Author Archives: james

One blew over the hornet’s nest

I had a stack of hive brood chambers containing old comb that I was going to melt down. It must have been bumped by a deer or something like that, which left room for some hornets to get in and … Continue reading

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A couple more photos of the observatory

I found these the other day, so I thought I’d just add them out of interest… First, the remote control for the telescope room LEDs. I keep meaning to 3d print a little holder for this to fix to the … Continue reading

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Swimming, 30th January 2020

Another repeat of the same set. Busy pool again, too. I failed only on rep 16 of the 50m set, but wasn’t unhappy as my times are really starting to get back to where they were now — I had … Continue reading

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Dew heaters from a new supplier

Now my dew heater controllers are finished I need to get some more heater straps. Whilst casting about for suppliers I came across W&W Astro who I’d not heard of before. Their straps appear to be film-based and what comments … Continue reading

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Restoring an AAG rain gauge #2

I’m pleased to say that the rain gauge is now in place and all connected up. It appears to be counting properly (unlike it did when I had it on the desk for testing), but I’ll keep an eye on … Continue reading

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DIY Stevenson screen #4

I’ve been meaning to post this for a while. Just a photo of the Stevenson screen, as complete as it’s going to get for the time being.

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Swimming, 28th January 2020

Same set again, and by contrast with yesterday I had the pool to myself for a fair part of my session. Today went pretty well. My times were probably quicker on average throughout the 50m reps than they have been … Continue reading

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OWFS on a Raspberry Pi

I have an old Raspberry in my Stevenson screen and I’d quite like to hook it up to my 1-wire weather sensors rather than running the 1-wire connection into the observatory to my desktop system there. OWFS looks like it … Continue reading

Posted in Computing, Linux, Raspberry Pi | Tagged | 2 Comments

Swimming, 27th January 2020

Same set as last week today, but in a far busier pool. I wonder how many are on their post-Christmas fitness binge and will run out of steam over the next couple of weeks… Another improvement on my previous session, … Continue reading

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Summary of Robert Brown Arduino dew controller build

Overall I’m very happy with this project. It seems to work very well and is a huge improvement on not having dew straps. Generally it’s a pretty straightforward build with nothing really that much more taxing than making sure LED … Continue reading

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