Ben Sutton

Google have released a new browser plugin that lets users enter virtual 3D rooms. As hard as I resist I can’t help but give it a try. Join me below – hopefully the embedded widget works:

FriendFeed is a useful way of bringing together many of the second generation web platforms. Once you are signed up you can provides the application with account names for popular sites such as Facebook, Twitter, del.icio.us and Digg, as well as blog feeds. With these details it provides an extremely useful service – it aggregates information provides by these sites. For example, if I comment on a post on Digg it will automatically sync the comment on my feed.

When you think of this in the context of a community it provides a common way of sharing information. Blog posts can be commented on from one site and Twitter comments can be followed up with a single click. Another useful feature is that you can create rooms for various interest groups, helping seperate information. For example, I created a radio room. Feel free to click through and have a look if your interested. Many people are using the site to follow conversations on Twitter – something hard to do with the Twitter alone. Well worth a look if you subscribe to many services and would like to bring them together.

Just a quick post to let people know what we’ve been working on the past few months. D-STAR is a digital voice and data protocol for amateur radio. Its Wikipedia page is fairly comprehensive. Its an enjoyable mode mainly due to the ease of communication with other people around the world.

During the past few months we have set up D-STAR repeaters in Folkestone and Ashford. I helped set up the gateways. The standard configuration of a gateway is to run Cent OS and the G2 software distributed by Icom. There are many aspects to experiment with including DPRS, a digital positioning system similar to APRS and low and high speed data communication. Both GB7FK and GB7DX are connected to the K5TIT worldwide network via their respective gateways. Activity on the repeaters can be viewed on their last heard page.

There are many other D-STAR repeaters on the air around the UK. I plan on writing a fair bit more on specific features of D-STAR – let me know if your interested. In the mean time, if your near a gateway and want to give me a shout I can be reached via M0TUX on GB7FK port B.

Just a quick note to say I have a few snaps of the damage caused by the earthquake in Folkestone today. I’ve uploaded them to my Flickr account. They mainly focus on the Blackbull Road area including Mead Road and Garden Road. I have the images in a much higher resolution – please drop me an email if you’d like copies.

For a technical writeup on the Earthquake have a look at the British Geological Survey website. The site shows seismograms of this tremor and where other quakes have taken place historically. If you felt the earthquake they are asking that you fill out a questionnaire.

My house has taken some damage but it could have been a lot worse. We had a chimney pot come down which landed in next doors garden. I can see daylight through a crack in the chimney stack and have lots of cracks in walls. In Garden Road there is a lot more visible damage with many chimney stacks completely destroyed and many fallen tiles. When you look at other events around the world it was a fairly minor event. But, its not something you see often in the UK and has left many people with homes declared unsafe. I won’t forget seeing all the confused and worried faces on the street at 8:20 this morning.

Due to popular demand I have created separate pages and feeds for each language that is currently used on Planet Ham. The front page and main feed contains all of the subscribed blogs. On the right hand side menu you will see a new section called ‘Languages’. From here you can click the links to read and subscribe to feeds written in your preferred language. If you or someone you know has a ham radio related blog please let them know about Planet Ham.

If you notice any glitches or have any further ideas for the site please let me know.

Brian, G3OJZ, has produced some excellent UK maps for UI-View and other APRS applications. We make good use of the APRS mode here in the south east of England with several repeaters/gateways and many users broadcasting their home and mobile positions. There are many fun applications (I usually get a text message when I pull into a McDonald’s car park) as well as more serious uses such as for emergency communications groups such as RAYNET. For more information about our local network and APRS in general visit the MB7USK’s website.

I’ve been neglecting Planet Ham a little lately as life as got a bit busier than usual. An email today triggered me to update the software behind Planet Ham to the latest version. This will fix some of the odder problems such as mangled Blogger blogs and images not appearing.

One question that has been raised is whether non-English feeds should be split off onto a separate page. I’m happy mske this alteration as the balance between non-English and English feeds is beginning to tip. Any ideas on how I could best acomplish this? For example, a page for English feeds and another for everything else, or a page for English feeds, Italian feeds, Russian feeds, etc? This is an issue I’m looking to address in the mythical Planet Ham 2.0, but, as my circumstances have changed, that could be some time off.

My current thought is to seperate into italy.planetham.com, etc. All ideas welcome! Please click through to my blog and comment away.

73s for now.

The UK Government has set up a website allowing people to submit ‘e-petitions’ for any cause they deem worthy. David Heathcote has created a petition requesting that the power limit for UK radio amatuers be increased from 400W to perhaps 1kW to bring it in line with some other countries. The reasoning suggested is that the limit to 400W makes it harder to compete in contests. This is an interesting suggestion. What would the ramifications be if this were to be allowed? Would it make life more difficult for those who stick to 50W and below? Would a raise in power cause interference in places 400W doesn’t?

The petition currently has 54 signatures. To the few petitions I have subscribed the Government has provided a response. It’ll be interesting to see how Ofcom reply to this.

Just a quick note to let you know that I’ve added the option to subscribe to Planet Ham’s feed by email. If you would like to try it out click on the Subscribe to Email link on the Planet’s right hand menu bar.  The service is provided by FeedBurner, so it should be reliable.  Please let me know if you have any more ideas for the site.

Planet Ham has recently celebrated its first birthday. In the space of a year the site has gained 25 contributers and according to Feed Burner 500 readers. In 2007 I’d like to see these numbers double, so that the site can become a key reference point for the daily happenings of the amateur radio community. Therefore, I ask that you mention Planet Ham in some way – perhaps a post on your blog or a paragraph in your club newsletter. If you know of anyone who might like to syndicate their blog, let me know.

Thank you to all that blog about amateur radio. For me its an insight into the projects and achievements of others around the world – another method of communication that forms our community.