pageflight

cross-posted from: https://piefed.social/c/energy@slrpnk.net/p/2233823/unreasonably-pleased-when-i-can-charge-from-excess-solar

Additional detail for DIYers: I used vuegraf to publish MQTT from my Emporia Vue, which OpenEVSE can natively consume.

I somewhat recently connected Emporia Vue's 'net production/consumption' metric to my OpenEVSE so I can make use of the 'eco divert' feature that only charges from excess solar production. Since my utility charges for transmission of net-metered power, this leads to some savings. When we have cooler summer weather it shows up very nicely on the graph.

EVSE view:

(Hopefully this is OK for this community. Not news, but could be a nice highlight/discussion. If not, glad to find another spot to share it.)

I somewhat recently connected Emporia Vue's 'net production/consumption' metric to my OpenEVSE so I can make use of the 'eco divert' feature that only charges from excess solar production. Since my utility charges for transmission of net-metered power, this leads to some savings. When we have cooler summer weather it shows up very nicely on the graph.

EVSE view:

(Hopefully this is OK for this community. Not news, but could be a nice highlight/discussion. If not, glad to find another spot to share it.)

The baby just started hopping out of the nest. It hatched about a week ago, growing very fast.

Gaffney had used his iPhone to snap photos of nude prisoners he had encountered in his job—and he had then shared those photos with “several female civilian employees inside the Sheriff’s Office.”

Gaffney was fired from the Sheriff’s Office last month and was today charged by Bucks County District Attorney Joe Khan with “secretly photographing naked prisoners.” This didn’t result in just one charge, either; Gaffney was hit with a batch of charges, including official oppression, unsworn falsification to authorities, possessing an instrument of crime, and obstructing the administration of law or other government function.

I got a J-Pole for VHF/UHF on Craigslist, and now that I have a NanoVNA (highly recommend!), I can see it's not correctly tuned for 2m. It looks like it's about 50MHz low for my 146MH ideal center, and while SWR of 3.4 is kinda usable, from what I read it's not great for the radio nor ideal for transmission.

The antenna is made from ladder line, with a gap near the bottom (the defining characteristic of a J-pole I believe) and a twist in the center. It's mounted to a 4x4" wooden post on my roof deck, with a small nail at the top and a plastic+nail coax clip near the bottom. There's a string of party lights near the top (almost always unplugged) which I discovered was severely detuning my HF dipole that ran parallel to it; but the J-pole is perpendicular and I don't have another better mounting option.

I've read advice on tuning J-poles but it was too technical, and I didn't understand which part to trim. Is there somewhere I can trim without having to re-solder? (I'm comfortable soldering, but would prefer not to in this case since it's physically awkward to either solder in place or take it down/up.) Or can I do something to raise the resonant frequency non-destructively?

Thanks for any advice!

Waiting on a NanoVNA to check out my antenna, not currently getting any spots.

I've been bringing my coax in through the window, and wanted something more permanent. There was already an old cable internet coax (no longer in use) so I started by removing that and then reused the location.

The previous install had just drilled a 1' hole in the wall, so I expanded the opening with my vibratory saw (lots of plaster dust and terrible noise). I overshot slightly but not too bad, and used a low-voltage work box.

I got some BNC bulkhead female-female connectors and a banana connector (?) at a flea market, and drilled holes in a blank wall plate. I would have liked to use a metal plate but didn't find one at the local hardware store. A piece of bare copper wire leftover from romex is prepared for a ground connection.

I mocked up the enclosure in cardboard. The position of the stud and existing hole meant it would be right up next to the line-hide for our mini split. My main goal is water protection, but also looking nice.

I cut the pieces from a scrap of solid wood from a table and bits of 1/4" plywood from an old shelf. Band saw, chop saw, and then dadoes with two offset passes on the table saw. Waterproof wood glue to assemble and house paint to finish.

I enlarged the original hole to 1-1/2" with a hole saw. The first bit I got was too short (siding + sheathing is thick), but I found a longer one to complete the cut. I snipped a corner off some leftover rock wool from the basement to fill the hole. I made a small cleat to screw to the wall into the stud, which would then attach the enclosure to.

I didn't account for how cramped it would be working behind the ladder. I also didn't account for the space required to get to the top screws, especially with the metal flashing roof; I ended up giving up on those and just using one screw on the side.

Looks much cleaner inside. I got short male-male cables and adapters from ShowMeCables, which seem to work fine. Up next is a NanoVNA to check losses and tuning.

Future improvements are a ground rod connection and potentially lightning arrestores.

Seems to have stuck! I scraped/peeled away as much of the old adhesive as I could first

I'm getting my Yaesu FT-60R HT set up, and wanted to share my memory settings, both in case others find it useful (I didn't find a lot of recommendations about how to do it) and in case folks have suggestions.

I have (mixing 2m and 70cm):

• simplex channels
• repeaters, grouped by geographic region, focusing on ones with nets or where I've heard folks talking
• satellites

For memory banks, I initially had each of those separate. But my usage of memory banks is around either scanning or manually selecting a channel:

• scan my current location's repeaters + simplex channels
• select satellite channels for quick selection during doppler changes

So, I decided to change my memory groups to (a) always include simplex channels plus (b) include one geo plus (c) include satellite near-azimuth frequencies just in case; and then separately have a bank just for satellites for manual selection. (This is all set up in CHIRP, which worked seamlessly with the OEM programming cable and has a nice popup with the button sequence to get the HT into clone mode. Couldn't get it running on Linux though, probably because I haven't updated my Ubuntu in a while.)

We'll see how it works! Do folks organize things differently?

Home page and live version. The CWT was all too fast for me to follow, but seeing the transcription actually is helping me pick up on some of the "TU" and repeated call signs, aside from the "CQ" and "73"s that already stick out. Unfortunately my K1 doesn't have digital audio I/O or SDR capability but my laptop mic picked this up well enough.

Squirrels are taking a few but I think the thorns are doing their job. 3rd year for this bush if I remember right.

What I had on hand was polyfill. Sewing the ear bags (?) closed was a pain and messy. I think they're originally heat sealed, and the plasticized edges tear through pretty easily. But they're comfortable again for now. If I do it again I'll take the whole foam/bag off and make a new donut to maybe glue on.