Diego Valcarce's website

Intensidad de la señal TETRA en A Coruña

Sun, 03 Aug 2025 09:11:00 +0200

TETRA (del inglés Trans European Trunked RAdio) es un estándar definido por el Instituto Europeo de Normas de Telecomunicaciones. Este patrón define un sistema móvil digital de radio y nace por decisión de la Unión Europea con el objeto de unificar diversas alternativas de interfaces de radio digitales para la comunicación entre los profesionales de los sectores mencionados más abajo. (wikipedia)

My New Homelab

Sat, 01 Feb 2025 19:44:34 +0100

I am cheap, but homelabing is way cheaper than the cloud and I need computer resources for some of my projects, so I come across of some bargains that I could not let pass, here is a photo of my current rack (yet under construction):

As of the time of writing, the homelab consists in:

A 42U IBM Rack (9307-4SX), built in 2005, I have got it for €150 from SERGAS (Galician public healthcare).
A SAI I got for free from the recycling bin, I only needed to change the batteries, which were completely dead (0.2V).
One server (S1) with a Asrock E3C236D4M-4L motherboard paired with a Intel Xeon E3-1280 v5 for a total cost of €126.

	Price (€)
Rack enclosure	150
Server 01	126
UPS	Free
HP switch	Free
Total	276

I will try to keep the post updated as I progress with it, currently I am working in having both electricity and internet where I have installed the rack (a basement).

Fearless to get hands dirty: the most valuable skill ever

Thu, 16 Mar 2023 08:35:38 +0100

Most people in love with the old Thinkpads era say that today’s computers are built in a way that make them impossible to self-repair, and for that matter there have been newborn companies that try to solve this problem (for example, framework laptops). However, I completely disagree over this fact, as it is not a matter of being impossible, but just harder. It is true that there are companies that try to make it impossible (I am looking to you, Apple) by requiring you to buy specific tools, but it is not the general behaviour.

Xiaomi Unlock: solve SMS not sending error

Mon, 20 Feb 2023 17:09:34 +0100

The first thing you should do after buying a new Android phone, is to unlock the bootloader, as it may take some time to accomplish it and may be easier while it is a new newer phone (more support). The problem starts when there are companies like Xiaomi that do not want you to unlock your device; in this case, to unlock a Xiaomi device, you need a SIM card, a phone number and an account with them and after requesting the unlock, you my have to wait around 30 days. The worst part is that the Xiaomi unlock utility, requires you to verify your phone number through SMS but THEY WILL NOT SEND YOU ANY SMS! (see examples in the XDA forum or the Xiaomi Forum.

About

Mon, 30 Jan 2023 14:12:15 +0100

As you may imagine, my name is Diego Valcarce, I am a “data engineer”, but I also do a lot of stuff totally uncorrelated. At the moment of writing I live in a medium sized city in Spain, called A Coruña, a city I really love and that has a lot of things that makes it really special, for example:

It has the oldest, yet running lighthouse in the world, the “Torre de Hércules”. It has just around two thousand years.
We also have the longest see walk in Europe, with nothing but 12 km.
Probably the best looking portrait of the city are the “Galerías”:
Is home to some of the biggest companies in the world, or at least in Spain, such as Inditex, and also the home to one of the oldest banks in Europe (Abanca).

# `whoami`

As for myself, I am interested mainly in computers and I recently discovered my joy for electronics. I know a bit about databases and linux and like developing software, mainly at low level, but I work with whatever you throw at me. Currently, I am the VP of Engineering in a company called Innogando SL (titulitis, but I work my ass off) as a bit of everything, from firmware to data analysis. You can find a bit more of my work experience at the logs of my life.