Em_Wintle

Em_Wintle

Hi! I’m Em, a friendly 60-year-old retired nerd. I’m a full-time (10-12 hour days) student, but it’s self-study–mostly electrical engineering. I research and build antennas, then 3d printing my designs. I constantly fill notebooks with dense scribble and diagrams

I had a 35-year career as a network engineer. Now I follow my ADD whims. Last year, I enjoyed TinyGS, but then I ran out of things to do with it. I built 3 ground stations and 1 is still running (I took the MCUs from the other 2 for new projects). TinyGS gave me a toe into LoRa and I’m obsessing on it. I’m prototyping designs for a town-wide network of stealth nodes (and long-distance relays) for MeshCore and Meshtastic. Ask Me About Link Budgets!™

I programmed in many different imperative and procedural languages (including assembly and machine code) in the 80s, but not modern OOP. I spent months trying to use C++ and Swift, but it does’t come naturally. At this point I stick to C++ in the Arduino IDE. I might try CircuitPython / MicroPython. I was trying out various H2O testing sensors (my 125 year old apartment’s water failed) until the LoRa “bug” bit me.

Like many MCU enthusiasts, I started with a Raspberry Pi, Arduino, then ESP32. I like the Heltec V4, but most of my projects require the minimum size possible for the electronic components, as well as a tight power budget. Seeed’s XIAO RF-52840 with SX-1262 is now at the center of most of my designs. I’m eager for the nRF-54 series to be sufficiently supported.

Previously I lived on the road full-time on my motorcycle with no home. Last year I wandered into the little tourist town of Eureka Springs, Arkansas. I loved it so much, I rented an apartment and began building a new lab (and life) from scratch.

Other past adventures in resume style: