Arduino has arrived

Today my Arduino kit arrived in the post this is a programmable electronics projects board that you can make many projects and invent your own.

The Arduino board has been developed and made as open source so anyone can make them

my board is made by sansonic and the model is a mega, but there are lots of types made down to a nano. There is even one that is a computer as well as the programming board all in one.

what do you need? well basically you just need a base board a usb lead and the software downloaded from the site, I purchased a basic kit for £20.00p so I can get into it and start learning straight away, but you can buy items individually if you wish.

to find out more about these kits go to: arduino and have a look , also download the software once you purchase a board or a kit.

Installing the software:

I'm using windows 10 so I downloaded the software from ariduino (as the boards are all generic they all work with the software) and installed it, this was quite simple to do and caused no trouble. Then I plugged in the board and it installed the driver and recognised there was an arduino board attached, then I had a little fun setting up the board in the software

go to tools,scroll down and select the com port, then select the board, then its chipset, I found all this from where I purchased the item.

This is what came in the kit, led's resistors, bread boards, led displays, a relay board, small switches, a project board and jump wires to name a few that I know in the pack.

I cant wait to get stuck in

Raspberry PI

what is a raspberry pi?

There are five raspberry pi boards out there, the model A, A+, B, B+ and the pi zero, 

This is a cheap but powerfull little computer that runs on a 2 amp micro usb card and an 8gb micro sd card, you will need a mouse and keyboard and a hdmi cable (an Ethernet cable or wifi dongle if you wish to connect to the Internet.

Why use this?

I got my 1st pi with the dv mega, it was set up and ready to go for the dv mega, after i got one i deiced i want to find out more about it and its quite a versatile little system for what you get and i hope to do more with one to understand it some time in the near future.

Power to the pi

Raspberry pi uses a 2amp micro usb plug to power it and over the space of a year it would cost approximately £4 to leave it on in the background all the time like i do with the dv mega

Back it up!

When you do things with your pi they can go one of two ways, it may work or it may not, before you do anything make a back up image of it as you may not like what its done or you may corrupt files and it wont work, some times the memory card may fail and then you will have to start over again, this ain't good if your running a dv mega as there is a lot of work involved to set it all up again

I want to find out more

Google raspberry pi and loads of information will come up on it or go to the main site pi official site

Where can i buy one

I found the cheapest  at the moment is Amazon

Baofeng GT3 Arrives

Well it arrived today my gt3 radio I opened the box to see the radio and I was impressed it didn't look bad for a £40 radio I was expecting it to look cheap and nasty but it didn't look bad.

I plugged it all together and went to charge it up, I fount issues with the charger, I seated the radio in the base and found it bent one of the pins, so i made a repair on it, the mains plug went from a two pin charger to an adaptor to fit mains sockets, not a big deal but none the less it was disappointing.

31/12/15
After a few days use I upgraded the antenna as it would not pick up much from the local repeater from in the house, I ordered the bigger sansonic areal to see what I get from that, I also found the gt3 badge had come away from its glue.

To programme the memories of the unit it is easier to download the software, drivers, manuals and information from sainsonic

I found the software unstable on windows 10 and it needed reinstalling twice before i gave up and used a different bit of software for it

Wouxun arrives

Ok my wouxun arrived today well impressed it's almost like new, plugged it in and put it on charge ready to play with tomorrow.

Looked at the specs of it and it's not a standard 2mtr 70cm band it appears to be a 4mtr 2mtr one, this is something very hard to find in a hand held radio! What a bonus! 

See specs on back of the radio.

repeter book app

To help with being out and about you can download an app for your smart phone so you can find the closest repeter to you on 2mtr and 70cm, this way you can add them to your radio as you go.

As your smart phone has gps on it this app will always list the closest repeters to you, it helps when you dont have them in the radios memory already

For more information on this app goto the app store or google play or repeaterbook site