Monthly Archives: December 2014

Weather Site

Weather Site 1st Year in Operation

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Published 30/12/2014

Chatteris Weather has been online for a year on the 28th December 2014, or should I say, been online using a template of Saratoga Weather, combined with the URL of Chatteris.biz and a new web host in e-rice.

My original site was hosted by Talktalk, one a new host was sorted, all the original files regarding build details etc, were transferred.

Over the past year lots of modifications and tweaks have been done (and continue to be done) to keep the site as bug free as possible and to keep on top of dead links, sometimes pages or complete scripts have to be disabled to maintain the site in working order, I decide to revisit the effected scripts and see what could be done, tackling the script “Who-Online” first.

The script ‘Whos-Online’ required a GeoLiteCity upgrade file to be installed every month, during last months update the SQL database became corrupt causing the weather site to fail, I was reluctant to upgrade to a higher script version as the original one took a lot of effort to get working, however, no other option existed and I upgraded from V2.25 to V 3.00.

With the help of wxforum members, the new script is now working, I also took the opportunity to attach a table showing the nation flags of visitors. (Update – The flag table would only register visitors who visited the page with the table on it, I have changed to Revelovermaps as this allowed me to link the small globe in the menu bar to the main display on the Whos-Online page so no matter which page is viewed, it is included within the counter)

During the process of installing ‘Whos-Online’ I noticed that the cloud height graphic was not being displayed on the pages where it is used – Cloud Type Page – for example, this was found to be linked to an error generated in the weather templates Setting.php script, the cloud graphic script -cloud-base.php – can work without the link to Settings.php as data can be called from other sources, as soon as Settings.php was commented out, the graphic came back online.

So two results in one, happy birthday Chatteris Weather 🙂

Weather Site

Weather Site Tweaks

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Due to having a stinking cold I’ve been banished to my man cave so I took the opportunity to update weather pages which haven’t worked properly or just plain needed a coat of looking at.

The most noticeable adjustments have been:

Menu Bar & Contact Form –

I have added a shortcut graphical link on the Menu Bar to  a newly configured Skype account call button, the call button can also be directly accessed via the Contact Form page.

Ham Radio Page –
Added Stormy.gif to lift the page out of being slightly bland.
Added Solar X-Ray and Geomagnetic Field status.

The source for both of these can be found in my Links page.

Space Weather Page –
Due to a major upgrade to the site where the links for this page derive from, the wxspace.php script which is behind space weather called on images and information which simply wasn’t there, Martin from Hebrides Weather (www.hebwx.co.uk
) has done a great job in re-establishing the bulk of the relevant links and making the script available via the WXforum, this enabled me to get the page up and running again quite quickly, also, for the very first time I have the 3 day Solar-Geophysical Forecast running which is automatically updated every 30 minutes.

Festive greetings from Chatteris Weather.

Ham Radio

CCTV Pan/Tilt Controller – Part 1

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A good friend of mine asked is I could get him a CCTV Pan/tilt head so he could remotely control the position of his aerials which would be especially useful in the tracking of satellites, some time later I noticed that a guy was upgrading a CCTV system, I went over to him and asked I could have the scrap head, came home with it and straight onto the internet for the make and model, but more specifically the wiring details.

The one I obtained was made by Shawley Antony Ltd who are no longer trading, but the head works just fine on 24vDC with the added bonus of having electromechanical brakes for both Pan and Tilt and having potentiometers so that I can have a go at getting positional feedback displayed.

In order to make a decent project I used Ebay to get a joystick, Pulse Width Modulator motor speed control and a voltage reducer all from China at silly prices.

I created the personalised overlay using Visio, this allows me the layer the drawing and the dimensional drilling detail can then be used to template the drilling pattern before being turned off, and the finished overlay printed.

SAM_5220 (Medium)Control Unit under construction

The way the controller will work is via a 24vDC supply, the 5vDC regulator will provide power to the LM3914 which will be configured for spot display of voltage derived from a potential divider circuit using the head pots, the LM3914 will drive the LEDs indicating the compass positions, I’m not sure if this will work accurately reflecting the head position, but that will be for the next part of the blog when the parts arrive. A similar arrangement will be used to drive the three LEDs showing if the head platform is at the horizontal, transitioning or vertical plane.

The switch marked Pan/Tilt Power, when operated will release the head brakes and light the associated LED, also, power will be applied to the speed controller enabling the joystick to operate the head at a variable speed set by turning the Speed Control knob, the advantage of using a pulse width modulated speed controller is that the motor does not lose torque at low speeds and will therefore not ‘stall’ under load.

