Nokia 6600 Stuff

I have just found a couple of programs for my Nokia 6600 mobile. One is a must have and the other is the Useful type.

The Must Have is a Keyboard Lock. You can download it from http://koti.phnet.fi/jarilaak/software/jjlkeylock.html. You need to start the program each time you restart the phone, but the software just sits there in the background waiting for the phone to be left inactive for a while.

The second program is not quite a must have, unless you have important SMS messages on your phone. This program saves the messages onto the Notepad in the phone. This is good if you want to keep certain messages forever. You can download it from http://koti.phnet.fi/jarilaak/software/msgsaver.html

Killing a process in VB.NET

I spent some time today searching form information on how to kill a process using VB.NET. I was surprised that this was harder than I thought it would be. Mainly because the information does not seem to be documented very well.

Eventually I found some minor links which suggested some help words for searching in the VB.NET help file. There is a data type called PROCESS which can hold information about processes. In a networked environment you can play with processes on other computers. Since I am dealing with a local machine, things are easier.

The code works by getting all the processes on the local machine into an array, and then checking each of them to see if the process name is what we want. If it is we KILL the process.

Normally you would not use KILL since it does not shut things down properly. In my case I do not care since I know that there is an issue because I have already attempted to kill off the process by stopping the service.

So here is the code.

Dim local As Process() = Process.GetProcesses
Dim i As Integer
For i = 0 To local.Length - 1
Debug.WriteLine(local(i).ProcessName)
If Strings.UCase(local(i).ProcessName) = Strings.UCase("ProcessName") Then
local(i).Kill()
TextBox1.Text = "Found process and Killed Process"
End If
Next

Quietness

OK, I admit it. I have been a bit quiet for the last few weeks. I have had a lot on my mind. A huge ammount in fact. I will not go into the details here right now, but I can assure you that my personal diary is now busting at the seams. Not that anyone will ever get to read it, but it is there.

And what I have been thinking about will become public at some stage soon. Probably. We will see.

Managed DirectX Programming

I am starting to get up to speed with what I have to do to get sound sampled. The only problem is that now I am getting an error message - "Exception Details: System.InvalidOperationException: The operation is not valid due to the current state of the object."

I have not yet been able to work out what is happening. The code at the moment is

Private Sub WaitThread()
Dim capturePos As Integer
Dim readPos As Integer
Dim buf(Notifysize) As Int16

While threadon = True
NotificationEvent.WaitOne(Timeout.Infinite, True)

capturebuffer.GetCurrentPosition(capturePos, readPos)
buf = capturebuffer.Read(readPos, buf.GetType, LockFlag.None, Notifysize)
Debug.WriteLine(Now)
End While

End Sub

Not all I need to do is find out why it is not working.

Managed DirectX

OK. So here I am trying to do a rush job. I need to do some cute work with DirectX in VB.NET. Rushed because I need to write the code - someone else was going to but has not been able to. So here I am trying to write it, and write it under a deadline. Only now I have another distraction. Actually I have a few, but one main one.

Anyway I am now trying to learn DirectX, but not the graphics, but the sound part. Seems that most people are interested in graphics, and not the sound side. When they are interested in sound, it is getting sounds out of the computer in 5.1 surround sound. It is too bad if you actually want to get sound from a microphone.

There is also the problem that 'Managed' DirectX is fairly new. Microsoft have documentation everywhere that states in large friendly RED letters that "This is preliminary documentation and is subject to change.".

Things are a learning curve. The documentation assumes that you know what you are wanting to do, and are just reading the documentation because someone told you it was a good idea. Oh, and do you think they mention VB in the examples. Not at all...

ABBA... A Confession

I was on the phone yesterday and I commented to a friend "Yes, that is ABBA in the background". And his comment was something along the lines of "I was about to ask that".

My music collection is somewhat extensive by any stretch of the imagination. You could listen to the collection for over 16 days and not hear the same song again. That is a lot of music. But there are some holes. Yesterday I plugged one of the holes.

You see, ABBA was missing from my collection. I saw a copy of "ABBA: The Definitive Collection" for sale yesterday and picked it up. Cool. There are some other holes in my collection...
Lou Reed - Perfect Day
Beatles
The Seekers - The carnival is over [And also We Are Australian]
Take me away (into the night) - 4 Strings [I do have it on DVD]
Wild World - Cat Stevens
Tori Amos - Strange Little Girls [Cool album]
Neil Young

Mobile Phone Bill

I got my mobile bill for the time I was away. I was impressed. Call charges were only $100 for the month. Sure, I was not using the phone much, but it was rather nice to be that cheap. That also included WiFi access in Singapore.

Also the bill concluded just after I got on the phone in Singapore on my way home. How convenient.

Codes...

In another life I think I could have been a cryptographer. But in this one I really do not have the paitience to do that sort of thing. Case in point. A business partner has been wanting me to do some work decoding the data on a recording. He has been at me for weeks to do this - and it has been hard because I have been out of the country.

Anyway in the last few days I have managed to look at the data, searching for patterns. The first thing was to look at the recorded audio. It took some time to work out the format of the data. Normally the trick is to do filtering, low, high or band pass, and see what happens. In this case that did not work well. Part of the reason was that the two main frequencies were strongly related. Argh.

Looking more at the data - just staring at it I realised that there was structure. I realized that what I had thought might have been different bit lengths was an identical bit length. Phase one complete.

Now, processing the data became more fun. I now knew how each state was represented. I just had to guess what was 1 and what was 0. It didn't really matter to me which was which right now. The analysis was still the same. So I started decoding the data by hand. Turning my mind inside and out did not seem to work. Was it errors in my decoding or was it strange data?

So I wrote a small program to decode the data. Still no form. I had been thinking an 8 bit code. Then a 7 bit code. But I was never quite sure. Something was kicking me saying that there was something wrong. It did not appear until I pasted the stream all together in a row into Wordpad. And the Automatic Word Wrap was turned on. It just so happened that some data lined up in columns, and was constant. One column would be constant. Eight would change and then the next three contained constant data. And then the sequence copied itself.

Travel Diary - To Singapore and Home

Checking in at Rome was strange. The woman found it strange that I had a ticket to London, and then a separate one to Singapore. Once she realized that it was because of ticket types and schedule problems she was able to check my bags through. Until then it was going to be an issue.

Rome is an airport that seems to be locked in the dark ages. It has machines to wrap your baggage in plastic wrap. This is despite the fact that it is probably the latest country in ‘western’ Europe to have a terrorist incident – although to be fair it was an attempt to blow up their prime minister, Belisconi, so probably 75% of the population would be supporting the terrorists.

Arriving in London Heathrow I found the transfer system intelligent. International arrivals transferring from one of the EU flights get shunted into an area with a security check, and then a chance to check in to get a boarding pass. You then take a bus to the right terminal. Very quick and civilized. The security people even let a child see his Teddy Bear on the X-Ray machine.

Flying from London we flew back over several interesting places. We came went about 100km south of Kiev, and then flew over Afghanistan. We also flew about 100km south of Kandaha I think it was. I tried to get the pilot to make a short detour for sight seeing and refueling, but he did not take me up on the offer

I found this flight a whole lot better than the one from Rome to Italy. Part of that was that I fell asleep for a few minutes during taxi-ing before taking off, but I think the pilot was better, and most of the flight was over land. As an example the landing at Singapore was the best I felt for a while. I was impressed.

Changi Airport impressed me too. There was no-one in front of me in the lane I chose to go through passport control. Very quick. Then my bags came off the carousel about 2 minutes after I arrived there. And there was no delay getting out with any sort of customs issues.
I am not sure how much sleep I got on the journey, but it was not enough. I think I slept maybe two hours on the plan, and the flight got in about 1AM Rome time, and I had woken up at 4AM. One long day.

I have worked out how you can tell you have been on too many flights and have had too little sleep. Basically if you feel that the world is spinning in time with turbulence, God is probably telling me that it is a good time for a sleep.

My hotel is next to probably my idea of heaven… It is a shopping centre called “The IT Shopping Center”, and is about double the size of the MLC Center shopping centre in Sydney. It also has food and some other stores, including a decent Christian bookstore. And did I mention that there is wireless access there too.

Well, the wireless access is supposed to be free. There are at least 10 access points set up there. Most are private for the shops. The one provided by the centre for free does not actually work, so I need to use the SingTel access point. This comes out about $8 per hour. This is not cheap but the connection is fast, and you can pay that much for dialup with a roaming account. And I know of a whole lot more expensive internet access methods.

Sunday I did a bit of walking around in the morning. Firstly down to Chinatown, and this is what I expected. More of the Singapore of old. I went back to my room about 11:00 to have a shower before checking out. This was essential considering I had been walking and Singapore is on the equator.

Then I went to the Suntec Shopping center and found the local Cinema. They proudly pronounce that they have Digital projectors. So I decided to see the only movie that was in English and suited my timeslot – A Cinderella Story starring Hillary Duff. This was not a bad movie. I think I would see it again. Strangely the cinema assigns seats even though it was less than 25% full.

I could tell that either the projectors were not digital or they were scanned from the edit marks. In a film there are marks – circles- on the film in the top left corner when they need to change reels. I learned about this on the TV show Columbo. Anyway, films that are delivered on film are delivered on many reels and are edited into one. Digital films are usually delivered through satellite or some other digital form.

