Le site de F8ARR

F1TE and F8ARR on TV !!

Thu, 03 May 2012 20:48:19 +0100

Last week end there was the meeting of the national french association. On this occasion the local TV made a video of 1,3 minutes on radioham. On this video you can see Lucien, F1TE speacking and more later my station, my face and my antennas ;-) The lines of RRR that you can see come from I2FAK station via the moon of course ! Be carreful, the video is heavy : 12Mbits and it is on FLV format. http://www.f8arr.org/video/TV_show_FR3.flv (video/TV_show_FR3.flv) It can be read with vlc programm.

RFHAMFOX1 and map65 V2

Tue, 27 Mar 2012 18:52:34 +0100

This is a long time ago I didn't made any radio on the moon. The first reason is I suspected a problem of water inside my feeder that inpacted my return loss. I opened a connector on the bottom of the tower, found nothing and closed it. Many month passed working for the REF and others personal stuffs. At least, the next week-end I started again the station decided to resolve my problem. No error on the SWR ... ??!! Well, I set the antenna up and downloaded directly the map65 V2 from this link : http://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/MAP65_2.0_Beta_Release.html (http://www.physics.princeton.edu/pulsar/K1JT/MAP65_2.0_Beta_Release.html) Once downloaded and installed, tuned my RF HAm FOx on 144.130Mhz and set map65V2 on freq... how to say? incredible ? Yes may be. I have the same sensibility on all the bandwidth than with my transceiver. Has my RFham Fox is also a TX I/Q I start wondering If i'll keep my IC7400 ;-) All this to say that I never received J52EME ;-)

Liberté...

Wed, 18 Jan 2012 10:29:09 +0100

Les différents gouvernement de nombreux pays essayent de restreindre l'accès à la ressource internet. Cet espace communautaire d'échange, de partage et d'une certaine conception des libertés n'est évidement pas en adéquation avec la phylosophie de consomation actuelle basée sur le tout payant. Les différents projest de lois qui naissent ici en France ou ailleurs, (Etats-unis d'amérique par exemple) sont fortement poussés par les multinationales de l'industrie du disque. Effectivement, celles-ci n'ont rien vu venir et ont fait preuve d'une pauvresses d'imagination, d'innovation et de fougue sur les moyens de diffuser la musique, les films, et établir une économie viable pour leur avenir. Pourtant les idées existaient déjà en 1983 ! Franck Zappa, un vrai créateur, avait déjà prévu l'évolution et envisagée des solutions en place de nos jours ( http://www.newwavehooker.com/2009/04/frank-zappa-t-il-invente-itunes-et.html (http://www.newwavehooker.com/2009/04/frank-zappa-t-il-invente-itunes-et.html)). Si elles avaient été mise en oeuvre en amont, les consomateurs auraient emboités le pas. Malheureusement, ces système sont apparus comme des rustines aux problèmes rencontrés. Wikipédia lutte également de son coté contre les projets en cours et ferme son site Imaginez un monde sans savoir partagé ? Diderot aurait été émerveillé par Internet, par wikipédia qui reprend en quelque sorte son idée d'encyclopédie universelle et son envie de partager et de capitaliser comme on le dit actuellement. Même Google et Facebook envisagent de faire un blackout pour protester... c'est dire.. http://www.lemondeinformatique.fr/actualites/lire-pour-protester-contre-la-loi-sopa-google-amazon-et-facebook-envisage-un-blackout-47340.html (http://www.lemondeinformatique.fr/actualites/lire-pour-protester-contre-la-loi-sopa-google-amazon-et-facebook-envisage-un-blackout-47340.html)

HDSDR under Linux ? YES !

