Blog – Page 55 – Mark's Blog

12 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: It’s very cold and raining tonight.

Pi News: The PiAware is in it’s permanent spot on the side of the chimney and I hope it stays dry. (Time will tell.) I had to remove the Flight Aware filter, there were some anomalies that I couldn’t defend. I may put it back when the weather clears up next week and try again.

Plans: Get some rest, i’ll need it for tomorrow. My shoulder is still sore from the shot I got on Friday. I need to stretch the muscle and put ice packs on it to reduce the inflammation from the bursitis.

Narrative: Had my morning cup of coffee before throwing a bag of stuff together to upgrade my son’s PiAware to SSH.

The drive was uneventful and upgrading the Pi was pretty easy since I had just done it to my Pi the day before. We played around with the gain settings and the commands to display the temp of the processor. Headed home around five for a casserole dinner. Wrote some E-Mail and watched the beginning of Eragon before retiring for the evening.

Tomorrow: Church service setup starts at 8AM even if it is raining.

https://www.verywellfamily.com/feelings-words-from-a-to-z-2086647
From the book “Triggers” by Marshall Goldsmith
Did I DMBT set clear goals for the day? No
Did I DMBT make progress to those goals? No
Did I DMBT make my wife feel loved? Yes
Did I DMBT help my wife today? Yes
Did I DMBT fix something today? Yes
Did I DMBT improve something today? Yes
Did I DMBT be happy? Yes
Did I DMBT be fully engaged? Yes
*Did My Best To
Injuries: Arguments: Exercise: Feeling words: Travel: Noteworthy: Accomplishments: Purchases: Engineering: Project: Theme: Engineering: Repairs:

11 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: It’s a beautiful, cold but clear day. I do not know where the white keyboard ended up and the blue RJ45 crimp tool may also be with it.

Plans: Check out my shoulder at the doc and get my FlightAware filter from the PO box.

Narrative: Didn’t sleep well, which is about normal these days. Had a good hot cup of coffee with the sweetie while we watched Today on NBC.

There was a pretty good amount of ice on the car this morning so we did get started pretty early before the 9:45 appointment. The doc took an xray and wiggled my arm some before declaring it bursitis and gave me a shot in the joint. I am really glad that it won’t require surgery since they want me to start work in a couple weeks.

Added the Flight Aware filter to the cable to the PiAware, I know it’s not needed, but I need to make sure it won’t help the performance. The integrated filter is at least 100:1 outside the bandpass so with this filter Cellular is way beyond being received by the flight Aware SDR dongle. I have plenty of gain (Like 16dB) left on the preamp to compensate for the insertion loss of the additional filter.

Tomorrow: Find my keyboard.

10 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: It’s a very cold but bright sunny day.

Plans: Continue to clean and clear out the “Stuff”

Narrative: Made a pot of coffee for the sweetie again this morning. (I try and get it setup so that it starts automatically at 06:30 for her each day.)

Worked with my Son in Tampa on the PiAware. He is having issues with the long FlightAware antenna. (It doesn’t work at his house for some reason.) We did manage to modify his configuration to maximize the reception of the ADS-B broadcasts this morning.

I also worked on my PiAware setup at the homestead, I permanently mounted the box that houses the FlightAware receiver and the Raspberry Pi computer that sends the information to the Flight Aware website.

The aluminum chassis provides weather protection for the PiAware box.

The current antenna has a 10′ and a 6′ section of chain link fence top rail as a mast. I am considering extending the antenna another 4′ using two 10′ sections giving me 20′ of mast. There are two problems that have to be considered, the Flight Aware antenna will then be the tallest item on my roof (Lightning) and it would not be Guyed. (Self supported.) I’ve checked the current 16′ and it doesn’t move much even in a pretty good gust of wind. (Which is good for not needing guy wires like the TV antenna does.)

I will need to seriously think about the lightning though. The current setup has the old TV antenna as the sacrificial lamb, it is the highest item on the roof and is severely grounded expecting to get hit by lightning.

The TV antenna at the top is the lightning rod for the house, the stick antenna on the right is the Flight Aware antenna.

Tomorrow: Pickup the Flight Aware parts from the Post Office and make an dental appointment.

9 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: My cave is a pile of stuff and my ear needs the stitches removed.

Plans: Go through at least one tub a day, sort, put away or discard in the trash. Church services at 7:30PM.

Narrative: Woke up to a pretty day, had my morning coffee and played with the PiAware a little before taking an early nap.

Trip to Emery hospital was uneventful and removing the stitches was so quick that I didn’t have to pay for parking. 🙂

In cleaning the two tubs today I ran across an aluminum box that I had bought years ago that would work well as a shield for the PiAware on the chimney. I mounted just the cover of the box on the siding today in preparation of putting the PiAware box underneath it tomorrow.

Church services went well, I didn’t tackle the parking mess tho. Will have to buy some new signs, I’ve lost one No Parking sign and four small cones.

Tomorrow: Thursday is becoming my day to spend time with the sweetie, Friday is normally date night but Thursdays seem to be less hectic for some reason.

8 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Flight Aware receiver is laying on the chimney under a plastic tub, it needs a more permanent home.

Plans: Doctor appointment in the morning.

Narrative: Slept in a little before heading out to the doctors office. Thanks to a student doctor the consensus with my shoulder is possibly a torn rotator cup. I have an appointment on Friday to explore that possibility. I still have an issue with deep muscle pain and tingling feet at night.

