mikewren's blog

In 2006, after five years with my venerable first-generation TiVo (HDR112), the hard disk died. Thanks to the efforts of the very active TiVo hacker/cracker community, it would be short work to reinstall the TiVo operating system to a new disk. But it's been five years, surely there was a better DVR experience out there. Better graphics and user interface, multiple tuners, ability to recompress/stream recorded content on the fly; All things my old TiVo hardware sadly could never do.

After a few nights of research and an install of MythTV on a spare PC, and after dismissing BeyondTV, I was shocked when I read about Windows XP Media Center Edition. 10' interface, driven by a remote control?!? DVR functionality built on top of a Windows XP operating system! Now we're talking!

Two years later, I decided to finally upgrade to Vista, not for the (terrible) desktop user interface, but for the very elegant Media Center features. More importantly, the ability to receive the non-encrypted digital signals that Time Warner Cable sends for free to its customers, also known as clear QAM.  Of course, installing the Vista 2008 TV Pack (Fiji) broke Orb and DVRMSToolbox, but hopefully they will update their software.

The Ray Pickens Memorial Newbie Net podcast has been accepted by Apple's iTunes Music Store! Ham and non-hams can find and subscribe to the Newbie Net podcast in iTunes by browsing the Technology podcast category, or by searching "Newbie Net", "Ham Radio", "Amateur Radio", etc.

Alternatively, folks with iTunes installed may subscribe to the podcast by hitting this link.

Thanks to Paul K2FX for his weekly efforts in discussing topics of interest to both new and old hams alike, and Brad KB2CHY / RRRA for use of the flagship repeater, K2RRA 146.880 MHz in Rochester.

My computer and technology milestones are usually imprinted on my brain by the purchase of a new hard drive. For geeks that have what I call the "Archivist Gene" (like myself) tend to be digital packrats. We file, store, organize, and keep safe from entropy information because we can. In the case of the lossless live music guys (etree.org, Furthur), we, or at least I, felt a cultural and historical obligation of preserving digital audio. Geographic redundancy just happened to be a happy happenstance. But that's offtopic.

I vividly recall the family's first computer, some 8088 clone, and it's fantastic 20MB harddisk, circa 1988. I think the pricetag was still on the bottom of the drive, $350.

I can remember the joy of having a separate 6GB D:\ drive on my FTP server, sparkle.etree.org, dedicated to sharing only SHN files, back around 1998 or so. I could literally hosts five or six shows at a time!

When hard disks broke the $1/GB barrier around the end of 2002, I can remember telling non-geek friends what an important milestone it was. I remember getting the phonecall from a buddy in spring 2005 telling me to get my ass over to CompUSA because they had 400GB Seagate drives for $150 without a mail-in rebate. Walking out of a store with over 1TB under your arm was a big deal!

As Richard Garriott W5KWQ starts to go through his checklists and rounding up his stuff after a week aboard the International Space Station (ISS), he's still finding time to make contacts and send down the occasional slow scan TV (SSTV) images.

He's really been a fantastic ambassador for amateur radio and space tourism.

Here's a collection of the sights and sounds I've collected during todays passes.

I talked to Richard again during the 12:40 UTC pass, here's the audio (all 19 seconds of it). This time around, he said my full callsign, so I have confirmation it's correct in his logbook.

Below is additional audio I recieved from Richard Garriott aboard the International Space Station (ISS) from today, 21 Oct 2008, while passing over the East Coast of the United States.

I'm new to satellite work, but is it considered bad form to call a bird twice in the same pass? Or each pass? I'd love to hear from the ham community on this.

Audio

21 Oct 2008 12:40 UTC

• AA9LC
• KA1AS
• KE5OIK
• N1LJZ
• N2QDK
• VE3JBL (Another QSO? Going for the WAP (Worked All Passes) award?)
• W0PD
• W8BYC & W3ADO
• W9TRF
• W9VNE
• WA3EOQ

21 Oct 2008 11:06 UTC

Some more slow scan TV (SSTV) images I recieved via amateur radio (145.800 MHz), from Richard Garriott, W5KWQ while aboard the ISS, NA1SS on 20 Oct 2008 while passing over the East Coast of the United States.

