Christopher M0YNG @M0YNG@mastodon.radio

I got an e-ink / e-paper display!
It arrived with the connector was broken off in the box
I'm being sent a new one but I wonder if it is possible to reconnect this some how?
The white stuff looks like it held the ribbon cable/ flexible PCB against the screen rather than solder, but it is probably impossible for a human to line that back up and fix it in place again.
Wonder if magnet wire or something and a very fine iron and solder may work.

Dug out this iPod when looking for something else, and it lives!
Put #RockBox on there and some @powderpaint and it is working great.
(It looks less gross and shiny IRL...)

Alex stickers are on their way to five generous contributors!

If you would like one, pop a donation to help cover our costs via PayPal to cq@m0yng.uk or https://liberapay.com/M0YNG and let me know your address.
(obviously it's a free sticker to say thanks, not a purchase.)

If you have donated before and would like a sticker, do let me know!

Look what came!

I have @alex stickers!

Would you like one?
I think it would cost me around £2 to send internationally, so if you were to donate at least that much and give me an address to send it to I will try my best to send you a free sticker to say thank you for helping to keep our instance running.

PayPal to cq@m0yng.uk should work...
You can make an ongoing contribution via https://liberapay.com/M0YNG/ too

Thanks again to @Anna for her great art!

what could be better than a mascot for our instance?

How about matching emoji of Alex?

Thanks to @dzuk we have custom Alex emojis! (I told you there were more birthday things coming!)

Grin
Laughing
Rolling eyes
Sobbing
Thinking

Three years ago today I registered the mastodon.radio domain

To celebrate our birthday I am super excited to reveal our new mascot @alex!

@Atsuko has done an amazing job at bringing them to life and we have a server banner too!

More birthday surprises to come...

PS: I don't need any money to keep our instance running or pay for this great art, but if you want to help I'll be able to buy that raspberry pi 4...
https://liberapay.com/M0YNG

Can't stop thinking about this fortune cookie I got earlier in the week...

How do you power your raspberry pi zero?
Solar panel to buck regulator to super capacitor to lipo shim is a sensible way, right?

Tip: when making up a charging cable for your cheap Chinese radio that didn't come with a plug for your country - don't guess at the polarity of the connector or assume it will have reverse polarity protection.

It's been a sunny day and my 20w solar panel barely keeps up.

I don't need a 50w panel, I don't need a 50w panel...

This came incredibly quickly, thanks @bleeptrack

Now I just need to work out what to do with it.
And how to do that...

Had a pedestrian mobile QSO in the snow (not settling ☹️) with G6AHX on 70cm simplex. Pretty sure they were doing the hard work compared to my tiny radio on 0.5w

People want to browse mastodon over #gopher right?

No?

Well it's a good thing that this is just an experiment then.

gopher://mastodon.radio:7777

No guarantee of uptime, speed, quality, etc.

Here are my two #amateurRadio #raspberrypi

The top one connects to my hf radio and I connect via vnc to run data modes like #ft8 and #js8

The bottom one hides beneath a TNC-Pi and connects to the radio below it. Currently it is serving as an #aprs igate on 2m

I still need to take down and fix my hf aerial after the winds earlier in the week. That loop shouldn't be there and is caused by the pole segments collapsing into themselves.

@Atsuko

#coffeetime

Got some more bits of my #aprs map thing working today.

* Things that move whilst the map is open leave a trail (in addition to loading the historic trail from the server) and actually move
* Things that transmit whilst the map is open have an animation that shows you they have transmitted

(I couldn't find anything that would show APRS stations you heard on the air that was remotely accessible, they all seem to be desktop software from the '90s, so I've made this for the browser.)

I'm not usually one to show off, but I didn't think I'd put that much time and effort into duolingo this year... I haven't been doing it for a while because it got boring tbh

Maybe I need to use the German to talk to people (on the radio maybe?) not just study on my phone in the hope of getting good enough to talk to people.

Not sure my number conversions are working as intended...

Left my radio running for almost 24 hours of #FT8 on 40m, looks like a good band to be using at this time of year.

Some of this is DX I've not worked before, so maybe I need to get up early to try and get New Zealand at 06:57 my time!

#amateurradio

I think there may have been a lift on VHF recently...
#aprs