This weekend I build a cheap Chinese CNC engraver. I don’t have any specific uses for it in mind (maybe making some PCBs eventually) but fancied making something a mechanical, and the total cost was under £150.

The thing didn’t come with instructions, but I found some for a similar unit and I guess it took about 6 hours to build.

I think adding limit switches is a must and to do anything more than simple engraving will need a spindle upgrade, but so far, so fun!

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Seeing a lot more FT8 v2 activity now. I wonder if this is because of the FT8 roundup contest.

https://pskreporter.info/cgi-bin/pskstats.pl shows a lot more RC5 users than the other RC versions, which is great.

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As predicted RC5 of WSJT-X was released. 🕵️‍♂️

Looks like the most visible change is making the Auto Seq checkbox setting sticky.

https://sourceforge.net/p/wsjt/mailman/message/36477663/

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InSight is landing! Great stuff! https://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html#public

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The PSK Reporter stats page is really interesting: https://pskreporter.info/cgi-bin/pskstats.pl

The breakdown by software at the bottom shows a few people using WSJT-X RC5 as well, so maybe that will drop soon:

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The thunder is rolling in my bit of IO81. Time to unplug!

https://www.lightningmaps.org/?lang=en#m=oss;t=3;s=0;o=0;b=;ts=0;z=8;y=51.3255;x=-2.7631;d=2;dl=2;dc=0;

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Powershell on Linux eh? Whatever next https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/powershell/scripting/setup/installing-powershell-core-on-linux?view=powershell-6

I’ve been around for long enough to not trust Microsoft, but I’m really hoping this is being done because people find it useful and not as some long term evil strategy!

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I always enjoy the SOTAbeams newsletter: https://mailchi.mp/sotabeams/november_2018?e=3c76448afb

Do “RF black holes” exist? Well no, but kind of!

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One day I will learn how to design PCBs, but until then I will find other things people have already shared on OSHPark that do more-or-less what I want and buy them! https://oshpark.com/shared_projects/OagLbtgI used to make http://www.gqrp.com/technical2.htm

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I bought the PDF of the 2019 ARRL handbook.

Been on my list for a while now… what a treasure trove of information it is! And 745 MB zipped!

Dropped it into DEVONThink and now I can search it easily too.

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