Since the repairs on the Trailblazer left me broke, I’ve spent the last few days catching on up on some little stuff that wasn’t really interesting enough to do pictures for. Maybe notable is that I potted seeds for jalapenos, tomatoes, and peas with the intention of moving them into the garden when they grow enough.

I also got bored late last night, and fixed up my grandma’s old and slow forsaken computer. It’s now an Ubuntu machine, dedicated entirely to programming my Arduino and learning Python. Plus it makes my desk look that much cooler.

Probably the only real project I did so far this weekend was to make my bicycle rides infinitely more nerdy. I have a couple of Baofeng HTs (small, handheld ham radios for the 2m/70cm bands), and decided to dedicate one to the bike. But I wasn’t satisfied with the duck antenna on it, oh no. Had to go dig out my old magnamount, and modify a cheap seat rack. Here’s how it went.





I already had a cheap cell phone mount that I thought I’d use way more, since I track my rides on Strava using my phone. Don’t get me wrong, it holds the phone snug with no danger of dropping it as far as I can tell, but I’m still paranoid about splashing mud or whatever on it, so the phone rides in my pocket. Figured the Baofeng UV-5RA would fit on it just fine.

It’s pretty secure. Plus once the adapter comes so I can slap the magnamount antenna on there, that will shimmy up against the braces, adding more stability.

I started with a cheapo Schwinn seat-mounted rack. You can get these at pretty much any sports department store or Meijer for less than $20. I also needed a flat piece of metal for the magnamount antenna to stick to, and happened to have part of the case of an old cd burner that I ripped the laser out of a few days ago (because laser). I’m not expecting it to act as much of a ground plane for the antenna, but if it does, hooray.

I don’t have the proper tools at my house to cut the metal plate without mangling the edges, so I decided screws would do. Also, even though the edges of that plate are machine cut, they’re still sharp and pointy, so I buffered them a bit with hockey tape. One less thing I have to worry about slicing me open if I take a nasty spill on the bike.

Had to dig through my brother’s insane collection of screws, nuts and bolts, but managed to find four machine screws and 10mm bolts that fit on them perfectly.

Since there was still a little give between the metal plate and the center of the plastic rack, I had to be careful when tightening to not let the plate get unevenly concave, or I would run into problems with the flat bottom of the magnamount antenna seating properly.

Slip the mounting bar back in to place, rack on, moved my tail light, and I was good to go. The magnamount on the back there has about 20’ of wire I had to deal with, most of which got ziptied into a bundle that sits inside the saddle bag. The rest is wrapped strategically around the frame of the bike (remember, wires hate 90 degree angles), and heads up to the front to attach to the radio. I put the duck antenna back on for the test drive, and everything feels nice and secure. Now it’s just a matter of waiting for the adapter to show up on Tuesday.

I was going to take a ride, but the angry storm approaching my area was having none of it. Oh well. The rest of this evening will be spend studying C and the new Arduino book I got. The old one is great, but I needed something a bit more advanced, as I’ve learned all I can from it.

Have a good weekend!