I think of him every few months, and as we close 2025 I find I am missing my former colleague, and friend, Ludgero “Gero” Leonardo — 2025 is 10 years since he passed.
I took this photo on one our first trips together to Dell’s TX campus in March 2003 — we had decided to spend the weekend visiting the Alamo, the San Antonio Riverwalk, and the Tower of the Americas.
Gone, but never forgotten.
The Yaesu FTM-500DR is their flagship product, it’s about $500, but it’s got so many small gripes it’s almost as if no one on their team has actually used a radio in a vehicle…
Maybe these are issues w/ all radios, maybe I’m not using it like most others would, but these are fairly annoying quirks. It’s only been a few weeks, so maybe it’ll grow on me…
I decided that I wanted to run an APRS iGate at my house because I found that low power transmissions in my neighborhood simply aren’t making it to the nearest Digipeater.
My current setup is a Mobilinkd 4 + iPhone SE 2020 + aprs.fi — but it’s not working very reliably — What I’m finding that is that every 2-3 days it stops beaconing and stops receiving packets… if I unlock the iPhone and fiddle it starts working, I’ll get a day or two, and then it will stop. My assumption is that iOS is simply not geared to run background applications like this and so it doesn’t work as a “set it and forget it” type of system.
That lead me to a purchase I made a long time ago… When I was first getting into APRS I bought a Coastal Chipworks TNC-Pi — it’s a TNC in the form of a Raspberry Pi “hat”, and I recall that it worked fairly well at the time using a Raspberry Pi 3B. I don’t fully recall what my goal at the time was, but it was using in a vehicle and ultimately when I found the Mobilinkd that worked out better. I parked the hardware, but pulled the Micro-SD.
Fast-forward a decade or so and I’ve decided to resurrect the TNC-Pi in the hopes that I can use it as an iGate and doing RF beaconing.
I’m grateful that despite having not sold this product for quite a while (I think over 5 years at this point?) the website linked above is still operational with instructions and files… but what I found was that time marched on in the world of Raspberry Pi development and left these little setup/helper apps behind.
If you try to run pitnc_getparams and see this message:
-bash: ./pitnc_getparams: cannot execute: required file not foundThat means you’re likely running a 64-bit version of Raspbian / Raspberry Pi OS, but these applications are built for 32-bit.
You have two options:
If you decide to take the option 2 route — installing 32-bit libraries — these are the two fairly straight-forward commands I had to run to get going:
sudo dpkg --add-architecture armhf
sudo apt install libc6:armhfAfter that, you’ll find that both 32-bit helper applications are able to run on your 64-bit OS.
They don’t make em like they used to, but I’d have probably said that in 2013 when I bought that HTC One phone and the Yaesu radio… yet they’re both still kicking over 11 years later running APRSdroid. The TNC is a Mobilinkd TNC 2.1 bought in 2016.
I’m not much for talking on the radio, but I do love telemetry and packet radio.
Consider this one: https://www.youtube.com/@SimonFordman
Simon creates very compelling videos about working on older vehicles — in each one he tells a story while sharing his love of the hobby, and the trials of working on these relics, all without saying a word — he uses interesting angles, relaxed but captivating pacing, and carefully chosen visuals and sounds, as well a few (optional) captions.
I look forward to every video he makes, and if this post helps even 1 person find his channel then I’ll be very happy.
In late October 2022 I bought a 77 Cadillac from someone in CT via eBay.
It’s in surprisingly good shape, and has yet to break down — made the 100+ mile trip home and dozens of around town drives since — but I don’t have any confidence in it for situations where timing is important.
I’ve got all the parts together, I believe all the tools I need, even have a garage… just need to find the time…
I don’t keep this blog up much, but occasionally it’s entertaining to me go back and look at it. With that in mind I used internet magic to retrieve entries I made in previous iterations of this blog from the past decade and add them all here w/ backdates.
I also decided to go back to the WordPress “Twenty Thirteen” theme because I sort of really like it…
In the recent issue of Make magazine they had a comparison of hobbyist CO2 sensors. The purpose of these meters was to help identify indoor spaces that might be more conducive to Covid spread (higher CO2 levels in a room with people means more shared air).
I decided to build one for my office because I share a small 10×12 room with a coworker. I thought seeing the CO2 might be interesting and informative… I never got that far:
What I didn’t expect was to see that my own home is quite poor when it comes to CO2 levels.
Our house is on a busy road, the traffic noise can be difficult to ignore so we often run the HVAC 24/7 even in moderate temperatures. Our house is a 1989 build, it’s all original — doors, windows, siding, etc — the HVAC is replaced but with “like kind”, meaning there’s no ERV/HRV add on, though the new heating appliances are high efficiency so they have dedicated combustion air ducts (instead of drawing air from the house).
Our house is consistently in the 800-1200ppm CO2 range when the windows have been closed for a few days. I personally haven’t felt that it was stuffy or recycled feeling, but the data doesn’t lie.
The other interesting aspect is just how much our gas range will impact CO2 levels… take a look at this annotated chart:
The oven running spikes the CO2 way up. I’m definitely making it a point to keep windows open as much as we can, even if the HVAC is running, to keep some fresh air in the house.
The monsters, music, and situations in the show are terrifying… how was this on TV at 4PM for kids everyday in the late 80s?
The Jutai pump failed after just 1 full day… it was a bit overcast so I assumed the lack of pumping was due to lack of sun, but later in the day during strong sun it was still dead. The bird bath I’m using was full of water so it wasn’t a burn out.
I’m now using the pump w/ the rose (2 days and still running); the Juntai pump is headed to that big Amazon warehouse in the sky…