As a newly licensed Ham Radio Operator, I was ready to move beyond a handheld radio and be able to extend my range. Since most of the Technician Class License privileges are in the 2M / 70 CM bands, a base station in that range made the most sense to get started. There is a lot of DIY tradition in the Ham Radio community and having a 3D printer made some of the construction easier.…
As of 2017 I received my Amateur Radio license and wanted to explore aspects of data and Ham Radio. This brings my to build an APRS iGate to provide gateway services to the north end of Jurupa Valley.…
Replacing the old sprinkler timer was one of the first home automation projects that I embarked upon. The first iteration was a tiny DOS machine originally built as a Point of Sale device. The fact that it was made to sit in the cabinet under the check stand conveyor belt was ideal for use in a hot garage.…
Like many others in IT, I keep a lab environment at home where I can try out ideas without the cost of company down time. Let’s face it, I have a hobby I get paid for! Anyways, my Microsoft Active Directory installation was on a pair of SuperMicro 1U machines. They were loud, consumed a lot of power and created quite a bit of heat too. Something was going to have to go but I really needed to have the lab machines.
After introducing my employer to virtualization, I needed to find a way to bring it home. I had rolled out VMWare to 30 grocery stores and did a “Physical to Virtual” (P2V) conversion on 20+ machines in the data center so this was not going to be a problem in the home lab.
My main problem was going to be finding a quiet host with low heat output.…