Radio, Repair & Recovery
This week is brought to you by the letter R
This week I’ve been going down the rabbit hole of radio, repairing some clothes and electronics and recovering from a cold to return to my fitness goals.
Radio
MeshCore
It has been 20 days of having a Heltec V3 flashed with the MeshCore firmware, it has been patiently sitting on a shelf above my desk listening for other MeshCore nodes to advertise their presence, but all has been quiet.
A friend, 3km away from me has two Heltec V3 boards, and a similar experience, they can see each other, but not anyone else.
The MeshCore map at https://map.meshcore.dev/ shows few nodes around me. I was hoping to connect to the nodes across the river as I had with Meshtastic, but it appears that this isn’t going to work out for me.
The Heltec V3 will stay flashed with the MeshCore firmware until I get round to flashing it with something else. Perhaps TinyGS for satellite tracking.
Meshtastic
I updated my second Heltec V3 from the 2.5.xx to 2.6.11 to keep things up to date, unfortunately that move meant that I could not connect to the node via bluetooth after one day, so I tried one of the Alpha releases, but after 3 days of no nodes I went to an older Beta firmware of 2.6.4.
I just tried to connect whilst writing this blog, but it refuses.
I’ll re-flash to 2.7.16 the latest stable beta later today, but I am loosing patience with Meshtastic.
ham
I received a new cable this week that allows me to use a handheld transceiver with a Kenwood 2 pin socket to both transmit and receive APRS packet radio. My previous trials with some cables I had laying around had enabled me to receive only, so transmit is a nice addition. I’m using APRSdroid which I sideloaded to my android phone and I connect the 3.5mm using a USB type C adaptor.
Repair
I’ve have repaired a few items this week that should extend their life.
Wouxun dual band radio charging dock and dust cover
A few weeks ago I bought a Wouxun KG-UV2D dual band (2m / 70cm) handheld transceiver in an effort to improve my main radio’s transmit and receive capability (from a Quansheng UV-K6/UV-K5(8)). I chose the Wouxun based on its performance (joint 4th) on 2m/70cm in these test results https://qrpblog.com/vhf-uhf-handheld-performance-comparison/ and on availiability. Its was £43 delivered from eBay.
It works great, and I made two minor repairs to bring it to a point I am really happy with.
The dust cover was either snapped, or I snapped it connecting a programming cable, a £3 replacement part from Aliexpress snapped on easily and feels more pliable and bendy than the 15 year old part that it replaces.
The charging dock had a small tear in the outer sleave of the mains cable, it looks like its from twisting. As the previous owner had already replaced the plug with an after market UK 3 pin, I could easily remove it and pass two different diameters of heat-shrink up the cable to the failure point, both covering the tear and making that section stronger to prevent further damage.
Patagonia fleece
I have a Patagonia fleece that had a re-repair where the cuff trim had come loose from the sleave where one of my previous repairs had failed.
I bought some red thread locally to fix this, as I’d like the repair to be more obvious, even though it is still colour coded with the rest of the fleece which is cream with blue and red accents. The red still contrasts well with the blue cuff trim, even if its only me that looks at it and is pleased I repaired it.
Socks
I noticed a few pairs of my socks where it looks like they have snagged on something, as there is a clean hole with no sign of wear around it, whatever the cause, a few minutes with a needle and thread has repaired them and increased the life of an otherwise good pair of socks. For my memory, and your information, I have a mix of Stance crew “Icon” socks, and Uniqlo colourful socks (the ones that are normally 4 for £13). The Uniqlo socks are thinner, and in bold colours, and are wearing at a higher rate than the stance socks. My Stance socks are thicker, wearing more slowly, and I have some in black, and some in white. When I need more socks I will choose the Stance socks.
Recovery
This section is shorter, so if you have made it this far consider it a short sprint to the finish.
Fitness
I have had a cold, and so has my wife, I’ve missed some gym/training sessions to endure I am rested and recovered should the cold and chest infection she has make its way into my body, so far no signs. I’m recovered enough to go to the gym later.
Annual review
At the end of a year, I like to review what happened and how that fit with what I wanted to happen (I do this through the year too). I find it calming, and restful. Next year I would like to repair more (which is why Annual review is in this section) and buy less, ideally I won’t need to buy any whole items next year, just parts where needed to repair what I have.