Copasetic Flow

 I learned a way to make my POTA activation blogs a bit easier to create today.  When to Use the Pattern When you'd like to use the same Sandcastle to open multiple different czml files without having to edit Sandcastle code every time. More generally, the pattern can be used to pass any number of URL encoded parameters to your Sandcastle Javascript via your Sandcastle's web address. What the Pattern Enables The user can specify a czml file URL like this https://sandcastle.cesium.com/standalone.html?mapurl=https://raw.githubusercontent.com/hcarter333/rm-rbn-history/refs/heads/main/maps/2024_11_18_Civic_Center_Juan_Bautista.czml#c=dV... Where the #c is the usual 64 bit encoded contents of your Sandcastle from the share link. Your Sandcastle will need to include this  code  through line 15. At that point, you'll have the address of your map in the variable mapurl2 and can do whatever you like with it. In the example above, the czml file pointed to is simply loaded into...

 What a gorgeous day to hang out in the mountains! I drove a bit outside of Las Cruces, NM over the weekend to play radios! KO6BTY first activated this very spot in the park using TouCans and a vertical antenna in December of last year. I used the same setup this time with one change. Instead of using a tent pole as a mast, I actually remembered to take the carbon fiber fishing pole we usually use off the airplane with me this time. You can see TouCans enjoying the view out over the White Sands Missile Range in the picture to the left.  Propagation wasn't spectacular either afternoon, so no off-the-continent DX, but I did get pretty good coverage of the United States and a few QSOs into Canada! I'll have more updates on the park activation later, but for now, here's the animated QSO map.

 Soldersmoke opens another rabbit hole! This time, it's car portable satellite morse code (CW) QSOs. The video Bill referenced pointed me at an SDR for the geostationary ham radio satellite where I was treated to satellite Morse code pretty quickly courtesy of DJ4FF. And! It turns out he operates satellite through the sunroof of his car ! Videos

 The Soldersmoke blog pointed out an interesting post that was a focal point of a larger book review for "Agent Sonya: The Spy Next Door". The post's author was quite convinced that the key protagonist of the nonfiction tome could not and did not construct her own QRP communication rig in the 1930s as stated by the book's author. I beleive Agent Sonya could have constructed the rig  More about the book on the publisher's site The Soldersmoke post The focal review post The 1936 Radio Handbook So, as I was saying: I, for one, believe. I'll admit up front, I didn't have time to read the entire linked post. The following assumes that the issue was Sonya being able to build a transmitter in 1939 for use from Switzerland to Moscow. The short version? It should have been the picture of simplicity.  As an aside and a bit of a bona fides, we routinely QSO from San Francisco to Texas and beyond. That's the same distance as Switzerland to Moscow. I grew up in a ...

 Snail season is upon us! The snail weed in McLaren Park in San Francisco is in full bloom this morning. There's fog mired on the hills, and the snails are back!

 Did you know you can store czml maps in github and then load them into the Cesium Sandcastle to try things out? I didn’t for the longest time, but now I do! I recently ran into an issue where I needed to test the differences between several different versions of the same CZML file with one incrmental change per file to debug an issue I was seeing on my maps. I asked ChatGPT to write some JavaScript code that would allow me to simply place the URL into a text input box, click a button, and view the newly specified map on a web page. It wasn’t quite ‘vibe coding’ but a little while later, I had this tool for working through my test maps. You can load any github (or other cors-exporting-happy site) czml file to visualize it.  As an example, I walked through my use case–debugging the slider position on an animated czml map of ham radio QSOs Finally, if you’d like to play around with the code o3-mini and I generated as the basis for a project of yours, it can be found in this gis...

 Remember saving software on audio tapes? No, of course I don't either. I mean really, who's that old? OK, it's me. I am.  What brings all this up? a post from soldersmoke about tapesponding . One of the many amazing things the video mentioned there reveals is that pirate radio stations used to broadcast software... You know... The kind you saved to audio tapes! Back in the '80s, I pestered my parents for an entire year for a Timex/Sinclair 1000. Of course I saved programs on audio tapes! The reference to pirate radio broadcasts of software was something I'd never thought of, and it's sheer genius in my opinion. How cool! As a kid in the early '80s, I used to tape record conversations and broadcasts using my dad's shortwave receiver, an EAC R-390 A/URR. I wish I'd held on to the tapes! The kids here who are 14, 12, and 10 are still audio tape afficianados thanks to our '95 Isuzu Trooper complete with tape deck.  Perhaps we'll have to try ...

 Gaaackkkkk the AM broadcast interference!!!! Gaaasssspppppppp! Still though, the POTA went really, really well and camping with the gang, (aged 14, 12, and 10), was a blast. We haven't camped in forever! The Park Angel Island State Park, US-1123, no surprise perhaps, is an island. It's just off the coast of San Francisco, Oakland, and Tiburon. It served a similar purpose to Ellis Island once upon a time. Getting There No surprise to anyone that regularly reads the blog, we, of course, took public transit to the island. The gang were carrying most of our camping gear. We took BART downtown, had lunch at the Irish Bank, the Irish pub the gang grew up around over the last decade or so, and then hopped the ferry to Agnel Island. I stopped by The Palace on Montgomery and Market before meeting the gang on the way to the ferry terminal. If you think you've seen that ceiling before in a certain movie with Michael Douglass, it's because you have. If you'd like to know what ...

 TouCans is back up and running! The battery noise is also just gone! One issue caused both the noise and the key stoppage. The ground wire connection from the keyer relay was in the process of breaking away during the fixes last week. This led to the noise I heard in the rig. It also led to the wire, of course, actually detaching which kept the keyer from working. KO6BTY soldered the ground connection back this morning, and TouCans is back up and running well! Here's what the noise before the fix. This is what a wire breaking in TouCans does. The new battery is doing a good job. Here's how the RBN saw TouCans right after the fix.