What if you’re not though?

I have lots of friends back in my homeland of the UK and some in Australia and other places around the globe.  They probably get sick of my incessant posts, radar shots, alerts about warnings, watches, etc….

SO – I’ve decided to move all future weather posts to a Facebook Page which I’ve created.  If you think it may be of use to you, or you would like to join in the discussion, please go ahead and LIKE it.  The link is below…

Thanks!

http://www.facebook.com/centralokwx

My Weather Apps

Note: A lot of my links focus on Oklahoma, because that’s where I am.

Many severe weather enthusiasts, spotters and chasers use smartphones and tablets for live (or almost live) weather information from Radar, alerts, advisories, etc.

Here are my favourite Apple iOS apps for such things.

Going from left to right, top to bottom:

• Storm Spotter – Plots radar imagery over satellite images.  Think radar over Google Earth or something.
• The Weather Channel app – Basic weather info, but has this new curious “future radar” feature.  Interesting to see how accurate it could be.
• Skywarn – A handy app which gives you your GPS coordinates and serves as a field reference on Severe WX reporting criteria.  Remember, no “meatball sized hail”.
• 3D Sun – Mainly used for my Amateur Radio side.  Shows “weather” on the sun.  Sunspots, flares, CME’s, etc.
• Enhanced – Is a bookmarked link to the NWS Norman “Enhanced Weather Page”, formerly known as the “Graphicast”.  It’s my go-to page for a quick overview of what’s going on, and should be yours too, if you live in Oklahoma.
• National Foreca(st Charts) – Is a bookmarked link to the National Forecast Charts web page.
• Mesonet  - The official Oklahoma Mesonet app.  Invaluable source of information for current Oklahoma weather and past data trends.
• Mesoanalysis - Is a bookmarked link to what is essentially a mobile version of the Hourly Mesoscale page.
• uWeather – Unisys Weather Enthusiast.  Allows access to weather simulations like ECMWF, GFS, GFSx, MOS, NAM. Radar, maps and surface observations via an app.  Not bad.  Just a bit clunky to use.
• Stormpins – A relatively new app which allows trained and untrained weather enthusiasts to drop pins on a community map, detailing storms, damage, etc.
• Wx Alert USA – The best damn weather alert app, period…. Be alerted in every possibly way you can imagine for every possible weather type you can imagine, and be very specific as to which counties and areas you’d like to monitor…  and MUCH more.  I gambled with a few dollars and won.  Turned out to be an invaluable app.
• RadarScope – The best damn weather RADAR app, period.  Seamlessly works with Allisonhouse feeds and the Spotter Network.  The best $9.99 you’ll ever spend on an app.

#OKWX

Social Media can be really useful when it comes to getting weather information.  If you’re in Oklahoma, follow the #okwx Twitter hashtag.  Whatever state you’re in, replace the “OK” with your two letter state abbreviation… e.g: #ARWX for Arkansas, or #TXWX for Texas.

I use Hootsuite in Google Chrome as a social media dashboard.  It’s VERY good for this.  I’m sure it runs just as well in other web browsers.

A note about re-tweeting weather related information: I usually remove the hashtags from weather information that I retweet.  Since everything tagged with #okwx will appear in the #okwx list, this prevents a buildup of repeated information in the list and helps towards plugging up Twitter, and hopefully because of that, more timely data.

I hope you’ve found something you can use here!

I changed from K5GWH (Kilo Five Golf Whiskey Hotel) to N5GOR (November Five Golf Oscar Romeo).  I find it rolls off my English accented tongue much easier.  Plus, it’s what I get called.  Gor!  Obviously the main title of this website will now change too!

New Callsign – N5GOR

Old Site TItle

There are several REALLY GOOD reasons to Jailbreak your iOS device.

Firstly, the evasi0n team has released an Untethered Jailbreak for almost all iDevices running iOS6 & 6.1.  Check out http://evasi0n.com/ for more information.

Secondly, Jailbreaking isn’t illegal.  I don’t know where this rumour comes from, but it’s unclear.  Jailbreaking your phone was ruled as legal, whereas unlocking your phone was deemed illegal by the library of congress.  Unlocking your phone is where you can unlock it for use on any network in the world (pretty much) which supports the technology.  I won’t get into the legal insanity on here, but I’m sure there is a wealth of information online if you want to know more.

Thirdly, Jailbreaking is safe.  It’s a simple process.

1. Download the Jailbreak program to your Windows/Linux/MacOS computer.
   
2. Connect your iDevice to your computer and let it back up to iTunes.
3. Quit iTunes.
4. Load the Jailbreak program and sit back and wait 10 minutes while it Jailbreaks your device.
5. Done.

Some people do recommend that you perform a Jailbreak on a clean iOS installation.  This would entail you performing a full factory reset of your device after backing it up to iTunes, then applying the Jailbreak, then restoring the backup you performed in step 2.

I haven’t had any issues with applying a Jailbreak to a non-clean iOS installation and I’ve done Jailbreaks using Redsn0w, Absinthe and evasi0n.

