blog.raek.se

2024

HF Antenna in the Attic

I made a new antenna back in August and it's time to write about it. I began the project because I was not very pleased with my antenna on the balcony. I wanted something more properly constructed, with convenient access, and the possibility of future modifications. The solution was to put an antenna in the attic.

2023

First Contact with an Antenna Made in a Hurry

I'm a radio amateur newbie and I've struggled to get on the air with my shortwave BITX40 radio. This time I tried my handheld Baofeng UV-5R+ VHF/UHF radio, realized my signal was too weak, improvised an antenna, and made a contact.

Finishing the BITX40 Case

This post concludes the write-up of the project where I put my BITX40 transceiver board into a new enclosure.

New Case for my BITX40 Radio

My BITX40 needs a proper case. It's an amateur radio transceiver kit for the 40 meter band by Ashar Farhan VU2ESE. In this post I show some pictures of my progress of rebuilding it in a new case.

2022

OS Integration Files in Python Packages

My go-to method for deploying command line tools I've written is to build Python packages and installing them. This works well for putting the tools on the PATH, but one thing I've been missing is to also include "OS integration files" (such as manual pages, .desktop app launchers, and systemd unit files). Recently I learned a way to do it.

Launch of Omloppsbanan, an Orbit for Swedish Geminauts

I've hosted a Gemini capsule for a month now. I'd like to add something to my capsule that is not just static text, so I decided to make an orbit. An orbit is a bunch of Gemini capsules linking to each other in a ring.

Electromagnetism, integrals and symmetry

The last few weeks I've been doing exercises from "Introduction to Electrodynamics" by David J. Griffiths. I have had to backtrack a lot to relearn some calculus, especially integration techniques. I ramble on about my experience.

2020

Some useful APT commands

The APT package manager used in the Debian and Ubuntu Linux distros keeps track of installed packages, but also which files they installed. Here are four package management commands I have ended up using regularly.

2015

Building the Frog Sounds QRP Kit 3: Key Circuitry

When the power supply was done it felt reasonable to continue with the key circuitry. This post describes the key jack with pull up network, the LED indicator circuit, and the NAND gates that function as a buffer and beeper.

Building the Frog Sounds QRP Kit 2: Power Supply

The first block I started to solder was the power supply. This post describes how it works and issues I found while building it.

Building the Frog Sounds QRP Kit: First Look

Recently I became interested in amateur radio. Since I started from scratch equipment-wise, I wanted to buy a cheap radio transceiver to start off with. A kit was a perfect match for me since I like to tinker with electronics and there are some really cheap ones out there.

New Blog

My blog setup has bothered me for some time. Now I have finally finished the replacement: a bunch of HTML files, generated from Markdown with a few scripts, served statically from Apache.

2012

Haskell I/O in Five Minutes

The way you do I/O in Haskell may be radically different from what newcomers are used to, but in fact it follows a few simple rules.

Running CadSoft Eagle Version 6 in Ubuntu GNU/Linux

CadSoft recently released version 6 of its PCB layout program Eagle. You want to use it in Ubuntu? Here's how to get it working.

2011

The re- functions

I recently realized that of the core Clojure regex functions (re-pattern, re-matcher, re-matches, re-groups, re-find, re-seq) I was completely unaware of how re-matcher, re-matches, re-groups were supposed to be used. Their names hint that they are useful for something, but I had never needed to use them. To understand them, I first had to dive into the Javadoc a bit, more specifically the java.util.regex package.

Getting Started with Clojure Development I: The REPL

This is the first post of one my ongoing attempt to write a series of blog posts about how to get started with development in Clojure. This post will cover a beginner's first encounter with the Clojure Read Eval Print Loop.

Executors in Clojure

Java has a very useful package called java.util.concurrent, which contains classes and interfaces for tasks, task execution tracking, thread-to-thread communication with blocking queues, locks, semaphores, atomic containers and the Executors Framework. This blog post will walk you through the concepts of the Executors Framework as seen from Clojure.

2009

Moted ela Volapuk.info

How I started working on the Volapuk.info website, written in the Volapük language.

My First Quine

A self-reproducing program written in Python 3.

The Birth of Volapuk.info

How I started working on the Volapuk.info website.