My subscription to Life expired, but I still have a subscription to Mad.

Wednesday, May 31, 2006

using WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1

Yesterday, we took a roadtrip in Land Barge II to Sugar Hill, NH. Our route was I-84 to Hartford, I-91 to Wells River, VT, Route 302 to Lisbon, NH, and Route 117 to Sugar Hill and our destination Polly's Pancake Parlor.

The TH-D7(G) indicated that its APRS packets were being digipeated throughout the roundtrip, but when I arrived home and checked the APRS track on the Internet, it showed a gap between Greenfield, MA, and Brattleboro, VT, and a complete lack of Internet coverage north of Claremont, NH (see map).

The path in the D7 was WIDE1-1,WIDE2-1. I will reset the path to WIDE1-1,WIDE2-2 and see if that improves matters.

Monday, May 29, 2006

wa1lou-8 on the road again



I finished installing my mobile APRS station, WA1LOU-8, in Land Barge II today. See you on the road maps again!

Sunday, May 28, 2006

a British invader dies

from CNN.com: Freddie and the Dreamers star dies

Monday, May 22, 2006; Posted: 8:17 a.m. EDT (12:17 GMT)

LONDON, England -- British pop star Freddie Garrity, former lead singer with 1960s band Freddie and the Dreamers, has died at the age of 69.

***

Surfing and the British Invasion sparked my interest in rock 'n' roll. So, I note the passing of one of the early invaders from Britain, Freddie Garrity.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Surfin': Virtually in Dayton

Read this week’s installment of Surfin': Virtually in Dayton, then leave your comments here.

Surfin' index

I spent a lot of time cleaning up the Surfin' Index... fixing HTML code, fixing errors, adding entries that slipped through the cracks, etc. If you notice anything wrong, please let me know so I can fix the problem.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

100 fastest growing tech companies... none here

Today, CNN.Money.com has a story about the 100 fastest growing tech companies. Since my day job is technical writing for a tech company here in Connecticut, I checked out the list.

No surprise that the company I work for is not on the list, but I was very surprised that not one of the 100 was located in Connecticut! That is a sad state of affairs for the Nutmeg State.

Tuesday, May 23, 2006

veggies

It was colder last night (39° F) than the night before, but not as windy, so the veggies survived another cold spring night. The forecast is for warmer weather for the rest of this week, so that is good news for my peppers and tomatoes.

Monday, May 22, 2006

veggies in



This weekend, I planted vegetables in my five Earthboxes: romaine lettuce, bell peppers, string beans, broccoli, and Early Girl tomatoes.

The temperature was unseasonably low last night (41° F) with a stiff wind blowing most of the night. I feared that the peppers and tomatoes might suffer, but they looked fine this morning.

playing on my iPod this week

I've been listening to my most recent online music purchases, a diverse mix of oldies and recent releases: 20 All Time Greatest Hits by James Brown, Living With War by Neil Young, and Not Ready To Make Nice by the Dixie Chicks.

virtually in Dayton

I did not go to the Dayton Hamvention this year for a couple of reasons.

Steve Ford, WB8IMY, from ARRL headquarters did go and he had a Dayton Hamvention blog going throughout the weekend. Between his blog, participating in the TAPR-Dayton board meeting by phone, and WA5KUB's live video from the Hamvention, it was like being at the Hamvention without driving 735 miles for 11 hours.

On Friday, Steve asked people reading his blog what they would like him to photograph at the Hamvention. I e-mailed Steve and asked him to take a photo of the folks at the TAPR booth, which is where I spend most of my time during past Hamventions. Steve responded with this photo that appeared in his blog Saturday. (That's John Koster, W9DDD, and Sheilah Bible, N7HPR's XYL, in the photo.)

Friday, May 19, 2006

Thursday, May 18, 2006

new-N APRS paradigm works!

Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, posted this on the APRSSIG today:

Taking a fresh look at the local network last night I noticed that
the New-N Paradigm has made a tremendous difference.

80% WIDE2-2 or less!
11% are using W3...
9% are still using RELAY and WIDE. (was 80% in 2005)

This is the Washington/Baltimore area which is the highest
density APRS on earth. And with over 250 stations and
over 50 digipeters showing up in the area, the channel
still has some dead times of many seconds, sometimes as
many as 10 seconds between packets. (at ground level)
making it much easier to be heard and thus, better
reliability.

The real evidence is in the packet counts per hour per station:
Only a half dozen or less stations are hitting routine packet
counts of over 20/hr. Whereas before, we had probably
2 dozen stations with packet counts of 50 to 100/hr. All
caused by all the DUPES of the old RELAY and WIDE system.

The New-N Paradigm WORKS!
Spread the word...

Tell them to GOOGLE for "fix14439"

de Wb4APR, Bob

Saturday, May 13, 2006

half a foot of rain

Yesterday, May 12, 2006, 6.21 inches of rain were recorded by the WA1LOU weather station. Unbelievable!

Friday, May 12, 2006

Surfin': It's the Shacktopus, Baby!

Read this week’s installment of Surfin': It's the Shacktopus, Baby!, then leave your comments here.

Thursday, May 11, 2006

Friday, May 5, 2006