Author: Ian

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Location, Location, Location

I have been to the Lake District a few times and every time it stuns me as I drive from Penrith to Keswick. I went to see a friend of mine and he said he had a good activity for us on the Friday!

Our task was to walk around the Keswick end of Derwent Water and find the locations where three of the four clips were filmed. They cheated a bit in the film because one of the backdrops was filmed from the Lodore Falls end of the lake and then made up to be from the north end of the lake [naughty!], this is the location we didn’t try to find.

The first scene backdrop we looked for was filmed near the transmission tower to the edge of Keswick. It’s labelled in the clip as “Flying Southwest from Castlerigg over Great Wood”, TS00:21. The screenclip below shows the approximate position of the filming location as it was taken from a helicopter.

The second filming position occurs at TS00:41 and is labelled “Looking Northeast Near Brandelhow Point”. This one was filmed from a static camera and so was easier to pin point from where it was filmed.

The last filming location we looked for was the attack on the pub-by-the-lake. Its labelled in the clip as “Looking Northwest from the Shorline West of Crow Park”, TS01:13. We found this spot on the shores of Derwent Water.

Fortunately for us, Marc had a good knowledge of the area and also an iPad with the Star Wars film and the YouTube clip. Also, his dad is a Lake District expert, being on his third time around all the Wainwrights.

The next morning I had a run and much like two years ago my aim was to run up a mountain. Clearly I chose one of the smaller ones and I toodled up Latrigg.

I did enjoy it although I headed around the town afterwards as an extra as although the climb was hard work I had rested plenty by the time I was down. Here’s a panorama I took once at the summit of Latrigg.

Shortly after the run I drove back home. My plan was to cross the Pennines, turn at Scotch Corner and follow the A1(M), but I missed that last turning and so did most of the M1, Oh well!

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David Brent: Life On The Road

I took at trip to the West Country and that meant I needed to go to the cinema. I went to the Vue cinema in Plymouth. It was quite nice, although there were long queues for the concessions, mind you it was a Saturday. I watched David Brent: Life On The Road and as usual I rated it on IMDB, a ever you should read this communication about my ratings system.

So, this film was hilarious and excruciating at the same time. I found it really funny but I also found the original series very funny but also much like watching a car crash. David Brent is an amazing character, someone who really shouldn’t be. I would not be surprised if there are many like him!

I know there is a soundtrack but I’m not sure I would buy it. I love the songs as a one off but to listen to them more than that would be sadism.

Overall, this film is worth seeing if you are a fan of The Office. If you’ve never seen The Office then you will be in for a shock and may not find it that funny! I laughed out loud, a lot and I never really laugh in the cinema [except when no one else does].

A couple of extra things that have come to me. There was an advert for beer. The advert reckons beer goes with any food type and it was a general purpose “drink beer” advert, I thought it rather strange. Also, the were about four adverts telling people to look out for rivers and the sea, to take care around water. This is an admirable cause [especially given recent events] but I don’t think I see these in Kent.

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Europe

I will soon be heading off to Europe for a weekend of music. I’ll be heading to Hanover for a German goth music festival.

Hanover
Hanover

It’s quite a long journey, but one I am looking forward to very much. I always find the journey to be a lot of fun. Obviously not as much fun as actually getting to your destination but still a major part of the whole experience.

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NW-SE

I have noticed that I have decreased range in two directions on the ADS-B receiver.

There's a waist!
There’s a waist!

Because the colours represent the ranges at different altitudes I’ve got a version with just one colour.

Constriction
Constriction

This one shows a clear restriction in range in the NW and SE direction as marked by the red line. I do not know what is causing this but I have an observation to make. I live in a row of terraced houses and the direction of the road matches the constriction direction. While the aerial is in the loft there is extra “stuff” in the way in these directions because of the houses next to me.

Terrace
Terrace

I’m pretty sure this matches up. There is definitely a correlation. Whether that means there’s causation I don’t know but it seems reasonable. I might write a communication about altitudes and the natural obstructions around me [I’m looking forward to the maths involved].

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Sledgehammer

This is an update on the ADS-B device. I have written about this in the previous two communications, here and here. So, on Tuesday 2nd August the Raspberry Pi arrived. Since then I have been setting it all up so the receiver is no longer dependent on the PC being on.

 

The first thing was to install the correct OS on the Pi. The picture shows it in initial phase with monitor, ethernet, keyboard and mouse all connected. Once the OS was installed I had to tell it to not load the GUI and just run a command line. Then, I got it connected to the network and pretty much removed all the cables apart from power.

I can connect to the Pi using SSH and run script from the command line. Next phase was to load the USB stick drivers and software. This was reasonable. Next up was the ADS-B reading software, installing and getting it running seemed easy enough and then I had to adjust some code to make sure this service starts up from boot. Next software to load was the MLAT server program, this was easy enough although initially I couldn’t quite find the correct code to check it was running.

Then, the whole set up was tested in the dining room window.

Today has been the task of moving the unit to the loft. I didn’t have any power sockets up there so one had to be installed and that took the time! Once that was done the system just needed to be secured onto the main beam in the loft. The important thing is to keep the length of the cable from aerial to dongle as short as possible, this increases the signal going into the Pi. The loft set up has been tested and it is running fine.

