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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 12h

The latest addition to the collection.

The tinySA (ZS406) was a bit more expensive than some of the other stuff, but it does an amazing job visualizing the spectrum from 500 kHz to 5 GHz.

#TinySA #radio #SpectrumAnalyzer

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 1d

Eamus Catuli!

#ChicagoCubs

"Let's win this for Ryno and Sister Jean! Go Cubbies!" Sign at Murphy's Bleachers.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 1d

Broke out the radio to see if I could catch some plane transponders.

Ended up being easier than I expected.

#ADBS #SoftwareDefinedRadio

Caught a Midway Blitz chopper flying over the area.

Listening to ADB-S transponders over Chicago.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 2d

Finally got the foam inserts to wrap up my Radio Box.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 6d

Added a Wio Tracker L1 unit to my growing Meshtastic/LoRa collection. Testing it today to see how it performs downtown. If it's decent, I'll probably use it to replace one of my original Heltec V3 nodes.

#meshtastic #LoRa #WioTracker

Fully assembled Wio Tracker L1 unit deployed to the office for its downtown test run.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 9d

Using my local breakfast joint's WiFi to test the adaptiveness of the Reticulum network.

So far it's pretty impressive.

#Reticulum #meshnetworking #Sideband

Surface Duo intentionally attached to a random WiFi network.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 9d

Some other late-nite tinkering was getting a small Reticulum/Sideband network running on my phones and Steam Deck.

Next step: RNode.

#Reticulum #Sideband #networking

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 9d

Stayed up WAY too late building and programming a single key keyboard.

Seemed dumb to just repeat the same character, so it generates new 16-character passwords on each press.

#MechanicalKeyboards

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 13d

Get it from Underland Press:

https://www.underlandpress.com/kozy-krampus/

Kozy Krampus - Underland Press

KOZY KRAMPUS edited by Frances Lu-Pai Ippolito & Mark Teppo Published: September 23rdISBN 978-1-63023-130-9 ORDER: PRINT || EBOOK We arrive yet again at the end of it all: the dreaded holiday season, where everything is too bright, nothing is where it should be, and you will be constantly hounded by the persistent dread of having

www.underlandpress.com

Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 13d

"Kozy Krampus" is now available!

Includes my original story, "Luminarias".

#HolidayHorror #KozyKrampus #CozyHorror

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 16d

Preparing to strip paint or protest in 2025 Chicago?

Why not both?

#chicago #protest #WideAwake

Respirator, eye protection, and a cap with a built-in hardhat.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 19d

Terror Tuesday: There's ALWAYS room for GIALLO.

(Seeing Dallamano's "What Have You Done to Solange?")

#Giallo #AlamoDrafthouse #TerrorTuesday

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 21d

New mobile node: seeed studio T1000-E tracker.

#Meshastic

Card tracker next to watch and Oura ring as a size comparison.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 21d

Heltec V3 antenna upgrade.

#meshtastic #Heltec #antenna #radio

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 22d

Success. Was able to tune commercial FM, the CTA's channel for the Red Line, NOAA weather, and some hams.

Need to put in some time figuring out the other options in SDRangel.

#SoftwareDefinedRadio #SDR #steamdeck

Pulling in a non-commercial AM broadcast.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 22d

Today's fun project: Turning all of this into a fully-functional software-defined radio.

#steamdeck #SoftwareDefinedRadio #RTLSDR #linux

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 24d

This weekend's project. Let's see if I can program a radio.

#SoftwareDefinedRadio #SDR

RTL-SDR USB dongle for software defined radio.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 24d

Current Meshtastic node map.

Didn't expect to be in touch with folks around Detroit!

#meshtastic #LoRa #meshnetworking

Screenshot of addressable Meshtastic nodes visible in Illinois, Wisconsin, Michigan, and Indiana.

Distribution around Chicago proper. Decent number of nodes on the North Side up to Foster, and a few nodes in the South, at the University of Chicago Hyde Park campus.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 26d

Built my first two Meshtastic nodes.

Will be leaving one at home and taking the second to the office.

#meshtastic #Heltec #esp32

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 28d

Spent some quality time with my Uniden BC72XLT scanner listening to the ham operators this evening.

There's a non-zero chance that I may have to find a way to install an antenna array on the top of my roof one of these days...

#radio #hamradio #Scanners

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 28d

And from my OWN personal computing history - this is the exact same model of laptop I took to college. Wonderful 800x600 display that I had running Linux as a green computer science student.

I probably should have purchased it, but I have a tall enough […]

[Original post on sights.omgwars.com]

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 28d

Some additional finds at the Midwest Vintage Computer Festival yesterday.

#VCFMW20 #VCFMW #VCFMidwest

The electronics used to orchestrate the animatronic bands at pizza joints in my youth.

A Control Data 160A 12-bit mini-computer with attached CalComp plotter.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 28d

Had a great time at the Midwest Vintage Computer Festival yesterday. Saw some great old machines!

#VCFMW20 #VCFMW #VCFMidwest

A working electro-mechanical telephone switch running a small telephone network.

One of the infamous Osbourne portable computers. First I'd seen with my own eyes.

One of MANY beautiful SGI machines. This was a beefier IRIX-based system designed for computer graphics and rendering purposes.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · 28d

Swapped out the colors of the Jack O'Neill for Spooky Season.

Gone is all-orange livery, replaced with purple AND orange for the season.

#SpookySeason #fleetcarrier #JackONeill #elitedangerous

A purple and orange livery for the Jack O'Neill for Spooky Season.

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Chris J. Karr @chris.sights.omgwars.com · Sep 10

Did a Panther-load of Space Truckin' this weekend (4 new installments built!), and I decided to spend the next week and a half out in the black doing some exploration for the current Community Goal.

#elitedangerous #SpaceTruckin #ExoBiology

It's always fun to take the Sidewinder out.

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