Mail from the Packet Radio Network awaits.

One facet of ham radio that I find to be fun is working special event stations.

Special event stations may operate via voice, or morse code, or digital/computer modes, etc, but in each case they are only on the air at special dates and times. This means only a limited number of stations will be able to work the special event station during the event. Other stations the world over go on the hunt for these rarer ‘special event’ stations in hopes of making contact.

It’s a lot of fun and pretty rewarding to work at getting such a contact and finally managing to log the rare station in your logbook. There’s often even a special reward in it for you if you mange the task … a special QSL card or certificate to commemorate the contact.

It’s also a lot of fun to BE the special event station … to actually operate AS the special event station that everyone else wants to log a contact with.

Indianapolis is blessed with both a number of special events and an active and friendly ham radio community. Thanks to each, I’ve had the great opportunity (and privilege) to work as an operator for the W9IMS special event Amateur Radio station here in Indianapolis.

W9IMS is only on the air for a small number of days each year – surrounding each of the three big races here in Indianapolis: the Indy 500, the Brickyard 400, and the MotoGP. Indianapolis area licensed Amateur Radio Operators (“Hams”) like myself gather and operate the W9IMS station during these special events, and other hams all over the world tune in and attempt to contact W9IMS. Some of those wishing to make contact with W9IMS are race fans, some are just hunting for special event stations, and some just want to take part in all the fun. When a station contacts W9IMS they qualify for a special QSL card. There’s a unique card for each of the races that W9IMS is on the air for, and if a station manages to contact W9IMS for ALL THREE races in a given year there’s a special certificate they can receive.

It’s all a whole lot of fun.

Last weekend while operating the W9IMS “Brickyard 400″ special event, I managed to take a few recordings and decided I’d toss together a quick video to share a bit of that experience here. (Thanks to N9GSU for the still shots)

The voice operator of W9IMS you hear in this video is me (N9LTQ), and the morse code operator you hear is Pat (N2DKB).

• CQ = Radio shorthand for “Calling any station” – inviting any station to respond.
• “40“ (as in “CQ40″) or “40 meters” = The frequency ‘band’ in which I was operating.
• W9IMS = The callsign of the station I was operating.
• “Whisky Nine Indianapolis Motor Speedway” = A phonetic spelling of the station callsign (W9IMS). Radio contacts are often choppy, usually have some noise on top of them, and are known to fade in and out. You never know how well or how poorly you’re being received at any given moment … so giving phonetic spellings greatly assists receiving operators.
• 73 = Radio shorthand for “best wishes”.
• QRZ = Radio shorthand for “What station is calling?” – in the context used here, it’s an invitation for any additional stations who wish to contact me to call in now. (pronounced “Q-R-Zed”)
• QSL = Radio shorthand for “Do you copy me?” or “I copy you”. This is essentially “roger” or “acknowledged”
• “Delta Alpha Victor Echo” = Phonetic spelling of my name “Dave”.
• “5-5″, “5-6″, “5-9″, etc = These are signal reports in RST Format. “5-9″ is essentially a perfect reading.
• “+10” = A very strong signal report indicating reception at 10db over a 5-9 rating.
• “+20” = An extremely strong signal report indicating reception at 20db over a 5-9 rating.
• “30 over” = An extremely strong signal report indicating reception at 30db over a 5-9 rating.
• “fine business” = A commonly used phrase among ham radio operators that means “very good”.
• “hi hi” = A commonly used phrase among ham radio operators that indicates a joke. It’s essentially the radio slang version of a smilie face.

I’d like to offer this open letter response to that reply (which he certainly knew would be all over the internet once it was received).

Mr. Jobs,

> “Non issue”

It’s a PHONE which will, if you pick it up, drop the call! That’s an issue. Pretty big issue. (NOT just lose bars but keep working … drop the call. – Gigantic issue.)

> “Just avoid holding it in that way.”

This coming from the champion of “technology should be intuitive, and just work”!? Why do you think we loved the previous iPhones?

The statement that essentially says “all phones suffer this sort of issue” that apple is putting out is disingenuous and you know it. I can hold my 3GS naturally and it does NOT go to “no service”. You know perfectly well this issue isn’t just something that happens with all phones. It doesn’t – not even previous models of iPhones with the same OS standing in the same location. This problem is unique to the iPhone4 HARDWARE. My 3GS NEVER does this (which has the exact same software version) regardless of how I hold it.

