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Antenna Update:With all the rain we have had the last month, the antenna project has been slowed. I finally got the radial field down and the antenna installed on its mount. Today I started the tuning process. This was mostly successful expect for one band. The 40m band SWR is too high. It's resonant frequency is good and the SWR curve is good, just that the SWR is not low enough to interface with my radio without a tuner. I'll be putting in a call to Dx Engineering to discuss the situation. since all the other bands are ok, I am sure there just needs to be an ajustment somewhere. I just don't know where. I also need to retune 15m to get a little better performance. Based on the plot, I have the section a bit too long. I still have to tune 80m as well. It is not quite where I want it as well. I need it centered at 3.580MHz.
Anyway, SWR plots can be seen here.
As part of my return to ham radio, I ordered a new HF antenna and stuff to install in the back yard. The antenna is a Huster 5BTV 80m-40m-20m-15m-10m vertical. This antenna replaces a Carolina Windom 80 wire antenna that I had up for a few years until a wind storm in 2007 broke the fiberglass push up mast holding it up. After going through 4 of these masts in four years, I decided that vertical would be the better route to go this time. I plan to start assembling it tomorrow and hopefully have all the installation complete by this weekend. The biggest job will be installing the 40-60 radials for the antenna. I plan to bury them in the yard. This will be very time consuming, but should make for a better permanent installation.
Well, we got a nice surpise. We were able to spend an evening with Kenny and Claire eairlier this week. They were passing through on their way to Kenny's grandmother's funeral in Kansas. It is sad the circumstances for which we got to see them, but are happy to get the chance...even if it was so brief.
The cheap $10 camera from a Fry's special has been replaced with a Logitech Quickcam Pro for Notebooks. The picture quality is vastly improved. The camera did not have a mount that would work in my window, so I had to conjure up a mount using some fiberglass rod I had laying around and some masking tape. It is hard to describe what it looks like, but it is working well. I have also finally gotten the software configured and running correctly in Linux so that the camera can be run from the server instead of my workstation. The windows based webcam software I was using caused BSODs in Windows 7 RC.
Well, I got bored today using up my last day of forced time off (with no pay) from work. So, I decided to mess around with my $10 webcam since it has been sitting here collecting dust for a long time. I downloaded some apps, found some java code, and built a webcam server. The shot is out my office window to the street. Basically, my Windows PC is running the capture software. Every 30 seconds, it copies the shot, via FTP, to my linux web server. At some point, I hope to get all this running on my web server only. However, there are notorious issues with webcams and linux. I'll save that for a "sick day" maybe. The pic is pretty bad right now. It is a cheap camera and takes cheap shots. Hey, what do you expect for a $10 Fry's special?
Just follow the link above in the menu.
We had a wonderful trip to Hattiesburg, MS for the baptism of our niece, Marleigh Christensen. I am honored to have been chosen to be a Godparent. It was great to also see the rest of the family and to see our many great friends back in Mississippi. The only downer of the trip was the fact that we had noisy upstairs neighbors at the hotel and did not sleep well Saturday night. We spent Friday night and Sunday night in Jackson with Maw and Paw. As usual, they were wonderful hosts and rolled out the red carpet. The food Saturday and Sunday in Hattiesburg was great....burgers from Mugshots, and some home cooking from my sister, Lyerly...."dynomite". We were amazed at how much Claire and Jesse have grown since the last time we saw them in person. Pics can be seen in the gallery.
As you may remember, Jake had knee surgery last summer for a torn ACL. Since completing his rehab, he has been back to normal. A few weeks ago, after catching a squirrel, we noticed Jake was lifting his left leg (the one repaired) and limping. We feared the worst....that we would have to do new surgery. Today, we went back to the vet after 3 weeks of cage rest. X-rays showed no damage to the bone or the plate from the previous surgery. The vet also checked the movement of the knee, and all appears to be ok...this is good news. As of now, it does not appear Jake will need surgery. The vet has put him on one month of rehab. Rimadil, and physical therapy along with controlled exercise, our vet feels we can get Jake back to normal again.
We had a great trip to Memphis to visit with Nancy's family. We were able to visit with Nancy's Mom for her birthday and her grandmother, Mamo Pearl, for Mother's Day. In between visits, we were able to catch up on some Memphis BBQ and try a new place. We made our normal visits to Corky's on Poplar Ave and Pete and Sam's for some great Memphis style fare.
