This is the Trailer for the new Mixtape DVD – A Thing of the Seasons – Available for free download at www.mixtapeevolution.com

The latest installment of the (unofficial) Heartbreak Drake mixtape series dropped today and included two previously unheard songs, and the remix to money to blow from the motivation 3 mixtape

Here is The rest of that old school degrassi unscripted drake episode

Last week I fired back up the 30m QRSS beacon.  This has been in storage for quite a while and I was curious to see if it was still within the 100Hz QRSS band on 30m.  As you can see from the pictures below it still is and it was reaching the ‘local’ grabbers of Vernon, VE1VDM (598miles away)and Bruce, W1BW (285miles away).  Power from the beacon is 160mW on the frequency of 10.14003MHz and it is looking nice and stable.  In case your interested the frequency shift keying has a pull of 6Hz.   Yes, that is Hertz! It still amazes me how stable this is.  Details of the build can be found on a previous post.  I will add the circuit diagrams of this homebrew design, once I get time to move my hand-drawn circuits to the computer.

c

VA3STL 160mW QRSS beacon received at VE1VDM on 24/1009

VA3STL 160mW QRSS beacon received by W1BW on 24/10/09

Besides the QRSS beacon, I have also been running a D-RATS D-STAR beacon on 145.670MHz.  So if you have D-STAR capabilities in the Ottawa area, try and see if you can hear my signal and send me a message.  I usually post details of when the beacon is running on the OARDG group message board.

“Creme de la Creme CMJ Showcase 2009 – Saturday, October 24 @ BLVD (199 Bowery, New York, NY)- Featuring: 12th Planet, Christian Rich, Adam Tensta, Christian TV, Curt@!n$, D*Star, Donnis, Dude Royal, G-Eazy, Gina Turner, He Say She Say, Hey Champ, Hollywood Holt, Mickey Factz, Rob Roy, Roy G and The Biv, The Beatards, The Cataracs, U-N-I and more TBA. 9pm – 4am. 21+

Free with RSVP @ DubFrequency

Sydney, Australia, Aug 12, 2009- MKF is utilising Play MPE® as the system of choice for the distribution of promotional music to radio and other media for its new single ‘Like the River’ recorded Live @ Sydney Opera House. Play MPE is the new industry standard for the delivery of promotional music in Australia and New Zealand.
The Australian Independent Records Labels Association (AIR) played an instrumental role in making this happen for MKF and marks the first time in Australian music history that the recording of an Pakistani/Indian singer/songwriter has been served to Australian radio.

Mahmood Khan’s Debut album ‘Only One’ was released internationally in 1997 and it featured the legendary Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan. The album went on to sell 6 million units and is considered as the most influential sound recording of its time. The single ‘Another lover’ cracked the independent radio charts in the USA and Mahmood became the first Artist from the Indian region to get spins on over 300 radio stations across the USA.
This time around he is spreading his music in Australia which kicked off by a historical performance at the Sydney Opera House this past March. He became the first singer/songwriter from the Indian region to have performed all original songs at the prestigious concert hall. This year he also launched the MKF music brand.
‘Like the river’ is the first single from the upcoming album MKF Live @ Sydney Opera House.
MKF is also set to start the ‘Finally Home’ concert series with the first performance slated for Sep 22nd at the Sydney Opera House.
www.mkfworld.com

Daftar Lagu-lagu Plagiat Versi Muhammad Rizki Fadillah.

Hasil mungkin akan berbeda pada setiap orang.

Silahkan dibandingin.

1. Vierra – Bersamamu = Dewi Lestari feat. Aqi “Alexa” – Peluk (emang gak mirip-mirip amat sih. Tapi coba bandingin suara piano/keyboard-nya)

2. Janji Band – Teman Biasa = D’Star – Jago Selingkuh (reff mirip)

3. D’Masiv – Jangan Menyerah = Peterpan – Semua Tentang Kita (orang-orang bilang sih mirip sama lagunya Muse, tapi menurut saya lebih mirip sama lagunya Peterpan)

4. Radja – Gak Ada Waktu – T2 – Malu-malu Dong (parah banget plagiatnya)

5. The Moon – Embun = Sheila On 7 – Sephia (intronya mirip)

Kalau ada yang ingin ditambah, silahkan berkomentar.

