Week of 1st May, 2006

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Monday, 1st May

May Day Bank Holiday

Which is a creation of a Socialist government, to commemorate the 1917 Revolution in Russia. Although why you'd want to commemorate the founding of one of the worst tyrannies of the 20th century, I do not know. Anyway, it's a statutory holiday, which means banks, office workers, et al. get a day off. Shops should, too, but the retail revolution has left that one for dead. For me, I get a DOIL (day off in lieu) whether or not I work today, since it's pure joss (dependent on the shift cycle) whether I do actually work. The major, so-called premium, holidays - Christmas, Easter, et al. - attract an extra DOIL if you do work them.

And with the move back to original employer, I have to invoice for overtime - on a custom form. What's wrong with your line manager, who knows whether or not you've worked a particular day, filing a list of who-did-what overtime, by the month, I ask? That's how it was done before. Albeit, at the BBC I had to file a time-sheet by the week, which included my overtime claims.

Two typos on the music video captions were soon corrected, and the rest of the night was occupied with packaging material for Channel X - original language versions, ready for sending off for language dubbing. Remember - everything for Channel X is dubbed into their language, often badly. Nothing much else to report, except that I waited until about 10 p.m. before ordering in a takeaway meal - the lunch at the "Hare and Hounds" left me feeling not-hungry until then.

Today, I've been doing further research into FreeBSD installation, which on a Soekris NET4501 is non-trivial, due to the absence of removable media drives. I'm fearful that I'll have to set up a FreeBSD box to do necessary recompilation of software - notably the FreeBSD kernel - and I don't want another box. Although a Soekris NET4801 running Chris Boot's picoDebian would make a nice infrastructure server (DHCP, DNS and maybe a user timeserver. The NET4501 with the GPS would be a master time source, not used for mundane functions) Maybe I can use King as a PXE boot source, and NFS-export a filesystem for the Soekris to use while it bootstraps itself. This project is getting worse - I've got to do more things to end up at my goal. Should be worth it, though - certainly, I'll learn a lot.

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Tuesday, 2nd May

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Wednesday, 3rd May

Last two night shifts for a month or so - which is good. I hate nights. I don't like earlies much either - basically, any shift that starts or ends at 6 a.m. ought not to be allowed. But I've got as much chance of changing that as a the proverbial nitrocellulose cat has of surviving in hell.

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Thursday, 4th May

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Friday, 5th May

OK, that's over. Now maybe I can get my circadian back to something like normal.

Another visit to Simon tonight. This one is to see whether 802.11b wireless will work to get my nephew Luke online from his bedroom. The design of their house is such that it would take major surgery to get a buried cable down from the loft to Luke's room one floor down. Simon does not want to do this (I sympathise!) and Ale will not permit cables draped around her house. So wireless it has to be... if possible.

So I schlepped over with Netgear WAP and Acer in hand. Plug in the WAP, go downstairs and fire up the Acer in Luke's room. Bingo! Connection - 11MBit and excellent signal strength. The Acer pulled an IP address in Simon's DHCP scope, and I could surf off to external sites. Looks good. Now Luke can get on MSN Messenger to chat to his mates, without fighting Simon for use of the big Dell desktop. Or he will, once I get in the wireless bits.

Having made that discovery, I tried downstairs in the sitting room, in front of the TV - all same I hate Katy doing. And that worked. Last test - how about in the garden? Need you ask - the signal dropped off a bit, but 11Mbit was still available.

So that's one project for the next week. I know I can get a WAP by mail order for about UKP25 + VAT from CPC, and Morgan have Linksys USB clients for about UKP10 + VAT, which Simon is resigned to. But there's a computer fair in Central London tomorrow, so I'll see if I can get anything cheaper.

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Saturday, 6th May

And while I'm at it, I'll have a search for the Pioneer CT-L11 cassette deck that goes with the new midi system.

But Jane wanted me to run errands first...

After that, I schlepped off to London, via Tube. Even without the Congestion Charge, driving in Central London is something I only do if vitally necessary, and this trip isn't.

