I got an email from my better half this morning asking me what deliveries I was expecting as the postman had left a note. I couldn’t think what it could be and quickly forgot about it.
Much to my surprise, this it was is was…
What a lovely certificate for my (fairly minimal) participation in the experiment. In fairness the photograph taken with my phone does not do it justice.
In a conversation late last year (at the TAPR DCC) I was asked what is the actual level of APRS activity in Ireland. Thinking about the answer for a while, I realised that I really didn’t know, and that got me wondering how to go about visualising it.
I quickly came across Leaflet.heat, a Leaflet plugin plugin for generating heatmaps, so I bodged together some python to grab packets of moving stations from the APRS-IS backbone and put them into a format Leaflet.heat can read. After gathering about 6000 data points, here is what it looks like:
So, there you go, it is fairly conclusive that Cork city has the most ‘on-air’ APRS activity. This is followed by Waterford area, Galway area and then the main motorways.
I was looking for something to watch/listen to while tidying up my inbox today after being away for three weeks or so. We took in the ARRL/TAPR Digital communications conference while in Florida. As I enjoyed this years DCC so much, i went looking for last years DCC banquet speech. Ward Silver, N0AX, gave an excellent talk on the direction the hobby should take for it’s second century. I particularly liked his comment about contesting and being “able to heard the world turn”. Thanks to Gary Pearce, KN4AQ for attending the DCC and working so hard to make the videos available (feed the pig!).
What weekends are for! Wake up, get the billy on and think about what to do for the day.
…. Z-Modem? I remember configuring various terminal emulation packages to use it for file downloads from several different Bulletin Board Systems and I was blown away by the performance.
Last weekend, I joined other members of Tipperary Amateur Radio Group on the farm of Paul, EI3ENB for the SSB Field day.
Unfortunately we weren’t able to get any decent runs going on 20m or 15m which would have helped our score quite a bit, however Eoghan, EI5HBB was at the microphone when we got a decent run on 80m for about 90 minutes in the early hours of Sunday morning.
Looking forward to next year already!
I’ve been recording the “Monthly Average” output from my PV system for a while (Since 2011). Looking at the figures for this summer. The “Sunniest” month was June (91 Watts), followed by August (83 Watts) and then July (81 Watts).
Ok, so July sucked, I think we all knew that. However what surprised me was when I looked at the results from previous years. It appears that the system has produced more power on average this year than any previous year.
To be continued…
Woot! finally, confirmation of DXCC Entities 100 and 101 on the 15m band. Now to get them off to the card checker.
Over the last while, I’ve been slowly plugging away at getting 100 confirmed DXCC entities on 15m. Last Friday I was on 89 confirmed on Logbook of the World (LOTW).
The International Amateur Radio Union HF Championship was on last wekend, so, after a stint as EI0HQ Saturday evening on behalf of the Irish Radio Transmitters Society, I did some Search & Pounce operating on Sunday morning.
Since then the first thing I do when I get home is check the post for any new QSL cards, first thing in the morning I’m checking LOTW to see if any new confirmations have come in. I’m even checking LOTW during the day, just in case (94 confirmed this morning). It has become a bit of an obsession!
I had two completely different outdoor experiences this past weekend, both hugely enjoyable in their own ways.
Saturday I took a trip in a Canoe (my first ever) with the Into The Wild Survival.
Four of us were sheparded down the River Suir by Frank Deegan and John McGrath (John is pictured below).
We paddled from the Swiss Cottage in Cahir to Clonmel on Saturday, camped overnight on the river bank, just east of Clonmel, then continued on from Clonmel to Fiddown on Sunday. A long trip, though very tiring, it was very enjoyable and I really can’t wait to get out for another trip.
Some videos Frank took during the trip.
You can see my best side in the clip below (I’m in the white hat).
Monday and Tuesday were a different story, two days at Millbrook Off Road Centre (Lantra accredited), being instructed on the finer points of driving off road. Kevin, Thomas and their team were excellent to work with, great instructors. Below is a taster of what you can expect.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z_0dvkxHYTE
They are having a 4×4 Festival the 11th and 12th of July, definitely worth checking out (get off the M9 at Castledermot).
In summary, a thoroughly enjoyable way to spend a “long” weekend!