I have a couple of computers that I use for various purposes. One is my general computer for office and financial work. The others are various laptops that I either bought or acquired. Almost all my computers, including the ones for my wife and daughter, have i7 processors. My argument is that more CPU power means the likelihood of extending the lifetime of the computer.

The computer below changed my thinking. I have a Dell Inspiron 1545 that I bought my mother in-law in 2010 or so. It has 3 GB of memory and a 128GB disc drive and an icore duo processor. I use it for packet radio running direwolf and BPQ32. I also have wine and VARA installed. Its amazing how well it works. After the last lubuntu upgrade, the express card with two USB 3.0 ports stopped working, or so I thought. I quickly looked around for a replacement focusing on the low end of the market. I ordered the PC below, a super compact N100 12th generation processor. With 512 GB disc and 16 GB of DDR4 memory from AliExpress for ~$100, I assumed it would easily replace the Inspiron. Turns out that this little computer is much more capable than I thought. It arrived with Windows 11 Pro and so far it out performs my old Dell XPS 9343.

I don’t do much with graphics so that was never a concern, but I run all my favorite apps including WSJT-X, VARA, Winlink, and FLDigi. Yesterday, I was trying to set up CQRLOG for remote use, and decided to try to install WSL2 and CQRLOG on this mini-computer. To my surprise, it runs as well as my other systems.

So this little N100 system does everything I need. If I truly need raw processing power, I run the app on my i7 6 core 12th generation computer. For the most part, that is not needed.

My wife has an older MacBook air that is reaching its end of life. The reality is that she mostly uses it to connect to cloud computer for work. The Mac is showing its age. 4 years ago I replaced the battery because it was bulging under the keyboard, and it looks like it is do it again. I was thinking, time for a new MacBook, but my wife is fluent in Windows spending most of her time in the cloud on Windows 10. This little PC would probably do everything she needs. The graphics are good enough to run anything Revit demands through the cloud.

But back to ham radio of this mini PC. My next step is to install the ICOM remote software and see if I can comfortably run it on this PC. If it works, I may buy another just for that purpose. I run the PC with a 15.6″ monitor that I bought from Amazon for under $100. My shack right now is the dining room table, so the small footprint is important.

Once I get remote operation of the ICOM 7300 working, I will post here.

My dining room computer setup.