Tony is a Geek

A little while back - okay, nearly a year ago: https://tonyisageek.blogspot.com/2024/01/meconsole-weconsole-uconsole.html I decided to purchase a uConsole device.  I selected to have a 4G internal adapter inside, but for the love of god, I tried everything to get the b*s*d thing to work, I even changed the internal firmware - maybe it was the fact I was using giffgaff? I don't know.  Anyway, I then got some "bluepoints" (some people will know what that means!) and well, I then cashed them in for a £50 Amazon card. Next thing you know, I have 2 x 4G USB dongles coming my way :-D Why two, Tony?  Well, y'know, I either break one, I take one apart, I destroy one or one never does what it says, yadeyadaya... After having such fun getting the UGV Rover working the past few days , I finally got around to having a go with setting up the 4G USB dongles. Both devices came with 02 sim cards from sims4home.co.uk with a discount code - I actually use this in my campervan, works a...

Yep, I ordered it back in January 2024, it finally arrived...just before December 2024.  Apparently the 10-month delay wasn't a joke, it really does take that long.  Was it worth the wait? Yeah, I reckon so. The 32Gb SDCard that came with the device, I just stuck it into the device - it was Debian 11 Bullseye for Raspberry Pi 4.  It worked okay, for a day or so. I installed [node-red], it worked well, I downloaded [world-map] and got some markers appearing, it seemed to perform well.  I then started to think how I want to set this device up to use it.  I wanted [Arduino] too. That 4G adaptor - how do you get it to work? (using the Debian Bullseye install) Well, after putting in a SIM card, the instructions in this article worked a treat: https://github-wiki-see.page/m/clockworkpi/uConsole/wiki/How-to-use-the-4G-extension To summarise: $ uconsole--4g-cm4 enable This outputs that it is detecting the adaptor and then it says something like "success". Then what? Wel...

As the weather is deciding to turn a little bit cooler / cloudier and not represent standing in the kitchen in-front of a fan-assisted oven with the door open, I decided that I would like to spend 1/2 a week (3-nights) working away from home, somewhere nice, somewhere near some water, like a lake, just somewhere pleasant that doesn't involve me driving the motorhome for 6hours.  As I've become a bit of a GIS mapping geek the past few months I thought I'd take a look at someplace local, not too far away that had an Adult camp site ( get your mind out of the gutter - I just don't like kids, just like I don't like Gen Z's , same thing, if I can avoid any contact or not be in their vicinity, I will take every measure - they annoy me - I am sure the feeling is mutual ).   With that in mind, I stumbled over this lovely place, right next to Chew Valley lake .  Okay, so why don't I just book in for a few nights and just bugger off there and keep myself to myself.  ...