Sky dish for 802.11b - robert, 19/03/2005, 22:14
I had been meaning to convert a Sky mini...(or not so mini up here)...dish for use with wifi for some time now, but hadn't had the chance to until now. I was inspired to do this by FRARS who wrote an article about converting a 35cm one. Mine is a 60cm, nearly twice as large! While I imagine this will do good for gain, it certainly doesn't do much good for portability. Nevertheless, next weekend I will be flat packing it and heading off on the train to Aberdeen for the upcoming ScotLAN - the idea being to get an Internet connection there. I'll be limiting anyone using it to about 5KB/s though, otherwise I can see it being abused for torrents.Earlier today I took it down the garden with my laptop to try it out. This initial test seems very promising with a very high signal indeed when the dish was aimed at my room. You can see a couple of pictures plus a net stumbler screenshot comparing the dish, can on its own and just the card. The can I'm using is my trusty cantenna I built last year when I had no money for my own Internet connection!
Pics etc in the gallery...
Random explorations - robert, 18/03/2005, 00:40
After work on Wednesday I wanted to go to Maplin to get a satellite finder kit which was going at a reduced price. I had the crazy idea of taking a rather alternative route which was originally mentioned to me by a work collegue.The route is through the old tip and round the coast to the old Aberdeen road, joining the A96 past the Smithton roundabout. I must admit, it wasn't the best day to try - it had been raining heavily the night before and the ground was quite squishy, it made me invest in some mud guards today! In the summer I imagine this would be quite a good alternative route to take, when it's drier and the ground is likely to be harder.
My first challenge was to get into the old tip from Stadium Road. The main gates are locked, so I had to go in search of the alternative way in mentioned by my collegue. I found the way in, but it was very overgrown and prickly! Once past the prickly bit, I ended up on a road which runs parallel to the A9 pretty much all the way to the Raigmore Interchange. From here, I took a right along a track which curves round heading towards the A96. The ground became very mushy here indeed! I kept cycling, not wanting to put my foot down, especially as I was in work clothes!
At this point, I had reached the old bridge where ...
More red nose day stuff - robert, 15/03/2005, 01:21
Just thought I'd share the random goings on in work on Friday. We had baloons everywhere, someone getting their head shaved, various raffles and things (which I won two items in) and anything but work being done!There's various pictures in my gallery.
I have paid and booked trains for ScotLAN #14 which I'm only really attending for the social side of things. I don't seem to have much time for gaming these days, although TFC remains my old time favourite game ever...
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