Week of 23rd October, 2017

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Monday, 23rd October

Comes this morning a text from Sarah. They're having their dining table delivered this afternoon, "between 3 and 4". Fine. I can be there to accept it.

But first: on Friday Jane was at Rainbows, when her phone rang. The number wasn't in her contacts list, and the phone wasn't co-operating. It wouldn't answer. Later she discovered that Sarah had been told about her new contact lenses, and remembered that she had ordered her own new lenses at the same time.

This suggests that the call was from the optician, to say that Jane's lenses were available. So i wandered down to the optician's shop (Jane being busy childminding) and discovered that the optician had indeed called. New disposable contact lenses available. So I collected, and paid for, them plus new bottles of cleaning solution. Collect a receipt for the health insurer (not a till receipt, such are not acceptable) and home.

After lunch I drove round to Sarah and Jenny's flat - early. And a good thing, too - the deliverymen  were 10 minutes early. The table is a refurbished gate-leg one, made by Ercol, a traditional furniture maker here in UK. Very good quality, and expensive - as witness the fact that a local furniture shop has the matching chairs at UKP200 each, on sale. No chairs with the table, so I don't know what plans Sarah has.

After that, I could visit a bank cash till, to get money, and then the local discount supermarket, for some goodies for Jane's childminding. And then home.

A successful day.

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Tuesday, 24th October

Today, Katy decided that she needs to use her bike - the one she bought in Holland during her mega driving holiday in Europe. To the best of my recollection, this will be the first time of using for at least a year, so I was instructed to ensure the tyres are inflated.

They were, albeit a bit soft. So I thought to use an electric tyre inflator to deal with that. I have two, one a stand-alone that plugs into a car cigarette lighter socket, and another built into a car jump-starter battery. The stand-alone is in store, exactly where is unknown (and unknowable for the forseeable future) to me, so I grabbed the jump-starter one. And the battery in that is completely discharged, and will not take a charge. It's dead, Jim. So that will go to the recycling centre. As will the other old battery pack, which is equally dead. But I need to get a rig power lead out of it before I recycle it. The current jump-starter needs a maintenance charge, so I set that up, and then went out to get some more Really Useful Boxes (the 9 litre size) for storage, and then to recycle the batteries.

I got the boxes, but the Recycling Centre, aka the Council Dump, was closed. So another visit is needed. And, of course, because of the draconian height restriction on entry, I have to unscrew the triband (6/2/70) antenna (all 5 feet of it!) before I get there.  And put it back on the car afterwards, of course.

Katy's bike tyres got inflated manually - thank $DEITY they were mostly inflated - using a standard hand pump. And Katy has taken the bike home with her. She'll be back tomorrow for an optician appointment - with the bike.

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Wednesday, 25th October

This morning I tracked down one of the effects of the RoCA (Return of Coppersmith's Attack) aka CVE-20127-15361 on me. The vulnerable library, by Infineon, is used in the Yubikey 4, and affects generation of RSA keys on the Yubikey. I don't use the Yubikey 4 as my primary key generator, that's the function of my Yubikey NEO, which is specifically stated to not be vulnerable. But the Yubikey 4, with firmware 4.2.6 to 4.3.4 inclusive, is vulnerable.

Yubico have a tool that will verify if you have a vulnerable version, and create a voucher for their webshop, so that you can obtain a replacement, fixed, version at no cost. But it only works if you haven't overwritten the credential in Slot 1. Which I have. So I raised a support ticket, which has just been acknowledged. We shall see what happens in the future. I don't anticipate problems.

Later: Comes now e-mail from Yubico, pointing me at the "manual verification" page on their site. This requires a photograph of the Yubikey

and manual entry of the serial number. I'm not afraid of posting this because I haven't actually used it, and will not. There's a replacement coming, free of charge, from Yubico, should be here in 5 working days or so. Not even postage to pay. So that's all well, or soon will be.

Then I grabbed the old 12 volt powerpack out of Ulysses' boot, and recovered the rig power cable from it. It occurred to me that I might be able to replace the battery, so I rummaged out some screwdrivers.

The screws are deeply recessed, and the only way I could get at them was with a dedicated PoziDriv #1 screwdriver - interchangeable tip screwdrivers do not fit. The socket that the interchangeable tip fits into is too big for the two inch deep hole. But even after removing all six screws I couldn't crack the case open - there's something preventing it splitting fully. So I gave up, and tried again to charge it, this time waiting for a few minutes before giving up.

The "Charging" light came on, so it seems the electronics inside aren't fried. But I'm only charging at 500mA, so it should take most of a day if the battery isn't shot.

Make that less than 6 hours, and the "Charged" light is on. That's not a good battery. Seems a pity to scrap the case and electronics, but if I can't open it to change the dead battery... The second jump-starter - the one with the air compressor, is probably in similar case, so it will be scrap time for that one, too.

Still, I've recovered the rig power cable - suitable for Yaesu mobile rigs, like the FT-8900, although I'm sure it was originally bought for the old FT-8000.

Talking of the FT-8900, I need to get a new licence code for the programming software, FTB8900, from Bob Freeth, G4HFQ. And it would be good to get a USB programming cable for that rig. Not to mention the FT-817, FT-857 and VX-8R. The FT-8x7 rigs use the same cable and software, so that's 3 licence codes at UKP10 each, and 3 programming cables at about $25 each (probably plus import taxes from the States) Most cables are Prolific PL2303-based, but FTDI-based would be better, so that would be Valley Enterprises in the States.

