ka1kjz

On a popular ham radio internet forum, someone pointed out the similarities between 73.org’s Hamvision whereby you can see the various DX spots in realtime on a map, and Twittervision, a mashup of Tweets and a googlemap mashup.  The following closed minded, luddite responses followed.

• “Another way to be a twit and not use a radio!!!! LOLOLOL!!!”

• Is twitter from the Latin twit? I twit. He twit. We twit. They all twit a little bit ………….. some just take it to an art form.Camping as a hobby is for campers. Bowling as a hobby is for bowlers. Golf as a hobby is for golfers. Ham radio as a hobby is for hams. The internet is a tool/hobby/life style — certianly has its place and functions — whatever you call it and however you view it. But it isn’t ham radio which has to do with — TA DA (drum roll please) — radio.

• I have no idea as to what a “twitter tweet” might be, but I’m pretty sure it has something to do with bathhouses in San Francisco. Not my cup of tea under most circumstances.I also ran into a ham on the radio that wanted to know if I was on “facebook”, so that he could “look me up”. Inquiring further, I did confirm that he is a no- code recent advance to “general”; always wondered what kind of clown would post their personal life on the internet.

• Maybe that is the REAL reason the term “blog” sounds like someone tossing their cookies. In any case, social networking on the ‘net is mostly like an extension of third grade show and tell …

Amateur radio used to be the forefront of technology.  Hams can claim many firsts, among them, radio itself (after all wasn’t Marconi a ham –really–?), the transistor, data via radio (Packet), most antenna designs in use today and many more.  WHAT HAPPENED?  I think I’ll go “blog” now, this truly makes me sick and ashamed to be a ham.

So… some believe that DTV is a huge government conspiracy to spy on Americans.  First and foremost, YOU JUST AREN’T THAT INTERESTING!!!!  Why would big brother want to look at millions of slack jawed yokels watching the latest Idol?

But, not to blindly dismiss such a thing, I was amused by this YouTube video, where the author allegedly finds a camera and microphone in his DTV converter box.  Anyone familiar with electronics can plainly see, the “camera” is probably a rubber bumper to keep from crushing the front bezel.  The “microphone” appears to be a trim-pot, whatever it is, microphones don’t have 3 legs.

I decided to tear apart my shiny new Sansonic FT-300A converter from Target.

Front view of the Sansonic

Rear view of the Sansonic

So… fairly innocuous looking right?  Pretty standard box.  Has an on/off switch, an RF in, RF out, and a A/V output.

Removing the cover… no aliens carried me away, no poison gas pellets were activated.  How disapointing!  Already I can see there is no camera or microphone, but I must go further!

Converter open and components labeled.

Removing the front bezel, no bumpers were necessary as its beefy and small enough that it would be difficult to crush, here is the front of the unit in its naked glory.

NO CAMERAS HERE!

So… there you have it… pretty conclusive evidence that there are no hidden surveilance devices in a DTV converter.  I will tear apart an Insignia converter from Best Buy next.

Oh, it might be worth mentioning, I am Chief Engineer and General Manager of a full power, commercial, television station in the #1 market (New York).  If anyone would be approached by big brother, the reptilians, DHS or NSA goons, it would be me.  I kind of wish they would, it certainly would liven up my day!

Welcome to the new and vastly improved ka1kjz website.  This was certainly a learning experience and I wanted to share how we got here.

Sometime when I wasn’t looking my webhost, Sitelutions, added a ton more features, mainly popular and open-source web services like GeekLog, Xoops, and of course WordPress.

I wasn’t very happy with the default themes from WordPress, and I didn’t want to plug in a freebie theme, I wanted complete control.  “But you have complete control” you may say, but reverse engineering someone else’s work, not completely familiar with the language, is very difficult.  The most I could hope for was tweaks, I wanted more.  I wanted everything!

So, I found an excellent tutorial on the web and set about following it faithfully.  I was able to write my own theme, however ugly, in one night.  But I found the change, upload, test, change, upload, test cycle very tedious.  The author had the answer, run a webserver and PHP locally and see your changes in real time!

So, armed with this information, I set about installing XAMPP for Windows by Apache Friends.   Apart from two minor problems with my particular installation (I had to stop my existing mySQL database, and tell Xampp it had a password) it ran without a hitch and I was locally creating the tutorial theme.  We will be seeing more of Xampp in these pages, as I plan to use on a private intranet, and at work.

I then found a nice looking page from Open Source Web Directory and set about applying my newfound knowledge on WordPress themes to it.  The result is what you see here.  Some tweaks are still necessary, but, its close enough to release.  Welcome to the new KA1KJZ blog and website.

Lastly, while reading the responses to “Installing WordPress Locally Under Windows XP” I discovered Webserver On a Stick, a method of running Apache, WordPress, PHP, et-al on a USB flash drive.  The only problem with installation, Microsoft IIS was installed on my work machine, and Windows assumed I wanted to run that the first time I surfed to localhost.  Removing IIS through Windows Control Panel solved that and I was able to build this current theme on the USB stick.

So the USB stick will go into my bag-o-tricks, to use as a demonstrator and a tool to alleviate boredom with my laptop.  In the coming days, I will tweak these pages more and add more content as I become inspired.

For now, enjoy, play around, and naturally, report any bugs to me.