Wed, 04 Jan 2012 15:31:22 +0100

Today at the office I set up my funcube dongle on my Fedora. Hamlib and Grig for pilot and quisk for listening. Well, ok this is working has usual : WELL. Now, let geek a bit. I have setup wine and the sound with winecfg. Then I made an installation of the last HDSDR program with wine. Once the installation has been completed with no issue, I ran it. and it work like usual : WELL ;-) For thoses that are not aware, HDSDR is a windows program ;-)

Transfox + win + HDSDR + VAC + QRSS_VD

Mon, 02 Jan 2012 09:29:44 +0100

Today I made some tests under windows XP system. TRansfox + HDSDR + VAC + QRSS_VD. Transfox set on 10130.0 MHz. HDSDR set on 10.1396MHz, bandwidth set to 40kHz USB (free - http://www.hdsdr.de/ (http://www.hdsdr.de/)) VAC (virtual audio cable to link HDSDR output to QRSS_VD input (26€ - http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm (http://software.muzychenko.net/eng/vac.htm)) QRSS_VD, software of QRSS (free - http://www.swharden.com/blog/qrss_vd/ (http://www.swharden.com/blog/qrss_vd/)) ftp://ftp2.rfham.com/rfham/Premier%20contact%20avec%20le%20VAC.pdf (ftp://ftp2.rfham.com/rfham/Premier%20contact%20avec%20le%20VAC.pdf)

Linux + Transfox + quisk + ALSA + fldigi

Thu, 29 Dec 2011 14:59:41 +0100

Has for now I'm able to contol my Transfox with hamlibs and listenning radio with Quisk, i needed to interface with digital tools. But on SDR, how do we redirect BF output of quisk to digital software ? This is quite frustrating to not be able to redirect easily this bf output to a virtual port. I had to do many tests with Jack, pulseaudio and others stuff... finally, the solution seem to be the natural ALSA package. But ! (the is always a BUT) you need to recompile your alsa tools in order to obtain the magic module snd-aloop. (look to you distro before if you don't have it). How it works ? Easily. The Aloop module provide two loopback devices. When something enter in one of the both, the sound goes out to the other. For more information, I will not write more about it. Others have already done the Job better than I could : http://alsa.opensrc.org/Jack_and_Loopback_device_as_Alsa-to-Jack_bridge (http://alsa.opensrc.org/Jack_and_Loopback_device_as_Alsa-to-Jack_bridge) (on this tuto, don't install the jack bridge, we will not use it) So the idear is the following TRANSFOX --(I/Q)--> Soundcard microphone (hw:0,0) --> QUISK --(BF output to loopback (hw:1,0) --> ALOOP MODULE --> BF goes out to hw:1,1 --> Mic in in fldigi. Transfox, Grig, quisk and fldigi on debian 6 (64bits) (i did not set quisk frequency properly) So now ? When a big signal is received on the bandwidth of fldigi, other signals decrease. (software or hardware?) Decode are not so good has if i was directly connected to my ic7400 transceiver (certainly some tunes to be done on .asoundrc : rates, buffers...) to be continued...

Transfox and hamlibs !

Sat, 24 Dec 2011 14:06:01 +0100

Hello, great news for this last days of the year. Hamlibs are working with the Transfox. In the git release, hamlibs version 1.2.15-git (http://n0nb.users.sourceforge.net/ (http://n0nb.users.sourceforge.net/)) the transfox communication has been corrected. This post is really fast and I have just made some small and fast tests but anyway, on the small I have done, this is working ! I used grig (http://groundstation.sourceforge.net/grig/ (http://groundstation.sourceforge.net/grig/)) to use a graphical interface with my hamlibs and quisk (http://james.ahlstrom.name/quisk/ (http://james.ahlstrom.name/quisk/)) for SDR receiving. Here is the screenshot : Grig permit me to control the transceiver, Quisk to receive. let continue the tests... Merry Christmas to all.

Transfox (RfHamFoxOne = RHFO) news.

