Full house at TAPR DCC… #hamradio #dcc2013 http:…
September 20th, 2013Full house at TAPR DCC…
#hamradio #dcc2013 http://t.co/aKkAprNRJ4
Stuff that I like, stuff I hate and all that is in between….
Enjoyed hearing the latest from K7VE on web based…
September 20th, 2013Enjoyed hearing the latest from K7VE on web based radio control! #DCC2013
Work is getting in the way of me leaving for #DCC2…
September 20th, 2013Work is getting in the way of me leaving for #DCC2013…
HamWAN…..
August 31st, 2013I’ve been watching and hoping one of the local wireless internet ‘things’ would take off. I think Seattle has at least three different groups trying to make a non-commercial wireless internet happen. Two of the groups are ham radio based and I’ve been involved/closer to the two of them. The first is based around the idea of mesh and has developed a lot of interest, but only a handful of nodes so far. Most people are using hacked WRT54G boxes, but some have migrated to the more interesting M2 Bullet’s from airMAX. I think the mesh stuff is interesting and I may yet get my Bullet up on the tower.
The other group is taking a different approach, they are much more structured and organized. At least in the since they have a core group really driving the solution and went so far to form a all-most non-profit corporation to support it. The basic idea behind this group is that Seattle is and Western Washington in general is uniquely situated with ring of high mountains surrounding it. Why not put cell sites on top of a bunch of these high mountains, inter-connect them and create a wireless internet. This group is using 5Ghz commercial gear, but is requiring a ham license to play. They have been able to bring up three sites this summer and I spent a couple hours pulling some rope this afternoon as they did antenna installations on site two.
The picture on the left is one I took from the DEM CommMotorHome external camera, which was pointed at the tower installation work. I also captured one of Nigel-K7NVH as he was doing configuration of the radio’s. It was very enlightening watching the process they went through to align the big dishes.
- Antenna Installation
- Nigel configuring radios
So the plan is for me to installation my own uplink to the network on Monday. I spent a while last night configuring the radio, the setup instructions are a work in progress, so lets hope I got it correct. Tonight when I got home, Isaac and I assembled the dish. I had originally planned to attach it to the tower, but I realized tonight that probably won’t work. The dish would need some kind of stand-off to go on the tower, so I’m going to try the 15 foot mast on the chimney. I don’t think the repeater antenna (W7RNK-B) will mind or interfere. I just hope the lost of 15 feet will enable it to still work. I know putting it up will be much easier if I don’t have to climb the tower.
- BBQ Grill antenna
- 5Ghz radio
Whistler Weirdness
August 10th, 2013The family is in Whistler BC this weekend. We drove up Friday, leaving around 8am from Seattle. It took us most of the day to get up here. Granted we stopped in Mount Vernon for Starbucks and had lunch at Horseshoe Bay, but it seems crazy to me. Getting through the 30-40 miles of downtown Vancouver was crazy. Next time we will time it to not be late morning.
Another thing which is a little surreal, this ‘village’ is crazy impressive. It feels like Disneyland, but with real world shops. All the hotels must have to be designed the same way. You walk every where and there are no cars. You park in these huge underground parking lots. (For $25CDN a day)
The other thing which is really freaky, the number of different languages being spoken. I heard French, Italian, Japanese, Spanish and what I think was Dutch walking to dinner. I know this is Canada, but its BC Canada. I don’t know if this is normal or something todo with all the crazy bike people here this weekend.
Something I’ve been working on….
July 31st, 2013I know this little project isn’t all that complicated, but I wanted to share.
I have been wanting a GPS hooked up to the Icom ID-880 since installing it in the FJ, but I never got around to figuring out how to attach one. Over the weekend, I was cleaning my office and came across small GPS receiver, which I obviously bought for the ID-880. So I decided to spend the time to install it.
