Life at the Beach!

Software SDR - the RXTX+Xtall v6.3 kit

Dave Noderer — Sun, 24 Aug 2008 23:14:13 GMT

I've started construction of a HF (High Frequency vs UHF/VHF ham bands) radio that will cover ~ 1.8 to 30 mhz. it is a kit put together by Tony Parks and supported by a very active community: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/softrock40

I tell you, either my eyes have gone downhill (for sure) or those surface mount components got much smaller in the 20 years since I last worked in a lab every day.

This would be especially hard without community driven detailed construction notes: http://golddredgervideo.com/wb5rvz/RXTX_V6_3/index.htm

I'll make comments here and post pictures as I go!

Pictures at: http://geekswithblogs.net/dnoderer/gallery/8589.aspx

I'm almost at a stage where I can point some software at this thing but a while before I will be able to do much with it.

Whats a HAM?

Dave Noderer — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 15:34:54 GMT

From N1DCN...

HAM = Amateur Radio Operator as defined by FCC part 97 rules.

There are currently three possible licensing levels, Technician, General and Extra. As of last night, I passed the General test. Starting a couple of years ago, you do not have to learn morse code to get licensed.

With the general license you have almost full access to all the frequencies which are split into 16 bands ranging from 160 meters starting at 1800 kilohertz up to 23 centimeters starting at 1240 Megahertz.

The Technician license provides priveliges on the UHF (Ultra High Frequency) and VHF (Very High Frequency) bands of 50 MHz and up. On these bands there is a lot of local / regional traffic.

The lower frequencies, or HF (High Frequency) bands cover a much longer distance and depending on ionospheric conditions allow "skip" or bouncing of the radio waves potentially around the entire earth. It is possible to transmit and hear an echo comming around the world and back to you.

Another difference is antennas. Antenna size is related to the wavelength of the radio wave and typically are at least 1/4 wavelength and typically more. Wavelength in meters can be calculated by the simple formula 300 / frequency in megahertz. The higher UHF and VHF frequencies have much smaller antenna for example the poplular 2 meter band vs the 160 meter HF band. The 2 meter antenna fits on my small balcony, 160 meters, forget it!! Even a qubical antenna with 1/4 wavelengh sides would be over 128 feet on each side.

Lots of information on the ARRL website (http://www.arrl.org), the national association for Amateur radio, originally the American Radio Relay Legue.

Why the licensing??

The difference between amatuer radio and other radio services (CB and Family Radio) is that, in most cases it is not channelized, that is you can dial to any frequency. On top of that, subject to some restrictions to avoid conficts, you can use many modes that include voice using Single Side Band, Amplitude Modulation, Frequencey Modulation or Phase Modulation.. Data wise it might be RTTY, PSK, FSK, various packet protocals or even morse code which is considered a digital mode. There are also people bouncing signals off the moon, using amateur satellites and talking to the shuttle and space staion astronauts, many of whom are also hams.

Why me??

Starting a few months ago, Nelson Winters, one of the organizers of FlaDotNet in West Palm Beach, FL was telling me about his other volunteer life as an amateur radio operator, organizer of a radio club in Boca and partiicpant in supporting Palm Beach government and other agencies during emergencies. There are two emergency organizations ARES and RACES with RACES focused on government and civil defense agencies and ARES everything else like the Red Cross.

This got me remembering when I was an emerging geek of about 10 years old (~ 1962)I use to go to an electroncs store in West Hartford, CT while my mom went shopping. Just around the corner from the store was the headquarters of the ARRL that I visited and thought about getting licensed but never did.

What now?

One interesting activity are "Nets". This is a time when people meet on the air and in time of emergency there is a formal format and messages can be passed all over the world potentially but most of the time is a chance for people to talk, announce meetings and activies and perhaps learn about some technical or other subject. Kind of an on-the-air user group meeting. I think the cell phone companies could make a killing with this. It does work however because there is a "Net Control Operator" who orchestrates "sign in" to the net and controls who is talking.

