Radio, railways, stuff...

(edited 27/7/24 15:34) I recently came across Meshcom (https://icssw.org/en/meshcom/) which broadly speaking is an amateur radio off grid messaging network like Meshtastic. I had a 433MHz Heltec V3 with Meshtastic installed but as there is no 433MHz activity nearby it has just been sat in the abandoned project pile aka the corner of the desk. So, I thought, here is an interesting use even if there are no nodes nearby… yeah, that’s always a bad start. Anyway, as yet the instructions are not as polished as those for Meshtastic and I struggled to get anywhere, routinely managing to lock Windows up completely when using the esptool. When I finally got the thing to look like it had connected the downloader instantly gave an error and packed up. It was then I noticed there is a web flasher (url) so I tried that. Off to a bad start, the flasher reported that the serial port (the device is directly USB connected) was not ready, and no amount of whinging and gnashing of teeth fixed it. Unplugging and re-plugging the Heltec in made no difference. Three times, same thing. I connected it to the Mac and checked that the esptool.py there could see the board in case I had killed it. It found it and gave the correct output. Back to Windows and the web flasher, and on the fourth failure I pressed the reset button on the Heltec and then the installation succeeded. 5th time lucky. [Subsequently I flashed a TBeam device first time and with no issues, so the Heltec may be a bit odd] Some configuration is needed which can be done by commands typed in via the web flasher which also has a console function. After setting the location and wifi access the node appeared on the home LAN and also announced itself to the world via the dashboard at  https://srv08.oevsv.at/meshcom/# and after a while it sent all the location information etc via the Internet. The Heltect only has its tiny spring antenna right now as the 433MHz collinear has and rx LoRa APRS gateway connected. As this is really just yet another experiment it may get repurposed again anyway, but it is an interesting project. Time to read. 27/7/24 I repurposed the TBeam unit that was my LoRa APRS rx gate and was basically doing nothing. Meshcom uses the same spot frequency of 439.9125MHz so it needed to go. This has GPS built in and appears to be communicating - it has its location and altitude etc. plus time The node will go back in the oft on a collinear but once there I have no way to communicate with it because for some reason the onboard web server will not work and the Meshcom iPhone app is beta and on Testdrive which I do not want to install on my phone. I may need to run a USB lead down to one of the Pi systems assuming I have serial comms enabled on it. [15:34 rebooting…

Certain websites are becoming terrible these days and for no reason other, I suspect than poor or non-existent testing. I am actually trying to buy a cooker hood. I made a shortlist of 4, one poor, three ok. I went with one from a company but when I got to the ordering screen it wanted to add nearly £15 for delivery. This had not been made clear before. So, the second choice was from Amazon, free delivery. I tried to order this in Safari on the Mac but, after logging in and adding the OTP code I got a blank screen. So I tried via the DuckDuckGo browser - same thing, a blank screen. Plenty of code, pages of scripts and obfuscated stuff, just nothing rendered. I resorted to the Amazon app and this time Amazon told me the product cannot be delivered to our address. No explanation. Anyway, goodbye Amazon. Again. I actually ditched Amazon when as a Prime user paying annually they decided they were going to inject adverts into films even though I was paying for Prime. I ended up paying the delivery charge with the other company. KLM is another infuriating site. I can do everything but select a flight when I use Safari or Brave on the Mac. If I want to actually fly with KLM I need to use the DuckDuckGo browser. Go figure. I used to work with web designers and project managers, good ones, and so I know a bit about user testing and stuff. The fact that this appears severely lacking in some quite major websites is amusing, but with no way to feed back to said sites exactly how useless their sites are it will not improve. Oh well. Anyway, none of this is radio related!

After our trip to Europe and Japan I really want to do FT8 or other digimodes - my preferred mode because of naff hearing etc - rather than just take handhelds. But the weight of the FT818 + tuner + PSU + a laptop is prohibitive. True, the PSU and tuner would go in the checked bag but I feel that the FT818 would really need to come as carry-on. And anyway I do not own a laptop, plus the fact that we tend to travel light so there is very little room for my stuff anyway. So it got me thinking. At home I use one PC for Linux, one for Windows 10, the Mac mini, and a Pi. Four systems, four screens, and great flexibility as all the audio is interconnected by a mixer. But the Windows PC is now playing up and is too old for Windows 11, not that I want that but I guess it is inevitable as running Windows without security patches is just about the worst thing I can imagine. Well, ok, my imagination runs a lot deeper than that, but you know what I mean. The QRP Labs QMX+ looks most interesting, small and portable, and with the QRP Labs heritage ought to be a really useful bit of kit. So it got me thinking, is it time I invested in a small Windows laptop, junk the current Windows box and use the laptop connected to the screen for here plus simply unplug it and go portable? I mean, it's not like I've not done that before and it is a pretty standard model. It's just that, all my life I've used old hardware, secondhand or chucked out, cobbled together to make it do what I want. I've never had a new system other than the Mac Mini and its MacBook predecessor, the latter not eve being mine anyway. It is, therefore rather uncharted territory, purchasing a new or new-ish laptop which will not see a great deal of use as I really prefer the Mac. Or do I find an older MacBook and cobble that together? I have an older 11" model with a dead battery - I changed the battery before but the replacement didn't last. That was going to be sold but I no longer trust eBay as suitable for someone that sells very little. So, the choice, should I go this route seems to be a new(-ish) Windows laptop that will take Windows 11, or a cobbled together old MacBook which I already have but could potentially sell to offset the cost of the Windows one. Either way I will investigate the QMX+ first because the weight of my other HF transceivers is the killer.