Signed my contract to commit to 4 days a week.
Wife has been playing Lemmings on the Amiga emulator.
Feel like I’m constantly buying radio things yet I still have a list of stuff I need.
August 2024 Entries
Made a bit more progress on the yagi last night. Just need to fit a connector then I can test it out…see if it’s anywhere near the frequency it’s supposed to be. There’s room for improvement as I’m not sure I can remove the driven element arrangement like I can all the rest. The only way is a screwdriver to remove the rods. Which can be done easily enough although not sure I want to be fiddling with tiny screws on a summit. Alternatively I just keep it attached and find a way to carry it in my backpack.
I should get a small junction box and remake it inside there with a connector so I could remove it.
I also feel like I’ll probably just buy one…or make a mount for the one I already have…
I was at the kids tennis sitting with all the mums. They were talking about vinted app. Now I’m on it looking for active wear for walking. There are good bargains, just need to find what I actually want.
The mast mounting stuff arrived, which raised some questions. The brackets are so heavy, feels like the wall will struggle to hold them up let alone a mast! Still not sure if it’s a good idea or not…
Had a nice walk with some of the kids up a summit this morning. Managed to get in some radio too.
Making some progress on my home made yagi. Went to the hackerspace last night to make use of the pillar drill. Just trying to figure out the coax to element setup. Could do with some small eyelets and crimpers…which I found at the hacker space. Not sure I can be bothered to drive back there this evening. It’s 30 minutes each way. Maybe I can find something at home…
Going back into the office tomorrow. Feels like I’ve not been at work in ages…
Meant to be working more on my yagi this evening but I ended up just sitting on the computer instead. Got a small blog post out on my radio site which has been sat in draft for ages. What I should do is prepare today’s summit outing as well, even if just the photos from my phone. I’m enjoying the new radio blog. I should add some pages for other stuff but not got round to it.
I want to build a 2m yagi for taking up hills, but there are so many permutations online I’m sucked into and just get stuck in a loop of looking at them all not quite knowing what I should do. Then 2 hours go by and I’ve done nothing.
Plumber came and fixed the leak. I’ve messaged insurance to cancel the claim. No doubt it’ll still haunt me even though they spent nothing. Did a trip to the hardware store and got all the bits for the yagi I’m building. Debated between 4 or 5 elements but that means 1m boom or 1.4m boom and this is meant to be a thing I carry up a mountain, so less is more.
A new radio by Yaesu was announced…bit like a new camera has all these features but you don’t quite know everything, like weight and price. It could fill a gap there is, which is good. I don’t really want it though, still has shortfalls that annoy me, which no one seems to overcome except Elecraft and the KX2, which I have. It’s basically a Leica…but more affordable 😅
I wonder if I can take the kids up another hill this weekend…the weather is nice, but they might’ve had enough. There’s always the tea room incentive to try.
Been slacking on my DayOne family journal pretty badly. Missed half the summer holidays and back to school.
I could’ve sworn I’d already written here today. I can remember writing about how I went to bed super early last night as I was so tired, possibly from the anaesthetic at the dentists. However, every device that I would’ve written it on doesn’t have anything, so here I am writing it again?
I’m going to find it later and then it’ll somehow mess up the git repo and I’ll have to delete it from that device and start again.
Found Rooibos tea, somewhat randomly by picking it in the store as the packaging looked nice and I didn’t like the alternatives. I quite like it. People say you can have it with milk but that sounds horrendous. Although I suppose people say that about black tea which I drink with milk.
Had a scaffolder around today measuring up for the solar install. Good job I was working from home as no-one told me he was coming. Anyway, we were looking at the roof, and I’d said I could take down the antenna. He asked what it was about and away we went talking about it. Ended with him going to give me a price on a pole and some fittings for the side of the house. It’ll only be 21ft/6m tall but that’s probably good enough to start. Most I want is 10m, probably 9 to keep things below the ridge line of the house. So I could mount a 3m pole on the side of it to get a bit extra height. I say I could…not exactly sure how I’d do that other than having it laid down and then walking it up. Anyway figure that out later. So I ordered some fittings for it all, just to have in ready. Although still need bolts and a big enough drill bit to fit it.
