Author: Eugene

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An OpenBeacon to play with

Thanks to Matthew/W2MDW, I now have an Etherkit OpenBeacon to play with.

Etherkit OpenBeacon

It’s a kit that I’ve been thinking of getting to play with in the near future. The one Matthew sent me was one of the early beta models and has had some modifications done to it, but it works. He didn’t have much time to mess with it anymore and thought I could put it to good use.

I’ll need to get an antenna for it and figure out how to program it, but it shouldn’t be hard to get on the air.

It looks like a pretty easy kit to build, so I’ll probably pick up one of my own to assemble and get up and running. Looking forward to getting this one going and seeing who picks up the signal.

I wonder how hard it would be to modify to broadcast on 6m.

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Cruise ship “science” lesson

“Molecularly, diamonds are made to absorb colour and reflect light” – seminar presenter

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Antenna bits

The coax and ZS6BKW antenna are both here!

It probably won’t be until after Christmas before I can get everything up and running though. Still need to finish getting the office and the computer back into shape, then make room to set up the radio (which mostly involves finding enough flat surface space for everything). Then I’ll invite some friends over for an “antenna raising” and see about getting the shack operational.

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Charleston Eats: Mrs. Rose’s Fine Food & Cocktails

Ms. Rose’s Fried Chicken with Tabasco honey

Four pieces of fried chicken on a white plate from Ms. Rose's Fine Food & Cocktails

Boiled peanut polenta

A bowl of boiled peanut polenta

Vegetable pasta with chicken

A plate of vegetable pasta with chicken

Classic Reuben

A Reuben sandwitch with french fries
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Into the new office

There’s some re-arranging going on in the house these days. Finally moving the computer and associated gear back out of the bedroom again and turning one of the rooms into an office/ham shack. The weekend was spent taking the computer apart, cleaning off the layers of accumulated dust and moving everything into the red room.

Getting the computer back up and running was fortunately uneventful, and there were no casualties.

With the new desk location, the pegboard holding all the gadgets is going to need some re-configuring before it goes back on the desk. I’ll end up having some cables running along the floor that I’ll have to cover up, but it’s kind of unavoidable.

It’s not quite the arrangement I had originally envisioned, mostly due to the location of the telephone jack, but it will work for now.