W1KAS

far out of date update...

2011-04-29T10:17:00.000-07:00

Well, in keeping with the normal methods of operation on this blog, I'm about to say what happened over the last $longtime (in this case, about half a year.)

I ended up buying a house in Southbridge, MA back in October. It's a complete wreck, it looked nice from the outside but I wasn't fooled. By the time I am done it will have the original frame and foundation, and maybe one or two hardwood floors and some woodwork that was original too. I'm partially done gutting it, about 2/3 done replacing the roof, and already planning a garage, a ham shack, and a big antenna tower. This weekend looks good for roof work, so I'm going to see if I can finish the main roof... probably not but it's worth a try!

Once the roof is done, I have to replace the whole bathroom, and do something about the moisture problem in the basement. Then I need to finish gutting the kitchen, living room, dining room, and 3 bedrooms, and begin the rebuilding...

Dear Donald Trump:

2011-04-28T10:40:00.001-07:00

shut the fuck up.

That is all, thank you.

Can we get back to REAL political news now, like how the federal debt is going to destroy this country's ability to compete in the global economy, why ACA is a horrible idea and completely unconstitutional, and why our tax system needs overhauling badly?

Real Estate Shenanigans

2010-06-29T10:16:00.000-07:00

Well, it looks like I might end up buying in Fitchburg after all... we shall see.

Long story short, the house I spent 6 months trying to buy as a BoA short sale (if you see short sale mentioned, WALK AWAY) for $55k went into foreclosure after I walked away from it, sick and tired of their paperwork, foot-dragging, and outright bullshit.

Guess the new asking price, now that it's been foreclosed and had its value re-assessed?

$34k.

Yep, they won that one... congratulations Bank of America shareholders, this is how your company makes money! By frustrating prospective buyers so much they walk away after offering way, way more than a property is worth.

Oh, the best part is that the owners still had $127k left on their mortgage.

Yep... good job BoA.

Anyways, I'm putting another offer on it, after checking to make sure the title isn't FUBAR of course.

AFTER closing, I fully intend to tell them (if they don't notice) that I'm the same guy from before and they probably should have maybe looked at my paperwork and actually sold me the house instead of wasting my time and taking less of my money.

Let the celebrations begin...

2010-06-28T08:03:00.001-07:00

... for the Supreme Court has upheld the Second Amendment!

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052748703964104575334701513109426.html

Maybe I'll actually attempt to get my license now. I live in Worcester, one of the worst cities in Massachusetts to attempt to get FID/LTC in, so I simply hadn't bothered before. Then I can add another wallet-draining hobby to the list!

Some people...

2010-06-25T13:52:00.000-07:00

... So apparently enough people actually voted for this lady that she won. Yet it seems she, well, doesn't know that Arizona shares a border with Mexico. Yeah, you read that right.

I am shocked and appalled by the results of our educational system...

UPDATE - the video no longer works. Apparently Miss Ignorant decided to put in a copyright claim so she wasn't on the internet looking stupid anymore!

Faisal Shahzad: 0 USA: 1

2010-06-22T12:14:00.000-07:00

... is it just me, or is this guy the most inept terrorist of all time*? I can't think of a single step he didn't bungle. He gave out real information when signing up for the prepaid cellphone. He bought the vehicle on craigslist (using the prepaid cellphone for contact), then failed to remove all identification from it (though he attempted to, he missed some.) He did a truly terrible job of building the bombs. Heck, he claims he lit the fuse - what idiot builds a car bomb with a fuse? He stayed in the area of the bomb attempt too long, and took too long to leave the country.

It's almost like he wanted it to fail, and wanted to be caught.

Regarding the bomb - what a screwup, from the pictures and diagrams it looked like he just threw everything in the car and hoped that would cause an explosion, it reminded me of Johnny 5's cooking in Short Circuit. Any engineer, or any moderately intelligent tinkerer could build a better one. I am glad that engineers, tinkerers, and intelligent people seem to not be interested in terrorism, because we'd be screwed if they were.

