Controlling Influence

Following on from Saturday's success with ADS-B I thought that I might try and go one better.
Satellites are a challenge mainly because of the Doppler shift in frequencies as they pass overhead. Having to manually change frequency is a pain and in some cases inaccurate. Today's challenge was to get the satellite tracking software GPredict to control my RTL-SDR via GQRX. Long story short is that it worked without too much faffing around. Result!
I tracked a couple of satellites without hearing anything which isn't unexpected as I'm using the wrong type of antenna. That's a challenge for another day. I have all the bits I need I just haven't got round to it yet.
This small success has just put that plan back to the top of the list.

Talk To Me

While HF is being a tad on the difficult side and not letting me enjoy much SWLing I needed another radio distraction.
The airband frequencies are always active so it was time for another experiment. This time it worked quite well and despite having to find some dependencies myself all the instructions were quite clear. What I did was use my RTL-SDR dongle and discone antenna to pick up ADS-B signals from planes and plot their positions on a map. All live from them to me, no internets required.
I think I have a radius of about 50 miles so there's usually something up there broadcasting its position. I have my aviation scanner running in the background too so that I can hopefully catch the pilot communicating with the ground control.
All in all good fun for a Saturday afternoon.

Starting Again

I seem to be inadequate at writing down my frustrations so I'm not going to bother anymore.
Best thing to do is put a pen or pencil in my hand and get it onto a page of my new sketchbook. I'm better at visualising stuff.
The above picture / doodle is about exploring things differently, like we all should, while we can.
Anyway, the Rendr sketchbook and the Staedtler pens are very nice to work with. I have more fun with them than trying to write stuff down.
It's the way forward.

My Own Little Planet

Not happy with the situation you find yourself in on Earth?
That fine, just lose yourself on your own planet. There's a picture of my planet above. I haven't given it a name yet.
I used a Fractal Flame generating software called JWildfire to make the picture. It's a very immersive piece of software. You can tweak everything until you get something you want to look at. There's so much tweaking to do that you'll temporarily forget where you are and that's as good as being on your own planet. The software is free and if like me you own an Android phone you can get a version for your device too.
The software and all information can be found here.
It's time to escape.

No Bleeding Media

What could be nicer?
Watching Newquay Harbour in Cornwall on the webcam. Eating buttered Malt Loaf and drinking coffee. With the odd roll-up thrown in for good measure it couldn't get better as far as lazy afternoons go.
Then there was a knock at the door and a delivery man handed me a large white envelope. I signed his electronic do-dah and rushed back to the drawing board. I knew what it was and Saturday afternoon had just got better. Carefully opening my parcel I put my hand inside and pulled out a brand new ginger kitten!
No, not really, it was my eagerly anticipated Cresent Rendr sketchbook.
I've seen a few artists on YouTube use these and that's primarily because the paper is No-Bleed. What that means is that you can use things like Sharpie pens and there will be no trace of the ink on the back of the page you're using. It also means you get to use both sides of the sheet of paper and that in turn means no wasted pages. Genius.
It's all good stuff and if you're interested just click here and investigate for yourself.
Time to doodle.