He got a little thrown off by the perspective and didn't realize just how quickly he was loosing altitude. Ended up parked in the door of a VW. So I'm guessing they're not in a hurry to do another R/C.
This is a four day event with an FAA waiver. I've attended it the past three years and these guys are very careful to dot all their I's and cross all their T's when it comes to safety. They're also no strangers to large unstable models.
In just the past two years they've done equally large models of an Estes Fat Boy, A little joe, A Russian N1 moon rocket, and a Space shuttle complete with RC Orbiter (which unfortunately did bump into a VW upon landing.)
They're also pretty good at simultaneous ignition, last year they did 1,000+ mosquitoes and managed to get all but a few to light off.
Except that that's an issue IE has had for a long time. At least it exists in IE6.
So I'd have to assume it's not what the "article" (I have a hard time calling a rant on a blog an actual article) was talking about. If it is then the problem would have been present with IE6 as well.
Then again as poorly written as that blog was maybe they had never tested in IE6 and assumed this was a new problem.
Isn't that disabled by default too. I didn't even know firefox offered that as I find it to be one of the most annoying things a browser can do and hate having to specifically disable resizing large images in IE where it's the default selection.
I've been using Firefox for years but since I find that "feature" annoying as all heck I've never even looked for a way to turn it on and never missed it.
Complaints about non-default behaviour always kind of make me chuckle. Like when people setup painfull looking color combinations for their desktops...and then complain about how unusable xxx is because of the colors:D
You'd be surprised. Deserts are a hot spot for environmentalists and they've already blocked several large scale solar projects in the southwest preciesely because they'd keep the sun from reaching the desert floor. Not to mention the "Blight" factor of detracing from the natural beauty of the desert.
Espically given the location suggested for this I doubt it will ever be completed due to environmental protests and lawsuits.
Sounds like a new guy took over and rather than learn the ropes of what the company was doing decided to do things his way. While I don't doubt that big lunch budgets and trips to training courses in exotic places probably played a part - I suspect the bigger issue was Hilfiger hiring someone to manage a Linux netword who didn't like Linux.
IMB has info on their site about when they set Hilfiger up and it was a different CIO:
---cut here--- The eOneCommerce application plugs into the most complex environment with amazing speed. At Tommy Hilfiger, eOneCommerce implemented 15 legacy integrations, providing business-to-business, business-to-plant and business-to-employee functionality in under 90 days. "With eOneGroup and eOneCommerce, we got everything we wanted in a solution: rapid installation and rapid return on investment," said Ally Woo, CIO, Tommy Hilfiger. ---cut here---
Hopefully the bit about Packet and what a TNC is helps fill in what a BBS is doing on a satellite.
Sometimes people forget that radio is usefull for more than just music and voice. You can also send data by encoding it someway.
Think back to the days of dial-up BBSes, only one user at a time so you do a store and forward type of deal. On radio it's the same. Only one person can use a frequency at a time so you can either have a single conversation or use a BBS to store messages and let multiple people send and recieve in turn.
So it's kind of like the dial-up BBS days only instead of a modem you use a TNC, instead of a phoneline you use a radio and instead of a computer in some guys basement running the BBS you've got it strapped to a bunch of batteries and solar panels and flying around in space - or in this case strapped to the ISS.
Frankly though the whole satelite packet thing dosn't do it for me much outside of APRS. If I'm going to bounce something off a chunk of metal and silicone up in the air I want it to be voice.
Why APRS on sats is interesting to me is a much longer story though and has to do with how APRS works. Basically the big limitation of APRS is range. With Garmin Rhinos that range is 2-5 miles in the best of conditions. With Amateur radio the range at 2m for data can vary from 5 miles to 150 miles depending on a number of things. But usually it's around 5-30 miles or so. That means when you send a position report on APRS it usually goes no further than 30 miles. To reach further hams use something called digipeating which is basically a radio with a good antenna located up high somewhere and with lots of transmitting power. So it can hear weaker stations and then retransmit them from a higher point at higher power letting them reach further. With APRS you usually bounce a signal off 2 of those to get good range. But using a satelite instead of just a tall tower or mountian means your range suddenly goes from 150-200 miles max to several thousand miles in the footprint of the satellite. When you're out in a remote area that can be the difference between being heard and not being heard.
APRS is used extensively by SAR (Search and Rescue) teams as well as emergency response teams for tracking resources out in the field. I use it when out exploring the desert here in southern AZ so friends and family can see where I am and I can easily send a distress signal if something happens to me.
Teaching someone how to track and listen to an orbiting spacecraft in a short post is pretty tricky - so yeah I figured some would stumble on a few of the more specialized terms. But I'm willing to keep helping since just a few months ago all of it was gibberish to me as well even though some of the questions lead me to believe I'm just responding to a troll.
