If I put the HT in the tank bag on the bike and ran power in from the 12v socket I could in theory beacon from the bike. The only issue would be the antenna, with it stuck in the bag it wouldn't work for crap so.... off to the ham hut. I found a little tiny 2m mag mount antenna that can handle 10w and comes with the little (n-type?) connector to connect to the HT. No $7 adapters needed, and the antenna was a whopping $22. Gotta be the cheapest thing I've ever bought there. So, where to mount it on the bike? Turns out that pretty much everything flat is either plastic or aluminum. Not to be discouraged I decided to just stick a plate on top of the top box and mount it there. I setup a test with my SWR meter upstairs and tried 6 different sizes/configurations of metal trying to minimize size yet keep the SWR off the roof. The final one is 1.5-ish, just about the same as the mag mount on the 4' sheet of sheet metal I've got in the attic so I called it good and went about figuring out how to mount it.

The top case isn't flat so I put to very slight bends in the mount leaving a flat spot in the middle for the antenna to sit on. Worked out pretty well, and a coat of BBQ black and it matches the paint scheme. Unfortunately the first time I tried to mount it the waterproof outdoor 2-sided tape I used pulled the paint off the metal! With the bare steel on the bottom I roughed it up with some sand paper and tried again, this time it's on there good. Hopefully it won't rust, I did mask it off and shoot some paint around the edge so any exposed surfaces that aren't taped are painted.

If the whole thing causes issues then I'll try a smaller piece of metal with some wire radials. That seemed kinda ghetto having wires all over the place which is why I went with the solid mount so hopefully it doesn't come to that.

Today I woke up sick (sore throat from yesterday but snotty and feverish today) but I went to the woman's horse show anyway because it's her birthday (the big 4 0) and watched her jump. It was a 'dumpy schooling show' as she called it, every low end compared to those big A shows but 90% cheaper so... you gotta take the good with the bad. There was less competition at this show as her pile of ribbons can attest to:

After a nap I went in search of 12v relays and a proper fuse tap and setup the radio in the car to go on/off with the in-dash radio. Now I won't forget to turn it off and in theory I might hear more because it will just be on all the time. I really should do this to the Jeep as well since I can't see the amp under the seat and have forgotten to turn it off before. The Jeep is still a big unknown as to what I'm putting in there so for now I'll keep the parts and keep thinking.

Random pic the woman took of one of the rodents eating squash.

OK, maybe this is over the top complicated but I wanted to do two things, first upgrade the home web server and second I wanted to get my hands back into sysadmin stuff to jump start my brain. I spun up a VM, installed centos6 on it (using a http based install dir I setup real quick like), configured it for the latest apache for all 6 sites I'm hosting, setup the automounter to NFS mount the content from the original server then reconfigured the router to send all the 80/443 traffic to the new server. Poof, latest apache and some fun stuff around it. Good use of time if I have to say so myself.

Only a few things tripped me up. Centos6 installs by default with selinux on which makes hacking up ssh non-obvious, and it ships with some strange iptables rules on by default making web serving hard. It also doesn't ship with any languages for Aspell. It's easy enough to find/download the dictionary RPMs but you would think that it would come by default with at least English in there, or have all of them on the DVDs somewhere. Dog knows they have all the language font packs so they've got the option for international support right out of the box for something.

I was also lazy this time and let it do it's default partitioning scheme. I figured that nothing is going to actually live on the VMs anyway so I shouldn't need a fancy layout but unfortunately they put a bunch of LVM stuff on top of the simple partitions. So I've got LVM running on top of a virtual disk... sorta useless. Should I mirror two virtual disks for redundancy? :)

The woman got the stolen credit card thing worked out. Total loss for the credit card company was ~$160. Total loss if they would have let her turn it off on-line when she first noticed the first bogus charge, $10.

Lynne came back from her 2.5 week road trip and gave me a shirt they found in Alabama. Guess the woman can steal it and wear it at the barn.

I've spent a little time the last few days cleaning up my radio setup. I've pulled the IC718 and the manual tuner out and replaced them with the IC7k and a small auto tuner. The 7k is an insanely complicated radio but so far the audio quality and TX/RX abilities are noticeably better than the 718. I've ordered some duplicate cables and whatnot so I can still pull it out and use it in the field without having to un wire the whole house setup each time. Once I'm sure I've got both the portable and home setups done I'll sell off the 718 and get my money back out of it.