SAM_5221 (Medium)Awaiting parts to complete the controller

The picture shows the internal setup for the motor left/right/up/down movement which is operational, the flying leads have been attached to the LEDs ready for the next stage…Watch this space for the next installment.

Link to Part 2.

Ham Radio

Changing Call sign

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I didn’t realize how many programs or places I needed to change my details from the old Intermediate call sign to my new M0HTA one, so I thought I’d list them:

Echolink (both desktop and Mobile App)
QRZ.com
APRS (Mobile App)
DL-FLdigi (High Altitude Balloon tracking)
FLdigi
Ham Radio Deluxe (including update status html file)
WSPR
MMSSTV
RSGB
European Phase Shift Club
eQSL.cc
HRDLog.net
Chatteris.biz Ham Radio links

I’m sure I’ve missed a few as well!!

Ham Radio

WSPR – Propagation Report on 10 Watts

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Now revision is over, I’ve been playing with WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporter)pronounced ‘whisper’, I’ve had the program for quite a while but never really dedicated any time to setting it up, other rather checking that I can connect to the Kenwood and it allows the program to receive and transmit.

I set WSPR to report on the 30m band with a spot receiving frequency of 10.138.70MHz USB with a 2 minute RX/TX cycle using 10 Watts, unbelievably my very first report back was from the USA, this is a screen grab after a couple of hours:

WSPR on 10w
Map showing stations who received my 10 Watt transmission

Maybe my inverted ‘L’ isn’t as bad as thought! I’ll keep it running for a while and see who else can hear me. I will add to this post with more screen grabs when it has been running for longer and I get some even further contacts hopefully.

The screen shot below was taken on the 20th May 2017, I was running a Kenwood TS-200- at 5watts :

 

wspr

Ham Radio

Advanced Exam – Update

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I sat the Advanced Amateur Radio exam on the 8 December, the venue was Cauis (pronounced Key’s) College in Cambridge city center with the exam starting at 19:00, Martin from Cambridge University Wireless Club (CUW) arranged the venue and invigilated, Colin from Cambridge and District Amateur Radio Club acted as the second invigilator.

The exam had an allocated time of two hours and three in total taking the exam, the results are due 6 working days after receipt of the completed papers at RSGB Headquarters in Bedford, so I’m hoping to hear one way or the other by Tuesday 16 December using the OFCOM licensing web portal as I’m told this is where you find out earlier than wait for the results letter, the downside is that if your registration code used on the OFCOM site does not allow you past the application stage, then it may not be good news :-(.

Watch this space and I’ll post up as soon as I know.

17 December 14 – Well it’s good news, checked the OFCOM web site and bingo, passed the advanced, my new call sign is M0HTA, when I got home the envelope containing the certificate was waiting for me, posted on the 16th.

In my blog I’ve mentioned Hamtests and QADV being used as part of my pre exam revision, here are a couple of screen shots of what I did:

Hamtests

hamtestSet of 10 test questions with a 10 minute time limit.

hamtest1Set of 62 test questions with a 2 hour time limit.

The results dropped on the 7th December as my exam was on the 8th and I was panicking!

QADV

QADV resultsCombined results of QADV.

Sorry for the compressed image – the last version used was downloaded on the 6th December, 2 days before the exam.

QADV I found to be very well supported in regard to upgrades and it was very easy to use,  the screen grabs were from my Laptop, the program was also installed on my desktop so the number of tests actually undertaken is a lot higher than shown (each version change wipes your previous results)!

Many thanks to the providers of Hamtests, QADV, advice from members of CDARC and CUW for facilitating the exam.

Weather Site

General Status Update

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14 December 14 was a record for the duration the weather PC has worked without a glitch, usually I have to restart, or close and then re-open an application every week or so, but this time it ran for 31 days and 16 hours before a restart which is really good.

Had a few days of the weather site not being available (5 Dec – 10 Dec), this was due to an upload which failed due to a corrupt file, unfortunately everything work ok when I accessed the site, it was only when I enabled Pingdom.com did the problem come to light, this has meant that the’ Who’s Online’ menu bar item is not available until this corrupt file is found and fixed.

The other issue has been with ‘Space Weather’, NOAA has revamped their web site and this has led to a number of broken links, I’m waiting for a week or so before I start tracking the links down and re-linking in case they continue tweaking for a bit longer.