Wanted to get some parts tomorrow to make a portable antenna, but doesn’t look like the local stores sell what I need. Also the annoying thing seems to be the reflector element needs to be slightly more than 1m, and obviously things are sold in 1m lengths. Now maybe I can buy a 2m length and cut it so it serves two elements.
I wish I blogged more about the things I do, not necessarily because they’re so interesting but so I remember them. I just never get round to it…
I was trying to work out if I had time to do a mountain activiation this Friday. Youngest has started school and they just do half days for a bit, but I’d only have between about 9:15am and have to be back at the school by 12:55. I’ve done all the nearby ones already, so I don’t think there’s enough time, maybe I could do it but it doesn’t leave much contingency, so probably best I don’t. Also it’s meant to be raining on Friday so that’s that. I should do something constructive though…maybe literally and make an antenna…but that does mean having the parts ready, and so ordering stuff…unless I can find all the parts at the hardware store. Also, what are the parts?
Had a filling at the dentist today…not had one of those in over 20 years…but still terrible. No pain, just uncomfortable and the whole numb mouth thing. Plus the smell of drilling teeth. Brings to the front of my mind the thoughts of not eating sweets anymore.
I haven’t had a cup of tea since this morning, almost 10 hours ago due to the filling. This then reminds me of my thoughts to stop drinking tea, or specifically drinks with caffeine in them. My friend actually did this recently. He stopped coffee, then stopped black tea, just has decaff or herbal. Said it was two weeks of headaches and other issues until he finally broke through to the otherside. Funny he told me that as before the summer holidays I started to stop drinking tea at work. Mostly as it’s terrible. I replaced it with hot water. Still has a nice feeling to drink it. Anyway, I had weird dizziness and headaches, which at the time I didn’t consider was the lack of tea, but now that I look back and after speaking to my friend, is probably what it was. It was quite rough. I had to fidget, adjust my glasses, comb my hand through my hair or just generally do things to distract from the feeling of dizziness. I think I should’ve done it this past two weeks whilst being at home recovering. Now I tell myself there’s not a good time to start, so best not to.
I have a note pinned to my river in tiddlywiki about “less”. Because it’s there all the time I’ve stopped seeing it. Today I looked at it, and read it.
Stop buying the unnecessary. Toss half your stuff, learn contentedness. Reduce half again.
Yeh…I should do that. The problem is, that I then go “well to reduce to one thing, I’d best buy the best one thing” and somehow I’ve ended up buying things when I’m meant to be reducing. Radio hobby is a hard one as you end up with various bits and pieces of things that could be useful, or you start buying bits because of it. I saw some tent pegs and clips today that were £4, so I bought them. I don’t have a specific use but they seemed handy.
I should use the hackerspace more, as there are lots of consumable things there which are meant to be used. I could go there on Friday, but it’s 30 minute drive each way, I’d still get about 3.5 hours there though. We’ll see.
After thinking and talking about lock in and not being able to join signal etc. last night, I end up reading this long article about the state of the internet.
I feel better just deciding the flex is a bad idea. Now I just need to sort out the computers…I’m torn between selling them for not much but they’ll be gone or keep them for future projects or if the kids want a computer to tinker with when they’re a bit older. It’s terrible but there are 2x 4TB SSDs just sat in them doing nothing but now I reinstated the server with storage they seem unnecessary. Again, should I sell them? Or keep for something…other than the storage I could replace everything with a rpi5. Also the kids would probably enjoy that more than some random box…
A guy at the hackerspace has a Ubuntu touch phone (or a phone running it) but was complaining as he couldn’t join the group signal chat. My answer is just suck it up and get a regular phone. Which isn’t what he wants to do but life is so hard otherwise. We talked about Android emulators and general songs and dances to get round to it. Meanwhile I’m sat next to a Debian developer with similar freedom views but runs and MacBook and iPhone and says “I haven’t got time for that shit”.