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Thursday, 26th October

Or maybe not. chirp can programme many rigs to some extent, including my Yaesu FT-8900, FT-817, FT-857, VX-8R and the Kenwood TH-D7, provided that you can get appropriate leads. Nowadays that means USB-to-a.n.other connector. For the FT-8900, the rig end of the cable is a minDIN 6 pin plug; for the FT-8x7 it's a miniDIN8 plug; the VX-8 takes a 6-pin proprietary cable socket, and the TH-D7 uses a double jack plug. All these are available - the VX-8 is the only difficult one, because expensive. The 8900 and the 817/857  cables I can get from Ham Goodies, maybe the TH-D7, too (iffen'n'providen a Baofeng cable works. Must ask) The VX-8 will probably have to come from the States, unless a UK Ham retailer stocks that specific piece of wet string.

In flat news, Sarah and Jenny are in the throes of moving all their traps to the new flat. Jenny wants to modify the raised planter she had me screw together a year or more ago, which means she needs more wood, preservative treated. So this afternoon we excursed to a local DIY shop to attempt to buy the necessary. Unsuccessfully. We'll try again tomorrow afternoon. Must get all this stuff moved over the weekend, since they have to put a professional cleaning firm in before the end of the month, because cats.

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Friday, 27th October

So let's have another try for the wood - different DIY shop, this time. But first, Jenny has decided, in her wisdom, to buy herself a Nintendo Switch - the newly-released version with 2 red Joycons. The version with 2 grey joycons is "boring", and she doesn't like the red and blue joycons. So a quick stop at the local gaming electronics shop, successfully. The wood purchase was successful, too.

And then down to the house, to pack up stuff. Jenny's friend Gemma (and her husband Chris) were there to help. The wooden planter needs to be split, to convert it into 2 narrower ones, so Chris had borrowed his neighbour's DeWalt battery-powered circular saw - which has a dying battery. It just managed to cut the 6 planks before dying completely. And even after that radical surgery, I could only get one half - at a time - into Nyree. Chris and Gemma's Vauxhall Astra had no chance.

But we managed to move lots of plant pots as well, so it's not all bad.

In the evening, it occurred to me to check whether the Draytek router software is up-to-date. Turns out it isn't - a new version was released in the middle of last month. So download the new version - 3.8.5_BT - and what the BT suffix means is unknown to me. The .zip file contains two software images, a .all file that updates the software, and a .rst file that resets the configuration to default, while doing the update. I used the .all file. There's a .pdf with release notes as well..

It all worked, but I couldn't stop the router resetting its DNS servers to BT's default, instead of using Google. I could convince the box to tell all its clients to offer Google DNS, though, and did. Although I may change that to OpenDNS at some point.

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Saturday, 28th October

There'll be more moving works today, which I may well be involved with. After the piano tuner has attended to work his magic.

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Sunday, 29th October

Hawker Typhoon Preservation Society Members' Day

No piano tuner yesterday. Boris had been involved with a piano move on Friday, and was still feeling the effects. He's not so young any more, all same me, so we rebooked for Tuesday morning, while Jane is doing the school run.

And now for the main item of the day - the Members' Day. But first, Summer Time ended overnight (Merkin: DST) so I had the pleasure of setting all the mechanical clocks back an hour. Plus my radio-controlled watch - MSF signals from Anthorn don't get into the house at all well. So invoke the radio setting manually, and leave it by a window.

All the clocks strike the hour and half-hour, so one cannot just turn the hands back willy-nilly. You'll break the strike mechanism if you do. So turn the hands back at about 20 past the hour, by 20 minutes, and repeat twice. Or at 10 to the hour, and repeat. Thus avoiding the mechanism arming itself to strike.

Then I could get moving. The AvMap GPS got itself confused when I tried to programme my destination in Uckfield, West Sussex, but I eventually got that resolved, and I drove round the M25, and then down the M23, before turning off onto smaller roads.

I arrived at about 12:10, comfortably after the WWII-veteran former Typhoon pilots had been assisted into the building. So I renewed my membership, and bought some schwag - including a velcro-backed project crest. That will go on the second Kombat Tactical Small Messenger bag. I wish more restoration projects did something similar.

Food nibbles and drinks were available, so I indulged, and then wandered around the facility, which is a leased industrial unit, used as storage and offices, to view the salvaged parts, including the entire rear fuselage, much deteriorated, of Hawker Typhoon RB396, which will lend its identity to the restored airframe.

There was also a mostly-complete Napier Sabre aero engine - standard fit in all Typhoons - and a cylinder block that was set up to show how the sleeve-valve Sabre worked. Fascinating - and complex.

It was also fascinating to talk to other members, and learn what they do.

Finally, the prize draws were held, and the festivities wrapped up.

The drive home was easier, because I discovered that it's more direct to use the A22, rather than the collection of side roads that the AvMap chose for me. Of course, this was late-afternoon Sunday, so the M25 was jam-packed. I turned off onto the A30 to avoid nose-to-tail traffic near Kingston, but it still took nearly 3 hours to do the 70-odd miles from Uckfield to home.

 
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