Radio Caroline: visiting the Ross Revenge

Over the Easter weekend of 1964, the M.V. Caroline dropped anchor a few miles off the Essex coast and started broadcasting popular music.

A certain 12 year old, super-glued his ear to the family wireless, and within 3 weeks was joined by 7 million other listeners. Within a year, there were over 20 million of us.

Who would have thought that 12 year old would still be listening to Radio Caroline 54 years later?

BBC Radio iPlayer: download & convert to MP3

If I'm going on a long drive, I like to be able to listen to radio "plays" to ease the journey.

As BBC PodCasts give way to iPlayer Radio, this is becoming increasing difficult.

So now I have to use get_iplayer to download a programme, and ffmpeg to convert it to MP3.

BirdBox 2018: time-lapse video

For 2018 I thought I'd try to gather periodic snapshots from my Maple tree bird box.

The idea is to make a series of time-lapse videos.

I'm hoping to capture nest building and maybe show the chicks growing from tiny naked blobs to fully feathered birds.

Hantek 6022BE on Lubuntu 17.10: OpenHantek

My Hantek USB oscilloscope was supplied with Windows software, but how can I run it on Linux?

There are a couple of FOSS options for Linux including OpenHantek and Sigrok.

I have tried both Sigrok (with pulseview) and OpenHantek, but I much prefer OpenHantek.

Radio Caroline on 648kHz: great coverage with just 1kW

When I first heard about Caroline's plans to transmit on the Medium Wave, I was skeptical.

I couldn't see the point in running a community type radio station on just 1kW of power to cover a limited coastal region of East Anglia.

But I've changed my mind   ...Now I get it!

Bat Camera: just a wild idea!

What if I triggered a camera from my bat detector?

I'm not looking for prize winning bat photos, just a possible aid to identification.

Would the system capture anything recognisable?

ZeroLiPo: Pi push-button battery power control

The ZeroLiPo is a Lithium-ion Polymer battery power manager for the Raspberry Pi from Pimoroni.

It does not handle battery charging, it simply converts the LiPo 3.7Volts to 5Volts, and provides a low voltage alarm.

Although I've had one of these for ages, I've only just considered using it, possibly for my Bat Call Logger.