The MacBook was nice. 👀
Buying that flex radio is a dumb idea. I’ve got too caught up in stuff…literally stuff.
The guidance is “spend 90% of your money on antenna” … not radios. But buying radios is easy and making antenna is hard/people don’t like looking at them. Which is why going up a mountain is fun as then no one cares what it looks like, plus you have to optimise it as you’re carrying it all.
I think I have enough radios…and maybe I should try and reduce? Well at least not add.
A local, who I met via SOTA and his YouTube channel, has his home station on his qrz profile. I don’t need to copy people but I do admire the simplicity but effectiveness of his home station. I should go back to my idea of remote setup with the IC-705. I actually think I care more about remote VHF (2m and 70cm bands) as local activators are going to be calling on those and looking for contacts, whereas HF they can get anyone nation or worldwide.
I put up the big vertical at home over the weekend. Was great fun and going to write it up on my radio blog at some point. Could I install that permanently home? I suspect not…
I should focus my efforts on building a 2m yagi for SOTA, maybe a 10m moxon or equivalent and then sort out my home VHF/UHF.
Had a leak from the bathroom into the garage last night. Called insurance this morning to raise a claim as I figured it would be pricy with needing new tiles and ceiling but now I’m doubting that. Plumber came and found the issue is the water pipe to the toilet bowl. Fix is easy enough and the only damage is the ceiling and the tile grout in the bathroom. I suppose the joists could be wet but would they really need replacing? This could’ve been going on a long time as it’s the guest room bathroom and rarely gets used.
I just dislike insurance as it always feels like a trap and a small claim now will cost us for the next 5 years. But if the plumber came and it was a big job then I’d be glad I raised it with them and their “tell us immediately” rules. Ugh. Just feels like every choice is the wrong one.
Back to school for the kids tomorrow. Summer holidays over…that was fast.
I’ve setup this ridiculously tall telescopic mast in the garden. It’s 12m, 2m taller than the house! I’m sure no one will notice 😅
Been faffing about with it and setup a vertical on it. I was going to use the latest radio I have, as it’s so convenient to connect to a computer but it doesn’t work with the remote tuner. The radio needs to put out about 3-5W constant signal for the tuner to adjust itself. However, the radio protects itself if it sees a bad antenna and reduces the power to 1W…and so I can’t match the antenna….I didn’t want to bring in the big radio as too much faff with cables and getting it out of where it is. So I’m back to using my very first HF radio.
Makes me think “why did I buy all those other radios” when this is the one I’m using. It’s a hassle to get digital modes going on it but I’ve managed.
Also that expensive flex was sold before I asked about it. Maybe a good thing, although maybe I should sell my other and get flex radio…think I’d like it more. There’s still the whole idea I had of the 705 being to fully remote setup.
I thought I’d have time to do things during the day between work activities. But I didn’t. I was going to write out a notional decision post about my radio conundrum but instead did an easier one of using satellites. I also think the radio decision one should probably be private. Feels a bit too much like “oh I can’t decide over which way I should spend thousands of pounds?” for some arbitrary reasons and non-real problems. I do worry it’s a “well now I want to buy more things” problem that I’m self justifying. Maybe just a list of all the stuff and comparing prices would be a good start.
Off for 4 days now. Last weekend of school holidays and wife is going away for a girls trip. Not sure what we’re going to do. I think I’m good enough to try out the 12m vertical antenna in the garden.
I found a list of blog posts I should write for my main site. There was a lot on that list! I should try writing some of them.
I do want to change the style of my main site. Not sure to what though. Feels wrong to have two blogs using the same framework and theming!