But this movie had the crop marks. Worse, it had grease pencil markings just after the edit point. So easy to fix. And so much of an indicator that it was not a digital feed.
Following the movie I decided to visit another shop that I had not been to before – “The Rock”. Turns out it is a christian bookstore. Wow. I am impressed. I seriously thought about buying a teddy bear. This one was on it’s knees praying. Wow. They had the complete collection of Hillsong CD’s and DVD’s there it would appear. And a lot of Sermons on tape. Eh?

Going out the other door I found out that this is actually attached to a church here in the center of Singapore. Although I seriously considered it, I declined to attend the service. Things would have been too tight with my schedule. Besides they had a sign up saying that priority to get inside is given to first time attendees. This is a sure sign that maybe they need all the seats that they can get

Anyway after some more window shopping I got my lift to the airport. Checkin was strange. It must be the only place in the world where there is one queue per checkin lane. Anyway I did not even need to wait so it must work. The woman also put priority stickers on my bags which she should not have. I did not complain

Changi is a nice airport. They have a movie area, life music, free internet, shops open 24/7, and even a special hotel inside immigration called the “Transit Hotel” where you can book a room by the hour. No, not for that. To sleep and have a shower. They have thought about things. I was concerned about security as only about 1% of the people were x-rayed before going through immigration, but then I found that there were also x-rays at each gate.
Qantas Club beats the world in Singapore too. The showers are fantastic, particularly when you have been out in the Singapore heat all day. And they have attendants to clean the rooms between use. Wow.

The flight home was quick. We got in at 5:05AM, and then I was straight though immigration, collected my bags quickly, and then went though customs without issue. The slowest thing was waiting 20 minutes for my train. Cest La Vie.

You know that you need to clean your wallet when there are notes in four different currencies, and receipts in five currencies. And when none of them are for the country you are actually in.
Anyway this is being written on my way from the airport on the train. I am looking forward to being home, but have enjoyed my time away. In closing I will just quote Dido…

Two weeks away, feels like the whole world should have changed

But I’m Home Now. And things still look the same

How True...

Travel Diary - Visiting Rome

Last Night (Wednesday Night) I got my tour of the center of Rome. I was really impressed, and I finally see the attraction of this place. I don’t know that I would want to live here but even so it is an interesting place to visit.

Rome was described as being like rings of a tree. As you get closer to the center, the buildings get older and older. But like a tree there are spots of newer activity in spots and radiating outwards – just like branches.

Getting nearer the center the roads got narrower which really surprised me. I didn’t think that they could. I was lucky. The vehicle I was in was allowed to travel in Taxi lanes giving us the ability to bypass traffic at times.

What I did not realize was that Rome consists of seven hills. When they built the city walls they enclosed the seven hills. Could it be that “Seven Hills” In Sydney is named after the seven hills of Rome. Also what I did not realize was that The Vatican is actually built on Vatican Hill.
I found it a bit strange when we managed to drive through the wall of the old city. The arches are large enough for cars to drive through, and are strong enough to cope with the occasional car crash I guess.

Much of the roads of Rome are actually cobble stone – either on the classic semicircle pattern or more of a grid. This looks fantastic, and ancient, but I am told that it gets more interesting when it rains. It is also a huge effort to maintain. These days they put in a layer of concrete, and then lay the stones on this. No quick resurfacing of the roads here. It takes a while…
At one stage we went past where the first emperor of Rome lived – a guy called Romulus. My guide had a good laugh when I had to inform him that I thought that Romulus was only the planet in Star Trek where the Romulans live.

The tour started with some of the hills of Rome. The hills provide amazing lookouts over the city. The view is spectacular. Unfortunately the view is better in the morning rather than the evening thanks to the fact that the lookouts point towards the setting sun.
Around this time we saw a famous fountain. The idea is that when you come to Rome you throw a coin over your shoulder into the fountain to ensure that you come back. Whilst I visited, my driver double parked his car, and therefore needed to stay with it.


We then visited the tomb of the emperors. This was a mound of brick with a moat. At the time it was built the moat was actually ground level. The level of the city has risen 2-3 meters since then. This did not look all that impressive thanks to theft by the rich and the Christians to build other buildings.

My guide also told me about a court house built nearby recently (2-300 years ago) where the architect decided to use roman building techniques with huge blocks. He did not realize about the weight of the blocks, and the four story building became 2.5 stories, and has been sinking ever since. Recently the government has been putting a lot of money into improving the foundations as it has been sinking.

We then went to what is now a huge square. It was a huge stadium seating 300,000 people. I believe that the guide said that they used to have naval events in the center when they flooded the area. The infrastructure must have been amazing there. Like everywhere in Rome, there are a lots of fountains, statues and churches in the area.

Next we made our way to the square in front of what I believe is Capitoline Hill. My Italian is not what it used to be… actually it is better. Anyway this area is a HUGE round-about. What makes it more interesting is that there are traffic islands in the middle, and no lane markings. If you look at chaos in the dictionary, I think you will find a picture of this. Such a weird design does allow some advantages though. We were able to stop in the middle without interrupting traffic one bit.

What made this stop important was the building in front – with a balcony. This is THE balcony where Mussolini used to give his speeches to the crowd below. About this point I found out more about the person. It seems that much of what remains of ancient Rome exists because he recognized the value of things. Sure he did some bad things, but not everything he did was bad.

[Having said that, you might want to ask a local what they feel about a 10KM commute that takes 1-2 hours because new roads cannot be built quickly because of the roman monuments.]

Then I went to the Capitoline Hill. In classic roman architecture there is a huge step of stairs leading up to a church just on the side of the hill. I am told that the stairs are actually the seats from the coliseum. The stairs just seem to go on. Next to it is an urban redevelopment project on the top of the hill that Leonardo Da Vinci was commissioned to work on.

Like most good projects he was not given the budget to do the project properly so he cheated. Instead of building new buildings, he just built facades around the existing buildings. But this was not a case of simply. He cheated all the time on this project. Firstly, for the stairs leading up, he only used about ¼ of the stairs he should have, and used a ramp between the steps. This creates the optical illusion of not being as many stairs.

Then the square at the top has geometric patterns on it. It is assumed that the patterns are circles, but are in fact ovals creating a strange perspective. The buildings are not built straight up, but come in to further increase the sense of size.

In the centre of the courtyard is the top of a brass stake. This is the centre of Rome. When it is said that all roads lead to Rome, they all lead to this stake.

I was instructed to take a path to the side of two of the buildings, and meet my driver at the bottom of the path. What he did not say was that I would see so much more on the other side. You see behind this building are roman ruins that were uncovered by mousilini when he was in power. So many important buildings are here, one of the most important being the Roman Senate,. I was really blown away.

My driver then picked me up and took me past Constantine’s arch, and the coliseum. This took us under a roman aqua duct that still took pride of place in the city. The Coliseum really is a marvel of modern engineering. It is so large. Looked at from above it really is amazing.
I then walked up close and personal, touching it and the like. Unlike Constantine’s Arch nearby you were actually able to touch some of it. Wow, the history. This whole area had cobble stones, like much of Rome.

At one stage my driver took my down some back streets. They were actually back streets. I would have called them paths. They were about the size of walkways in housing estates. Things are so tight that the people flip in both their side mirrors in order to get as close to the wall as they can. I believe that 10cm is the acceptable distance from the wall. Driving a car down these streets appears fun.

They are so tight that they appear to be a dead end at the end, but might be a right angle or a T intersection. What is more fun is the occasional restaurant with outdoor dining. Diners are suggested that they do not lean back on their chairs, as they are likely to come into contact with a car.

Onwards and upwards we then decided to cross the Tiber river to the western side where I was able to visit the eighth country I had every been in. That was the Holy See, commonly known as The Vatican. Nothing can prepare you for St Paul’s. Not being a Catholic, I had not recently seen a photo of the place, so I really was not expecting anything.

And I was certainly impressed. St Paul’s is on the top of Vatican Hill, meaning that as you look up the road leading to it, you are struck by the scale. Some of this is real, and some is an optical illusion.

St Paul’s is fronted by a huge square. Well it is actually a circle, but it is a square. The front quarter of the circumference to the square is open. The far side is bordered by St Peters. And the right hand side is bordered by the Papal Apartments. Apart from that, the square is surrounded by a double row of huge columns connected with a roof. To top the effect off, large chandeliers light the columns.

Once again the area is entirely cobble stones. Also in the square is a statue of St Peter, and from memory also an Obelisk. Since this is an area that is very popular for open-air services, the area in front of St Paul’s contains a roped off area for chairs. I guess this is for invited guests. Off to one side is a ‘box’ that is obviously a video screen attempting to look innocuous. Many of the pillars around the edge also contain speakers allowing those without the good seats to participate.

I would have loved to visited the Papal Museum, but I did not get a chance on this trip. Hopefully on my next one too. Then I would also get a chance to see inside St Paul’s and also The Sistine Chapel.

I asked about what happens when the current pope dies. Apparently he is entitled to be buried in the Vatican, but that is his choice. What I was more interested in was the voting for the new one. I was told that this was commonly done in the Sistine Chapel. By commonly done, I mean it has been done that way for about 500 years or so. But there are rumors that the next time it may be done somewhere else – I did not hear why but I suspect that it might be so that the faithful could still access the Sistine chapel.

