Radio Antics

Friday, 15 October 2010

The stress of dog ownership!

It has been a stressful week at château Nerdsville. Our youngest dog Eddie (a two year old Pembrokeshire Corgi) became seriously ill Monday night.

We were woken at around 1am by the retching sound of something being sick and the pungent smell of you know what! I went downstairs to discover a pile of white foamy vomit in the hall and a small pile of diarrhoea in the kitchen near the back door and a sheepish looking Corgi.

I wasn't overly surprised as Eddie had been off his food and had already had a slight case of the runs when out for his afternoon and evening strolls the day before. So I let him out into the garden and set about cleaning it all up. We all retired back to bed only to be disturbed again at 5am by the sound of a dog running down the stairs and whimpering. I grabbed by slippers and dressing gown and hurried down to find Eddie in the kitchen again. This time I was also met with two largish pools of what initially I thought was urine but as I mopped them up it was obvious this was water with a dilute trace of blood (and was from the bowels as it smelt of faeces)

Eddie was out in the garden again and I found him squatting releasing a jet of liquid from his rear. This wasn't looking good, but have had dogs for many years and have experienced all sorts of stomach upsets. Given the time of day I decided it wasn't worth going back to bed and decided to sit up in the living room with the patio door open to allow Eddie to quickly get into the garden if needed (and I could catch up on the latest downloaded episode of Dexter on the XBMC).

For a while Eddie seemed okay, then at around 6:30am he ran out again to evacuate another jet of liquid. It was starting to get light and I could see that it was bloody again. The wife who was understandably worried reluctantly went off to work at around 7:30am and I went off to shower and dressed and planned to ring the vets to take him to morning surgery. However when I came down stairs I found another red pool in the kitchen this time it had the consistancy of pure blood, this was now getting serious and I rang the vet and was told to come in straight away.

I had already checked on the internet and my suspicions were confirmed as Eddie was diagnosed with Hemorrhagic gastroenteritis (HGE) This is serious potentially life threatening condition and the cause in most cases unknown but there have been a cluster of cases in and around Nottinghamshire our vet alone had seen three dogs in the last week one of which had nearly died. We were aware of the warnings concerning Sherwood Forest, Clumber Park and other woodland sites but had been no where near them for weeks.

Thankfully following a number of anti-inflamatory steroids, antibotics and anti-emetic injections Eddie has started to make a good recovery, thankfully it was caught early enough so he didn't need any IV treatment. He still isn't back to full health yet, but is much much better.

Monday, 11 October 2010

Jean Michel Jarre

I came down with a severe case of man-flu early last week but recovered sufficiently to travel to Birmingham and The National Indoor Arena on Friday evening to see Jean Michel Jarre in concert. We almost didn't go because I was still feeling unwell and the wife is having problems with her back and was recovering from an epidural steroid injection. I was glad we did go as it was a good night and a very impressive show both aurally and visually, just wish venues could see their way to giving an extra couple of inches legroom!

I had read in a pithy review of an early show that Jean Michel was actively encouraging the use of digital cameras and iPhones during his preformance so decided I would take my aging Casio EX-Z120 digital camera along. Arriving at the NIA we were met with signs banning the use of ALL photographic and recording equipment! Despite this I managed to take the camera in unchallenged and so did many others judging by the vast number of illuminated LCD viewfinder screens visible in the audience during certain parts of the performance.

One slightly annoying point of the evening was one particularly over-zealous steward who seemed to spend the entire evening tapping people on the shoulder or shining his torch into the faces of anyone who dared tried to make a digital memento of the evening - thankfully I was too ensconced in the crowd and was a little less obvious in my actions for him to pick me out, but he did target someone sitting just three seats away!

How ironic then on the last song of the evening Jean Michel did indeed ask the audience to send out a signal using their cameras on Facebook and YouTube! Unfortunately at this point I had already exhausted my memory card (I hadn't took my spare!)

I have uploaded a number of short highlights onto my YouTube Channel.

Sunday, 3 October 2010

A bit of a clean up and some repairs

The original plans for the weekend were thrown in to the air for a number of reasons. I spent most of Saturday with a saw, drill and screwdriver rebuilding part of the summerhouse in the garden and ferrying the old rotten parts and other garden waste to the local refuse tip!

Today (Sunday) I had the house to myself as the wife was off visiting her sister. As the weather has been absolutely atrocious, raining most of the day, I decided to have a bit of a clean up in the den. I'd noticed the fans in the main computer have been roaring under the slightest load recently and as I suspected the reason was the air intakes were blocked with dust and dog hair! While not quite as bad as these it was still pretty shocking as I do regularly check them.

