Sunday, 30th June, 2024

Remember when I got mad at the lawnmower and said I was going to buy an electric one, but then fixed my gas one and so decided it was fine for now. Well I had that whole experience again today. Probably if I buy a new carb it’ll be better as the current one is quite rusty/scaly which probably accelerates formation of new scales and blocks stuff. Although I’m quick at cleaning it now, even if I do get petrol everywhere.

Fitted a small area of jigsaw floor pads in the garage where the workbench and radio is. Makes such a big difference. Also tidied further. Server is all setup now and is living in the garage. Need to tidy up under the office desk where it used to live.

Now I have two computers which could be for something. Possibly a small one for games in the office, maybe with intel iGPU or if I can find a cheap low profile card to fit. Annoyingly whilst it has space for a two pci cards, the 16x is on the outside, and so many double width GPUs won’t fit. Maybe that’s good as saves me from spending a fortune on it.

Won a remote ATU for radio. Now I have to buy that 12m fibreglass telescopic pole…

I just read through the posts here on the website. Was nice to do and not done that in ages. Also looked at the Archives and I’m only a month away from 3 years here. Well not quite here exactly, but Fondoftea. It started as tiddlywiki, but I converted all the tiddlers to entries after I set this site up.

Saturday, 29th June, 2024

I took the camera with me this morning, given I’ve not used it in ages. Came to use it and the battery was flat. Great. I suppose the M2 never goes flat.

There’s a section of woods near us that had jumps people made with logs to go over on bikes. The kids liked cycling on them. We went there this morning and the whole area has been cut down. It was very disheartening. Can’t imaging what it would be like in areas of huge deforestation. We have controlled forest across much of Scotland that are grown and cut but not usually in residential areas.

So we went to the skate park. 🛹

Been watching the fourth season of True Detective. It wasn’t too weird by the end. Worth watching.

Still debating about tiddlywiki as my new radio blog. Probably leaning towards not but maybe I’ll work on it first then decide. I had thought about putting notes in it as well, but then why not use the wiki I already have…but equally, why not use the blog I already have.

Friday, 28th June, 2024

Here we are. Classic me. “Perhaps I didn’t need to upgrade the server”… that’s always true. I do really like the case, I like that all the storage is consolidated into one machine. I like proxmox, although still figuring it all out. I need to migrate the other services across then I can put it away under the desk properly. It just uses more power than the old server (50W idle vs 20W).

I also like how I’ll have another computer which can be for other places. I’m also slowing setting up home assistant to “do it right” vs. randomly adding things and making it half baked. Although as I didn’t restore from a backup I don’t have all the historical data. Wonder if it’s possible just to migrate data…

I should be glad I bought used and not new.

Bit windy and risk of being wet today but think I’ll still go out to a radio summit. Otherwise I’ll just sit on the puter all day, and I’ve got all evening for that.

Thursday, 27th June, 2024

I didn’t do anything with the server last night. Instead I watched an episode of The X files. Specifically, Jose Chung’s From Outer Space. Season 3. It’s such a quirky episode. I want to watch some more now.

Started rejigging the server internals for “storage mode” and will hopefully get all the drives over tonight and maybe install proxmox.

All this started from wanting to run Home Assistant OS, as this has all the functionality vs running it in a container. Anyway, nearly there now. Debating what to do with the current server and the old one. Maybe a radio pc or maybe for the boys to play on. Or I could upgrade the old server to a newer Ryzen computer for …some purpose. Probably I’ve spent enough on computers just now.

Debating about a new antenna setup in the garden. It does mean committing to poles and things strapped to the house. I know this will cause comments, and potentially more. Feels like I’ve been constantly buying things too. Weirdly (and worryingly?) May’s expenses equalled our income to the nearest pound.

I would like an alternative portable antenna but that also needs another pole.

Still not sure about that radio I bought for portable. It is really good, but I don’t make the most of it. Thinking I should get a portable battery and then just use my old radio. It’ll be heavier but not that bad.

All this new server stuff has kept me away from looking at blogging software. Probably a good thing.

Wednesday, 26th June, 2024

Got the new server setup, well the start of it at least. The motherboard and cpu (from ebay) both work fine. The RAM too, although the auto fast speeds XMP profile doesn’t seem to work. That led me down a rabbit hole which ended up on a 200 page overclockers.net forum thread about the motherboard, with custom BIOSes and all sorts. In the end I just closed all the tabs and thought, I don’t care, it’s a server, I want stability and I’ll probably not notice the difference. It was also midnight too.