But yet, you tell us that for this version of the iPhone to be able to make calls or access wifi (for more than a few seconds), we can’t hold it in the most natural and intuitive way? The way I can with any other cell phone out there (even any other version of iPhone). The way I (and just about everyone else) has always held a phone since … ever? The same way you held it on stage at the media event? (you knew there’d be photos of you holding it right?) … One wonders if it was really the bloggers and their wifi that caused you the networking issues you suffered on stage.

I dunno, Steve … this is all sounds like textbook “issue” to me.

I’m certainly not going to be upgrading to a new version of the iPhone … that can’t make calls if I so much as HOLD IT!

- Dave

First of all there’s a bit of noise … followers/friends that I cannot for the life of me remember how/why we know each other. Secondly I have some followers who, while I like them very much, I may not want following my status day to day. Lastly (and most importantly), the previous point has made me consider that there may be a small number of people I follow that for whatever reason I have now mentally put into the “didn’t really have a fair opt-in choice” as to my following them.

So, while I may unfollow some accounts I’m not interested in … be aware that If I unfollow you, this may not be the reason. I may simply have decided that you deserve a new ‘opt-in’ choice around me following your status day to day.

If I remove you as a follower please don’t take this personally and simply re-follow me if you are interested or shoot me a “WTF” email and I’ll (probably) re-add/un-block you.

Most importantly, if I stop following you – please don’t take this personally either – shoot me a “WTF” email and I’ll re-follow. And lastly, If I do un-follow you and then later send a new follow request – you are free to decline/ignore it.

Anyway, I may or may not get this done this weekend, but its a safe bet I’ll be doing some list pruning in the future. If these actions leaving you thinking “WTF”, just shoot me an email and it’ll all be made well again.

I found this photo on Flickr (I dont know the photographer), which includes me at the icom booth at the 2010 Dayton Hamvention.

Other than a few blurry cell phone camera shots, I neglected to take any photos at all while there … so it’s nice to see that there’s some proof I attended out there somewhere.

I found the following video on YouTube that I thought he might like. It’s a great old 1940′s news reel style film about Short Wave Radio operators (aka “hams”). The stories told within are presumably true of course … but done in that awesome cheesiness that was 1940-ish news reels.

I’m writing this post on my iPad as a matter of fact (while my desktop iTunes finally gets the latest updates applied). Blogging from my iPhone never really worked for me despite there being ‘an app for that’. Typing on the iPad however is indeed very nice. In landscape mode the keyboard is very very usable. I can totally see myself using this to blog, and work on longer documents.

This was one of the main reasons I wanted to go with the iPad over other readers I was considering. (I was already in the ereader market, but having one that could also let me work on word docs and blog etc was a killer feature for me)

Oooh my Mac is ready to sync up with the iPad and send my ebooks over to it – gotta run. I’ll blog more about this later.

I moved to Indianapolis just over two years ago now (time flies), and have since been living in a nice little apartment complex conveniently located close to both Fry’s Electronics and family. Next week, however, I’m scheduled to close on a house – and I’ve been packing in preparation for the move! It’s a nice little house with a nice little back yard – and perhaps most importantly, it remains … conveniently located close to both Fry’s Electronics and family.

The whole house-buying process has been (and continues to be) an interesting experience. I’m excited for the big day, but my mind is also swimming with all the many many things I have to do prior to and then just after closing. There’s all sorts of little logistical things to be done around the final paperwork and contractual milestones, not to mention working with my apartment complex to break my lease early (that’s gonna hurt). Then of course there’s all the change of address stuff that will have to be done, and more urgent matters like getting High-Speed-Internets ASAFP. Then of course all the fun stuff like painting and making the house “mine” begins.

And of course … there’s the packing. I hate packing. I also hate clutter (which is strange because I always seem to be surrounded by heaping chaotic piles of it wherever I go). So, in an effort to lessen both of these things in my life, I’ve been trying to “80/20 my life” while I pack for the move. To “80/20″ one’s life involves getting rid of the 80% of the ‘stuff’ one has but seldom uses (or even sees), and only keeping (and thus in my case packing) the 20% of ‘stuff’ that is actually relevant or meaningful to the person.

