Notices by Stormgren (stormgren@obsidianmoon.com)

@clacke @azonenberg research and education.

@azonenberg Funny, I had the same feeling about someone encouraging me to apply at a certain low-earth-orbit polluting ISP.

Ended up going to a non-profit in R&E instead.

ISTG "I'm being made a subject-matter expert, again!" might be a good tagline for memoirs, should I ever decide to write them.

And people wonder why I buy ring terminals by the jar...

16s battery string needs that many BMS leads, so lots of ring terminals to crimp. Thankfully these come with hot glue heatshrink preinstalled.

@kb6nu Your antenna polarization might be the issue there. Not saying a vertically polarized antenna on 6m won't work, but a 6m dipole might yield better results, unless the convention of using horizontally polarized for weak signal work on VHF isn't a thing anymore

Today's work challenge: Figure out if we can implement a 400 gigabit circuit in the next two weeks between Seattle and Chicago.

The circuit is 100% do-able, the question is the timing. I'd love to have it up by our conference on the 18th.

I do love my job.

On the list of things I never thought I'd say in this lifetime, "Fuck the EFF" is certainly one of them.

@jmorris @recursive @abraxas3d best investment I've made so far is a DC-Daylight (okay, like 24GHz) frequency counter from the 90s. As you say, slowly but surely.

@abraxas3d Hmmm, TruSDX kit run? 😀

I spend a lot of time contemplating how to make things more accessible and blowing out the gatekeeping. Part of that is you have to meet people on their ability level, and maybe that'll trigger a deeper wanting to go learn more. I find quite often it does. And for those who it doesn't, hey, they still made a thing they can point at and say that they did it.

One thing I'm trying very hard to do as a result of all of this is try to pull the term "appliance operator" out of my vocabulary, because it's problematic as hell in #HamRadio, and I'm realizing that it does not help build DIY spirit whatsoever.

There is zero shame in buying preassembled boards, modules, jacks with presoldered wires attached or anything like that. Or kits with all the surface mount work done for you.

There's a lot of great options for constructing things from modules and cable harnesses out there these days, and if it's the easiest way to build the project you're envisioning, go for it!

This is especially true if you are unable to solder or do fine detail work well!

At the end of the day, you still made something, and it's yours.

(Also, if you think I solder all of my own connectors and surface mount stuff, you'd be wrong)

Yes, this is a subtoot based on DMs and conversations that have happened over the past few months where folks have commented to me that they don't feel like they're doing real hardware hacking because they're not designing their own PCBs or soldering every wire or something.

Just go out there and make things!

@recursive @abraxas3d
Microwave stuff is a deep art, and I have a crazy amount of respect for any nutty mofo that goes off and does microstripline on their own. I'm just gonna learn how to do all of the little box plumbing[*].

[*] A good friend of mine once said to me at hamvention when talking about all of those microwave building blocks out there essentially described doing stuff with that as "having the knowledge which of those little boxes to buy and then plumb together with all of that teeny tiny rigid coax while bolted to backer-boards."

Whoo, I get to go to NANOG in San Diego this year!

@KC8JC @Geojoek @W1CDN @kb6nu @ai6yr In my experience, the POTA/SOTA crowd seems to be a lot more accepting than the rest of ham radio. From what I've seen, it's a lot more about having fun and figuring out how to operate in strange places than it is anything else.

@goatsarah @Natasha_Jay Out of curiosity, what relays do you use?

@DopeGhoti @Natasha_Jay Indeed. I very deliberately ventured into this on Hard Mode by setting up my tiny little instance, so finding things to follow is much harder, but relays and things certainly helped with that. I also have accounts elsewhere I can find stuff in the local timelines of those big instances.