The first problem is the GPS needs 5v and I really only have 12v floating around the radios. So I started looking for the parts to make a voltage convertor, when it occurred to me that all these USB adaptors I have lying around already do that. So I found one that had a broken case and started pulling it apart. Other then needing to replace one of the diodes that I broken when getting the case off, it was pretty easy to adapt to what I needed. One end got new leads with Anderson PowerPoles and the other got leads that run out to the 6-pin DIN that the GPS plugs into.
The jerry-rigged wiring to test out the GPS on the bench.
The next step was figuring out the RS232 side of things. The documentation for the GPS was a little iffy, plus I ultimately have to wire this thing into a 1/8 stereo plug for the ID-880. So I decided to just jerry-rig up a DB-9 to figure out the wiring. So after a little playing, I started getting output from the GPS. I’m always shocked when these new GPS’s are able to get a signal locked when inside the house and in this case, half under ground. I’ll wire up the 1/8 stereo plug next and jam the whole thing into some sort of case.
Output from GPS
Breakfast with Isaac @12thAveCafe, then swimming a…
July 28th, 2013Breakfast with Isaac @12thAveCafe, then swimming and then onto Fry’s for supplies.Lookout, I cleaned the workbench&warmed the solderingiron.
Pi Hosting….
July 19th, 2013My friend Kelly is soon to be moving from the west coast to the east coast. While he is in transit, I offered to host his website for him. He had done all the setup so it could be moved to a Raspberry Pi, so I brought up my Pi and pointed one of my static IP’s at it. (Well after a little head scratching to figure out why the Pi wouldn’t talk to the Comcast cable modem) Then I discovered the 8GB thumb drive wasn’t going to be enough space for his website, so I had to add a USB HD I had lying around my desk. In the end there was more cables and crap then I wanted to stare out, so the whole thing needed to move into the laundry room with the other servers.
So today I shutdown the Pi and was looking around the office for some way to ‘package’ it up. I ended up stuffing the mess into a old 3Com USB or Puma modem box. I’m happy to report the Pi is doing well in its new home.
Whoever is blocking traffic into downtown Seattle,…
July 9th, 2013Whoever is blocking traffic into downtown Seattle, could you please stop,,,,, Thanks
Friday….
July 5th, 2013I took today off and planned to spend it with Isaac, but he wanted to go to Steve and Kate camp so he wouldn’t miss the 5th of July parade.(little ouch) So today I started the deck clean up project. Managed to wash and strip the whole thing before getting Isaac, tomorrow we can start the staining process. I’m very happy I paid the money for the plastic floor boards, because only the railing has to be stained.
After picking up Isaac and getting him a hair cut, we stopped by the Apple store and I bought a new Airport AP. Required a little hoop jumping to get it going, but I now have all the laptops and iOS devices in the house on 5Ghz. Biggest pain was getting the dumb devices like our Nest thermostat and my Fitbit scale moved over to the new WiFi SSID. Everything seems faster, since I can see about a dozen SSID’s on 2.4Ghz from the living room, I’m sure there was a little interference going on before.
So I’m typing this update on my new iPad mini. I sold my Kindle Fire and the hand me down Gen1 iPad a whole ago. The plan was to replace them with something, I just wasn’t sure what. I spent a long time thinking and finally decided the mini is the perfect size for what I need/do with a tablet. The full size iPad is to big and I wanted the speed, something the Kindle Fire doesn’t have. I’m very happy with my choice. I can finally read QST now online!
This weekend it is just us boys, since Rosie went on a backpacking trip.(left this morning early) This is something that happens quite a bit in July and August, since Rosie loves hiking. We always have so much fun doing what ever, I am including a few more ‘chores’ this year, now that Isaac is bigger. But we will do lots of fun stuff, we both are looking forward to the new despicable me 2 movie and getting to eat at places Rosie doesn’t like.
It is just about the perfect evening tonight, sitting on the deck with the lights all off. Still just enough light for a picture of out neighbor HF beam…