I have access to the Pi either via the PC using a program called PuTTY or the iPhone using an SSH connection. I can shut down the Pi remotely and monitor the internal temperature of the device. It is running at a range of 50-60 Celsius. Using a Pi to run this software is a bit like taking a sledgehammer to a walnut. But, it is independent and runs remotely. I am happy this procedure was reasonably straight forward!

The next stage is to get a more specialist aerial and maybe a more specific USB Dongle. However, this is one of those things where the amount of money you spend can be unlimited. You know, I could just install a radar up in the loft. However, here is the current splat for the range of the aircraft from my ADS-B receiver.

Loft Splat
Loft Splat

Now that I’ve been reading a bit more about this type of thing I can explain a little more. ADS-B is broadcast by many aircraft and they send this on 1090MHz. These are the signals I receive in the loft and can see on my Virtual Radar Server software. I also send these signals over the internet to a new “radar” website. The ADS-B signals contain bits of information about position and heading, these are sent to a server which can determine positions of other aircraft by using time differences between signals arriving, this is called MultiLateration or MLAT. My Pi is part of this network allowing Radar360 to “see” more aircraft than just ADS-B alone.

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Splat

Further to my previous communication about my virtual radar set I now have been investigating what can be done. I’m waiting for a Raspberry Pi and then I will be able to move the aerial unit higher in the house.

In the mean time, here is a “splat” of what I can “see” using the original aerial and no RPi.

Radar Splat
Radar Splat

Here’s a version zoomed in a little. I’m thinking of taking the unit to the Lake District soon!

Radar Splat
Radar Splat

The different colours represent aircraft at different altitudes. The higher the plane the further away it can be seen.

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ADS-B

I’m interested in aircraft. I don’t know why it started but it’s pretty much always been there. I grew up near Stansted airport and I can remember seeing the Space Shuttle visit in the early 80s, I saw the 747 and Shuttle circle around from the primary school playing field. When I studied art at secondary school every picture of mine contained an aircraft much to my teacher’s annoyance.

Nowadays it’s easy to see aircraft on the web. I have the planefinder app installed on my phone and often tweet when I spot an A380. I only really tweet the A380 as it’s massive and extremely beautiful.

My aircraft thing also meant I travelled to Stansted to see Air Force One take off a few months ago.

28000
28000

I wanted to find a way to see what military aircraft are doing in the skies and I found a website called 360Radar who have this information. The site isn’t open to public yet and I emailed to see if I could get a test account. They said yes.

I like the site. I like the filters and information that I can see. This site relies on people sharing their MLAT data with them and they will offer a free account if you share data. They have a great comprehensive guide to setting up a system that is currently here. I ordered a small aerial and it arrived today. Within about thirty minutes of getting to the computer I was running the data server and sending information to the network.

I have a USB aerial picking up 1090MHz signals from aircraft. I then have a small program running to collate that data and form it into useful data.

Screen Grab of MLAT
Screen Grab of ADS-B Signals

You can see that I am picking up an aircraft over Cherbourg which I think is quite impressive. All of my aircraft are south of my position because my aerial is placed in a south window. I will look into moving the aerial to a more central, higher position in the house so that I can pick up aircraft all over!

Here’s another screen grab of the output from my aerial.

Another ADS-B Map
Another ADS-B Map

How it works

Many aircraft broadcast position information on 1090 MHz. This information comes from the aircraft’s navigation system but does not require the pilot to be involved in the operation of the system. The position of the aircraft is determined by GPS. This output information is called Automatic Dependent Surveillance Broadcast. My little aerial picks this up and reads it. My computer then sends this information to a website which aggregates the information.

For aircraft that don’t output the ADS-B signal their position and direction can be known using multilateration [MLAT]. This involves two or more base stations and measuring the time difference between each station receiving a signal. It’s very clever!

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Not A Thing

I should have learnt by now. I really shouldn’t look. But sometimes it’s a handy way to kill twenty minutes. I glance over the headlines of the Daily Mail online to see what crap they are infecting the populous with these days. I saw this:

dailyfail2

Please click on the picture to read more if you want but trust me, it’s propaganda and mostly an advert for an online ancestry DNA company. It also doesn’t tell you anything about your own ancestry.

Up front I should tell you that I have big issues with nationality and pride in our country. I don’t even understand why being born somewhere makes you different to people born in other places. I don’t understand good old British values. For instance, Leonard Da Vinci was born in the Republic Of Florence, but we would describe him as Italian if we wanted to. So where you were born has no influence on the nations that will rise after you and claim you for themselves.

This Ancestry company takes a swab of your DNA and then compares common components of it with that taken from people around the world. This is bullshit. They compare your DNA with that of people living now in other countries to see what you share. That’s what you share now. In this time. Not what you share that’s from a common ancestor. It doesn’t tell you about your “racial” or “nationality” make up. It tells you that you have a common ancestor with people in another country.

EVERY modern European is descended from Charlemagne. Go back far enough and everyone has a common ancestor. Someone having children 2000 years ago has contributed to the DNA of virtually all Europeans.

There is no such thing as race. There is no such thing as nationality.

Now, let’s get to the headline.

Saxons

The Saxons are from Germany. Saxony. In Germany. Or rather in what is now Germany and wasn’t Germany for many many years.

Angles

The Angles were from what is modern Germany. It’s why we are called English. It’s why the French talk about Anglais.

So, there are no British people. Just people who happen to be born on the island of Britain at some point in time.

Fuck the Daily Mail.

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