Das Bityard

A Pretty Okay Solar Ham Station, Part 2: Panels

Charles — Mon, 11 Aug 2025 13:20:37 -0400

Field of dreams?

Back in Part 1, I ~~emptied my soul~~ laid out the rough qualifications for a somewhat minimalist solar-powered ham radio station. Today, I'd like to walk you through my process for selecting the solar panels for this lash-up of geekery.

I thought picking out solar panels for …

A Pretty Okay Solar Ham Station, Part 1

Charles — Wed, 28 May 2025 00:00:00 -0400

How hard can it be?

There are many things you can do in ham radio and one of the things I like doing is contests. In a contest, you get on the air and try to rack up as many contacts are you can. A "contact" is essentially just getting …

Filling in the Gaps: HTTPS/TLS Certificates

Charles — Thu, 07 Dec 2023 00:00:00 -0500

(Disclaimer: No AIs were used in the writing of this article. My intelligence has been frequently questioned, but has thus far never been accused of being less than natural.)

At this point, it's fair to say most tech-oriented cyberspace denizens have at least a passing familiarity with the basic concepts …

Various Ways of Sending Mail via SMTP

Charles — Mon, 30 Jan 2023 00:00:00 -0500

Internet Mail, or email, or whatever kids these days call it, was one of those things that terrified me very early on when I was a strapping young System Administrator. Everything else that I was doing at the time seemed comparitively easy: Linux/BSD installs, system setup, automation, and such …

The Design of Silicon Notes, with Cartoons

Charles — Sat, 03 Dec 2022 00:00:00 -0500

I'm able to get a good grasp on big-picture stuff relatively easily. However, I don't have a great memory for technical details, even stuff that I do almost every day. I imagine my co-workers are freqently amazed that I can even remember how to put on pants in the morning …

DIY Vinyl Cut Motorcycle Emblem

Charles — Sun, 26 Jun 2022 00:00:00 -0400

So I have this motorcycle.

It's a lot of fun.

I could talk at length about the general awesomeness of the late 70's to early 80's Suzuki GS muscle bikes. But! We only have so much time until the heat death of the universe. So to keep it brief, I …

Rabbit Holes: The Secret to Technical Expertise

Charles — Sat, 24 Aug 2019 00:00:00 -0400

(Alternate Title: How to Shut Up the Ubuntu MOTD, the Long Way)

Sometimes, the simplest questions take you on exciting journies. This was, in fact, the most powerful and motivating force that got me into doing computery things from a very young age. I would ask a question, how do …

I Built a Bandsaw!

Charles — Fri, 11 Jan 2019 00:00:00 -0500

Let's begin--as they say--at the beginning. As one who primarily self-identifies as an introverted computer nerd, it did not seem likely in retrospect that woodworking would end up being one of my major hobbies. Now, understand that I'm the kind of person who likes to have nice things but who …

Graphite and the Energy Bridge to Nowhere

Charles — Fri, 06 Jul 2018 00:00:00 -0400

Remember the good old days when neighbors knew each other, cars had chrome bumpers, and nobody had any idea how much electricity they were using until a bill came in the mail? Well, a few years back, my local power company started offering a mobile app that customers could use …

Rebuilding Docker for Custom Networks, a SysAdmin Tale

Charles — Fri, 04 May 2018 00:00:00 -0400

At work, we use Docker for developing, testing, and deploying applications. For the most part, it has simplified our lives greatly at the cost of a few annoyances and headaches here and there. I just spent the better part of a week dealing with one of them and since misery …

In Beaver We Trust: A Lengthy, Pedantic Review of Ubuntu 18.04 LTS

Charles — Thu, 26 Apr 2018 00:00:00 -0400

The Beav in all his geometric glory.

Even though I have been using some Linux distribution or another pretty much daily for roughly two decades, I have not had occasion to write a review on one. Today, opportunity knocks not once but 18.04 times.

Background

Just who in blazes …

Stackable Ratchet and Socket Trays

Charles — Sun, 21 Jan 2018 00:00:00 -0500

I have accumulated quite a lot of sockets over the years. Some were purchased as a set, some were given to me by my father (a former auto mechanic) from his extensive collection. A few just turned up out of nowhere unexpectedly. I looked for a long time (years, in …

Linux Neckbeard Shocked, A Newfangled Code Editor that Doesn't Suck

Charles — Sun, 29 Oct 2017 00:00:00 -0400

It was a dark and stormy night. My eyes were glued to the screen as I watched the Ansible playbook make its way through the myriad configuration changes across dozens of production hosts. Of course all of this had been tested in staging but if you work in technology, you …

My BITX40 Build

Charles — Fri, 09 Jun 2017 00:00:00 -0400

The BITX40 is a QRP (low-power) transceiver kit for the 40 meter amateur radio band. Although it is low-power (nominal 7 watts), and restricted to a single band (7 MHz), the $60 USD price tag makes it very attractive to those like myself who like to build things and play …

Raspberry Pi Serial Console in Linux

Charles — Sat, 23 Jun 2012 18:05:00 -0400

My Raspberry Pi arrived in the mail earlier this week. However, work, family, and other commitments meant that tinkering with it had to wait until the weekend. Until today, all that I managed to accomplish was to download a Debian-based OS image, flash it to an SD card, hook the …

x0xb0x #3

Charles — Wed, 12 Aug 2009 01:57:00 -0400

Just finished up x0xb0x #3. All of the basic functionality seems to work and it sounds just like a 303. Well, better than a 303 in my book but I guess I'm probably biased.

They gray knobs were special-ordered from Korg Europe. They were made for the Electribe ESX-1 and …

x0x #3 almost ready!

Charles — Tue, 11 Aug 2009 01:22:00 -0400

I'm almost done with x0xb0x #3.

This one is being quite the problem child, actually. Two note LEDs flat-out didn't work, so those had to be replaced. The TEMPO LED had to be replaced because I scratched it to hell and back. The TEMPO encoder was replaced because the first …

x0x #2

Charles — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 03:09:00 -0400

To make up for the rather non-trivial amount of money it cost to build my x0xb0x, I decided to make another and sell it on eBay. I've been working on it since January (often while I should have been studying) but finally got it done after about 2 months of …

OpenSSH: The Poor Man's SOCKS Proxy

Charles — Wed, 21 Jan 2009 01:17:00 -0500

Just when I think I know everything I need to know about OpenSSH, I end up learning something new and tremendously useful. Today, that would be the -D argument.

Many times I have been stuck on an "untrusted" Internet connection and need to log in (insecurely) to a certain site …

We Be X0xing

Charles — Sat, 15 Nov 2008 18:46:00 -0500

It occurred to me today that I hadn't put up many pictures yet of my x0xb0x whilst under construction. It further occurred to me I had not taken many pictures of my x0xb0x whilst under construction either. Besides the one a few posts down, this is it:

Here the power …

Linux Terminal Speed Benchmarks

Charles — Mon, 27 Oct 2008 02:54:00 -0400

In system administration, you spend a lot of time typing into and reading back information from a terminal. Although all terminals pretty much do the same thing, they can differ somewhat in their UI features or which desktop they were designed to be integrated into.

A few years back I …

Ghetto-sistor

Charles — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 02:12:00 -0400

This, my friends, is what is called a "ghetto-sistor."

It's what you get when you need a 1K ohm resistor, but don't have a new one handy, and instead have to settle for ripping one out of an old telephone before you realize that one leg is going to be …

It's Alive!

Charles — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 01:26:00 -0400

And by god, it is blinky.