- Amazon Prime - £95 per year (£7.92 per month)
- Netflix - £16 increasing to £18. We have premium to get downloads on more than two devices.
- TV licence - £13.25. Required to watch BBC, even via iPlayer. A weird one.
- Spotify - £10.99. Currently just premium for my wife, but we have had the family one in the past.
- Apple iCloud 50 GB - £0.99
- HP instant ink - £4.49. This is for 100 pages a month. I could probably drop down a level, we had a brief patch of printing a lot but think that’s past. £2.99 gives 50 pages a month.
- Domains - I’ve seem to have spent £75 (£6.25/m) this year on six domains. Can definitely cancel one and I should investigate transferring them elsewhere.
- Liteserver VPS - €26.40 per year (£1.93 /m). A Black Friday deal. Might see what they have again this year and transfer if it’s cheaper. Although less hassle just to stay
- MXRoute email hosting - $5 per year (£0.25/m). Another Black Friday deal from years and years ago. I just keep it as it couldn’t be matched again. Don’t even use it though…
- Two SIM only phone contracts for us - £8/m each. Usually sign up for another deal each year to reset the price.
- Tesco delivery saver - Currently about £0.20 per month but only as we used clubcard points to buy vouchers for this. It’s £29.94 for 6 months of offpeak delivery.
- Amazon kids+ - £38 per year (£3.17/m). Did get last year on a promo for £20 but haven’t seen any recently. We have two Kindle fires which the kids play on and having access to everything is pretty good. They’ve got a lot of use out of it. If I can find another promo that would be good, although the annual fee just hit recently so maybe not much scope in the near term.
- Apple music
- Apple TV
- Disney+
- Oracle free VPS
Where did 2023 go?
Here we are, the evening of the last day of the year (at least when I started writing this, took me a few more days to finish!) and I wonder what did happen? I also wonder what will come next year? This time last year I did make a list in dynalist of what I wanted to do in 2023, and I thought I should probably look back on it before I (blindly) make 2024’s list. I also decided to rank myself red, yellow, green on what I achieved. Doesn’t seem like it’s been that great, with five red, four yellow and only one green. I also have one blue.
Let’s start with the good and work down. The only one I gave myself a green was for journaling. This consists of the family journal in DayOne, my idle chatter blog, and this site. I wasn’t perfect by any means, and I’m only 140 DayOne entries for this year, which is about 40% of the year. However, the weblogs were reasonable. I think a good target for 2024 would be 50% of the year but otherwise continue has I’ve been. I do have a few draft posts for this site I’ve yet to write, so maybe something more specific for next year, like 1 post per month, would be a good target.
On to the yellows. The four in this category are sleeping, reading, working and spending. Where the objective was to do more, more, smarter, and less respectively. I’m more of a night person, but with young kids I’m always awake at 6-6:30am every day, so if I go to bed by 10pm and read, I’m usually okay. It’s the nights where it’s 11 or later that I go to bed and then by the time I fall asleep it could be midnight or later. I usually feel pretty poor the next day. I scored myself yellow as sometimes I’m good but other times I’m very bad. Reading follows sleeping in that most of my reading is done before I go to bed, but if I stay up too late too often then I’m too tired to read. The area I’m lacking for reading is with some of the non-fiction books I have. Many are sat on the shelf and have been for several years, and I wanted to read them. I don’t, however, want to read them in the evening when I’m going to bed as I won’t remember them and I also want to take a few notes from them. I’d just never pick sitting and reading a book in the evening vs. all the other things I want to do.
Working is all about being more organised, tracking actions, managing notes, spending less time “multitasking”, checking emails etc., and get more things done. This is mixed and I know I have areas to improve.
The final yellow is about buying less stuff. I’ve got a bit addicted to looking at hotukdeals, and it has probably led to buying more things - although great deals! One thing that hasn’t helped, is taking up amateur radio. This has led to buying more things, which I wouldn’t have, but it’s a fun hobby so I just need to keep it sensible. Definetly seen the impact of inflation this year, and not spent the time to work out the summary of this year’s spending…hopefully it’s less than what we earnt!