For the uninitiated, the cardinals are locked up to come to a decision on the new pope. They get to vote once a day, and spend the rest of the time praying and talking. No one is allowed in or out. Food is delivered but that is all. Once the decision is made the voting slips are burned creating a special colored smoke indicating that there is a new Bishop of Rome [The actual post].

On leaving the Holy Sea, it was time for dinner. My host took me back into the center of town and after a while we found a parking spot. The driver seemed to be an expert at reversing the car – able to drive it as well in reverse as forward. I was impressed. In searching for a spot we went down some streets that would have been hard enough for me to drive down myself. He was able to reverse out of them.

Once we found a spot we found that the restaurant was actually closed. The owner apparently was just recovering from an operation we found out later. But to get there we needed to walk from the car, and passed a few police officers obviously on special duty. The sub machine guns were a tiny bit of a give away.

My host then took me somewhere else – I have no idea where it was. When the menu came I was told “there is no need for that if you trust me’, which I did. We ended up having Bresheta, a platter of meat and rock melon, anchovies and a Pizza. All were really nice.
At one stage a woman in hospital blues comes in and collects some food. When she leaves I comment that there must be a hospital nearby. He said yes, it was called (I believe) St Lukes, and was opened in 1525. I was impressed.

Following dinner it was about time for me to get some sleep so my driver took me back to my hotel. He then needed to drive about 30 minutes further south towards Naples.
Thursday I did not have much to do, so once I grabbed my email I was offered the chance to go back into Rome. Nicola and his girlfriend took me shopping – and I finally got a chance to see the Rome traffic up close and personal. It was not too bad, really. But this was not peak hour either.

They took me to a district near the Vatican, and it was really interesting to see all the different clothes and other things on display. I actually found what I was after just outside the walls to the Vatican – some souvenir shops. Following shopping I did some more work at the office meeting with some of my clients clients. Not much more to say about this.

Travel Diary - More Italy

I was trying to decide if I needed something for dinner. So I went down to the front desk to ask about Internet access. Dialup is the only option. Argh. Wireless routers are cheap these days, even in Italy… And almost in passing I asked where the restraunt was, and I was told that it was closed on the weekends. He offered to call me a taxi to go to a local pizzeria, which I declined.

OK, So I am passing the chance to eat one of the five major food groups [Pizza]. But I did not have any cash on me, and I would prefer to explore during daylight. [Now that I have seen the place, I am glad I did not venture out. I would have died of fright]

Monday morning now and I have just had breakfast. I suspect that apart from the Coffee, the breakfast is more French than Italian, with the main fare being croissants. Not that I am complaining, it is just that I never viewed that as being an Italian staple food.

The hotel has Muzak piped throughout many of the public areas. OK, so it is not really Muzak but that is the impression that I get of it. During breakfast it mostly had people speaking in what I assume is Italian, until a Lionel Ritchie song came on, followed by a new version of the classic Bob Dylan song “Knockin’ on Heavens Door”.

Thinking more about the hotel I would call this place non-classical Italian architecture. Apparently it is not normal to have carpets in hotel rooms. But there is a huge amount of marble and similar stone in the hotel. If only they had a hotel directory, and Internet Access.
News this morning is that Alitalia have agreements with the unions, so in all likelihood I will be able to fly home starting Friday. Italy is certainly not what I expected. I am glad that I do not have to live here. I cannot believe the traffic... It is just chaotic.

The best way to describe things? Well, imagine the worst rude traffic behavior you can imagine. The sort that causes road rage. The type of road rage where the judge lets the aggressive person off because the person was so inconsiderate. Well, that type of driving is accepted driving practice here. Not just accepted but required. Without a toot of a horn.
Tee intersections are considered to be places where traffic merges. I could not believe it.
I have a new love for Sydney traffic. I just love it so much... I am staying in a hotel on the eastern side of the city, just near the ring road, near the road to Tivoli.

So today I spent most of the day in an office in a residential district under a house built just after the war without permits on land gifted by the pope to people from his home district in the south of Italy. Lunch was at a café with luke warm Lasagna with vegetables, and dinner was at a restraunt and consisted of Pizza... Italian Pizza is different – they just put slabs of the topping on the Pizza…

The café reminded me of a milkbar in some country town but with more people, and without all the normal milkbar foods.

On the way home from the restraunt, my host needed to stop off to buy himself some cigarettes. Anyway he purchased them from a vending machine outside a supermarket. Next to a condom vending machine. I am not sure yet if this is exactly what I expected, or exactly what I didn’t expect. Hard to tell.

Overnight I had a few phone calls to deal with… The first two were very important and expected so I left the ringer on so the phone rang at 12:30AM. Fortunately the person who rang thought that it was only 10:30 PM. After those calls I turned the ringer off, since I wanted to know if I got a call and I was awake. So I got a call at 4:30AM, and I must have been very lightly sleeping since the sound of the phone vibrate motor woke me. Then another call at 7:00 AM and another at 8:10AM. This is the busiest my phone has been for a while.

The call at 4:30AM basically started “Hi, It’s Tom Here… Where are you?”. He worked out I was not in Oz since the phone had a different ring to it, and knew I was somewhere in Europe from that but was not quite sure where.

Italian Coffee is nice but takes some getting used to. It is served in glasses about the size of whiskey shot glasses, and is rather concentrated. Sugar is not an option since it is so concentrated. It takes some getting used to – since coffee is a diuretic – meaning that it causes you to loose fluid. And when I normally drink coffee I reduce my other fluid intake accordingly. But you cannot do that with Italian coffee, and must drink more fluids to compensate. Strangely you cannot get a regular cup of coffee most places, except on Alitalia. There you cannot get a cup of the concentrated stuff.

Lunch Tuesday was salami from the local market with Philadelphia cream cheese on a roll. This was really nice. The best way to describe the shop was a bit larger than the Corner Store of old. Maybe about the size of a convenience store, but without the modern show fittings, and the brutal fluorescent lighting.

Simpson’s Fans will be impressed to know that Italy has copied one of the strange ideas from one of the episodes. There is an episode that has Homer Simpson as the head of the Stone Cutters. Homer is told the ‘Real’ emergency number is 912, and not 911. Seems that Italy has two numbers – 112 and 113 I think.

The 112 number is for the calibari, or the military police. 113 is for the normal police. But it is not that easy. Not all places have the 113 police, but all have the 112 police. The 112 police have military discipline, and are likely to greet you before arresting you. The 113 are more likely to arrest you before asking a question, and will then proceed to steal your wallet. Well, maybe not, buy you get the general idea. Another way to think of it is that 112 keeps Order, and 113 keeps the Law.

Last night I was due to go into the centre of Rome for some sighting, but thanks to a number of things, not the least was traffic gridlock we put it off until this afternoon. My host has arranged a ‘Personal Guide’ to show me around Rome, in a large black Mercedes. I kid you not. I should note that the guide is his brother-in-law, but still.

One of the problems was that my host needed to take someone to an underground. This was a 2-3 Km trip each way, and ended up taking about an hour. Unfortunately this is not uncommon. It was so bad that he rang saying he was one KM from the office on his way back, and estimated it would take 10-15 minutes since the traffic was improving. He was right.

The person was actually an Italian Military Officer who had come from Florence to meet with me, and hear what I had to say. At one stage my host and he were having a conversation discussing things in Italian, being used to more quickly exchange ideas. And they were only speaking in Italian. What was bizarre was that I interrupted and said something like ‘No, what I was saying was…’. And you need to remember I basically know zero Italian, but thanks to body language and the occasional word that I did understand I worked out what they were saying.

This morning I saw the weather report for Australia. It is “Mostly Fine” which is an interesting report given the size of the country. I am just wondering if they describe Australians as “Mostly Harmless”. If you don’t know what I am talking about there, then you need to re-read “The Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy”.

Last night I had dinner in the hotel restaurant. For starters I had a platter of thinly sliced meat, on top of rock melon. I think the meat was some type of smoked port. Main course was a pasta dish. Not sure exactly what it was, but it was nice. Followed by tiramisu. Very nice.
There are cultural differences in hotels here. In the USA if you go to a restaurant, you will be asked to sign the bill after your meal, and asked if you want to leave a tip. In Italy, they do not even show you the bill after the meal if you are adding the meal to your room bill.

Yesterday at the office we were talking about the various movies. I suggested “Looking for Alibrandi” which of course is an Australian film about a 17 year old schoolgirl, of Italian heritage. They had never heard of it, even though it had been released in Italy. Part of the problem was that it had been renamed for the Italian marker, to the equivalent of “Three Generations”.

Oh, and in my honor, one of the guys in the office came to work wearing his Wallaby’s jersey, signed by David Campese. This was fine until I pointed out to everyone that this was normally work in Oz in Winter. And the temperature yesterday was in the mid to high 20’s.

Travel Diary - To Italy

I have finally worked out where I neglected to go in London – The British Library. I forgot that they often have cool stuff. Next time.

The same next time when I go to Bletchley Park. Turns out that the person who picked me up to go to the funeral had worked there at one stage too.

