Shack computer update

The shack computer's replacement internal components should be arriving at some stage tomorrow, which I rescheduled, however I could have kept it today had I known I'd be stuck in the house today due to ill health.

Sadly however the conversion board for the hard disk has not surfaced, in fact it has not been marked as dispatched, so what I will have to end up doing is using a spare drive I have lying around that is unreliable until the part I need arrives, it does have a suitable version of Windows 7 on it but as the drive is starting to fail (though it does appear to boot) I have little faith in it working properly, it will be fine a stop-gap until the adaptor for the more reliable drive already in the system arrives

Edit: 9:20pm: Maplin have just marked the adaptor to convert the existing Western Digital WD800BB hard disk to work with the SATA ports on the new motherboard as despatched, it will be arriving via normal post and should be small enough to fit through my letterbox so I do not need to be home, if it arrives tomorrow (unlikely but it is possible they sent it but did not mark it as despatched until later) then I will be good, however I suspect it will not arrive here until Thursday or Friday, the computer rebuild will continue as planned regardless of the arrival of the part, the other hard drive being used as a stop-gap.

Judging by the state of my health, I may not be making it out tomorrow either unless I absolutely have to, but with the parts arriving then I won't go mad and will have a better computer in the shack and be able to spend my time there, though I may be fit to leave the house, I also hope that I am not waiting around for the delivery because that is something I seriously dislike.

What will happen is something like as follows

• Prior to the parts arriving the PMR446 gateway will be shut down and removed, it is on top of the shack computer and it's previous case, the radio will remain in situ, the empty case will also be removed and the shack computer will be unplugged and disassembled.
• The entire existing innards of the shack computer except the power supply, DVD drive, and hard drive will be removed from the computer and an assessment of the inside of the case made, original RAM from the shack computer will be removed from the original motherboard and set aside for the PMR446 gateway computer as it would act as a suitable replacement, the CMI8738 sound card from the shack computer will be retained
• The shack computer will then be rebuilt, put into place before the other systems, and configured headless, due to a lack of optical drive (it's incompatible with the new board without the same £12 adaptor the hard drive is due) the drivers will be moved to a flash drive and installed from it.
• Once configured the empty case will be placed on top of it, following this the RAM from the old board will be installed in the PMR446 gateway computer, hopefully improving performance.

And that should be it, I will, of course, have to remove everything again when the adaptor arrives, my SDR will then perform as it should do, the FRN will work nicely, so will Zello, the ShackCam feed, and whatever else I may need, I'll obviously have to clear everything else off the temporary hard disk first before connecting the network as it's horrifically out of date not being in a live system for some time,

Next to come will be the President Grant 2 all being well (as well as all the things I need for my DXpedition to Tan Hill).

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