Good news

Well... not good news for me, but good news for Shelagh, who has discovered that she'll be flying to Germany, before going to a place on the Dutch/German border for work. So it looks like she'll get her first taste of flying, and get to go to Germany and use her German after all.

Wish I was going :-/

Training...

While I try to write something every day, it doesn't always happen. Usually because I'm actually busy working. Yesterday, for example, I spent most of the afternoon doing battle with a message processing unit for a transaction server that I'm writing. The problem was, the message file wouldn't open... unless it was run in the debugger, when it'd behave itself. An annoying problem, with no clear solution.

Just to review the weekend... I only spent about 30 minutes at choir practice, after Linda turned up, and Mike wanted to mainly look at Christmas material. So I spent Friday evening with Matt in the Boundary studio. Fairly productive, but need some more sessions. Since no one at Priory has booked me for Tuesday, I suggested that'd be a good day. Nice kebab afterwards too!

Spent all day on Saturday at the Priory studio. Got most of what I wanted to do done. Shame about the awful weather though. Went for a Chinese when I got home, and found Bullpit Road under water again. Spent the evening with Dave - had a fairly uneventful play with my radio. The 2m band really is dead. The only other people we could find were Don and Dean in Lincoln, so I broke in to say hello, and left it at that. Gave Dave some frozen fish and an old edition of the Guiness Book Of Hit Singles. Dave handed me a cassette to try to copy to CD... I'll try to get round to looking at that at some point, but old cassettes always pose a problem when they're nearly worn out.

Sunday morning was pretty much a repeat of Saturday. Took Charlie through the finer points of the mixer, and gave Pugsey some more ideas. Really couldn't be bothered with lunch, so ended up at KFC (how much take-away food this weekend?) before buying a new small suitcase for Shelagh, who'll be going to the Netherlands in a few weeks time for work. She's still not sure of the travel arrangements, but I know she's never been abroad before, so I'll all be new to her. It's been nearly 2 years since I last travelled anywhere... I'm going to have to sort something out for next year.

Last night I had another session at Priory. Since I'd taken the kit home with me on Sunday, I had to return it all. The problem was, I put the studio keys in my coat pocket, and then forgot to put my coat on before I left for Grantham. This resulted in an extra round trip later in the evening to give Paul his keys, so he can open up for the transmitter install on Wednesday.

Right... that's more than enough to be getting on with for today... back to the grind stone...

Plotting...

Although to the casual observer, I might not appear to be very busy, I am. My brain spends a lot of time bubbling up new ideas. Some are better than others, but it's all interesting stuff.

Wednesday evening went as planned. Nothing new to report on the Radio Witham front - and I'm going on conference with them next Friday!

Thursday was a busy day at work, lots of coding and some debugging. Then spend the evening in the heavy rain going to and from Lincoln for the radio club. I really can't tell if my Morse is getting better or worse at the moment.

Got home early to play with some new software I downloaded that generates radio propagation plots... which is turning out to be really interesting.

At least Friday hasn't turned out to be quite as wet, nor as busy!

How much work?

Once again, I started writing something yesterday, but didn't get round to finishing it... I'm just flitting from one task to another.

I didn't get round to doing any ringing on Monday evening. Probably for the best as I was still feeling the effects of Sunday afternoon. Spent the early evening with Don, sorting out his email settings, before dashing home via the chip shop to get on the radio club net. It seems like my new router also kicks out QRM on 145.325MHz, so I have to turn that off, or suffer an S4 noise floor. What a pain.

I pulled out of the net early to have a drink with Andy at the radio station, and finalise the programme schedule for next time. So here we are, just 2 weeks after end of transmission, and we've already got the programme plan ready. Mind you, there's only 12 weeks until we start webcasting again.

Tuesday was just very busy at work. Lots to do, and it's all taking longer than I'd hoped. Rushed off to the Priory FM meeting, and finished giving the presentation that I started last month, and then on for more drinks in the evening, and a kebab which may be responsible for messing up my bowels again.

