marxy's musing on technology

A while back I bought a Samsung Chromebook , the one that runs a non-Intel ARM processor. I see they are AU$320 and work nicely as a low cos...

Mal, VK2BMS, and I enjoyed the Meccano exhibition held in Forestville today. It was well attended and the organisers had put a lot of work i...

My 10m wide balcony works fairly well for 20m but I wanted to try 40m. Good news, Australian Geographic stores carry very nice metal slinky...

The KX3 is a radio with convenient standard looking connectors, either 2.5mm or 3.5mm sockets. Elecraft mentioned that many low cost PC head...

Stephen, VK2BLQ spotted this story on ABC News24 the other day. A great piece from ABC Open. Brenton: Ham Radio from Micah Barnes Photo...

When I returned from Hong Kong in 2002 I was 82kg, today I'm fairly stable at around 71kg. My work is sedentary and losing weight is a s...

It's the down side of living in a unit. My squid pole antenna support off the balcony is virtually invisible from the ground, but not it...

I'm finding typing on the dining table gives me sore shoulders so overnight I had an idea. Two $9 F-clamps and a plank and I have a nift...

Today at the ARNSW Home Brew group, a different kind of meeting. We turned to a survey of applications for Ham Radio that run on popular tab...

Goodness, iOS 6 & 7 needs a lot of different icon sizes for a universal app. I wish Apple would support SVG. Here's my little script...

Following pictures and diagrams from M0UKD , I've built up a 9:1 impedance transformer sometimes called an Unun. This transformer m...

The WIA is doing some work on promoting Ham Radio and this week I had an opportunity to do my bit. I was invited to be a guest on Margaret ...

I'm trying to talk with old friend Ralph, VK3ZZC , who's in Melbourne, about 1,000km away. He's on 10m which is a band I've ...

Spurred on by the ARNSW Antenna day, and illuminated by a comment from Mal, VK2BMS, that alerted me to the fact that I've been using my ...

My sincere thanks to the committee at Amateur Radio NSW for organising a wonderful "Antenna Day" today at Dural. The day was ...

I enjoyed the Wyong field day as always this year. It was great to catch up with Nigel, John, Patrick, Peter, and others. Lots of interest...

I'm pleased to report that our house has been removed. The block looks like this: Today I visited the block and spoke to neighbours...

I've been wanting to try one of these immersive 3D goggle things for some time. This was the current low resolution version but in HD ...

Note that this post has had several updates below. We've just moved in to an apartment while our home is being re-built. Naturally the...