Six months later

Jul 4 2025

Things I did and didn't accomplish

Six months ago I was thinking about how I always have too much on the go, and six months later, not much has changed. I didn't manage to finish studying for my advanced amateur license, and as I expected I haven't had the time to get back to it. But it's not like I've got the time to play much radio anyway, so other than needing to review the material I will have forgotten, it's far from the end of the world. I did manage to finish my QMX radio, but now that there's SSB support, I want to make the microphone project for it and see how it works! Although pratically, I should put up an antenna in the backyard first to actually listen to something.

I've successfully taken my Sherwood regulator service technician training, as well as aqualung training and other than waiting on one part, have serviced a set of regulators. It's less confusing than I expected, but also going slower than I hoped getting to actually work on anything since service kits are taking forever to arrive. But hey, it's still progress! Spring is also always a bit busy with taxes, and I often forget about that.

I've been reading up on Home Assistant lately and wanting to experiment a bit with zigbee radio communications. We'll see how far I actually get with that, but it could be fun to experiment with some arduino stuff, and there's some obvious projects to use it for which has traditionally been my holdup with microcontrollers - they're really neat but I haven't had much in the way of practical projects.

This week was very busy with three fireworks shows for Canada Day that went very well overall, but damn was the weather hot. Having a weekend to (hopefully) relax for a change is exciting, we'll see how it actually goes. There are a couple quick house projects I wouldn't mind finishing up, but maybe those should just wait.

Revised goals:

  • Experiment with proxmox, home assistant and zigbee
  • Finish building custom storage
  • Fix shop battery charger
  • Enjoy the summer

Keeping it simple this time.