Blogs

Bit of airplane spotting?

Software Defined Radio - thank-you!

ross@amd:~$ rtl_adsb | socat -u - TCP-LISTEN:30003
Found 1 device(s):
  0:  Realtek, RTL2838UHIDIR, SN: 00000001
Using device 0: Terratec T Stick PLUS
Found Elonics E4000 tuner
Tuner gain set to automatic.
Tuned to 1090000000 Hz.
Sampling at 2000000 Hz.
Exact sample rate is: 2000000.052982 Hz


I then use VirtualRadarServer to serve up the web page.. nice - enjoy!

Ok, got the RB433AH back on the roof wth 2 x wifi nic - thanks heaps Tanuki!

Quagga/BGP conf not yet worked out but no doubt it will be soon, in the mean time - what can be "seen" from my Superpass Omini up there...

Not wifi but hell, it's radio!

NOAA flys low Earth orbit satellites and have been doing so for a while now, not many alive these days broadcasting somewhat easy to receive APT (Automated Picture Transfer) on 137MHz - NOAA 15, 18 & 19.

Basically, it is a FAX type transmission. The sensor points down and broadcasts FAX lines continuously as it flys over-head.

WXtoImg has a free version that works just fine and is pretty feature full, MacOSX, Win and 'nix - nice.

Potential LOS from Teringie Ridgeland Dv as calculated by Splat!   --  Oh yeah it's a nice view from up there...

Full size: http://www.air-stream.org/files/Teringie_ridgeland_dv_splat_LOS.jpg

Came home after work to find my wifi PC box spontaneously rebooted and the RB 433AH at the mast head not pinging - a power cycle hasn't fixed that - gads!

... more to come ...

Test blog entry on the new website.

Test blog entry :)

This is a little overdue :).

Following from http://seven.air-stream.org/frequently-asked-questions-faq/how-much-does-it-cost-connect i thought i would put some thoughts down about how i got connected.

I knew about Air-stream and the general philosophy but not enough about wireless to know what to do.

I started by paying my membership $50 - http://seven.air-stream.org/join

Then i jumped on IRC and started talking to the people there. I found from IRC that they are more than happy to come out and do a stumble to see what i could potentially connect to.

Last Wednesday (1st Aug, 2012), Nekron and I upgraded my connection to Ingle Farm by swapping out the 8dB omni for a 19dB dish. This is a fairly mundane task and usually doesn't need blogging but the advantage and benefit of using a dish, even in a dish-omni scenario, really does improve the quality of the connection significantly.

Well, what a difference a coax cable (connector actually) can make.
Other than a couple of very short drop outs I have enjoyed excellent connectivity:

jun/05 23:17:19 wireless,info 00:15:6D:65:F9:27@wlan1 established connection on 2427, SSID Air-Stream-Skye
jun/05 23:17:22 route,bgp,info Connection opened by remote host
jun/05 23:17:22 route,bgp,info RemoteAddress=10.122.128.1
jun/06 00:39:18 system,info,account user admin logged out from 10.122.128.66 via winbox
jun/06 00:42:20 system,info,account user admin logged out from 10.122.128.66 via ssh
jun/07 03:42:30 wireless,info 00:15:6D:65:F9:27@wlan1: lost connection, no beacons received
jun/07 03:42:32 wireless,info 00:15:6D:65:F9:27@wlan1 established connection on 2427, SSID Air-Stream-Skye