You may love this thread but what about waffles?
I have a 1908 Griswold cast iron waffle iron (with base) that has a thing or two to say on the subject. Of course if you prefer pancakes, I have a Wagner Ware skillet set that is great in that department.
I donāt prefer Waffles or Pancakes. Well made they are both great.
I have pancakes far more frequently than waffles but will happily eat either.
But
It was a throw back to @Coma scarification
@Coma , how is the healing,
Thatās clearly a waffle muffin
this should be an album cover
As a Canadian who was taught both metric and imperial in school, and works with both, it means I am horrible with both.
At work all of our printers are Japanese, Datron CNC is German, casting machines Italian, so all of our tools are metric. 90% of our customers are American so our products are in inches. Our machinist is older so he only works in inches and I make him angry when he talks to me in thous, and I just look confused. I have to prepare all the files to run on those machines in metric but the artists work in inches for the customers, and ahhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Dammit America, switch to metric already!!
Going back to bare feet around a CNC, our machinist has had 3 splinters in his eyes and was able to pull out 2 himself. He has so many horror stories from his younger days, and working with newbies.
You might be the only person ever to think about a scarification when talking about pancakesā¦ well, now I might be the second personā¦ sigh. 
Healing is done, I guess - the only thing that might change during the next months will be the colour, as some parts are still red while others are already white. But other than that, I guess thatās the more-or-less final state of it (9 months old on that picture, Iām not sure if I already posted it hereā¦^^):
Still totally in love with it, and I donāt give a fuck about uneven lines at all
And a little update: I talked with Arnulf about further plans, and weāll definitiely do the arms. Heās a bit busy (well, he always isā¦^^), but he promised me to draw a nice design once he finds the time, and he said he already has some āgreat ideasā. Pretty curious on what he has on his mind 
He is laughing inside.
For my fellow hams on the forum, I did a fun project over the last few days.
I recently got two different SDRs. One is the HackRF One, and the other is the RTL-SDR. The RTL-SDR came as a kit with some nice antennas, and some projects only support the RTL-SDR, so it was definitely still worth getting. The HackRF is the much nicer one of the two though, and the price shows it.
I did a few different mods to the HackRF (soldered on EMI shielding for the amp circuit, installed an internal TCXO, and an aluminum enclosure is on the way), and Iāve been getting great results.
Iāve done a lot of the more basic things with it:
But, I decided I wanted to try pulling images from the NOAA weather satellites. Theyāre IR, and the signal is all analog.
I just used a V dipole type antenna (rabbit ears), horizontally. This is a good guide to this type of antenna. My RTL-SDR kit came with a telescoping dipole, so I was able to tune that for 137MHz.
My first few attempts didnāt go well. The first time I didnāt aim it correctly, and while I got a tiny bit of the signal (enough for a tiny bit of telemetry data), I didnāt get any usable picture data. The second time, my laptop unknowingly had 0 bytes free, and when I went to record, my SDR software crashed with no error message. It took me too long to figure out what was going on, and I missed the pass.
I had considered waiting and making a double cross antenna, which Iāll still likely do in the future, but I didnāt have any 50 ohm coax cable, and I couldnāt find anywhere to source it locally.
I found a good pass tonight from NOAA-18, and went for it. I tried attaching the antenna to a tripod, but I ended up having to just grab it and manually aim it by hand. I could recognize the sound of the encoded data, and I was able to track the satellite as it moved across the sky. As mentioned, itās analog, so thereās a lot of wiggle room. It doesnāt have to be perfect.
Hereās a video from when I was actually recording the satellite data.
I saved the audio as a WAV, resampled it at the needed rate for the decoding software (wxtoimg), and started to decode it. It worked fantastically
It also encodes a lot of other data, including sea/water temp data.
Some of these images have a map overlay. The satellite gives telemetry data, and the decoding software I use was then able to add a map overlay. It helps give perspective on the images. Itās not always a perfect line-up, but itās decent enough.
Hereās a few good ones as a teaser, Iāll throw the rest of the ones I decoded in a little expandy thing. Underneath some of the images Iāll put the same image, with the map outline.
You can see the great lakes 
Keep in mind, this was taken at 10:50pm, so the grayscale images are a bit dark.
These two are the sea temp images, which also show the temperature of the great lakes right now. You can see the atlantic in the right side.
These last 2 are both different types of thermal images.
