We Saw a Chicken …

Author: scruss

  • accidental solar panda butt kaleidoscope

    is what you get when you look down a Schletter PV Maxâ„¢ triangular aluminium solar panel support

    at this image of pandas:

  • G5RV in the mist

    There it is – I finally have the antenna installed. Works like a champ on 30 to 6m — when I remember to tune it, that is. I’d really like to thank Bob Morton of Maple Leaf Communications for helping me with the equipment choice. There’s also a J-Pole for VHF-UHF out of shot, but they’re not so interesting.

    I’ve spoken on local 10m nets (and probably blasted people away, as I was on 100W and didn’t realize it). I’ve mostly been working PSK31 on 20 and 30m — so far, I’ve reached Poland, Russia, Wales, Germany, the US (from WA to FL), the Canary Islands, Venezuela, and Puerto Rico (and been gently berated from there for using too much power, oops). While it would be easy to e-mail folks in all of those countries, with PSK31, you don’t know who you’re going to get. All these folks can be calling in on the waterfall, and if you and they can exchange messages, they’re your neighbours, whether they’re in Podgorny or next door.

    PSK31 sounds a bit like aliens whistling. Here’s what my CQ sounds like: va3pid-cq-psk31.mp3.

  • Solar Trackers at Earth Rangers

  • Mario, the solar photographer

    I’m taking a Canadian Solar Institute course at Earth Rangers. Mario, the instructor, has quite a nifty photoblog: Mario Borsato – Nature Photo Blog. Here’s a close encounter with a timber wolf he had:

    Timber Wolf - copyright 2010, Mario Borsato

    Mario’s company is Soleil Power Canada, if you’re needing solar installation or training.

    (image copyright 2010, Mario Borsato.)

  • My 30 Days of Biking

    Here’s my record of 30 Days of Biking:

    April 2011
    Sunday Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday Saturday
              1
    it begins!
    		 2
    just popped down the shops for some milk
    3
    is by the lake
    		 4
    knows it's a good day for mudguards
    		 5
    Hi ho, hi ho, it's off to ...
    		 6
    has been earlier than this
    		 7
    needs lights on this foggy soggy morning
    		 8
    knows where the cheesewagons sleep
    		 9
    had a sunny ride with Catherine to a Tim's lunch
    10
    is on Pharmacy's endangered bike lane
    		 11
    Is back from the ham radio club
    		 12
    used the secret tunnel
    		 13
    sees world's nastiest snowpile
    		 14
    sees ya later, elevator
    		 15
    is half way there
    		 16
    is only doing this because of #30daysofbiking
    17
    beholds the majestic Taylor-Massey creek
    		 18
    has the enormous laptop today
    		 19
    ting!
    		 20
    light
    		 21
    sees blue skies over the handlebars
    		 22
    is voting
    		 23
    sees the tree of religious tolerance
    24
    sees a transformer house
    		 25
    sees mini-fairground
    		 26
    is grateful for mudguards
    		 27
    2getha 4eva
    		 28
    wishes you could see the wind
    		 29
    says, 'thanks, toronto'
    		 30
    the end ... Or is it?

  • not some obscure radio signalling protocol

    I do a lot of conference calls. Usually there’s a tone and the participant’s name played when they sign out. If it’s a big call and everyone leaves at the end, this signout cascade gets quite lengthy. Here’s part of one I recently caught: signout cascade.

  • don’t overcomplicate your sloth party …

    David Barnes’s new book What’s Weird? arrived today. It’s lovely.

    David has an — unsurprisingly — unusual youtube channel and an etsy store. One of his prints hovers above my desk, and an original runs on my work desk.

  • I ♥ D19

    We go to Phở Vietnam a lot. Catherine probably tires of my attempts to sneak a durian shake onto the order list instead of her usual choice, but really, what can be wrong with a drink that’s made of everyone’s favourite cow-poop-smelling spiny fruit?

    So tonight, I thought I’d order it for real. I was very pleasantly surprised. Instead of a beverage with a barnyard reek, it had a delicate flavour, with sweet high notes like a citrusy cantaloupe. I’ll definitely order it again; it’s not one side short of a D20.

  • first try with Inkscape

    I made a card for Catherine:

    The original has her contact details, which I’ve left out here. I’d never used Inkscape before; the tricky part was working out the layer alignment while allowing for the bleed. I exported it as a 600 dpi PNG, then sent it to Staples Copy & Print. Turned out pretty well, I thought.

  • not for spooky sounds

    I finally got one. A real Moog Music one, too. For cheaper than a kit, even. Yes, a theremin; everyone’s favourite hand-wavey, LC circuit beat-frequency wobbly noise thing.

    Playing anything recognizable is a way off yet. For now, I’m just vastly amused by the sounds it makes when you turn it on and off.

  • out of my tree

    Well, the above may not be the most orthodox antenna placement, but my Maple Leaf Communications Portable J-Pole works a champ when wedged in the tree by our deck. Important reception equipment is here:

    I was on two nets tonight; the SARC 2m net and The Mississauga Amateur Radio Club‘s 8:30pm 2m net. I think I’ve got the hang of squelch on the Wouxun now — thanks to Chris and Nick (VE3CLT [of the awesome PC PSU mod] and VE3EBC) for the advice basically to never use CTCSS on a repeater that you’re not 100% sure uses it.

