Category: Toys

Posted on

Virtual Radar

A while back I wrote about setting up an ADS-B detector in the loft. There are six communications I think.

And this one makes seven.

What’s the point in having an ADS-B receiver if you aren’t going to use it when you are out of your house? So, I managed to set up some wizardry on parts of my home network and now I can see the display from outside the confines of my wireless network. I’ve done some port forwarding and other lovely stuff which is easy enough if you are adept at googling, which I am.

So, I now have a Virtual Radar Service for the area around my house that I can log in to from anywhere in the world. I did have to set up a Dynamic Domain Name Service for my modem as I am not lucky enough to have a fixed IP from my broadband supplier. My router even informs the DDNS service what its new IP is whenever it restarts and because this just seems to work it makes me happy.

I did have some minor issues with the radar service as it uses Google Maps to provide a nice background and because I was using this outside of my home network I needed an API key to make this work. That was reasonably easy to set up but then it turns out that Google recommend you secure the key to a particular site so that other people can’t use your key and steal your Maps data, which would then mean Google would charge me.

It took a little while to get the formatting of this securing correct but I think I finally managed it. I guess I’ll soon find out if Google send me a massive Google Maps API bill soon!

So, I can log in to my radar server from anywhere and view it on a desktop or mobile device. That way I can see what my home system sees. It doesn’t catch all planes because some won’t be broadcasting position, see the MLAT communication. Below is a picture of a browser with my radar server running.

Virtual Radar Server
Virtual Radar Server

If you want access I can allow it to you. Just let me know and I’ll arrange a login and password and also give you the URL.

Posted on

Weekend Musings

It was a weekend of many happenings. I usually try to keep weekend happenings to a minimum and then I can use all the spare time to see a film, exercise, mess around with technology of various forms and play the PlayStation.

This weekend was the end of my relationship with the Beast. But, it was also the start of my relationship with the Not-Beast, which has yet to be named.

Not The Beast
Not The Beast

There’re a lots of differences between a diesel turbo six speed manual and a petrol hybrid automatic! I will probably bore you with these over time so I won’t go into the detail here. My main current issue is that I don’t know how to hill start this car. Oh, and sometimes I forget to take the “handbrake” off because in this thing it’s a “parking brake” and operated by the left foot.

The new car isn’t named yet, but will be soon. Suggestions welcome to @iparish. This purchase does now mean that the only manual driving experience I will get is either the school minibuses [limited to 100kph] or my Playstation. I’ve upgrade to a six speed manual stick for the PS4. I had been pretty good at heel-and-toeing and matching engine revs to new gears when selected. Now I’m worried my left foot will whither away through lack of use in the new car.

I spent some time in Essex this weekend and I can never be sure if I feel like I am home or whether Kent is now my home. I’ve been down here mostly since 1996 and so while not all of my life it certainly consists of quite a bit of my life. I don’t think I identify as an Essex-boy any more, but I’m not sure I was to start with.

I had a very nice run along the A1060 while in Essex.

It was good until the last mile when my left knee decided it didn’t really want to run and all I could do was hobble along keeping that leg straight. While it continued to ache through the day it turns out that a day later the upper part of my right foot hurts a lot climbing stairs. It is quite possible that my body is starting to fall apart due to age and wear and tear.

While running I spent some time directly under the flight path for the approach to Stansted Airport and I have to say I stopped twice to watch the aircraft fly overhead. It’s a lovely sight. I’m not sure why I like planes but I do.

EGSS Approach
EGSS Approach

Since I got home I have learnt of an update to No Man’s Sky. I am looking forward to seeing what that is like. I really enjoy a good hour of time exploring planets. I’ve tweeted a few things from this game, it’s nicely relaxing [as long as you don’t die].

So I am currently waiting to decide a new name for the car and enjoying the knowledge that I should get 70mpg, because, you know, the planet is fucked.

Posted on

Obit – The Beast

There always comes a moment when it is time to retire a vehicle or sell it on. For me, it is time to retire The Beast. It’s a rather sad moment. The Passat and I have been a large number of places and I’ve had to spend quite a bit on surgery to keep it going safely.