The most ridiculous part? He claimed to be a holy warrior, but then as soon as he was caught he rolled and told the interrogators everything, including giving up others who helped him. He probably damaged the terrorists more than he helped them - a good thing in my book, but I'm wondering why exactly he did it while claiming to be on their side. None of his decisions or actions really make sense at all, unless he wanted to fail and be caught or is some sort of diversion.

* except, possibly, the ones who set the timer wrong on their car bomb (daylight savings time, doh!) and had it explode while they were an hour from their target, killing only themselves. These guys really win the prize... literally. They got a Darwin Award for it.

Dye laser built with parts from Home Depot, eBay, Electronics Goldmine, and... Staples?!

2010-06-21T07:49:00.000-07:00

This man is my new hero - http://www.jossresearch.org/tjiirrs/015a.html

Yes, that is a working organic dye laser built using mostly non-specialized components. The most expensive things I see in his design are parts of the power supply (HV electronics components, this is where eBay is the best), the laser cavity tube itself (fused silicate glass, not in the plumbing aisle at Home Depot), the xenon arc lamp (Electronics Goldmine), and the mirrors.

Where does Staples come into this whole thing? The dye used - on the third page he tries it out with dye extracted from a Sharpie highlighter. It worked.

Moving...

2010-05-30T13:34:00.001-07:00

Just finished getting the couch out of my old apartment. Seems I might need a new couch, since this involved an axe, boxcutter, and a pair of lineman's pliers, and the couch is now in two pieces.

Also, bought a new Jeep yesterday (for a real bargain, I've still spent less on all 3 than I would have by buying a brand new Honda Civic EX-L)... not putting it on the road yet, just keeping it in reserve till the first one I got breaks badly. I know it's going to eventually, that thing has some real serious rust problems and I don't quite trust my frame repairs to hold for a significant amount of time. The new one is almost entirely rust free and just needs a few bolt-on body panels replaced and some interior work. I never should have paid what I paid for the first Cherokee... 2400 dollars was way too much for such a rusty, troubled vehicle. It ran and drove and looked great from the outside though, and I didn't have enough experience yet to know what I was looking at.

failure as usual

2010-05-28T10:26:00.000-07:00

Well, just got a call from my real estate attorney... the house deal is off. The seller has finally come to terms with the fact that they are goddamn morons and own a useless title that they can't get owner's title insurance on, so they are returning my deposit. I've half a mind to take them to court for interest on my deposit (it'd be pocket change) simply on principle.

After some researching online, it appears that IF I were to purchase the property as it currently stands, and possess and occupy it for 20 continuous years, I would be able to file for adverse possession in Massachusetts Land Court and get clean title that way. 20 years is a long, long time however, and I have no idea where I will be by then.

Back to looking... really too bad, because that place was everything I was looking for and more.

Police drug bust turns out to actually be weeds

2010-05-26T09:03:00.001-07:00

http://rawstory.com/rs/2010/0522/largest-marijuana-plant-seizure-police-departments-history-turns-mere-yard-work/

To say I am amused is an understatement...

Moving continues. I've emptied an entire closet (mostly car parts, such a surprise) and most of another (mostly computer stuff, such a surprise) and moved most of my books and cookware/dishes, as well as most of the car parts that were sitting in the living room... all went straight to storage.

Remaining - half the computer stuff in the remaining closet, some dishes, car parts on the back porch and in the back hall, a few more radios, stuff on my desk, furniture and clothes... oh, and the engine hoist in the basement.

This is going to be really, really close no matter how things go with the house.

blog not dead... just resting!

2010-05-24T17:11:00.000-07:00

Hrm. It seems it has been a significant amount of time since I last posted.