I will post more as I recieve them throughout the day. Amateur radio operatiors and shortwave listeners around the world are submitting the images they recieve to the AMSAT SSTV gallery.  Additional reading on this whole crazy thing over on the ARISS-SSTV Blog.

Update 10/19/2008 @ 7p: Here's the MP3 file of Richard Garriott, W5KWQ / NA1SS, acknowledging my call from aboard the International Space Station! Thanks to Doug KC2PCR and the guys over at the Central New York Amateur Radio Association (CNYARA) for getting in touch. It was recorded this morning, 29 Oct 2008 at 13:29 UTC. Since Richard didn't say my complete callsign, only my suffix (QDK, or quebec delta kilo), I'm not sure if this technically counts as a completed contact (QSO). I'm awaiting a ruling from the judges.

On Friday when I was preparing Amateur Radio Newsline for playback on the K2RRA repeater for Sunday night, I heard a story about Richard Garriott, W5KWQ, the sixth private citizen to fly with the Russian Federal Space Agency (RKA) for a short-term mission on the International Space Station (ISS). He was to become the first second-generation human in space, and, following in his father's footsteps, make amateur radio contacts while aboard the ISS.

While I have no experience tracking or making satellite voice or slow scan TV (SSTV) contacts via amateur radio, I had the requisite hardware to give it a go. So I started following the passes of the ISS via the web, downloaded Mmsstv software to the laptop to decode the data, set my Yaesu FT-857D to the downlink frequency of 145.800 MHz, and hoped the Bozak 2 Meter vertical antenna would be enough to receive the bird. The typical setup to communicate with passing satellites is a directional beam antenna pointed towards them. During the first pass at 9:00 AM local time (13:00 UTC) 18 Oct, I was shocked to receive the image to the right.

I just posted some snaps from the Porter, Batiste, Stoltz featuring Page McConnell show at Revolution Hall from 9/24/2008.  A very funky time had by all!

A very apt show to get my feets wet with shooting live music again.

Welcome to like version five or six of my little corner of the Internet.  I'm still not set on the link hierarchy, but the design and look-and-feel seems to be pretty solid.  Some old content has been migrated over from the old sites, and new content will be added over the coming weeks and months as we get ready for our Christmas surprise.
In the meantime, if anything doesn't seem to work, drop me a line to let me know!

Not long after shooting the Echo Project for State of Mind last fall, I fell out of the habit of snapping photos of live music for reasons both personal and professional. Here are two snaps, one from each show I shot earlier this year. They were submitted to the 2008 Jamtopia Concert Photo Contest on a whim. The judges are good people, and the terms of the contest seem fair, so why not.

It was brought to my attention this past weekend at my sister's wedding that not only am I bad at staying in touch with people, I'm also a bad blogger. Folks that I've lost track of can't even keep up with my life because I apparently haven't updated this blog in a while. OK, a year. There I said it.

Anyway, my sister got married, I've taken a bunch of photos, and I'm still in Albany. No kids yet, either. There, everyone's caught up. :)

It's been suggested to me online and in real life that I should update this website every once in a while; At least more often than once every six months! After letting the comment spam bots have their fun, I'm back. The comments sections should be clean of all spam, and there are some new website features that I'm sure noone will use.

It's been a busy summer of new job responsibilities, music, friends, and grilling! I've always viewed blogging as something to do during lifes downtime, which for better or worse, I haven't had much of lately. Hopefully soon....

Billy over at Albanystage.com is floating the rumor of a very surprising disbanding of local favs, Oshe. Their tourdates page lists a show this Friday in Maine as the last scheduled, with the remainder of February's dates shown as canceled.