Reading (For Dummies)

GMFSK on a Modern Linux Distro

Last weekend was the Amateur Radio Relay League's annual Field Day celebration. I took part, for the first time in my life. It was quite nifty -- Ron Schwartz (N7CE, and one of the executive-folks at my little company), Dan Ransom (K7MM, and ditto...he's another guy that has been with Schweitzer pretty much since day one), Joe (missing his callsign, he's another SEL fellow) and myself took shifts at a couple of radios in Ron's shack.

Dan was nice enough to set up laptops with logging software and automated whizbangery that made the radios sing, or speak, or go 'tweedle deedle', depending upon whether we were running morse code, voice, or a data mode. It wasn't a great year due to sunspots, but we collectively racked up about 200 contacts, which ain't too shabby for two radios.

Now that I'm hopefully moving into a house, I'm pondering putting up a few nice wire dipoles to play around on HF. It was certainly nice to get a little tutorial on how things are done from folks in the know.

I purchased a Signalink USB sound card a few months ago hoping to tinker with some of this stuff. The Signalink has made a nice sound card for my new linux box in the meantime, since the Creative Labs X-Fi sound card that I bought has no linux support...

I finally loaded up some rtty software on said linux box, in the form of GMFSK. I'm running Ubuntu 8.04, though, which uses ALSA for sound. GMFSK and just about every other ham program I've played with for linux depends upon the OSS interface to sound cards. Some of the ham softmodem packages included with ubuntu are even pre-OSS, which makes me wonder how the packages keep getting included.

I started tinkering with aoss but did not have luck. Strangely, my system already had a /dev/dsp1 on it (/dev/dspX is the format that OSS uses for sound devices). I don't know two shakes about how sound works under Linux anymore, but it seems to me from reading a bit that OSS only allows one program to talk to a sound device at a time. It seems that the Ubuntu install wraps OSS in ALSA? That is, ALSA uses OSS as its sound output device. ALSA is able to let lots of program use it for sound, so if ALSA gains exclusive access to the OSS sound device at login, it can share it accordingly (but only with programs that use ALSA). A program that uses OSS will be out of luck for output, as ALSA doesn't seem to let go of the sound output device by default. Keep in mind that this is pure speculation on my part, but experimentally my explanation makes sense.

I found that if I log in to Ubuntu, let it play its little "Ubuntu login theme," and then unplug the USB sound card and plug it back in, I get the best of both worlds: ALSA suddenly plays nice and opens the OSS device when needed, closing it when finished. My sound card's name changes, though, from /dev/dsp1 to /dev/dsp. And, of course, if an OSS program has the sound card open, ALSA is unable to play any sound (backing up my suspicion).

Anyway, my point to all of this is that if you are using a Signalink adapter on Ubuntu 8.04, try unplugging the adapter and then plugging it back in (do this after you log in). You should then be able to 'ls /dev/dsp*' to find the device name of your sound card, and set it accordingly in your RTTY program of choice.

Good luck, and happy hamming...

AT&T's Latest Ad a Sick Joke

AT&T has struck a new low with their latest ad for the "Online Liberation Movement."

Nothing to hide from a company that illegally wiretaps its customers...

At least they concede that she has a little to hide, although they'll be happy to violate her rights anyway...

June Showers

Today was one of those unusual days that deserves a post just because it is where yesterday wasn't. I woke up a little later than usual due to (finally) overcast skies that kept the sun from shining in my face. I looked outside without my glasses on, and thought it was raining. I put my glasses on and realized it was snowing. In June.

When I got to work a few minutes later, a co-worker wondered if my apartment was okay. Apparently the apartment building across the street from me was on fire. Could it be the Pullman arsonist again?

Four baby coyotes. The mother lurks nearby.

At work, another co-worker managed to snap a gem of a photo demonstrating just what it is that I love about this place. There was a minor work stoppage as we gathered around the office windows to watch the pups playing in the snow. There is a fairly active pack of coyotes in Pullman. Last summer, I often fell asleep to their howling and yipping -- a beautiful sound that gives the area a bit of a wild edge.

