Have you ever tried to revisit a web page that you can remember seeing a few days/weeks/months ago, and found that it has completely disappeared?
A few weeks ago I remember seeing a beacon map of Europe. I'm sure it was a 2m (144MHz) beacon map, but perhaps that's where my memory is failing me. I think it was plotted on a Google map background. But unlike the map at Make More Miles on VHF, the symbols for each beacon showed the beam heading, and when you pointed at each one a box popped up with information such as the locator, antenna and power output.
Does such a beacon map really exist, or did I imagine it?
Monday, June 29, 2009
Friday, June 26, 2009
My Rolls Royce
I have just acquired a Rolls Royce. Or at least, the Rolls Royce of transverters. Perhaps that should be the Mercedes Benz of transverters, since the new acquisition is a Kuhne Electronics TR 144 H 2m transverter made in Germany. It is probably the most expensive transverter in the world, as they say in the beer adverts. Though I didn't pay the eye-wateringly high new price as I got this one second hand.
If you know what this transverter is then you will probably consider that it is somewhat wasted in my full stealth situation. It boasts such a low noise receive converter that it can be used for high power EME without a preamplifier. And the transmit side is so conservatively rated that you can drive an amplifier to the full legal limit and still sound absolutely clean.
But why should you have to use budget gear just because your antenna opportunities are limited? Just like those old guys who finally afford a Ferrari even though they only use it to potter down to the golf club, it's good to own top quality equipment even if you can't fully exploit it. It's nice to have a 2 metre transverter that matches the performance of my K3. It's an investment. And should I ever want to go portable to do some serious 2m operating then now I have the best possible gear to do it with.
My first impression on receiving the TR144H was - it's huge! It's nearly as big as the K3 and about as heavy. There's a large heat sink on the back that makes it look as if it is capable of a cool 100W, not a mere 25W.
Remove the top cover and you will see that there is a lot of space inside. There are two main modules, a low power transverter module and the PA module, connected using high quality low loss interconnects. There is also a control board on the front panel and a large, well-damped meter that shows average power output.
As expected, the receive sensitivity is very good. I can hear the GB3VHF beacon a lot better than I could using the Spectrum Communications transverter. All I need now is a good 2m opening to try it out on the air!
If you know what this transverter is then you will probably consider that it is somewhat wasted in my full stealth situation. It boasts such a low noise receive converter that it can be used for high power EME without a preamplifier. And the transmit side is so conservatively rated that you can drive an amplifier to the full legal limit and still sound absolutely clean.
But why should you have to use budget gear just because your antenna opportunities are limited? Just like those old guys who finally afford a Ferrari even though they only use it to potter down to the golf club, it's good to own top quality equipment even if you can't fully exploit it. It's nice to have a 2 metre transverter that matches the performance of my K3. It's an investment. And should I ever want to go portable to do some serious 2m operating then now I have the best possible gear to do it with.
My first impression on receiving the TR144H was - it's huge! It's nearly as big as the K3 and about as heavy. There's a large heat sink on the back that makes it look as if it is capable of a cool 100W, not a mere 25W.
Remove the top cover and you will see that there is a lot of space inside. There are two main modules, a low power transverter module and the PA module, connected using high quality low loss interconnects. There is also a control board on the front panel and a large, well-damped meter that shows average power output.
As expected, the receive sensitivity is very good. I can hear the GB3VHF beacon a lot better than I could using the Spectrum Communications transverter. All I need now is a good 2m opening to try it out on the air!
No Trojan in KComm
Don Wilhelm W3FPR just sent me a note advising me that AVG anti-virus had detected a Trojan in KComm. The program had been sitting on his hard drive for some time, waiting for a chance to set it up. This was the first time AVG had found anything wrong with it.
AVG is somewhat notorious for false alarms. If it wasn't free I doubt if many would use it. Unfortunately it is, so a lot of people do. False alarms cause a lot of panic for users, and a lot of hassle for software developers.
As I always do in such cases, I advised Don to check the file at Virustotal.com. This will cause it to be scanned by over 40 different virus scanners so you can get a consensus of opinion on it. In my experience when you do this it is rare that none of the scanners find anything wrong with a file, but it is usually the poor or "never heard of" products that claim to find anything. When that's the case you can just ignore it. If more than one of the well-known brands like Norton, McAfee or Kaspersky report something malicious then you probably do have something nasty.
