vk6flab

vk6flab, 2 days ago

Spare ribs.

vk6flab, 3 days ago

The Romans used bread and games to entertain the masses. Looks to me that this has been fine tuned for the past 2,000 years, only now we call it takeaway and surfing the net.

vk6flab, 3 days ago

Give us a link instead. That said, read on.

In general, antennas are not like a “normal” circuit where things need to connect to each other to work.

Most antennas are made of two halves or poles, hence the name, dipole.

A Yagi antenna is a dipole with separate elements to focus and reflect the radio waves. These elements are normally not connected to each other.

In a typical Yagi only one pair, the dipole, is the driven element. The many (shorter) elements are directors, the one (or two) behind the driven element is the reflector.

A coaxial cable has two conductive elements, the core (the middle bit of metal) and the shield (the outer braid). These should normally not connect to each other.

You connect each coax conductor to its own dipole element. It generally doesn’t matter which coax conductor connects to which dipole element.

Source: I’m a licensed radio amateur.

vk6flab, 3 days ago

I don’t know what your specific antenna looks like.

Generally you connect close to the centre of the antenna, where the two elements are closest together, again without touching each other.

That said, there are antenna designs where this is not true.

vk6flab, 3 days ago

In trying to understand “the rules”, you are attempting to understand human nature. In the fediverse there are no “rules”, there isn’t a governing body, instance owners and moderators essentially have “root” permissions.

Some use those for the greater good, some don’t. Some react in ways that are unexpected and unfamiliar.

In other words, be kind to your community and find a place where you can enjoy yourself. Don’t fret about the things that you cannot control.

If you absolutely need an answer, set up your own instance and be your own boss.

In the meantime, have fun.

vk6flab, 3 days ago

Q: How do you eat an elephant?

A: One bite at a time.

Whilst you are faced with a multitude of issues, don’t get lost in the weeds by details when you are trying to untangle the past to move it forward.

A simple spreadsheet to track hardware, licenses and other details like location, specs and primary contact is a perfectly reasonable starting point.

I say that because you don’t know what you don’t know yet. You might for example discover that some shops are doing their own thing, regardless of company policy.

Creating a ticketing system is useful to track stuff for everyone. I settled on trax with web access to people who need it, but the computer literacy levels might prevent some from using this.

Burnout is a very distinct possibility in an environment like this, so make sure that you set aside time for you to think. Call it a meeting, call it an on-site visit, whatever you do, take time to think.

Also, remember to backup your work. It’s not unheard of for it to vanish unexpectedly if you are perceived as a threat.

Source, I’ve been working in this profession for 40 years.

vk6flab, 3 days ago

I see this everyday.

The ticket system is for the IT department, allowing it to track activities, keep abreast of open tickets, build a knowledge base and share information with colleagues.

Users benefit from this indirectly.

Of course, some managers use ticket systems to manage performance metrics. That doesn’t work, but they’ll never learn.

vk6flab, 4 days ago

Manufacturer warranty?

vk6flab, 4 days ago

Yeah. I can just picture it. Survivalists doing an appendectomy in their barn using a pocket knife and some whisky…

Seriously, if the shit properly hits the fan, there’s no “survival” scenario, it’s extinction and homo-erectus goes the way of the dinosaurs.

Anything less than that means the rich get richer and the poor die.

vk6flab, 5 days ago

This information is ancient in terms of solar activity.

At this time the geomagnetic storm arrived four days ago and finished a day ago. We’re all still here.

Sunlight has NOTHING to do with this phenomenon.

This is what happened - note also that this is a wrap-up and is at this time a day old:

• youtu.be/kFTbtRdBTyY

vk6flab, 5 days ago

Until I read your post, I hadn’t even clicked on the link. Wow, that’s a whole lot of rubbish.

vk6flab, 5 days ago

Watching a couple of Dashcam videos is the perfect way to explore this phenomenon in full HD colour and often colourful sound.

vk6flab, 5 days ago

I’ve noticed a sharp increase in spam and I’ve been reporting each one simply as “spam”.

I then block the user

Many of these posts have dozens of down votes.

Several go back months, which I discover when a new variant turns up.

I’m unsure if what I’m doing is helping or not, and as an ICT professional, I’m not sure why this obvious spam isn’t caught earlier.

vk6flab, 5 days ago

Is this not a slightly selfish action? It solves the problem for you, but doesn’t make the community better for everyone. I feel like blocking users should be reserved for issues like harassment, not spam.

This is an aspect that I had not considered. Even thinking about it now leaves me unsure of the best way forward.

Specifically, whilst it’s a valid argument that blocking the user only solves this for me, and not blocking would help me see if the issue was dealt with, I feel that leaving the user free to roam across my screen is impacting me directly and if I’m not a moderator in a community, it’s not my place to second guess their decision to leave such a user and post in place.

In other words, I’m stating to a moderator that I think that this post is spam and should be dealt with accordingly, but if you leave it alone, that’s your choice.

I moderate several communities outside of the fediverse and spam in my communities is a one-strike ban. That’s not what everyone does.

Having now thought through this again, now in more detail, I’m comfortable with blocking the user.

vk6flab, 5 days ago (edited 2 days ago)

There are many quotes that describe this phenomenon:

“Not that the story need be long, but it will take a long while to make it short.” – Henry David Thoreau, 1857 [1]

I picked that version because it was short. In other words, it takes time to remove superfluous text, something that takes practice. Previously I found that Xitter character limit helped hone the skill.

I have written a weekly podcast article about the hobby of amateur radio for 13 years and I’ve learnt that the better you understand a topic, the more concise you can formulate your thoughts.

Einstein put it like this: “If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.” [2]

[1] Source: quoteinvestigator.com/2012/04/28/shorter-letter/
[2] Source: socratic-method.com/…/albert-einstein-if-you-cant…

vk6flab, 5 days ago

Based on how the corporate world is operating, this sounds like a solid move.

Once the beancounters get involved, the penny pinching starts and supply chain issues in the name of efficiency start promoting just in time supply of essential goods like tanks and shells.

Hopefully they’ll start instigating 48 hour shipping and actually implement it in exactly the same way as Australia Post, who keep “guaranteeing” delivery, but keeps losing more shipments.

With a bit of luck, their whole defence department will implode.

vk6flab, 5 days ago

Why?

It’s a serious question. What features are you missing, what do you dislike, etc.

Otherwise the answer might easily be: search for “NFC payment” in Google Play and that’s not helpful.

vk6flab, 3 days ago

That’s understandable, perhaps even desirable, but OP didn’t include that in their requirements.

vk6flab, 5 days ago

It’s ironic that Apple’s single largest user base is the creative community and that as a company they haven’t done anything creative since Steve Jobs died over a decade ago…