I’ll make this post a bit short…  Recently while surfing I have found the following website:

http://www.73s.org

It does have a bit more computer content although Amateur Radio Related than I like but he does explain the computer stuff down to a level that even an old phart like me can figure out.

He has a series of videos called Ham Briefs and they seem really good so far.  His recent one on hooking up the DSTAR ID1 to a mobile router has some interesting EMMCOM applications he did not mention and will be worth looking at a bit more…

Anyhow….  if you have the time its well worth looking at…  When I have a bit more time I will be mentioning some of his ideas in more detail and discussing the pros and the cons… from my point of view…

Enjoy your day…..

73bob

D-RATS with map and main windows open

Last night I ran my D-RATS beacon on one of the local D-STAR simplex frequencies 145.670MHz.  I had chatted to Dale, VE3XZT, on  VA3ODG D-STAR repeater earlier that day and arranged to test simplex communication between our stations using D-RATS, including the mapping function.

The test went well. Dale used his IC-91AD with external amplifier and I used my IC-2200H.  We could ‘ping’ each others stations, as well as send our respective locations to each other.  You can see in the screenshot above some of the results of the test.

Full credit has to go to Dan Smith, KI4IFW.  In just over a year he has brought about a multi-platform tool that allows users of D-STAR radios to use

• message style chat,
• file and image transfer,
• mapping, including map overlays,
• remote access to e-mail,
• ‘pinging’ of stations to determine availability and accessibility;

all at the same time as having voice communications available.  I know I have listed the possibilities before, but they are worth repeating as they draw together so many aspects together in one package (and no TNC needed).

If you are curious about my OS it is xubuntu.

Icom Japan announced on the 29th January, 2009  two new D-STAR capable radios, the ID-80 a HT and ID-880 mobile transceiver, which look likely to be released in late 2009 in Japan.  The press release (in Japanese) can be found here and an automatic translation is here.

Using the exchange rate at the time of writing the HT is expected to be $720 (Canadian) which includes the Japanese tax, with the 50W mobile being $865 (Canadian), again plus tax.

Interesting to see that two mobile units with different power levels (20W and 50W) are mentioned.  I am not sure if that is because of limitations with some levels of the Japanese licensing.  The HT is labeled as an entry level unit and looks like it is similar to the IC-91AD and the IC-92D.  The ID-880 looks similar to the ID-800.  In both cases though the characters in the display seem bigger to me, but I may be wrong.

Maybe in a year we will see these in North America and Europe.

In my previous post I talked about D-Star and using the application D-RATS.  Here are some videos showing the features of D-Star radios.

The first is the longest and is a promotional video of D-STAR from JARL and Icom. Perhaps a  little strong in selling the features, nevertheless it does give an overview.

This next one shows how digital voice compares with FM in a weak signal situation.

The final one illustrates keyboard communications.  This shows the application D*Chat which has similar capabilities to D-RATS.

Recently I updated the shack computer to xubuntu 8.04 and have been updating the amateur radio software too.  One of those packages was D-RATS.  This is a program that allows connection of computers to D-Star radios and I have previously reported on it.  The software has been available (for free) for about a year now and it is interesting to see how far it has come.  Beside the keyboard to keyboard communication it includes the ability to send files, including images, mapping of stations and also the ability to send e-mails.  I wanted to test these features out, so with the two D-Star radios I have I set one up as the base, with the ability to push e-mails onto the internet and the other radio went portable with me.  I then connected through to the base station on simplex and sent files, images and some e-mails.  All transferred successfully, as shown in the screen grab below.

D-RATS main window showing file transfers.

What impressed me about this setup is how compact it is.  All you need is a computer (running D-Rats), a cable to your radio and the D-Star radio (plus antenna of course).  No TNC is required, unlike with packet or APRS.  If the radio is a HT and the computer is a laptop then they come with their own battery power too.  So here you have a system that can support

• digital voice,
• station to station messaging,
• beaconing,
• position mapping,
• image transfer,
• e-mail support,
• even TCP port forwarding.

