Categories
Amateur Radio Hardware

SDR Trouble

One of my colleagues asked me to have a look at receiver that wasn’t behaving well. It was one of the many USB receivers that are around based on the RTL 2832U and Rafael Micro R820T tuner chips. The device was very intermittent, but he wasn’t sure if it was a problem with the hardware, […]

Categories
Hardware

A New Lease of Life

I changed jobs about 18 months ago, and I’m already getting known as ‘that’ guy when it comes to fiddling with technology! So, a colleague turned up at work with a laptop which had been given to him by a family member, after they’d bought a newer machine. He said it was running slowly and […]

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Stuff

What I Learned at OggCamp 2019

This was my third OggCamp, and I was able to make a full weekend visit to Manchester. Most of my best learning at OggCamps tends to be around what happens outside the scheduled stuff, so it was good to have the time to mingle in the evenings and discuss things over beer. Although I already […]

Categories
Stuff

What I learned at OggCamp 2018

I last attended OggCamp in Liverpool in 2015 and had a great time. There wasn’t one in 2016, and in 2017 it was in the wrong part of the UK for the gods of time & space to allow. I did though make it to OggCamp 2018 in Sheffield, so here’s some of the things […]

Categories
Isle of Man

Open Data Camp

I went along to the Open Data Camp in Douglas. Here’s some of the things I learned about: The IATI (International Aid Transparency Initiative) has guidance about what data governments and organisations should make available, and what format it should be in. The UK government has moved to publishing data using open standards, but it […]

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Hardware

The RC2014 Computer

While at Liverpool Makefest last June, I bought myself a kit to build an RC2014 Z80-based computer. The kit was very well made, with high quality circuit boards which accepted solder very easily, along with sufficient documentation to make the whole building process smooth and enjoyable. I found the process quite educational too, as the […]