Well, I've gained a couple more hobbies (car repair, welding, all sorts of stuff...) and continued with some others. I'm trying to buy a house so I can stop renting, and in the process have discovered nearly every possible way there is to NOT buy a house. I own two jeeps now and they waste a lot of my time... and I'm considering buying another one to replace the first one, because the first one is rustier than I ever thought possible. How'd I get myself into this mess again? Whoever said Jeep stands for Just Empty Every Pocket wasn't really joking, though it'd cost me far more to buy just one new vehicle than it has so far for the two basket cases I have PLUS the one I'm considering.

Oh, and I left facebook (perhaps temporarily, but probably for good.) A combination of things triggered that move - first of all, facebook has been becoming more and more annoying to me. First were the stupid apps and games that drove me up a wall, then the privacy concerns started rolling in... then they forced a few profile format changes I didn't like on everyone. I grumbled, but I stayed on. Then they forced a few more profile format changes and added Open Graph, and I was fed up. So I deactivated my account (if you can't beat em, leave em, or something like that.) From the response I got from some people you would think I was becoming a hermit or something! I never thought that I'd get emailed by my parents saying I should spend more time online... *laughs* So far the only thing I've noticed is that I don't know what my friends are up to (I really sorta do miss this part) and that I spend less time on facebook (well, duh!)

This week I need to get everything moved out of my apartment, as my lease is up on the 31st. I got a second storage unit and have/will be spending every evening moving stuff from my apartment into storage, and I'm currently working on getting a temporary apartment on month-to-month lease terms so that I don't end up living in a cardboard box.

Here's to hoping that signing up for a temporary apartment will turn the perversity of the universe on its head (it usually works against me) and make the house purchase move faster than expected for once!

HF capability, AM boatanchor, NEARFest, etc

2008-11-14T16:25:00.000-08:00

A lot has changed since I last posted. I got hired by Intel for the Itanium Platform Validation Engineering team, I spent two weeks in California for training (Santa Clara area), I moved to Worcester, and most importantly... I got more radio stuff. (you can see where my priorities are!)

Radio stuff:
* NA1C no longer needed his old Tempo 2020, a clone of the Uniden 2020. I bought it from him at a bargain price as the bandswitch wafers are having problems and need repairing or replacing and he didn't really want to deal with it. Still haven't fixed it... haven't decided if I will replace them with banks of relays or re-tension the wipers properly and see if that helps. It covers 80, 40, 20, 15, and 10 meter bands, and has receive support on 15MHz. It's got a dual 6146 final amplifier and seems very well constructed, except for the bandswitch.
* I bought an old Globe Electronics VHF-62 Hi-Bander for $20 at a hamfest, guessing that it would be something interesting. I was not disappointed - it turns out it's a 2-meter and 6-meter all-tube AM transmitter capable of approximately 50 watts on both bands, plus CW! I haven't powered it up yet, as I do not know the multiplication factor for the local oscillator, have no receiver to match it with, and haven't figured out what repairs it will need. Still an awesome deal, it seems very well constructed though it was a kit.
* I went to fall NEARFest in Deerfield, NH with KC2EMA, KB1MSH, AB1JD, and now-KB1RGK. We had a much, MUCH better time than this spring - I was far overprepared, bringing a full tent (with stakes this time), a tarp and posts/stakes/rope to put it up, a grill, enough food for four days, plenty of dry clothes, etc etc. We didn't have to sleep in the van this time, we bought much cooler stuff, and AB1JD did not get hit on by creepy fat old hams. A good time was had by all.
* I'm building a 1kW linear amplifier, capable of operation from 40 meters to 10 meters with the possibility of adding some more inductance and capacitance for 80 meter operation. It only produces about 500 watts up toward 10 meters, but that's to be expected, as it uses a pair of 813s in grounded grid. The input matching network is apparently
the magic that makes it so powerful, most people I have talked to tell me I am insane to expect anything more than 600 watts out of a pair of 813s but several people say ZL1AXB (the designer) is definitely right about it. Almost all my parts are at least 100% overrated for the job, so I am not too worried about magic blue smoke.