I have, through this process, confirmed my suspicion that I … have a sh**-ton of ‘stuff’ I should have just thrown away ages ago. I’m not kidding … the other day I opened a box that I’d just stored when I moved to Indianapolis (two years ago). As I opened it (having long since forgotten what was inside), I wondered how much of it I’d be willing to just toss out. I mean after all, I’d not even looked in this box for two years and I clearly wasn’t missing whatever it was that was inside. When I opened the box I realized … this wasn’t a box I packed when I moved from Chicago to Indianapolis. It was a box I’d packed when I moved in to my last Chicago apartment! I’d been carting around a box to be stored from one apartment to the next for YEARS … even though clearly I did not have any need or desire for whatever it was was inside. So I tossed it all.

I have been relentless but judicious in tossing things out. I’m amazed at how much I’ve just gotten rid of rather than packed up for the move. I wonder how long it will take me to re-clutter my life? (I’m putting the over/under at 3months)

Anyway … if all continues to go to plan, I’m moving at the end of the month. Once it’s all done and official like, I’ll post photos so stay tuned.

I offer no excuses.  I’ll provide no reasons.  I have plenty of reasons of course (I wont be so bold as to consider them ‘excuses’), but in the end they’re not important.  Those of you who have followed me over the years know that I go through periods where I just don’t want to blog … such is life as David Meade, I suppose.  Although this has been somewhat bothersome to me from time to time (in the ‘ah man, I gotta get back to blogging’ sense),  I never let it bother me too much – after all, it is in line with my usual stance that (on davidmeade.com anyway) blogging for the sake of blogging usually just does a disservice to everyone involved.

When I had something worth posting, I thought, that would inspire me to post again … and until then I’d spare everyone – myself included – the ‘words for words sake’ in their RSS feeds that arbitrary posting schedules can otherwise inspire.

That being said, this past drought has been particularly long … really long.

So long , as a matter of fact that when I finally got inspired to revamp my site design and move to a better hosting company I couldn’t stand seeing posts SO old on my new shiny site.  So I’ve altered the front page of DavidMeade.com to only show posts from the current … *ahem* … year, and relegated all the older stuff purely to the archives.

Don’t worry, (cause I know you would have), all the old stuff is still here, it’s just not on the front page anymore.  Use the Archive links and the search feature to find those old posts and videos you love oh so much.  If you can’t find something you’re looking for drop me a line and I’ll send you a link.

So here we are on a new shiny DavidMeade.com with one sparkling post on the front page.  Does this mean I’m back to posting regularly … perhaps … perhaps not.  All I can tell you right now, is I’ve felt more engaged in blogging and other ‘new media’ lately than I have been in a while.  Not quite back to the degree I was at when I was traveling the country to attend this conference, or that get-together … but that’s ok.  It is what it is.

Also, I’ve been researching various (unrelated) things lately that have increasingly commanded my interest over the past few years and that may inspire a blog post here or there … or it may not.

In any case, I thought it was about time I blew the dust of the mic, and gave a shout out on the interwebs again … it’s been a long long time.

It’s good to be back.

It let’s you publish new posts and manage existing posts of your wordpress blog (both wordpress.com as well as self hosted blogs). It looks pretty good, and I’m actually using it now to create this post. Having an easy to use way to blog in my pocket may actually get me to blog more often (mobile safari is great but trying to use the wordpress admin pages in it is just too painful IMHO).

Naturally you can post photos you have taken on your iPhone (or that you have syncd to your iPhone) so that makes mobile photoblogging pretty nice (now of there were just an official flickr app for the iPhone).

Check it out at: http://iphone.wordpress.org

Formats available: Flash Video (.flv) Quicktime/iPod (.mp4)

Music: “Seven Oceans” by MiNiMaL_aRT on ccmixter

The page shown in this screencast can be found at: http://mefeedia.com/videobloggingweek2008

Formats available: Flash Video (.flv) Quicktime/iPod (.mp4)

Formats available: Flash Video (.flv) Quicktime/iPod (.mp4)

Vloggers Seen in this video:

• Susan (aka KityKity)
• Eric (aka Unholy Knight)
• Halcyon

Filmed by:

• Heath Parks (ala The Batman Geek)

Formats available: Flash Video (.flv) Quicktime/iPod (.mp4)

Formats available: Flash Video (.flv) Quicktime/iPod (.mp4)

Vloggers Seen in this video:

• Susan (aka KityKity)
• Eric (aka Unholy Knight)
• Heath Parks (ala The Batman Geek)
• Irina Slutsky
• John Holden

Music: “Let your Body” by furkosbot on ccmixter

Formats available: Flash Video (.flv) Quicktime/iPod (.mp4)

So, its a good idea for publishers to make sure their Syndication Feed URL is easy to find on their website.