Just for reference when I say spacecraft I'm including unmaned satelites juts to prevent confusion before it starts....
-very small footprint
The footprint is the area of the earth visible to the orbiting spacecraft. The higher the spacecraft the more of the surface of the earth that will be line of sight to it at any given time. That dosn't necessarially mean the spacecraft can only see the area in it's footprint, but it does mean only those in the footprint can see (and talk to or recieve transmissions from) the spacecraft. The ISS is the lowest orbit of any spacecraft carrying amateur radio so it's got the smallest footprint. That means the window that you can hear it durring is shorter than any others - but it also means the signal is louder and easier to hear.
-HT and stock rubber duck antenna
HT = HandiTalkie. A small low power handheld radio. "Rubber Duck" is a cheap flexible antenna with little or no gain, basically the bare minimum to recieve a radio signal.
-in packet mode -1200 baud packet -$45 TNC-X
Packet is a form of digital communication. 1200 baud is the speed it runs at. A TNC is to radio basically what a modem is to a phone line, it converts audio to digital information and vice versa. The TNC-X is a pic (small microcontroller populary with hobbyists) based TNC that you can assemble yourself for very low cost. It has USB capabilities but relies on the computer it's attached to do to much of the "thinking" for it.
-APRS for position reporting
APRS is a a position reporting system. Kind of like the Garmin Rhino only a LOT more powerfull. It uses 1200 baud packet to encode information and transmit over the air where it is picked up by other amateurs.
-BBS for sharing messages
Seriously, what the heck are you doing reading slashdot (a BBS!) if you don't know what a BBS is. This is the point where the troll starts to show...
-homebuilt "J-pole"
As explained in my first post, it's an antenna you can build yourself. Once again the trollishness is getting pretty bad.
-directional Yagi
A Yagi is a certian type of antenna, google is your friend. They're very directional meaning that they transmit a very directed signal and likewise recieve from a limited area. Omni antennas you don't aim, directional you do.
-RF exposure
RF = Radio Frequency. Come on, RF exposure has been discussed on/. quite a bit lately with the whole cell phones will fry your eyes and all the Wifi/WiMax/Bluetooth wireless stuff.
-make sure that your keplerian elements are up to date
Keplerian elements are descriptions of a spacecrafts orbit. They're used to calculate the position of the spacecraft. Most tracking software have built in utilities to download them on a regular basis to make sure you know where a spacecraft will be.
The ISS is fairly easy to recieve, but due to it's low orbit it has a very small footprint meaning you only get about 7-10 minutes each pass when it will be in range.
On the upside it's got a higher power transmitter than other Amateur radio sattelites so it's a lot easier to hear. I regularly listen to it with just an HT and stock rubber duck antenna. 145.800 is the frequency of interest but what you hear depends on what they're doing with it.
Most often it's in packet mode so all you'll hear are bursts of data. They aren't very melodic but they do stand out above the background noise so you can tell you're hearing it. It's 1200 baud packet and with something like a $45 TNC-X hooked to your audio you could decode it fairly easily. The packet transmissions are a combination of APRS for position reporting on the earth and the BBS for sharing messages.
From time to time it gets put into cross band repeat mode where it listens on 437.800 and then retransmits whatever it hears on 145.800 I made a contact through it in that mode just a few weeks ago using nothing more than a homebuilt "J-pole" I usually use for communications on earth based repeaters. (They're real easy antennas to build, just takes one 1/2" copper tee 1 1/2" elbow and 10' of 1/2" copper pipe, lots of sites on the net with plans for them.) For my uplink I thought I was using a 440mhz Jpole I had build but not yet installed but later found out I was using my directional Yagi I built for listening to weaker satelites - amazingly I had that very directional antenna pointing nowhere near the ISS but was still able to get a signal through it very easily.
The third mode the ISS radio may be in is just a normal radio with an astronaut on the other end. I've yet to be lucky enough to hear it in that mode:(
However the radio is also off from time to time since it's not a primary mission of the ISS. It's always off when they're on spacewalks to keep down RF exposure.
The website www.issfanclub.com is a great place to check and see what the current status is. They have an area where people submit what they've heard recently so you can see what mode it's in. Though for some reason the site isn't responding today.
Because of the ISS's small footprint just knowing it's over NA isn't usually good enough. You'll need a way to check it's actual current position. On Windows I use a package called Orbitron which is postcardware and works great. amsat.org has links to a bunch of other sat tracking programs as well as a tool for finding passes through their site. Also because the ISS tends to move around more than most sats you need to make sure that your keplerian elements are up to date. Those are what the tracking programs use to determine it's exact position. Most sats are fairly fixed in their orbits but the ISS is adjusted from time to time espically when docking with a shuttle or other supply ship.