Sadly, I forgot about HHGTTG again, so I'm either going to have to listen on the web, or try to listen on Thursday evening. I think the web solution is more likely.

Network-o-rama

Aaahhh... happy days - despite today being Monday, I'm still smiling.

Ok, in my usual look back over the last few days style:

Thursday evening turned out to be fairly interesting, lots of nice photos of the antartic... and not too many penguin pictures. No radio action though.

Friday was dull, wet, and horrible. Spent most of the day watching the load on my PC as I played with iteration rates on the server software that I'm writing. Got home to find choir practise has been cancelled, so went to the radio station early to fix the network gateway, a record line, and have a chat with Duncan about how things were progressing. By the end of the night, and after several Cokes in the pub, we'd put together a provisional programme plan for next time. I'd love to share with you some of the other things that were said... let's just say it's all very exciting.

Saturday morning was an early start for me, as Shelagh was starting work at 6, and I wanted the car. Spent 2.5 hours with Howard teaching him about all things technical. Would like to obtain some parts so that I get get him to build some remote lines to the CD players. Also downloaded a full set of patches for gateway, and replaced some bulbs in the mixer.

After another cheap KFC lunch, it was off to Grantham to get the car washed, and my hair cut. Somehow got talking to Nigel about routers, and ended up spending £70 on a wireless broadband router. The upshot is that I'll now be able to power down Eccles, because it's no longer performing any routing, so there's hope that the electricity bill might come down a bit. It's certainly quieter at night! Also, I can now access the internet from anywhere in the house with my laptop... comfy evenings on the sofa chatting on irc... wonderful.

Sunday morning was spent at the Congregational church (being the third Sunday in the month). That organ still needs some attention. After a quick lunch, it was off to Lincoln, were we'd arranged to ring at the cathedral with Lorrain and Matt. They didn't make it, so Shelagh and I found ourselves being used to make up numbers. Had the honour of ringing the tenor down - not something that gets done very often.

We then headed off the the Pyewipe for an early dinner, before going to watch Wimbledon at the cinema. Not a bad film I guess... just average on my scale. Then back to the Pyewipe for pudding and further drinks.

Phew... weekends just don't get any less busy do they?

Hardware Support

Sometimes I hate being a software specialist. Really. I get hardware problems, and have difficulty dealing with them. Take, for example, my Epson C20SX printer, which stopped working correctly due to the nozzels on the print head being blocked. That should be an easy fix - I'll take it to the place I bought it, who happen to be registered Epson repair people, and get them to sort it out for me.

I got a phone call yesterday... "Hello Mr. Caddy, I'm phoning about your printer. I've cleaned all the dirt and hair from your printer, however, it appears one of your print head nozzels appears to be blocked."

TELL ME SOMETHING I DON'T KNOW!

Seems that a new print head plus labour will cost more than a new printer, so I might go down that line. On the other hand, these things are known to solve themselves with a bit of use. We'll see.

Similar problems at the hospital radio station. I'm very aware that the set up in studio 2 is well past its best. The aux PFL system is absolutely knackered, most of the gain pots scratch - not through dirt - they're just knackered. Matt seems to be repeatedly complaining about the monitor speakers crackling. I think what he's getting at is the amp's inability to deal with sudden level rises, which results in some signal distortion. It's not really a crackle, but I guess it could be described that way. Any way, the engineer denies all knowledge of this, and can't reproduce the fault. I think I can, but it's not easy. I guess the best solution is to rip it out and start again, possibly with a new studio engineer. Having a deaf studio engineer is always entertaining.

Could only manage 24 lengths while swimming this morning... just a bit tired I guess.

Feed me!

As ever, I'm keeping myself busy. On Monday, I managed to attend bell ringing at 18:30, the WARC net on 145.325MHz at 20:00, and still make it to Boundary Sound to go to the pub at 21:30. Monday nights are busy. Oh, and the ringing was crap. Discovered a bit more about the WARC monthly lecture on Thursday, and I suspect I won't attend... especially now that the Boundary Sound web meeting has been moved from Wednesday to Thursday.

