All posts by j0n

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)

2 Comments

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.

IMG_1081.jpg

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

IMG_1079.jpg

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.

General

The Mother Ship.

I only just spotted this….

“The European Space Agency today donated a composite satellite image of global land cover provided by its Envisat satellite to the United Nations in Geneva, as a testimony to the current state of our planet, to be handed down to future generations.”

See the full article, and the 3MB picture here.

General

iPod

My iPOD’s (3rd Gen) battery capacity has been decreasing over time (no surprise there), but it finally dropped beyond what my patience would tolerate. A few months ago I was looking for a high capacity battery for a Kenwood TH-D7 and found one at Batteries America. While browsing their site, I came across their section for iPOD batteries. It would be difficult to go wrong for $30. So I ordered them.

Last night I got around to installing it. It is a ‘tough nut’ to open the case, but patience is a virtue and, after about 15 mins of cursing and swearing I did get it open and the battery installed. I did a slight bit of damadge to the plastic surrounding the dock connector when popping the case, but it all went back together and works fine.

After a short time charging, the obligatory “Road” test involved a short walk around Tramore listening to the delicate sounds of AC/DC. Calm is restored at last!

Wxsat

Delicate Manouvers

Meteosat 7 has begun a planned ‘drift’ from 0 degrees to 57.5 degrees East. The reasons and a brief description of some of the issues involved are given here here. It makes for interesting reading.

Amateur Radio

Getting back on the air!

I have been struggling to get back on the HF Bands for a while now. Though I am active on APRS from my car, both terrestrially and through the ISS, but I’ve not really been very active on voice modes.

I did have a few (my first) satellite contacts last October through AO-51 but I really haven’t had a chance to get back to it.

As I’ve not really been active for 10 years or so, I’ve had a major problem with my logging. A Stations log is where an operator is required to log each and every contact that (s)he makes. Sometime (mostly) us hams exchange a QSL card to confirm the contact. They look something like this:

EI7IG-3.jpg
I was actually driving back from a SAGE meeting at the time and basically just responed with a “Hi”, much to the bemusement (and maybe slight panic) of my passengers.

The point is my log has been a disaster, I’ve lost pages due to moving house, operating in different countries (when a small bag with radio and other bits of metal goes through the x-ray machine, they tend not to be worried about the paperwork when they ask you to open the bag… sir!). I started thinking about an electronic log again, but being a Linux user, the choices are slightly more restricted.

This time, however, I was pleseantly surprised when I came across LiHaLo. It is a L.A.M.P. application, and it works very very well. Last night, I finally got all of my current logbook entered and just towards the end, came across a small problem. Some of the satellites I had operated through were not ‘available’. A quick “insert” of a new entry into the satellite table, and problem is solved. It may not be very slick looking, but it is more than adequate my my needs.

Now I just need to get an external antenna up and get myself more organised for portable satellite operation and I should start increasing my ‘country’ total. At the moment it stands at (a pretty pathetic) 24 countries confirmed with QSL cards, 43 that I ‘think’ that I have worked. I never knew those statistics until I entered my logs into LiHaLo.