely tiny radio package. I’ll sell my current portable one, which I’m still torn about as it was my first radio and it has a great tuner. However, I don’t need it and better off selling it.

Setup a desk in daughter’s bedroom this evening, with a pin board behind it. Looks really nice and fits in perfectly between her bed and the wall.

One of the boys had an incident at swim training over the weekend and the coach had to jump in and rescue him. Everyone was fine, but obviously not great. Think the coach suffered more than everyone else afterwards. My dad text me to today and say that it’s better to talk about it than to keep it in. I was not expecting this and took me by surprise. I was pretty tired on Saturday when they came and I probably wasn’t too talkative. I don’t think I’m upset about the situation and tbh I’ve not thought about it much as the kids are always doing soemthing or there’s some disaster and it’s just another day. Too busy to worry about it.

My grandfather, dad’s dad, died by drowning in a freak incident whilst on holiday fishing and my dad brought that up. It was maybe 15+ years ago now, and I hadn’t put it together or made that connection. I was at work when he texted and I made an effort to reply but it was short. I honestly don’t think I’m worried or upset about it, but now I’m wondering.

Watching a RSGB video on YouTube on VHF contesting…if I remember I’ll link it later…but it’s a collection of videos people have put together of them on a field day. It looks fun, setting up, and camping and so on. Including film from 1966. My local club does do some but it’s never convenient for me.

The replacement 16GB RAM stick arrived and I put it in the new laptop and it works fine. So has a nice 24GB of RAM. Still not got the track point working but also not done anything about it.

Wife and I were talking about long term plans and money and things. Don’t often do that. She remarked that the next 10 years will be our hardest as all the kids grow up and some leave home and some nearly leaving. We talked about stopping work and things and in the most optimistic case I could stop working completely in 10 years but maybe by then I won’t really want to and life will be very different.

Sunday, 3rd March, 2024

The raspberry pi newsletter informed me the very first rpi came out 12 years ago on Thursday just gone. I had one of those very first rpis. They sold 10,000 in the first batch and I was waiting on the website to buy one. I sold it a while ago as I upgraded but I probably should’ve kept it as part of internet history. Although to do what? Sit in a drawer and probably do nothing?

Can’t decide about this KX2. It’s a lovely radio, perfectly designed and capable, ideal for traveling and portable out and about. It, a bit of wire and a light telescopic pole and you can get on the air anywhere.

It’s like a GRIII with a 35mm lens 😅 but it’s pricey. I have a portable radio I can take with me, but it’s like a D850. I can bring it, it is more capable but it and the extra stuff aren’t small.

I’ve told myself I’ll watch the eBay auction first then maybe offer on the forum one. But I haven’t decided what price would make me bid or what to offer - I also doubt they’ll budge much from their listing price given the rarity of the item. Maybe if it sits in the forum for 3 weeks they might but it’s not even been 3 days yet.

Maybe in Thursday, I should take my D850 up the “mountain” and see how it is. The battery arrangement is the biggest issue. I have a whacking great golf buggy LiFePO4 battery, which is great if you drive or I’m in the garden and I’ve parts of LiPo battery which I was going to make my own but never got round to it. Nowhere in the U.K. sells them and nowhere else ships here.

Saturday, 2nd March, 2024

Went outside this morning to put out some rubbish. Was a light drizzle but the air felt so fresh and envigorating. Made me want to go up a mountain and feel the satisfaction of a day in nature and hard work climbing it.

Dad is coming to visit today. Better tidy up…

Like buses, another KX2 has shown up on the second hand forums. This one has a tuner and nice box and things. It does come with a signal link box for digital modes that I’m not really interested in. I suspect they won’t really want to sell it without that but I could always sell it on myself. It’s just a bit pricey… £1350. A new one from Switzerland is likely around £1500 and doesn’t have the case and bits. Think I’ll see how much the eBay one, without a tuner, goes for. It’s already at £620 and there are still 3 days left. I suspect that these are the current prices as supply is so low and demand is high.

I did end up offering for a 2m/70cm FM radio, a Kenwood V71A, that I saw on the forums as well. Not sure how much I’ll use it but seems like a sensible thing to have a decent 2m/70cm FM for local / satellites, that’s not a handheld, for sitting in my shack. Will just need to setup the antenna for it…

I love haribo sweets, and eat too many. Yesterday I bought a packet at lunch time but they repeated horribly on me all day. Like drinking very cheap, off brand orange juice, so acidic and artificial. Made me think that I should stop eating them. I’ll have to find something else to substitute as not sure I can just go cold turkey on them.