Tue, 20 Dec 2011 14:25:46 +0100

Well, time consumed and I'm still playing with my toy. First impression is the connection and the box. The box is small, and quite heavy. The box is in steal and letters are well printed in the front (not stickers). My freind F1JKJ told me that on my photos, the knob look like not so good. This is just a photo problem because the knob permit a good contact and let a solidity feeling. Concerning the command they are really easy to manage ! Pushing "A" and "B" button permit to enter in menu, turning the knob permit to change values. Changing frequency is also easy. Dependig when pushing the button, you navigate on the Frequency (Khz, Mhz, Ghz). Easy, Easy, Easy !! I made an installation on my windows system (XP-SP2) with HDSDR and this is working like a charm. I made also a configuration with SDR-RADIO + map65iq and I had good results. My decode on map65iq was has good has my wsjt9 on my other PC. This is the first time I have a so good reception on my map65iq. For now, i'm working with hamlib team in order to permit a communication with the Transfox. I had a serial port problem under 2.6.35 kernel. (PTT goes up). I had to remove this functionnality from the transceiver menu in order to temporary resolving the issue. I'm now able to access via terminal 19200bauds, 8N1 to the Transceiver and manage it. I made a log to hamlib support and I'm expecting an implementation. Stay tuned !

Christmas before the date ! RFHAMFOXONE

Fri, 09 Dec 2011 12:52:36 +0100

Today this is christmas before the date ! I have the opportunity to test this wonderful RFHAMFOXONE transceiver. This TRX is a SDR one and it covers in RX and TX (yes !) from 1Mhz to 1450Mhz ! amazing ! You can have all details here : http://www.rfham.com/index.html?c77.html (http://www.rfham.com/index.html?c77.html) Front of the transceiver, small, clean and class! two buttons (what for ? I do not know... not read the doc for the moment.. héhé yes, i'm too excited..). A big button that must be a VFO. Rear panel. I/Q entry for TX, I/Q for RX, usb command, PTT, Key entry, power connector, and Antenna. Hue there is also a band decoder ! Well for now, let's try ! stay tuned !!

GlobalQSL next...

Mon, 07 Nov 2011 21:12:24 +0100

Has I said on my previous post, I made a command for 10 cards to globalQSL. First thing interesting: I have been able to track all steps of my commands on the site but also by email. For each step (payment, printing, sent) I received a notification by email. Really good workflow ! In global, in took 3 weeks to receive my ten cards. In fact I received 17 cards in the package :-) So I received a good packaging postal present ;-) Good package isnt-it ? Cards on the package Front side of the card. The photo is not explicit due to the flash. Black is a bright and strong black. Greys of the moon are really perfect and my callsign is has I designed throw the designer tool : lighter black than the background. Callsign is just sugested like I wanted. (like signals we decode from the moon that are included on the noise of the band) Back of the QSL. Also bright, good feeling on the hand. The card is good quality. (again bad flash !! for sure, i'm not a photographer) So for now, I'm a Global QSL customer ;-). I made a second design for my mobile contacts I made while driving to Job on 20m. On thing funny, you can add directly throw the web interface of GlobalQSL your QSO manually. When I arrive at job, I go on site, insert QSO, choose my "/m" design and run. My correspondant will receive my QSL via buro (it took me less than one minute to do it) I'm addict ? I think so yes!

Command to GlobaQSL

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:19:02 +0100

Hello I have registered an account to GlobalQSL and designed a card. I bought a sample of 10 shipped to home in order to see the quality... some news soon.. stay tuned.

Réveillez-vous !

Wed, 28 Sep 2011 06:09:18 +0100

http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/pas-de-censure-au-nom-des-consommateurs (http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/pas-de-censure-au-nom-des-consommateurs)

Interview of GLobal QSL !

