46 and counting…

No, this isn’t a word ladder or anything like that. It’s a little random musing on the similarities between what I do with my Morse paddle and what my partner Dulcie does in her work from home transcription services business.

It struck me recently that the process by which I convert words and letters into left/right movements of my paddle, apparently without conscious effort but after a lot of practise and training, is very similar to the process by which Dulcie converts what she hears into key presses on her keyboard. I suspect it’s also very similar to the way in which musicians convert notes on the staff when sight reading into the appropriate hand/foot/lip/mouth movements to make their instrument produce the correct sound.

It’s amazing how these things come to you all of a sudden. Who’d have thought that my amateur radio hobby would be related in this way to Dulcie’s job as a self employed audio transcription typist.

Then again maybe it’s not so amazing after all and it was just me being a bit slow in seeing the similarities…?

Dean Amateur Radio, Blog, Totally random audio transcription, morse code, transcription services

The 19th of March 2011 marks the closest lunar approach for almost 20 years at ‘just’ 221 567 miles.

This is my attempt at photographing the supermoon (as they’re calling it) and despite the usual tabloid sensationalism, it looks much the same as usual.

This is not quite full moon but is about 99% illuminated. Full moon is an hour before perigee at 18:10 GMT this evening.

Dean Blog, Pictures moon, perigee, supermoon

‘The wet string chronicles…’ is the former title of this blog, so called because of my less than optimal amateur radio antenna. Over the years I’ve always used simple wire antennas, some of which have worked better than others. Some of the less performant antennas are what we in England would say are ‘about as much use as a bit of wet string’! In antenna terms it’s colloquial for ‘not very good’.

I’m sure I’ll still write about how my antennas are a bit of a compromise (to put it mildly) but I’ll be adopting a less amateur radio focused view of the world going forward. I want to diversify and write about other things that interest me, especially photography and music. That is why today, I’ve changed the title of my blog to something more generic - ‘45 and counting…’.

And as for my antennas, well, they’re still there and they’re still about as compromise as they ever were, but they’re the best I can do given my current location and situation. I still make plenty of contacts and while times at’s a bit of a challenge working weaker and more remote stations, I accept that it won’t always be easy and in a way that only adds to the enjoyment and the sense of satisfaction when I do manage to log a new country.

Dean Amateur Radio, Blog, Life... antenna

If you have a HTC smartphone you may well have used the HTC Footprints application. This application lets you create your own virtual ‘footprints’ around the world with geo-tagged pictures, web links, timestamps and Google maps integration. It’s a pretty slick little app.

There’s a problem though - you can’t easily change the date of ‘footprints’ added after the fact. So for instance, if you get a phone tomorrow and add all of your ‘footprints’ (for which you can import your own pictures and enter the GPS locations), these will all be created with date and timestamps corresponding to when you created them, not the date of your visit to the place. I have seen many forum posts asking how you can ‘fix’ this.

Well, I have found a way. It’s simple and it works reliably on my HTC Hero with Android 1.5 and I’m pretty sure it’ll work on any other versions of Android on any other HTC phone.
Read more…

Dean Blog, Totally random date, footprints, HTC, time

It’s true. Twenty days into the month of July and nothing in the log since the last week of June…save for 4 RTTY contacts a few days ago. So far this month I’ve just been busy doing other things and getting on the bands has taken a bit of a back seat.

The 4 RTTY contacts I mentioned were on 20 and 30m a few nights previous when I called CQ for a while to see what was out there. ‘Not very much’ was the answer! Having said that though, one of the stations worked was A61E in the United Arab Emirates for which I still need a QSL card so I’ll be sending my card to his Spanish QSL manager in the next few days.

I do keep telling myself I really should try to get back into some late night PSK31 and as 20m is often crowded with signals I may well give 30m a try. I’ll be hoping I can do that before the end of the month!

Dean Amateur Radio, Blog, Totally random A61E, G0RIF, QRT, QSL, RTTY

Love them or hate them but you certainly can’t ignore them. On this day in 1975 Bill Gates and Paul Allen founded the company we now know as Microsoft (known then as Micro-Soft) in Albuquerque, New Mexico.

