Category Archives: Green

Amateur Radio, General, Green, IPv6

Guilt free Radio!

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Eamonn seems to be enjoying his holidays. With R$15 all-you-can-eat dinners and R$1 for a beer, I’m not surprised. I, on the other hand have been so busy recently it just was not funny.

AREN has been soaking up my spare (ha!) time, with meetings, documentation, and other stuff that comes with trying to organise volunteers. AREN was also involved in recent exercises with other Voluntary Emergency Services in South Tipp,

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and last weekend AREN members aided the Glen of Aherlow Fáilte Society with communications for the Glen of Aherlow Walking Festival, as the weather was forecast to be good, numbers were quite high. Communications from both sides of the mountain were provided and everything seemed to go without a hitch (other than the torrential shower just before walkers got to the buses on Saturday afternoon). Bernard, EI8FDB, has a few pics up on flickr taken during the event. Finally though, things are slowly getting under control (even on the DIY Front!) AND we found that shim6 bug I was talking about, so I can make some headway in work.

Now, as to the title of the post (Thanks Seamus!). I’ve been collecting bits and pieces for a while (2 years or so), batteries, solar panels, charge controllers etc. I finally got the panels installed, (sub optimally unfortunately, but wife friendly) two weeks ago. I let the batteries charge up fully, then I switched off my 13.8Volt PSU, and switched on the (slightly adjusted) 24v-12V DC DC converter. That was the 27th of May. Since then I’ve had my radio gear running from it just the battery bank and the panels (some of it 24×7). At this moment in time (approx 11 days later), the panels have put 204Ah into the battery bank, the DC-DC converter has consumed 350Ah.

Miguel was asking me to work this out during the week, so here goes (its late, and I’m tired so I could easily be way off here)

554 * 24 (volts) = 13.296 (KWh)

13.296.5 /11 * 365 = 441.18kWh for the year.

My last bill says a unit costs 15.02 cent (incl vat), so I should ‘save’ about €66.26 on the ESB Bill over the course of 12 months. Or to put it another way, it will never pay for itself, economically speaking.

I’m still experimenting, and will probably add more panels (and more ‘load), but so far, I’m happy as a pig in the proverbial with it. The problems will arise however as winter descends (and that €66.26 total will be in doubt). In those (in)famous words, A lot done, more to do.

Amateur Radio, Green, Technology

Ugly or not?

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slievenamon.jpg

Which is it? Personally, I think they are fantastic.  The are a lot nicer looking than some of the other structures visible from the same spot, and far more functional.  What really surprised me though was how quiet they are in operation.  The traffic moving along the road from Kilmeaden to Portlaw was easily able to drown out what I think was the noise from them.

Last Monday, Tipperary Amateur Radio Group were on top of Slievanamon (the Mountain pictured behind the wind turbines), participating in the Spring Leg of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society’s 2 Meters Counties Contest.  After some generator trouble, we got going and spend an enjoyable few hours up there (pictures), making approximately 57 unique contacts in 24 counties. It was great to see so much activity on the band.

Last week I was in Innsbruck, Austria, helping Miguel at the Tridentcom conference.  There was lots to take in and lots of folks to meet, too much in fact. I briefly managed to get outside for a look around and take some pictures on Tuesday evening.  The rest of the time was spent either attending technical sessions, or continuing technical discussions afterwards.

Getting set up for the contest was a technical challenge of a different kind (one could consider it therapy almost!).

Green, Technology

5.25 Volts

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Thats what the 4 x AA pack is reading at 22:25 IST. Obviously the pack wasn’t fully discharged, but still, thats not bad for zero cost charging (lets not get into the argument about the cost of manufacturing the solar cell). It will be interesting to see how long it takes to recharge a set of depleted cells.

Green, Technology

Battery Charger.

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Have you ever gone to the drawer looking for 4 batteries for something or other, only to find a) you don’ t have 4 of any similar type, b) you have no idea if they are charged or not. I have, and it’s always annoying.

I came across this kit last week and ordered one from Neil. I’ve just stuck it together and put it on the kitchen window, it should get some sun before I get up in the morning. The Voltage is currently reading 4.96 on the battery pack. It’ll be interested to see what they read at breakfast time.

It should be possible to leave them in the window all the time, and then I will always know where I have a ‘fresh set’. We’ll see!

Green, Technology

More power

TV, Video, Sky Box 0.4kWh (~80Watts) comes to about €24 Euro for the year (lets say €30 making allowances for Rugby matches etc). Dreambox DM7000 Satellite Receiver about €18 per annum (0.3kWh). Happy birthday to my little bro today…. he’s getting old now 😉

Computing, Green, Tramore

Thinking Green.

Justin’s recent post got me thinking, so I’ve started doing some measuring. First to the radio ‘shack’/office, I did a measurement where I switched on all the radio equipment running in receive mode, server, laptop and second screen running, DSL modem and wireless router, switching most of them off when I went to bed. After 24 Hours the total usage was 4kWh. So over 12 months, the cost would be 4 * 0.1435 * 1.135 * 365 = €238 Inclusive of vat, wow, thats quite expensive and not very Green.

The server, dsl modem, wireless router, and kit for my Dxtuners node takes up the bulk of that cost at about €195 per annum. Our most recent aquisition, a small chest freezer (Whirlpool) uses about 0.5kWh per day, so should cost us about €30. Next, the TV.

Green, Technology

President Bush examines Hybrid Vehicles

The full news article is available here. White house link here

What I though most interesting was what Mr Bush said on the video clip:

“I firmly believe that the goal I laid out — that Americans will use 20 percent less gasoline over the next 10 years — is going to be achieved, and here’s living proof of how we’re going to get there,”

Interesting indeed.