Monthly Archives: August 2006

Computing, Fon, Tramore, wifi

FON in Tramore

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I ordered a FON router a few weeks ago, it arrived last week but I really only got a chance to set it up last night. It’s sitting in my attic, nestled in beside my Star-Os router. At the moment I have no idea yet what kind of coverage it gives, but I’m planning to add a Panel Antenna to it and point it down towards the Church.

Roof View

I’ll try and get to walk around the area with a PDA over the next few days, to see what kind of coverage area it has.

Last year, at various times, I ‘opened up’ the star-os router I have for a few days at a time. This got lots of anonymous connections, including a few that my neighbour took exception to and chased away. Hopefully he won’t mind this time 🙂

Amateur Radio

SSTV from the Space Station

“An innovative space transmission system built by volunteers has started sending down pictures from the international space station to the whole wide world via amateur radio. Thanks to SpaceCam1, anyone with a police scanner or a suitable radio rig, plus a computer and the appropriate software, should be able to receive pictures from orbit, the project’s organizers say.”

The full article is here.

This is great PR for the hobby. Well done to all concerned. I really should get off my ass and receive a picture or two. PCSAT2 will be returning back to Earth soon, so my equipment will no longer acting as a downlink station, and free to be used for something else. Maybe I’ll get around to it then.

Amateur Radio, Mapping

New APRS Digipeater

I’ve been testing two prototype Opentrackers from Scott N1VG for a while. I received cases for them the other day (seen below on top of my 2m Yaesu FT-1500M)

Opentracker 2

so it is now destined for the shack of Tommy, EI2IT. Hopefully it will cover a black spot around Cahir/Clonmel for members the Tipperary Amateur Radio Group. A predicted coverage map (generated with Splat is shown below.

ei7t-coverage.jpg

General

Seefin (Suí Finn)

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Yesterday afternoon I persuaded my wife and Sister in Law that a walk in the hills would be good for them (they may not be agreeing with me today), anyways, yesterday afternoon we headed for Lemybrien, and then into the Monavullagh Mountains, the goal, the cairn on Seefin.

I also took the oportunity to bring along a fully laden Radio Harness as I hadn’t had a chance to use it ‘in the field’ before now.

The views we were treated to were absolutely fantastic. I’ve been up Seefin twice before and was either fog or cloud bound on both occasions. This time we could see from the Wexford coast, down to Dungarvan, and around as far as the Galtees (and beyond). The only problem was the thick swarms of flies we encountered (lots of them).

First picture is of the Knockmealdowns, with the Galtee mountains (to the right) in the background.

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Dungarvan Bay, Helvick Head & Dungarvan in the background, and me looking like a lost ozzie.

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General

Hmmmmm….

I was reading Bernards blog this morning and boy was I surprised. Then I wasn’t surprised, after all it is our government, we elected them, and a wise man once said “We get the government we deserve”. Then I did a bit of googling for an article based on a speech given by Dan Geer I read a few years ago, entitled privacy in the real world. I re-read it, because I remeber, at the time, I caused me to re-evaluate my thinking.

Now I’m just mad!

Have a read of http://www.digitalrights.ie for more background information.