Ars Telegraphia

Making a truly remote base minus a PC

Administrator — Tue, 04 Aug 2009 23:34:52 +0000

OK. Here we go. I’m building a remote base station without any PC involved.
First hardware to arrive is a nice Netgear FS-105 ethernet hub (5 port). This is cool because it is in a metal case, it’s tiny and it only cost $9.95! However, there is a new model with the same part number in a bigger, plastic case which takes away the advantage, so be careful!
On order is a Lantronix USB server (Ubox 2100) which remotes 2 USB ports over the internet. This will be used to send direct data to/from a remote K1EL WK-USB keyer.
I have most of the rest of the hardware at hand. I will be ordering a Web Remote Power Switch shortly. Full details of the station build will be coming soon. The target is to have ONLY a keyer and the rig front panel here and to have the rest remote. Again, no PC required at either end…..

Server Reboot

Administrator — Sun, 17 May 2009 22:39:32 +0000

It doesn’t happen very often (in fact, it has been exactly TWO years since the last reboot of the server!), but my server got re-booted. It coincided with (almost) the switch of my FOC site at w4.vp9kf.com and the new FOC Members’ site at http://firstclasscw.org/members/ . Just one of those things I would like to avoid, but was told about 4 days before the change. Ugh!

Paddle here

Administrator — Wed, 25 Mar 2009 20:09:50 +0000

I have my Begali. It is made very well. I have to say that, unfortunately, it doesn’t fix my problems with the K1EL keyer. More of that soon…..

New Paddle coming

Administrator — Sat, 07 Feb 2009 15:58:59 +0000

I ordered a new Begali Simplex Mono, Palladium and with Red no-slotted finger pieces. Hopefully this will get away from problems with the newer iambic keyers that I make more mistakes with than before they “grew” microprocessors inside. With a single lever, it can’t fool you! So, now I await it’s arrival…..

Must be running on a Zune

Administrator — Sat, 03 Jan 2009 15:17:26 +0000

Oh dear. Since the turn of the year the SoHO sunspot image has gone nuts. Boy, if we only had that many spots! It looks like all of the spots for 2008 have been dropped onto the image, although I haven’t gone back and checked for the oldest number shown [I have now and the oldest spot was 2008-01-04]. Hopefully, soon that image will be back to normal. Er, blank, that is.

At the same time all of the latest STEREO image data has gone offline too. Tap, tap, tap… “hello NASA are you awake?”.

Bingo! not so…..

Administrator — Sat, 27 Dec 2008 15:17:59 +0000

Group 11009 has shown on the Sun. It looks like the SSN may be as high as 23 by the end of the day, if that second group right behind gets counted (or keeps growing). The only downside is a big Coronal Hole straight on axis at Earth, which may put a damper on things.

P.S. On 2009-01-10 Venus should be aligned between STEREO Behind and the Sun. I don’t know if this eclipse event will be well enough aligned to witness, but it’ll be interesting to monitor the images and see…..

P.P.S. Doesn’t look like the group will warrant being called a spot, except on SoHO MDI (where it has all day). After that, for the next 3 days, minimum, there’s nothing lurking around the corner or looking like it will develop. Back to nil points (for you EuroVision Song Contest fans!).

Here comes the Sun… it’s alright

Administrator — Wed, 24 Dec 2008 22:05:19 +0000

SoHO MDI, EIT imager and STEREO Behind all confirm that group 11009 is coming around the Eastern limb of the Sun. EIT is showing ‘flaring’ around the limb and STEREO shows two very strong spots from it’s view at 45 degrees from straight-on. Soooo, look for some potential action late on 26th Dec or into Dec 27th. They’re good big high southern latitude Cycle 24 spots too. Maybe the sharp rise is about to start! It’s about time.

Note: don’t forget that, looking at the Sun, the left side is called the East and right side is called the West. Not obvious to ‘Earth thinkers’. Sunspots emerge on the East and move to the West.

P.S. Merry Christmas to all readers and have a safe, happy, relaxing time. Hopefully with spots!

Fitting in……

Administrator — Mon, 22 Dec 2008 00:45:29 +0000

I’ve been watching the chatter about the CA antenna case. Yes, the one that limits the antenna to one inch (25mm) above the top of the roof.

There’re always a few ways to handle this. Don’t aggravate the neighbours in the first place. Start out by keeping your power down so that there can’t be RFI problems.

If this guy loses he can do a couple of things:
(1) Move.

(2) Install [extruded aluminium] gutters (most USA homes don’t have them!) and then load them up as an antenna.

Then there’s something I just saw on TV. A “Green” channel called Planet Green just showed a house in CA in a major built-up area. It had a wind generator on it that was 55′ tall. Hmmm, sounds like a composite tower to me and a place to hang antennas off. Yes, it was a miniature version of what you would see in a wind farm, but a LOT bigger than a wind gen on a sailing boat.

Instead of jumping in feet first, there’re nearly always many other ways to “skin a cat”. Lessons could be learnt from the creative ways G stations have staged their way around local planning conditions……..sometimes this has taken 7 years of gradually “staging” antennas.

My antenna is a Butternut HF9VX. You can’t see it from the road in front of the house. You can’t see it from the park behind the creek. You can only see it on our web cam or on Google Earth. There’s a reason for that. I know that planting a 50′ tower with a 3 element beam on a piece of property that measures 120 x 50′ just isn’t going to fly, not even on a dead-end street with no “beautiful vista”. Even in a county with no limits on towers (which it is).

No, the local city/county, whatever, shouldn’t win and probably won’t, but the amount of stress, hassle and money wasted along the way makes you wanna just move away from anybody who is prepared to inflict that much hatred upon you. Some well known contesters have even moved states to get away from that sort of nonsense….

“Freebies”

Administrator — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 20:39:30 +0000

Well, not quite, but nearly. Ever wondered how to get one of those stamps used on QSL cards that says “Verified by….”? Well, go to good old Vistaprint and check out their free rubber stamps. Play with the format and then order red ink (extra $1.99) so that photocopies don’t work, add slow delivery ($3.99) and you’re off to the races. Just as you finish your order they also ask if you want your address stamp (for return address on envelopes), which is also very reasonable at $6.99. Anyway, for about $14 all told, you get two custom stampers. Helps with that QSLing.

STEREO gets interesting

Administrator — Sat, 13 Dec 2008 15:37:37 +0000

Just after the STEREO mission came live, I wasn’t very impressed. I even sent away for some free (as in beer) 3D viewing glasses. The problem was that the data was very patchy and there were a very limited number of far-from-real-time 3D images.
However, STEREO is much more interesting than that. By viewing the B (Behind) bird that follows the Earth in orbit by about 45 degrees now, you can see around the corner of the Sun’s limb. So, we can see sunspots coming in advance. I changed my propagation page to show a view of the STEREO B image and SoHO image side-by-side. The angle between STEREO B and Earth is gradually increasing by about 0.3 degrees per month, so we will get to see a little more into the future, so to speak. The down side is that STEREO is only a 2 year mission. Let’s hope that (a) the birds (especially B) keep alive and (b) that NASA keeps them funded.
Doing the sums, that means that right now we get about 60 hours advance warning of an “incoming” sunspot. Truly a breakthrough.