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 12:09:29 +0100

With my freind F1JKJ we are making during our spare time a podcast dedicated to radio-ham. This podcast is in french language. On the last issue, we have an exception. Laurent, F1JKJ made an interview of 4X6UU of GlobalQSL that explain us his concept. This interview is in English (not translated). This is here : http://www.qtc.fr/emissions/qtc-n-9/ (http://www.qtc.fr/emissions/qtc-n-9/)

QSL received

Sun, 25 Sep 2011 11:59:03 +0100

Yesterday I have been to my Radio Club to see if I had some QSL cards. On some of them, three was quite interesting. Just for information, During the following QSO I was in IN94QS that represent QSO on distance around 1300km. I was running 50 watts on a Halo antenna.... on 2m. The car was simply stoped on the side of the road.. good no ? OE3FVU OE3OKS OE3WOG

migration et non pas redirection

Fri, 23 Sep 2011 12:18:19 +0100

En informatique, la définition de migration : "En informatique, une migration est le passage des données ou d’une application d’un ordinateur ou d’un logiciel vers un autre système cible." ( http://lesdefinitions.fr/migration (http://lesdefinitions.fr/migration)) Ce qui est bien le cas pour le sujte qui nous concerne. Alors qu'une redirection est " est un moyen de transférer le visiteur de manière automatique vers une autre page. Il existe différents type de redirection sous plusieurs technologies. Certaines redirection sont invisible pour le visiteur qui ne se rend pas compte que l'adresse de l'URL (http://glossaire.infowebmaster.fr/url/) a été modifiée." ( http://glossaire.infowebmaster.fr/redirection/ (http://glossaire.infowebmaster.fr/redirection/)) Ce qui n'est évidemment pas le cas car on ne transfère pas vers une nouvelle page et on ne change pas l'url mais on déplace la page elle même... Comme quoi, DUGLAND est un très bon pseudo.

Activity on EME

Wed, 21 Sep 2011 07:53:16 +0100

Theses days, we have big fun on 2m EME radiowaves. Many DX are on air (DX for me ;-) ) I was really happy to make a contact with BD4SY. The QSO has been quite hard to achieve (or simply to start) due to big noise on BD4SY side and also, of course, because i wasn't alone wanted to call him. Anyway, the job has been done on limit of my decode and I'm really happy to add a new country on my list. BD4SY antennas. There is also an other DX todays. The 7P8EME dxpedition by ZS6 Guys. They had some difficulties (LNA breakdown) but now this is ok and I have been able to contact them quite easily this morning. They was -24 on my decode. QRO! And now ? Well, I still want to catch 0X4 but his LNA is down and the receiver is a TS2000.. (single antenna on his side). I have been able to decode some of his traces at around -25 at best. But most of the time he is undecodable. It will be hard to achieve. There is also KL7 which is missing to me.. but he seems to be there on WE ;-) So I just have to plan...

CQRLog and inits

Sun, 11 Sep 2011 16:37:16 +0100

SInce version 1, CQRLog is loging on MySQL database. This is a really great idea, you can do really what you want concerning statistics. In my concern, I'm a EME 2m radio ham. On such activities we are of course interested on DXCC and how many countries we have contacted. This feature is naturally done by CQRLOG. no need to geek. But we are also interested in "inits" or "initials" (how many differents stations did we contacted. For that I used the following mysql command : select DISTINCT callsign FROM cqrlog_main where mode like '%JT65%' or mode like '%wsjt%' order by callsign ASC; I made a filter on only QSO made with JT65 or wsjt mode (only take in account my EME QSOs). That gave me such result : callsign9A9TAO6VQC56EMECR2EMECT1HZEDF2ZCDJ9MGDK2PHDK3EEDK3WGDK5EWDL1DWIDL8GPDM1CGDM2BHGEA5CJEB5GPEI4DQER0UBES3RFES6RQF1AFJF1MPQF1TMYF6GJV/PF6HPP/PF6HVKF8CHF8DOF9HSFG4KHG4ZFEGI1CETGM6VXBGW3XYWHA8CEHB9EFKHB9QI2FAKI3MEKIK1UWLIK7EZNJE1TNLJM1WBBJR3REXK1JTK5QEK6MYCK9MRIKB8RQLA8KVLU7FALY2BAWLZ1DPLZ2FOMD/DH7FBN7NWN9XGOH2BYJOH2LHEOH4LAOH7HXHOH7PIOK1CUOK1UGAOK2PMSON4KHGPA2CHRPA3DOLPA3EXVPA3FPQPA5MSPC5QPI4HPJ4XPJ7EMERK3FGRT4IRU1AAS52LMS58MSM2CEWSP2NJISURE!!SW6KRWTF3CYTK5JJTM2AUA3PTWUA4AQLUA9SLUA9YLUUN/DL9LBHUN9LUR3EEUR7GOUT5UASVE1KGVE5UFVK3AXHVK5APNW5UMBW5UNW5UWBW7AVW7IUVWA4EMVWZ5QYL3HAYO8RHIYT3IYU7XLZS6OB Saw I wanted to count them : select count(DISTINCT callsign) FROM cqrlog_main where mode like '%JT65%' or mode like '%wsjt%' order by callsign ASC; That gave me 113 Differents contacts.