The 70cm downlink on AO-51 "Echo" is amazingly easy to recieve. I just picked up a used dual bander this weekend (my old UHF radios all stopped at 440 so they couldn't recieve the 435.300 downlink from AO-51) and made my first couple of sattelite contacts.
All I was using was a $170 used radio, a $12 whip on my truck for the 2m uplink (running 10 watts) and a mini yagi I built out of some left over house wire and a scrap of PCV crimped to some spare coax following this guys plans 70cm cheapie antenna
Total investment was less than $200 and I was able to copy the sat very well - here's a recording of one of last nights passes 5:50 6-13-2005 UTC recorded from Yuma AZ
But after today AO-51 will be going into S band downlink so unless you're setup for recieving 2.4Ghz FM you won't be able to hear anything until after field day on the 26th.
The LEO FM sats are amazingly easy to recieve. Before I got this radio I was listening to AO-51 with just my Alinco DJ-C5t and it's stock antenna. Amazingly even that was able to hear most of the pass if I help the radio just right.
This site is responding slow...but it is still responding. And oddly enough the video files are still coming across just fine.
Reading their FAQ it sounds like the website may be hosted through one service but all the video (and most of the bandwith then) is being hosted by the Internet Archive and they've certinaly got the space and bandwith which explains why the video files still play just fine even though the site is crawling right now.
This is a case where RTFA is almost worse than nothing. Not only is the article biased, but the survey and those who made it is biased - and their reporting of the results is beyond biased.
Here's a link to the survey questions and results:
http://ucsusa.org/documents/FWS_questions_and_re su lts.pdf
Reading the actual results of the survey tells a far different story than that reported by those conducting the survey - or the LA times who seem to have just regurgitated the PEER/UCS press release without doing any kind of actual reporting.
Based on their own survey results most respondants feel the opposite of what is being portrayed in this story. Most of them are happy with the FWS and don't feel pressured.
Of course also keep in mind that the FWS told it's employees not to respond to this survey (most likely because they knew UCS/PEER were just looking to create another hit piece since that's what PEER does full-time.) So those who did respond are already those who aren't good at following directions and are probably upset with their jobs for one reason or another.
That this even counts as news is either a testament to how liberally biased the LA times is or just how poor "news" reporting in this country has become.
This was around 95 or so...the labels on the drives being returned were those metalized silver ones. No they didn't pull off completely cleanly and if you looked closely you could tell where they had been pulled up and glued back down (he showed me on that was sitting there.)
No, it wouldn't work with just any drive on the market. But the particular brand and packaging that this guy was scamming on did make it possible.
I had a friend who worked at a Best Buy....he noticed one customer was buying a returning 2-3 hard drives a week complaining about them not working.
Being a tech guy (he worked in their "upgrade department") he popped one of the returned drives into a system and checked it out...worked fine...but was WAY lower capacity than what it was labled.
Turned out the guy was buying the largest drives on the market....then pulling the labels off and putting them back on small drives which he'd return.
Next time he came in the "yellow shirts" where waiting for him and gave a ring to the local police pretty quick.
Now if you paid cash and didn't leave any personal info, only did it once and never returned to the store again....you could probably get away with it...but whether or not you should try that is between you and your deity.
The problem is the kind of greed that makes someone try that kind of scam in the first place almost always assures they won't do it just once - and that's when they get caught.
I was in a similar situation. I came into a sizeable lump of cash in 1997 and spent the better part of a year reading up on the then new "Lasik" procedure. In February of 1998 I spoke with a number of professionals including my current doctors and local specialists in laser procedures and in March of 1998 decided to go for it.
I would do it again in an instant - but I would still do the same amount of study that I did before. IMHO far too many people don't do the required research before this kind of thing and that's where a lot of the problems can come from.
The surgeon I chose was at the Cleveland Clinic and had taken part in the clinical trials for Lasik before it was an approved procedure. At the time he had more experience than any other surgeon I could find without major travel and he was very upfront about the possible downsides and my own potential for success with the surgury. He did not try to sell me on anything just gave me as much of his time as I wanted and honest, sometimes even frighteningly so, answers.
Not all of the professionals I spoke with were the same. Some were very much in the "sell" mode and made me feel rushed as though they wanted me to decide right then and there. The doctor I eventually went with actually refused to let me make a decision on the spot and insisted that I take my time and think it over first. He also warned me ahead of time that due to the size of my pupils I may not be the best candidate and could still require glasses afterward.
I'll also add that I'm very squeemish about my eyes. I've worn glasses since 3rd grade and in high school flirted briefly with contacts. But I had major problems getting contacts in and out and when they were in found them to be a constant irritant I could not ignore...and that was with soft lenses. When my stigmatism got worse and I had to switch to hard lenses I gave them up within 6 months, wearing them was less plesant than dumping handfuls of beach sand into my eyes.
