I’ve become hooked on AmateurLogic.TV. The guys cover all sorts of things from “how to get the best from your camera” to how to build your own 2.4Ghz “Cantenna”, home made high voltage capacitors (I’m still waiting to see the fruits of Jim’s Labour in action). All very well presented, well done guys!
Category Archives: Computing
GAISS progress.
I’ve mentioned before the GAISS project (here and here). It wasn’t in the original plan, but we are now receiving the MAP27 information from the ‘base’ radio, and making them available for a small conversion appplication that re-transmits them on the National APRS frequency of 144.800Mhz. This allows us to leverage the already existing APRS infrastructure in place to get our ‘position packets’ to go around corners where there is no existing RF path.
Our GAISS GUI will then be able to pluck the relevant data from the APRS data stream and plot the positions of the SEMRA personnel that are out walking for the event. Delighted as we are to have this much working (and that we will have something to show at the Galtee Walking Festival), we are still a long way of a ‘finished’ prototype.
Dxtuners no more.
Dxtuners has closed. I had gotten used to using it when travelling to keep an eye on things ‘back home’.
Last weekend I came across this post by Steve Haigh. His updated version of pcrd compiled fine on my ubuntu machine (though I did fix one small mistake).
That got me thinking, so I asked a few ‘geeks’ in work for solutions. It was suggested that controlling it over IRC would be the fastest way of doing it requiring mimimum effort on my part.
Well I think they were right, all of about 8 lines of tcl and its working again. Log in to #frequencydb on zirc and say hello.
Thinking Green.
Justin’s recent post got me thinking, so I’ve started doing some measuring. First to the radio ‘shack’/office, I did a measurement where I switched on all the radio equipment running in receive mode, server, laptop and second screen running, DSL modem and wireless router, switching most of them off when I went to bed. After 24 Hours the total usage was 4kWh. So over 12 months, the cost would be 4 * 0.1435 * 1.135 * 365 = €238 Inclusive of vat, wow, thats quite expensive and not very Green.
The server, dsl modem, wireless router, and kit for my Dxtuners node takes up the bulk of that cost at about €195 per annum. Our most recent aquisition, a small chest freezer (Whirlpool) uses about 0.5kWh per day, so should cost us about €30. Next, the TV.
Xastir
I’ve been running Xastir for a while, and one feature I never got around to trying was “Snapshots”. Xastir will generate a PNG every 5 minutes if its asked to. It is kinda neat, as can be seen below.
I have a link to it on www.ei7ig.org.
Parallels
Parallels is very very impressive. I’ve been using it since before christmas to boot custom Ubuntu CD’s for the Enable project here in work (on my MacBook Pro). I recently wanted to try out Radio Mobile for Radio System performance analysis. So the guys in work supplied me with a copy Windows XP and off I went.
It was a pretty simple install, then, once it was up and running, I installed the Parallels Tools as instructed, and then Radio Mobile itself. The virtual machine takes about 25 seconds to boot and less than 20 to shut down and, in operation, its very responsive. To quote Ronseal, It “Does exactly what it says on the tin”.
Bar Camp South East
TomC tells me that Bar Camp Ireland – SouthEast is taking place here in the ArcLabs Research and Innovation Centre. Hopefully I’ll be able to attend and ask some stupid questions, and learn something in the process.
Does what it says on the Tin!
I’ve had the pleasure to receive a new MacBook Pro for work, though I wasn’t particularly looking forward to the task of migrating all my data. I have to say Apple’s Setup Assistant has to be one of the most useful pieces of software ever! So far, the only casualty has been xchat. I remembered Bernard mentioned Babbel a while back, so I’ll give that a whirl instead.
Back up and running in less than 2 hours, thank you Apple!
The Internet Sucks
FON in Tramore
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.
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 🙂