The Apps & Tweaks

Stuff I can’t live without, once I’ve got a Jailbroken (I know, it’s a sucky term) iPhone are:

BiteSMS – a messaging app replacement.  I can’t sing it’s praises enough.  I could write a whole article about how I like it and why, but it’s easier just to see it in action:

Five Icon Dock – You know you can only have four icons in the dock area of the iPhone?  Not any more.  This tweak allows you to have one more in there.  Handier than you’d think.

The CarbonX Pro HD Theme – By far (I believe) the best iPhone theme ever created.  Some may see it as too monotone, or boring, but it is slick, classy, fast and looks very very good.  Soon to be updated to iOS 6 compatibility.

AYECON Theme – If you don’t like the monochromatic look and feel of CarbonX, this is colourful and very very good.  It’s right up there among the best themes out there for the iPhone.

Weathericon – You know the Weather Icon on your phone?  It’s stuck at 73 degrees and sunny, right?  Wrong.  Weathericon actually changes the icon on your phone to match the weather.  No link to this currently, since I’m not sure that it is iOS 6 compatible and not sure of any plans to make it so.  I hope the developers do.  I thought it was great to be able to just check the weather status by glancing at the icon.

IntelliscreenX and LockInfo – Notifications and Lock Screen info.

Bytafont – Replace your iPhone’s font globally, or per section, with 1000′s of choices.

More tweaks and apps coming soon.

If you didn’t already know, the Union Jack is made up using the flags of the constituent countries. England, Scotland and Ireland. Wales did not get any “recognition” in the Union Jack at all, which is a bit weird. I’m sure there’s a reason for this somewhere – no matter how silly.

The Union Jack is constructed as follows: (click to enlarge)

Union Jack Construction

The correct orientation of the flag is as follows. The way I remember it is to imagine there is a pin through the centre of the flag and the Ireland / St. Patrick’s cross is rotatable on that pin. Imagine rotating that cross anti-clockwise? It would butt up against the blue of the Scotland / St. Andew’s cross. Leave it like that and the flag is correct. Rotate it clockwise and it’s incorrect.

Correct Orientation

My job here is done. Hopefully.

Just don’t be like the European Parliament and fly it upside down by accident.

Crazies.

Frustration.

Apologies to anyone today if you found this website down.  Also, apologies if you found the website looking differently!  This site uses a WordPress theme by digitalnature called “Mystique”.  I think it is far and away the best WordPress CMS style out there.  I have used this style for years now, without any problem, until recently.  Several bugs showed themselves:

• Comments box was cut off at the bottom of the page – no way to leave comments.
• If clicking a link to the comments section, the post was cut off at the top of the page.
• Navigating between “Pings”, “Comments” and “Related Posts” at the top of the comments section didn’t work.

I had tried several things to get the site to function correctly, but none of it worked.  The Mystique theme has not been updated in a while, and I was at the point of exploring other themes for the website – that explains the different looks the site has had over the last couple of days.

Anyway…  All was not lost.

As it turns out, there is a couple of things which can cause this.  It’s a combination of the Mystique style with the new WordPress version, and the Jetpack plugin, which describes itself as a “WordPress plugin that supercharges your self-hosted WordPress site with the awesome cloud power of WordPress.com”.

The actual fix (that worked for this site anyway) was to enable the “Optimize website for faster loading” function within Mystique.  I don’t quite understand it, but it works.  Kudos to the people over at the digitalnature forums for posting and sharing their similar problems.  The link to the thread is here: http://digitalnature.eu/topic/mystique-3-3-2-and-wordpress-3-5/

Anyway, it’s back.

I had seen this method suggested on some discussion boards but it wasn’t backed up by any test data or any real-world results.  Colin’s post was.  I contacted Colin to see if I could put this method up here on this site, and he agreed.  I have not tried this method myself (yet!) but something tells me that it is the final word in fixing this low modulation issue.  Read on!

I decided to have a close look at the low modulation problem on my UV-5R. Checking on a test set and feeding in a tone on the mic input showed that the deviation was set correctly and limited at 5KHz for wide and 2.5KHz for narrow.

However to get the full deviation I had to use a signal level of about 10 times that provided by the internal mic. That just confirms that low mic gain is the problem not the deviation setting.

Looking at the schematic showed that there is already a convenient amplifier in the Vox circuit. As I never use Vox I decided to mod the rig to use this amplifier. It turns out this is fairly simple to do if you are happy working with the small SMT components.

 

From the schematic the mod was as follows…
- Cut the track leading from C137 to L44. this disconnects one end of L44 from the original mic signal.

- Fit a link from the disconnected end of L44 to the collector of Q17 the output of the Vox amplifier.

If left like this the mic gain is actually now too high and the rig produces full deviation when speaking from several feet away. In fact the Vox amplifier limits if you talk too close to the rig.
To fix this this, the gain of the Vox amplifier needs to be reduced. Unfortunately this means that the Vox will no longer work but I doubt that many people use it anyway so I don’t see it as much of a loss.
To reduce the gain of the Vox amplifier a 470 ohm resistor needs to be inserted between Q17 emitter and ground. This can be done by cutting the earth track adjacent to Q17 emitter and soldering a 470 ohm surface mount resistor across the cut.