Now to the reds. 🚨
First up, is exercise more. In my defence I cycle to work each day, so I don’t do nothing, but I bought a rowing machine in 2022 and haven’t used it in about 16 months, and I told myself I’d use it this year. Laughably, I set my target as three times a week.
I wanted to print more photos and to write more letters to people, ideally combining both and potentially using the typewriter. Did a pretty poor job of those.
Now these two are funny ones, on one hand I wanted to spend less time on the computer but on the other I wanted to play more computer games. What I really meant was spend less time on the computer doing nothing. e.g. browsing the web, looking at hotukdeals, watching youtube, researching things I’ll never do, etc. I knew it would be hard to break the habit of sitting down on the computer and so I thought a good counter to that would be to actually play some computer games. I like playing computer games too. They often have good stories or challenging puzzles to figure out, and I enjoy playing multiplayer with my friends as we chat whilst playing them. Also, I have so many games that I’ve bought over the years but never played…thank you Steam sales.
Finally, I gave myself a blue badge. This was for my “projects” section, which originally had ideas for various websites, or uses for all these SBCs and accessories that seem to be lying around. I didn’t actually do any of them, however, as I ended up getting my amateur radio licence I built a lot of things related to that. So I did some projects - quite significant ones for me - but none of the original list. This didn’t fit with how I categorised green and yellow so blue it is.
Now that I’ve looked back, let’s turn around and look forward and try and learn from what happened. Easy said than done.
One Typed Page
There’s a website, onetypedpage.com, which is just that. Each day people submit a photo of their typed page and it gets hosted on this blog. I’ve known about it for a long time but only recently started going back to it. There appears to be some comments about moderation and conflict, but as far as I ever saw it was a quiet enjoyable site to read through with a cup of tea.
This morning I decided I’d submit a post to it. It’s not there yet but maybe later today or tomorrow it will be. It’s mostly a letter about nothing. Here it is:
I struggled with the ink spooling and that then made a mess. But that’s the joy.
Subscriptions
Seen a few posts recently with people listing their subs. Thought I’d join in.
I really don’t like subscriptions, and would much rather pay once and be done with it. Once you join and commit, they have you, it can be hard to leave. The upside is that if you don’t like it, it’s minimal expense to stop. Photoshop used to be hundreds of pounds but now it’s just ten. Of course in those days, 30 day demos or similar were common. Anyway here goes (Monthly prices):
Total: £83.44 per month
That includes netflix increase, which will put it at 22% of the total, with TV licence next.
Other subscription services we use but only when free, generally via promos:
I debate about getting Apple One for 2TB of storage, music, TV, and to some extent apps. The kindle fires are ancient, and were $20 refurbs from 2018, but still going. However, at some stage I suspect they’ll die and we probably won’t replace them, but rather we’ll have enough hand-me-down iPads to take their place. This plus the likeihood our eldest will get a phone next year means that the free apps might be useful. The 2 TB of storage would be nice to then backup all my photos into Photos.app and enjoy the benefit of that. TV is nice add-on, which I wouldn’t pay for separately. Music would be great if we could leave Spotify. We think Spotify is a better app to use, and works much better with streaming to our house speakers (powered by Google Chromecast audio). Better off paying for family spotify as I think everyone would rather have it. This just then makes Apple One not that worthwhile. If I want the photos back up then I should just pay the £7/m for the storage.
My wife does have yoga apps she subscribes to, not sure the current status of those but likely paid annually, and maybe there are some other annual things lurking that I’ve forgotten about.
So not too bad overall. I keep thinking about raising the subject of cancelling Netflix but it does get watched a lot by everyone.
A new writing nook
I have to admit my previous one has become overwhelmed with things that there is no longer anywhere to write. It is now home to radio books and magazines, a few other books I keep meaning to read, a Hobonichi I’ve yet to write in, and more. I keep meaning to tidy it up.
We recently inherited a nice bureau from my wife’s grandparents, and her mum kindly brought it up to our house. We also got various little knick-knacks, house items, recipe books and consumable things like notepads and sewing stuff. Still to find homes for it all but the first thing I wanted to test out was the bureau.