Today I’m going to install Proxmox and then migrate the ZFS pool over, setup the services and then decommissiong the old server. Probably not all tonight though.

Monday, 24th June, 2024

Tidied the garage last night and rearranged ready for inverter and battery install. I went from “having no more space” to several free shelves and even the ones I used weren’t super optimised. Only thing without a home is the set of ladders. I’d prefer not to keep them outside, even thought they’ll probably be fine, but there isn’t anywhere good for them to go. Unless I figure out some wall mounting solution.

I won a used motherboard off eBay for a reasonable price. Looked in excellent condition. Then I just bought new ram, psu and CPU cooler as I couldn’t be bothered to wait for them on eBay. New stuff will arrive today, and mobo probably tomorrow or Wednesday. Then will see if they all play nicely together.

The new CPUs were confusing as to what’s what and expensive. My used mobo and cpu was £140, and a new CPU is £170+. It’s also going to be a server that sits and ticks over most of the time

What would you do if you weren’t afraid?

Saturday, 22nd June, 2024

We have a period during the day on a weekend, where after lunch all the kids go play iPad/console/PC/ whatever, often my wife goes for a nap and then it’s just me sitting somewhere, ktichen, garden, garage, and I have some free time to do something. The problem is I never know what to do, or I’m a bit tired as well (but can’t nap), and so I just sit on a computer and sort of mill about online. I’m there right now. I should do something but I never know what. Maybe I should go on the radio, but I don’t want to. I want to build some new radio things but I don’t have any parts for them. I could try satellite operation again but I was meant to programme more frequencies into the radio so I can use more satellites. Although there aren’t any just now going over head that I could use. I’m also more interested in making the automated tracking system than making contacts on it.

I visited this site for the first time in ages and saw it’s been a few days since I posted, so i thought I might as well write in it. Seeing as I’m not doing anything else useful.

I had a good day off yesterday. Went up a hill, played radio, scared off some dog walkers by being on the radio. Cut the grass, dug up a bush and planted a gooseberry bush (no-one likes them but it was a gift…). I also cleared out a few things in the garage. I think every Friday off I have, I should make sure I clear at least one thing out of the house. There are lots of things in the garage which we never use, but keep for just in case. I’m torn between binning it and continuing to keep it.

Been writing some more on my radio blog. It’s fine…still not sure I like Wordpress. I was surprised the default doesn’t come with a lightbox, and then I looked at plugins and there were hundreds, and I just want something to make the image bigger when clicked on and not have to go back and change the images from Gallery to “my new lightbox app gallery”. Even though it’s so easy, I don’t know how to change things. Thinking again of the static blog. I might even use the same CSS/layout as this site, with a few adjustments, because I like it. I suppose I could be doing that now. I jsut never use images on here and so I wonder if they would work…I guess with lightbox plugin it they could…I should also investigate github.dev and image handling/shortcuts as it could be quite easy to add them.

I’m also still tempted by bearblog.dev as the hosted version of it. A friend I met through ham radio, DK1MI, has his blog on it and I like it. Saves me going down the familiar path of which static generator and then weeks messing with a new one, only to not like it or be bothered to learn it.

The CPU, i5-9500T, that I won from ebay for the new server arrived. Finding a mobo is a pain…still. The new case I bought, the Fractal Define 7, is absolutely beautiful and extermely functional. It is the nicest case I’ve ever had. It’s not small, but boy is it good. I feel like I should put a new fancy intel 12/13/14th gen CPU in it rather than my cheapo used one. But seriously, I might…I could return the 9500 but I was also thinking I could rebuild the old server into a new PC with parts from ebay - but on a slower timescale when bargains pop up - for another gaming PC for the kids. At the moment one boy uses my computer (amazing), and the other uses a laptop (okay). The laptop (T490 I think) does a decent enough job but once their minecraft world got some size to it, the laptop takes ages to load it. Of course, the kids do not need this whatsoever, and it’s just me wanting to make more computers….but you know.

New motherboards are expensive these days. It used to be you could get a bog standard one for £50, and then a fancy one was £120. Yes, there were always stupid ones for £200, but the other two were fine. Now it seems a basic one is £100, a decent one is £170, a fancy one is £200+, and then insane ones for £400. Also I’m sticking with DDR4…it’s so cheap and DDR5 is SOOOO expensive! A new kit of 32GB DDR4 is £100. 🤯 It’s funny how the prices of things change. SSDs/NVMEs are so cheap too. About two years about I paid £400 for a 4TB SSD, now they’re £200.

