Ham Radio General License

I was pretty much stuck at the end of Chapter 3 of the ARRL General book for about 2 weeks before I remembered my goal to schedule the exam is next week. Today I got through Ch4 and should get back to a chapter each day. The organization of the ARRL book is pretty much exactly oppostite of the HamStudy partial book. So I am at the point where I ... Read more 03 Feb 2026 - 1 minute read

Ham Radio General License

Based on the recommendation not to modify your FCC license for 30 days, I’m setting Feb 9th as the day to schedule my General exam. I started using the HamBook.org guide again, but as I’ve gotten farther into the book (about half way through) there are headers saying that it is a work in progress and lots of images are obviously missing. Also, t... Read more 16 Jan 2026 - 1 minute read

Ham Radio Technician License III

So I took a few practice tests and felt pretty good, so I scheduled an online exam for today. Which just happened and I aced the test. Frankly, the hardest part was waiting for the exam to start - so I just did more practice exams. Overall, I did 9 practice exams missing only two questions. The practices were really good and had me very prepared... Read more 07 Jan 2026 - less than 1 minute read

Ham Radio Technician License II

Well, I have finished all 8 chapters of hambook.org and have gone through at least 4 instances of all of the flashcards in the app! I think my next step is to take a practice test tonight. If I do well (aka > 85% correct) then I will sign up to take the test on Friday. I will likely take a practice test each day before then and possibly work ... Read more 06 Jan 2026 - 1 minute read

Ham Radio Technician License

Welcome to Day 1 of learning Ham radio! After a little bit of searching I discovered the first thing I actually should do is to create an account with the FCC and get a “Registration Number” (FRN). This was surprisingly easy, something I rarely say about government websites. To get your FRN (as a US Citizen) you need to register using the FCC C... Read more 02 Jan 2026 - 2 minute read

New Year - Time to Plan...

Happy New Year! Hmm, well it has been a year since I’ve posted here. Bah. I was hoping to do better at this, but now that I have a more concrete goal hopefully that will help. Plus I’ve started a number of other projects this year that have kept me quite busy. Regardless, my goal is to be working on Antartica once my kids graduate HS. Yeah, I’... Read more 01 Jan 2026 - 2 minute read

New Year - New Sled

Happy New Year! Every year our Scout troop participates in a Klondike event where they have to carry all their gear on a dog sled (yes, they are the dogs). For years now they’ve used these old, heavy, rotting sleds that are difficult for the girls to pull and steer. This year our SM decided to do something different and build the sled used by s... Read more 01 Jan 2025 - 2 minute read

Python in the Cloud

I’ve written dozens of Python scripts for work over the past decade that start out as a tool for me and then evolve into a critical component of multiple people’s jobs. That results in me having to teach everyone how to do things like: download code from gitlab/github, run and maintain a Python environment locally, upgrade their code without des... Read more 01 Aug 2024 - 6 minute read

Kayaking and Camping - 1 night

Not sure if this one is going to happen. We are taking the Troop kayaking and then camping to get one of the Camping merit badge items crossed off. However, the forecast calls for storms. We will see what it looks like as we get closer. Gear List tent sleeping bag sleeping pad backpack plastic sheet/trash bags headlamp camp stove... Read more 31 Jul 2024 - 1 minute read

Summer Camping - 2 nights

I have a two night trip coming up in a couple weeks with the Scouts. While we are still a ways out, the forecast looks to have some rain on Friday and then dry and pleasantly warm the rest of the trip! Fingers crossed it stays that way. Part of the goal of the trip is to teach the kids some backpacking fundamentals. They will do a short hike upo... Read more 12 Jul 2024 - 2 minute read

Self-Hosting: Day 2

Immich One of the big goals of my self-hosting project is to have a better way to view my photos. I’ve taken many thousands over the years and currently the only way for me to look at them (or look through them) is by browsing the files individually. Thankfully tools like Irfanview make this pretty easy but I still have to basically scroll throu... Read more 02 Jul 2024 - 3 minute read

Self-Hosting: Day 1

Jellyfin Installation is trivial given that I’m using Docker. But configuration of the system is going to be the trick. I have my music files on a NAS, so I need to get Jellyfin to be able to read from there. After an excessive amount of research it looks like the “best” way to do this is a tool called sshfs, however my NAS doesn’t support sshf... Read more 27 Jun 2024 - 1 minute read

Self-Hosting: Day 0 Part II

Success! MBR vs GPT was the problem and my system got through the grub installation! The system now boots and is operational. System Specs: Intel Apollo Lake N4200 with dual Gb LAN ports 8GB DDR3 128GB mSATA SSD one extra m.2 slot :) fanless with auto-power on I could have grabbed an ARM system with better specs, but am a bit worri... Read more 26 Jun 2024 - 3 minute read

Self-Hosting: Day 0

I’ve already done some pretty trivial self-hosting by using a Raspberry Pi3B for DNS and whole-home ad block using recursive PiHole. It’s a pretty fully baked solution and runs well. I also have a local Plex server that hosts all of the movies that I’ve ripped over the decades. Over the past couple months I’ve been thinking about upping my self-... Read more 25 Jun 2024 - 1 minute read

April Camping - 2 (more) nights

I have two more nights of Scout camping coming up here soon. Weather is currently looking like there will be scattered storms most of the time we are on-site. Temps are in the lower/mid 70s in the day, dropping down to 50F at night. Potable water is plentiful. The theme of the trip is cooking! I’m looking forward to seeing what the girls come u... Read more 28 Apr 2024 - 3 minute read

BBC micro:bit v2 - Getting Started

I was anxious to get started playing with the capabilities of the micro:bit, so I loaded up their online IDE and started playing! Unfortunately I very quickly discovered that the download functionality only works in Chrome…grr. I did some small silly projects first to get familiar with the interface. roll a d6 when you push a button roll a... Read more 22 Apr 2024 - 6 minute read

New Hardware to Play With!

I picked up a Raspberry Pi pico, 4B, and 5 from MicroCenter a couple days back. I also got one of the BBC micro:bit v2 boards! Raspberry Pi pico I picked up this little guy for the RP2040 micro. As usual with all things Pi related there are other bits and bobs required, so I purchased the Pi debugger board/cables from Sparkfun and (for kicks) a... Read more 16 Apr 2024 - 2 minute read

April Backpacking - 2 nights

Next up is two nights of Scout backcountry backpacking. Current weather forecast is sunny with highs in the upper 50s and lows in the low 40s. There are few/none potable water sources on the trails. The trail is an approx 7-10 miles long loop with some sections of bouldering/rock climbing, steep ascents, and possibly deep creek crossings. Eleva... Read more 14 Apr 2024 - 3 minute read

April Camping - 2 nights

I have two nights of Scout camping coming up here soon. Weather is currently looking like there will be no rain, but it will be muddy from rain during the days prior. Temps are in the mid 50s in the day, dropping down to just under 40F at night. Potable water is plentiful. Gear List hammock tent (woo - excited to try this out!) 20F sleepin... Read more 09 Apr 2024 - 2 minute read

Eclipse Day, 2024

The Great American Eclipse has come and gone. Thankfully the weather both here in Dallas and back home cooperated and everyone was able to experience totality! It was touch and go. All morning it was cloudy and we could only see the sun periodically. But as time got closer, the clouds turned into just a thin layer and we got to enjoy all 3+ minu... Read more 08 Apr 2024 - 1 minute read

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