After doing these mods my UV-5R now sounds just like all my other rigs. Good fully deviated audio when talking about 6 inches from the mic.

The low/high deviation setting on the rig now works as intended. High gives 5 KHz deviation for 25KHz channels and low gives 2.5 KHz for 12.5KHz channels.

I had expressed some concern at leaving the output of Q17 (Vox transistor) connected to the Vox circuit, but Colin didn’t seem too worried about this.  He’s tried it and has heard the results, so I’m inclined to believe him.  His response was:

The remaining connection to the vox circuit doesn’t seem to cause any problems. The vox does still work but because of the reduced gain it needs a very loud shout to activate it!  I did try leaving the vox amplifier as it was and reducing the mod signal with a potential divider but when talking loudly the vox amp was limiting and introducing a lot of distortion.

So – go forth and modulate!

Many thanks to Colin G4EML for his work and for sharing this with us!

Now, the images – Click for full size:

The Yaesu FT-7900R is a magnificent dual band mobile ham radio – I’ve had mine for over a year now and I still love it.  I have not even began to scratch the surface of functionality yet either.

I remember trying to decide between the Yaesu FT-8800R and the 7900R when I passed my ham ticket, and while a true “dual radio” dual band rig with true simultaneous dual band and crossbanding sounds awesome, it’s something I just couldn’t see myself needing.  The price swayed me too.  The 8800R was around $450 while the 7900R was around $250.  Easy choice, and I’ve never looked back.

It is also really easy to modify this radio for CAP/MARS frequencies.  See this link:
http://www.clarksons.org/AmateurRadio/FT-7900r%20extended%20transmit.htm 

I hope it proves useful!
http://handiham.org/manuals/Baofeng/Baofeng-UV5R-eyes-free.rtf

Also, here’s a link to lots of UV-5R information, including a comprehensive FAQ, software, programming manually, technical information about the stock antenna (RL/SWR), scanning, etc, etc.  It’s a great wealth of information on the Baofeng UV-5R:
http://www.miklor.com/uv5r/

Also, don’t forget the Brick-O-Lore UV-5R pages at:
http://www.brickolore.com/search/label/UV-5R

Please support these guys and tell them what a great job they’re doing for the amateur radio community worldwide!

Remember also that I conducted a review of the UV-5R, covered the drivers and other more in-depth info on the radio, right here:
http://www.gorhudson.com/gor/baofeng-uv-5r-handheld-vhfuhf-transceiver/

And, explored some modifications to improve TX modulation here:
http://www.gorhudson.com/gor/baofeng-uv-5r-low-tx-modulation-mods/ 

Enjoy!

73, K5GWH

900MHz FHSS Module, Hardware Designed by me @ Radiotronix

I know it’s been forever since I made a post on here.  Almost six months to be exact.

A lot has changed in that six months.  Probably the top of the change list is I have a new job.

I left my old job back in August 2012 and started a new one.  For the past decade I’ve been working in RF Engineering at the board/component level.  It’s been an enjoyable stint, and I’m not giving it up completely, but I elected to go to the system level.

Why?

It seems to me that basic board level RF engineering is going the way of the dinosaur.  Let me explain.
Decades ago, and before that, RF engineering at the board level was interesting.  In the last decade the natural tendency to make things smaller and cheaper, coupled with the ever-present tendency within the electrical engineering community to shy away from RF engineering of any sort has landed us with the RF IC.  Apply power, ground and an antenna and you have your transceiver, ready to go.  This is boring.

The image to the upper right is of a 900MHz Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (FHSS) RF transceiver module.  I did the hardware/PCB design for this radio back when I worked at Radiotronix, Inc.   I have a nice, high resolution image of this module with the RF shield removed, but since Radiotronix is now a part of Linx Technologies (a company I almost went to work with in 2009) I don’t think they’d appreciate me sharing that!

I had a couple of choices really.  Find a job actually designing the RF IC’s themselves, or find a job within RF engineering that works more at the system level.
I really couldn’t see myself enjoying designing IC’s.  While I don’t actually know enough about the design and fabrication of IC’s to pass judgement, I’ve always seem IC’s as a boring black box.  I know this is a short sighted opinion.

So my choice was easy – System level.  I get the opportunity to design RF systems.  This opened up many new areas of interest for me which I had grazed on in the past but not actually dealt with in any depth.  Areas concerning propagation of radio waves, simulation of propagation over ground, water, various clutter, complex antenna types, complex modulation types and their operating parameters, higher powers, waveguides, circulators…

These new areas of focus, coupled with a knowledge of board level RF will serve to benefit me in the long run.  Not only will I be able to design and troubleshoot at the board and antenna level, but I’ll have a healthy knowledge of propagation too.

Anyway, that’s really all that is new with me.  I’d love to promise that I’ll keep this page updated, but my life really isn’t exciting enough to blog about on a daily basis!

Cheers!