I joined Philip Clark on ABC Radio's Nightlife program to talk about technology news including new legislation to combat faked sender IDs on scam text messages, YouTube live stream hacks to promote crypto scams and a look at the new ARM based Microsoft Surface laptops that are challenging Apple.Audio here.In the story I talked about trying out the new Microsoft Surface laptop powered by ARM. It's

This little post was triggered by reading Owen Duffy's post titled "Arduino thermometer using DS18B20 and OLED display". Even though I'm quite comfortable writing C or C++, I've been enjoying the clean MicroPython environment. These days I've pretty much switched from classic Atmel Arduinos to RP2040 based boards.I implemented this little thermometer in just a few minutes with two easy to find

When I was a teenager and just starting to tinker with electronics I built a regenerative receiver kit from the local Tandy (RadioShack) store. It was a great success and I was able to listen to the big shortwave broadcasters on it.I know that Bill often mentions that regenerative receivers may be haunted on his Soldersmoke blog. The DX Explorer site describes a rather neat regenerative receiver

Some years ago I used to accompany Terry to a field in Sydney where he would fly amazingly fast while using a video headset. He would run through an obstacle course with hoops standing on the oval. I tried a few times but crashed immediately - I could never put myself in the drone and was always thinking of the sound.My current drone is home built and rather bashed about but does the job.One

Tuned to 9585KHz and the BBC's Antarctic Midwinter Broadcast is on. A charming shortwave program with information and messages from family at home. Good signal here in Victoria.I'm using an Airspy HF+ via SDR++ in server mode. Thanks to Stephen, VK2BLQ for the tip.

Talked technology on ABC Nightlife with Dom Knight: AI seems to be taking jobs already, AI being used to protect call centre workers, NotebookLM a great new research tool and Adobe being sued for misleading customers. https://www.abc.net.au/listen/programs/nightlife/peter-marks/104000522

USB-C is a wonderful standard. Apart from the ability to plug it in either way up, it supports Power Delivery and much higher speeds.  I've run in to some mystifying scenarios where a cable would charge but not carry data, would carry data but not charge, and lower than expected data throughput.I'm a registered Apple developer and was keen to try out the macOS 15 Sequoia beta but I'm not an

I've been seeing a lot of misinformation lately and noticing the techniques used. While discussing this with friend Tony, I wondered if ChatGPT could list ten effective ways to do this."Spreading misinformation effectively, while unethical and harmful, often employs psychological and social manipulation. Here are ten techniques commonly used:1. Emotional Appeals: Crafting messages that trigger

It's a pity the Raspberry Pi PICO comes with the horrible micro USB socket. I purchased what, I guess, is a PI Pico clone board with a USB-C socket on it from AliExpress but was disappointed when none of them seemed to appear on the USB bus.On a whim, I plugged one in to my computer with a USB-A to C cable and up it came! My guess is that somehow the USB-C wiring isn't right and a proper USB-C

My thanks to Stephen Rapley, VK2RH, for passing on this review of ham radio software that gave my WSPR Watch app a high rating. It's in the latest June issue of German amateur radio magazine FUNK amateur.Translating the text with Google Translate I get:"Who can hear me? Where can I be heard? Who can I receive? These questions can be answered with the WSPRwatch app. Your own reception reports

Had a nice chat with the brilliant Dom Knight about technology news including Ticketek, Windows Recall, Face recognition failures, Google AI summaries, "filmmaker" mode on TVs and what to expect from Apple's developer conference next week. You can hear it here.I've been working on the acoustics in my home studio. It was a bit of an echo chamber so this week I hung a blanket from the ceiling

I don't normally post links but this story caught my attention and deserves more coverage.It's not that long ago that I bought some test tubes from a place on Harris Street, Ultimo, Sydney. They had a scientific glass blower working at the time. 

This morning I saw that the (very active) Bendigo Amateur Radio and Electronics Club were transmitting RTTY on 7.035. When I'm not in the shack I often leave an AirSpy HF+ running connected to SDR++ in server mode. This means I can sit by the fire and tune around on HF.To decode a digital mode audio must be fed to FlDigi. I use BlackHole for routing audio from one app to another but I wanted to

There is a nifty little PCB based end fed antenna Unun and winder being sold in the Chinese stores online. It does look a lot like the ones sold by QRPGuys. The kit comes with the BNC socket, a capacitor, a toroid, some cable ties, the butterfly nut and bold, and a length of enamelled copper wire. It doesn't come with the antenna wire. I cut the wire for a 20m band antenna. The flatness of

During my recent frustration with the Telstra supplied NBN fixed wireless I ordered Starlink. This morning the box arrived. More compact than I had anticipated.The "out of box" experience is excellent, I would say it matches Apple's standard.I put the "dish" (really a small flat panel) on the roof facing south and powered it up.The app contacted a satellite and then asked me to rotate it 9

Where I live, in country Victoria, internet is via NBN fixed wireless. I pay AU$100 a month for unlimited. Signal strength was not full bars and would sometimes drop in rain - probably because the signal path goes through trees. Speeds were about 20-30Mbps download and that was enough for streaming video and video calls.A few months ago, there was some sort of upgrade and speed jumped to over

Talked through the technology news on ABC Nightlife last night: Telstra lay-offs, Microsoft announcements, new features coming to Android 15, age verification for porn access being trialled, a concerning bug in iOS 17.5, NBN fault frustration and a possible way to avoid car sickness.Listen here.

The Moorabbin RadioFest was a terrific show this year. The turnout looked good to me although I'm told it was down on past years.It was great to see a vendor, VK Radio, was there with some amazing commercial radios to play with.I came away with a home brew antenna tuner. The biggest purchase I saw was by Dave, VK3ASE, who seems very pleased with his receiver purchase.Congratulations to the

Although I follow space weather with some interest it's rare to see it reported in the general news. Recently I repaired my 10m band dipole which had been eaten by a tree and I left it receiving WSPR. Over the past 24 hours you can see that my reception essentially stopped which is not something I've ever observed.Here's the current status according to the Bureau of Meteorology's Space Weather