So, I came down to the RSGB Convention to see what’s what in the world of radio. After day 1, it’s been good - Here’s a disorganised selection of my notes and thoughts. Session 1: Advances in Amateur TV Given by Noel Matthews, G8GTZ Noel started out telling us about the bands that ATV is on these days, the ones that caught my interest were: 13CM (Roughly 2432MHz) 70CM (2MHz, Digital centered around 437MHz) 2M 2M D-ATV 2M Digital Amateur TV is really interesting, it seems. …

Abroad’s going mostly well. Initially very busy, now things have slowed down and I’m waiting on others. I’ve been fiddling with this tablet a lot. It’s been, much to my surprise, really useful. A Tablet in Industry As I said previously I really like the size and shape of it. I’ve been using it in my industrial context extensively as a document viewer. 16GB is a large amount of documentation, and having it in the palm of my hand (or pocket) at all times is super useful. I can bring it out and show clients, or staff, drawings to describe something, zooming in on specific areas to highlight important details, or giving an overview of the whole system. The machine can be on all the time, with connectivity off, and afford me several days battery life, compared to my work-assigned laptop’s 1 hour. I can hang it from a rail or mount it somewhere and leave the screen on to use as a reference. …

I’m travelling again. It’s time for another Arabic Adventure, and to be honest I’m really looking forward to it. Hands on work, over a broad range of areas that will really stretch me. I absolutely thrive on the environment I’m forced into when I’m there. It’s terrifying, difficult, high pressure and unfamiliar and I every day is different and difficult for a whole set of reasons. Because I’m travelling, I’ve been looking at my tablet again - the original Nexus 7 from back in 2012. …

I’m back on Youtube again with more tat! This week we’re looking at the C.H.I.P. It’s a cool little device that runs Linux and does lots.

I work for a Microsoft dependent company. We do some interesting stuff with non Windows platforms from time to time, but at the centre of my workflow is Microsoft Word, Excel and Outlook It’s a fact I’ve struggled with and tried to change but, to be honest, it’s not going to change at any major rate. I’ve experimented with using free software at work in the past, but it’s not gone well. My attempt to use Virtualbox was shut down - I had to provide licenses for all software I used in it. Our IT Director apparently didn’t take kindly to 15 or so copies of the GPL2+, GPL3 and some BSD licenses taking residence in his mailbox, so it came off regardless. I tried Libreoffice, but apparently when you already have an equivalent tool supplied by the business, that’s what you’re required to use. …