Still not done anything with actual budget. The GoCardless API wouldn’t save itself in Actual Budget (although I wondered if it was a proxy network issue that was blocking it?) but also they said European banks, and the U.K. has its own system so I suspect won’t be part of it. Even though in the U.K. there’s the open banking laws that require banks to provide APIs to your accounts for secure access to the data. But I do like adding transactions manually (chunks not one at a time) and then you think about it a bit more.
I do like it has a notes section for each month so you can write things there. Remember when I did that in dokuwiki with a template. Not that anyway saw as it was private but it accomplished the same thing. Might even still have those files somewhere.
I installed Actual Budget. Was super easy with docker and caddy to get it on my home server and https on a domain. I open it up, look at it, and then sigh. Am I really going to use this? I don’t really want a budget necessarily, more just tracking and remembering what happened and why expenses were what they were. I’ll play with it anyway.
Took daughter to GPs and took the opportunity to have them look at my wound, all was good which was nice to hear.
I had a big plan about how to setup my radio for all bands and remote access and things…then a friend linked another radio, FlexRadio, which are designed from the bottom up for remote access and controlled via a computer and has other advantages over my current plan. The only downside is it costs about £2k! Although I should total up the big plan and compare the two.
Back at work. Although just at home. Horrendous thunderstorm and rain today.
Been thinking about the Maersk Lego train that I was looking at before. I do like it…don’t really have anywhere permanent to keep the trains though. The spot in the kitchen is also used for other kids games so it can dominate. Ideally I’d make some space in the garage - although there’s so many other things I try to fit in there, there’s not much more room. The absolute best would be converting the attic and having the whole space open with several tables all around. It would probably just encourage spending a fortune on Lego though 😅
3D printing an expandable/collapsible ball structure for the kids. It’s been a right pain though as the small parts refuse to print nicely and keep coming off the base. Keeps them entertained at least as it does one at a time vs. lots at once.
Finally migrated the radio blog! Phew! All morning writing up the last 5 SOTA activations, but now it’s done. I should write some new posts now! I’m sure I have things I want to add…
Also I wanted to move my main site off Quarto. I thought about consolidating into a single one but I do have quite a few blog posts which I think would distract from the radio one. After all it’s fine having a radio only one. It’s hard enough figuring out tags for it.
It shouldn’t be too much effort to move my main blog, everything is markdown, but folder structures and things could be a pain. Maybe I’ll just leave it for now…
I’m not very good at resting. There’s always things to be done that I think are fine to do. Then come the midafternoon and I feel tired. Mum’s been on the case for me doing too much. She thinks I need another 2 weeks off work. She was a medical professional, including in operating theatres, so maybe I should listen.
All the stuff arrived this morning, which was good. I thought about setting something up but I think I’ve been doing too much. So I messed about on the computer. Not doing that much. Then went for a walk. The walk ended up being quite tiring, but possibly as I didn’t do one yesterday.
Feels like such a waste of good weather and time. Better having surgery in the winter, then at least you don’t want to go outside!
Made my list. I should do everything that’s not the computer first. Once I sit down on the computer it’ll be 11pm before I know it.
Called the supplier for the mast…they had IT issues and it’s not been shipped yet. Maybe it’ll go today and arrive tomorrow? But still no time to play with it…if it hasn’t shipped I’m wondering if I just cancel it…update on this is that they’ve offered to upgrade to Saturday delivery. My slight concern is that being up in Scotland I still get a day added to the delivery. Oh well, see what happens.
Managed to do 3 out of 5 things in my list. Tackling the 4th now, which is migrating posts to my static site. I’ve done all the old posts now, but my new structure for mountain activations means I’ve already got pages for them even though I’ve not written the posts yet. I need to do those before I can move the domain else it’ll look out of place. But it’s late and maybe I should go to bed and finish in the morning. There are five to write…I also need to find the photos on my phone.
