The latest addition to the Lego box, 31029:
On Target
Just want to add a fooyah.net/wordpress communication to point out that this is a quality landing:
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.
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.
Lego 34 Model 42035
This is the first Technic Lego kit made. It’s a dumper truck and a very nice one at that!
I’m looking forward to watching many more like this be made!
Lego 33 Model 31049
Here’s a heavy lift helicopter made from Lego. Great fun watching it be made.
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.
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.
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!
Ratchet And Clank
Tool a trip to see Ratchet and Clank [The Movie] at Rochester Cineworld. I’m feeling somewhat let down by this film. Anyway, before looking at a Parish Rating you should read this communication about my rating system. As is custom I have also shared my rating using twitter.
I rated Ratchet & Clank (2016) 4/10 #IMDb https://t.co/gePLmk7V7W
— Ian Parish (@iparish) July 24, 2016
This film was a disappointment. Especially after playing the game quite a bit!
Ratchet & Clank™
These Go To Eleven(Silver) #PS4share https://t.co/3BEKhzroIP— Ian Parish (@iparish) June 17, 2016
The game is brilliant. It’s just about my level of intelligence and playability. I really liked “A Crack In Time” or whatever it was called and I thoroughly enjoy and love the latest game.
The game is based on the film which is based on the game. The problem is that the game is much much better than the film. I wouldn’t recommend any one to see the film. Such a shame really it could have been brilliant.
Lego 32 Model 76064
Second of the May collection. This is Spider Man and the Green Goblin about to do battle.
Lego 31 Model 75078
This is the first of the May collection of Lego sets. Four stormtroopers and their transport?