I’d actually forgotten it had drawers at the bottom, which is slightly disappointing as I can’t tuck a chair under it when not in use, but they are very handy for storing paper and notebooks etc. I even think I could store the Olivetti in one. That would be ideal. Even though I like having the typewriter out in the office on the desk, it does take up a lot of space.
By far the most exciting part is all those cubbies for trinkets and mysteries! My nanna used to have a bureau in her house, and as a child I remember finding it open some days and just poking about in all the little sections. There were so many things packed into it. It also contained all her correspondence and home admin, just nothing was organised, at least not how any of us could see. It was in the dining room, and so when it was dinner time she could just close it up and everything looked tidy, even though behind that door was a mess of papers and objects.
Hopefully we’ll keep ours a little tidier than that!
The office refurb we did was, and still is, great. There is so much desk space available for all sorts of things at the same time. However, it’s where the computer sits and boy is it hard for me to sit down in the office and NOT go on the computer. It really takes a lot of effort to write with a pen or the typewriter and I’ve essentially done none in a long time. Amateur radio has also been a big cause of doing nothing else but amateur radio, but even before that I was doing very little. My best periods of writing where when we were on holiday this summer, where I wrote everyday. There, I’m out of my routine and there’s no autopilot sit on the computer.
Now with this new writing nook, away from the computer, my intent is that I will reestablish my routine. The only issue is that it’s in the hallway, and so everyone will hear the typewriter, but that’s a minor detail I can work around…probably by getting everyone some ear plugs for christmas.
A new radio blog
I’ve decided to setup a dedicated blog for amateur radio. You can find it at gm5alx.uk.
Hoping to actually write more on it…😅
Entering the world of Amateur Radio
Several years ago, when we were living in California, I started thinking about getting my amateur radio licence. I don’t remember why I started on this, but it seemed like something I’d enjoy and be interested in. I didn’t end up doing anything, as you had to sit exams at test centres and it wasn’t convenient. I soon forgot about it and did nothing more. Last summer, the same thoughts occurred to me again, not sure why, but I started looking into radio. This time what it takes to be licenced in the UK.
All that resulted in passing my foundation licence in December 2022 in the online exams by the RSGB. I’d spoken to a friend about it in the summer, and he got interested. We both did the Essexham foundation training course, which runs online for a few weeks. He ended up passing first, which encouraged me to get on with booking my exam.
The content isn’t difficult, but there’s a lot of specific things you just need to remember. The exams “don’t have trick questions” but often have word games or a particular way of asking questions which can make them harder than you’d think. I probably should’ve read the foundation manual as well.
It took until January before I actually got my licene from ofcom, the postal strikes and christmas holidays meant it took a while. I then got to pick my callsign online. There weren’t many options to pick from and so ended up with something that, to me, sounded reasonable - MM7RVP. My callsign is M7RVP, but being in Scotland means I have to put in the other M. People in England don’t have to use any letters (except for intermediate licence), which is a little annoying but I suppose the UK couldn’t have too many designated letters.
I then did nothing for 4 months. Well, not nothing but I didn’t use my callsign on the air. I mostly debated what I wanted to buy - if anything. Radio transceivers (transmitters and receivers in one) aren’t that cheap. Probably not a high volume electronics item like computers and TVs, so are still pricey. Used gear is cheaper but after the initial depreciation, they then to hold their prices well. My friend and I were in the same boat, what do we get, is it worth it etc. He did buy a VHF/UHF setup, which is good for local contacts, but what’s the most fun is HF. HF is the frequency range (3-30 MHz) that can go all around the world in the ionosphere.
Like most electronic things, there is no one perfect device. Perhaps the £10,000 one could be classed as that, but it’s £10k and therefore not perfect 😅. We both had a similar shortlist of radios and spent many evenings debating the trade offs of them.