I have a free day tomorrow. I should do something useful…
Migration of Wordpress posts has slowed…perhaps that should be on the list?
I’m annoyed my fibreglass mast hasn’t arrived and the courier says it’s not even in their network so where is it? Typically I only looked into this after the store closed today. At best it’ll arrive Saturday…too late to do anything or it’ll be next week. I’d hoped to set it up tomorrow with the radio and see where in the world I can reach.
I’ve started migrating my radio blog to Quarto. I’m pleased with the results so far and think it’ll be a good choice. Lots of little features that work well with what I want to do. Still got the main work of moving all my posts across, but a good opportunity to tidy up categories.
VS Code has a Quarto plug in that can give you an interactive entry, WYSIWYG style. I’m interested to see if this also works in GitHub.dev online VS Code, and then I’d have a nice web based interface for free!
I also want to incorporate some of the wiki entries I have related to radio, and maybe a projects wish list to keep track of things, and have some progress of sorts.
Eventually, I’ll move my main blog off quarto as I’d like it to be more personal in style. Although thinking if I could combine my BlogPosts™️ into the radio site and then keep this site and just have a single page for my main domain. Certainly make migrating posts easy. Given the infrequency of my posts I think it makes sense not to have more places to blog. I could even move just the more technical posts (computers, programming, finance etc.) and then put the others here? Or just go all in and move them across.
Hmm I quite like that idea. 🤔
I was all settled on using Tiddlywiki for my radio blog and started making a new one on tiddlyspot. I found a template where they had shortcuts that pushed the file to GitHub and pushed a RSS feed to it, which is neat. Didn’t look into how it was done but saved that for later. However, the more I got into it the less certain I became about the idea. Mostly because tiddlywiki isn’t obvious to the reader, and making it work like a blog requires some effort.
I kind of want a desktop application that can make static websites. Not sure why but feel like that would be the best of both worlds.
Although is that just VS Code?
Family’s out for the whole day and I spent much of this morning just dicking about online. I tried publii (which turns out I’ve tried before as I already had a site on my computer) and it was fine but I didn’t like it.
I actually think I like the quarto (or whatever it is I use) static site generator for my radio blog. Anyway, I’m back on static site generators for it. But I was sick of being on the computer, and uncomfortable, so I went into the garage to investigate my remote antenna matcher that I’m hoping to setup this weekend. Good thing too as it needed some rewiring and whilst I d bodged it for now, means I can order so proper stuff. Also need to figure out what I’m ordering so I can make it all work. Time to write a list…
Started playing with Silverbullet last night. It’s nice, elements of tiddlywiki, Logseq, Obsidian all rolled together. Not sure I want to use it though…I like writing my notes in tiddlywiki, and the longer I use that the harder it is to leave. I also don’t really have a use case for silverbullet, unless it would be for blogging, and right now it’s not that convenient. Maybe once some plugins are done or perhaps I could investigate some static generator that sucks in the markdown files, but really that ends up being more hassle than it’s worth.
Was on pika page last night. Very easy to use, nice style, nice editor, and does everything I need… but not really sure a blog is worth $5/6 a month. Maybe if it was my only website but not as a 3rd blog. Does make me wonder if I could combine my blogs again, have one and just use tags to separate things. Bleurgh.
Now bearblog lets me have up to 10 blogs with a paid account. Also there’s blot…where everything is in my Dropbox account. But I still don’t want to pay for “just” a blog. I pay for VPS that does lots of things. I also think using a database for a blog is excessive. So what am I back to? (Aside from doing nothing).
I should find another game to play…completed that horror, escape from the Scottish rig. Game pass includes Diablo 4, which had poor reviews upon release, but I suspect they’ve fixed a lot of things. However playing it on the Xbox/TV was not enjoyable. Much better on a computer but a chair still isn’t comfy. I like the story driven, explore, not too much shooting accuracy games. I actually have the new Zelda on Switch that I’ve not played.