When I came in for the pre-op for my surgury the day before the doctor gave me a prescription for a mild sedative due to my anxiety over having them zap my eyes while I was awake. Also durring the entire pre-op the staff was equally curteous, friendly and upfront as the doctor himself. Nothing felt rushed but I was never kept waiting either, any questions were answered very patiently and I was not allowed to leave until they were sure that all of my questions were answered.
The day of the surgury I took the sedative and was driven to the hospital. You can't drive yourself home since afterall they'll be zapping your eyes so this is necessary even if you don't take the sedative. I know some people who did drive themselves against doctors orders and frankly I can't imagine how they did it - but my eyes are always extremely sensitive to light and were even more so immediately after the surgury.
The surgury itself took less than 15 minutes. The operating room was small and clean, the laser machine was quite large and the doctor was already seated at the controls waiting for me. Again he took time to make sure I didn't have any final questions and that I was sure I wanted to go though with the procedure. There were also 3 or 4 assistants and nurses standing by to assist.
There is some mild discomfort durring the procedure but frankly it was less uncomfortable than the hard contacts I wore. It was somewhat unnerving to be awake but the doctor was very reassuring thought the entire procedure and explained what he was doing as it happened.
The most uncomfortable part is where they make the cut to fold back the flap - and that is mainly because the pressure of the device they uses causes your eye to black out so all you see is black with some colored specks which is a little frightening - but the doctor again was reassuring and explained what would happen which made it very easy to take.
The laser zapping took only seconds and there is a slight smell like burning hair when it happens. Aftertha
Would make sense...but the attached article seems to indicate othewise:
"Other people keep pictures of their children in their wallets. I keep a small map I've had laminated to protect it from wear. I pull that map out during many conversations to show how far and wide fallout from nuclear testing was scattered. People are always shocked when they see it. Utah and Nevada are almost completely blacked out, and the black ink spreads as far north as Canada and as far east as New York, with heavy patches scattered throughout the country."
Then again we must remember the #1 rule of website design - it's more important for it to look cool than to actually get the information across. So the map was probably reversed for the "cool" factor of having a black background.
Exactly, Part 15 does apply and that's why this is no big surprise. The key remotes are unlicenced and operating on shared frequencies that are licensed for other uses.
They can't interfeer wtih the licenced uses...but if the licensed use interfeers with them...tough there's nothing they can do.
Part 15 is exactly what's happening here and it's happening exactly as should be expected.
Ok, I know there are a lot of systems that would have to be updated to deal with any kind of change to VIN codes.
But dwarf Y2K? Come on. Seriously.
You mean we're ment to believe there are more software applications that deal with VIN codes than there are which deal with dates?
The issues in finding a single solution to the VIN code itself may be a far more complex issue than the issue of 2 digit vs. 4 digit dates.
But once a solution has been agreed on fixing it will be MUCH easier (as big of a job as it will be) as there aren't nearly as many systems that will have to be updated.
Not a house but I know someone who did a time-lapse building their car:
http://sandcars.net/gg.mpg
Well, ok it's a long travel sand rail and not a street legal car but having built two myself and knowing how many months it took me watching the whole thing happen in a few minutes is pretty impresive.
I've always been kind of ashamed to admit that I'm a huge JOE fan. The EMACS and VI people are to prevelant and the "masses" have been so won over by PICO (which gives me the screaming heebie jeebies when it's the only editor available on a system!) that I kind of thought I was alone in finding JOE to be the fastest simplest but still powerfull enough editor for 90% of what I do in a terminal.
Yeah, I use graphical editors with all the bells and whistles when I'm in a gui...but I still have to maintain a lot of systems that I can only access though an SSH connection and installing JOE is usually one of the first things I do if it's not there already.
Seeing someone like Alan Cox admit to using it makes me feel willing to come out of the closet about it myself:)
Too bad the first system I just downloaded 3.0 to ran into problems compiling the UTF support:( 2.9.8 compiled out of the box for me but now I've got to do some research;)
Hate to break it to you but the desert is far from a "completely barren plan, with very few obstacles".
Even with a previously traveled path and prepared track it's not uncommon for VERY well financed race teams to fail to finish in a desert race. Most desert racers consider it a win just to make it to the finish line and that's with a driver!
Look into the SCORE side of this challenge a bit more and you'll find a LOT of info about just how challenging desert racing is with drivers - let alone trying to do it autonomously.
Yeah - in fact that was the only example anyone has offered to the developer yet:) I assume he ran into some problem with them though since he's still asking for more help.
Slashdot Mirror
2 years ago they did a large scale Shuttle with full R/C control on the orbiter...didn't work out too well:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQRl37aI1yk
He got a little thrown off by the perspective and didn't realize just how quickly he was loosing altitude. Ended up parked in the door of a VW. So I'm guessing they're not in a hurry to do another R/C.
