Categories
Stuff

Liverpool Makefest

I took the boat from the Isle of Man to Liverpool for the day, to visit Makefest in Liverpool. This was a great day out, and I saw loads of good things. The highlights were: Having my portrait drawn from a webcam by a DIY plotter made from DVD drives An impromptu meeting with lots […]

Categories
Stuff

Leaving Twitter

When I joined Twitter in 2009, it was a place to find interesting people sharing interesting ideas and learning from one another.  You could ask questions on very technical topics, and people would take the time to reply in detailed and thoughtful ways. Over time, more and more people joined and the conversations grew. Twitter […]

Categories
Amateur Radio Hardware

SharkRF OpenSpot

I’ve been having a lot of success using my MD380 DMR transceiver together with the Isle of Man’s DMR repeater network. Sadly though, my house isn’t in coverage of the repeaters. This means I can’t use my handheld at home. The solution to this problem has come in the form of a Radio/IP gateway called […]

Categories
Amateur Radio

Losing yourself…

About once every year, I like to log in to Ofcom’s website and re-validate my amateur radio licence. I do this so that it becomes a sort of habit, and so that I’ve no risk of going beyond the statutory five year limit. This year, my login details didn’t work. It turns out that Ofcom […]

Categories
Stuff

Reconnecting with Nature

During a recent holiday in England, I spent a few days in a location without any links to the internet at all. No mobile phone signal, no WiFi hotspots. Nothing. It was interesting to see the impact this had. There were countless times when I wanted to check something on a map. Or the opening […]

Categories
Amateur Radio Hardware Isle of Man

The Things are coming…

Recently, I attended #offcamp – a barcamp style discussion around open data which was organised by @bcs_isleofman and free to attend. The morning sessions were OK and it was good to see that some thought is being given to making data open and available, especially data that has been collected by governments and already paid for […]