Also, and please don’t laugh at this – At the London Science Museum, there was a computer based test to determine if you are male or female. Mostly with shape and colour tests. Anyway I took this test and got 5 out of 5. Saying that I am a female. And I really was trying.

Terminal Two – Heathrow.
This airport will never cease to amaze. No wireless access as far as I can tell anywhere. Very Strange. I would have thought that a modern airport would have wireless everywhere. But not Heathrow. Then again who said Heathrow was a modern airport. But then again it is not as bad as Washington Dulles. There they have spaces for payphones where it looks as if the payphones have been ripped out by a thief leaving bare wires – but this was in the secure zone.
In London, I have finally seen a bigger road. The A4 from London to the airport is often three lanes each way. I think this is the widest road in Brittain. I am not sure what the road toll is in Brittain, but whatever it is, it should be worse. I cannot believe how the people drive, and I have yet to see a single accident.

The roads are not wide, and seem to really be a rabbit’s warren. You need to know where you need to go, and need to be aggressive with turns. Yet no accidents. I have seen so many occasions where the vehicle missed another vehicle on the side by inches.

But having written that I am now in Italy, and I feel that the Italian drivers are worse. They also stop in strange places and then do weird things. I think I would be happier closing my eyes than traveling with them opened. Thankfully I was in a vehicle with air bags and a seat belt, meaning that I would most likely survive any crash. It also helps that the guy driving me was appeared a better driver than most on the road – he would actually use his indicators. With all this, very few Italians actually wear a seat belt. So Strange.

Flying to Italy, I had my first experience with an Airbus plane – an A321. I must say that I am impressed although I have definite reservations about the avionics. I have no real problems with the airframe, just the avionics. In fact I think the A321 is quieter than most similar planes, and is quite comfortable. [If you want to ask my why I don’t like these planes, I will send you a report on one incident.]

The Alitalia plane is what I imagine a plane would be if it was decorated by the NSW Department of Education. The floor carpeting and the seats have that brilliant green color popular in schools. The headrests are the most comfortable I have every felt. The armrests were about 5-6 inches wide and seem to be leather.

I believe that there was a video program on board. There was certainly something on ceiling mount LCD panels, but there was no instruction that said that I could listen to it on my own headphones. Then again I did not have an inflight magazine so that might have been what I missed.

I was surprised flying in. I thought I needed to fly in over the Mediterranean. Actually the route is almost purely south-east, and apart from the English channel is all over land.
The best way to describe Leonardo Da Vinci (FCO) airport is to compare it to Orlando. Very similar thanks to the train from the outlying terminal. Having said that it is MUCH smaller.
On getting to Passport control I went into one of the lines for non-EU people. The person before me needed about 3-4 minutes. When he saw my Australian passport he stamped it without even looking at it further, or doing any data entry. I am sure that I could have got into the country with a woman’s Australian passport.

Baggage collection was a bit slow but it could have been FAR worse. Maybe 15 minutes after I got off the plane I picked up my bags. And they were among the first off. Alitalia refuses to believe that I can earn Qantas Frequent Flyer points on an Alitalia flight. The speedy bags may be compensation for them being wrong.

I was picked up at the airport by Nicola and his girlfriend Michol. They took me to lunch/dinner by the ocean near the airport. As far as I could work out by looking at the map this was Bastianelli al Molo restraunt on the northern inlet to the Tiber River. There were lots of fishing boats moored on the river. The restaurant had what I would call classical al fresco dining, with a beautiful view of The Mediterranean.

The food was apparently up-market, and I have no doubt that it was. To start we had a seafood platter which I tried – although it mainly included calamari. There was some white fish there, as well as some orange prawns which were not too bad.

More enjoyable was the main course which was spaghetti with some prawns – which was quite nice. I had the option of having it also with clams which I declined. Following the main meal we all had a desert platter. This was really nice, although I have no idea what I had.
Nicola then took my to the Hotel. This is a nice place called Hotel Degli Imperatori on the Tivoli side of the city just inside the ring road. This is really modern with lots of what is probably Italian styling. Low voltage down lights. Well layed out. Most everything you would expect.

Well, except for a hotel directory in any language that is. They expect you to know what services are available. Internet will probably need to be dialup. It never ceases to amaze me that hotels do not offer internet access in this day and age.

On checking in they needed my passport. This is a requirement in Italy for some reason, so I was expecting it. Still it is strange. They returned it the next day.

One thing I do need to point out. The front desk had clocks for various international cities. The Sydney clock was off by an hour. I suspect that they had the version with Daylight Saving.
As you might expect there is not much in English available on the TV. Right now on the TV is what I believe is the movie Kate and Leopold, staring Meg Ryan. Not much use with me watching it though since it is dubbed in Italian.

Which brings up another issue – language. I am starting to pick up the occasional word… It is hard to work out which words I know – it is much easier for me to read Italian than to hear it – with reading I can generally understand the meaning. Not bad since I do not know the language at all. I think my vocab at the moment is
Si, Bambino, Arivaderchi, Bonjourno, Ciao, Sinester

Italian TV never ceases to amaze me. They just advertised a Philips CT scanner. I am sure that this is something that every house needs. Seriously if I was given one I am sure I could find a use for it, but not for what they charge for one [They can be used to basically do a 3D scan of a physical object… which is sometimes useful]

[Now a few hours later there is another travesty on Italian TV – StarTrek ‘Enterprise’ is on in Italian. Or should I say mostly Italian as some of the sound effects have voices in them. Some TV should only ever be in the original language. Enterprise is like that. So is ‘Life is Beautiful’ – although the original language for it is of course Italian. They also killed the closing credits, playing about 1 ½ seconds of the theme song before about a second of the translation credits before the adverts started]

Travel Diary - London

Thursday morning I visited the National Science Museum. This required me to take The Tube. This was an experience. Buying the ticket – a Daypass for sections 1 and 2 – was easy and only #4.30. What was strange was the life to get to the platform. I found out later it is about 30 meters down, or about 7-8 stories down.

There was a train there as soon as I arrived. But like normal the train was comfortably full. And unlike Sydney trains, the trains were small. They were more like an aircraft body, the type where there are 2-3 seats on each side. On the 2nd station a guy at the door I was at got out, put up his hand and yelled “Unattended Bag”.

Security seems to be the reason for this – out of concern for bombs and the like. Immediately a station assistant came, and the guy collected the bad – presumably since the woman who owned it had turned up. Then things continued as normal.

When I arrived at the station things were just as you would expect with a subway. There was a little walk to get to the museum. Once the museum opened I had a good chance to look around.

I was actually disappointed with comments on many of the space exhibition about how things were reproductions. They had a lunar lander that was a copy, and not a good one. [OK, so all landers are preproductions, but the Smithsonian at least has the authentic units that were made as a backup]. There was also a Sputnic reproduction. I was very unimpressed.

Then I started going further and some things improved. The first steam train was on display – The Rocket. They also had part of the original Babbage difference engine on display. Up stairs they had the operational version I had come to see, the one that could actually work thanks to improvements in manufacturing.

Also on display in the same general area as a cesium time and frequency standard. This was something I was impressed with since I had never seen a naked one before. One of the other artifacts was the Pilot Ace which beat Eniac as the first digital computer.

One area they could have improved was the Cray supercomputer. Theirs was behind Perspex. The Smithsonian lets you sit on theirs – which is why this device is called the worlds most expensive love seat. [Under the seat cushions are the cooling devices for the computer]

The Grenwich Talking clock was on display, next to an Ampex Video Recorder. What I need to point out about the later is that it was from 1956, and was the size of a large washing machine. Next to these is a prototype of The Clock of the Long Now. An attempt to build a clock that can count minutes and millennia.

The museum had a lot of medical machinery on show – such as the first heart-lung machine, and many MRI scanners.

Following this I took the tube and then the new Docklands Light Rail over to Greenwich. Ok, technically I didn’t since I got out at Cuty Sark. Although this might sound like something from the TV Show Alias, this is actually the name of a ship they are restoring. I have no idea what will happen when it is restored. This is like naming Sydney’s Darling Harbour station after that ship they are restoring there.

I then walked up the hill to Greenwich. This took me past the National Maritime Museum which I didn’t worry about. I also walked past a shop marketed as “The First shop in the world 0 deg 0 min 24 sec” What they forget about is that their next door neighbor is a bit closer, although it sells food rather than souvenirs.

I was a bit puzzled since I had my GPS with me. I could not get it to line up. Someone had told me that zero degrees longitude is the same regardless of datum. It was out by about 20 seconds. The people there could not help either. One of them says that his GPS could not show this correctly, and that this is because GPS is a US system. After some playing I could “Ordinance Survey” in the GPS datum list and this fixed things. The GPS did actually line up with the thin red line. I was impressed.

Looking through the facility was interesting. What I was disappointed about was that I could not take photos of the Harrison clocks. I was really impressed with them though – they looked great. Also on display were some of Halley’s tools such as his inclinometer.

They did allow me to look though the siting tube set up on the prime meridian. Rather impressive. I then wended my way back to the hotel via London Bridge, after finding a Starbucks to get my email.

