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My exciting 2020 (or Where have I been?).


Well, we all know what else happened in 2020, but I had just a couple other adventures that made 2020 a banner year.

First, in July I fell at work, and this happened:

Elbow after surgery

I had two stays in the hospital and ended up having one surgery on my elbow and three on my knee (I’ll spare you the pictures of my knee, let’s just say it looked like it was stung by a jellyfish and leave it at that).

Then about a month later, Iowa was hit with a massive line of thunderstorms called a derecho and this happened:

Tree on house

So, we’ve been living in a rental house for the last nine months (much better than a hotel), while our house was pretty much completely rebuilt. We are hoping to move back in near the end of September of 2021.

We are all doing okay, but I haven’t had much time or opportunities for hobbies 🙂 Here’s hoping your 2020 was safer, healthier, and more prosperous.

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Hustler 6BTV 60m add on kit issues

I’ve been trying to install a 60m add on kit to my Hustler 6BTV vertical antenna.

Unfortunately, tunning it to the 60m band is next to impossible and the antenna’s 40m SWR is quite a way off.

As you can see from the graph I’m a looong way from 60m frequencies.

Any suggestions would be appreciated!

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Ender 3 3D Printer Setup

It’s weird using your 3D printer to print parts for said 3D Printer.

I’ve been helping my son get his 3D printer up and running.

It’s a Creality Ender 3, which is a low cost entry level printer. It has some design flaws, but most of them can be mitigated by printing additional parts.

I’m using the open source slicer Cura from Ultimaker with the addition of the Creawsome Mod.

So far I’ve added the following parts (from Thingiverse)

The other changes were to replace the Bowden tube and fittings with better tubing and fittings.

The only other concern I need to remedy is to upgrade the printer’s firmware. The stock firmware doesn’t include thermal runaway protection!

Thanks to the following YouTubers for posting content that was incredible informative and instructive.

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New Antenna – First QSO!

I made my first QSO on the new antenna this morning (20m)!

Here is the output from the antenna analyzer! Some adjustments in the lower bands will be required, but it is looking much better than I expected.

First measurement of new Antenna with analyzer!
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New HF Antenna Installation

New Antenna!

I’ve been in the process of installing a new Hustler 6-BTV HF antenna I purchased from DX Engineering. It is replacing a used Cushcraft R7 that I’ve had for 7 years.

The antenna itself is up and guyed. Now I just need to install ground radials and tune it up!

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Setup SIP trunks between Asterisk Servers using PJSIP

I’ve been troubleshooting a Voice over IP (VoIP) issue at work, so I thought it would be a good time to try my hand at setting up a couple of Asterisk servers and linking them with SIP trunks.

Asterisk 16 now uses the PJSIP module by default and while I found plenty of examples of how to set up a trunk to a VoIP provider using PJSIP, there was nothing on how to configure the other end.

Finally after two days I figured it out, and hopefully to save others from the pain, I ‘ve documented the configuration below.

;
; Server A - pjsip.conf
;

[siptrunk-auth]
type = auth
auth_type = userpass
username = <USER>
password = <ASTRONGPASSWORD>

[siptrunk-aor]
type = aor
contact = sip:serverB.domain.tld

[siptrunk]
type = endpoint
context = from-serverB
allow = !all,g722,ulaw
outbound_auth = siptrunk-auth
aors = siptrunk-aor
direct_media = no

[siptrunk-registration]
type = registration
outbound_auth = siptrunk-auth
server_uri = sip:serverB.domain.tld
client_uri = sip:<USER>@serverB.domain.tld
retry_interval = 60

[siptrunk-identify]
type = identify
match = serverB.domain.tld
endpoint = siptrunk

;
; ServerB - pjsip.conf
;

[<USER>] ;
type = auth
auth_type = userpass
username = <USER>
password = <ASTRONGPASSWORD>

[<USER>]
type = aor
max_contacts = 1

[<USER>]
type = endpoint
context = from-ServerA
allow = !all,ulaw
direct_media = no
auth = <USER>
aors = <USER>

[<USER>]
type = identity
match = ServerA.domain.tld ; sometimes you might need to use the actuall IP Address
endpoint = <USER>

;
; ServerA - extensions.conf
;

[to-serverB]
; route extensions starting with 6XXX to Server B
exten => _6XXX,1,Dial(PJSIP/${EXTEN}@siptrunk,,25)
  same => n,Hangup()

;
; ServerB - extensions.conf
;

[to-serverA]
; route extensions starting with 7XXX to Server A
exten => _7XXX,1,Dial(PJSIP/${EXTEN}@<USER>,,25)
  same => n,Hangup()
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Kubernetes Cluster Update

I’ve updated my Kubernetes cluster so that the Raspberry Pis are now isolated from the rest of my home network and all the components  are running off an Anker 10 port USB Charging Hub. This included the following additions:

This should make the whole setup somewhat more portable.

My K8s cluster with additional hardware

The addition of the 10 port USB charging hub allowed me to eliminate nine AC adapters and two power strips.

I’m thinking about purchasing a cheap carrying case with a foam insert so I can cart the whole thing around.