Week of 16th April, 2001

Last Week

Monday, 16th April

Early shifts start today, and I'm having difficulty getting into the swing of it. 6 AM ought not to be allowed - it's too early in the day.

It would seem that there is a complex relationship between how full a Profile XP is, and how many stations there are on the FibreChannel. For one or two stations you can fill an XP up to 99% or better, but as the FibreChannel gets loaded, the maximum capacity goes down, to about 80% full for 20 stations on the Fibre (as we have). This is apparently a problem with the Grass Valley/Tektronix software - we await a fix.

Before we started digital operations I looked forward to being able to grab line feeds to server. Well, we've actually started doing it - and being the devout disciples of the Church of Finagle that we are, we're not trusting server recordings not to screw up. This means tape backup for everything. Thus far there are only about 3 feeds we do on the servers, but I make no doubt that this will increase, and probably quite rapidly. Fixed time recordings are easy - you just have to make sure you've typed suitable numbers into several fields in the data strip for the event, otherwise it may well not work. The automation will take care of everything - you then need to top-and-tail the clip for air.

This works fine for feeds recorded off-air for later repeat (what I call "Programme as Broadcast" or PasB). Closed circuit feeds for our tape-delayed transmission are slightly more difficult, unless you want to waste lots of server space recording over-length clips. Mind you, with 30 hours of space on each Ingest server, and 13 hours on each TX server, arguments about disk space become somewhat moot.

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Tuesday, 17th April

More of the same - including trying to sort out exactly which numbers we need to type where to get a manually started recording to work properly and reliably. It's starting to come together.

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Wednesday, 18th April

At 9 o'clock this morning, there was a knock on the door. It was a "man with a van", with Tardis on board. This was, of course, the worst possible time for him to arrive - the house was bustling with minded children of all ages from 4 to 14 (or so it seemed to me)

So, of course, I had to unpack Tardis and set him up - like, right NOW! This involved moving Porsche, Sarah's old machine, off her desk to make room. I nearly did myself an injury carrying the 17 inch monitor up the stairs - don't try to carry a big monitor from the side. Keep the screen against your body as you lift it.

Once I got him assembled (or at least all plugged in, which was easy enough - all the plugs and sockets are colour-coded) I switched on, and proceeded through the configuration and software loading.

About half the software bundle is of no use to us, but Lotus Smartsuite Millennium Edition should serve Sarah well enough, given that I don't have Office 2000, which she would have preferred. I offered her Office 95 (which I do have - psst! Don't tell M$, but it's installed on 3 machines) but she didn't want it.

Now to run the network cable in and fit the network card. I'll use another MRI, all same the card in Tux. Trouble is, I can't put the cable in until later, because the youngest minded child will be asleep this afternoon, and hammering cable cleats is a no-no at that time.

Just to summarise - Tardis is a Time Computers Pentium III - 700 on a 100MHz FSB, with 64MB of memory, a 13GB Maxtor hard disk and 48 speed Samsung CD-ROM. The keyboard is Samsung and mouse, Logitech - both Time branded. The monitor is 17 inch (15.9 inch viewable), driven via an ATi Rage 128 VR AGP graphics card. The screen and video card will go up to 1280x1024 at True Colour, and a sufficiently fast vertical refresh rate (at least I can't see any flicker) Once I've finished he will be network capable -10/100 Ethernet - although the home network will be 10BaseT.


I switched gas and electricity providers last year - that's a joke, the mains cable belongs to Southern Electricity, the gas pipe to British Gas, but I buy my electricity and gas from Npower, who are supposedly cheaper. Yeah - maybe about UKP5 each per month, and there was considerable hassle getting things sorted out.

Comes now a salesman from British Gas, trying to get me to switch back - pressure sales tactics, waving a contract and juicy offers under my nose.