Friday I took a tube down to Buckingham Palace. This required that I go through a park, and I was shocked to see deckchairs for hire. The weather was distinctly overcast. Are the British this hard up for summer? Buckingham Palace seemed nice from the outside. With all the other buildings around it was not really that impressed. I then waked down to the houses of parliament.

Down there I visited Westminster Abby. I thought that this was a church. But they charge admission which is reasonable. But they say that they don’t get any income from “The state, the crown OR FROM THE CHURCH”. Why not? Then again my local church could say the time at many times.

The Abby is not a church, it is really a mausoleum, a museum, and a memorial. I pity anyone who goes there for a funeral. Most of the congregation will not see anything thanks to an area in the center of the church. I get the impression that the entire place is quite political, with who gets to build what.

I saw parliament and Big Ben. Parliament is serious about security. They have an area that all cars entering must pass over with lights and cameras before a barrier is removed. I then walked up to London bridge, and saw it along with the Tower of London.

Although I did not go in at this stage, at the tower I did see an interesting artifact. There was a small building there, maybe 3 meters high, and a similar diameter, with the label of “London Hydrolic Power Company”. This company was purchased for a real song about 20 years ago. The business was declining and I think the previous owner was happy to get rid of it, and happy to get any money for it. After all many of the pipes were starting to decay, and everyone wants to use electricity.

But the company who purchased it set up a phone company. They used the pipes to run phone cables, and worked out that they could use the right of way for communications cabling. And they made a killing on the deal.

Just around the corner is the “Hung, Drawn and Quartered Pub”, with the inscription of “I went to see Major General Harrison Hung, Drawn and Quatered. He was looking as cheerful as any many could in that condition. Samuels Pepy’s 13 October 1660”. I can only assume that this was before the procedure since after it had started I am sure that he could not have been looking cheerful. After this I found a Starbucks to get my email, and then went back to the hotel.

Saturday I realized that there was one place I really should visit. It was next to the Vauxall bridge – The MI6 HQ. This was blown up in the James Bond movie “The world is not enough”. I then walked down to the Tower of London and went inside. It really was a castle, moat and all. I was quite impressed.

They have so many artifacts on display, including the beheading implements that were apparently used on Anne Boelin. I got to see the Crown Jewels. I was impressed, but not that impressed. I thought there would be more of them, and that they would be flashier. There were also swords and scepters from the past millennium. Wow.

OK. I am now starting to get London and the Tube. Rush Hour would be horrible but apart from that it all makes sense. Roads are too narrow which would make driving fun. In fact if you take the USA roads, and then compare them to Australian roads, and go one step further, then that is London roads. I have yet to see a road that is more than two lanes each way. Must be bad during peak hour.

More on the hotel. There are some issues. I think I have mentioned previously that they only use real keys, with a 12” aluminium rod to discourage you from taking them out of the hotel. This includes a key for the “MiniBar” which of course is empty, but is actually a real “Minibar”.
Pay per view on TV? Ha. There are about 10 channels, of which one is from Europe, and one is from Italy. After all, who needs Pay Per View when you have Italian TV. The Miss Italy was on a couple of nights on that channel. BBC World is the best channel available.

The towels in the hotel are quite small. In fact most other hotels give you bigger floor mats. I can only just put one around me. And depending on the day, there is only one towel there. Too bad if you are a woman and want to wrap up your wet hair. The bathtub/shower is about 6 inches higher than is normal. This is strange, and actually quite dangerous when you are getting out. Also the bath is only just wide enough for me. Just. There is no exhaust fan in the bathroom making things humid after showering.

Another couple of missing features refer to the door. Firstly there is no peep hole. So crime rates are low. But there are no door hangers saying “Please Do Not Disturb”, so you have to make sure that you lock yourself in… There is only one power outlet in the room which is fine. I brought an Australian power board. Things were simpler that way. Room service is fine, but they do not collect trays over night from outside the room. Actually they don’t even always do it if you leave them in your room. [Room service is a great way to escape the cigarette smoke in the restaurant].

Basically with some improvements the hotel could be so much better than it is…

Travel Diary - USA - London - The Funeral

Rogers Funeral today. I woke up a bit after seven and got cleaned dressed ready for going out – and grabbed my laptop and went down to Starbucks for breakfast. Breakfast was nice but the Starbucks internet access was not working, I was not impressed. I tried ringing their support people but they could not offer much support. Then I walked from the British Museum to Kings Cross station. I figured that it was more reliable to work out the route by foot than the tube when doing it for the first time.

On getting to Kings Cross I found the new British Library. By new I mean since 1997. There was a lot of work being done at the station, which was not actually Kings Cross, but the one next door. To buy a ticket I tried the electronic machines. I found the station but finding the right fare was the challenge. I ended up going to the ticket window after a short wait in line I told the woman what I wanted.

She asked when I was returning, and what train if I wanted to take the next train, and then opened her cash draw, and looked up the price, Then she typed everything on her computer and gave me the two tickets – one for forward and one for return.

Finding the train was no problem – and I guess that the station looked very much like a Harry Potter movie. [Hey, it is the same station from Harry Potter – but I caught a train from platform 3, and not 9 ¾ ].Come to think of it much of the countryside on the way to Grantham was like that too – even maybe ten minutes out of London.

The train offered WiFi access for #4.99 for 60 minutes. Actually for seventy minutes. After a few hassles getting this connected I was slowly surfing. But only slowly. The speed was something close to 9600 bps I would guess and it certainly was not reliable. I would not call this a success.

If asked I would suggest that the access was WiFi onto a GPRS connection, and that would explain the speed. And I think they have a local proxy server with a WWW cache too.
I took the train from London King's Cross up to Grantham, and was picked up by Ken Collins. Four of us went to lunch at a local pub having Lincolnshire sausages for lunch, and then prepared for the funeral. Ken went in the funeral cortège, where the rest of us went direct. Lincolnshire Sausages are nice, just normal sausages with spices and the like. Beautiful country pub.

Roger's service was due to start at about 3:20PM. The casket arrived about this time, and those gathered followed the family in. Enya's Shepard Moons was playing in the background when the people entered. Dee, the children sat in the front Row; and I think his sister was in that row too. I was in the second row with Ken Collins and who I was introduced to but cannot remember the name of. The rest of the congregation sat on the rows behind.

I was given a special place in the service, at the family's request sitting in the second row. This from people I had never spoken to, and for the funeral of a man I had never met. I was honored, and at felt at least partially unworthy.

After an introduction, the congregation sang the hymn "The Day Thou Gravest Lord, Is Ended". This was not one that I knew so it was lucky that it was in the order of service.
After this the funeral celebrant spoke about Roger's Life, history and loves. I learned a lot about Roger during this talk. How he was a sports fan, and much he loved his family.
Then followed a poem Roger wrote at Uni called "Death of Creativity" read by his son. After this Ken Collins gave a tribute to the family about some of the things that he had done and the impact he had in the Ham Radio community. This included a quote from Andrew Robb from here in Australia from the online condolence book. TAPR also got a mention.

Following this was Roger's favorite song "Heaven (Candlelight Mix)" by DJ Sammy as a reflection or prayer. This was rather sad and stirring, bringing much of the congregation to tears.

Following this song was the commitment were the curtain was pulled around the coffin ready for cremation. The funeral celebrant said some more things, and then we were asked to leave. The music was the Theme from Ally McBeal. Roger loved Ally McBeal, at least partially because it was set in Boston, USA, and Roger lived in Boston, UK.

At the end of the service everyone was invited back to the house, not the least to see the presentation of Roger's award. It was stated that I came all the way from Australia to present the award. Not quite, and this left me a bit embarrassed.

Following the service everyone went outside to see the flowers. This is a concept that I have never seen in Australia and is a nice touch. I also got to meet Dee and the family.
[One thing to note, the crematorium I believe is on Marian Way, with Friar Way and Robin Hoods Way intersecting. Sherwood Ave and Sheriff way are close by. For those that do not know the geography, Nottingham is only 30 miles away.]

On getting to the house, we were invited into the back garden. Everyone was given a glass and some wine. They actually ran out, and had non-alcoholic which really suited me since I do not drink.

Dee and the two children were at one end of a huge circle. I then got to present the parchment and the plaque to Roger. I basically did what John Ackerman N8UR had done at the DCC, and read each out and presented each. And added some words of my own.

Dee noted that in the last month and a half, that the thing that brought so much joy to him was the award. And I believe that the family got a lot from seeing his reaction to the recognition. They were all so happy that Roger had got some recognition. Everyone seemed to be impressed with the plaque.

Following this presentation, there were two others. The Tier 2 Sysops gave US$500 and the Core Sysops gave US$600. These were presented to each of the children, and they both noted that the money was being donated to 'The St Barnabas Hospice', a voluntary organization which cares for terminally ill patients.

I can now see the impact that the TAPR award had on Roger and his family. They kept thanking me for what I had done. And I kept needing to say no, it is me who needs to thank you for letting me participate.

What Roger had never told his family about was the impact of his software on the real world. Roger was a real sports fan, and had spent a lot of time attending sports events, and also a lot of time participating in sport. He loved cycling, and used to cycle next to his daughter whilst she ran.

But he had never told them how his software had been used in the Sydney Olympics to support the cycling, and the marathons. Nor how it had been used in IronMan Hawaii where it was used to track for the cycling and the running. His son seemed really impressed when I let him know that I had the Sydney Olympics recorded in UI-View.

