In my family, we have a half-dozen Mac laptops -- one for each of us, and one provided by my employer. For the personal laptops, I have been using Time Machine, backing up to my primary Synology unit. Unfortunately, Time Machine has proven unreliable, requiring frequent resets of the backup. For …Continue reading
A while back, I moved my FT-7800R to my hamshack, and bought an FTM-400XDM to replace it in the truck, so I thought an update was in order. I never fully mounted the FT-7800R control head, but after switching to the FTM-400, I finished the permanent install by mounting the …Continue reading
I was recently asked about how to get started with a home lab. As with most things, the answer depends on what you want to do with it. But, the core components are probably pretty similar.
Every home lab is going to require some sort of storage system. For mine …Continue reading
Over the weekend, I upgraded my network: I replaced my Ubiquiti USG with a UDM-SE. I debated between the UDMP and UDM-SE, and decided on the UDM-SE because of its added features. As part of this upgrade, I retired my self-hosted UniFi Controller in favor of the one on the …Continue reading
A few weeks ago, I installed a solenoid in my truck, to control my ham radio's power based on the ignition key position: I want the radio to power on and off with the engine.
As with most mobile ham radios, my radio has an auto-power-down function, but I want …Continue reading
I have continued playing with my M5stack. I now have it programmed to show 3 types of data:
After using a couple of ESP32s and doing some things with them, I decided I wanted to get an M5stack. I bought a first generation core, and am working to use that as a display for various things around the house.
As I started using the m5stack and trying to …Continue reading
A few weeks back I mentioned Home Assistant. After I set that up, I bought some Kasa smart outlets. Two have replaced timers, so I no longer have to change the start times as the time of sunset changes throughout the year. A third is set up in my home …Continue reading
A while ago, I bought a Freenove starter kit. I never did much with it until recently, when a friend gave me an ESP32 and pointed me to Home Assistant.
The Freenove kit included a DHT11 temperature/humidity module, so my first Home Assistant project was to set up a …Continue reading
I recently purchased an Icom IC-7300 ham radio for use at home, and when researching the radio around the time of purchase, I discovered this excellent YouTube video playlist, covering many aspects of the radio.
When I got to video 46, I discovered that the IC-7300 supports an external keypad …Continue reading
I am a system engineer in the Raleigh, NC area. My main interests are Unix, VMware, and networking. More about me, and how I got started.