Yes, I might save another UKP5 or so a month, but I'm not changing for a while - I want to let the dust settle. As usual, once things are stable, I believe in "If it ain't broke, don't mend it". Maybe come year-end, once all the bustle and movement about billing have stopped. But if I do, I'll do it by 'phone, to get away from the pressure salesman who doesn't seem to be able to deviate from his prepared script.


Sarah has decided that she is going to Bangor University in October, exam results permitting. This is up in the top left hand corner of Wales, on the mainland side of the Menai Strait, which separates Anglesey from the mainland.

She had her first driving lesson today, a two hour stint, and came back full of the fact that she had 'actually driven the car, on a main  road'. I didn't play the wet blanket, and point out that all she did was steer, pedals and gears were down to the instructor - it's a dual-control car. We'll probably have 10 hours or so of official lessons, and then it'll be drill - driving round and round, left turns, right turns, 3-point turns, reversing, parking - all on residential roads, to teach her the basic skills of car control. I'm sure she'll hate me (and Jane, since I can't do it all!) before we're done. I assisted in getting Jane through her driving test, about 18 years ago, in the same manner - I was taught the same way. Why change something that works?


There's a broken link on last week's page - I forgot to upload the image in Wednesday's section. When you read this, I'll have fixed it.


Later: Now I've seen everything. Up until now, British national politics, while a generator of copious quantities of heated air, has been relatively free of overt commercial bias. There are some MP's, notably John Prescott (the Minister responsible for Transport) who admit to sponsorship by trades unions (the National Union of Seamen in John Prescott's case), but there has been no MP sponsored by a commercial company. There have been attempts by companies to influence policy by judicious application of the universal lubricant, but most of these have not had significant effect, and often the lubricated one has suffered when the facts have come to light.

Comes now our first Parliamentary candidate with overt sponsorship by a commecial interest. Daewoo, the Korean conglomerate, has sponsored an ex-television presenter to stand as a candidate in the upcoming elections, representing the "That'll Be The Daewoo" Party, whose policy is solely transport (in particular, private car) based. They want to reduce the tax burden on the private motorist, or at least ensure that tax monies raised from motor taxation are applied to transport related problems. I suspect a hidden agenda - namely, "let's embarass the Government by trying to get the Transport Minister (and Deputy Prime Minister) voted out of office".

Whether anything will come of this is moot. After all, we have an honourable tradition of eccentricity among minor Parliamentary candidates, some of whom are almost more famous than most of the identikit politicians provided by the major parties. One remembers fondly such people as David "Screaming Lord" Sutch, of the Monster Raving Loony Party, who stood at every election for at least 15 years, and lost his deposit every time, while providing a little comic relief from the deadly dull machinations of the large parties. The only difference with this new party is the overt commercial sponsorship (within the rules, of course) and the youthful charm of the candidate.

BTW, for my foreign readers (if any), particularly Americans, there are strict rules about how much money may be spent during an election campaign. Campaign expenses are rigidly scrutinised and limited, so the American way of "spend your way to office" is less visibly in effect. Television advertising is heavily controlled, or else seen as less effective - most reliance is placed on freely provided Party Political Broadcasts, effectively 5 minute infomercials, made by the major parties, and aired by the TV networks. Such airtime is allocated accordng to strict rules relating to party size or known support, but the exact details of the rules are unknown to me.

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Thursday, 19th April

I tested the security of the DP-802 earlier this week, using Steve Gibson's Shields Up! site. When I did this last, via Fujisan's modem, it turned out that port 139 (the Netbios name service port) was open - Gibson's site could see my computer name, but nothing else. Even the running SMTP server (provided by Turnpike) was 'stealthed'. I thought, "Good, that'll do".