Sometimes a publisher gets lucky enough to have more than himself and his best friend as a subscriber, and watches with glee as he gets more and more and more subscribers over time.

But what happens if the publisher wants to start using a different blogging software, or changes some 3rd party services, or perhaps even just starts using a different set of core-plug-ins and in doing so ends up changing his syndication feed URLs? Does he lose all of those original subscribers? Do all of his original subscribers have to unsubscribe from the old URL and then resubscribe to the new one?

Thankfully, no. With a little planning the publisher can make sure he never has to lose or inconvenience a subscriber just because his source syndication feed URL has changed.

I was recently asked how a publisher might move subscribers from one subscription feed to another without actually asking them to unsubscribe from one URL and then resubscribe at another. The following are my tips on how to set up “publisher friendly” feed URLs. By “publisher friendly” I mean the publisher is now free to do whatever he wants with his blogging software or source feed …. secure in the knowledge he wont lose or inconvenience his subscribers.

This post is a bit long and may be a bit scary, but don’t worry … there are only six steps. I’ve tried to include alot of explanation behind the steps so that you can really understand what is happening, but don’t let the added words here scare you away …. it’s pretty simple.

1. Give your subscribers a feed URL that never changes – no matter what you do on the back-end of your site.
2. Move any existing subscribers over to this “permanent” URL, transparently – no inconvenience to your subscribers.

To accomplish the first goal you have two choices.

1. Use a service like feedburner and just publish the feedburner URL.
2. Create a URL at your own domain such as http://mydomain.com/feed

Option 1 is easier because it doesn’t require that you have the ability to edit your .htaccess file, but it does require you always use feedburner. (i.e. you can’t later switch services without having to readdress this issue again) …. So if you have the ability to edit your .htaccess file, option 2 is ideal. Lets assume you want to use option 2.

Step 1) Find your BLOG-GENERATED FEED URL.

Step 2) Decide if you want to use feedburner (or similar service), and if so use the BLOG-GENERATED FEED URL when creating the FEEDBURNER URL.

NOTE: From now on, when I mention “SOURCE FEED” I mean either a) the FEEDBURNER URL (if you are using feedburner or a similar service) or b) your BLOG-GENERATED FEED URL (if you aren’t using Feedburner or a similar service).

So with that in mind, lets assume for the sake of these instructions that your SOURCE FEED is http://feeds.feedburner.com/MYSOURCEFEED (Be sure to replace this URL with your actual SOURCE FEED URL in any of the instructions below)

Step 3) Now lets pick the FEED URL that you will actually publish to your visitors/subscribers. Pick a URL at your own domain that doesn’t already exist. This is the URL you will publish as your FEED URL, and its only purpose is to redirect (behind the scenes) subscribers to the SOURCE FEED where all the data actually is. Lets assume the FEED URL you chose is http://www.mydomain.com/feed. (It’s the /feed portion that we want our server to redirect to the SOURCE FEED, and we’ll use that portion in our examples/code below.)

(Has Step 3 confused you? Check out this clarification of Step 3)

Goal #1: Give your subscribers a feed URL that never changes.

Step 4) Now all you have to do in order to accomplish Goal #1 is redirect your FEED URL to your SOURCE FEED. The advantage to doing this is that if the location of your SOURCE FEED ever changes, you can just update the redirect, and your subscribers are none-the-wiser. To accomplish the redirect, you’ll need to edit the .htaccess file for your website. (If you’re having problems finding the .htaccess file, try a different FTP / File manager program – the .htaccess may be ‘invisible’ in the listing your application provides)

Add the following lines to your .htaccess file (above any other redirect rules or <IfModule> blocks that are already in the file):

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^feed/?$ http://feeds.feedburner.com/MYSOURCEFEED [QSA,L]
</IfModule>

Goal #1 is now accomplished!

