Christmas Day 2012...

It started early... and will probably finish late. But it was lovely. Chat with Mum and Dad, chat with Sal and Pete, missed out on Kim. Liz has a dose of the bot and it has been a tough day for her and, quite frankly, she was quite happy today to lie down, forget it all, and just... BE!
The main meal was roast chicken, sprouts, peas, carrots, potato, parsnip, sweet potato (gold), spuds, gravy and stuffing (my own special recipe). A meal to last through to tomorrow... I think that might just be the case and considering we only devoured one breast of the chook, we have chicken for a few days yet!
Quiet, uneventful, and nice to see St Mary Redcliff on the Beeb this morning in all it's glory... Despite the distances involved between family, I think we all did very well.

Merry Christmas one and all... 'tis the season to be jolly!

International Space Sation ...

OK, so I'm a radio nut and decided to listen out for the ISS last evening and missed receiving the packet bursts from them on the first pass, but was ready for the second. Using the Funcube Dongle Pro +, MixW and Nova (reg) for tracking. Last time I heard a packet like this MIR was still in orbit!

Sticky beaking ... again

Just a snapshot to remind me of where to go to "eavesdrop" on countrywide pager messages. Quite an interesting mix of messages from Rail, Hospital and Bird Watchers on this particular frequency. Just remember to never disclose any info you may see on these pagers, and yes press people, that means you too!
The Funcube Dongle Pro Plus is a nifty bit of kit for listening just about anywhere from 150kHz up to 2.0 gHz, with a gap from 260-420mHz or so. Great for DRM on shortwave too... :o)

FM Stereo... flat as a pancake???

I've been playing with my  N E W   SDR Dongle, the Funcube Dongle Pro+. Lovely bit of kit that enables me to listen to just about anything from approximately 150kHz right up through 1.9gHz. This is just a screen grab of KISS here in Bristol showing a totally uninspiring waterfall display of the stereo signal... notice how flat it is, full of over processed and boring music... nuff said... the SDR# software also decodes and displays the RDS embedded in the signal... nice... now I know who not to listen to!

I've been busy...

I'm 51 now... and have just gone back to school to get some kind of recognisable qualification that will say that I am not thick. It's funny though, I think I will be after I'm done. I've never been a fan of Word or any of it's ancilliary programs having spent a quarter of a century in print. We use real programs there... and even the mention of Word is taboo.
The ECDL Extra course I am currently plodding through has made me want to chuck the screen out of the window sometimes and personally insert something large and sharp into to the recorded tutors' nethers, as he has this rather annoying habit of being not sure if he's from up north, or America! Bits of the course have also been given a fail as certain parts of it do not work as it should, and to make sure this gets back to the supplier, I will leave a sheet in my notes showing said errors. One thing I do hate is when they ask you to do something in your assessment and you have to be damn careful and see if they've done the first part of the question for you, for if they have and you don't spot it, you are on the way to a fail... this has pissed me off several times.
All joking aside, I am doing well, and I am sure that, with luck, I will forget most of this in good time. If I can think of a decent reason to use the Microsoft Office stuff I will, but that's probably a long shot.

I thought I'd add this...taken when brand new about 6 years ago... a Vibroplex Morse Key... 

and no, it hasn't been used on air yet... but it is hooked up to the transceiver

another thing I have to brush up on... di dah dit!

Francois Hardy... with a bit of colour added

I initially won her album "Message Personnel" in about 1973-74 from 2ZB and had lost it over time. A few years ago I found it on Ebay and duly purchased and listened to what, to me, was a nice album. I found another album of hers FH2 in a charity shop and that's quite good too... Of course I thought that I would "like" her page on Facebook and a few weeks ago a black and white image was posted on her profile and I couldn't resist the temptation to add a dash of colour... not too much... so here it is. My faffing about with photos continues!

The West of Scotland Artillery (Militia) arriving at Weymouth 1902

My sister posted a pic on Facebook and had tweaked the levels to get a reasonable image. I then asked if it would be ok to tidy it up a bit and would she send a scan of her original pic. It duly arrived and I guess I spent about 18 hours fiddling and farting about. Below is the original and edited image.

Jagdpanzer IV/70(A)

This is my first attempt at airbrushing and weathering and actually finishing a plastic scale model. This is a cyber-hobby.com Jagdpanzer IV/70(A) tank. 

Paints used were Tamiya Acrylics for spraying and Humbrol Gloss and Matt Aerosol varnish which I was a tad unhappy with. The Matt tended to frost quite badly, but it does give an added weathering effect.

Overall I'm quite happy with my efforts even though it has taken nearly 5 months to get it to this stage. I'm sure that this will be the final product. I do have an amazing amount of parts left over though and think that it could be cyber-hobby.com being a tad lazy.

I did add this fellow from another Tamiya set, Military Miniatures - German Machine Gun Troops... and might even get around to doing a diorama of sorts. But until I have a bit more experience, I might leave that for a while.

My foray into the world of blog!

Well, today I bit the bullet and got this organised. I'm not that sure what to do with it yet except maybe show the world what I'm up to. My interests are many and varied and change depending on my mood. So, I hope that in time it will become  an interesting record of stuff I've done or yet to do. We shall see!