Things with me are as busy as ever. Ever hear the saying ask a busy man if you need something done? Well, that’s how it’s been with me. I’ve three jobs at the moment. I’m doing my 9 to 5 job, I’m almost finished creating the website for an online radio station called Mushroom FM and I’m also doing work for a local charity. They use to get me to do work for them a few years ago but they made the silly mistake of getting someone else in since 2008 and now their regretting it and I’ve been asked to pick up the pieces. They have increased the number of PC’s they use in the office but there are no policies or restrictions in place to keep people from messing things up. The result of this is that a virus has been spread around every computer and there’s a lot of crapware installed such as tool bars and other non-work related applications.
I’ve a huge task on my plate over the next few weeks to completely over hall their PC and telecommunications infrastructure. I think I’ll try to document a lot of the changes I make on the blog as it will possibly be interesting to some of you.
I’m also attempting to complete a few projects I’ve started at home. I’m changing the house phone system over to VOIP. IF this is successful and reliable, it is something I will implement in other places as well. I’m doing this by interfacing a Trixbox machine with Blueface. Again, More documentation will be forthcoming on the blog but first I have to figure out a problem that I’ve encountered with connecting both systems. It’s not the easiest thing in the world to figure out because although documentation is available and people have blogged about their experiences with getting Trixbox up and running, a lot of the information out there conflicts with its self.
The final project I’m working on at home is radio related. I’m now broadcasting on 70Cems and 2Metres on the amateur radio frequencies. I recently purchased a Kenwood tS2000 radio so I’m active on the airwaves again. I’ve also purchased a multiband antenna and I’ve purchased a magnetic ballin for a long wire Arial for HF so I’m hoping to be up on those bands very shortly. I need to brush up on Morse code. I’ve not been active on HF in about ten years so I’m very rusty. Actually, first, I need to buy a new mores key. The one I have is just a straight key but I’d rather paddles instead.
A protected post will be along shortly writing about the work situation. If you have an account on the site you’ll be able to read that. If you don’t, now is the time to create one.
Seems like everyone is getting back into amateur radio lately, including myself. I got my license in 1993, but haven’t been active on the bands for about ten years. I’ve just bought a few radios, but nothing for HF yet. I have played with a Kenwood TS-2000, though only remotely, through a program called Web Transeiver. Even managed to work PSK31 on 30 meters that way.
My latest buys have just been 2m/70m radios, an old Radio Shack HTX-242 for the house, and a Wouxun KG-UVD1P handheld which has *some* talking functions, and is easy to program, plus, it’s cheap.
I still have the Comet gp-9 groundplain and stacked 11-element beams for 2 meters on top of the house, but need to get the rotor going again. It’s a modified ham4 with some leads that go out to a talking volt meter, so you can tell what heading the antenna is pointed at. Again, it’s probably not been used in at least ten years, maybe more.
I’d kind of like to play with DStar and the like, even IRLP, but the one node in my area is offline. How boring of it! I have used EchoLink pc-side over the last few years, and have only just been able to play with it from the RF side, but everyone tells me IRLP sounds and acts nicer. Yet to see it, or DStar, in action.
Have fun with all that.
73 de KE4DYI