Michael P. O'Connor

My Life

Sunday’s Ham radio operator’s Bike ride

Categories: Biking, Ham Radio

Comments: 3 Comments

Published on: September 21, 2005

I tried to get some people interested in the bike ride tonight after the 88 traffic net tonight. But no one seemed to be interested. I am going to keep trying to get people interested. But here is some information about the ride for the hams that don’t get on the 88 traffic net. I figure meet around the North shore (talk in on 147.48 simplex, so bring your HT) I figure we can meet around 2pm, and hang around for 30 minutes around the North Shore / Point area. Then all pick a place to all get together at and start the ride at around 2:30pm. The North Shore area and the Point state park area are so close and line of sight that evens a few mill watts should be enough to keep all in touch on the simplex frequency. I you are a ham and interested please hope on to 88 after the Pittsburgh area Traffic net on 88 at 8pm every night or leave a message here.

Hurricane RITA is now a Cat 5

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: News

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Published on: September 21, 2005

I just checked over at the NHC‘s web site, and according to them Hurricane Rita is now a cat 5 Hurricane with wind speeds of up to 161 KNOTS and the pressure at 700 MB. I wonder what will happen to the coast of Texas now? We saw the damage that a cat 4 (Katrina) did to the coastal cities, what will this cat 5 do to the coastal cities of Texas?

More Biking Pictures

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking

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Published on: September 20, 2005

A friend of mine has been asking me if the pictures I took on our bike ride about a week ago were up on the web. Well I have finally gotten around to uploading them. So you can see them here in the 2005 Album of Biking pictures. So John the pictures of you are now up.

Biking

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Biking, Ham Radio

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: September 20, 2005

I am thinking about seeing if I can get a bike ride going of the hams in the Pittsburgh area, I first mentioned it on the traffic net tonight. I came up with the idea when some one else on the traffic net said that he went for a nice bike ride today. I found out that there were at lest two other cyclists on the traffic net other then me. So I am going to see if I can plan something out, and see if I can get something going. I figure I would setup a ham radio operator’s bike ride for Sunday at 2pm. So if you are a ham and want to go, jump onto the 146.88 repeater at 8:00pm because I figure I will plan with people after the traffic net (the traffic net is at 8 so the planning should be be after that, it could be anytime from 8:15pm to 8:35pm depending on the amount of traffic, or comments on the net.) You can give me a call if you want my call sign is KB3HCG.

Stupid DVR

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Technology

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Published on: September 20, 2005

The DVR I got from comcast is being a major pain. Not only do I have to deal with the 5:20am and 5:40pm freezing bug. I found that, that bug is very common on all comcast DVR’s. But now it is freezing every 30 minutes today. They have replaced it once already. If it was not for the fact that I read about some one having their replaced 10 times and still had the 5:20am and 5:40pm bug, I would call to see if I could get mine replaced, but since it looks like it is a software bug, I guess I will have to just bear with it. I have noticed that they just upgraded the software, so I tested to see if they still have that bug, I did this by disabling the timer I got for the DVR. The time I have is set to turn off the power at 4am and 4pm and to turn the power back on at 5am and 5pm. And when I disabled it, I found that it was still freezing at 5:20am and 5:40pm, but now I have it freezing more often now that I noticed the software upgrade. I wish they would use software from a better known company that has been in existences for longer, such as TiVo. I am about ready to return it, and cut the digital cable and just go back to the basic cable.

Hurricane Rita

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: News

Comments: 30 Comments

Published on: September 19, 2005

The NHC is now tracking Hurrican Rita in the Atlantic plus a sceond one (there are 3 in the Pacific) There is also another Tropical System that might form into something in the next 36 hours. We are flying though the names this year, I wonder if we are going to go to Tropical Storm Alpha this year, what do my readers think. Last year Otto did not come until Nov, this year we are at Rita, and the next one name should be Stan.

UPDATE: Do to the massive comments here; I am disabling comments for this post. This is not the place to look for information on what to do about the Hurricane, or information on where it will hit. For information on what to do contact your local authorities, and for information for where it might strike look at the National Weather Service, or the Weather channel, or again contact your local authorities they should have the info you need, and instructions you should follow. Also any one in the area that the Hurricane might hit, you have my prays.

The first scanner net podcast is up

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Ham Radio, Technology

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Published on: September 18, 2005

We finished up the scanner net at 10:05 EDT tonight. I have then cut some of the empty space from in front of the net and behind the net off, but other than that I left it pretty much the way it came across the air. You can find the podcast at http://scanner.hamradiobb.com I have also added a scanner section to the WPA Radio Fourum so I hope any one that is interested in scanning might find the podcast enjoyable to listen to.

Google blog search

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Technology

Comments: Comments Off

Published on: September 18, 2005

I was just looking though my logs and found a hit that came from blogsearch.google.com looks like google now has a search that returns only blogs, maybe they can use this to remove blogs from their main search site. That would be a good idea, when I go to google I am not looking for blogs all the time, so if they can separate out the blogs and still allow people to search for blogs if they want them.

Video blogs (I hope this never happens)

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Technology, Web Site

Comments: 5 Comments

Published on: September 18, 2005

We now have normal blogs, photo blogs, and audio blogs (podcasts) I partly dread the day that Video blogs (or vblogs) start to hit be done. Just what we all want, to see some fat guy sitting at a desk talking about what he does not like or what he likes doing nothing. I can imagine some cool things that could be done with a vblog, but there are a few things that could be done good, but beyond those few things, it would not be a good thing for a vblog to start to take the main stream. The only thing that would be worse would be a sblog (or smell blog, lets just all be greatfull that the internet can not transmite smells 😉 )
The sad thing is, I have a video blog already have one, see here. So I guess it might be to late to say “I hope it never happens” because it has happend and I am the one that is doing it. Be afraid be very afraid!!!

HamRadioBB.com

by Michael O'Connor

Categories: Ham Radio, Short Wave Radio Stuff, Web Site

Comments: 2 Comments

Published on: September 18, 2005

I am going to see if I can get my Ham Radio forums going again. This time I am going to work on defining it better. First I am going to define it for Western Pennsylvania, aka the Pittsburgh region. I am also going to add a scanner section. Now that we are Podcasting I am going to see if I can use that to get the HamRadioBB forum going. All are welcome. To hams that might be interested in it, please use your call sign when you register so we all know we are talking to, and maybe can recognize each other on the air.