This is quite a list and just using one piece of software and your D-Star radio.

D-RATS is maturing nicely, although still not a stable release.  If you have a D-Star radio then give it a try and see what you can achieve.  One can see why emergency measures groups are interested in D-Star.  I need to test it now with the local D-Star repeater.

A big thank you goes to Dan Smith, KI4IFW, for creating such a flexible piece of software.

The skyline of Perth, Western Australia. (Courtesy of Wikimedia)

This morning on the commute to work I joined a conversation with Dale, VE3XZT, and John, VK6NOW using the local D-Star repeater, VA3ODG.  John had linked into the Ottawa repeater through the Perth, Western Australia, repeater.  Later Steve, VK6ST, joined the chat.

There was a variety of D-Star transceivers being used, IC-91AD, IC-92D, IC-2820 between us and all functioned very well.  Indeed, there was some comment on how well the audio was from each of the stations.  I have found the D-Star repeater connections to give much better audio than through IRLP links. When a station comes in through a linked D-Star repeater, it sounds no different than if they were local.

It was enjoyable to chat to a couple of Australian amateurs and note the differences between our two locations.  Dale and myself were commuting to work in the morning, with the temperature around -10°C in Ottawa.  John and Steve in Perth were at the end of their day, around 11pm, with a temperature of 20°C.

This made me realize that I do not use the VA3ODG repeater enough,  as well as link to other  D-Star repeaters around the World.  I will try and do more.  If you want to chat with me through D-Star, feel free to contact me so we can set up a sked.

I recently read an article about DSTAR and was surprised to find that this form of communication is still in it’s adolescent form. Supported by Icom,  DSTAR adds a considerable expense to the cost of their HT’s.

DSTAR not only requires knowledge of the receiving station but the operator also requires knowledge of all “network hops” between the source and destination to complete the circuit. So that means if you are on travel, you would have to know the hops between your location and the destination at each and every place that you visit.

It seems the systems designers missed the boat and should have looked at the success of existing systems (like the Internet) to have eliminated this connection requirement. All systems do take time to mature, but this is a miss by a mile as far as I see it!

I’d like to know if there is a reason for this design methodology.  With the exception of system flexibility at the expense of the operator, I see this as a fundamental flaw. If anyone would care to comment further about my possible misunderstanding or plain old “lack of knowledge” about this subject, feel free to comment.

However, even though this system lack operator “friendliness” there are many systems in the US and the World that  support DSTAR and the DSTAR system locator link below is designed to point these systems out to you. I did not take the time to dig into the routing information, but perhaps one or more of the links I supplied will help with that information as well.

Related Links:

DSTAR Users Organization

DSTAR Technical Requirements

DSTAR System Locator

DSTAR Video (D-Chat)

Why not comment on your experience with DSTAR and it’s capabilities?

IC91A,
originally uploaded by alsteele.

I recently obtained an Icom IC-91A handheld and a UT-121 D-Star board. This board was relatively straight forward to put into the transceiver. I photographed the installation process and posted the images on my flickr.com pages.

So far in using this radio I have been impressed with some of its features. These include

• Good audio on receive.
• Dual watch of two frequencies.
• Easy switching between the two VFOs.
• Comments on good audio when using digital voice (DV) mode and an Icom headset.
• The 0.5 W setting works well on 440MHz for the work commute when about 5 miles or so from the D-STAR repeater. Antenna is a mag-mount on the trunk (not the best place but it allows me to drive straight into the garage).
• One button call capture for callsign and repeater settings in DV mode.
• Wideband receiver

The negatives are minor:

• Preferred some indication of the battery status (my IC-T7H gives a voltage reading at start-up).
• I prefer BNC connections and the SMA takes longer to attach to the car antenna.

