Allsky: cooling my Raspberry Pi

The Pi 4 can get very hot.

When it does, it throttles the cpu.

So I've been working on a solution.

Our Leafcutter Bee Larvae

The summer is now behind us

so its time to empty our solitary bee box

and save the larvae in a safe place.

AllSky: new box, dark frames & other tweaks

When conditions allow, I've been having fun with Allsky.

What started because of a meteor shower, has become a wider interest in things in the night sky.

And I've been tidying & tweaking my system.

Hot-Bin Composting

We are now proud owners of a hot-bin composter.

I didn't know anything about this a few weeks ago.

But I'm now a bit of a hot-compost fundi.

AllSky: taking pictures of the night sky

I'd heard that a meteor shower was on its way

so I rushed around and built a camera system.

Bee Box: the leaf cutters have arrived!

It was quite a surprise!

We came back after a long weekend to find 2 chambers occupied.

My Smart TV has a problem with JPEGs

It will load & display some, but not all images.

Which is not great when we are trying to show-off our holiday snaps!

Pi-Hole; network ad blocker

Adverts can bog you down.

 

They slow down the loading of web pages, especially on modest machines.

So its high time I setup a network ad-blocker!

OpenWRT + Plusnet Hub One: #4 the verdict

It's not for me!

It has been an interesting project, but I have had to ditch the OpenWRT software.

BirdNet-Pi: upgrading the drive

Time to replace the uSD drive for a larger USB drive.

 

This is not rocket science...

...but once again, due to my poor memory, I need to record the procedure.

BirdNet-Pi: Species Stats

We are well into the 2024 BirdBox season.

 

Last year, blue tits made use of our new woodcrete bird box...

...but this year the great tits are having a turn.

whoBIRD: running in Costa Rica

Costa Rica has around 900 species of birds!

It is possibly the most bio-diverse country in the world.

So where better to take a bird call id application like whoBIRD which stores all detections in a readable database?

The Hacker RP33 "Autocrat": refurb time

The Hacker brothers were great engineers.

But along the way, they built great equipment, and lost 2 companies.

Seems like the best route to success is to sell rubbish!

OpenWRT + Plusnet Hub One: #3 software install & basic config

Installing the OpenWRT software should have been easy.

I don't think it was all my fault that it wasn't.

OpenWRT + Plusnet Hub One: #2 hardware mods

The router needs wires soldered to the board.

Sounds easy!

OpenWRT + Plusnet Hub One: #1 my wifi layout

I've been trying to improve our home wifi

So I've embarked on a journey with open source modem/router software

BirdNet-Pi Portable Vs whoBird

Which one should I take with me the next time I'm away from home?

Its Bee Box Time!

Yep, February has rolled around once again.

Let's get those bee boxes out there, ready for a new season.

BirdNet-Pi Portable: chart info mods

My BirdNet-Pi Portable system gets taken to places away from home!

So its important that the daily records are properly labeled.

BirdNet-Pi: more thoughts on microphones & audio

There's a lot of talk on the Github Discussions page about microphone quality.

So naturally I have been giving the matter some consideration and have conducted a few simple checks.

KitchenPi: goodbye BBC Radio 4

Things are changing at the BBC

 

...but not necessarily for the better.