We also tried a new place, Uncle Lou's Fried Chicken. We saw Uncle Lou's on an episode of Food network's Diners, Drive-ins, and Drives.....and it lived up to expectations. The chicken was fantastic. We highly recommend it if you get a chance....and as it says on the sign, "it's all in the sauce, baby!"
...also on this trip.....we began "the adventures of the snuggy"...pics to be available soon.
After a few months on the new Via Artigo A2000, I decided to move Dallasdawg.com to another machine. The A2000 was designed to be an NAS, and I have decided to reappropriate it to that service. For the new Dallasdawg.com web server, I purchaced, on auction, a Dell Optiplex GX620/USSF (Ultra Small Form Factor) machine. It is powered by a Pentium D (Dual Core) 2.8GHz processor with 2.5GB of Ram and a 40GB SATA hard drive. The dual core processor and faster speed has provided better performance as more services have been added to the server. One other postive thing with this move...there is only a small increase in power consumption. With the major increase in computing power, the electric consumption only increases from 32W to 100W. It is not as small as the A2000, but is is still a small machine, about the size of the DFW phone book.
Along with the hardware upgrade, I also upgraded the OS and application software. The OS is now Ubuntu Server 9.04 x86-64 with 32-bit libraries. Apache, OpenSSH, MySQL, PHP, Python, Perl, and Squid are now up to the latest version in the Ubuntu repositories.
We had a great visit with my Mom this past March. She found a cheap fare and spent a weekend with us. We had a great trip to the Science Museum at Fair Park enjoying a show at the planetarium and an excellent IMAX movie about exploring caves. We got Mom caught up on some movies as well. All in all, it was a great relaxing weekend of us just being together.
We have a new baby niece!! Marleigh Kate Christensen was born the morning of January 26 at 11:10am. She was 7 lbs, 12 oz and 20.5 inches long. Mom (Lyerly), Dad(Kenny), and baby are doing very well. The entire family is ecstatic. I have up the pictures sent to me, and you can see them here.
Dallasdawg.com is now hosted from a new machine. I replaced the old AthlonXP based machine with a new Via Artigo A2000. Although not much of CPU power improvment, there is a huge improvement in power consumption. The old server consumed almost 200W at max use. The new Artigo A2000 only consumes 32W at max, and gives the same performance as the old server. Also, the new Artigo server is significantly smaller. The old server was housed in a mid-tower case. The Artigo A2000 is about the size of a toaster.
This year, we decided to stay at home for the Christmas holliday. Over the last several years, we have found doing the "big trip' at Thanksgiving and the doing it all again a month later was just getting to be too much. It was a quiet Christmas for us. Nancy's family from Memphis came and stay for a week. We did all the usual stuff....restaurants, movies, and shopping. For New Years Eve, we went to our friends, the Davisdson's, for their annual party. We spent New Years day at home enjoying a little quiet time.
We made out annual "loop" for the Thanksgiving holiday. First to Jackson/Canton, then Starkville, then Pontotoc, then Memphis, and finally back to Plano. We had a great trip, and it was great seeing everyone. Unfortunately, it always seems to never be enough time. We have pictures in the gallery called Thanksgiving 2008.
November 1 finally came, and our friends Anne and Christian tied the knot. The service and reception were fabulous. Of course, Nancy and I got a "front row view' of the whole thing since we were both in the wedding party. Our pics from the wedding can be seen in the gallery. You can access their website at www.anneloveschristian.com.
We had a great trip to Memphis, TN to see Nancy's Family. Unfortunately, it was cut short by Hurricane Gustov. As it came ashore, the projected path would be between Dallas and Memphis, thus dumping tons of rain the entire drive on I-40 and I-30. We decided it was best to leave a day early and beat the storm home. One highlight of the trip was a river boat ride on the Mississippi River. Pics can bee seen in the gallery.
We had a great trip to Birmingham, AL to celebrate our nephew's, Jesse, 1st birthday. We arrived Friday midday after a 2.5 hour delay of our flight due to thunderstorms at DFW airport. That afternoon, the family took a trip to Desoto Caverns, which was really cool. Saturday was Jesse's birthday party. It was fun. He got alot of cool toys. Sunday, we flew back to Big D. The only downer of the weekend was Matt getting sick. Pictures of the Desoto Caverns Trip and Jesse's birthday can been seen in the photo gallery.
