I’ve recently given up Twitter for Mastodon, which bills itself as a “free and open-source, self-hosted, and federated social network service.” I have a lot fewer followers than I do on Twitter, but the followers that I do have are certainly more engaging. So much so, I don’t think that I’m going back.
There are plenty of servers out there that will let you join Mastodon for free. I’m on a server set up by a radio amateur: mastodon.radio. You can find me there as @[email protected].
Here are some interesting things I’ve found on Mastodon.
Website promotes Olivia
I found several posts on Mastodon relating to Olivia, so I thought I’d check it out. I downloaded fldigi, and with the help of the Olivia Digital Mode on HF website, I’ve actually made some Olivia contacts. The website seems to be the brainchild of NW7US. On the website, you’ll find this presentation that he gave on Olivia to the Raleigh Amateur Radio Society:
World of Receivers and Transmitters
The World of Receivers and Transmitters links you to more than 1,200 software-defined radios around the world. For example, I just accessed and an SDR in Caligari, Italy and listed to a UA2 station work an SV5 station on 40-meter CW. There are SDR radios all over the world.
I think that the next time I see myself spotted on RBN in Europe, I’m going to sign in to one of the receivers in say France or Germany and see how well that receiver can hear me. It should bring a whole new dimension to my HF operating.
Palm Pilot Reborn
I used to have a Palm Pilot, which back in the 1990s was billed as a “personal digital assistant.” Basically, it was supposed to do all the things that a smart phone does now without the phone functionality. I thought it was pretty hot stuff.
A fellow named Dmitry has now brought back the Palm Pilot, but now it’s being powered by a Raspberry Pi Pico. You can find all the information on how to create your own Palm Pilot on the rePalm web page.
I’ve used the Utah SDR#2 in a regular basis during the Elecraft 20M SSB Net on Sunday afternoons. The NCS is in Illinois, which is too close for to hear most days. But, by listening to the Utah SDR, I can hear most everyone in the net (including myself with an Internet delay).j Last night, while running the 80M Elecraft SSB Net, I listened to the Utah SDR#1 to see if there were any west coast stations trying to check in, and to my surprise, heard myself through that SDR. I never would have thought my 80M signal would have propagated that distance early in the evening (9pm ET, or 6pm PT) without hearing it.
I suppose that building a PalmPilot from newer parts would be fun, but I still have a couple of the old ones, and I’ve not been tempted to do anything with them for the past decade or so…