EDIT: I almost forgot!
* The aforementioned NA1C and I are setting up a ghetto colocation facility in the basement of his apartment. Routers are kept off the floor using cement blocks, our cooling consists of a set of ventilation fans stuck in a broken window, and the power for the room was run while the fuse panel was fully live. Racks are out, stacking the equipment up one box on top of the next is in - just make sure to put the longest boxes at the bottom. We're running point to point links to various friend's apartments in the area using a 12dBi omnidirectional 12cm whip antenna and a pile of old 30dBi parabolic dishes... in general, it's going to be interesting. and cheap. And a perfect example of how NOT to run a datacenter.

gravity incident and new antenna

2008-06-27T07:31:00.000-07:00

Wednesday, Jack and I went to pick up a 10/15/20 meter triband yagi that a silent key donated to the WPI Wireless Association. The rope used as guy wire (this taught me to always, ALWAYS use stainless steel wire rope instead of cotton rope) was... less than the strength it needed to be to lower the tower onto the ground safely, and as a result it ended up on the ground quickly and not exactly in the best shape. As a result, I am attempting to repair it and keep it for my use, as no one in the club will want to deal with bent and broken elements on an antenna that would only be used for field day events (thus, assembled and disassembled a lot).

And the new antenna...
I went to home depot and purchased $38 worth of EMT and fittings. By my calculations this should build a nice 6-meter 5 element yagi - a pretty good price for one I'd say. I just need a few U-bolts and the scrap G-10 fiberglas bar I have to finish it off.

Creating a FreeBSD 7 Desktop

2008-06-15T12:07:00.000-07:00

1. install - partition to choice, set timezone, use X-Kern-Developer, set system to run sshd and linux ABI, create user account
2. add DHCP options to proper interfaces in /etc/rc.conf
3. reboot to make sure those work
4. cd /usr/ports && portsnap fetch && portsnap extract
5. install screen, pine (installs pico as well), sudo, portaudit, portupgrade (installs portinstall as well), irssi
6. when the irssi build breaks, cd /usr/ports/devel/glib20; make install clean;
7. when that build complains of already existing, make deinstall reinstall
8. restart the irssi build, it should complete. this doubles as a test case for whether gnome2 will complete successfully, or at least get past devel/gio-fam-backend.
9. add your user account to sudoers if desired
10. follow these instructions: http://www.freebsd.org/gnome/docs/faq2.html
11. when gnome2 complains of dbus being too old, run the logalyzer. it will fail to find anything, check UPDATING and then run portupgrade -a to upgrade all existing ports.
12. When portupgrade -a fails, run pkgdb -F and fix anything that seems broken. BE CAREFUL here! go back to 11 and repeat until things seem under control. This may take a while.
13. Try building x11/gnome2 again, as per faq2 above. When it fails on sysutils/hal, attempt to build sysutils/hal manually, it will probably fail with a message about PolicyKit missing, so build sysutils/policykit manually and try again. If at any point a manual build complains about having already been installed and requiring proper reinstallation, do make deinstall reinstall.
14. when sysutils/fusefs-kmod fails, follow the instructions by p3n1x here: http://www.linuxquestions.org/questions/bsd-17/installing-fusefs-kmod-set-srcbase-if-it-is-not-in-usrsrc-627393/ and then restart the build. If it doesn't fail, you already had your userland sources on the system.
15. when lsof (or any other port) fails to build, I just installed them from packages instead using pkg_add -r , as I was more concerned with getting the system up than having it as optimized as possible. Once the recalcitrant package is installed, restart the gnome2 build and it should continue.
16. if you somehow avoided it before, as I did (even though I thought I selected the X-Kern-Developer install), cd /usr/ports/x11/xorg; make install clean. I also had to manually start the x11-drivers/xorg-drivers install to get the mouse and keyboard/kbd drivers, I'm not sure why that wasn't automatically included.
17. Set up hidentd to use identd - only necessary if you use IRC and dislike waiting the extra 45 seconds for the identd request to time out.
18. set linux_enable, identd_enable, gnome_enable, dbus_enable, oss_enable to YES in /etc/rc.conf - also optionally set hostname="desiredmachinename". If you do this, add the same name to /etc/hosts as 127.0.0.1 to avoid sendmail etc having problems with unqualified unknown hostnames.
19. comment out ttyv8 (xdm session) in /etc/ttys to avoid it conflicting with gdm
20. set ttyd0/1 properly for 3wire operation to enable tty login
21. install audacious, mpg123, oss (install this from ports in audio/oss not from the official 4Front BSD installer! it goes a lot better, believe me.)
22. at this point you should reboot and get your xorg.conf file working. This is system dependent so I'm not going to write about how I did it, if you want info on a multidisplay system using the nv driver with all screens rotated 90 degrees, email me or something.
23. set firefox as the URL opener via system->preferences->preferred applications. My install came with this semi-broken, right clicking links in gnome-terminal and selecting "open" only gave me an error.
24. install multimedia/audacious-plugins - without this, audacious can neither input nor output media files nor audio. I'm not sure what use audacious is without it, but for some reason the default install does not include it. You will also want to go to Preferences->Audio in Audacious and select the OSS or OSS4 output plugin, else, the default setup will read your media files, "play" them, and write them back to disk, quickly running you out of free space. Again, not sure what use a media player that defaults to shuttling files about on disk instead of playing music is... must just be me.