One day I saw one on the UK’s used ham radio forum, and that sold it for me. It was in great condition and I could easily sell it for what I paid for it, £350, if I needed to. I bought a Xiegu G90. This is a chinese brand radio, has a small but usable screen with a waterfall and does 20W on the HF bands. My foundation licence only allows 10W so it’s ideal. I was all sorted. Well…with a radio, I still needed an antenna.
Picking a radio is very easy in comparison to picking an antenna. I think you never really pick one, you just make one, try it, and then make more and try them. Maybe you find some are better than others, or maybe they’re just different. I don’t know yet, as I’ve only had one so far but picking that was tricky.
There are so many factors in picking an antenna, and it really depends on the space you have and what you’re willing to do. My aim was easy to install and would be decent enough to get me going.
To cut a long story short, I went with what’s called an end fed half wave (EFHW) antenna, for the 40m band and up, making it 20m of wire. It works well on many bands, and the internal tuner on the Xiegu even gets a couple of others out of it.
Armed with a big mug of tea, I was ready to put up the antenna. I would attach to the balcony on the first floor, and to a pole at the end of the garden. Or so I planned. Turned out the pole I bought was quite weak and bendy.
The pole is 6 m tall but with the flex, the antenna was only about 3-3.5m off the ground. (I later read it would be better to thread it through a loop on the pole and tie it off on the ground, so that the pole wasn’t taking the full horizontal force. I did try that, but it wasn’t much better.)
I thought I could raise it up by tying the pole to the nearby tree - this tree is unfortunately still quite small else I’d have used it in the first place.
A little too much force it seems…I took down the pole and ended up tying the antenna to the tree, whilst the tree is small it could still hold the weight of the line and I could get it moderately high. I ordered a space section, so the pole will be for a portable setup that I’ll make one day.
The antenna is about 4m off the ground at the house end and almost 3 at the tree end. Not the greatest but will do. The closer it is to the ground the more signal is absorbed by the ground and the higher the remaining signal gets sent into the air. This isn’t great for long distance as a lot of the signal will get lost or only do one bounce in the atmosphere. However, to get it higher I’ll need some serious pole solution.
So how has it been? Pretty fun! I’ve spoken to people all over Europe, into Canada and the USA. I can often hear signals from all around the world - Falklands, Australia, Japan, Indonesia, South Africa, etc. - but they can’t hear me.
I’ve used the digital mode, FT8, which means I connect my computer to the radio and it communicates with other computers via radio. This doesn’t need nearly as much signal compared to noise to make a contact compared to voice contacts. The best part is that you can look up online (on PSK Reporter) who has heard your signal. So you don’t need to make a contact with them to know how far your signal has gone. I’ve been heard across the world with this, and have made real contacts with Australia, Brazil and Japan.
Digital is nice to do whilst doing something else on the computer, and it is fun when you see someone far away has heard you, but by far the most fun is talking to people. Sometimes it’s a quick signal report and move on, and other times we get into chats about gear (most often) and local things going on. Often I’ll listen to others chatting and enjoy that just as much. Each evening you go on, you never know who’s going to be there and who’s going to hear you (the signal propagation relies on solar activity and is different each day on each band). I could (and have!) spend hours on the radio. So much so that I’ve not had time to do anything else - no photography, no blog posts, not finished the mac mini G3 build, and probably plenty of other things.
I did manage to tear myself away from the radio to study for the intermediate licence - this is the next level in the UK system and lets me use 50W and a few more bands. I passed this a few weeks ago, and so have a new callsign, 2M0RVM. It takes a while to get used to saying the new sign and sometimes I mix up the old and new, especially the RVP vs RVM. Maybe I should’ve picked something completely different but I liked the sound of RVM, and finding a free one is tricky, there isn’t an up to date list anywhere (even the last freedom of information request list from January 2023 was significantly out of date).
Now I’m debating the antenna situation. Pole or not, a vertical, something else. My wife isn’t keen on the wire going across the garden but equally doesn’t like the sound of a 10m pole! I have started to look into satellites too, at least a dish is more discrete. I’m also thinking of setting up a portable antenna for trips away.
Plus I have the full licence still to get. 📚 (Update July 2023: I’m now a full holder!)
Look me up on QRZ.