Getting organised... Pre-Spring Cleaning

 Our garage has been a dump for years. In fact, I'd never been able to drive a car in it since it was built some 6 odd years ago. Until yesterday. 

I decided it was time to sort it out. I ordered an 8m3 skip bin last Thursday. It was delivered Friday and I took the day off to fill it. It was nearly full within the first 3 hours. 

It wasn't just the garage; we have a small garden shed that was stacked full of rubbish - its contents before I moved it last that had been flooded and become a rats nest. Sadly, they've been back into that shed and made more mess. Its contents are now all in the skip, and I'm debating what chemical I'm going to load into the pressure washer to spray down the inside walls to kill the smell.. before I pour in a layer of cement over the gravel to make their lives difficult. I need to move the lawn mower in there. Right now it's in the garage, and I'm sick of the smell.. and mess it makes. 

There was another area around the side of the house that I found a nest - and threw out most of that stuff. Some remains, but nothing a rat can climb to get into. 

Yesterday we took 3 car loads to the tip; a load of ewaste - mostly old UPS and server chassis, and two loads of well compressed cardboard. After that, I was able to get the car in. 

It's not yet perfect - there's more stuff to go, but I'm trying to hold off on another skip until the weather improves. I've got a few projects in the yard that I need to get back to when the sun is out more and that's going to generate more rubbish. 

Anyway, major objective achieved. 

Slightly more HAM related:

- I've ordered the QYT KP-WP12 finally. Hopefully it'll be here in a week or so. Looking forward to playing with it on the bench and programming it up. 

- I've also ordered a UHF behind dash mount from Pirate Camp Co - it's actually made for a GME XRS 330/Uniden 8060, but it's mounts use existing screws behind the current model Ford Ranger's glovebox. The radio itself will probably wind up getting cable tied to that. This position is also reasonably close to the nearest gap in the firewall to get the antenna cable through. 

- I ordered Pirate Camp Co's UHF mic mount for the Ranger as well. It fits in under the trim and uses existing screws to mount in, and comes out neatly.

I doubt that's going to just attach to this without some modification, but it's a start. 

I've also been working on rebuilding my battery box. My old 105AH AGM Deep Cycle is well past it, so I've ordered a 120AH LiFePO4 battery to go in its place. I've got a DC-DC charger mounted to the box that can handle charging from the vehicle or solar panels. It has ignition detection as well, so it's reasonably smart. The vehicle connection I'm going to use is a 3 pin Anderson plug. Easy enough to source, and I can use a 2 pin to feed a regular 12v power supply in if I need to charge at home or from a generator. I also decided that the old crappy battery monitor on the box isn't ideal, so I've ordered a KickAss battery monitor which has some smarts to it. I've done a bit of 3D printing in ABS for mounts, etc. They're a little brittle, but anyway. I've got 3 x 50A Anderson outlets setup, as well as a dual outlet USB/USB-C QC charger, and an Anderson Powerpole socket for more portable HF box. 

The box is close to completion - I've got a fuse box I want to put in to use in the power inputs but I'm waiting on some spade lugs of a suitable size to arrive.

Bathurst is coming up soon, so the box will get a pretty good run in. It's pretty ugly, but it should be functional enough. I'm hoping we can be ready to get some camping in once the Ranger arrives early next year. 

I otherwise really haven't done much else HAM related of late. Work has been quite consuming.