As I had to pull them out from under the desk I decided to have a bit of a rearrange. While doing this I removed a redundant ethernet switch and an unused USB 1.1 hub, both were cheap far-eastern ones purchased many years ago. It now turns out they were a major source of interference on my scanners!

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The tidy computer centre (yes the external HD are sitting on a 1980 2001AD annual!)

One other task I achieved today was to replace the backlight on my Realistic PRO2006 scanner.

I purchase the PRO2006 from ebay about four/five years ago, I got it for less than £20 as it was advertised as for repair or spares. It was described as powering up with sound but because there was no display it couldn't be operated.

When I got it (in it's original box with manual) and opened it up it was obvious what was wrong as it appear to have spent most of it's life in a shed or workshop, it was full of fine dust (I suspect from sanding wood) and this has blocked out the LCD display! It also had flecks of paint on the casing. The paint was thankfully emulsion and was easy to remove I just soaked the plastic case in warm water for a few hours. I stripped down the rest of the unit and removed the dust with a can of compressed air and a brush, other than that it worked perfectly!

One downside was the display backlight had faded, the backlight on many of the Realistic desktop scanners is an electro-luminescent panel and their output fades over time. Today I finally got around to replacing the panel, it isn't as straightforward as it sounds as the spare part is no longer available but using the instructions found here I was able to replace it with a panel cut from a larger sheet purchased from Farnell.

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The display panel removed from the scanner with original backlight

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Original panel removed (top) and replacement panel cut to size (bottom)

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The new panel in all it's glory!

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The only downside is from this angle you can just see the connector on the panel.

The backlight is now really bright, in fact I have had the 'dimmer' switch activated because it is so bright! I also have a Realistic PRO2022 and the backlight on that is fading too, it is nowhere near as bad as the PRO2006 was, but you can see the marked difference below.

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This shows the repaired PRO2006 compared to my PRO2022.

One other benefit of opening up the PRO2006 was I discovered a soldered connector on the shielding behind the front panel had come adrift. I have resoldered this and this has dramatically improved the reception and audio from the unit. Today has been a good day!

Friday, 1 October 2010

Hamfest 2010

Took the afternoon of work today and went to the Newark Showground for a few hours to experience the National Hamfest 2010 Despite the weather which was absolutely appauling I had an enjoyable time. I resisted the urge to purchase any new equipment, this was difficult as some very nice receivers, scanners and antennas were on sale.

Because of the rain the intended outdoor carboot section was almost none existant which was a pity as I fancied a rummage. Inside it was mostly new 'expensive' gear a few surplus stores and a few clubs and others with some used and 'junk' stuff for sale. It is quite noticable that the cheap chinese import transceivers that are flooding ebay were also much on offer and I suspect if I do take the exam and get my licence I will end up with one of those initially.

In the end I picked up some adapters, a few books and I did take advantage of the RSGB special offer and joined up. I also signed up for the Group for Earth Observation (GEO) the members on the stand were very helpful and this was particularly interesting as the members of the group use relatively inexpensive equipment to receive data from satellites to produce weather images and other earth observation. I dabbled many years ago with receiving data from the NOAA polar orbiting APT satellites which can be done to a limited extent using a normal scanner and a PC soundcard. It was only £20 to sign up and the welcome pack for GEO was extremely generous and consisted of the last four quarterly magazines packed full of information and pictures and a lovely book all about the EUMETSAT system.

Thursday, 30 September 2010

Station Report

It has been a few weeks since I dug out my neglected scanners and despite not being able to spend hours with them I have still had an enjoyable time reacquainting myself with them and experimenting.

Despite the growing use of digital transmission systems there is still a lot to listen to on the airwaves. I should note at this point that using a scanner to monitor anything that is not intended for 'General Reception' is illegal.

The Amateur bands are fairly quite around my location, however I was pleasantly surprised to be able to here to receive a number of Amateur repeaters both on the 2 meter and 70cm bands despite appearing to be outside the predicated coverage.

The CB bands are also very quiet but I suspect that is more to do with the high levels of interference I seem to be suffering. I have been struck by the apparent increase in interference (QRM) on a lot of the bands since I last used the receivers. I can hardly hear anything on the short wave HF bands except the more powerful commercial transmitters.

I suspect this interference is down to the proliferation of computers and associated peripherals, wired and wireless networking. Energy saving fluorescent lamps and microprocessor system in all manner of consumer equipment such as TVs, PVRs, DVD players for example means the airwaves are full of noise.