Big Water Blowout

Brian, Laura (not my girlfriend, but a different Laura) and myself planned a little outing to Riggins, Idaho. This year marked their 10th annual Big Water Blowout. We were all jonesing for a raft trip, and this year promised to be something amazing.

Brian called around a bit beforehand, wanting to be sure that some rafting company would rent us wetsuits. The river temperature was about 46 degrees, with a flow rate of 46,000 cubic feet per second. In a word: awesome.

The Salmon River through Riggins is pretty neat. Laura and I went kayaking there when the flow was about 25,000 cfs. At that rate, getting in the river in town provides the most enjoyment. At this higher rate, we get bussed upriver and paddle back to town.

I'm up front in the blue helmet, with the intense expression on my face...

Our guide was a seasoned hoot. He felt us out a little through our first set of big waves (Ruby Rapids). We were all relaxed enough, so he decided to take us through a really big wave called the Haystack about 1/3 of the way down our run.

Watch the carnage here...

We flipped, obviously. Going for a swim in such cold water, even with a wetsuit, was breathtaking. Quite literally. I plunged down through a few big standing waves and had quite a hard time breathing. I also swallowed a lot of water. For a few moments, I pondered whether the trip was a good idea, and hoped that my life vest would provide enough buoyancy to get a solid breath of air. Once it had, I still couldn't get a solid breath -- the briskness of the water made it a bit difficult to do more than gasp. After two failed attempts at paddle retrieval, I called it lost and swam for the boat.

The rest of the run was pretty uneventful. We all shivered ourselves back to warmth, made it back to the rafting company, and drank a fair amount of Talisker to warm up. I would heartily recommend Exodus rafting company to anyone. They're a riot! Hopefully I get to go rafting again with Laura the Girlfriend when she is back on the Left Coast.

Life Challenges

I just successfully navigated one of life's most insane challenges: I bought a house. Well, not quite, but it seems pretty likely to happen.

Laura and I have been househunting since December or so. We're going to be here for a while, and thought it would be a good idea to buy a little place, fix it up some, and sell it when (hopefully) the housing market improves somewhat. It may not work out that way, one can never tell these things, but we're both pretty excited about the chance. The transient nature of our lives has, I think, left us wanting a little more.

Laura and I are, I suppose, de facto married now. We are boycotting marriage, however. The day that my Best Friend From College is allowed to marry/civil union the man of his choosing and enjoy the legal/tax/etc benefits that straight folk are allowed, is the day that we, too, will partake of those same legal benefits.

I did the whole offer-inspection-remedy gambit on the house, and am quite pleased with the structural soundness, neighborhood features, et cetera. We settled on a price very quickly, and both myself and the seller seem happy with things. I've even secured a loan at a reasonable rate (thoughts are way up since this process started). All we have left is to settle. Let the adventure begin.

Of course, if you're a friend and are ever in the area, the house has four bedrooms and a spare bath. You are more welcome to drop in...

Blood Pressure Rising

Speechless

This photo (warning, graphic content) makes me want to simultaneously scream, throw up, and kill the driver. I'm almost glad that flickr took the series down -- photos in the set included two of poor Alejandro Alvarez of Texas, who was dead on impact with drunk driver Jesse Campos also of Texas. The accident happened in Mexico. From the sound of it, the Mexican police car swerved out of the way of the oncoming drunk. About the only thing I could say to the officer would be, "Grow some balls and put a little faith in your airbags and crumple zones." Alas...

I've been bicycling here in the Palouse a ton lately. Thankfully, we have a nice bicycling lane from Pullman to Moscow that is separated from the road by Paradise Creek -- which would make it rather difficult for a driver to get to the bicyclists. Gah, though. I'm going to jab my eyes out now, take a shot of whiskey, and ride in a Critical Mass...