I knew of them before, but only relooked, about the ARDC. They link amateur radio and the internet together. They sponsor things, provide funding and also give out IPv4 addresses to hams. They have a shit load of money because back in 1981 some guy got a whole class A block of 44.0.0.0/8 IPs for amateur radios to use. Fast forward to 2019 and they sold a quarter of these to Amazon (I think) for…a billion dollars? I don’t know exactly but huge, and so they give grants and money out. I’m going through the process now to get my own 44.x.x.x/y IP to play with. Think of putting my radio blog, my allstarnode and if I ever get round to a webSDR on it. All hosted at home but routed via their network so it’s a public 44.x.x.x IP address.

Well now it’s time to take the kids to the park.

Thursday, 20th June, 2024

I should’ve gone to bed and not faffed about looking at endless blogging platforms last night. I feel like I won’t really be happy until I make a static site. I wrote a post on the radio blog this morning, and I do admit, the Wordpress app makes things very easy. I need to sort out categories/tags on the site though as I have both and they’re messy. I just need one.

An alternative is just delete them all and not bother.

Wednesday, 19th June, 2024

I keep thinking I want a single blog where everything goes, rather than three which have things spread across them. This is yet another reoccurring theme.

I opened up my Radio blog as it’s been ages since I wrote anything, and Wordpress was complaining about updates. Which were single click fixes, but it just reminded me about how I don’t like Wordpress. I just looked at it and didn’t want to write anything.

I do wonder about paying somewhere to host it and look after everything. Like Pika.page, bearblog, blot, or …somewhere. Looking at Phil’s blog I’m drawn towards blot. I told myself it wouldn’t do as I couldn’t access it whilst on the work network, but is that really a big deal? I like it as all the files still sit on my computer and not entirely trapped online (most places have an export but you know). I don’t know.

I still like this blog, 🫖, and probably I’d keep this as is. But I like that the ramblings are tucked away out of passerbys, although if you look carefully enough you can see them.

Brothers in Arms - HM Royal Marines. 🎸🎶🪖

Way back when I made a new server that was low powered due to the rapidly rising electricity costs due to the ukraine war. Well now things have settled down and I find it annoying having a storage server and a processing server. So think I’m going to go back to a single one. I just won a i5-9500T off ebay, so I guess that’s the start of the build! I was going to build a new one but it was going to be £600+ for it all and I probably don’t need that. Finding a used case is hard, so I did buy a new one which is what I wanted, and I suspect it’ll last me 10 years minimum. The next hardest thing is getting a motherboard…it’s hard enough buying one new, let alone seeing what’s available used. Will see how that goes.

Accepted the solar contractor, although still deciding what to have. I thought I’d chosen then I spoke to him and he suggested other things…

I’m surrounded by computers. There are…nine next to me right now. Plus a microbit, a Lora ESP node, and a rpi in a box under the desk. Plus my phone. How so many…

Reading blot.im docs…is it what I want? it’s not too different from a static blog on github…I suppose adding images to a folder for autoposts is nice but not sure how often I want that. I suppose I’ll go to bed, too late I might add, having done nothing.

I ended up watching Riverdance. 1994…wow, I remember the craze of it. 🍀

There’s also Montaigne…🤔

Tuesday, 18th June, 2024

Think I’ve decided on the solar installer and generally what we want…I’d drafted him an email last night but not sent it yet.

I went up into the attic and actually explored the trussed area. If only it wasn’t trusses, it would be a huge space … ideal for Lego train installation 😅

Also found we had a TV antenna in the attic, it wasn’t really pointing in the right direction but it’s wired into the maze of cables that go round the house. I also saw some of the pink network cables that seem to go round the house but don’t actually come out anywhere. They appear behind the patch panel but none of them are wired in. Wish I had a schematic or could talk to someone who knows about the build to find out what those are. I could cut one and have Ethernet (and power via poe) in the attic but I don’t know where it goes. Unless it’s used for telephone? That doesn’t seem right as it’s better quality than the network cable that is connected up to the patch panel and ports in the rooms.

Been investigating new antenna for radio…they’re always quite big when you draw them against a picture of the house.

Friday, 14th June, 2024

Time flies by on your day off. So many things to do, and I end up doing none of them. Need to go to bed earlier, I’ve been staying up too late this week thinking about all the things I should do and doing none of them.

Went up a hill this morning with my radio. Was meant to be a quick one but didn’t get home til 1:30 and by the time I had lunch and faffed with a new Meshtastic thing it’s school pick up.

