First my free time just took another hit as the XYL's medical condition is somewhat more tenuous. Thus, radio stuff is taking a backseat to my primary family commitments. In that scaling back I will no longer be a regular on the SolderSmoke Podcast. That was a fun ride for almost 1oo sessions. But Bill and Dean will easily fill in the very small hole that my leaving created.
Another scaling back is the N6QW Help Line. Just the other day, I had a request to provide information on those "white connectors" seen frequently in my projects. I have found that just telling the requester they are Molex, 0.1 inch spacing usually results in two or more emails like "who sells them". So, I went to the supplier and copied the link and embedded it in the return email. Then there are the frequent "send me the code emails" which prompts several more emails trying to find out which code. So, up front I will no longer respond to those kinds of requests as I don't have the time.
In hindsight I had to do the research to find products or learn how to code and if you are a homebrewer, you should be willing to do the same up-front work. The Help Line is closed!
Relative to the blog, I will continue to post stuff, but that will be less frequently and likely very little about specific projects.
Now a few words about a terrible experience I had with Internet Service Providers. I left Frontier as it was clear I was being robbed and paying (overpaying) for basic services. Since I use T Mobile for my wireless carrier and some recent upgrades to their cell service was a godsend during the four power outages I chose them for the home internet service.
I took two days and 10 lengthy calls to the Philippine's to get to a point where it is now operational. It shouldn't be that hard! The 1st issue is that you are forced to use an application called T Life which was just issued in 2024 and is still in Beta Testing. I literally got 10 different answers on how to fix the problem.
Believe it or not three of those calls were about being digitally locked out of the app which required a back-end group to resolve. One of the first steps you are advised to take is to implement the Biometrics function on your smart phone. I did that and the next step was to create an account with a password. I was unable to add a password as the save key was greyed out. A call to the Philippines and a cute sounding YL. I will help she said. To set up the password it must be more than just a few characters and contain 1 letter and 1 number. After 30 minutes with no success of saving, the YL says let's place you on brief hold. She comes back and says did you use Biometrics and I said yes. Well, she says skip the password. Nowhere in the instructions does it say that.
So, to be smart I asked her to send me the set-up instructions that come with the Gateway. She did that but also said detailed instructions are in the Gateway shipping box. When I got the instructions sent by email, yes, it was for the old application before T Life and would not work. In the shipping box was a pink colored small brochure which said easy setup instructions -- go to the play store and download the T Life application.
Then there are the links to customer setup videos. I picked the one with the cute blond in her yoga outfit. The video shows her unboxing it, plugging the unit and then she takes a photo and shows a message "Installed". There is no information on the actual set up steps. Most of the other videos are of the same ilk.
Finally, the 10th person fixed the issue. I knew this would be successful when he told me he is a customer and T Life is in Beta Testing, and he personally had some of the same issues. The problem was even though I was connected to the Internet the app keeps telling me I am not. His solution was to delete the app and start over and one block that needed an input was the administrative password not the system password. No one previously asked or mentioned that password. Boom I now can see I am connected to the internet on the T Life app. It should not be this hard and the lack of a written step by step process is the key. T Mobile would rather hire more help desk people rather than fix the problems with the app.
73's
Pete N6QW