That didn't last long. I just rebuilt my radio shack again after just a couple of days of withdrawal symptoms.

Oh well, at least I got my computer to drive all my loco's, so when I do eventually build a railway I'll hit thee ground running hi..  Desk looks a bit neater than last time.  Not all radio's on, just  1 scanner and 3 receivers at the moment. The DX-394 is monitoring for ssstv using the loop. The PCR-1000 is being driven by  HRD on one computer and the Dongle is on another using SDR Console.  4 computers/screens and the Watson weather centre liven's the desk up nicely.. Just as well I didn't take any antenna's down.

Well that's it, I finally made my mind up to take a break from radio all together. Been at it since the late fifties, but it just doesn't seem to do it for me any more. Seems I'm just firing up the shack out of habit now and invariably just sitting about waiting for the odd sstv pics to appear.  Figure it's time to get away form it completely for a bit at least.  Maybe if I had serious money to spend I would get some enthusiasm with new kit of some sort, but the days of being able to splash out hundreds of pounds seem to be a thing of the past and we do seem to talking 'hundreds' whatever the kit.  A pension just does not cut it and all credit cards were destroyed on retirement.

Anyway, yesterday I packed all the gear away and decided to play with my model railway stuff that I had collected in the past when I was erm....flush hi instead.  I'm still not sure whether to devote the whole room to a layout though, so meantime I'm experimenting with computer and infra red control on the desk.  I have Hornby Railmaster software set up on the note book and already I'm successfully controlling loco's through E=Link interface.  I've tried my Bachman infra-red contoller, which also works ok.  I also have the option of a Digitrax controller (Also works) and associated units.

I think I prefer the latter in use, but the beauty of Ralmaster is I can program the loco's to operate a sequence of events, of which I'm going to experiment this afternoon.   If I had a bigger room I think there would be no question. Build a layout and goodbye radio once and for all.  However, my shack is not suitable for such a big decision as that, so it's stand back and assess the situation time.

I'll leave the radio pages on line for the time being. Maybe something of use to someone out there. Never know I might get back into it one day anyway.  Meantime it's 73 to all my reader hi.

Brian

qsstv finally in action

Perusing the mag's in Smith's, as I do every morning. I noticed a new one Linux edition that included a disc of four variation of Ubuntu to try, live or install.  Oh well, I thought, in for a penny.  Another six quid on the off chance I get qsstv working right.

Anyway, I initially chose Kubuntu, and it installed no problem. Very nice desk-top too. I'll keep this one on the notebook, regardless.  I downloaded qsst 8.2.7 and it's dependencies, and installed it without problem.

Testing it meant waiting all afternoon and evening until stations who were eventually out there, were strong enough with me.  I began to receive Hybrid images, but initially on EasyPal only. The third did appear on qsstv, and also managed to upload it to my page. Some success at least.  Haven't a clue why I didn't get the first two on qsstv, but force uploaded them from EasyPal.

Either the image id signal was not strong enough for qsstv to register, or maybe my sound card not up to the job. Will have another go at using my Akai usb job today. Still getting used to the Kubutu way of configuring stuff.

Had one of my senior moments the other day. Bit expensive, this one. Managed to blow up my 300 quid Sattelit 750 receiver.  Moral..Never take it for granted everything in the shack runs off 12 volts *groan*

Dragged said receiver off the sub's bench and automatically grabbed one of my trailing 12 volt leads and plugged it in.  Smell of burning. oops!, too late. Display goes mental.  Looks at input voltage on set. 6 volts. Bugger!.  Took set apart and found burnt out tranny/ic ?..   No way I'm going to repair that. I can't even tell what it is, let alone read any values of course.  This flaming surface mounted stuff really gets up my nose.  Absolutely no chance of repairing stuff like that. Means a complete new board.  They call it progress.

In the sixties I could have whipped out the offending component and soldered a replacement in, no probs.
Now it's goodbye 300 quid. Put it down to experience. Or the lack of it lol.

To tell you the truth, If I had the room I would give up all thee brain damage and expense that this hobby seems to incur more and more in my old age and switch to my back-up of model railways.  However, for the moment at least, I don't. Therefore it's keep taking the tablets.

'This time next year Rodney, I'll be a train driver' lol.

Been trying to run qsstv the last few days, but at the end of the day  it just doesn't want to play ball

Just doesn't make sense.  Last evening I received a Hybrid on both qsstv and EasyPal. EasyPal having ftp enabled, did the business. The next Hybrid received appeared on qsstv, but not on EasyPal ? However, qssstv, since ftp enabled,  did not upload pic to my page.  After that Ubuntu gave an error message  'Sorry Ubuntu has an internal problem' and qsstv promptly disappeared.  Nice!.  Is it worth the agg I thought to myself   ••  .  Nope!. Time I called it a day.  MMSSTV and EasyPal only from now on, pic wise  
Today I'm back to good old reliable jt65-hf to repair the brain damage hi.. Here's a screenshot anyway of qsstv, when it did eventually  manage to download a Hybrid .