This is a four day event with an FAA waiver. I've attended it the past three years and these guys are very careful to dot all their I's and cross all their T's when it comes to safety. They're also no strangers to large unstable models.
In just the past two years they've done equally large models of an Estes Fat Boy, A little joe, A Russian N1 moon rocket, and a Space shuttle complete with RC Orbiter (which unfortunately did bump into a VW upon landing.)
They're also pretty good at simultaneous ignition, last year they did 1,000+ mosquitoes and managed to get all but a few to light off.
Except that that's an issue IE has had for a long time. At least it exists in IE6.
So I'd have to assume it's not what the "article" (I have a hard time calling a rant on a blog an actual article) was talking about. If it is then the problem would have been present with IE6 as well.
Then again as poorly written as that blog was maybe they had never tested in IE6 and assumed this was a new problem.
Isn't that disabled by default too. I didn't even know firefox offered that as I find it to be one of the most annoying things a browser can do and hate having to specifically disable resizing large images in IE where it's the default selection.
:D
I've been using Firefox for years but since I find that "feature" annoying as all heck I've never even looked for a way to turn it on and never missed it.
Complaints about non-default behaviour always kind of make me chuckle. Like when people setup painfull looking color combinations for their desktops...and then complain about how unusable xxx is because of the colors
You'd be surprised. Deserts are a hot spot for environmentalists and they've already blocked several large scale solar projects in the southwest preciesely because they'd keep the sun from reaching the desert floor. Not to mention the "Blight" factor of detracing from the natural beauty of the desert.
Espically given the location suggested for this I doubt it will ever be completed due to environmental protests and lawsuits.
Sounds like a new guy took over and rather than learn the ropes of what the company was doing decided to do things his way. While I don't doubt that big lunch budgets and trips to training courses in exotic places probably played a part - I suspect the bigger issue was Hilfiger hiring someone to manage a Linux netword who didn't like Linux.
IMB has info on their site about when they set Hilfiger up and it was a different CIO:
---cut here---
The eOneCommerce application plugs into the most complex environment with amazing speed. At Tommy Hilfiger, eOneCommerce implemented 15 legacy integrations, providing business-to-business, business-to-plant and business-to-employee functionality in under 90 days. "With eOneGroup and eOneCommerce, we got everything we wanted in a solution: rapid installation and rapid return on investment," said Ally Woo, CIO, Tommy Hilfiger.
---cut here---
Hopefully the bit about Packet and what a TNC is helps fill in what a BBS is doing on a satellite.
Sometimes people forget that radio is usefull for more than just music and voice. You can also send data by encoding it someway.
Think back to the days of dial-up BBSes, only one user at a time so you do a store and forward type of deal. On radio it's the same. Only one person can use a frequency at a time so you can either have a single conversation or use a BBS to store messages and let multiple people send and recieve in turn.
So it's kind of like the dial-up BBS days only instead of a modem you use a TNC, instead of a phoneline you use a radio and instead of a computer in some guys basement running the BBS you've got it strapped to a bunch of batteries and solar panels and flying around in space - or in this case strapped to the ISS.
Frankly though the whole satelite packet thing dosn't do it for me much outside of APRS. If I'm going to bounce something off a chunk of metal and silicone up in the air I want it to be voice.
Why APRS on sats is interesting to me is a much longer story though and has to do with how APRS works. Basically the big limitation of APRS is range. With Garmin Rhinos that range is 2-5 miles in the best of conditions. With Amateur radio the range at 2m for data can vary from 5 miles to 150 miles depending on a number of things. But usually it's around 5-30 miles or so. That means when you send a position report on APRS it usually goes no further than 30 miles. To reach further hams use something called digipeating which is basically a radio with a good antenna located up high somewhere and with lots of transmitting power. So it can hear weaker stations and then retransmit them from a higher point at higher power letting them reach further. With APRS you usually bounce a signal off 2 of those to get good range. But using a satelite instead of just a tall tower or mountian means your range suddenly goes from 150-200 miles max to several thousand miles in the footprint of the satellite. When you're out in a remote area that can be the difference between being heard and not being heard.
APRS is used extensively by SAR (Search and Rescue) teams as well as emergency response teams for tracking resources out in the field. I use it when out exploring the desert here in southern AZ so friends and family can see where I am and I can easily send a distress signal if something happens to me.
Teaching someone how to track and listen to an orbiting spacecraft in a short post is pretty tricky - so yeah I figured some would stumble on a few of the more specialized terms. But I'm willing to keep helping since just a few months ago all of it was gibberish to me as well even though some of the questions lead me to believe I'm just responding to a troll.
/. quite a bit lately with the whole cell phones will fry your eyes and all the Wifi/WiMax/Bluetooth wireless stuff.
