Love, Poetry and Revolution - Wednesday 16th August 2023

Freed from the self-imposed shackles of daily posting, I can let my mind do its thing and roam far and wide.

What things have been occupying my mind these past few days? I'll start with a random list and see what I want to write about.  Here's the list: England vs. Australia (Women's world cup); Software Defined Radio (SDR); Barcelona; future finances; work plans for August into September; son #1's uni assignments; a certain black cat; Karda Estra (band);  why do I keep putting on weight;  another serious conversation with E is due again; digital landline conversion; planning for E whilst I'm in Barca; and, loads of other shit I can't be bothered to list.

SDR is both fascinating and has a steep learning curve if you're used to physical scanners.  SDR does require a hardware receiver (it's not magic!) such as the Airspy R2 or it's smaller, slower, mate the Airspy Mini and, as I have discovered, almost certainly there's a need for a low-noise RF amplifier between the antenna and receiver. The software itself runs on a PC/laptop, so you need one of those too, and then you are sorted, though there may be other bits and bobs you require. It's phenomenally fast and knocks spots off any physical scanner, as well as being infinitely controllable through code and XML files.  It's a game changer! You may read more about this later. Stop me!

I always seem to discover new music in fits and starts and there have been a few new interests I've found after the past few days, including a band called Karda Estra.  Obviously, they won't appear below, as that's too easy. They will appear soon though, I'm sure.

Reckon that'll do for now, though I may return to the list above in subsequent posts.

Joni Mitchell /  'Man From Mars'  / 'Taming The Tiger'

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