OK, computer fair first. UKP1 admission later, I eventually found an Origo 802.11b WAP for UKP17, after a bit of a struggle convincing the vendor that I knew what I was doing. And while I was doing that, I found myself advising a charming young lady about how to share an 8Mbit Bulldog connection across more than one computer. Both machines are apparently wireless-equipped laptops, so all she needs is a wireless ADSL router, provided that Bulldog don't insist on the client using the supplied USB modem. This is unlikely, since BT no longer insist (but Bulldog use their own kit, all same the situation in the States - here, such unbundling as it is called, is uncommon), and the USB box is normally included in your connection pack. Run the CD, plug in the modem, and away you go.

Routers, especially wireless ones, are slightly more complex. I ended up giving her my mobile number, and saying, "Call me if you need help."

Further search revealed a Compaq Deskpro EN, all same King, but with a 600MHz Pentium 3 processor, for UKP35. That'll do for a FreeBSD server - probably to be called Beastie.

Lummoxing that lot about was a little too much, so I found a shop that sold luggage, and puchased a small trolley suitcase.

Then back to the Tottenham Court Road, and visits to hi-fi shops. And, mirabile dictu, I found someone with a CT-L11 cassette deck. Somewhat overpriced, UKP100 rather than the UKP80-odd that Comet were claiming as the price when they still had any, but beggars can't be choosers.

And then home, to a stint of Dad's taxi.

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Sunday, 7th May

Today is the Kempton Park Rally - or, to give it it's correct name, "The London Radio and Electronics Fair".

But first, I have to wait in for a delivery...

Away to the rally by 11 a.m.

Not a good dealer turnout - there are apparently 4 rallies today, so the trade are thinly spread. But I picked up a pocket-size manual for the FT-817, a few RF patch cables for the car, and ordered (they'd sold out) a pair of SWR (Standing Wave Ratio) meters - basically boxes that will measure RF power flowing to and from an aerial, and compute the ratio between them, which tells you something about how good your aerial is. Elsewhere, this function is called Return Loss. The meters (there are 2, for different frequency ranges) should be posted to me to arrive by midweek. Most of the rest on display was old surplus tat or new rigs (which I'm not in the market for, at present), with one (very) surprising exception.

One surplus dealer had a pile of Tait 501 frequency standards, for UKP80 each. This could be good or bad, depending on the performance. The one he had on display, with the case top removed, revealed a Frequency Electronics, Inc. 5660a Opt. 26 rubidium oscillator, in a brick 3 inches by 4 inches by 2 inches. Now, unless the label was telling lies, writ large, or the rubidium cells are shot, this is seriously cheap. So I grabbed one, with both hands. My own Rubidium Frequency Standard? Gotta do it. And even if the cell is duff, this thing should perform quite well as a high-stability crystal.

It's in a 19 inch by 2RU case, and takes 12 volts at about 3 amps. Inside there's the aforementioned Rubidium brick, mounted on a sizeable heatsink,  custom PCB with various interface electronics on it, and a 12 to 24 volt converter. Frequency Electronics' website is fairly devoid of technical data, but there is a spec sheet (PDF), which claims 24 volt 15W power consumption, and 2 x 10-9 drift per year. Short term stability is about 2 x 10-11 per day. Temperature stability is claimed to be 3 x 10-10 within the range -5 to 50 degrees C. If this box is up to spec, I'm sorted for frequency for some time.

But how to check the thing to see if it does meet spec? There's only one thing that's both easy to obtain, and accurate enough - the 1 PPS output from a GPS. So this is going to tie in to the timeserver project very nicely.

A few minutes after I got back, Jane returned with the latest batch of students - 3 Norwegian girls, staying for a week.

An hour or so later, came the panic 'phone call from Sarah, "I'm down near Heathrow, and the car is blowing smoke and smells." She was on her way to an evening job, serving bar at a golf club. I undertook to meet her there, and take a look.

So I did, and could find no visible cause. But from Sarah's description, I suspect a power steering fluid leak, probably onto the exhaust pipe. Steering fluid is an oil, so it will burn. The steering is also heavier than it has been, so that will need looked at, and fairly soon. I'll book the car in tomorrow.

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