Just for reference when I say spacecraft I'm including unmaned satelites juts to prevent confusion before it starts....
-very small footprint
The footprint is the area of the earth visible to the orbiting spacecraft. The higher the spacecraft the more of the surface of the earth that will be line of sight to it at any given time. That dosn't necessarially mean the spacecraft can only see the area in it's footprint, but it does mean only those in the footprint can see (and talk to or recieve transmissions from) the spacecraft. The ISS is the lowest orbit of any spacecraft carrying amateur radio so it's got the smallest footprint. That means the window that you can hear it durring is shorter than any others - but it also means the signal is louder and easier to hear.
-HT and stock rubber duck antenna
HT = HandiTalkie. A small low power handheld radio. "Rubber Duck" is a cheap flexible antenna with little or no gain, basically the bare minimum to recieve a radio signal.
-in packet mode
-1200 baud packet
-$45 TNC-X
Packet is a form of digital communication. 1200 baud is the speed it runs at. A TNC is to radio basically what a modem is to a phone line, it converts audio to digital information and vice versa. The TNC-X is a pic (small microcontroller populary with hobbyists) based TNC that you can assemble yourself for very low cost. It has USB capabilities but relies on the computer it's attached to do to much of the "thinking" for it.
-APRS for position reporting
APRS is a a position reporting system. Kind of like the Garmin Rhino only a LOT more powerfull. It uses 1200 baud packet to encode information and transmit over the air where it is picked up by other amateurs.
-BBS for sharing messages
Seriously, what the heck are you doing reading slashdot (a BBS!) if you don't know what a BBS is. This is the point where the troll starts to show...
-homebuilt "J-pole"
As explained in my first post, it's an antenna you can build yourself. Once again the trollishness is getting pretty bad.
-directional Yagi
A Yagi is a certian type of antenna, google is your friend. They're very directional meaning that they transmit a very directed signal and likewise recieve from a limited area. Omni antennas you don't aim, directional you do.
-RF exposure
RF = Radio Frequency. Come on, RF exposure has been discussed on
-make sure that your keplerian elements are up to date
Keplerian elements are descriptions of a spacecrafts orbit. They're used to calculate the position of the spacecraft. Most tracking software have built in utilities to download them on a regular basis to make sure you know where a spacecraft will be.
The ISS is fairly easy to recieve, but due to it's low orbit it has a very small footprint meaning you only get about 7-10 minutes each pass when it will be in range.
:(
On the upside it's got a higher power transmitter than other Amateur radio sattelites so it's a lot easier to hear. I regularly listen to it with just an HT and stock rubber duck antenna. 145.800 is the frequency of interest but what you hear depends on what they're doing with it.
Most often it's in packet mode so all you'll hear are bursts of data. They aren't very melodic but they do stand out above the background noise so you can tell you're hearing it. It's 1200 baud packet and with something like a $45 TNC-X hooked to your audio you could decode it fairly easily. The packet transmissions are a combination of APRS for position reporting on the earth and the BBS for sharing messages.
From time to time it gets put into cross band repeat mode where it listens on 437.800 and then retransmits whatever it hears on 145.800 I made a contact through it in that mode just a few weeks ago using nothing more than a homebuilt "J-pole" I usually use for communications on earth based repeaters. (They're real easy antennas to build, just takes one 1/2" copper tee 1 1/2" elbow and 10' of 1/2" copper pipe, lots of sites on the net with plans for them.) For my uplink I thought I was using a 440mhz Jpole I had build but not yet installed but later found out I was using my directional Yagi I built for listening to weaker satelites - amazingly I had that very directional antenna pointing nowhere near the ISS but was still able to get a signal through it very easily.
The third mode the ISS radio may be in is just a normal radio with an astronaut on the other end. I've yet to be lucky enough to hear it in that mode
However the radio is also off from time to time since it's not a primary mission of the ISS. It's always off when they're on spacewalks to keep down RF exposure.
The website www.issfanclub.com is a great place to check and see what the current status is. They have an area where people submit what they've heard recently so you can see what mode it's in. Though for some reason the site isn't responding today.
Because of the ISS's small footprint just knowing it's over NA isn't usually good enough. You'll need a way to check it's actual current position. On Windows I use a package called Orbitron which is postcardware and works great. amsat.org has links to a bunch of other sat tracking programs as well as a tool for finding passes through their site. Also because the ISS tends to move around more than most sats you need to make sure that your keplerian elements are up to date. Those are what the tracking programs use to determine it's exact position. Most sats are fairly fixed in their orbits but the ISS is adjusted from time to time espically when docking with a shuttle or other supply ship.
Awww heck, messed up my link. So much for preview.
