Happy Christmas

Here we are speeding towards another Christmas and a New Year. ours looks being exciting as we look towards moving, and the real possibility of entering some sort of early retirement. Unfortunately our year has been tinged with sadness, but that is the way and people leave us. They of course, live on in our hearts and minds. We are very lucky to have a mix of friends and family spread over various activities.
So.

To our family, love you always.

To Christian friends may the Lord bless you and continue to unroll his plan in front of you. Thank you also for your prayers.

To our radio friends, good DX and maybe this year will be better (can it get any worse?)

To my biker friends, remember shiny side up! and a big biker nod to you all

To my work colleques. We work in a strange industry, but unlike any I have every worked in, we all help each other. Thank you for the banter, and a big bus driver wave to you all.

To everyone may we wish you are very Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year.

Clean motorcycle down pipes

One of the most difficult parts of a motorcycle to keep in respectable condition are the exhaust down pipes. They go through extreme punishment. Heated and cooled, have all manner of debris thrown at them and are difficult to get to. I had heard about toilet cleaner being the answer but was very dubious about it. Especially on a nine year old machine.
However I came across a YouTube video which convinced me to give it a go.
I applied the Harpic and left it for five minutes. Most of the stains and rubbish came off. I washed it off well but some stains remained. I gave it a second application and this time after drying I used chrome cleaner. The photos speak for themselves.

SDR# Working

The world of Amateur Radio is changing. There is much talk about SDR (software defined radio). So what is SDR? 

Software-defined radio (SDR) is a radio communication system where components that have been typically implemented in hardware (e.g. mixers, filters, amplifiers, modulators/demodulators, detect ors, etc.) are instead implemented by means of software on a personal computer or embedded system.

This has often meant spending lots of money. However, someone discovered that the cheap digital tv dongles can do some amazing stuff for almost no money.

I bought one of these and have to say I wasn't convinced. However, for the money I thought it was worth a go.
It all arrived but I was unable to get it to work. I followed all the 'easy fix' web sites but it still firmly refused to work.  

I made some time to finally get it work and after running one of the utilities I got a MSVCR160.dll not found error. I searched the error and found this.

MSVCR110.dll is the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable dll that is needed for projects built with Visual Studio 2011. The dll letters spell this out.

MS = Microsoft, V = Visual, C = C++, R = Redistributable

For Winroy to get started, this file is probably needed.

This error appears when you wish to run a software which require the Microsoft Visual C++ Redistributable 2012. The redistributable can easily be downloaded on the Microsoft website as x86 or x64 edition. Depending on the software you wish to install you need to install either the 32 bit or the 64 bit version. Refer the following link:

http://www.microsoft.com/en-us/download/details.aspx?id=30679#

Ran this and, bingo. All working and I now have a ultra wide band all mode receiver, for under £10!
I am now having fun learning about what it can do.