That was easy wasn’t it!? You can now send any new subscribers to your newly created FEED URL (http://www.mydomain.com/feed) and they will actually be subscribing to your SOURCE FEED (http://feeds.feedburner.com/MYSOURCEFEED). As described before, you can alter the redirect at anytime in the future should your SOURCE FEED URL change … and your subscribers will automatically move with you. Nice.

Goal #2: Moving existing subscribers from an old feed URL to the new one you just set up.

Step 5) First things first, determine what your OLD FEED URL is. Lets suppose it was something like http://mydomain.com/archives/feed.xml. Notice it’s the “archives/feed.xml” part of the OLD FEED URL that defines the file we want to redirect … so lets call this last part the OLD FEED PATH. We’ll only need to reference the OLD FEED PATH (archives/feed.xml) in the .htaccess rule we’re about to write.

Step 6) Now, lets provide a redirect for your OLD FEED to your new FEED URL. We do this just like we did with the last redirect we wrote – by modifying the .htaccess file.

We’re going to use a slightly modified rewrite rule this time however because we want this redirect to report a “permanent” redirect so that smart feed readers will automatically move over to the new url from now on (don’t worry the dumb feed readers will just keep asking for the old one and just keep getting redirected to the new one each time).

To accomplish this redirect, add the following line to the code you just added to the .htaccess file – just above the </IfModule> line.

RewriteRule ^archives/feed.xml$ /feed [R=301,L]

Done and Done! Goals 1 and 2 have now been accomplished.

The overall changes to your .htaccess file should look like this:

<IfModule mod_rewrite.c>
RewriteEngine On
RewriteBase /
RewriteRule ^feed/?$ http://feeds.feedburner.com/MYSOURCEFEED [QSA,L]
RewriteRule ^archives/feed.xml$ /feed [R=301,L]
</IfModule>

And you’ll want to put these lines above any other rewrite rules or <IfModule> blocks you already have in the .htaccess file.

• Your old/existing subscribers will be seamlessly redirected to your new FEED URL (http://mydomain.com/feed) the next time they request the OLD FEED URL (http://mydomain.com/archives/feed.xml)
• New subscribers will start off requesting your new FEED URL (http://mydomain.com/feed)
• So, now ALL of them are asking for your new FEED URL (http://mydomain.com/feed) … which is redirected to your SOURCE FEED

Now, you can change just about anything you like. You can change the source of feedburner, or even drop feedburner all together in the future and your subscribers never have to change their FEED URL. You just simply alter the redirection in your .htaccess file to what you want – and your users wont know the difference.

As an added bonus, you’ve just cheaply and easily ‘branded’ your feed URL with your domain name (instead of feedburners).

Extra Credit:
For extra credit you may want to update your blogs theme or styles to publish your new FEED URL both in the content of your pages as well as in the auto-discovery links in the page headers.

I’m sitting at my brother’s PC in his office in his house … which is a great accomplishment given the course this morning was on only about an hour ago.  I suppose I should start at the beginning … last night …

I came over last night as planned so that I could spend the night and babysit my nephew Ethan in the morning.  Doug had to catch an early morning flight and Jana wouldn’t be home from work until about 8am.  So my job was simple: babysit Ethan in the morning.

I went to bed just after midnight or so – an improvement from the 2am that was the norm for this week – so that I wouldn’t be too out of it should Ethan get up really early.  Unfortunately I woke up at 1:30am-ish with a KILLER headache.  It was really bad, I thought sure it was the start of a migraine (which I haven’t had to endure in quite some time actually) but some pain killers and about and hour or so of misery seemed to do away with it mostly.  I got back to sleep sometime just after 3am.

At 5:15 or so Doug came in and woke me up.  He needed to be out the door to the airport but my car was  blocking him.   Half asleep I get my keys and go out to move my car, and Doug waves as he passes me on his way to the airport.