That's pretty much it! what I have left to do: copy my documents from my old install, get the flash plugin working in Firefox, install Java (ugh), get nvidia drivers working instead of nv drivers so I can use both outputs on each card and get 3D hardware acceleration, and possibly dispose of a pesky problem involving xscreensaver that causes bad Xorg crashes. The only things I have to do to be ahead of where my old install was are copying my old documents - everything else can wait.

setting up desktop again...

2008-06-15T00:59:00.000-07:00

So I finally bit the bullet. I'm rebuilding my desktop's OS from scratch, on a new hard drive, because I did some things wrong over time and fouled it up pretty bad a few weeks ago trying to get smart-card login working... not such a smart idea after all. Steps:

1. curse at all three non-working dvd/cdrw combo drives, blame them, the install CD, and my system's BIOS alternately until trying the only cdrw drive I have left makes it work perfectly. (combo drives scheduled to be smashed and burned tomorrow)
2. set up rc.conf to handle ethernet interfaces, etc etc
3. portsnap fetch && portsnap extract (use this from now on, not cvsup)
4. install screen, pico, sudo, irssi, portaudit, portinstall, portupgrade
5. get Gnome2 working again. This is going to be fun...
6. Transfer all documents from Windows drive and old FreeBSD drive (including all requisite .confs, motds, cronjobs, login scripts, etc etc etc) to Tantive's RAID for safekeeping.
7. get NFS mount of RAID working.
8. get nvidia drivers working.
9. ???
10. PROFIT

Usable Repeaters - 70cm

2008-06-13T22:03:00.000-07:00

No Output:
K1KKM
N1DOA
N1WPN
KC2LT/Georgetown
N1EXC
N1WPN/N1WP
W1AJI
N1VQQ/446.375
K1CA
N1FOS
K1JC
WA1DMV
NS1RA
N1LHP/441.9
K1ZIK
WA1RHN
NE1B

Operational!:
NY1Z
N1LHP/444.1
K1SI
KC2LT/Derry
N1VQQ/447.825
KA1LCR

All No Output means is that I don't get any response upon transmitting my callsign on the input frequency with the proper CTCSS/DCS tone, at 5 watts, with a rubber ducky, from Fernwood Ave in Bradford.

All Operational means is that I get a response from the repeater.

First Post!

2008-06-13T21:58:00.000-07:00

pretty much this blog is just so I can keep track of what repeaters I've found to be operational and other radio notes. I considered writing a simple web application to track this but decided it was better to host it somewhere more stable than the computer under my desk... so here it is. I doubt this will ever be of any interest to anyone except myself, or possibly other hams in the northeastern massachusetts area.