Science – Page 15 – Fooyah

November 24 2016

Brooklands

This particular communication is very delayed. I went to Brooklands in between christmas and new year 2015. It was great. There are plenty of wonderful aircraft, some lovely cars and also motorbikes.

I didn’t take any photos of the planes, which is weird for me, but I did have my kids and so that probably stopped me being as free with a camera as I would have liked to be. I did take some shots of them in cockpits, but they don’t get published here.

I really want to talk about the stratospheric chamber!

The chamber is a “room” that will simulated the conditions at high altitude. This type of research was really important just after the Second World War. Fighters and jet planes were being designed to fly higher and fast and they needed to be tested safely under these conditions.

The Stratospheric Chamber looking like a Star Destroyer

It’s the largest in the world and quite fantastic to visit if you know what you are looking at. Just the idea and audacity of building something so large that can simulate those conditions. It is quite a remarkable piece of engineering and well worth seeing. I have a feeling it was only recently declassified and that makes it that much more interesting.

I would love to write loads of stuff here giving details and very interesting things but, unfortunately I don’t have the time at the moment. Also, as this is only eleven months late, I can’t remember the plaques around the design!!

November 21 2016November 21 2016

Broadband Move

At some point this year I decided to change my broadband supplier. The main reason was to get a higher bandwidth and then, with this bandwidth for viewing moving picture content I could get rid of the dirty money I pay to Murdoch’s media empire.

Over the years I have watched less sport on TV and much less “normal” TV. I am pretty sure I can live without those things. I do still watch Formula 1 races but I either watch them live on C4 or there are always sites that aggregate the streaming content. So I took the step to get rid of Sky TV and broadband and move over to BT Broadband and Netflix along with the NFL GamePass.

The audio-visual entertainment is now mostly Freesat which I don’t really watch, Netflix, Amazon Prime or catch up TV services. There’s enough content on all of these that I don’t have to record anything on a HDD or similar. I don’t miss live TV and although people at work seem to like talking about it I am happy not knowing who managed to operate an oven correctly.

My broadband service has moved over to BT and my village has FTC (fibre to cabinet) which means I get much improved bandwidth but without the need for cables into my house. As I live in a small village it would never really be economical for a cable company to connect the place up. So my internet traffic travels down copper from the cabinet in the village. I am getting a pretty decent 50Mbs which is far better than the 5Mbs I was getting before.

It is now possible to stream music services to all the rooms in my house and also video to the PC and TV while at the same time play games on one of the consoles. This is great news. I no longer have devices buffer or cut out while I am doing stuff elsewhere. The PC used to max out the bandwidth when uploading files to OneDrive and I never quite figured out how to limit that. Films I download take 5 minutes instead of over an hour. It’s a rather grand new world I inhabit.

I also have no money directly leaving me and heading to the evil media corporations. It wouldn’t surprise me if the Dirty Digger has shares in many companies and I still use them, but for direct contributions he gets none. I don’t pay anything to Sky and I most definitely do not pay any money to his newspapers (scum of the Earth).

I am currently watching a few series on Netflix:

Scorpion [terrible “spy” / “homeland” series]
Archer [brilliant spy series]
Black Mirror [brilliantly odd series]

I watch plenty of NFL and have seen all the Saints games so far. I do have to cope with american adverts but these are quite amusing and I can see how the ex-colony has dumbed down, although I see us heading that way very quickly at the moment.

I still have to finish Babylon 5.

I play the Playstation and I am so looking forward to the latest Gran Turismo version. I am quite disappointed that GT6 never really included all the features they said it would. I was hoping to record my own race tracks using an app on my phone, I guess I’ll just have to wait for that in a later full version of GT.

I am watching Haven on Amazon TV when I exercise on the erg.

I will NOT be watching the Grand Tour. Mostly because I don’t care for low key “acceptable” racism. I reached a point early on with Top Gear when I realised it was childish and silly. It coincided with a set piece on the “boys” camping in a caravan and setting it alight. So scripted, annoying and purile. I’ll give it a pass.

So, overall the broadband move went well. The new equipment / router is OK although I had to re-route the power cable for it. All the wired and wired connections seem to be generally OK. The router doesn’t seem to like me trying to set Static IPs for my devices so unless the device can request it, I let the DHCP do its job. I turned off the 5G channel as its range was quite restricted and a normal channel has enough bandwidth for the mobile devices in the house.

