Usually FT8 contacts I make are confirmed quickly - minutes or at least less than a day. I’ve got over 50 from the past 2 days almost none have been confirmed yet in either eQSL or LoTW. My uploads all processed in real time so I’m not sure what’s going on.

I’ve had my digipeater/iGate running on a Pi 3 with RTLSDR dongle for several days and I’m pleased with the result. It is definitely filling a coverage gap for me while running errands within a few miles of the house. It is also helps fill in coverage for other hams. Even a group of hams headed to Huntsville’s Hamfest hit mine as they passed through. Overall a cheap and useful project.

My Pi-hole needs some maintenance and in my brilliance I have somehow managed to lose the SSH credentials (admin UI is fine). I guess I will have to re-create the image - at least it is pretty painless.

One hobby that totally impresses me are these men and women doing high end cosplay. The costumes involve an amazing amount of skill and imagination combined with an investment of time and money. Plus their ability to get in character - to me they’re often better than the character they are modeled on.

I got my RTL-SDR.com v4 dongle today and replace the Nooelec dongle.

I keep worry thing coax antenna cable is going to eventually pull the dongle out of the USB socket. What are folks doing to secure theirs? All I got right now is to rubber band it to the Pi case.

Wow, I expected some unreasonable price. But, no, the hackerboard is only $15. I plan to wait to see what other folks do with them though.

In other news I ordered my MK4S upgrade today. Fun times.

GPIO "Hackerboard" set | Original Prusa 3D printers directly from Josef Prusa prusa3d.com/product/gpio-hacke

Wow, Prusa just announced the MK4S with major upgrades to the MK4 printer. I love my MK4 and when I heard about the new features I was wondering if I could justify the investment. Then they announced the upgrade is only $99! The new 360º cooling and higher flow nozzle are two things that stick out to me.

The Original Prusa MK4S is Here! Powerful 360° Cooling, High-Flow Nozzle, Prusa App, Hackerboard and More! - Original Prusa 3D Printers blog.prusa3d.com/the-original-

In today’s HF session I had QSOs with a couple of people doing POTA. So I logged into my unused pota.app account and was surprised I had achieved the Silver hunter award already. Maybe I’ll keep my eye out for CQ POTA more.

HF was hopping all day today. I picked up 6 countries I never even heard before say nothing of completing a QSO. Thank you Mr Sun. Motivated me to do a bit of maintenance on my EFHW.

Our Epson inkjet printer, just over 8 years old, just informed me of its immediate retirement.

The internet says it is fixable but we rather need a printer RSN and I’d like to have one that can auto feed document pages for scanning.

I’ve been feeding flight position data to FlightAware and Flightradar24 for 8 years using gear installed in my attic. I decided today it was time to retire the gear. After 8 years in a Texas attic I feel something was bound to go wrong soon (though no evidence). My area has good coverage already so my station won’t really be missed.

I’d like to set up a Digipeater/iGate at home because they are very sparse around here. I’m having trouble tracking down a good solution partly because I want to use a spare Linux NUC rather than a Pi. Anyone have a good reference or 3?

I upgraded from Linux Mint 21.3 to 22 today. It was definitely not fun.

It completely broke my WeeWx installation. I didn’t see anything in the release notes indicating the previous approach to installing python apps was now forbidden. Not knowing anything about the newer virtual env approach this took a long time to sort out. I checked the release notes just now and still see no mention of this.

In other news the update obliterated my SMB config file. At least that was a fairly quick fix.

Prusa approved my conversion of Prusameters for a free filament spool. And fortunately they had several varieties in stock I wanted along with a nozzle and t-shirt. Order placed!

Yeah, I like getting 3D printing goodies.

My new car has a 11.6” screen with CarPlay and oh my it is heaven on wheels mastodon.social/@macrumors/112

I finished setting up your new hotspot for DMR using WPSD. It is running fine so I created a case to hold the Pi 4 and Aursinc radio hat. The Pi 4 is overkill but it is all I have on hand. I'm reluctant to give more business to the Pi foundation but I may end up buying a Zero 2 W.

printables.com/model/960021-ra

This morning I built a hotspot for DMR and based it off of the WPSD software from W0CHP’s site (w0chp.radio/wpsd/). Easy to install and setup.

Next step is to design a case to hold the spare Pi 4 I used with the Aursinc radio hat. I’ll need to model in a small “window” on top for the display and hole for the antenna. I’m going to hack the Autodesk Fusion design P.Tech generously posted (printables.com/model/124995-ra).

In a first for my little corner of mastodon I had to unfollow someone today for propagating a post with religious hatred. And no CW of course. 🤷‍♂️

As if yesterday’s overheated and rocky hike wasn’t enough weekend torture I put together an Ikea storage cabinet today. Apparently I like punishing myself.

We went on a hike in a wildlife refuge this morning. We started about 9:30am and thought we were beating the heat which was about 75F. This was our first hike where we weren’t properly prepared. Temps went into the 80s immediately, it was humid, and there was no shade. And the trail info we had neglected to say the 2nd half was a very hilly road hike (no side trail) which was even hotter than scrambling over the rocks.

Lessons learned and we have a tale to tell on ourselves.

I guess with the US election coming closer I shouldn’t be surprised but I’ve had to unfollow a number of people this week because they posted and reposted political content. Not something I need to see.

I strongly support use of CW (Content Warning) on such posts.

How come nobody told me???

Just discovered there is a newer FOSS software package that replaces the venerable, but aged, Pi-Star software for digital voice modes (hotspots, mmdvm). Not sure how I missed knowing of this. It looks great and has a solid reputation. I just ordered a radio module to use with a spare Pi so I will build it out and give it a try next week.

The WPSD Project - W0CHP.radio w0chp.radio/wpsd/

In my cruise through online evening news the results of several Olympic events I intended to watch tonight were revealed. Not good for their viewership numbers. 🤷🏼‍♂️📺

Sleep annoyance

The past few days something is causing my nasal passages to close up while I’m sleeping so my sleep quality is crap. Air quality is fine and pollen counts overall are low. But ragweed is rated “high” so I guess I’ll blame that. So far no good solutions for night time. Afrin is the last resort but the rebound effect is far too real.

My social media’s all about the poop these days. But here's another kind…

In this case my wife suggested a holder for our dog poop cleanup bags which made a quick fun project. My MK4 handles flex, TPU-like, filament like a champ so I decided to use flex for the cap material to get a snug fit with a nice feel and texture. We keep this at the exit through the back door.

https://www.printables.com/model/952199-po