Thursday, 29th February, 2024

Leap! 🐸

I played about with Quarto to see if I could make interactive plots with python. Seems like you can only really do it with ObervableJS, aka javascript. That’s a shame, but if I thought about it not surprising. There is pyscript which lets you run python in the browser. Maybe not too hard to learn as I only really want a small subset of things, I just worry about writing formula in JS vs python. I should do some basic javascript learning, like functions, syntax etc. would be useful in lots of places. I did start from a book about…3 years ago but only got as far as chapter one then never quite got round to it again.

A portable HF radio that I’ve wanted to get has shown up on ebay today. Elecraft KX2. It doesn’t come with an internal tuner, but you can buy those separately and fit them yourself. The KX2s have been in production shortage since COVID and have still to recover. I presume it must use some component that is now not a mainstream one following manufacturing getting back in operation? Not sure. If I order new it’s 16 week wait from the US. Also the UK importers have stopped stocking them so I’ll have to import from the US or EU, so no doubt at great expense. So seeing one used for sale is rare. The last one I saw was on the forums last summer. In fact someone I met on the radio matrix chat is the guy that bought it. It came with all the bells and whistles and he paid £900 for it. The one on ebay is already at £510 and it doesn’t finish until Monday. I think a fair price for it is £700 but I bet it goes for way more as so many people are wanting one. I’m nto sure how much importing a new one will be, perhaps £1500? Although I should work out how much all the bits I’d want as well will be and is it really that much cheaper than just getting a new one from Switzerland. Plus it would have the newest design and bigger battery and all sorts. I’ll see what its price is on Monday afternoon and decide.

Wednesday, 28th February, 2024

My wife dug out her senior school maths notes on advanced higher mechanics from over 20 years ago. She’s getting ready to teach advanced higher mechanics come next term and wanted to get up to speed again with it. So far she’s just been teaching “dumb” maths which requires no thought when kids ask questions. Stuff like volume, area, simple angles etc., but now it’s going to be a bit harder and needs some thought ahead of time. Anyway, her notes are in immaculate condition for paper and handwritten stuff. Puts my shoddy internet wiki to shame.

As part of teacher’s continuous development, she’s getting some courses on website making. Some of the maths teachers maintain google sites of materials. I immediately jumped in and shouted “I’ll help you make a site!”. Probably I need to calm down a bit. However, I think quarto would be great to do it - static site, but also with the ability to have interactivity, so sliders to change angles and speeds and whatever so people can see the changes. I might work on an example page with some stuff.

I’m excited to make a student resources page on mechanics maths. Give me soemthing productive to do, an excuse to play with python and quarto some more too.

Although right now a friend and I are playing Factorio and optimising manufacturing. It’s a bit like work but in the evening. A bus man’s holiday as my mum would say.

Had to upgrade iCloud storage to 200GB. Probably could’ve deleted some photos to keep within the 50GB but also can’t be bothered. I think putting all my photos into iCloud then later removing them as confused its tiny brain. I have loads of empty albums or worse, albums with one photo in it, even though I chose to delete them all. I’d like to go back to it one day but not sure I want yet another subscription.

Tuesday, 27th February, 2024

I like how Outlook email reports messages from Microsoft as junk 😅.

I’ve been generally feeling fine about work. Nothing bad, maybe nothing good, but we had a management meeting today and after that I was mad. Not quite sure why as it was a pretty benign meeting. I have a txt file on simplenote or some app that I’ve used as my work rant place. I try to avoid reading the historical entries but it stops me endlessly thinking about pointless stuff.

Can’t decide on the part time working idea. Wife is supportive but she did point out the days off are short. The kids are at school 9-3, so I’d really only have 6 hours that day for myself. I’d still enjoy that time and having it every week would be good, plus I like picking the kids up from school and seeing them before I get home at 5pm feeling tired and trying not to be too grumpy. I wondered if there was some half way option of just taking extra holidays to see how it went.

I have to do school pick up next Thursday, so I’m going to take the whole day off. That’ll be a whole day alone to do what I want. A taster of what it could be like. The problem with a one-off is that it’s not really representative, but still. I should plan a little otherwise I’ll sit on the computer until school pick up and do nothing. I wonder what the weather is…supposedly sunny, but we’re too far away to believe that. There’s always the go up a “mountain” and play radio. Might be safer doing a dummy run in the back garden first though.

I don’t forget. I just remember later. – Dave Rogers

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