Trying to troubleshoot a systemd service that won’t start properly is such a PITA. There should be an interactive tool for setting up a new service and seeing exactly what’s going wrong.

Maybe even better a tool where you feed it something that works perfectly fine from the command line and the tool will generate a working service.

Dreaming.

I’ve completed all of the electronics and mounted the front panel to the main PCB. I connected it to my Mac via USB-C, powered it on and downloaded the firmware. Note until the firmware loads there is zero sign of life. A bit spooky 👻

Fortunately no magic smoke and display and controls worked fine. I haven’t done any tests yet nor tried to operate it pending case completion.

The QMX+ board progresses with the installation of diodes, inductors, the PA transistors and the hand-wound transformer. I think the transformer looks like a stick man 😁

Note: Hans just announced a rev 2 of the PCB. This simplifies a few construction steps. He also said #28 wire can be used to wind all the toroids instead of #22 on some. This will make things a bit easier.

I got a note from Adafruit this morning - they have the Pi Zero 2 W in stock and it is list price at $15. I checked just now and they still have them. Amazon and a few other online shops are either out of stock or charging price gouge rates.

Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W : ID 5291 : Adafruit Industries, Unique & fun DIY electronics and kits adafruit.com/product/5291

64 solder joints later - the capacitors are in. They look decent so hopefully they’re all correct. Done for today.

And so it begins: the main QMX+ circuit board, next step soldering in 32 through-hole capacitors…

TIL: I started building my QMX+ transceiver but kept struggling getting the solder to flow properly. Tried flux paste which didn’t help. Started thinking “did I forget how to solder???”. Then wondered if my Hakko wasn’t working right.

Did some digging and discovered it has a temperature adjust feature leading me to think I might have entered an adjustment inadvertently. More digging and I discovered a secret but trivial method to reset the Hakko soldering station.

Voila the solder flowed…

I got two Heltec v3 LoRa devices set up for Meshtastic. After being up for a few days I have seen a few other nodes in the area (or passing by). I’m not sure how I will use mine yet. YouTube is full of videos about Meshtastic but almost none show practical applications.

I printed these nifty cases but the batteries I had on hand are too large to fit in them. I kludged together a micro-to-pico connector so I can get an idea how long this can run on a battery.

Dawn’s embracing arms…

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