What I Did This Weekend - In Pictures!

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
Probably be more accurate to say 'What I didn't do this weekend in pictures.' Or maybe Mission Aborted.
As you can see I've gathered together the materials to make a loop aerial … using 10mm copper pipe which is plastic coated and already curved. This is for receiving only, but the loop aerial has a few advantages over the whip or wire. Bought professionally they cost anything from 200 to 600 quid, but I figure I can knock one up for well under a ton.
Alas the weather has pretty much buggered that. To give you an idea of how dark it is, I took this at midday in the conservatory (glass on three sides) with a digital camera. (Sounds a bit like Cluedo doesn't it :eek: ) Even so the camera fired the flash on Auto, which I found unusual.
Ah well, Spring is but a fortnight away.

LoopAerial.jpg
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
About fifteen years ago, my trusty old bike was stolen and, in haste, I bought a replacement from Back2Bikes, just to keep me going. It has proven to be an excellent device, causing no issues beyond replacements due to wear. So, I decided to keep my eyes open for a 'spare' Claud Butler Urraco and one turned up on eBay, not identical, but near enough.

It was in bits, so I've put it back together and fitted the carrier that I recently found again, plus the lighting arrangement. The tyres are fairly old and a bit too knobbly for me, so they will be replaced at some point soon.

DSCN7847.JPG


DSCN7849.JPG
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Other projects have moved, also.

The length of gas main seen in the picture above, and obtained from @Neon Jay, is being used to make a pair of outdoor speakers, courtesy of a pair of weatherproof units that I picked up in Katharine House.

Speaker 1.JPG



And the other Aladdin mantle lamp has had a new wick and mantle - and I've discovered that its 'tripod' arrangement is vastly more robust than the first one, despite looking superficially identical.

Lamp 6.JPG
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
What else can you do in this weather ?
Thing with SDR (Software Defined Radio) is that there are no 'knobs and dials' such as you get with good old bog standard radios. The radio itself is a small black box with a USB connecter at one end, and an aerial at the other. All the control systems are done via software i.e. keyboard and mouse clicks.
For a bit of good old fiddling with knobs and dials you need some sort of external apparatus and I've found that some control software will actually allow you to program a MIDI style controller to act as radio controls. So after much fiddling over the weekend I got an old Hercules MIDI disco controller mapped to various controls on a HACK1 SDR; big wheels for fine/rough tuning, various other buttons and knobs for the usual radio controls. (There's plenty of spare left over on the controller.)
So now I can tune up and switch without recourse to the mouse, just like you used to do it with valves and stuff in the old days. Taking RTTY weather reports to see how bad the weather is ... (yes, I know, I need to get out more, and I will if it will just stop raining ... :eek: )
The controller:
knobs1.jpg



The setup controlling the SDR display via the controller:


knobs2.jpg


The bloody weather fine tuning courtesy of Hercules.

knobs3.jpg
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
We were never posh enough to own a gas poker. Used to be match lit newspaper and hope the coal set alight. We did have a normal metal poker though,to poke away at the fire once lit (never quite knew what I was doing with it, except seeing the ash drop down into the tray below...)

I still have one piece of coal that I've kept all these years for good luck :D
 

BobClay

Well-Known Forumite
I remember it was my job to light the fire when I got home from school. Then to get it going you would hold a newspaper over the fireplace to draw in air from the bottom grill. Many times the newspaper caught fire and even though I managed to avoid burning the house down, there was charred paper all over the place, necessitating a very panicky clean up job before my parents got home. :eek:
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I've had the metal bits of a drying rack for a while, but I stumbled on some nice laths for it today, which just needed the corners rounding off. It might come in handy at some point, the roof slopes up to the front of the shed, so it's warm there in summer and winter. It's plenty high there, so it won't be the way much.

Ceiling 7.JPG
 

Lucy

Well-Known Forumite
I keep thinking I need to do this under our carport (that is at the bottom of the 80m garden :/)
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
I keep thinking I need to do this under our carport (that is at the bottom of the 80m garden :/)
Do it.

It works much better if you can get two double pulleys and one single. With just the one double pulley, the string has to run between the laths at the end.

I think the widely-available plated steel oval wardrobe rails will fit the cast iron spreaders, but I'm not 100% sure of that.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Little odd jobs today, one of which was to create a stirrup for the board/door lifter that I found two and a half years ago...


Tonight, I found a board lifter.
ae235

Very handy for fitting doors, etc. I've often considered buying one, but never have.

'Mine'* has the stirrup part missing, but I can live with that.


* Unless you know anybody who lost one between 8pm and 11pm tonight.

DSCN7865.JPG


Made from a flattened bit of a reflector from an old TV aerial.

It makes it easier to position the device using your foot, whilst your arms are engaged in manoeuvring the object in question.
 

Gramaisc

Forum O. G.
Today's job was to fix the old petrol hedge cutter - it's been playing up for years and an investigation a while ago revealed that the fuel pipes had been dissolved by the fuel - a fairly fundamental error!

So, some spares were obtained from China and, with difficulty, the parts were replaced and all seems to be working OK again.

An overgrown Pyracantha was trimmed, having checked for occupancy.

DSCN7867.JPG


There should be an inch or two of return pipe and about six inches of supply pipe with a filter on the end coming towards the camera from the tank seal visible above. All there was was the filter rattling around and some bits of the remaining pipe lying in the bottom of the tank.
 

staffordjas

Well-Known Forumite
I remember it was my job to light the fire when I got home from school. Then to get it going you would hold a newspaper over the fireplace to draw in air from the bottom grill. Many times the newspaper caught fire and even though I managed to avoid burning the house down, there was charred paper all over the place, necessitating a very panicky clean up job before my parents got home. :eek:
Aaaah, forgot all about holding paper over it to draw it up.
 
Top