What I am going to do now is to get together all the bits and pieces I have and will send them a CD. This includes stuff on how UI-View was used in the Sydney Olympics and the like.
One of the hams gave me a lift to Grantham station, although I would have loved to stay much longer at the house. But the offer of the ride was too good to ignore, and I arrived back in London about 8PM.

One ham had driven four hours to get to the funeral from Surry. This was leaving at 4AM, and it is only 160 miles. This is too slow. The journey is just over 250 KM, and the average speed is just over 60 km/h. As a contrast, I clocked the train at about 160 km/h, or 100 mph. Rare that public transport beats private transport.

Travel Diary - USA - Digital Comms Conference - Appendix

Some stuff I forgot about the digital communications conference. Bdale I believe it was showed me an antenna plot that someone in AMSAT had made recently. It was a plot of the antenna gain for the GPS transmitting antenna as you change direction.

This is information that AMSAT has asked the US Navy for a number of times, each time being told that the information was classified. Well, it is no longer classified, since AMSAT have experiementally determined what the plots look like. Funny thing is that they look exactly what I thought they would look like being an end-fed helical.

The plots do prove something though. The GPS antennas are pointed to earth. But you can receive the signals from behind the satellite in outer space. With some modified software in the GPS receiver, you can actually use GPS many many thousands of KM from earth.
The other thing is that there are plans for AMSAT to launch a space probe. They have done a lot of work on satellites on earth, but now they are looking at sending a probe to Mars. There are some unknowns here, but they hope to have it launched by the end of the decade. One of the problems would be that you only have a launch opportunity every couple of years… And if you miss it you need to wait until the next on.

Then again there is also the feeling in AMSAT that even if you miss getting to Mars, then there is still science to be done. Sending a probe just out into space missing the planets all together would still be a success.

[Oh, Right now it is 3:05AM local time, and 12:05PM Sydney time. I woke up and decided that writing my blog/diary would be better than just lying there.]

Oh, and I have some more comments on Heathrow. I expected it to be busier and bigger. At least international arrivals in Terminal Four. My impression is that Auckland International Airport international arrivals is busier. Maybe just at the correct times of the day. But even so. Having the EU arrivals come into other terminals does not help the distortion, and neither does having only seen arrivals. Arrivals always seem to be quieter than departures.

Not sure what went on in the early hours of Wednesday morning, but there was a light plane circling the hotel, and also one or two choppers in the area. Nothing on the BBCWorld News this morning. May have been something more localized and more minor.

Travel Diary - USA - Washington to London

Then there was the flight from Chicago to DC. This was not as nice as the rest, partially with it being a Braeair from Brazil rather than a canadajet. This Canadajet was set up with four seats in each row with two flight attendants. This one however was three per row, was a packed flight, and I was seated in the back row next to an engine. Not what I wanted.

In flight entertainment is working out where you are by looking out the window and that is all. I do not like flying in these. It is for many reasons. The main is that I am not familiar with them. But worse than they tend to do what feels like tight turns and stupid landings. On the flight into Chicago I thought that the pilot had decided to land 500 feet early, having made this decision about 2000 feet from the runway. The turns for VOR tend to take 30 seconds and pull at least a G. That is what it feels like… Argh.

When I got to Washington DC, Dulles had changed somewhat. It no longer has the glass bricks that can be seen in Die Hard II. Well, not as far as I could see. Also, they are building a new control tower there… It looks as if Dulles is getting rid of the strange busses that transport people from the terminal to the gates.

Coming into Dulles, I was amazed at how many times up and down I needed to go. I think this is because of major work, but you never can tell. Once I collected my bags I called my hotel, and got there without issue. The hotel was actually a motel, and was called “The Hampton Inn”.

It is set up for discerning business people I think. They have a 100 mBPS network cable on the desk for you. Also the place is covered with WiFi. And they provide a lap table for you to put your laptop on in bed. This is cute.

I had been given the plaque for roger in Des Moines, so in DC I took a photo of it and posted it to some mailing lists. A few people worked out that the Callsign on the plaque was wrong – It should have been G4IDE and was G41DE. Not very noticeable, but still a pain. I did not get to bed before about 12:30 AM local time.

In the morning at some stage I woke up and put a face mask on. Then I woke up about 9:45. Not a bad sleep. I rang John Tandler at SkyMate and suggested meeting up, so I grabbed a Taxi to his office. I had a good discussion with him, and he then dropped me at the new Air and Space museum at Dulles.

This museum is hard to describe. Imagine an aircraft hanger with about 150 planes in it, with everything from the first Boeing 707 to the concord to the Enola Gay to the Space Shuttle Enterprise. I only took about 50 photos here… It was really amazing. Everything from commercial aircraft like the concord to experimentals like the Space Shuttle and the Rhutan.
After I had seen much of the exhibition I saw the IMAX film The Magic Of Flight which was cool. Also I visited the observation tower, which was good, but the best part was the Air Traffic Control slave display on the floor below. I was impressed. After all this the staff there called a taxi for me to go back to the hotel to get my bags.

Back at the hotel there was a short wait for the shuttle. The other passenger was a French woman in her late 40’s or her 50’s – a member of the International Association of Jurists. Checking in at the Airport was easy, and I quickly found the British Airways lounge. The Lounge was nice, but has several shortcomings.

There were very few power outlets in the place. There is obviously a design problem since they have fans blowing to circulate the air conditioned air. Wireless access was available, but only through the American Airlines lounge nearby so coverage was variable. This would have been fine, except that the phones were in an area with no coverage. And there were only a few phones too. To top things off, there was no showers. Too bad.

The flight across the puddle was not bad, but it was delayed with takeoff by about 30 minutes. I suspect that some of this was related to the hurricane about to hit Florida.
I rested on the 777 flight, but did not actually sleep. Therefore I got into London about 2:00AM Washington time. At heathrow we needed to use the stairs from the plane, and then take a bus to the terminal. That was not too bad. Passport control was slow, similar to that in Hawaii last time I was there. Still the customs form was really easy to fill in, with very few questions.
When I got to baggage claim one of my bags was getting taken off the carosel by a guy who thought it may have been his. As he was about to put it back I told him it was mine. Fluro orange cable ties work well.

I was amazed at the ease of getting though customs. No-one even asked me any questions – just walk down the green line. I took a shuttle to the airport, getting a phone call from New Caledonia whilst waiting. It took about an hour to get to the hotel.

The hotel is in a good location, but is somewhat down market. It has a single bed in the room, and uses keys. They want you to return the key to the desk when you go out. No internet access, and it is about 4 minutes away to wireless access. They provide a key to a mini-bar, but there is nothing inside it.

After having a couple of hours sleep I visited the British Museum, and then found a hotspot there at Starbucks. Good to be online again. The museum was good – it has been renovated in the last few years. I took some photos but I was getting tired. The highlight was definitely the Rosetta Stone…

I guess that is all for this update… Tomorrow is the funeral which will certainly be interesting to say the least.

Travel Diary - USA - Digital Comms Conference

Thursday morning I woke up about 6:30… About 7:00 I went down and started work on my presentations and checked email. Sure, I could have done this from my room, but it was more social to go down to the café and work. A bit later John Ackerman came down and we had breakdfast. John had got in overnight, and had actually got the room next to me. Steve Bible with John and Laura Koster arrived a little later.

Board meeting started about 9:00.., Sort of. Since the secretary was not able to be there, I took the minutes. As much as you can with an all day meeting. There were lots of little things – kits, project and finances.

At one stage we heard a few planes above and also a police siren. By planes, I mean loud planes that we could hear inside a meeting room in the hotel. Planes that were moving much faster than you would normally expect at an airport when coming into land, or even on a missed approach. Late I found out that John Kerry, the US Presidential Candidate decided to drop by Des Moines. The aircraft were actually fighters. That night the TAPR board had a dinner in the hotel which was good.

Following the board meeting we all congregated under the Holidome. For the unitiated, like me, the holidome is a 1960’s or 1970’s concept where the hotel is built around a courtyard, and they build a round roof on the dome, and have the swimming pool semi in doors.
Oh, And just at the start of the Board Meeting, we found out that Roger Barker, G4IDE had died. This was rather sad, but was certainly not unexpected. Just the timing.
Following the board meeting the board met for dinner. The restraunt had a deal where it was cheaper before 6:0. So that is what we did. It was really good for us all to catch up in an informal session.

After dinner we adjourned to the Holidome where we talked and played computers. This was a good informal time. Basically we talked about computer animation, graphics, ham radio, wireless access and just about anything else. I got to meet scott miller who I had been in discussions with about his tracking hardware and protocol. During this time I got a phone call from Jack in Australia from his mobile talking about some work stuff. It was amazing how the world has changed in the last few years.

After a while I went to my room and did some more work on my presentations which I had to have done by the next day. Friday morning I went down for breakfast nice and early and did more work on the presentation. Once I had done a bit of work I was joined by a few other people and we continued to discuss just about anything. I think it was mainly TAPR board.
After breakfast I registered for the conference, and then went into the main venue and scouted out a desk. The important thing was power, and I found an outlet, although the outlet was full. Scrounging I found a TAPR extension cord which worked for a few of us later.