Here's the correct link for the recording of that pass:
AO-51 Echo recording
The 70cm downlink on AO-51 "Echo" is amazingly easy to recieve. I just picked up a used dual bander this weekend (my old UHF radios all stopped at 440 so they couldn't recieve the 435.300 downlink from AO-51) and made my first couple of sattelite contacts.
All I was using was a $170 used radio, a $12 whip on my truck for the 2m uplink (running 10 watts) and a mini yagi I built out of some left over house wire and a scrap of PCV crimped to some spare coax following this guys plans 70cm cheapie antenna
Total investment was less than $200 and I was able to copy the sat very well - here's a recording of one of last nights passes 5:50 6-13-2005 UTC recorded from Yuma AZ
But after today AO-51 will be going into S band downlink so unless you're setup for recieving 2.4Ghz FM you won't be able to hear anything until after field day on the 26th.
The LEO FM sats are amazingly easy to recieve. Before I got this radio I was listening to AO-51 with just my Alinco DJ-C5t and it's stock antenna. Amazingly even that was able to hear most of the pass if I help the radio just right.
Two words - Asbestos lawsuits.
This site is responding slow...but it is still responding. And oddly enough the video files are still coming across just fine.
Reading their FAQ it sounds like the website may be hosted through one service but all the video (and most of the bandwith then) is being hosted by the Internet Archive and they've certinaly got the space and bandwith which explains why the video files still play just fine even though the site is crawling right now.
Got mine today, but no envelope. Maybe my mailman is a closet hacker too ;)
Still haven't had time to digest it but my quick flip has me pretty excited about spending some time digesting it soon.
This is a case where RTFA is almost worse than nothing. Not only is the article biased, but the survey and those who made it is biased - and their reporting of the results is beyond biased.
e su lts.pdf
Here's a link to the survey questions and results:
http://ucsusa.org/documents/FWS_questions_and_r
Reading the actual results of the survey tells a far different story than that reported by those conducting the survey - or the LA times who seem to have just regurgitated the PEER/UCS press release without doing any kind of actual reporting.
Based on their own survey results most respondants feel the opposite of what is being portrayed in this story. Most of them are happy with the FWS and don't feel pressured.
Of course also keep in mind that the FWS told it's employees not to respond to this survey (most likely because they knew UCS/PEER were just looking to create another hit piece since that's what PEER does full-time.) So those who did respond are already those who aren't good at following directions and are probably upset with their jobs for one reason or another.
That this even counts as news is either a testament to how liberally biased the LA times is or just how poor "news" reporting in this country has become.
This was around 95 or so...the labels on the drives being returned were those metalized silver ones. No they didn't pull off completely cleanly and if you looked closely you could tell where they had been pulled up and glued back down (he showed me on that was sitting there.)
No, it wouldn't work with just any drive on the market. But the particular brand and packaging that this guy was scamming on did make it possible.
I had a friend who worked at a Best Buy....he noticed one customer was buying a returning 2-3 hard drives a week complaining about them not working.
Being a tech guy (he worked in their "upgrade department") he popped one of the returned drives into a system and checked it out...worked fine...but was WAY lower capacity than what it was labled.
Turned out the guy was buying the largest drives on the market....then pulling the labels off and putting them back on small drives which he'd return.
Next time he came in the "yellow shirts" where waiting for him and gave a ring to the local police pretty quick.
Now if you paid cash and didn't leave any personal info, only did it once and never returned to the store again....you could probably get away with it...but whether or not you should try that is between you and your deity.
The problem is the kind of greed that makes someone try that kind of scam in the first place almost always assures they won't do it just once - and that's when they get caught.
I was in a similar situation. I came into a sizeable lump of cash in 1997 and spent the better part of a year reading up on the then new "Lasik" procedure. In February of 1998 I spoke with a number of professionals including my current doctors and local specialists in laser procedures and in March of 1998 decided to go for it.
I would do it again in an instant - but I would still do the same amount of study that I did before. IMHO far too many people don't do the required research before this kind of thing and that's where a lot of the problems can come from.
The surgeon I chose was at the Cleveland Clinic and had taken part in the clinical trials for Lasik before it was an approved procedure. At the time he had more experience than any other surgeon I could find without major travel and he was very upfront about the possible downsides and my own potential for success with the surgury. He did not try to sell me on anything just gave me as much of his time as I wanted and honest, sometimes even frighteningly so, answers.
Not all of the professionals I spoke with were the same. Some were very much in the "sell" mode and made me feel rushed as though they wanted me to decide right then and there. The doctor I eventually went with actually refused to let me make a decision on the spot and insisted that I take my time and think it over first. He also warned me ahead of time that due to the size of my pupils I may not be the best candidate and could still require glasses afterward.