The Radio Society of Great Britain (RSGB) who represent the thousands of Amateur radio operators have begun to campaign to save the radio spectrum from such interference, specifically they are currently campaigning against the threat poised by the proliferation of PLA/PLT devices (such as HomePlug) these devices use the house mains wiring to transmit network data. However what happens is the wiring then acts an effective radio antenna transmitting the traffic at such levels blocking out other legitimate radio transmissions. This sounds(sic) to be in direct contravention of the EMC Directive of the EU that prohibits the manufacturer of any device that interfers with radio and telecommunications equipment.

However despite representations by the RSGB, the BBC and others OFCOM and the last Government have dragged their heals and refused to act. Hopefully the new Collation Government will be different, but I won't hold my breath. More information at UKQRM

However given all this noise there are still things to listen to, of course I haven't since it is illegal, but if I were so inclined there are plenty of analogue VHF/UHF Private Mobile Radio (PMR) systems still being used by commerical organisations. Such as taxi firms, councils, security patrols or by large business to facilitate communication across sites.

In the past it would be difficult to know the source of the transmission often listening for clues to try help identify them such as names of locations, buildings, streets and people for example. However nowadays it has been made a little easier by OFCOM who have allowed on-line access to the Wireless Telegraphy Register database. The use and allocation of radio frequencies is strictly regulated so now if get a hit on a frequency it is possible to use the WRT website to help identify them.

The air and marine bands are still as active as ever, given my location near to a number of RAF bases it could prove interesting if I were also so inclined.

Wednesday, 15 September 2010

Ladybird Book - The Story of Radio

I have just successfully bid on ebay for a copy of The Ladybird Book - The Story of The Radio I was browsing earlier and stumbled across Tony Ling's website and it features an altered picture of the front cover and it sparked some nostalgia.

This was a book I was given as a child and remember being enthralled by its contents. As the blurb says the book tells the fascinating story of radio, from the early forecasts of James Clerk Maxwell and the experiments of Heinrich Hertz and Marconi to the modern Post Office Tower (remember it was first printed in 1968) and the use of radar.

Just got to wait for delivery...

I might go looking for a copy of the 1972 Making a Transistor Radio and might actually have a go at building one, but there are some pitfalls in it's design!

Monday, 13 September 2010

Rebooting a lapsed hobby

Ever since I was old enough to handle a screwdriver and a soldering iron I have had an interest in radio communications and electronics. I spent many a hour in my childhood scanning the Medium and Short Wave bands with various receivers (usually scavenged from family, neighbours or saved from the dump!) I constructed numerous long-wire and other bizarre antennas. I even did a presentation on my hobby for my English Language O-Level exam - I really did confirm my status as a weirdo!

I played with borrowed CB radios and would have loved to progressed into owning one or becoming a proper radio amateur but unfortunately I simply didn't have the money.

Then the home computer revolution started and my Dragon32 and Tatung Einstein took up most of my time. I left school and went off to University and when I came back home and got a job I spent some of my money on a new fangled radio scanner, a Realistic PRO2022 from Tandy.

A scanner is a radio that covers a wide frequency range, they are controlled my microprocessors and allowing you to listen in to a huge range of different communications including air traffic control, hobbyists (Citizens Band, Amateur radio), security guards, taxi's and a lot more. Back in the late 80s, and early 90s they also allowed access to the emergency services and the old analogue cellular phones! Connecting it up a computer and using some software you even decode pager messages!

Gradually all the 'fun' stuff disappeared, the mobile phones became digital, so did the emergency services. This along with other commitments, such as moving across the country to a new job, getting married and other demands on my time meant the scanner ended up collecting dust in the attic.

Several years ago I briefly dusted it off and brought a couple of other second hand scanners including a Realistic PRO2006 and a brand new Alinco-DJ3X. I also played around with some PMR446 systems, but sadly again they all ended up collecting dust.

Well once again they are out of the boxes and I am having a fun time scanning around for interesting signals, well if you can count listening to the radio microphone at a local church interesting!

I am thinking of buying a CB as it seems to have evolved from the bad old days into something more grown up. Even becoming a DX amateur type system using something called freebanding not legal mind, but then technically using a scanner isn't!

I am even contemplating taking the Radio Amateur exams and actually achieving a childhood dream, well I do now have access to money and did do an electronics degree!

This time I hope it doesn't all fizzle out and it is looking more promising as plans are a foot for me to have my own shack and I won't be spending as much time on my other hobbies next year.