There are a few features of the router that are silly. Why do I want to control the lights on the front? What purpose does that serve? It’s just an extra layer of firmware that can go wrong. Every now and then the router blocks out the wireless devices for connecting. I first noticed this when my iPhone couldn’t join the network. This seemed strange and because the router claimed it was working fine I ended up resetting my iPhone wireless settings. This was not necessary as in the end I figured out it was something to do with the router. I don’t know what but turning off the wireless, rebooting the router and then turning the wireless back on seems to work.

I have a Raspberry Pi working away in the loft sending data to a Multilateration Client for aircraft ADSB signals. This is connected wirelessly and I also have a Dynamic DNS pointing to it. This way I can see what the Pi is recording and check the aircraft flying overhead. When the router needs to be reset the external IP is changed and the router automatically updates my DDNS, which is nice.

Overall, I am happy with the change. No Sky makes me feel superior. The series on Netflix aren’t really watched by others so that makes me feel more exclusive and the NFL is great in HD, streamed, on a big TV.

September 16 2016March 11 2017

Tracking

There’s nothing on at the cinema I want to see tonight so how about a picture of the aircraft I am currently tracking?

tracking

I don’t think it’s too bad. I’ve been working on port forwarding and things to try and see stuff outside my home network and it’s getting there.

This isn’t all the aircraft my receiver is getting signals from but it shows the aircraft with known positions, the ones that broadcast their GPS location.

September 11 2016October 13 2018

Micro Viewing

About a year ago a microscope came to be in my possession [legally] I might add. It needed a little work to make the light focusing platform to work properly but that was completed in July.

I also ordered some prepared slides with your standard introduction to looking at little things samples. It was pretty good looking through the microscope at these. What I want to do soon is get some blank slides and then cut stuff open to get my own samples for viewing. Here’s a photograph, taken through the view piece by placing the camera lens on top of the eye piece. I think it’s a photograph of a housefly leg.

I’m looking forward to seeing more of less of the world.

August 25 2016October 17 2017

Aerial

A short while ago my proper aerial turned up for the ADS-B system I have running in the loft. See this communication and this one also. This new aerial means I should have a better receiver based in the loft. It is currently picking up 47 aircraft flying within range and the Virtual Radar Server gives the following as a webpage output:

VRS3

There is a sidebar which connects to the web and gives me information about the selected aircraft and the others flying within range. This does not show all aircraft, only those with an ADS-B transponder. I also supply my data to a MLAT service for 360Radar.

The above photo shows the system in the loft. The white stick is a surround for the aerial. This connects to a dongle which connects to a Raspberry Pi3 and this, in turn, connects wirelessly to my home network.

I know you really want to know about the splat so here they are. Firstly one from before the new aerial.

Here’s the latest, all altitudes are in one colour.

splat4

The range is a bit better with two very odd pips into central France. The following is a colour one for you mammals out there.

splat5

The next thing is to try installing a purpose made ADS-B USB stick. After that I think I will stop. It appears to be one of those “who can get the best splat” things online and I’m not interested in taking part.

August 4 2016March 11 2017

NW-SE

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

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

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.

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].

August 3 2016October 17 2017

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.

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.

July 31 2016March 11 2017

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.

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

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

July 29 2016May 7 2021

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.

Spotted! 9M-MNF (MH3) using @planefinder https://t.co/eOkZ5aOMBe pic.twitter.com/3IQx0fcfaE

— Ian Parish (@iparish) July 12, 2016

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

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.

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!

July 8 2016October 13 2018

God Reaffirms His Commitment to the UK

Last night I had a few drinks at The Red Bull, a pub in my village. I say “my village” but really I mean the collection of dwellings in which I reside. The pub is nice, except it was expensive. I say “expensive” but I don’t really know, I don’t often drink in pubs although £8-50 for a wine and a bottle of beer seemed expensive.

Just as the sun was going down a very beautiful double bowed rainbow appeared in the east. It looked fantastic. I took some photos with my phone but they don’t really do it justice. I wish I’d had a better camera with me and time to play with the settings.

After a while it went weird. It looked as though the two rainbows had merged for form one large rainbow. I should point out it wasn’t raining and I couldn’t see any around so maybe it was cloud stuff or ice?

As I said, this picture doesn’t really do justice to it. The rainbow looked wonderful.

As for the west. It also looked truly wondrous.

The person I was with said that the rainbow was god’s covenant with Noah for the future of mankind. Well, that’s a nice little story. I’m not convinced he can do a great deal about the UK because we seem pretty much fucked.

I have seen that the titles for the last two posts seem a little like Daily Mail headlines and so I promise to change back to something more my style soon