Reception on 1090Mhz

Mon, 05 Sep 2011 13:36:25 +0100

For 2 weeks now I have installed a 1090Mhz receiving station at home. This receiver permit to follow on live commercial ariplanes trafic via transpoders installed on board. This installation consist on an vertical antenna on 1090Mhz, a preamplifier, 20m of coax cables on the cheminey : The 1090 antenna is the smallest one. The biggest is a dual bander for 144/432Mhz. Be carreful, the both antennas are upper to the top pf the cheminey.. optical error ;-) The installation is live 24/24 7/7 and installed near the antennas: So what coverage can I wait with such installation ? And with some propagation : This give this sort of result : Or with upper view :

Live CQ FSK

Mon, 15 Aug 2011 14:57:10 +0100

Hello I played a bit with php and I made a new interface for liveCQ dedicated to FSK (thanks to PE1L for the idea). You can have a try : http://www.f8arr.org/livecqfsk (livecqfsk) any reports welcome !!

APRS in Catalan country

Thu, 04 Aug 2011 13:57:00 +0100

For holidays, with familly we passed one week on the catalan side of spain in a city called "Pineda de mar". We tried with Michel, F4FMQ to contact each others on APRS (HE is at 40km north from me..). On my side, a thd7, my favorite linux pc and a small dual band car antenna on magnet mount. I received quite well an ARPS repeter (59+10 db on my thd7 baragraph) but it didn't decode me. I upgraded a bit the txdelay to 55ms and it became better for reaching the barcelona's APRS repeater but still not connecting to the local one... :-( At 3pm the local server started to not be decoded by my station and at 4pm it was completly silent. I observed such similar comportment on yesterday... strange... Finally, on this part of spain, APRS is present but all seemed working with uiview servers :-( and not so well configured...

I would like to believe...

Tue, 05 Jul 2011 15:06:42 +0100

An UFO appeared on the Network sphere. Steve Perlman from Onlive company has explained on the NExTWORK that mathematicals rules can be bitten. Effectivly, so many people told that they would "fight for bandwich". Mr Perlman describe a new way to manage communications : the DIDO (ditributed inpute - distributed output). His revolutionnary method would permit everybody to benefit the full bandwich instead of sharing it. All this techno is deployed over wireless. Amateur radio licenses in hand Perlman and his team at another of his startups, Rearden Companies, invented completely new radio technology, which he claims is simpler and cheaper than the innards of modern cell phones. DIDO’s feature list almost sounds too good to be true (Has OnLive’s Steve Perlman Discovered Holy Grail of Wireless?) Effectivly it sound really too good to be true. The model given by Mr Perlman would break the Claude Shannon law's writen in 1948 giving a mathématical definition of the maximum usage available on a dedicated bandwich. The more interesting part is that the Shannon's law have been many times confirmed, calculated and sound quite true and near from the reality.. so what ? We are thinking on the wrong way ? Mr Perlman told also that they can break 100 times the upper Shannon limit and they are confident in breaking it aroud 1000 times! Of course, for the moment nobody has seen this technology live neither it's future version MIMO (multipl in, multiple out) On thing sure, the Onlive advertisment is under progress with this announce... and I would like to believe on it ;-)