I’d wager there aren’t many companies setup in the past 35 years that have had anywhere near the same impact on the lives of many (or indeed most) of us.

Google…Apple…? I can’t think of another one right now…can you?

Dean Blog, Totally random history, Microsoft

Construction of two prototypes began in February 1965: 001, built by Aerospatiale at Toulouse, and 002, by BAC at Filton, Bristol. Concorde 001 made its first test flight from Toulouse on this day in 1969 piloted by Andre Turcat and first went supersonic on 1 October. The first UK-built Concorde flew from Filton to RAF Fairford on 9 April 1969 piloted by Brian Trubshaw.

Orders were received for over 70 aircraft but a combination of factors led to some cancellations - the 1973 oil crisis, financial difficulties of airlines, a crash of the competing Soviet Tupolev Tu-144 at a Paris air show, and environmental concerns such as the sonic boom, noise and pollution. Eventually only 20 aircraft were built of which 14 entered airline service. Although familiar in British Airways and Air France colours in 1977 Concorde G-BOAD was painted in Singapore Airlines livery (on the port side only) for services between London and Singapore.

Concorde in Singapore Airlines livery

Concorde flew regular transatlantic flights from London Heathrow (British Airways) and Paris-Charles de Gaulle Airport (Air France) to New York JFK and Washington Dulles, flying these routes at record speeds in less than half the time of other airliners.

The fastest transatlantic flight was from London Heathrow to New York JFK on 7 February 1996 by British Airways’ G-BOAD in 2 hours, 52 minutes, 59 seconds from takeoff to touchdown.

Thirty-seven years after her first test flight, Concorde was announced the winner of the Great British Design Quest organised by the BBC and the Design Museum. A total of 212,000 votes were cast with Concorde beating design icons such as the Mini, mini skirt, Jaguar E-type, Tube map and the Supermarine Spitfire.

I was fortunate enough to see Concorde fly on several occasions and I consider it unlikely there will be anything to replace her in my lifetime. As someone said on the final aircraft being withdrawn from service, “today the world has become a bigger place”. She is and will be sadly missed by many.

Dean Blog, Pictures, Totally random Concorde, history, maiden flight

Well that’s it - January 2010 is no more. Over, done, finished! Blink and you would have missed it. It’s now February the 1st and before you know it winter will recede and give way to spring.

So, what did January 2010 give us? Not a lot to be fair. I was QRT for the whole of the month and my only forays onto the bands were occasional listens to 20m and 40m where I heard little of interest. I really do need something to re-enthuse me. I keep thinking I should get back to working more PSK31 on 20m but so far I haven’t even got round to doing that. I’ll hope to address that during February.

January 2010 will likely be most remembered for the cold snap and the accompanying snow and ice that brought the UK to a near standstill. That is now thankfully passed and not to be repeated anytime soon with a bit of luck. Roll on warmer weather, longer days and improving HF conditions as cycle 24 starts to gather momentum.

Dean Amateur Radio, Blog, Life..., Totally random 2010, antenna, January, QRT, Solar Cycle 24

Rain, a lot of rain. Non stop all night in fact. It is still raining this morning.

But at least it is warmer. A whopping 3 degrees this morning with a forecast high of 6 degrees. Break out the sunscreen!

Dean Blog, Life..., Totally random ice, rain, snow, weather

NASA satellite image

That’s right, there is no let up to the snow & cold icy conditions in the UK. The extent of the recent snowfall can be seen in this NASA image taken by the TERRA satellite on January 7th 2010. This shows the entire British mainland and the Isle of Man under a blanket of snow and ice. Apparently this prolonged cold snap is in part attributed to climate changes in so far as the warmer air from the northern Atlantic ocean (which would normally afford us slightly warmer temperatures at this time of year) is being deflected to the south of the UK by a plunge of cold arctic air from north eastern Europe. A larger version of this image is available on the BBC website for as long as they continue to host it - you can click here to view that image.

Dean Blog, Pictures, Totally random January 2010, NASA, snow, weather