Tuesday, 11th June, 2024

It must be that time of year again as I’m thinking about a new blogging platform…not for this site, I still like this one and don’t feel any need to change it. It’s for my amateur radio blog. Mostly trigger by the fact I’ve not written anything on it in ages and I’ve got lots of things I want to write, but I just never do it.

Usually when that happens I decide the problem is that it’s running on a bad choice of blog platform. Particuarly of note is if it’s Wordpress and my neverousness of running a database and so on, vs. just having plain text. There’s really no reason why I need a database, and it’s always the ease of images and using the app on my phone that draws me towards it.

So now I’m thinking that I should move it to a static site generator…but which one…plus I’m looking at easy options like blot.im, or bearblog.dev, etc. They’re nice and have lots of advantages and generally have a good philosphy. However, I then think spending money on hosting is unecessary and I’m still not entirely in control. Blot and bearblog are both the same price a year. Reading the bearblog docs but I do think a simple static site with github build chain is what I should start doing.

I also think about using 11ty as the javascript parts can do interesting things and I think up lots of interesting things but would I ever do them? There’s also Quarto that I moved my main site to. It’s a static generator but has lots of bells and whistles, but again, do I need all that?

Setup my allstarlink node with SIP this morning (it’s all just asterisk anyway), and now I’m thinking of IP phones in the house and the kids would enjoy calling each other. They’re often cheap on ebay so maybe I’ll get a couple and have a play. Technically, I could have a handheld radio and use it to call phones on the network. Even the extent of a repeater in any country in the world that’s connected to the Allstarlink network. Of course, people will point out we have this…in our mobile phones…but not as fun, plus there’s no monthly subscription!

There’s also Pika, which it seems I found in December last year.

Sunday, 9th June, 2024

Had another solar guy round on Friday. He was good, knew lots and didn’t push anything on me. He’s my fav contractor, be interesting to see what he proposes. Got one quite back from the first guy. Need to sit and think about it. He was light on technical details but I could ask.

Been setting up an AllStarLink node. Which is like VoIP but for amateur radio with parts of the links being radio.

Tuesday, 4th June, 2024

Had another solar installer email me with a different panel layout. Using our ENE roof and the WSW one. The east side has a lovely big clear area and it is a great side for installation purposes, but will it generate any power? The west one only has space for two panels and seems a hassle for just two panels. Likewise the same question on power gen.

I used PVGIS again to calculate the power. They do generate power, not as much but it’s something. The west side is better for us for total generation. If they could share scaffolding then maybe I’d think it was a good idea, but I suspect they’d need dedicated scaffolding and so is it really worth it? I’ll wait and see what his quote looks like.

Shame we don’t have a huge garden to do ground mounted.

From an economic standpoint moving to the variable tariff has had the best return. It cost nothing and we’ve saved 23% off our bill. If this is my new starting point then that makes solar harder to justify. If I start from doing nothing then it’s pretty decent payback. I suppose the challenge for myself is to maximise the returns once installed via tariff games and savings schemes that should happen this winter.

Sunday, 2nd June, 2024

I spent ages last night marking up the house drawing with panel configurations. Probably can only fix 6 on the main roof as any more and you start to get too close to edges of other roof parts. Not sure if it’s something they can try when up on the roof fitting the connectors but probably too late at that stage. Maybe I was too harsh on the electrician (not that he knows!) but now I’ve done it myself I feel satisfied that we’re not missing out on a better solution.

Using easypv website is very helpful as it tells me prices and things to consider, plus it does a nice schematic. My decision on DC vs AC coupled battery is still to be made but I do think the extra cost of AC might not be worth it for me. Trying to ask people questions on the /r/SolarUK subreddit to gauge what’s best. Also think going for 80:20 is perfectly fine. It’s probably more like 95:5 and that 5% is driving me to extreme solutions.

Saturday, 1st June, 2024

Had an electrician around for solar and storage. Also chased up two other companies I’d phoned on Monday.

Everyone, and I guess not surprising, wants to do the least effort job, ie the one that means not contacting the power network operator (DNO). They also want to use google maps to size the array. Which is fine and a good way to do things but I got the feeling that it was “here’s a good enough solution, that’ll do.” I’m perhaps unusual in that whilst cost is important it’s not the be all and end all. Application to the DNO will cost money but so what. I also do my own economic modelling, which I guess most people don’t.

When I tell them I have 30 minute variable tariff they look blank at me.

Anyway, I just need to get a couple to come round and then I can convince them I’m serious and move towards what I want. Which is likely to be more expensive than their base design and they’ll be interested as means they’ll earn more? I dunno. Anyway, repeated nagging is needed.

I just need to figure out what it is I actually want 😅