Capturing some projects of this holiday season. Partly to get a feeling of having accomplished something, and partly as reminder to continue the unfinished projects. German HAM radio exam Right at the start I was sitting down in the German HAM radio exam in Munich. There are 3 levels of HAM radio certificates in Germany. You can apply for the highest one, work through various exam sheets, and if you only pass one of the lower levels then you can walk home with that lower level certificate.

What’s this about? Since a while I was wondering how to setup a chain of LEDs, where each LEDs colour and brightness could be assigned by me. In Germany I got 2 LED chains which turned out to just allow pre-programmed colours and blink patterns. I’m looking for full flexibility, so I could also for example deploy them behind the monitor and have them shine in the dominant colours of the current movie scene.

What the ISP offers I’m using NTT flets as physical provider (fiber), and Biglobe for the packets ontop. Regarding IPv6, Biglobe allows on a webfrontent to request v6, which I did. Then they offer 2 options: IPv6オプション (“option”) IPv6オプションライト(“opti

Note: I’ve taken out the IPv6 pieces here and moved them to a dedicated blog article. Since the beginning of 2024, I run my own router. I’m using NTT flets GBit fiber as physical provider, and Biglobe as ISP ontop - other ISP’s do the IPv6 things differently. I started with 2 OpenWRT routers, after both of them went defective, I run the Star64 RISC-V board as router, with this functionality:

So.. I got a new monitor, the INNOCN 32M2V. Which resultion can I drive it with, from my Thinkpad T590? Investing the Thinkpad T590 capabilities My daily driver at home is a Thinkpad T590, with Intel i7-8665U CPU. First limitation is the GPU, the Thinkpad has a Intel UHD Graphics 620, which is imbedded in the processor. Intel lists for this cpu a maximum of 4096x2304@24Hz for HDMI output, and 4096x2304@60Hz via DisplayPort.

Choosing a monitor is hard! When you buy shoes, you try them out.. but you just know for real after wearing them for some weeks. We might see monitors at stores, or try to get advice from others - but everybody has different use styles, so it’s hard to decide for a model. What I use the monitor for: working with multiple terminals, but not more than 3 or 4

While last years summer in Germany became the Retro summer, this time I took the RTL-SDR software defined radio with me for playing. RTL-SDR is a usb2 stick which you can plug into a computer, attach an antenna, and then have a look what’s “in the air”. Software I’m using the antennas which I got with the RTL-SDR device: 2 teleskope sticks with length of up to 1m each. Main issue: for good reception, I place the antenna directly on the attic.

What’s this about? Colleagues asked: “Hey Chris, so what’s actually in that mobile HAM radio device, what do you get for 550EUR?” - I’ll sum that up here. I’m coming back to the hobby after 20 years, so also discovering what’s possible now. 20 years ago, I used CB-radio. After getting HAM radio licensed here in Japan, I got a decent HAM radio transmitter for hand held use, a Kenwood

Let me capture my favourite hiking spots around Tokyo. This can give others hints, and I have a convenient page to refer to when choosing a hiking tour together. When you are in the area and in the mood, let me know! I’m out in the green almost every weekend. As for planning: I have more details for the trips on the wiki. You can simply cut’n’paste the start station

When I lived in Munich, the Alps were near - but I never got into the habit of hiking. Munich had plenty of green spots already in the city, I had a woods directly behind the house, great for jogging. Tokyo is very different. Full trains, skyscrapers and lots of concrete push people into hobbies like camping, or hiking. Tokyo has a great public transport, it’s easy to get to

We get workplace computers refreshed in 3 year cycles. My old system was a Thinkpad T590 with 32GB memory, and 8th gen Intel CPU. When it was up for refresh, I did choose a Macbook, and got a “Apple Macbook M2”, 2023 model, with 16GB RAM. I work as Linux engineer, doing support/development/communication. My goal is to use Linux directly on the AppleSilicon hardware. Now after some months, it’s time to recap what I settled with, and how well I can do my work with the system.

HAM radio? HAM radio or ‘Amateur radio’ is the use of radio frequencies for noncomercial private purposes. After the German unification, I had been doing CB-radio in Germany. CB is ‘Citizens Band’, these are a few frequency channels which can be used without any license. I had gone as far as setup a metal antenna on the roof of the house, had spent nights with friends on a mountain, trying