Last night turned out to be a bit disappointing for me. As far as get togethers after an RSL goes, it wasn't too bad - the buffet was plentiful enough, and I talked to most of the people I wanted to talk to. Unfortunatly, the post pub curry didn't happen. We got to the indian just as they locked the door at 23:30. BUGGER! I'd had a light tea, and not eaten too much at the buffet so that I could enjoy a curry. So I ended up in bed before midnight with an empty stomach.

There's one remaining Danish in a tub on my desk. It's 2 days past its best before. Sod it. I'm having it!

Weekend review

Lots of jobs that needed doing over the weekend, and I think I've got most of them sorted...

On Friday night, choir practise held a few surprises - it seems some of the ceiling at St Giles has fallen down, so half of the church is roped off!

Later I started cleaning some of the faders on the Boundary Sound mixer. The faders on the telco channels had been selected to go there because they were scratching, and wouldn't get used very much in that location. Being Penny and Giles faders, they are easy to dismantle and clean. Unfortunately, I forgot to take my bottle of mineral oil with me, so I couldn't replace the lubricant after cleaning, so left that until Saturday evening.

Saturday morning was a bit wasted with Shelagh at work, so I didn't have the car. Decided to catch up on some sleep. Managed to get the the bank before 1pm and pay in that expenses cheque from the radio station, which will help a bit, then had lunch at KFC, with a little help from the cheap chicken burger offer vouchers on the back of car park tickets from the Potterdyke car park.

Then off to Priory FM to have a play in their newly rebuilt studio ready to start training as soon as possible. Looks like they've made a good job of it. Some of the connectors have been replaced, and the cabling tidied up quite a bit. The D&R mixer seems so small compared to the MBI that I've been sitting infront of for the last few months! Sadly the car wash was closed by the time we left at 5pm, so the car will have to stay unwashed for another week, but I did manage to book Rachel for a hair cut next weekend... really need that doing!

Busy day on Sunday, being the second Sunday of the month, having two services to play at St Giles. Managed to put together a new organist rota which will take us until the next of next February, with only Christmas morning left uncovered... I can't do it because Shelagh has confirmed with her parents that we'll be in Cumbria for Christmas this year (was it really 3 years ago that we last spent Christmas there?). Sadly I couldn't print the rota because my faithful Epson C20SX printer is rather unwell. I think nearly all the print head nozzels are blocked. Might be that the ink has dried inside the cartridges too, but I'm going to have to take it into F1 to get them to look at it... but my guess is it'll be cheaper to buy a new printer.

Spent some time working on Bob's website. From my email history, I think I last looked at it in February. I know I was working on it at the last HBA AGM conference last Autumn, so I really need to get it finished off. I think there are just 4 more pages to complete, a few buttons to add, and then link it all together. Will make a real effort to do that in the next week or two.

Survival

Ok, I wasn't killed yesterday. The rest of the day was fairly uneventful. Managed to make a meeting at 19:00 for Boundary Sound, with a great long list of things that need doing before the next RSL... or webcast, which-ever comes first. Then onto the radio club, just in time to miss the committee meeting, but early enough to engage a few conversations, and enter into a spot of flash card swapping (for some reason, some cameras don't like compact flash cards bigger than 128Mb).

Up nice and early this morning to get in 32 lengths in the pool, then a quick stop by at home to get changed and update my webcam shot, and onto work... where I've been fighting with file locking and mis-reading.

Not a lot of news to report on really, although I've heard that the Priory FM studio rebuild it just about complete now, and I'm trying to get some training started this weekend. Passed on some more general information about various RSLs to Dave for the Newark Ham Radio website.

Talking of websites, I had a look at Bob's website... it's been an ongoing project for the last year... maybe I should finish it off soon?

Oh and 20 minutes ago, my machine completed its 1156th Seti@home unit, clocking up 10,000 hours, 3 minutes and 31.2 seconds of donated CPU time :-)

Oops

Well, I just didn't have time to write anything yesterday. Really. I've been that busy with work, writing some inner loops and ultimate guts of a system. Scarey.

