Shola's Home Gadgets

Good news for SKY Digital subscribers.

You can now have a personalised TV listings of your sky digital box, you no longer have to put up with having to scroll through all the 200+ channels.

Details at 50 Favorite Sky TV channels.

I've recently had to spend some time changing the configuration of my Misterhouse based home automation system since it had started behaving erratically.

The problem was with some of the hardware used in the system rather than the Misterhouse software itself which I have been running for about 3 years and have found to be very reliable.

The first hardware to fail was the wireless router that connected the Misterhouse Windows NT4 computer to the internet and the main home computer. This meant I could not remote connect to the Misterhouse computer and administer the system, though the system was still running albeit erratically, as I could not reset the state of some of the X10 hardware used in my home automation system.

The other item that failed was a TM13 X10 receiver which was switching off the unit connected to it at times when it was not supposed to. I haven't gotten to the root of that problem, so I've removed the electrical appliance connected to it for the time being.

Everything is back to normal now after decommissioning the NT4 computer and running the Misterhouse software on my XP computer.

I now have to budget for a new wireless router, and I would like to replace the NT4 computer with a new PC which would double as a media storage device for my DVDs and music CDs, but it looks like my home automation needs will have to take a back burner, as I'm going to be concentrating my efforts on my hang glidingfor the first half of this year.

Yaesu FT 817 Qrp transciever

In my last post I had the picture of my Amateur Radio Yaesu FT 817 transceiver gadget.

Amateur Radio was a hobby I picked up in the 80's when I was in Nigeria, and back then it was an elite hobby, as with no internet, and telecommunications very expensive, it was kind of cool to be able to talk with people all over the world from the comfort of my room without incurring any expensive call charges.

As a student, it also meant I learnt more about physics and Electronics, this was good for me, as I was ahead of my classmates in School. My knowledge of geography was also very good, as each time I made contact with someone, I would check the map to see where they were located.

Back in the 80's being a student, I could not afford to buy Amateur radio equipment or any other gadgets off the shelf (not that any was available in Nigeria anyway), so most of the equipment I used was homebrew from electronic parts easily found locally and using circuit diagrams found in magazines I was sent from overseas. I was also fortunate to also benefit from a United Nations program that donated electronic kits to the developing countries, and got a 20m transceiver kit. This transceiver kit operated on 14Mhz short-wave, and gave me the opportunity to contact people worldwide.

Being located in Nigeria meant that a lot of people wanted to make contact and get sent a card confirming the contact so they could get various awards, many friendships were made, one of the best benefits I had from the hobby was I was able to get a very good job in Lagos when I completed my NYSC having studied Electronic Engineering.

Coming to the UK, meant that while I could continue to pursue the hobby and play with more electronic gadgets, I didn't really enjoy the hobby that much anymore, as there is a larger population of Radio Amateurs in the UK, and thus people wanting to contact you are less. This is one of the reasons why I haven't used this gadget that much recently.

As someone mentioned in the comments, I might use the radio to keep in contact during my upcoming hang glider adventure, though I will not be able to use it when actually flying as the UK license does not permit this.

For the record, my nigerian call signs were 5N9GOM and 5N2KRC, I also had the UK callsign M1DMG, my current UK call sign is M0DMG

For more details about this Yaesu FT 817 gadget and amateur radio, see the links below.

Radio Society of Great Britain
American Radio Relay League