Sitting in there I did some more work on my presentation. An hour or so later it was my turn to present my first talk. Presenting it went well, and I stuck to the time. Phil Karn asked some interesting questions, and despite what I thought, he had changed his views in the last ten years.

One of the reasons I wrote the paper was that he had made a statement about power control and spread spectrum many years ago, and then made comments to the contrary later. I disagreed with these later statements, and I needed to say why. Phil and a couple of others gave me some ideas where I should extend my paper. They were in the areas of
a) Suggesting the use of Forward Error Correction
b) Looking at routing in a mesh where there is a large concentration in the centre of the mesh causing significant interference.

I really was shocked since I have a great respect for Phil and believed he was wrong. I was afraid of hurting his feelings. I don’t think I did.

I get on so well with Phil. He is someone who I would imagine would be so intimidating in a relationship. Someone comments that he thinks about three levels above anyone else. It does not matter on the subject. Phil finally got married three or four years back to the surprise of many people. He is an ex-TAPR board member… More on Phil later…

Then came lunch. My idea for lunch at these things is to find a table with no-one I know sitting at it. Or even better find an empty table. You get to meet some very interesting people that way. After a short lunch I went back to the room to finish my second talk. This one was a general update on some tracking technology in general. The way it was structured was as a whole lot of five minute segments .

My concern with this talk was that it was going to be too commercial, and too much self-promotion. I don’t think I did too much of that. It is a fine balance and I think I won.
Friday night was time for the DCC Social. This is an excuse for people to gossip eating finger food and the like. Lasted for a couple of hours or so. Seems that the conference people do not drink much as a rule, and there was a $100 minimum if we had a bar. We decided on soft drinks, and that worked well.

I had a great talk with Phil Karn. We actually decide to write a paper on using IPV6 with Ham Radio. This will not only be cool but might end up getting my name on one of the RFC’s – and Internet Standard. Discussing this Phil noted that he had finally got one published after many years, and I referred to one where he was mentioned. Surprisingly he had not heard about this one.

One of the things he showed me was the incoming mail to his old email address of karn at ka9q.ampr.org
He actually just did a tail of the incoming mail log. He warned me that I would be shocked... I was. He was getting about one attempt per second to send mail to the ka9q.ampr.org address. And this has been going on for the last 18 months or so.
Assuming 3600 per hour. This is about 50,000,000 emails that people have tried to send to him...

Strangely most are not spam, but virii... Microsoft put his email address in the Release Notes to Windows XP, and some virii look for email addresses in files. And his email address is on every Windows PC. We also discussed the movie “The Dish” which we both loved.
I went up to my room early since I had a talk to finish writing the next day.

The Saturday was another full day. Slightly earlier start, but it was not too bad. I got to see about 75% of the first talk before I needed to leave for my session – Since it is always a good sign when the speaker is there BEFORE anyone else. I put on a slideshow of some APRS photos that I had collected doing consulting work. And the audience was impressed. I had used this morning session to finish my talk.

Steve Bible suggested I be careful using the mic. Aparently what I try to do is to throw my voice even if I am using a mic. Point taken. The talk was an introduction to APRS, and started off with some cool uses I had put it to, and then worked through the basics. Some of this I admit was a bit out of order, but it was good. People were asking the right questions. Having internet access there was cute. I could demo some of the Internet services available. The entire session of ninety minutes went very well.

One of the standout sessions was from my friend John Ackerman, N8UR. He is the president of TAPR, and very high up in the legal department of NCR. His presentation was on some of the legal situation with software, and particularly Open Source. Basically he gave a talk to us poor uneducated hams that he normally gives as a continuing education seminar and to internal NCR lawyers. I would suspect though that as a rule we got the legal implications better as a group than the people he normally speaks to.

Lets just ignore for the moment the fact that we were here on a weekend listening to a talk about the legal situation of free software, and just assume we really do have a life. Following the talks we had a TAPR membership meeting.

Then quickly followed the DCC Dinner. This was interesting. Before the sit-down part I got to speak to Pete Lovel and discussed the state of airports in the USA. He told of the Chicago minor airport [which I had already heard about] where a federal restriction on closing the airport expired. The mayor brought in the earth moving equipment at midnight and destroyed the runways with huge crosses. But not the taxiways. The taxiways were fine and could be used to get the planes out with special FAA permission.

The dinner talk was given by the guy who wrote the OS/9 operating system many moons ago, and was not the greatest DCC talk I had ever heard. I found it repetitive, having suggested the same thing for many years in the past.
Near the end of the evening, John Ackerman, TAPR president took the opportunity to talk to those assembled about the award for Roger. John read out the text of the award, which appears below.
After reading the citation, and showing the award to those assembled, those in attendance held a moments silence for Roger and his work. During the evening there were conversations on Roger's legacy to the hobby which were always wonderful to listen to.
Roger's family have sent out an invitation to any Amateur operators to attend his service if they wish to. Due to some quirk of fate, I will be arriving in London for the first time in my life on Tuesday morning, and will be attending the funeral on Wednesday, representing the international APRS community and TAPR.

You may view the plaque (at the moment) on http://www.radio-active.net.au/tapr/roger.jpg

The plaque reads

"TAPR Lifetime Achievement Award for contributions made to the Radio Art by Roger Barker, G4IDE, Lincolnshire, UK. Awarded September 11th, 2004 at the 23rd ARRL & TAPR Digital Communications Conference. Des Moines, Iowa"

The text of the parchment is
"TAPR Lifetime Achievement Award

TAPR is pleased to award a Lifetime Achievement Award to Roger Barker G4IDE, of Lincolnshire, UK.

Roger has worked tirelessly for many years to provide quality software for Amateur Radio operators, allowing them to operate advanced digital modes without the difficulties once associated with these operations.

The UI-View software is the benchmark by which all other APRS Raster Mapping software is compared to.

Whilst writing excellent software, Roger has also ensured that users are able to experiment with his software by allowing access to the internal features of his software through an extensive API. Once the software was written, he ensured that the software was extensively supported, starting mailing lists to support his software. To date one of these lists has had 35,000 messages, with Roger reading each one and replying to a significant number of them.

These are just some of the reasons that TAPR is proud to present a Lifetime Achievement Award to Roger Barker, G4IDE, for his services to Digital Communications"

After the dinner there were a huge number of little groups talking and gossiping. Who is doing what. You know the sort of thing. Reminicing. Some people see each other only twice a year. Others see each other every few months. With this in mind it should not surprise you that Saturday was a late night.

Sunday was had to be early but not too early. No talk but there was a session from 8:00 AM to Midday on DSP. This was really interesting. Not much to say apart from the fact that I did some emailing during this time. Other people were speaking through instant messaging…

One thing I forgot to say was that one of my friends IM’ed me and asked about what laptop he should get. My reply was along the lines of “I use a dell, but really since Bdale Garbee is sitting next to me my reply must be a HP running Debian Linux”. What you need to understand is that Bdale is head of Linux for HP, and he is a former head of Debian.

After the session finished everyone quickly went their own ways, until five or six of us went to an Italian restraunt for lunch. Quite nice but I am sure that things will be better when I am in Italy itself though. They tried to give some weird concoction to one of the people with us when he ordered ginger ale. They gave him a pepsi and bitter and something else mix without telling him. Since he did not want to have caffeine, he was not impressed. Not at all.

At the airport I made the mistake of not taking my laptop out of my bag. After all there were no signs. This was not a good move as they did the treatment on the bag including bomb scanning.

John and Tim (From Boston) with John and Laura Koster were the ones left at the Hotel. Then John and Tim left, although Tim did return when he realized that he had left the radio he had won the previous night. Tim, by the way, is mentioned in some of the articles about the Internet Worm since he happened to be at work early the day the Worm was let loose.

The flight to Chicago from Des Moines was pleasant enough.
In Chicago I used the Admirals Club lounge. This is a place that is slightly better than the one in LAX, but not much. Power outlets are hard to find, but I did find the bar even if I didn’t use it. The phone was good enough for me to ring Oz with a support issue I needed to fix.

Travel Diary - USA - Arrival in Des Moines

Dateline : Wednesday 8-Sept

Right now I am in the Admirals Club in LAX terminal four. People have never been to one of these should realize what the admirals club is. It is something between a coffee lounge in your local suburban shopping center and the Qantas club – and unfortunately probably closer to the former.

Whereas QANTAS club has free fruit juice, the Admirals club has a voucher for a free drink. Whereas the Qantas Club furnishings are immaculate, the ones here have the occasional stain. Still, like any coffee lounge, it is better than not being there, and I suppose it would be better with some company.

Last night I did not sleep well. I am still getting adjusted to the time change. And it will get worse before it gets better. I have another two time zones today. I think it is only two. We will see

Now, I am on the plane above Palm Springs on the way to Chicago. When I get there I will then grab a flight onto Des Moines. Security was not a hassle – well not too much of one. I did need to take my shoes off to get through the metal detector. Given that 100% of people needed to do this I suspect that the device was too sensitive.

What was not too sensitive was the X-Ray machine. I had accidentally placed my wire cutters in my carry-on baggage. I surrendered these without a problem. They were a junk set anyway. Anyway time to do some work on my presentations before they start the food service.
American Airlines is an interesting animal. There has been a lot of problems in the airline industry in the USA, thanks to savage competition and security issues. The airlines are fighting back, cutting costs.