Although pumping the aprs data into map point works perfectly, I still did some work to get a simple base map put directly into the aprs app. It was annoying to have a full screen app that was basically outputting useless garbage to the screen and another full screen app that was doing something useful. If/when I take the setup on the road map point will be invaluable, but for the base station the simple map works fine.

I'm now acting as a relay site from local APRS traffic to the central servers on the net. That way people out of the area can see what's going on locally; it's what lets me keep an eye on Kenny driving around up there from down here and it's kinda fun to help out. Plus I have a 2m rig with a TNC that's idle 99% of the time so I might as well do something with it. Sorta like when I do the PSK31 spotting relaying. Hopefully someone gets some use out of it.

This brings the woman no end of joy:

Yesterday we had my parents, the in-laws, Jan, Rex, Allison and Brandon over for a BBQ. The mother-in-law and I spent 6 hours making pasta (several types of ravioli and a bunch of herb infused linguine to have with the grilled meat) and oddly I have no pictures of anything. Jan took a bunch of pics but they're all in shutterfly so I could only screen grab a few (the rest are more of the same).

Today, in an attempt to escape from all the CONSTANT FUCKING TALKING, ARGUING AND ASININE COMMENTS I went to the King Mountain archery range. Since it's a bit of a haul up there I tied the HT into the fixed antenna on the car and left the HT beaconing as I went. When I got home, I found that it had done a pretty good job of broadcasting out my position. I'm really excited to try it going to down Griswold where there is no cell coverage and see if the signal can get anywhere. Unfortunately the amp is mounted in the Jeep so all I get is 5W out of the HT... it will be a good test to see if anyone pics me up.

Tuesday night I went with our netapp rep to Sunnyvale Rod & Gun for some trap shooting. I've never been, but it's kinda fun as it turns out. You shoot from 5 stations, 5 shots per station and you're on the course with 5 other people. You each shoot 1 at a time 5 in a row then rotate to the next position. It moves really fast, you have to pay attention and shoot quick. My first round I got 13 of 25 hits. The next round was 17/25, then 19/25 and finally 21/25. The netapp guy was impressed at how fast I was picking it up. It looks like once you get into the 22-25 hits range it gets hard to stay consistent and that's where the challenge is.

After the trap I went to the parking lot and managed to check into the Tuesday net. The mobile in the car was able to hit W6MPL no problem even being in the hills. Good to know.

The other interesting bit this week was that I got the APRS working off my HT. I went to HRO and got the GPS widget and after minimal config it was working. This VX8-DR is an amazing piece of equipment. Keeping on with a good thing I got UI-View32 working at home and even found my copy of Mappoint 2002 which is supported by the software. Now I am beaconing out the house location and picking up everyone doing APRS in the bay area. A view of the map after only a few minutes of listening:

A picture of the über high tech setup in the car. :) The GPS receiver is mounted on the external speaker/mic so I just flung that up over the grab handle above the door and it worked perfectly. I also got the mount to stick the receiver directly on top of the HT, I'm thinking I could leave it in my tank bag when I was out riding around. Not sure how the antenna would work with the wrong polarization laying on it's back, maybe I need to figure out how to mount a 2m antenna on the bike. I already have the 12v socket to plug the supply in...

The in-laws are in town staying at the house for a week. Fortunately I've found something that makes their visits easier: alcohol. Now I understand why people drink at family gatherings.

I forgot to mention in yesterday's update that the gas mileage for the car on the trip to FHL was 37.4! ~250 miles of freeway with the cruise control set at 68 mph most the way and ~16 miles of dirt road at 25 mph.

My latest batch of topo maps showed up, but I managed to not get all the maps I needed. A big chunk of the Griswold Hills is missing. Doh. I thought I over-ordered, and I did but just too much to the east and not enough to the west of the county line. I'll have to figure out which maps up by my parents I want to order and put another batch in.

Yesterday the woman's barn had an open house and I ended up running the grill the whole time. That's good, I learned how to cook burgers to order and people seemed to be enjoying what I was cooking. The woman had made two batches of BBQed pulled pork so I had to compete with that which was tough with my generic Costco meat and having only 1 seasons spice available. My parents were down for a funeral so they stopped by the barn on the way back out of town and took the tour, watched the woman ride in circles, etc. Somewhere there are probably some pictures but I didn't take any.