This morning, I've cocked up royally. I'm really dead meat. I decided to make the morning tea, and hand out some biscuits that Shelagh and I have been trying to eat since last weekend. Unfortunately, I forgot what Stan's mug looked like, and in a bleary eyed haze I picked up what looked like the nearest approximation. It turns out that I've made Stan's tea in Vanessa's mug. She's so going to kill me. Fortunately, the fruit tea the stan drinks doesn't stain, and I've got biscuits to trade for my life, but I'm still in trouble! Oh well... easy come, easy go.

Starting to return to normal?

I've taken to writing my blog entries in a text editor, because is seems that blogspot are having problems with their server, and I've lost a couple of attempts to add entries now, and I didn't fancy writing much yesterday so... another update of the last few days...

Saturday... it seems this slight cold that has been floating around for the last week has decided to bite. Might have been something to so with not getting to bed until 3am after supervising the late shift at the radio station again. Didn't help that I ended having to drive the mixer for June for a full two hours before presenting my own 4 hour programme. It's left me very tired.

Sunday... err... oh yes, lots of organ playing. Must get the congregational church to sort out a tune up of their organ - it's drifted rather a lot in the last 12 months. Managed to find time to fix my parents' computer, and take it back down to Grantham, which was a good excuse to have a Sunday dinner with them. Finished the day by closing down the radio station. I think I finally flipped the TX switch at about 3 seconds after midnight, once I was sure there was no more audio. Didn't hang around as long as I would have liked afterwards due to Shelagh, who was driving for me, wanting to go to bed, and the fact I was full of cold. Oh well.

Monday... took off work. Felt really, really rotten. My chest was full of cack. Spent the day relaxing as much as possible, but still managed to re-install my scanner, which has been on the cards for about 6 months. Found out that Mistwraith, who is due to come on holiday with Shelagh and I in Novemeber is currently in hospital with a kidney infection. Erk!

Decided to get an early night in the hope I could get up for work this morning - which I achieved. Still not 100% well, but at least I can get a few things done.

Yuck

All the action of the last few weeks, and the time of year I guess, has left me with an awful cold. Decided not to inflict a day of hacking up green balls of goo on my work mates, and have taken the day off.

Last night saw the conclusion og Boundar Sound's first restricted service license. Can't say it was overly eventful, but at least it was fun. Now I've got the job of fixing a few problems with the kit, and re-training the presenters that will be staying on for next time.

...right back to the hot drinks and warm bed...

And so it goes on...

Err... another 48 hour break, so a quick catch up on what I've been up to.

On Wednesday evening I managed to find a 7" record that I'd misplaced a few years ago. This isn't the first time I've been re-united with something that I've mis-placed several years earlier. Anyway, this record is the singal version of Soft Cell's "Say Hello, Wave Goodbye". Finding this has enabled me to verify that an mp3 version that someone suggested to me was the single version in fact isn't, as the intro is clearly a re-recording. Secondly, I really love the instrumental B side.

Thursday... err... got an SMS from Chris Hubbard (of GWR fame) asking if I wanted to go out for drinks on Friday. Sadly tonight I'm duty manager at the radio station again for a big OB, but I had a bit of a brainwave, and decided to invite him to the station for coffee and kebabs, and a tour of the facilities.

I've just had word that the TBU in the studio is misbehaving. Apparently the talkback isn't working. I can't see why not. The TBU is on the second telco channel, and its talkback is provided by Aux 1 (Aux 2 feeds the talkback to the codec box, which appears on the first telco channel). Ok, I know that's a bit backwards, but it was wired up with less than 48 hours to go before I turned the transmitter on, and no one has had any propper training on it (and even I don't know how it works propperly... I couldn't get the comm channel talk back on the telco channels to work - I'm going to have to spend some time with that later... plus the talkbacks have some odd problems when I put new bulbs in the switches!).

What joy!