Itās insane to me that these were all pulled LIVE from a passing satellite, with a few hundred dollars worth of equipment. Most people do it with the RTL-SDR, so it could be done for <$50, but the HackRF has a more powerful amp (plus itās better shielded, and Iām surrounded by EMI).
If anyone is interested, I can make a more thorough how-to type post as well. Itās pretty off-topic to the forum, but hoping thereās enough intersection that people will find it interesting.
Just heard today about an upgradable laptop. Thereās 4 swappable modules that seem decently large, that plug into USB 3.2 ports for power/data throughput. Iām wondering if any DIYers think it would be possible to squeeze a reader into one of the module ports? Not for personal use for us, just a curious cat asking
I preordered quite a few months ago, I think it should definitely be possible (think I might have posted about it in this thread ages and ages ago).
Theyāve already published the schematics for the expansion card format:
Think it would definitely be possible to make a reader similar to the WAVE ID Nano that Eriequiet reviewed a while back, or maybe even just print a shell for one of those, to make it fit nice and flush.
I definitely plan on making a few modules when I get mine.
Dammit I still need to send you that, it keeps getting moved to the odds and ends pile and burried
I feel like it probably wouldnāt work well for the laptop as it would need to project the field thru the deck of the laptop
Good ham project btw,
A bucket list goal is to hit the iss using a portable, possibly in back countryā¦ itās doable but takes finesse I donāt have yet lol
Ah, I had assumed the WAVE ID primarily coupled on the side/front, not the top.
Donāt sweat it haha
Iāve tried a few times, need to get a better antenna setup for my Baofeng. The thought of it makes me really anxious haha (talking on ham bands in general does), and itās hard to find info on their schedules (if theyāre awake or not). I believe only a few astronauts in particular tend to do ham stuff.
Would you be able to get better results with a Yagi antenna? I made a 2m one to try and track satellites ( with some success) I should revisit that when I have access to a drill press and a jig.
What software are you using to decode the images? And do you have to be outside to get a good capture?
Another consideration, is I think I might feel bad trying to ragchew someone NASA spent ungodly amounts of money to put in space, rather than let them do astronaut stuff
I think the yagi is all but required, I donāt think you have a chance with a omnidirectional antenna
Yagis donāt work well for NOAA satellites sadly, as theyāre circularly polarized. The ideal antennas are V-dipoles (what I used), double cross antennas, or a helical antenna. V-dipoles are the worst out of the three, but itās something that a lot of hams already have on-hand.
Regarding circular polarization, the same goes for the Meteor M2 satellite, which is my next target (itās digital, full color). Because itās digital, you have to use software called Orbitron to account for the doppler shift. No room for messing up like with NOAA. NOAA satellites use analog APT encoding, with lots of wiggle room for signal loss.
Double cross antennas are dead easy to homebrew, I plan on doing that once I get some 50 ohm coax. Basically just need some wood or PVC, some coat hangers, and some 50 ohm coax.
Another problem is height. I live in the city, so Iām surrounded by houses and trees. You need pretty decent line of sight, with few obstructions (I managed to receive through trees, but thatās about it). For that reason, you for sure canāt do it inside sadly.
Also, Iāll combine replies here:
Understandable, and I agree to an extent
100%. Iāve heard apocryphal stories of people managing it with omnidirectional antennas, even the stock baofeng ones, but itās going to be nearly impossible practically.
I need to make a homemade yagi as some point, but rn Iām focused on pulling weather satellite data hopefully Iāll have enough coax left over to make a yagi, too.
Forgot to answer this:
wxtoimg, specifically wxtoimg-beta aka wxtoimg (revisited). Itās got a good feature set, and works well on linux. First I have to use audacity though, as wxtoimg only excepts 11025Hz files. So, I have to resample the audio, and export it back out.
For actual recording, Iām using gqrx. Itās the only decent linux SDR for listening, and itās easy to have it spit out a .wav.
Mentioning the wave ID nano has reminded me, I really want to figure out if I can somehow setup their software to pull payload instead of UID, but I openly admit Iām not good with software on the level thatās required for this communities projects
Not that it should be a mystery but I want payload instead of UID so that I can program something Alpha numeric with symbolsā¦ the uid it spits out isnāt secure enough for most things
Also if you read it accidentally in the wrong window or something you have the potential to reveal your uid, which isnāt changeable
Just to show how absolutely bizarre magnetic coupling can beā¦ my MacBook Air is acting like a booster antennaā¦
some people go toofarā¦