Using the DP-802, things are slightly different - port 139 is 'stealthed', but the ident port is reported as 'closed'. Just about as secure, just different. I can live with this - the only question is going to be "How many other ports will get opened when I finish the home network?" I suspect that at least one instant messenger client will be running, since Katy has been pestering me to "install MSN", meaning the MSN messaging service, "since lots of her friends have it'. Yeah, and most of those are online all the time - their parents have more money than I do. Although, since Yahoo does an SMS gateway, free, I may become tempted. SMS text messaging via mobiles is the bane of Jane's mobile 'phone bill - it costs much more to have a conversation via SMS than it does to make a voice call. Luckily, the girls don't text me very much, if at all.


Changing 'phone provider for the modem line has been a Good Thing. I called BT's Customer Service line on Tuesday, and discovered that my bill for the new line stands at 4 pence, despite a month's heavy use - at least an hour a day. I know exactly where that 4 pence came from - it was a test call to Demon's 0845 access number, to see whether the PPP failure using the DP-802 and USR modem was specific to Demon's Smurftime modem pool (for the record, it wasn't. See here for the exact details)

That 4 pence is actual call charges - the rental is UKP14.99 per month. That's UKP10 for the line rental, and UKP 4.99 for the BT Surf Together Evening and Weekend Service. I'm paying by monthly installments, and BT wouldn't let me set the payment equal to the fixed rental charge - no, they insisted I pay UKP10 per month more, 'for calls', despite my insistence that I'll only use this line for Internet access. Oh well, I'll get a nice refund next year.

This has had consequences - when I got back from Wales, Sarah complained "The Internet isn't working" - that was finger trouble. Access to the modem is via network, which means you must be logged on, and she wasn't - 'no fault found, advice given'.

Then she tried it during the day - Demon's evening/weekend Smurftime numbers are unobtainable during weekdays, so again it didn't work - 'no fault found - advice given' again.

And before anyone asks, I know AOL will do 24/7 access for the same money, but Demon 'ain't broke'. If I did go for AOL, you'd have to go somewhere else to read my pearls of wisdom, and you wouldn't want that, would you?


House network wiring installation today. That's a CAT5 cable from the study into the stairwell, plus the power lead for the SohoBasic hub, and then run and terminate cable to the other bedrooms. The one in my bedroom has been in for a year - since before the big change-around, but has been unterminated until now. The othe two, into Sarah's and Katy's bedrooms, had to be run today.

Barring some fun actually finding neat paths for the cables, so no-one will trip over them, I only had two problems (plus one shortage-of-kit) I need one more RJ45 socket, mounting plate and pattress box, for Katy's room. This has to be Krone compatible, since that's the punchdown tool I've got.

The problems were both with the network feed to Sarah's room. Having got the cable upstairs, I ran it under the door, hinge side - where there's enough clearance- and then had a battle to get it round to where Tardis is placed. I had no access to the walls and skirting boards, due to heavy furniture, so I couldn't cleat the cable down or fix the back box to the wall. On top of that, I got one pair crossed.

After sorting that, and confirming a working connection - using Katy's laptop - I tried to install the MRI ethercard in Tardis. Physically, there was no problem, and when I switched on, the card was recognised, but network connections were there none. Same cables and everything, but no network. Anything network-related is glue-like, before failing, and winipcfg reports some weird IP number I've never heard of (after a long wait). Try for an IP lease renew, and the machine locks up. All you can do is shut it down - verrry slowly.

All the network configuration tweaks seem to accept the settings I want to give them, but it doesn't work. I'm beginning to think that something on that card is blown. I'll swap it for the MRI card in Tux on Monday (I'm working this weekend) and see what happens. More later.

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Friday, 20th April

More of the same at work, although the routines for direct line feeds to server seem to be pretty well sorted now. All we need to sort out are the housekeeping routines.

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Saturday, 21st April

London Electronics, Radio and Computer show today and tomorrow. This is the old "Pickett's Lock" show, moved from that venue because of its closure for redevelopment, and now to be held at Alexandra Palace in North London. I've booked leave to attend tomorrow, for a little retail therapy and to meet fellow radio amateur friends.