They are now advertising that their economy seats are furthest apart of any airline. I have now worked out how this is done. First they have removed foam from the seat back, I would be surprised if there is more than an inch of foam on the seat back. I would estimate half that. The seat cushions are similarly bad for my bottom.

The terminal is interesting too. We took a buss from the main terminal to this small out-building that would not look out of place in the Australian bush. This building has a series of ramps that get you to the height of the plane so that you can enter the plane. It is on the opposite side of the airport to everything. It really makes you feel special…

A meal was served since the flight was over four hours. According to the Web Site, it will be about 4 hours and 1 minute. According to the captain, it will be about 3 hours and 20 minutes. Anyway I will now detail the meal Muesli Bar Some Raisins Strawberry Yoghurt A drinkAll served in a paper bag. Oh, and the best bit.

They provided KNIVES AND FORKS!!! A spoon too, but that was useful.

Chicago airport is large. I was frankly amazed. It what makes it more so is that fact that it is all connected. Somewhere like LAX is big, but you don’t get to see the size. O’Hare is just big.

Des Moines is quite the opposite. From what I have seen it is as if someone decided to put in an airport in Orange. Yeah, I know Orange has an airport, but you know what I mean. American Eagle are certainly a low cost carrier. I flew a CanadaJet Regional Jet from Chicago, and this was surprisingly comfortable. On getting to Des Moines we used the planes own steps which was strange. Then we had to use a set of stairs inside the terminal. I think they were fire stairs, or at least looked like it. Not what I was expecting.

The hotel is only a few hundred meters from the airport so I decided to walk. I know this is the USA, but I walked anyway. Things are not set up for walking, but it was quite a short walk. I had to do more walking inside O’Hare, so this was not a problem.

I have come to the conclusion that Iowa is about to invade Canada to the north. There is an Airforce Air Wing based here, as well as the Iowa Air National Guard. The Air Wing has one or two fighters… And occasionally you hear them over head. But the entire thing is on an Iowa scale – small.

Internet access from the hotel is variable. It is always dropping out which is a pity. When it works, it works well. When it does not it is a pain.

Wednesday I had dinner with Steve Bible. I had Atlantic Salmon and it was really nice. I am glad that I chose it. They also had a beautiful salad bar – maybe not as good as Sizzler, bit close. Steve then showed me some of his toys – one was a prototype of a new PIC board with Ethernet for some Nokia radios that Tapr have been donated.

Upon finishing tea we ran into John and Laura Koster, also of TAPR who had been at the hotel since lunch. After dinner I went back to my room and worked on more of the presentations.

Travel Diary - Auckland

Sunday
7:10AM flight on a Sunday morning. Which of course is way too early, what with a two hour checkin, and a forty minute trip to the airport. Technically I drove myself to the airport, but my brother drove my car home.

Despite my concerns to the contrary, Sydney to Auckland was a non-stop flight. The reason why I am making such a bold statement is that when I was helping Richard pick up the wings to his plane a week back I spotted a billboard for Air New Zealand offering Non-Stop Flights to Auckland. Obviously the competition (Qantas in my case) was not offering non-stop flights and we would be stopping somewhere in the middle to pick up more passengers.

Getting to the airport at two hours before checkin was a mistake. Turns out no-one bothers getting there THAT early on a Sunday morning. Also I had to checkin through First Class since Qantas Club/Business checkin was closed. No-one gets there that early. They did give me priority baggage clearance on the plane though which was good. Whilst on the plane it was good to be in front of the wings – it is quieter up front for sure.

Right now [On the flight to New Zealand] I am a bit tired – but my plan is to work on my first presentation for the Des Moines Conference – the one on Spread Spectrum Power Control – basically an appendix to my thesis from Uni. It became so enthralling that I didn’t bother watching the movie on this sector. I get to watch it on a future flight. Oops. I should get a life.
I should point out here that my presentations have my company logo on them. Down on the bottom corner. You know, the Radioactive logo. No-one has commented on it – YET. Power consumption on the laptop was good. This is the first time I have used the battery more than about 30 minutes in anger, and I have been impressed. I have been using it for at least 90 minutes, and it is still 58% remaining.

The landing at Auckland International was smooth, but there was a but of roll on approach. Not unexpected really since the weather was a bit overcast. On landing disembarkment was quick. I was one of the first off the plane after First and Business escaped. I was surprised that arriving and departing passengers mix as soon as they enter the terminal. I was able to use the express immigration line for Aussies and there was only one person in front of me. My bag was just coming on the conveyor as I got to it, and passing through quarantine was quick. Outside I gave my host a ring and we met up. I love global roaming. [This would not be the last time I met people at the airport this way]

I was meeting a musician by the name of Kevin - a mate of one of my Hollywood friends I am due to meet up with in LA. Kevin is an old musician from way back, and it was really enjoyable talking about different musicians and bands. About who was in what band, who he had performed with, who had borrowed his equipment and the like. I was able to fill him in on what some of his friends and associates were up to these days.

It seems that Kevin has worked with just about every one of my rock idols. A couple of weeks back I placed my MP3 collection on my private server, and it was great to go through the collection playing tracks as appropriate. I introduced him to Blue Man Group, and he introduced me to Yes. Surprisingly, I also introduced him to “Jon and Vangelis”. Kevin had met or worked with both, but did not know that they collaborated.

I loved hearing things like “Mark Knopfler rang up and asked if he could borrow my amp”. Or “I gave a piece of software to Jean Michele Jarre – I got in a lot of trouble for that one. I was actually the person who introduced him to the Fairlight Synth”. The best of all, we were discussing Pink Floyd, and Roger Waters. I commented that Roger Waters was the quietest but loudest rock concert I had ever heard. He filled me in on why. He had taught roger how to do this. And it is simple. You have the musicians on stage supplied by foldback mixed from the main mixing desk. That way the speakers for the musicians on stage are not so loud that they are blasting the audience, and you get a clearer sound.

His Steinway has a beautiful sound, so much so that I could hear that it was a bit out of tune since the notes were so perfect. He showed me how much better the Steinway is to a synth with induced resonance of un-dampened strings. To explain, sit down at a piano. Then hit one key and keep it pressed, but not hard enough for it to make a noise. Then hit another key, wait a moment and let go. The sound should stop, but a sound has been induced in the first key.
I just love Kevin’s property… I am staying in the guest house . There is a view in front of me to the Tennis Court, and I have a private bathroom – well it is shared with the recording studio next door. Not surprising considering the type of people who normally stay there.

The main house is amazing, and cannot be described. I just wish it was a bit warmer so that I could swim in the pool in the courtyard. Still, the Gym is well set up, if only I had the determination to use it.

The women reading this are about to get a huge shock, and I suspect I will be lynched when I get back. I was offered a chance to ride one of Kevin’s horses… The horse in question is a movie star. It is the lead horse in Xena, and also the latest Hercules movie apparently. And I had to tell him that I don’t ride. I suspect that I am about to be told that after an offer like that, then it is about time I learned.

I can assure you it is just so peaceful here. With rolling hills, lots of trees, birds singing. Just so quiet. Yet we are only 30 minutes from the centre of Auckland. I am now on a 747-400 on the way to LAX. I am in the front row of economy class and I have lots of leg room. I think the plane is less than a half full. I suspect that it is only just over a third full.

Following the last entry in this document I saw Kevin’s plan for a new recording studio and cinema. I am impressed. He intends to have 8.1 channel sound – should be VERY impressive. Breakfast was Coffee and Croissants. The coffee was fantastic. Aparently Kevin was taught to make this particular style of cold-roasted cappuccino by the Commandant from the Police Academy movies – who just happened to be the person who married Kevin and his wife.

We did a bit more talking and he showed me some of the old photos. One of them was from the 1970’s with him playing a Gibson Guitar. What I should point out is that this is the oldest surviving Gibson. If you don’t know what a Gibson is then you need an education.

He also showed me a photo on one of the walls. It was a Bob Dylan thanksgiving party… And it really was a who’s who. Kevin was in the picture along with Joni Mitchell, Dylan, Dylan’s mother and a whole lot of other people. Looked like there were about fifty people – and I recognized a few. And I recognized a whole lot more names.

On the way to the airport I saw his new horse trailer. I must say I am impressed, down to the polished wooden floors throughout. I now need to spec up an A/V install for it.
When we arrived at the airport I went to check in. The person behind me turned out to be one of Kevin’s former co-pilots. Like, what an amazing coincidence. Kevin had no idea that she would be there, or that she was even in the country.

I ended up sleeping a bit on the plane - maybe two hours. And then trying for a lot of the rest of the time. Saw the movie 13 going on 30 which was good. Stepford wives was YUK.
In LA our flight was the only on in customs thanks to it being a public holiday, so things went quick. Got checked into the hotel and thought I had better try to sleep. That did not work, so I did come chores. That was getting email. And then going to Hollywood. I needed to pick up some clothes for mum's bear Savanah. I also visited Amoeba records - the coolest record store in the world picking up four CD's to go with the one Kevin gave me. Then back to the hotel for a sleep...