I’ve had a need to set up and run a Matrix homeserver and I wanted to try to set it up for general use as well as just for this project.
The one thing I wanted to do that is a little non-standard is to use the “plain” domain for my user ID while hosting the homeserver on a subdomain. In this case I wanted to use “irl.xyz” as the user ID domain, and “syn.irl.xyz” to host the Synapse homeserver.
I’ve been wanting to document my portable radio setup for a while, so finally here is that blog post. This is a QRP setup, intended primarily for digimodes on HF.
HF antenna set up on Elrick Hill, Aberdeen
First I want to talk about the antenna setup. Pictured above is the antenna set up on Elrick Hill in Aberdeen. I walked straight up the hill last weekend with the kit and had the antenna up in under 10 minutes. The lower guy ropes can be put in without assistance as they are short enough to be able to hold the mast while you push the pegs in. If it had been windier I’d have done those and then I have a second set of guy ropes that go half way between those and the top.
Now that lockdown is lifting a bit in Scotland, I’ve been going a bit further for exercise. One location I’ve been to a few times is Tyrebagger Woods. In theory, I can walk here from my house via Brimmond Hill although I’m not yet fit enough to do that in one go.
Instead of following the main path, I took a detour along some route that looked like it wanted to be a path but it hadn’t been maintained for a while. When I decided I’d had enough of this, I looked for a way back to the main path but OpenStreetMap didn’t seem to have the footpaths mapped out here yet.