After the BBQ I drove down to King City and stayed at the lovely Motel 6 down there so I could wake up at 4am and get out to Fort Hunter Liggett for some Sunday morning rabbit hunting. My military hunting permit was ready so I wanted to go try it out. Pretty easy process, just sign in at the registration hut and get assigned to an area, go hunt then come back and finish the paperwork. You have to keep a form in your car and one with you as well as your CA hunting license, a photo ID and your 'hard card' FHL permit. Some of the deer hunters there this morning had recycled NASCAR ticket holders to keep all the paperwork secure around their neck while in the field. I should probably do that next time, I'm sure the woman has one somewhere I can use.

The most interesting thing about the day was that one of the fields on base had been set on fire. I don't know if it was some sort of training thing or just a wildfire, but my guess from their lack of concern it was done on purpose. My area was right next to the fire so I've got one picture showing a bunch of smoldering ground cover and the car smells like it's been in a camp fire for a week. The woman was upset that I actually killed things this time, what can I say? It's part of hunting. Pics are here.

While out there I tested the spot notifier widget, it worked like it was supposed to. I also broke out the new GPS that I had loaded topo maps of the area in before I left. Their detail level is pretty good, but I'm still going to use the $40 map credit they give you with the GPS to download the real 1:24 USGS topos.... unless they're also $8 each like the paper maps...

The other nice thing about the base is it's 2 hours 18 minutes or so from the house, so I can go down the night before leaving the house around 6pm, camp (which I'll do next time now that I know where/how it works down there), hunt the morning and still get home in time to clean up and have half of Sunday with the woman after she finishes her barn stuff in the morning.

At SJC again ready to fly to AUS. All on southwest this time so at least my car is parked by the terminal I'll be returning too unlike last time where I got to take the midnight bus ride across the airport. I paid for early check-in, so I've got A36. Guess it's worth $10 not to have to jump onto the computer at exactly 9am 24 hours in advance. Let's just hope I can expense it, otherwise I'll have to cheat on my expense report next time and turn the fees in as 'meal expenses' without a receipt. I use less than half my per diem, they should be happy I'm a cheap traveler.

I took last Friday off; everyone else is taking 2-3 weeks off in the next month so I'm going to be the only one here most of the time. Figured I should enjoy myself before things get extra busy (and before the in-laws come to town next week and screw things up). I was going to do some sort of camping/hunting trip but it didn't work out. Mostly because I was being lazy more than anything else.

Friday morning I took off on the bike and went down to check out some roads in Los Padres national forest, looking for future hunt/camp spots. That turned out to be a bust, the roads and the map were all closed. The dude at the campground where the road stopped said that the county got into a dispute with some environmental groups about keeping the road clear so the county gave up and just closed the road. Bummer, I wasn't up for a 15 mile hike so I just gave up on that and turned south.

Next stop was Fort Hunter Liggett, an active military base south of the forest. They have a hunting and fishing program there on the weekends so I checked out the details on that, got lunch on the base proper while waiting for the game wardens to come back to their post, then headed home. I was shocked at how cold it was in parts of the central valley. It's July, but it was cold and rained for a few minutes on my way down and I had the grip heaters on for at least a half hour.

Saturday I mostly just wasted as far as I can remember. I did go to the barn and check out the woman's new lease horse (looks like a horse), and we went to the grocery store to get stuff for the BBQ next weekend but otherwise nothing of note.

Sunday I struck out for the Griswold Hills, some BLM land about 30 miles east of Holister. It's open for everything (camping, hunting, shooting, horses) except it's closed to motor vehicles during the summer due to lots of dry grass. After getting there I can see why. Everything was bone dry and it was 100F when I got out of the car at 2pm. I spent 4 hours hiking around trying to find the trail.... it was not easy. I made several false starts up canyons that dead ended and other than an old road and cut across lots of private property, I couldn't see how to get even over the first hill. I made one last attempt after some random scrambles up the hillside and ended up finding part of the trail. It was late and I was out of water so I decided to just follow the trail down the hill and see where it came out so I could find it next time. About half way down the trail just stopped, that's why I couldn't find it. The hills don't look like much in the pictures, but you can sorta see from the side-hill shot that things got steep. That second picture is from the trail where it stops.