Another thing I have run accross is software defined radio. There is a company Flex Radio Systems (http://http://www.flex-radio.com) that sells a ham radio programmable with C#. Not sure i want to spend the few grand on it at this point but will take a look at the software.

I'm sure I'll get involved in one of the emergency services organization although my wife says if a hurricane comes I'll be with her on the way to Orlando!!

Ham radio groups, there are a number of clubs http://www.arrl.org/FandES/field/club/ around the country. Just like the user groups we are use to and a lot of nice people!!

N1DCN clear.

Broken LCD Replaced!

Dave Noderer — Fri, 30 May 2008 00:12:48 GMT

The LCD display on my Nikon L11 (simple point and shoot) broke sometime during Steve Balmers talk at the MVP summit this year.

Having heard all the horror stories, i figured this camera was done for. I got a quote of ~ $150 to fix it from an online service but that is more than it is worth.

So... i disassembled the camera, i figured i had nothing to lose.

After a few very nasty shocks reminded me about the large capacitor used to fire the flash, i bought a 1k ohm, 1 watt resistor from Radio Shack and via volt meter verified the two obvious terminals were in fact the place to discharge the flash at.

I got it down to the LCD and could get the part number (which i did not really need).

I called Nikon and ordered the LCD for ~ $60. Not that it was necessairly worth fixing the camera and i had already bought a new one (a smaller, more expensive S210) but now it was a personal challenge!

I could not figure out right away how to release the circuit cable attaching the LCD to the board in the camera so i WISELY and carefully wrapped all the pices and screws untl the new LCD arrived.

It came today and the release of the cable became clear to me. I replaced the LCD and spent another 1/2 or so carefully putting all the pieces back together.

I put in some batteries and it actually worked!

Then i reailizedi had left the protective plastic on the LCD but was able to get it off from the outside.

Now i have a second working camera!!

Guy from Boston gets new web site...

Dave Noderer — Fri, 21 Mar 2008 14:36:42 GMT

The new site will be at: www.theguyfromboston.net

The Guy From Boston on Leno!

Dave Noderer — Fri, 28 Dec 2007 16:24:23 GMT

Update: "The Guy From Boston" on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno has been confirmed for Tuesday, Jan 15th..

Wow!! Way to go Joey!

Keep up with the guy's video rants every Wednesday at: http://www.theyguyfromboston.com

My First Tri-Rail Trip...

Dave Noderer — Mon, 15 Oct 2007 16:20:33 GMT

Here in South Florida there is a commuter train that runs between Miami and West Palm Beach. I live in Deerfield Beach about 1/2 way with a Tri-Rail station next to the entrance to I95 that i would normally take to go north or south.

Today I need to go to a customer in downtown West Palm ~30 miles but always a pain in the ass due to traffic and construction on I95. I don't make this trip very often but today I'm trying Tri-Rail (http://www.tri-rail.com/)

I planned to take the 11:57 am train so picked up a ham and swiss sub at Jersey Show Subs (my favorite sub place) and headed to the station.

I arrived at the station early enough to finish my sandwitch, "validate" my ticket and wander around a bit. There is also an AmTrack (http://www.amtrak.com/ ) station I poked my head into and realize i could travel to Gainseville to visit my daughter at UF or even to Boston which takes 1 1/2 days...

There is also train museum (http://www.sfrm.org/ ) there but it has limited hours, another thing on my list of todos!

I keep hearing horror stories about the tri-rail service. Sometime in the past couple of years they built a second track which is shared (and currently dispatched out of Jacsonville by CSX) with CSX. My train was late but only by 7 or 8 minutes, no big deal and we were rolling north before 12:07 pm.

I went to the upper deck where there are pairs of facing seats with a small table between them. I've setup my laptop and getting verizon broadband service no problem...

One of the reasons I'm particularly interested in Tri-Rail at this point is a "TOD" (Transportation Oriented Development) proposed next to the Tri-Rail station. Deerfield Station (http://www.deerfieldstation.com/home.html ) looks like a very good replacement for what is already there but it is very dense and will add a lot of cars to the area. On the positive side they will re-engineer the entire area to distribute traffic flow and provide for turn lanes where there are none now. I did speak in favor of the project at a recent planning and zoning committee meeting (it was approved) but the developer still has quite a way to go, they are already a few years into it.

