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I’ve never had the patience for printers. Over the years I’ve fixed various printers and never felt like it was as simple as it could have been, as a result for a long time I did not own a printer myself. However in recent years I’ve had more of a need for a printer - printing postage labels, boarding passes and my children have needed to print materials for school. Like it or not, I was going to need to buy a printer, but wanted to get something as reliable as possible....

In this post I’ll step through how to swap out the dated Ford Sync 2 for the much improved Sync 3 infotainment system on my MK3.5 Ford Focus in the UK! At the end of last year I picked up my 2015 Ford Focus ST-3. The infotainment system on it looked great on paper! It came with a 8″ Touch Screen Display, Satellite Navigation, Bluetooth Calls/Audio, Reverse Camera and a USB Audio Interface....

Okay, it’s been almost four months now that my imported Golf GTI has been on the road so I thought I best come back here and write a follow up to my initial blog post. If you haven’t read the original post – click here to check it out then come back! Leaving Japan Following on from my previous post, the car left the Kobe dock in Japan on the 16th February and was loaded onto the Hoegh Tokyo vessel....

I had a small job to do for someone in Bathgate today unrelated to radio and had been advised previously that the Cairnpapple summit was a very easy one, a short walk from the car. Stopping by to complete the activation was a no brainer, I was joined by Brian MM1HMZ for this activation. My first mistake was arriving there ahead of Brian and setting up the antenna at the wrong summit!...

This week I opted to activate the Ben Bowie summit, I had other commitments to take care of in the afternoon and it’s one that can be completed in a morning so it seemed like a good choice. I was again joined by Douglas MM7DCD for this activation – Doug planned to spend longer at the summit and camp the evening so I completed the return trip on my own. Again the walk was tracked on Strava if you’d like to see the route I took....

Looking at the map to select my next SOTA Summit I decided to go with the next closest to my home which is GM/SS-222 Duncolm. I was happy to do this walk with fellow club member Doug MM7DCD who lives nearby and knows the area very well. The weather most of the week and the night prior was miserable with the forecast looking pleasant for our walk, we struck lucky and had outstanding weather conditions....

I’ve recently completed some upgrades to my gravel bike and upon realising I’ve done little SOTA activity recently, thought I’d take the opportunity to attempt an activation at the next summit closest to me which is GM/SS-236 Corse Hill at Whitelee Windfarm. Having cycled 60 miles the day prior I decided to load the bike onto the car and start from the Visitor Center car park. There are alternative ways to get to the summit that are closer, but this suited me better and allowed me to put the bike through it’s paces following the changes....

Thanks for reading my first post relating to the Summits on the Air (SOTA) part of the amateur radio hobby. On Saturday 3rd June 2023 I activated my first SOTA Summit at Blaeloch Hill in Ayrshire. This post however relates to my second activation at GM/SS-155 Hill of Stake in Renfrewshire on Saturday 17th June 2023. For those less familar with SOTA – This is an aspect of the hobby that recognises summits throughout the world, if an operator can achieve four contacts at the top of a recognised summit they have activated it and are known as activators....

Garmin released a new feature within Garmin Connect this year called Expeditions. It allows you to complete certain exercises virtually, and of course badges are awarded with various points for those who are looking to level up their profile. Want to learn more? More details from Garmin here. Want to view the list of expeditions in order, read on. Expeditions in Order I’m personally keen to knock out each of these expeditions and would like to start from the smallest to the largest but Garmin Connect doesn’t allow you to view or sort the expeditions in this manner....

I’m writing this quick post following a request from users on Facebook and Reddit. I’m not the first to conduct this modification and take no credit, but hope publishing this information will be of use to others. If you have a Volkwagen Golf MK6 with the dual zone digital climate control as seen below in my “Before” photo, it is possible to swap this out for the Passat B7 unit which features digital screens....