I'll also add that I'm very squeemish about my eyes. I've worn glasses since 3rd grade and in high school flirted briefly with contacts. But I had major problems getting contacts in and out and when they were in found them to be a constant irritant I could not ignore...and that was with soft lenses. When my stigmatism got worse and I had to switch to hard lenses I gave them up within 6 months, wearing them was less plesant than dumping handfuls of beach sand into my eyes.
When I came in for the pre-op for my surgury the day before the doctor gave me a prescription for a mild sedative due to my anxiety over having them zap my eyes while I was awake. Also durring the entire pre-op the staff was equally curteous, friendly and upfront as the doctor himself. Nothing felt rushed but I was never kept waiting either, any questions were answered very patiently and I was not allowed to leave until they were sure that all of my questions were answered.
The day of the surgury I took the sedative and was driven to the hospital. You can't drive yourself home since afterall they'll be zapping your eyes so this is necessary even if you don't take the sedative. I know some people who did drive themselves against doctors orders and frankly I can't imagine how they did it - but my eyes are always extremely sensitive to light and were even more so immediately after the surgury.
The surgury itself took less than 15 minutes. The operating room was small and clean, the laser machine was quite large and the doctor was already seated at the controls waiting for me. Again he took time to make sure I didn't have any final questions and that I was sure I wanted to go though with the procedure. There were also 3 or 4 assistants and nurses standing by to assist.
There is some mild discomfort durring the procedure but frankly it was less uncomfortable than the hard contacts I wore. It was somewhat unnerving to be awake but the doctor was very reassuring thought the entire procedure and explained what he was doing as it happened.
The most uncomfortable part is where they make the cut to fold back the flap - and that is mainly because the pressure of the device they uses causes your eye to black out so all you see is black with some colored specks which is a little frightening - but the doctor again was reassuring and explained what would happen which made it very easy to take.
The laser zapping took only seconds and there is a slight smell like burning hair when it happens. Aftertha
Would make sense...but the attached article seems to indicate othewise:
"Other people keep pictures of their children in their wallets. I keep a small map I've had laminated to protect it from wear. I pull that map out during many conversations to show how far and wide fallout from nuclear testing was scattered. People are always shocked when they see it. Utah and Nevada are almost completely blacked out, and the black ink spreads as far north as Canada and as far east as New York, with heavy patches scattered throughout the country."
Then again we must remember the #1 rule of website design - it's more important for it to look cool than to actually get the information across. So the map was probably reversed for the "cool" factor of having a black background.
Exactly, Part 15 does apply and that's why this is no big surprise. The key remotes are unlicenced and operating on shared frequencies that are licensed for other uses.
They can't interfeer wtih the licenced uses...but if the licensed use interfeers with them...tough there's nothing they can do.
Part 15 is exactly what's happening here and it's happening exactly as should be expected.
Ok, I know there are a lot of systems that would have to be updated to deal with any kind of change to VIN codes.
But dwarf Y2K? Come on. Seriously.
You mean we're ment to believe there are more software applications that deal with VIN codes than there are which deal with dates?
The issues in finding a single solution to the VIN code itself may be a far more complex issue than the issue of 2 digit vs. 4 digit dates.
But once a solution has been agreed on fixing it will be MUCH easier (as big of a job as it will be) as there aren't nearly as many systems that will have to be updated.
Not a house but I know someone who did a time-lapse building their car:
http://sandcars.net/gg.mpg
Well, ok it's a long travel sand rail and not a street legal car but having built two myself and knowing how many months it took me watching the whole thing happen in a few minutes is pretty impresive.
I've always been kind of ashamed to admit that I'm a huge JOE fan. The EMACS and VI people are to prevelant and the "masses" have been so won over by PICO (which gives me the screaming heebie jeebies when it's the only editor available on a system!) that I kind of thought I was alone in finding JOE to be the fastest simplest but still powerfull enough editor for 90% of what I do in a terminal.
:)
:( 2.9.8 compiled out of the box for me but now I've got to do some research ;)
Yeah, I use graphical editors with all the bells and whistles when I'm in a gui...but I still have to maintain a lot of systems that I can only access though an SSH connection and installing JOE is usually one of the first things I do if it's not there already.
Seeing someone like Alan Cox admit to using it makes me feel willing to come out of the closet about it myself
Too bad the first system I just downloaded 3.0 to ran into problems compiling the UTF support
Hate to break it to you but the desert is far from a "completely barren plan, with very few obstacles".
Even with a previously traveled path and prepared track it's not uncommon for VERY well financed race teams to fail to finish in a desert race. Most desert racers consider it a win just to make it to the finish line and that's with a driver!
Look into the SCORE side of this challenge a bit more and you'll find a LOT of info about just how challenging desert racing is with drivers - let alone trying to do it autonomously.
Yeah - in fact that was the only example anyone has offered to the developer yet :) I assume he ran into some problem with them though since he's still asking for more help.