I – still half asleep – get out of my car and turn back to the house … and realize that Doug had closed the garage door as he left.  This was a nightmare I had lived before .  I had no keys to the house and the only unlocked door was behind the garage door he just closed (and I had no opener for).   This was even worse than the last time however, because this time there was my nephew in the house all alone.  I reached for my phone, but of course didn’t have it … I didn’t even have shoes.  I was out in the dark of night – the world asleep; and I had no way into the house, I had no phone, and my nephew was all alone in there.  Doug couldn’t be more than a few blocks away, but without a cell phone I couldn’t call him to get him to turn around.

In reality Ethan wasn’t in any immediate danger or anything – he was sound asleep in his bed a matter of meters away – but I couldn’t get to him and I was the one now in charge of him.  If anything had happened to him or the house I would have been helpless – unable to get to him.  I absolutely freaked out.  Maybe too much so … but I have to think it was understandable.

I ran around the house through the muddy grass and over the rough wet pavement looking for something – anything – I could use to break down a door or through the glass patio door.

This time, all of this wasn’t as comical as the last time I got locked out of the house … I was really freaking out about not being able to get to Ethan.

I broke something – I’m not even sure what it was – pounding it against the patio door trying to break the glass.  Whatever it was – despite seeming to be a large, heavy, and solid thing in the dark – shattered into a million pieces on the third or fourth hit cutting up my hand – but leaving the patio door intact.

I grabbed a plastic and metal grill scraper from the grill and started pounding the business end of it into the glass over and over again – no use  (Damn those patio doors are tough – who knew).

I ran around to the front of the house again – seriously freaking out.  I had no key, couldn’t manage to break the patio door glass, and I didn’t even have a phone … what was I going to do?!  I had my car but I couldn’t actually drive away from the house and leave Ethan, I just couldn’t do it.  Besides I have no landline phone at my place so its not like I could have gone home to call Doug even if I was willing to drive away from the house (and I wasn’t).

I ran across the street to wake up one of Doug’s neighbors to use their phone.  If there was another option at this point I didn’t see it.  I chose the family right across the street as I know they have several children and thought they might be the most sympathetic to a panicked and largely inexperienced guardian suddenly unable to get to the child.

I rang the doorbell and their dogs went crazy.  Eventually the owner came to the door, and I surely had a look of desperation or panic upon me.  I wonder if he noticed the small amount of blood on my sleeping attire.  I tried to calmly explain that I was locked out – and failed.  He interrupted to try and make sense of what I was saying “So you need to get back in?”.

“Yes his baby is in there and I’m watching him!”

“Ok ok let me get you a phone” he said.  He got me a cordless phone and I called Doug’s number.   No answer.   I called again.  No answer.  I finally realized I’d been calling his house number rather than his cell phone number … but I couldn’t remember his cell phone number (I usually just hit his name in my contacts list on my cell phone and hit “home” or “cell” – and I couldn’t for the life of me remember his actual cell number).  I don’t know Jana’s cell phone number by heart, and so I had to call (and wake up) my Dad in order to get Doug’s cell phone number (geeze).

A few calls later, I ‘d reached Doug and – trying not sound as guilty and panicked as I felt – told him “You closed the garage door I cant get back in and Ethan’s in there.”  Doug of course remembers the last time I got locked out of his house, and knew I wasn’t going to be able to get in unless he or Jana (or someone with a key/garage door opener) came to let me in.

Doug (now nearly at the airport) said I should call Ted (my older brother who would be much closer to me than Doug or Jana) as he should have a spare key – but I reminded him I didn’t have my phone or my address book, and I was standing on his neighbors porch using his portable.  “OK” he said, he’d call Ted and I was to call him back in 5 minutes.  Knowing that I would forget his cell phone number again, (and not wanting to keep the kind neighbor up while I nervously bled on his cold wet porch), I again reminded him I was at his neighbors house.

So Doug finally let me off the hook and said he or Ted would be back at his house shortly and I just had to wait for whoever it was.

I handed the phone to the neighbor, thanked him, and sat in my car waiting.   I still wasn’t what you’d call calm … I wasn’t sure how long it was going to be, really.

Thankfully, only a few minutes later, Ted showed up with a spare key and all was well.

There are shards of something broken on the deck, and I have a few band-aids on … but I’m inside and as I type this (now just past 7am) I hear Ethan is starting to wake up.

When Doug gets home I’m going to force him to program his garage door opener into my car’s garage door button, and take him to a hardware store to get a copy of his keys.

I’m gonna have to send that neighbor a thank you card.