Author Archives: Dan

August 29, 2008
14:24
by: Dan

Dear Thunderbird, I’m smarter than you

Lately, I’ve been getting a lot of log file attachments from users of D-RATS and CHIRP .  These are small text files, usually with a python stack trace at the end that provides illumination for some issue they’ve been having.  … Continue reading →

Posted in Linux

August 26, 2008
13:46
by: Dan

GNUS Date Hacks

I’ve used GNUS for a long time…since my sophomore year in undergrad, I think.  I like it a lot, and have only cheated (er, experimented) a couple of times with various other mailers.  Even though I have used it for … Continue reading →

Posted in Linux Tagged ,

August 12, 2008
13:05
by: Dan

D-RATS in QST

The September issue of QST arrived in my mailbox yesterday, complete with my D-RATS article on page 34! The idea to write an article about D-RATS came much earlier in the year (way back in February), once we had used … Continue reading →

Posted in Radio Tagged ,

July 15, 2008
08:49
by: Dan

Show UTC as a location in Gnome International Clock

I love the new international clock applet in Gnome.  It makes it easy to see a list of alternate time zones for coordinating with colleagues.  However, it seems to be missing the ability to add UTC as a timezone.  UTC, … Continue reading →

Posted in Linux

July 1, 2008
08:49
by: Dan

ARRL Field Day 2008

On Saturday, I participated in the ARRL Field Day for the first time.  For those who don’t know, Field Day is a annual event where Amateur Radio operators head out to fields, forests, and mountain tops to make as many … Continue reading →

Posted in Radio

May 20, 2008
11:13
by: Dan

Dayton Hamvention 2008

I was lucky enough to travel to the Dayton Hamvention this year.  I was demoing D-RATS in the dstarusers.org booth with the K5TIT folks.  I received a lot of good feedback both about the current and future uses of D-RATS, … Continue reading →

Posted in Radio

May 11, 2008
16:57
by: Dan

Ubuntu from a USB key on a Samsung Q1 Ultra

Man I love Linux.  Uh-lot. I am setting up these extremely sweet Samsung Q1 Ultra machines for a D-RATS demo.  These uber-slick ultra-portable tablet PCs are pretty amazingly small.  The biggest problem is that they run Vista.  I’ve read all … Continue reading →

Posted in Linux

March 31, 2008
15:23
by: Dan

D-RATS gets map support

Last week, I released D-RATS 0.1.11 with preliminary GPS support.  This meant parsing the NMEA GPS strings that are broadcasted by ICOM radios, calculating the distance and direction from current, as well as a temporary way to plot known stations … Continue reading →

Posted in Radio Tagged ,

March 5, 2008
16:37
by: Dan

Making a KVM-bootable image

I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve had to re-learn how to create a bootable image from a filesystem tree (such as a tarball of a root filesystem, or a Xen partition image).  If for no other reason than … Continue reading →

Posted in Codemonkeying, Linux Tagged ,

March 3, 2008
08:14
by: Dan

2008 ARRL International DX Contest

This past weekend was the 2008 ARRL International DX Contest.  I participated with the help of some borrowed equipment graciously loaned to me by John, KX7YT.  This weekend marked several “firsts” for me.  I made my first contact on HF, … Continue reading →

Posted in Radio