Midlands Weather Animation

This is a bit of an experiment.
I was wondering if I could get an image sequence online. I obviously can.
The sequence comes from zyGrib and is transformed into a small mpeg file in OpenShot. Blogger seems happy to upload it so here it is.
The info shown is precipitation. The darker it gets the more rain we'll get.
If it works well I might just put up a weekly forecast on a dedicated page.

Here's The Weather

If you're in or around the city of Leicester tomorrow here's your forecast.
The picture above is from a fantastic piece of software called zyGrib. It's not just Linux only this time it's for all you Windows and Mac users too. If up-to-date weather forecasts are your thing or might just be useful to you then zyGrib could be your best friend. Not only because it's free but it's really useful too.
It's basically a very complete Grib file viewer. Before yesterday I hadn't even heard of a Grib file. Now I love them. More information can be found here and there's a list of other useful software in that link that also uses Grib files.
Happy weather watching.

Meanwhile In The Lab

I wasn't in work today.
I organized, at the last minute, an impromptu holiday. There were a few things I wanted to do. Odd jobs that just stack up over time.
One task that has been on my mind is my mushroom antenna. I bought the stand a couple of months ago with the idea of turning it into an antenna. It already had holes in the top and middle discs. I added some at the bottom and threaded it with wire. I finished it about half an hour ago.
At this point I don't know where it is resonant. Don't know what it's good for and I don't know if I've wasted a day on this thing.
It could be one of my few but intricate follies.
My plan is to attach it to my SDR and see if it picks up anything at all. From there I might try a bit of satellite surfing and beyond that maybe a little HF reception test. It'll probably end up as some kind of dusty ornament, but maybe not.
I'll let you know.

JT65 Alive!

Another successful radio experiment.
Since getting the Rigblaster working I've been itching to have a go at JT65. This afternoon I made my first QSO with Piotr in Poland, some 837 miles away. What makes this a bit special is that I decided to go QRP which means I was on the low power of 5W. I wanted to test my radio, antenna and the WSJT-X software.
JT65 is a weak signal digital mode so my approach was justified. It's good to have a challenge.
To demonstrate just how far 5W will go take a look at the map below. The large markers are stations that monitored my signals.

Not bad for the equipment I'm using and reassuring for further exploits in this mode.

This Weeks's Sunday Track

This week's Sunday track is just about perfect for whatever activity you are pursuing. That may be be running, cooking or just browsing the duvet.
I hope you like it.