Electric Disturbance

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 17:02:55 +0100

Just after my CR3EME QSO (the minute after the 73 !!) an electric disturbance appeared on my waterfall. This is not the first time that I had such problem but it was only trivial. This time it was more important. The disturbance has continued during all the week-end... So, this evening, I took my IC-202 under my arm and with my 4 elements yagi on the other hand I started fox hunting. After some minutes I found really fast an electric disturbance from a high-voltage pylon. On my IC-202 the signal was on and#34;0and#34; when my antenna was directed to the ground and S9 30db with antenna on pylon direction. (Yes my ic-202 is not calibrate and it is not a tool of measure but it permit to have a relative good opinion). I asked the CEM group of the REF-Union which is the procedure I have to follow before calling the power supplier...

The french exception

Sun, 03 Jul 2011 06:44:13 +0100

French people is known to have so many exceptions. Radio hams in Gaulois's lands confirm this situation. With the ubiquity of internet, some fellows have rised some blogs and other web2.0 tool in order to communicate around the ham radio sphere. Nothing really special to that. Blogs agregate news from all others radio-ham sites and offer them to the community. Comments are open and can be anonymous (I mean with pen names). In fact pen names become the norm and quite nobody comment actuallity with his own callsign. Of course comments are done for denigrate, or at less for highlight the negative part of the news). Attacks can be personal, to radio-club, organization.. no real limits. Most of attacks are oriented on the national ham radio organisation REF-Union witch during long decades has not really been pro-active and lived on his experiences. I don't comment some justicy actions .. The most important group of such guys organized them selves in an association (on the official side of the term) and said that they wanted to be an alternative to the REF and wanted to promote radio-ham. This week, they found some irregularities on the IARU world championship organisation of the REF. (too many people for a single callsign (no more than 30 is autorized in French law) and too many location (a special callsign is only allowed for one RF geographic situation) ) So they wrote a letter to french administration asking them to apply law and punish the REF ;-) justice ! In part of the action, a bit crap, (it remember us some 2nd world war comportments ) the funny side of this is that all guys on this association are not doing radio anymore.. (or never have done) French exception I told you..

Linux in the ham shack ?

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 21:54:53 +0100

My last poll was oriented on the distribution used on the shack's computers. I had 262 pollers and the result is the following : 23% for linux 3% for Mac 1% for Freebsd the rest for M$ world.. Linux in the ham shack ? not for yet ? well quite one pc out of four.. not so bad ! ;-) Have a look here : http://lhspodcast.info/ (http://lhspodcast.info/)

Compile WSJT9 under fedora 15

Sat, 02 Jul 2011 20:50:23 +0100

Hi ! just a translation (or an adpatation) of one of my recent french post that could help some rockers ... I wasn't able to compile WSJT9 (SVN version from trunck) due to a gfortran version. Effectivly, the gfortran provided with Fedora 15 is a 4.6.0 version. This version doesn't allow anymore a REWIND or a BACK while writing on a file. On compilation, it works like a charm. Problems appear when you run the wsjt. After a small moment, the application crash. I wrote to wsjt devel list and it seemed that I was alone on the planet facing such issue ;-) In order to have the chance to work C32EME or PJ7EME I absolutly needed that my WSJT worked ! The solution consist for the moment (waiting the wsjt devel team adapting code) using the compilator g95 (http://www.g95.org/ (http://www.g95.org/)). installing it consist just in following instructions given by the g95 team. But ! (there is always a "but"), I had to rename my /usr/sbin/gfortran because it was used by default while compiling...(I missed a configure option ? -- I tried ./configure -enable-g95 without success--) Now my wsjt is working fine except the fact that it don't write on azel.dat file ..(?)