Out of interest I scanned the current version of KComm myself and here is the report VirusTotal generated. AVG claimed to find "Trojan horse Dropper. Generic ARGQ" just as Don reported, eSafe reported "Suspicious file" and VBA32 (whatever that is) thought it found "Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Wlord.acs".
There is a reason why the setup files for free and shareware programs are often mistakenly claimed to be Trojan droppers, and that is because they are both self extracting Zip files. However a reliable virus scanner should more thoroughly check the contents of the Zip to be sure that it really is malware before crying "Wolf!" and alarming everyone.
AVG is somewhat notorious for false alarms. If it wasn't free I doubt if many would use it. Unfortunately it is, so a lot of people do. False alarms cause a lot of panic for users, and a lot of hassle for software developers.
As I always do in such cases, I advised Don to check the file at Virustotal.com. This will cause it to be scanned by over 40 different virus scanners so you can get a consensus of opinion on it. In my experience when you do this it is rare that none of the scanners find anything wrong with a file, but it is usually the poor or "never heard of" products that claim to find anything. When that's the case you can just ignore it. If more than one of the well-known brands like Norton, McAfee or Kaspersky report something malicious then you probably do have something nasty.
Out of interest I scanned the current version of KComm myself and here is the report VirusTotal generated. AVG claimed to find "Trojan horse Dropper. Generic ARGQ" just as Don reported, eSafe reported "Suspicious file" and VBA32 (whatever that is) thought it found "Trojan-Dropper.Win32.Wlord.acs".
There is a reason why the setup files for free and shareware programs are often mistakenly claimed to be Trojan droppers, and that is because they are both self extracting Zip files. However a reliable virus scanner should more thoroughly check the contents of the Zip to be sure that it really is malware before crying "Wolf!" and alarming everyone.
Thursday, June 25, 2009
An Englishman's castle
I have often claimed that there is a clause in the deeds to my property that forbid the erection of antennas. In fact, there is no such thing. The only clause that relates to antennas is one that precludes any TV or radio antenna from being installed on the front elevation of the house.
There is, however, a clause that states that the owner may "not do or permit to be done upon the Property any act or thing which shall be a nuisance or annoyance to the owner or occupier of any other property on the Estate." This catch-all clause could arguably allow a property owner who experienced RFI to get a radio amateur shut down by law, regardless of whose equipment was at fault. That's why I operate full stealth. Little did I imagine that this clause would be used to try to prevent my wife from turning our pocket handkerchief front lawn into a flower bed. But it is impossible to overestimate the extent to which the English middle classes can go to to make life unpleasant for their neighbours.
The picture shows the front of our house. Perspective makes the front lawn look bigger than it really is. What it doesn't show is that the frontage of our house is the driveway of our neighbour's property, and that it curves steeply towards the house so that on the right-hand side the lawn is just a few feet deep. As a lawn it is a complete waste of time, but when our neighbour parks his car at the end of his drive - which he does to stop people reversing into it - it looks as if the car is right outside our front window.
My wife Olga wanted to dig up the lawn and plant shrubs and flowers in its place, so we could look at those rather than our neighbour's old banger. Because the land slopes slightly down from the house, she planned to install a low curb at the boundary, to prevent topsoil from falling on to the neighbour's driveway. However, while she was discussing this with a man who was going to do the work, the neighbour came out and objected, and there was an altercation.
A couple of hours later this neighbour knocked on our door brandishing a copy of the title deeds and claiming to have spoken to his solicitor. He told us "you can't do this", citing the abovementioned clause as the reason. His main objection seemed to be concern that installing the curb would affect the foundations of his driveway. So I suggested that instead we would place a line of ornamental rocks inside our boundary to retain the soil, and make no excavations anywhere near his foundations. But he wouldn't have that, either. We had to keep the front exactly as it is, or he would go to law to stop us.
So it appears we have two choices. We can stay here, fight the neighbour, and end up as an item in the TV programme "Neighbours from Hell", or we can move house and avoid the stress that such a conflict is going to cause us. I would not be at all sad to leave Cockermouth, a town that one vendor of a property that I looked at when I first moved here described as "a small town for small-minded people." But I will be desperately sorry to have to dismantle my attic antenna farm which I have devoted so much time to perfecting, because with our limited budget and my wife's desire to live close to a town it's unlikely we will find a house with any better ham radio potential.