I thought only having two power settings of 5W and 0.5W would be a problem (the IC-92AD has 4 steps). However, I find those two settings work well during the commute. When in the city I use the 0.5W and when closer to home and out of the city I switch to full power. The radio gets hot on full power transmit, but I put the radio in a mount in the car and so do not get a hot hand! I try and limit transmission lengths to prevent overheating problems. A hand speaker/mic will likely be the next acquisition.

Why not the IC-92AD? I do not really need the submersible capability (and did not want to pay for that). As well I would need to pay $30, or so, for an adapter to connect my headset (which I was told was not yet available). Again, the adapter is needed because of the waterproof speaker/mic connector. So the IC-91AD seemed the logical choice.

It has been enjoyable talking to Dale, VE3XZT, in Ottawa and Andrew, VE6EN, in Calgary on 70cm on D-STAR as we commute to our respective work places in the morning. The repeater VA3ODG gateway works very well and Andrew sounds like he could be in Ottawa.

Hola Electrofóbicos, tras un intenso y nintendo fin de semana, me complace ofreceros una pequeña colección con los mejores programas de música dedicado a nuestras Nintendo DS. Aquí os dejo esta magnífica colección para que inspiréis vuestras mentes en cualquier lugar.

• Bliptracker – Secuenciador y maquina de ritmo

• Dsmcu – Controlador

• Protein[DS] – Sample looper, scratcher y glithcher

• Nitrotracker – Secuenciador al más puro estilo tracker

• KaosDS – Convierte tu DS en un KaossPad wifi

• SamplingKeyboard – Graba y dispara tus sonidos
• Dstep v2 – Secuenciador visual

• GlitchDS – Secuenciador celular con automatización

• RepeaterDS – Sample player

• Midipad –Controlador a lo Kaoss pad

• Toypiano – Un piano sampleado en tu DS
• Dstar – Secuenciador midi
• Monome ds – Una emulación buenísima de Monome para tu DS

• Soundcells – Bonito y funcional sintetizador virtual

• Ukelele – Convierte tu Ds en un Ukelele
• Dssynth – Un sintetizador virtual opensource
• Midi Jammer – una herramienta grafica midi

• Axe – Mueve el lápiz por la pantalla y haz música

• Pulse Dsi – Sintetizador midi
• Drummers v2
• Fudi Kaos Ds
• Knobs & Sliders
• Drum me – Kit de percussion virtual
• Strum me – Guitarra virtual

]]> http://wedothatradio.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/d-star/ Tue, 15 Apr 2008 12:43:51 +0000 apitts http://wedothatradio.wordpress.com/2008/04/15/d-star/ http://wedothatradio.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/31/ Mon, 31 Mar 2008 19:43:03 +0000 apitts http://wedothatradio.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/31/ http://wedothatradio.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/amateur-radio-in-space/ Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:49:53 +0000 apitts http://wedothatradio.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/amateur-radio-in-space/ http://wedothatradio.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/what-is-ham-radio/ Mon, 31 Mar 2008 17:25:47 +0000 apitts http://wedothatradio.wordpress.com/2008/03/31/what-is-ham-radio/ http://va3stl.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/websites-with-maps-of-repeater-locations/ Fri, 29 Feb 2008 02:12:11 +0000 va3stl http://va3stl.wordpress.com/2008/02/28/websites-with-maps-of-repeater-locations/

If you are traveling to a new area and looking for the local repeaters there are a number of online tools that can help. Here a few links that have repeater details and which make use of Google maps.

• http://k5ehx.net/repeaters/qrepeater.php A webpage created by K5EHX that allows the repeaters in a particular location to be found and displayed on a Google map. A range indicator is given as well as tabulated information including frequency, offset and PL tones. This site appears to be only for US repeaters.

• http://www.artscipub.com/repeaters/ Select a state and then a town for repeater details. The map shows the area but no repeater location is marked on it.

• http://www.ham-shack.com/can_repeater.html For Canadian repeaters.  This site shows a map of the town or city location of the repeater and then a tabbed listing. There may be some old data here as I see the VE3MPC repeater located in Ottawa which has not been operational for a few years. Despite that a good listing of repeaters. There is a similar US repeater map at http://www.ham-shack.com/repeater.html.