  • an expensive hobby

    Looks like this amateur radio thing is going to get expensive.

    The rig I was looking at — the Yaesu FT-8900R — appeared to be considerably cheaper than all the other multi-band units. It appears that it’s FM only, which is rarely used on the HF bands. The considerably more expensive FT-857D is the cheapest unit that will do 10m/6m/2m/70cm, which I reckon is pretty much where my interest lies.

    Then there’s power supplies. Yeah, these beasts need external power supplies. Great big honkin’ 13.8V DC power supplies; about $200 for a rig of this size. Yet more desk space taken up; more cables, more clutter.

    If that weren’t enough, there’s the antenna issue. I appear to live in a Faraday cage surrounded by overhead TX lines. Something’s going to have to go on the roof. Well, actually two somethings, as the chance of getting an antenna to work even roughly well on HF and VHF (unless I splash on the expensive and fiddly looking Maldol HVU-8) is close to nil.

    So basically, I’m looking to drop a couple of grand on this. Eep.

    In better ham news, last night I received my first radiogram, welcoming me to the hobby. Thanks, Paul (VA3PB)!

  • vawt’s up with durham college?

    And for once, most of them were working:

    as seen at Durham College.

  • The groundhog is back

    It’s back, merrily wreaking havoc with the new green shoots, but I’m just happy that it’s there.

  • Jetpack, you should know better …

    Jetpack, don’t you know that if you fool after noon, you’re the fool?

  • the silence of the hams

    It’s highly likely I’m doing something wrong, but I’m getting nothing on the 2m & 70cm bands in eastern Toronto of an evening. After a week of dedicated listening, I’ve stumbled upon a couple of nets (one of which I briefly participated in), heard one morning commute chat, noted a couple of dudes talking about power supplies in Portuguese, and managed to key up a repeater which said hello back to me. That’s it.

    I’m not expecting the airwaves to be crackling with witty repartee all the time, but most of the time there seems to be no-one out there. Calling CQ on simplex VHF might as well be shouting into a hole.

    I know I have a cheapo rig and a flimsy aerial, but I must be able to contact people within the neighbouring kilometres … must I?

  • ExPlace Turbine Shutdown for Service

    I noticed this in my twitter feed the other day:

    windshare: ExPlace Turbine Shutdown for Service http://wp.me/p11wfW-8T

    From what the linked news release said, it looks like the turbine has had a major mechanical component failure. The replacement part will take several months to arrive, then needs a crane to replace it. The turbine is structurally sound, and is even yawing to follow the wind, but can’t generate.

    This is a shame, as the volunteers at WindShare had just got the turbine operating at very close to commercial availability. There are also a couple of usefully windy months before the summer for which co-op members will lose revenue.

    Update: a very watered-down news release went up on April 3rd: Turbine Technology Update.

  • chroma key screen grabs

    Oddly-shaped windows are a pain to screen grab. Netpbm to the rescue!

    1. Make a blue (or green, or whatever isn’t used in your window) image larger than the window, like this: 
      ppmmake blue 800 600 | pnmtopng > ~/Desktop/b.png
    2. Display the image, and arrange your program in front of it.
    3. Take a screenshot.
    4. Crop the image, and set the background transparent. 
      pngtopnm Screen\ shot\ 2011-03-27\ at\ 10.12.52\ .png |\
 pnmcrop |\
 pnmtopng -transparent blue > ICP-2007.png

    Ta-dah!

    (and yeah, this is a Windows program running under Wine on OS X …)

  • a ham i am!

    I just got my amateur radio license. If you’re unlucky enough to be on the 2m and 70cm bands around Toronto, you may just find me as VA3PID. The 3 is, of course, silent …

    I guess that (so far unsuccessfully) futzing around with the small digital transceivers with Arduino made me look up some radio things, then I read this article on MetaFilter. It made me realize that unless new hams get on the air, the hobby will die, and the radio spectrum will be reallocated.

    Passing the test wasn’t that hard, but did take a bit of dedicated reading. No morse code is required for the Basic Amateur Radio Operator Certificate, and if you get more than 80% in the multiple choice test, you can use the HF frequencies below 30 MHz. Since the pass mark is 70%, I thought it worth the extra effort.

    I slightly overbought on the study materials. I got:

    While it’s possible to download the question bank from Industry Canada, or use the quaint Windows-based examiner program, I thought I’d work from a book. Both will likely do pretty well, but neither is perfect:

    • Both books need to work on their proof-reading.
    • Mathematical symbols, superscripts and subscripts are easy to typeset these days. Don’t miss them out.
    • They need to be fully metric, as trying to remember weird factors to convert fractions of a wavelength to feet is annoying. I’m a mid-career engineer, and I’ve never had to use anything but metric.

    I passed the exam on Tuesday night, and had my callsign listed by Friday. I have a cheap but adequate Wouxun dual band HT. This should be fun.

    Quaint, huh? Industry Canada's Windows-only examiner software

  • bike locker

    I’ve got a bike locker. You can have a bike locker too. It’s $10+tax a month.

    The bike just fits in. It isn’t tall enough for my ill-fated bike mirror (which doesn’t fit in my own shed, so is likely soon to be removed).  The locker tapers towards the back, so I’m not sure I can reach the nurse’s lock on the frame.

    My locker hadn’t been used for a while, so I had to attack the mechanism with spray lube before it would reliably lock and unlock.