There is, however, a clause that states that the owner may "not do or permit to be done upon the Property any act or thing which shall be a nuisance or annoyance to the owner or occupier of any other property on the Estate." This catch-all clause could arguably allow a property owner who experienced RFI to get a radio amateur shut down by law, regardless of whose equipment was at fault. That's why I operate full stealth. Little did I imagine that this clause would be used to try to prevent my wife from turning our pocket handkerchief front lawn into a flower bed. But it is impossible to overestimate the extent to which the English middle classes can go to to make life unpleasant for their neighbours.
The picture shows the front of our house. Perspective makes the front lawn look bigger than it really is. What it doesn't show is that the frontage of our house is the driveway of our neighbour's property, and that it curves steeply towards the house so that on the right-hand side the lawn is just a few feet deep. As a lawn it is a complete waste of time, but when our neighbour parks his car at the end of his drive - which he does to stop people reversing into it - it looks as if the car is right outside our front window.My wife Olga wanted to dig up the lawn and plant shrubs and flowers in its place, so we could look at those rather than our neighbour's old banger. Because the land slopes slightly down from the house, she planned to install a low curb at the boundary, to prevent topsoil from falling on to the neighbour's driveway. However, while she was discussing this with a man who was going to do the work, the neighbour came out and objected, and there was an altercation.
A couple of hours later this neighbour knocked on our door brandishing a copy of the title deeds and claiming to have spoken to his solicitor. He told us "you can't do this", citing the abovementioned clause as the reason. His main objection seemed to be concern that installing the curb would affect the foundations of his driveway. So I suggested that instead we would place a line of ornamental rocks inside our boundary to retain the soil, and make no excavations anywhere near his foundations. But he wouldn't have that, either. We had to keep the front exactly as it is, or he would go to law to stop us.
So it appears we have two choices. We can stay here, fight the neighbour, and end up as an item in the TV programme "Neighbours from Hell", or we can move house and avoid the stress that such a conflict is going to cause us. I would not be at all sad to leave Cockermouth, a town that one vendor of a property that I looked at when I first moved here described as "a small town for small-minded people." But I will be desperately sorry to have to dismantle my attic antenna farm which I have devoted so much time to perfecting, because with our limited budget and my wife's desire to live close to a town it's unlikely we will find a house with any better ham radio potential.
Tuesday, June 23, 2009
Excluding spammers
There is no fate too cruel to be inflicted upon the lowlife that pollute the Internet with unwanted messages. And I don't just mean the mindless morons that send an endless stream of emails offering unwanted pharmaceutical products and fake designer goods to my inbox. I'm talking about the vermin who pollute forums, blog comment sections and guest books with their irrelevant and often offensive comments, which waste my time deleting them.
One of the ham radio websites I run is Ham Directory. I started it a couple of years ago after finding a free web directory script on the 'net. I thought that a searchable, categorized directory of links to ham radio sites that users themselves could submit to would be better than the endless lists of often dead links at places like DXZone or AC6V.com.
The rules for inclusion are clear. Any submitted site must be of direct relevance to amateur radio. Anything else will be rejected. But every time I go to check for new submissions I find links for data recovery software and various other irrelevant stuff.
Can't these people read? Obviously they can. One of the things I tried to stop them was to make submitters answer a simple ham radio related question: 14.2MHz is in the ?? meter band. That worked for a bit, then somebody worked it out. Next I tried: The IC756PRO is made by which manufacturer? That lasted about a week (I suppose they Googled the answer to it.)
Out of desperation I am trying a "morse captcha". You have to type in a word that is spelled out in morse (sorry, no-coders.) I wonder how long that will keep the unwanted submissions out?
One of the ham radio websites I run is Ham Directory. I started it a couple of years ago after finding a free web directory script on the 'net. I thought that a searchable, categorized directory of links to ham radio sites that users themselves could submit to would be better than the endless lists of often dead links at places like DXZone or AC6V.com.
The rules for inclusion are clear. Any submitted site must be of direct relevance to amateur radio. Anything else will be rejected. But every time I go to check for new submissions I find links for data recovery software and various other irrelevant stuff.
Can't these people read? Obviously they can. One of the things I tried to stop them was to make submitters answer a simple ham radio related question: 14.2MHz is in the ?? meter band. That worked for a bit, then somebody worked it out. Next I tried: The IC756PRO is made by which manufacturer? That lasted about a week (I suppose they Googled the answer to it.)
Out of desperation I am trying a "morse captcha". You have to type in a word that is spelled out in morse (sorry, no-coders.) I wonder how long that will keep the unwanted submissions out?
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