I was carrying the .17 in case I saw any rabbits and I did.... only after I had put everything away and was on my way out. I took some pictures of them best I could as they scampered off into the bushes but I was too tired to dig the rifle back out and take any of them. Next time perhaps. Full pictures are here. That last picture shows that it did cool down into the low 90s... at 7:30pm. Next time I'll need more than 1.5L of water if I'm going to be doing that much walking around. I found a 'back way' in further down the main paved road, when my topo maps get here I can see where I can go from that back canyon.

I programmed all the Holister repeater frequencies in both the HT and the car radios but couldn't seem to hit them from the trail head. I thought to try the HT from the top of one of the hills... maybe next time when I actually get somewhere!

When changing the oil in the bike I decided to blend in some of the leftover 20/50 in with the 10/40 that I normally use. The manual says you can use 20/50 but 'prefers' 10/40 so I figure running 2:3 of 20/50 to 10/40 can't hurt and I want to use up this leftover KLR oil. It may be all in my head but 50 miles after the change I still say that it shifts easier and runs just a bit smoother with that heavier oil in there. The shifting could just be that it was due for an oil change, the shifting always degrades as the oil gets older, but usually that "wow this is really nice" feeling goes away after the first ride and I get used to it. It's been 4 days now and it still feels better than usual.

Last night the Jeep turned over 40k miles while we were out doing fireworks patrol with the RACES people. The woman drove and I ran the radio for about 4 hours and I think we called in about 15 instances of fireworks. It's really interesting to see the various neighborhoods in 'section 3' where we were patrolling, basically east of where our house is. The nice areas were totally quiet, no one about. The ghetto areas had people drunk in the streets, fires, etc. All the action was in the ghetto though so we stuck those areas.

Typing on this stock Dell keyboard is killing my wrists after only a few minutes of work. I've got my spare MSFT keyboard in the closet, I would break it out if it weren't so big; the radio PC shares the desk with a lot of gear and having a huge keyboard wouldn't help the situation.

Since I'm at the radio desk I fired up the 718 for some PSK31 but the woman's blendering downstairs is making some really funky patterns on the waterfall. The 7000 is way better at ignoring noise around the house. They're both using the same power supply and antennas and tuner but the 7k really pulls in signals and ignores stuff like hair dryers, blenders, etc. Kenny said the 718 is a good starter radio and he's right, trying to figure out what's what with the 7k's feature set would have been pretty daunting right out of the gate. I think I'm going to take the 718 up to my parents house and set it up there, the noise floor is really low with their lack of neighbors and all that so it should be fine for dad to listen to stuff with. He wanted a 'world radio' and I can't imagine having a real HF set wouldn't be better for listening in.

The woman got the official victory lane photo from the Sonoma race. She finally got to be there when Kurt won one. I thought that would sorta be the end of it when she made it to victory lane but she seems even more energized than before about going to races.

Saturday the woman rode and I went to the rifle range and checked the zero on the .17 and tried out the new sight I put on the flintlock. It makes it faster to acquire targets, but I don't think it's any more accurate than before, those stock sights are good enough I guess. What this does allow me to do though is to adjust the sight with a screwdriver instead of having to use a hammer and punch to move the sights in their mounts. Once I start experimenting with loads and shooting over the chronograph I'll really be able to dial it in and being able to easily tweak the sight will come in very handy. The only downside is that I don't think it's period correct. :)

Saturday night we went out for a 'date' to see Avenue Q which is an 'adult' muppet show like musical. Wasn't bad and I always like going to the SJ theater since it's small and you can see/hear everything, with only 7 rows of seats there aren't exactly bad seats anywhere in the house.

The cheese bus was making a stop at the grocery store, and the woman never passes up an opportunity to be cheesy:

Last night we watched Inception as a red box rental. I really liked the movie, it had enough twists to keep you thinking and since the whole thing was a dream sequence the over-the-top action scenes were perfectly OK.

Today I went to the clays range and my fancy new shotgun broke. After the first round it just stopped firing, it's acting like the trigger is disconnected completely. The pro shop took it and will have their guy look at it and if he sees anything obvious he'll fix it otherwise it's off to Browning for warranty work. The $99 shotguns from bi-mart in 1991, still working fine. Something to be said about durable.