• http://www.jfindu.net/DSTARRepeaters.aspx Moving world-wide now. This map lists the DSTAR repeaters and gateways. Adding further functionality is another map that shows the DSTAR repeaters with recent activity.

Please add a comment if you are aware of any other sites with maps of repeaters.

In my previous post I mentioned having loaded D-RATS. Since then I have been doing some experimenting with the help of Rick, VE3CVG and Manfred, VA3WK. We have found messages can be passed with good copy via simplex. We have also found that D-RATS and d*Chat can be used together. A text file was sent via D-RATS, first as a text file and then as a file using the DDT format (they are two different routes in the software). The transfer went well. I would be interested to try sending compressed image files next.

A good range of radios were used, specifically the IC-91AD, IC-2820 and IC-2200H. When setting up, make sure you have the right baud rate set in D-RATS (for your computer serial port) and your radio. If not you, will likely see a string of question marks on the main message window when data is received.

So, if you have your D-STAR radio linked to your computer, give D-RATS a try. By the way, the development team is working fast as there was eight days between the 0.1.4 and 0.1.5 releases, so keep checking for updates.

Rick has pointed out to me that there is a Mac application that offers similar messaging capabilities. This software is called dTerm and the company producing it is currently looking for alpha testers. So, whether you use a Mac, Linux or Windows there is now software to allow you to do keyboard to keyboard communication using DSTAR.

If you are in the Ottawa area listen on 145.670 MHz (simplex) for messaging signals.

Should you have any interesting findings using any of these applications, or hints and tips, I encourage you to post them here.

I recently installed D-RATS on my shack computer for use with my DSTAR ready IC-2200H. This appears to be a nice piece of software that allows keyboard to keyboard chatting as well as file transfer. The nice feature is that it is written in python and uses a couple of libraries so that it can run on Linux and Windows and almost MacOS X, see the install page for more information.

In my immediate area I have noticed that simplex use dropped off dramatically once the repeater and gateway were up and running, even though simplex performance seems to be good with DSTAR, if external antennas are being used. See my post on DSTAR simplex performance. Further, I noticed very little use of DSTAR’s data transfer capabilities in the VHF region, but perhaps I was not looking hard enough. An application like this could really boost the use of DSTAR in simplex and data transfer modes. I can further see that applications like D-RATS can be of good use in emergency communications.

During the ARRL VHF sweepstakes I threw out a call on the local DSTAR simplex frequency of 145.600 MHz, with 25W from my IC-2200H through my collinear antenna with its base at about 20ft. Rick, VE3CVG, responded and said I was booming in. He was using 5W (from his IC-91A/D, I believe) and his collinear antenna on his tower. I dropped my power to 5W and Rick could still easily copy me. When Rick dropped to 0.5W it was too low a power and his signal was garbled for me. I am in Greely, ON (South of Ottawa) and Rick is in Cumberland, ON (East of Ottawa), the distance between us I estimate to be 35km. Not bad for a 5W to 5W QSO on 2m.

So for those using DSTAR radios, do not forget to try simplex as well as the repeaters and gateways. DSTAR may have the edge over FM when used simplex. If you have had any similar experiences of DSTAR simplex then please share them and post them in a comment below.

preparingradio,
originally uploaded by alsteele.

For 2m work I have an Icom IC-2200H in the shack. Earlier in 2007 I added a UT-118 board for DSTAR capability. I photographed this process and here is the first of a set of photographs. Click on the image and that will take you to my flickr site where I have 5 photographs showing the installation of my UT-118 board.

The DSTAR board works well in the IC-2200H although it lacks some of the features of the later DSTAR radios. My local DSTAR repeater is VA3ODG, if you want to have a sked then contact me. You may also want to check out the Ottawa Amateur Radio Digital Group wiki.

If you are installing a UT-118 I hope the photographs help you. If so then let me know.

FInally DO read the manuals of your radio and the board before installing the board and follow ESD precautions. I take no responsibility in a damaged board.