I spent a bunch of time faffing about with ikiwiki. I do like it and tried to sort out the CSS with the default layout. It’s reasonable but not sure I can be bothered with it still. I want to add a navbar but it’s not straigh forward. The default is a sidebar that can show on the main page or all pages, but would need some CSS to sort it out so it doesn’t look terrible. I did find someone else’s CSS that made it look reasonable, and with some tweaking could be nice.
I’m actually leaning back towards tiddlywiki now…
Now playing a horror escape from a North Sea oil rig game. Still Wakes the Deep. They certainly capture the language!
I feel better but still tired and can’t really do too much, even if I think I can. It’s a bit boring. Family is visiting as well. I don’t usually have much patience with everyone but as I can’t do anything, I just let it wash over me. Although my wife has to do everything, but they’re her family so she doesn’t mind…as much.
Having takeaway curry tonight. That’ll be nice.
After my mum had her stroke she can get very fatigued, but can do a lot before it happens. Feel like I have a slight insight into what that’s like now. Do a bunch of stuff and then suddenly feel very weak and need to lie down, but at the time everything seems fine. Even playing videos games has been tiring. It’s like when I’ve gone to bed too late and been up early, just have a mind fog.
It’s hard not to be critical of other’s kids. I wonder if ours are just as bad but we can’t see it.
A friend is trying to find a Google Photos alternative, self hosted style. Photoprism promised to be that in 2021 but hasn’t really improved since then. Seems like several start but then die off and stagnate. I’m fine with Apple Photos…in fact I want to put more into it.
The radio I got can be controlled by wifi, but the garage is strangely opaque to wifi, even with an AP on the other side of the wall. It’s annoying as I could play with it from the iPad on the sofa. Need to get a wifi AP in the garage, but being in Eero (thanks to our fiber ISP), there’s no cheap solution. Annoying as I have Ethernet in the garage. I sort of want to change to my own system but haven’t got round to it. Used to have unifi stuff but grew to dislike it as it pushed all the settings into mysterious “auto” and “cloud AI” magic. Also ended up being quite expensive.
A guy at the hackerspace has a thinkpad with i3 as his window manager. He also doesn’t own a smart phone. He helps charities with IT stuff and I think a bar that hosts music gigs. I think he does lots of other things too but not got into the details of those. Anyway, makes me want to run Linux and in fact i3, which I did a long time ago. I think i3 is a sensible tiling WM. Stuff is configured out the box so you can use it but also it’s completely customisable. Some of the other tiling WM need more work from the start to get them going.
Surely I have a spare laptop I can install Arch (OpenBSD? Nah) and i3 on…
I forgot about stats and notes that I put on this site. Keep meaning to edit the menu so it includes more things. I was looking at dokuwiki again for the radio site and I’m not sure it’s the right thing to do…but I’m also too tired to do much thinking. Meant to walk about some more but then I get exhausted. Been on the sofa with the laptop looking at SOTA summits and trying to work out an optimised winter period plan - to maximise points! - but that’s also tiring.
Been reading several short stories in a series. Enjoyable and easy reading.
Completed Stray today. It’s a fun game with an interesting story. All the little car mechanics are cute. It’s not that long, and probably only worth it when it’s on sale.
Wondering if I should buy a month of game pass to then play some more games on the Xbox whilst I’m sofa bound. There’s a promo on cd keys for £6.50 for a month, plus a £2 cashback bonus. Can’t really get any cheaper!
Actually, it can! They gave me another month for choosing reoccurring billing. Which I then cancelled.
I guess the good stuff has worn off now.
Bought Stray for the Xbox (the one I got for mostly free after doing a year of Microsoft Reward points, that no one plays on, as all games are online multiplayer not local [unlike the Switch]). Might as well use it! It’s a fun game, first “person” except you’re a cat.
Although the kids are at home and it’s not really fair that I’m playing computer games and they’re not allowed.
