Posts

Posted on

Bringing an Old Test Receiver Back to Life

It was Tuesday Open Night at TOG, and once again there was an interesting bit of equipment sitting on the electronics bench.

This time it was a Rohde & Schwarz ESH 3 test receiver, part of a recent donation from Testwall. It covers frequencies from 9 kHz to 30 MHz and was designed as a serious piece of test equipment rather than an ordinary radio receiver.

As you may know, TOG also has an amateur radio club, with the callsign EI0TOG. A radio receiver like this is complete overkill for simply listening to amateur radio, which naturally meant that it caught our attention.

We did what any group of makers would do: we took it apart.

After plenty of poking around, checking voltages and trying to understand the collection of boards inside, we found a few blown fuses, some jammed buttons and a wire from the power supply that appeared to be stopping the unit from turning on when it was plugged in.

We disconnected the troublesome wire, replaced the fuses and tried powering it up again.

There was no magic smoke. Instead, we had lights!

It is not completely repaired yet. The receiver still displays an error message when it starts and is unhappy about some of its calibration settings. That did not stop us from wanting to find out whether it could receive anything.

We connected a length of wire as a very makeshift indoor antenna and tuned to the 40-metre amateur radio band, around 7 MHz. At first, we were not hearing very much. That was hardly surprising given our poor antenna, its position inside the building and all the electrical noise around the space.

Then a station from Italy came booming through the speaker. They must have been putting out a good signal to overcome our antenna arrangement and all the other things working against us.

After a little more experimenting with the front panel, we figured out enough of the interface to select single-sideband reception and tune around properly. Despite its remaining faults, this old piece of test equipment was receiving amateur radio again.

It was a great example of repair and of bringing something back to life rather than simply throwing it away.

We would still like to understand what the ESH 3 was originally used for and how to operate all of its test and measurement functions properly. Does anyone remember using one of these when it first came out, or know their way around this kind of equipment?

Even if we never manage to use every specialised feature, the amateur radio enthusiasts at TOG will find some use for it. Who knows, with a proper HF antenna connected, it might even become genuinely useful.

Posted on

The Rehome Shelf

Across the different TOG spaces, we have always had some form of shelf where unwanted items could find a new home.

Back in 2014, we wrote about our Two Shelves system. Items left around the space were placed on the shelves, where they could be collected by their owners, picked up for a new project or eventually cleared out.

The shelves have changed over the years as TOG has moved from one building to another. In our current space, the idea has a new name but the same great feeling behind it. It is now called the Rehome Shelf.

The idea is simple. If you see something on the shelf that you could use, take it away and give it a new home. You might find a book, a cable, an electronic component, a tool, a toy or the missing part for your next project.

Members can also leave useful and interesting items on the shelf for someone else. Something that is no longer useful to one person could be exactly what another person needs.

The shelf now has a new sign, and even the sign has been rehomed. It started life as another sign that someone was looking to dispose of. With a little paint, some design work and a trip through our laser cutter, it has been given a new life as the sign for the Rehome Shelf.

It is a small example of what the shelf is all about. We want useful items to stay in use for as long as possible instead of ending up in landfill. Sometimes an old item only needs the right person, a new idea or a little bit of work to become useful again.

The next time you are in TOG, have a look at the Rehome Shelf. You never know what you might find.

Take what you like, or leave something interesting.

Posted on

New Equipment Supporting Our Community Events at TOG

Over the past few weeks, we have been putting some new equipment into use around TOG thanks to support from the Local Enhancement Programme 2026.

The programme supports community and voluntary organisations with capital equipment that helps strengthen local community activity. In Dublin, it is funded by the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, through the Dublin City Local Community Development Committee (LCDC) and Dublin City Council.

For us, the aim was fairly simple: make our public nights, workshops and community events safer, better organised and easier for our volunteers to run.

Already being put to use

Some of the most visible additions are our new outdoor event gazebos.

They did not have to wait very long for their first outing. We used both of them during our recent Forging History – Metalworking and the 1798 & 1803 Uprisings event for National Heritage Week.

The day brought heritage blacksmith Fínín Líam Christie to TOG for a day of traditional forge work, hands-on participation and demonstrations exploring the skills associated with the United Irishmen, the 1798 Rebellion and Robert Emmet’s 1803 Rising. The gazebos gave us a much more useful covered outdoor area around the forge and remained in use for our Open Social Night afterwards.

That is exactly the sort of thing we hoped this funding would allow us to do. Rather than equipment for a single event, these are things we can bring out again and again for our monthly socials, workshops and other public activities.

Making the space safer and easier to use

We have also installed new Safety & Wellbeing equipment around the space, including new first aid and emergency burn kits.

Alongside this, we have added equipment to help with temporary power and trip hazards during events, better signage and equipment for managing our outdoor area.

They may not be the most exciting things in a hackerspace, but they make a real difference when you are welcoming groups of people into a busy workshop and trying to run events safely.

