Simon G0FCU

@g0fcu@mastodon.radio
509 Followers
675 Following
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Radio amateur, member of CDXC, G-QRP, UKuG, BATC & LIDS (#023). Almost wholly a CW operator on HF nowadays, dabbling with 13cm and building a 3cm transverter.
QTHSurrey, UK.
LOCIO91se
WABTQ04
Today I took my tinySA and magloop to the house that I think is causing interference on 21MHz+. The SA plot in the picture shows a sharp peak at 21.243 MHz and two sidebands. Fortunately I met the house gardener/handyman (it's a Β£m's house) and he invited me to go back on Monday to try to identify the problem device. He said that in the building I think the interference is in are 'just' the boilers.
I am trying to work out what satellite I received. There was a data signal on 137.73MHz and another on 137.56MHz. Both signals disappeared just as Metop-C was going over the horizon. I didn't think Metop-C had any VHF tx capability. I have a baseband recording #wxsat

Ok. I'm a teacher. So let me break this down for you into very very simple ideas and numbers.

Let's say you run a sandwich shop. You sell $10 sandwiches. It's a very good sandwich shop. You sell a lot of sandwiches. In fact, I buy a sandwich from you every single day. In a week, I have spent $70 buying sandwiches from you.

Now let's say I am selling my car. You, the owner of the sandwich shop, need a car. I decide to sell you my car for the very very reasonable price of $700.

So here's the situation at the end of a week. You have sold me $70 worth of goods. I have received $70 worth of sandwiches. In return, I have sold you $700 worth of goods, and you have received $700 worth of car.

Any reasonable, rational person would look at that situation and say "that's a fair exchange". Both parties paid an amount of money equal to the value of the goods they now own.

But Trump is not a rational person. What he has decided this means is that you have somehow cheated me out of $630, because $700-$70=$630. Does this make sense? Fuck no. If anything, I got the better part of that deal. I now have $630, plus a belly full of sandwiches.

But it gets even worse. Then, because Trump's a-brain is filled with maggots, he further declares that since $630 divided by $700 is .9, that MUST mean you, the owner of the sandwich shop, have been imposing 90% "sandwich shop tariffs" on me the whole time. Does THIS make a lick of sense either? Also fuck no.

But wait, you're going to love this. Trump's "solution" to this is to decree that going forward, all sandwiches you sell me will be marked up a "reciprocal' 90%, making the total cost for a sandwich $19 instead of $10. He says this will be good for sandwich sales. Does THIS make any goddamn sense either? Jesus fucking Christ on a pogo stick no it fucking does not.

This entire idea is complete horseshit for what I hope you can now see are a whole raft of very very obvious reasons. Among them:

1. There never was a "sandwich shop tariff" to reciprocate
2. There is no rational reason for you to buy a car from me ever again
3. This will not make sandwiches cheaper
4. That's not how numbers work
5. That's not how any of this works

Now replace the car seller with America, and the sandwich shop with an island inhabited only by penguins. I wish I was joking.

We have finished the teaching and workshops for the trip. Tomorrow is a day of sightseeing, Sunday we return to Paro (30 min flight rather than 8h drive). Monday we start the return trip home.

It has been a busy, but fun couple of weeks. Total enthusiasm from the museum staff, the really want to get started with the photography and microscopy kit we gave them.

We're already getting emails with questions!

Excellent!

My Pi crashed (corrupt SD card) and I've lost the last 13 months of temperature data in Influx. I had an external bootable SSD attached so didn't actually need the SD card in place. I'd like to be able to see what was on the SD card. Possibly the SSD hasn't been used for 13 months and all the action has been on the SD card. I did have a backup of the Influx db but probably should have checked it was working properly.
Replaced a 20W solar panel used to charge my mast winch battery with this 100W version. In winter the 20W one doesn't get enough sunlight to charge the battery so hope this will work better.
I have a PSU built in the late 80's to this design https://warc.org.uk/?page_id=404 When transmitting 100W with my HF rig the voltage often falls to below the minimum and the rig reboots. Could this be a bridge rectifier issue? #hamradio
A Complete 13.8 Volt, 20 Amp PSU – Warrington Radio Club

I would normally phone my mother up on Christmas Eve prior to seeing her on Boxing Day but she passed away on Sunday aged 93. Feeling a bit raw.
Thank you for your e-mail. I am out of the office until 02/01/2025. If you have an urgent request then please re-evaluate your life choices.
I've bought a bench pillar drill but it's not clear how I can bolt it to the bench. Any ideas?