Did a bit of house cleaning today. I have tubs of “Stuff” from all the traveling last year that needs to be “Pruned” and sorted. Two peach crates of stuff have been put away and the crates broken down for kindlin.

It rained the morning so I didn’t get onto the roof today. I did gather some hardware to mount the Pi-Aware on the side of the chimney when I get a chance. I do need to enable SSH and VNC before buttoning it up, I might try that very early tomorrow morning. (Like 3AM)

Tomorrow: Get the stitches out of my ear from the surgery last week.

7 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Pi Aware receiver is laying in a box on the chimney until I can decide whether to mount it inside or outside. My hair is a bit too long.

Plans: Get a haircut in the morning.

Narrative: Had my morning cup of Jo with the wife and we discussed our plans for today. I headed out to the barber (by the way of the bank) and the wife went to walk the park with friends. The haircut went about normal, they do an excellent job.

Back home I worked on the Pi Aware receiver for a little while. I cut the 10′ chain link fence top rail at 6′ and attached that to the top of the 10′ rail holding the 1090 MHZ Flight Aware antenna. It appeared to increase my visibility some, how much we may not know for a couple days. I can’t push it any higher without it being shadowed by the TV antenna’s on a nearby mast. I definitely don’t want to push it over the top of the TV antennas and being the lightning rod for the house.

Spent some time talking to mom about Dental implants and crowns. (Of which I have considerable experience with.)

Went to the Dollar store looking for Necco’s, but didn’t find any. I did find them at CVS, will have to check that tomorrow.

Had really good leftovers for dinner, played scrabble and watched a movie with the wife before retiring for the evening.

Tomorrow: Doctors Appointment in the morning.

6 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Pi Aware receiver is doing very well and weather is good.

Plans: Get up at 07:00 and do the best I can.

Narrative: I was terribly tired so I slept in until 07:20 before eating breakfast and taking a shower. My wife cooked me eggs and toast for breakfast, that helped a lot to get me out the door. Found the windows were frozen so it took a minute to thaw them. (I didn’t think it was that cold, but there was frost on the roof as well.)

Church services went pretty well this morning, audio recordings were also pretty good. Came home and took a good nap.

Checked the Pi Aware receiver throughout the day, it seems to be performing as expected at this point. I need to collect a baseline data set so that I can make a couple difficult decisions. (Do I raise the antenna further up and do I mount the Pi on the inside of the fireplace wall.)

Had an excellent dinner and we watched a movie before retiring for the evening.

Tomorrow: Get a haircut!

5 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Rain has stopped, it’s a beautiful day.

Plans: Meet up with the spiritual family and watch the grandkids.

Narrative: We packed up the coffee pot and plenty of fixen’s for the meeting this morning. After the meeting we both took pretty long naps to prepare for watching the grandkids.

Checked the Flight Aware receiver throughout the day, it is cooler than I had expected and doesn’t seem to mind the 1A power supply. (2A is the recommended minimum.) The 1A USB lighter adapter can support a 24V power source, so it’s preferred because the house Solar Power is wired for 24V.

We arrived after they’d already had eaten so we didn’t interrupt their meal this time. We had a good time with two very energetic children and headed home a little after 10PM.

Tomorrow: Get up at 07:00 and run the church service.

4 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Yep, it is STILL raining. The PiAware is still on the chimney and it has the long antenna attached to a wooden orange crate.

Plans: Mount the Flight Aware antenna on a mast and secure it to the chimney.

Narrative: The afternoon turned out to be nice enough to work on the Flight Aware antenna. Went to Lowes and picked up two pieces of chain link fence top rail to use as a mast. When I got home I pulled all the pieces I’ve been using for a week out of the plastic tub that has survived almost two weeks of rain. I mounted the Pi, receiver and a car lighter USB power supply in a metal box (That I thought was a bigger, there’s not much room left in the box.) I also installed two antenna mast mounts on the side of my chimney and put the antenna on top of one top rail pipe. The top rail kinda stands out because of the shiny galvanized coating.

The short one on the right is Flight Aware antenna.

Performance looks pretty good, it’s at least as good as it was on the 4′ pipe attached to a plumbing vent. There was a marginal improvement when I removed the 2′ SMA extension. (But I need it to get through the box surface for now.)

Tomorrow: Get together with my spiritual family in the morning.

3 January 2019, a day from Mark’s past

Status: Christmas tree is ready to be stored and it’s still raining.

Plans: Make progress on a permanent install of the Pi-Aware receiver.

Narrative: Woke up and I felt miserable, abnormally high body aches and pains. My sweetheart must also be a little under the weather because we slept most of the day today.

The short SMA extension cable came in for the Pi-Aware receiver, but the antenna didn’t show up until 8PM. I found an extra Cat-5e cable run to the master bedroom this afternoon. I pulled it back into the attic and ran it to the roof access box. On the roof I terminated the cable and connected it to the Pi-Aware receiver. The next piece of the puzzle is the Power Over Ethernet to power the Pi using the Ethernet cable.

I attached the long Flight Aware antenna to an wooden orange crate then to the Pi-Aware receiver in an attempt to reproduce the poor performance found by my son in Tampa. It looks like antenna doesn’t perform very well without having a ground plane at my house either.

Tomorrow: Garbage doesn’t pick up until Saturday so It’s going to be just another rainy day.

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