We have also added new waste separation bins for paper, plastics and general waste. Our social nights can involve quite a few people, and usually quite a lot of pizza, so making it clearer and easier for everyone to separate waste was another practical improvement we wanted to make.

Supporting an open community space

TOG hosts three public access nights each week as well as workshops, talks, community events and our monthly Open Social Night. These are opportunities for people to visit the space, meet others, learn new skills and get involved without needing to be a member.

The equipment funded through the Local Enhancement Programme will be used across all of these activities for years to come. It helps us provide a space that is safer and better organised while giving us more options for bringing activities outdoors and welcoming larger groups.

This fits closely with Goal 4 of the Dublin City Local Economic and Community Plan 2024–2029, which aims to foster communities that are “more sustainable, thriving, safe, caring, welcoming and inclusive.”

A big thank you to the Department of Rural and Community Development and the Gaeltacht, the Dublin City Local Community Development Committee, and Dublin City Council for supporting TOG through the Local Enhancement Programme 2026.

We are already making good use of the new equipment, and you can expect to see plenty more of it at TOG events over the coming years.

Posted on

All Island Maker Mobility Heads to ShipItCon

The next stop for our All Island Maker Mobility: Connecting Communities Through Making project is ShipItCon in Dublin on 4 September 2026.

We’ll be there with our friends from Farset Labs, sharing a table and talking to the wider tech community about what happens inside community-run spaces like Tog and Farset.

The event comes just after our recent Farset Maker-in-Residence week at Tog, where our members had a chance to spend proper time together, work on projects, take part in Tog activities, and finish the week at Dublin Maker. ShipItCon gives us a chance to build on that momentum and keep those connections growing.

At our shared table, we’ll be showing some of what our communities get up to and talking about the All Island Maker Mobility project. If you’ve ever wondered what happens in a hackerspace or makerspace, come over and say hello.

You can find out more about the event at shipitcon.com.

All Island Maker Mobility is a collaboration between Tog Hackerspace in Dublin and Farset Labs in Belfast, supported by the Shared Island Civic Society Fund through the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

We’re very grateful for that support, which is helping our two communities build stronger North-South links through making, learning and shared projects.

Posted on

The Power of Repair Cafés – Jeffrey Roe on Book of Leaves

Our member Jeffrey Roe recently joined the Book of Leaves podcast to talk about Repair Cafés, TOG and the wider culture of repair.

The conversation covers TOG’s experience running Repair Cafés, some of the unusual things that have come in for repair, our Repair Café in a Box project, Dublin Maker, and why sharing practical repair skills is so important.

Repair Cafés are about more than fixing broken objects. They are also a chance to learn, share knowledge and give people the confidence to have a go at repairing things themselves.

Thanks to Book of Leaves for having Jeffrey on and giving us the chance to talk about the repair community at TOG.

You can listen to the episode here:

Posted on

VR Airsoft Controllers – Talk, Demo and Hands-On Session at TOG

On Saturday, 29 August, TOG Hackerspace will host an afternoon exploring custom-built VR Airsoft controllers.

The project comes from the creator behind the VR-Firearms YouTube channel, who has been developing physical airsoft-style controllers for use in virtual reality.

During the afternoon, there will be a short talk about how the project was developed, a demonstration of the controllers in action, and an opportunity for attendees to try them out for themselves.

Building Custom Hardware for VR

Most consumer VR systems rely on the controllers supplied with the headset, but there is plenty of scope for experimentation when you start designing hardware for a particular experience.

The VR-Firearms project explores how physical airsoft-style controllers can be integrated into virtual reality, combining VR hardware development, controller design and custom physical interfaces.

We’ll get a look at how the controllers work, some of the development challenges involved and how the physical hardware is integrated into the VR environment.

Following the talk and demonstration, attendees will have an opportunity to try the setup and see how the controllers feel in use.

There will also be plenty of time for questions and discussion about the project.

If you’re interested in virtual reality, electronics, hardware hacking, controller design, game development or unusual human-computer interfaces, come along and take a look.

You can see more of the project on the VR-Firearms YouTube channel.

Event Details

VR Airsoft Controllers – Talk, Demo and Hands-On Session

📅 Saturday, 29 August 2026
🕒 3:00 pm – 5:30 pm
📍 TOG Hackerspace

The afternoon will include:

  • A short talk on the development of the VR Airsoft controller project
  • A look at the custom hardware and controller design
  • A live VR demonstration
  • An opportunity to try the controllers
  • Questions and discussion

Places will be limited to approximately 20 people.

Tickets are free, with an optional donation to support TOG Hackerspace.

🎟️ Book your place:

https://www.eventbrite.ie/e/vr-airsoft-controllers-talk-demo-and-hands-on-session-at-tog-tickets-1997956368281?aff=oddtdtcreator

Whether you already work with VR or are simply curious about what happens when you start building your own physical interfaces for virtual worlds, come along and give it a try.