Although we left a few minutes late, we pulled into the West Palm Beach station 4 minutes early. I could use the Tri-Rail ticket to get a "Palm Tran" bus to where I'm going downtown but it is a nice day and I'm walking the six blocks. There were dozens of cab's waiting, hustling fares as I got off the train.

On the way I stopped at my new favorite place in West Palm, the Paris Creperie & Cafe at 212 S Olive. Nice little cafe, good coffee and you get your eggs wrapped in a freshly made crepe for breakfast (not today)....

And I never took the return trip as my customer who lives in Boca insisted on giving me a ride back to my car in Deerfield so we could talk.

In any case it was a great experience and I'll try it again.

Beer anyone: http://drinkcraftbeer.com/

Dave Noderer — Tue, 11 Sep 2007 14:50:53 GMT

Check out http://drinkcraftbeer.com/ , Jeff and Devon actually do tours of various breweries and sacrafice for the rest of us by carefully tasting, drinking and reporting on all the beers!

Shuttle Flight STS-118 at ISS and starting EVA1

Dave Noderer — Sat, 11 Aug 2007 15:31:18 GMT

I'm definitily a space junkie! As a l ittle kid have followed the space program from Alan Shepard's suborbital Mercury flight, through landing on the moon and into the shuttle era.

I'm sure this had an effect and drove me from a young age to want to be an electrical engineer which I did alhtough never did work directly for the space program. I did get to climb around in one of the shuttle avionics mockups in Houston as NASA had always bought Sel -> Gould -> Encore real-time computers to drive simulations.

The bad news is that the main media does not cover the space program at all but the good new is that you can watch NASA TV anytime which provides 24x7 coverage during shuttle missions.

NASA TV Landing page: http://www.nasa.gov/multimedia/nasatv/index.html

On the Friday after Teched in Orlando this year was a shuttle launch so I headed to the coast and watched it from the Tiki-bar at the end of the Coco Beach Pier (actually located in Cape Canaveral). It was a very nice place as everyone had had a few adult beverages (you have to arrive early as they only allow a certain number of people on the pier and the price goes up! Everyone cheered and took pictures of each other after the launch, lots of spirit(s) on that pier!

The best land view not in the complex is probably Titusville, just across the lagoon, ~ 10 miles. I have watched from there in the past and it is very impressive.

Even here in South Florida, 150 miles away, I can easily see the launches although you don't get the sound effects and much easier to see at night. Don't look towards the ocean or even north, the launch will first rise to the north west. For space station launches they launch to the east (also takes maximum advantage of the earths spin) .

Note that the internet tv, especially during a launch when there is a heavy load, there is a substantial delay which can be as much as 10 min. So if you want to see the launch listen to the radio or watch on tv to see the live launch time or take note of the exact minute of launch.

The Guy From Boston T-Shirts!

Dave Noderer — Sun, 05 Aug 2007 14:20:01 GMT

At last, official "The Guy From Boston T-Shirts". I like the "Got Balls"!

http://www.theguyfromboston.com/merchandise.asp

Be sure to check out the weekly Wednesday Rants. You can also hear the Guy on WRKO in Boston and recently had an appearance on Sirus Satellite Radio.

The Guy From Boston vs The Kid From Brooklyn

Dave Noderer — Sat, 05 May 2007 18:19:33 GMT

Looks like the battle of the century!!

The Guy from Boston.. www.theguyfromboston.com (my nephew, yeah!) has challenged the Kid from Brooklyn.. www.thekidfrombrooklyn.com (BOO!, don't know him but i gotta stick with family) to lose 100 lbs.

The loser is to kiss the other's ass in Times Square! I don't know about that but it would be good for both of them to shed a few pounds!

If you want to help this along, send your support to radio jocks Toucher and Rich at WBCN in Boston. (www.wbcn.com).