The Beast Retires
The Beast Retires

While this technically wasn’t the first car I owned it was the first one I actually wanted to own. Before I needed to transport p>2 around I had always owned motorbikes. There was a temporary period in my life when I owned a Nissan Micra, this lasted about five months and I’d rather not talk about it.

The Beast arrived in my life in 2006. It already had 90,000 miles on the clock and I think it was used as a rep’s car. There were a couple of odd things about it where paint had been redone poorly and there was evidence that gave rise the to suspicion that it had had a small side impact at some point. Anyway, mechanically it was sound and had a nice “pull” to it.

See this communication for a discussion of repairs and general things Beast related.

The Beast has transported me to the following locations:

  • Hildesheim, Germany (twice)
  • Le Mans, Carrouge and the beaches of Normandy
  • Bordeaux
  • Liverpool
  • The Kingdom of Fife
  • Carlisle
  • The Lake District (four times)
  • Lincolnshire
  • The Midlands
  • Cornwall
  • The ‘Folks, Nor and Suf
  • London town many times
  • RAF Cranwell

It feels like a sad thing. Retiring this car. I’ve owned it for over ten years now. It’s seen me through many phases of my life. But it is now time to move on. To accept something newer.

The Beast In The Lake District (Honister Pass)
The Beast In The Lake District (Honister Pass)
The Beast from Moss Force
The Beast from Moss Force

I know I have a video from inside the Beast travelling around the Le Mans circuit in 2008. I will continue to look for it and post it below when I find it.

So after taking the total to 215,000 miles I will say: Sleep well, Beast.

The Beast At Glenridding
The Beast At Glenridding
Posted on

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.

Posted on

PSVR

On October the 13th the Playstation Virtual Reality headset was released and I had ordered a set. I wanted to experience an immersive game and be able to look around the world properly.

I was very excited although it took a little while to set this up as there was a new unit to be powered and cables. None of the cable work was onerous which was what a BBC report had suggested, in fact the BBC report was bollocks, very annoying. The reporter ended with the statement “I just wish it was wireless”. This in a device that needs power and two sets of HDMI cables for the screens. Anyway the experience was pretty good, the headset was comfortable and the headphones worked fine.

PSVR Headset in action
PSVR Headset in action

There was a mild sense of unease and sickness but I thought that would pass so I bought the game Drive Club VR. This downloaded and I was looking forward to driving around in the headset. I managed about 2 laps of a 3 lap race and the sickness hit me. Badly. I felt rough. Now this coincided with a bout of quite harsh cold so I decided to wait a couple of weeks and see how it affected me once I was better.

It was the same. I felt ill after about two laps. Now, I am quite susceptible to motion sickness; I don’t like ferries and aerobatics can make me incredibly ill but is always worth it. However, this time I knew I wouldn’t get any better at the PSVR and so I decided to get rid of it. There is no point me having this reasonably expensive piece of kit when I can use it minimally.

However, GT Sport will be released soon and my steering wheel set up isn’t PS4 compatible and so now I had some cash to buy a new wheel. There was only one to go for and that is the Logitech G29 with gear shift stick. It arrived today.

G29 and Stick Shift
G29 and Stick Shift

This took a short while to set up on the steering wheel system but was completed and then some GT6 played. The stick shift doesn’t work with GT6 but the flappy paddles were fine. There is quite a refined feel with this wheel.

I then connected it to the PS4 and played Drive Club and used the stick shift and clutch. That was good fun and I am looking forward to playing some more when my USB extension cable comes. The one connecting the wheel to the PS4 is a little short.

G29 Driving Force Wheel
G29 Driving Force Wheel
Posted on

On Target

Just want to add a fooyah.net/wordpress communication to point out that this is a quality landing:

nomanssky

I did share this from the PS4 to my Twitter feed but the much bigger audience here deserves to see this neat not-crash as well.

Posted on

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.

Microscope
Microscope

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.

Fly Legs
Fly Legs

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

Privacy Policy Proudly powered by WordPress