Much editing of filler programmes for Channel VIII - another channel, which will remain officially nameless, referred to by it's automation channel number - these are 5 minute items about various historical subjects. Quite interesting - and when I say they are 5 minutes long, I mean 5 minutes. They are that length, to the frame - ie to the twenty-fifth of a second.

There were a total of 23 different items, each in two versions - fully mixed audio and split audio track - spread across two 124 minute digibeta tapes. I had to repackage them, with ident slates - the whole nine yards - the problem being the packaged versions were wanted in programme number order, which was not the same as the order of the items on the master tapes. I ended up shuttling up and down the masters, and swapping tapes, almost on an item by item basis. For the second compilation tape I got clever, and worked in insert edit, on a pre-striped tape, leaving gaps where items were derived from the other master tape - then went back and dropped the missing ones in. The job took most of the day, but there's a sense of satisfaction in doing the job right.


The saga of Tardis, and his network card, is now over, and the dull thud you hear is the sound of my shoe being applied (forcefully) to my nether regions.

I mentioned on Thursday that the card seemed to install, but there were no results. Just in case I'd got a lemon, I swapped the card from Tux into Tardis, with no change. I even tried putting the spare 10GB disk in Tardis, and installing WIN98SE (or even WIN95) to see if that had any different result, but found that M$ fdisk is so lobotomised that it cannot understand a Linux ext2 partition - it sees it as a DOS extended partition, with logical disks inside, and refuses to delete it for that reason, but when you try to delete the logical drives inside the extended partition, it says there aren't any! Catch-22, and no way out of it. Remember, this is the drive I tried to install in Tux, and which wouldn't boot past "LI...". And yet it did, in Tardis - must be a function of the aged BIOS in Tux.

Finally, I had a brainstorm, and pressed down on the upper corner of the card, at the non-bracket end, to reseat it. And guess what? It worked! The network came up.

There was one problem - this was Tux's network card, and I'd set the DP-802 to supply a low-numbered IP address to this MAC address. But Tux is configured for static IP - same address! Oops - get Tux's new MAC address (via Linux ifconfig) and change the D-Link's config to match. Then reboot all the changed machines to resolve the clash. And all was well - even Infernal Exploiter worked over the network to the Internet.

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Sunday, 22nd April

Alexandra Palace amateur radio show today.

Evening: The show wasn't a patch on the Pickett's Lock version, six months ago. The economic climate can't have changed that much, so it must be the venue. Certainly the admission charge was higher. Maybe the word got round, since I gather yesterday was a lot busier.

Alexandra Palace is the site of the World's first high-definition television service (as opposed to experiments) which started in 1936, eventually settling on the EMI 405-line electronically originated standard rather than Baird's 240-line mechanically scanned (Nipkow disk, I think) standard. The original transmitter mast is still there, but not used for it's original purpose - it's probably plastered with PMR and mobile 'phone aerials - the site is on top of a hill, with superb views over London.

Anyway, back to the show. Only a few of the major amateur radio dealers were there, and most of the stands seemed to be selling computer bits, as opposed to amateur radio kit. Prices for computer bits were reasonable - maybe a little higher than the computer fair I went to a couple of weeks ago, but most of the kit was obscure brands, or totally unbranded, and hence a bit risky (or so I think).

Anyway, I came away with an IBM keyboard, the 'clicky key' type, like the one I ruined with a glass of wine last year, a couple of 8MB SIMMS for Tux (at UKP3 each - probably not a major brand, but for that money who cares?), another copy of WIN95 OSR2.5 (the one with limited USB), and a headset for the little cigarette-packet-sized transceiver (that was the most expensive thing I bought - UKP24.95 - outrageous), and some NiMH batteries, AA size, for the Fuji MX1200 digicam - those were quite cheap, UKP1.80 per each if you bought 10, UKP2 per each at 1 off.

Other than that I met up for a chat with my friend (the Linux and amateur radio man) and had a nice day out.

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