Ronald Gibson's Place

5/17/2017

I have been ignoring my web pages and my projects. It's time to get things going again.

One of the things is to transfer a few VHS and Hi8 videos to digital. I have a spare hard drive and just loaded Ubuntu Studio with dvgrab, to grab the video coming from my Firewire enabled Hi8 camera, and Kino to do the basic editing.

The new Mikrotik RB951G-2HnD router needs to be installed and tested. This one can block whole countries. It uses RouterOS.

4/10/2012

I have create two new pages.

The Personal Projects page is to remind me of the stuff I want to try out.

The Asus Transformer Prime page is to show the problems I found, and stuff that needs to be improved, to make this the best Android tablet.

10/12/2011

I really need to get this transmitter working.  There is a newer model with a more efficient output stage, and better frequency stability.

1/13/2011

I might have this AM transmitter and antenna figured out.  I'll work on it this weekend.

1/11/2011

KFLA digital channel 8 completed the installation of new equipment that increases the signal reach and reliability. Viewers must re-scan the TV's to receive the new, improved, signal.  KFLA has also moved to channel 52.  I can now pick up this station.

12/18/2010

Looks like it is going to rain up to Wednesday 12/22.

12/17/2010

This time I took the antenna off the mast and placed it on the ground, with a plastic chair holding it.  Did what the instructions said to do and had the same results.  Next was to try a lower frequency at 1500.  Readings bounced all over just like at the higher frequencies, so I gave up for the day.  There is always the weekend

12/16/2010

Playing with the antenna I realized that I need to go higher in frequency to get it to work at resonance.  At 1610 no one is on, even at night but the antenna doesn't work as well.  I tried 1680 and it shows higher readings on my DMM, unfortunately there is a station at night that clobbers it.  This is on the lowest tap of the antenna for the lowest frequencies.  After tuning it using the DMM, I thought that maybe I could use the field strength meter in my SWR meter.  There was no antenna for it so I used a paper clip.  I found a piece of coil wire and going to use that after work today.  The instructions said to peak it on the DMM at 15 volts, then bring it down to 13 volts and that's it.  It didn't go very far, just a few houses down.  I peaked it out and already the night time station can be heard.  This morning three blocks away I can hear it beating with the night time station.  That's a big improvement.  I'll see when I go home if the coverage improves.  It's tough trying to tune it on a ladder.  The SWR meter needs to be a foot or two away.  Next I might take it out in front of the house and tune it on ground level, chose the right tap and slide the 98-inch pipe to fine tune it.  My DVD player is playing music I saved from an Internet Radio station Chez Whitey, 12-hours of music.

Maybe if I can try to add some windings to the coil (which was my idea of adding more taps to the coil, but didn't do it), it would work at lower frequencies.  Or try at half the frequency at 820 or 850 (at 850 get clobbered by a Denver station KOA) and see if that gets out.

Just got the domain 1610.us

Now I really need to get this to work on 1610.  Can I splice more windings on the coil?  This antenna needs to be looked at closer.  It was built to their specifications.

12/15/2010

Yesterday I had it all connected.  Tried to tune it to the antenna as per the instructions.  The directions said to adjust for peak at 15 volts.  First find the tap to connect the transmitter to.  I made 12 small loops.  It looks like this but in line with the pole.

So I tried each tap and got the highest reading on my DMM.  I found a spot where I saw 56 volts.  The coverage was a few houses down.  It turns out that I did not turn off the modulation and gain, so I thought I could continue it tomorrow.  I wake up at 3AM this morning and it's raining.  It was all open.  So now I need to take the board out and scrub it with alcohol to get the minerals off of it.  I'm kind of cheating for now on the ground I'm using.  I have a strap grounded to some plumbing and connected to the bottom of the mast.

That is a neat idea above in the picture, using a plastic food container.

12/1/2010

I'm almost done with building the antenna for my AM transmitter.  It's Part 15, so will be legal.  I have been careful putting it together.  It's going to be operating at 1610 on the AM dial.  It is the quietest frequency on the dial.  No one is on, even at night.  Next is finding a good ground on the house, cutting the 98 inch piece, resoldering the short base, and then getting it tuned.  The picture in this PDF file is where it is at right now.

I was told that there is a station on 99.1, possibly in the North Hollywood area.  It might be from a church.

I have not picked up any stations from San Diego, so I am anchoring the antenna down to point to Mount Wilson.  I still can't pick up digital channel 8 on Mount Wilson at 300-watts.  The stations transmission pattern points due south.  There is a new channel 12 that Larry told me about.  It is on Magic Mountain.  Can't pick that one up either.  Larry is able to pick up both with indoor antennas, but not able to pick up channel 24.

I had to change the look of the links on the left, and got rid of some old links.

11/5/2010

I have changed the PBX from Trixbox to PBX In A Flash.  There was a problem with backups and doing a restore.  Upgrades to FreePBX will mess up restoring from the backups.

I thought that maybe I could upgrade from using Asterisk v1.4 to the new v1.8 (released 10/21/2010) with all of the new features.  After installing, I find out that v1.8 does not work with Festival Lite, the speech-to-text that works with previous versions of Asterisk.  Next was to try it again, but this time install Asterisk v1.6 with fewer fancy features, like encrypted phone calls.  I replaced the X100P PSTN card with an Openvox A400P card that works better overall.  Now I find out that Dahdi that is the driver for this board does not work for this card.  This board is suppose to be a drop-in replacement for Digium's TDM400P board.  Now to the last option.  Installing v1.4 (at least it worked in the past) and Zaptel (replacing Dahdi).

6/22/2010

I set up another machine using Trixbox and installed all of the updates, made sure that I have all of the modules of my older machine, including tbm-backup (v2.6.2-19).  The backup look different but they are suppose to be the same version.  Made a backup and transferred the backup to the new machine.  I did a test backup on the new machine.  The backup file names are different.

Old filename 20100609.05.43.34.tar.gz.

New filename tbbackup-20100609-054334.tar.gz.

The restore on the new machine does not see the file.  It sees the test I made.  So I renamed.  It still doesn't see it.  The permissions is the same.  Maybe it's a file inside the backup that it looks for.

If this doesn't work, I'll set up the other machine using PBX In A Flash.  It's going to take a week to get it set up.  All of the recordings and configurations will need to be entered in manually.

I have a phone number for this new station. 206-279-2791 in Seattle.

5/22/2010

I have been busy using Facebook and not paying any attention to update this page.  There are some things that I want to add sometime in the future.  This interface is a bit more klunky than before this last change Google made.

I have not heard the pirate station at 99.1 in a few months.  The one on 87.9 near Reseda and Ventura Blvd. is still on.

11/25/2009

I tried the Fedora 12 CD and found that it already loaded the drivers to my WiFi on the laptop in the demo mode.

I also loaded up Ubuntu 9.10 on my spare hard drive on the laptop.  This time it did not find the Broadcom driver for the built in WiFi on the laptop.  I was originally trying to load Ubuntu Studio but it hung up before it got to the graphical part of the installation.  I did find  in Synaptic, the stuff that is normally loaded in Ubuntu Studio.  It worked but it does not load the realtime kernel like it does in Ubuntu Studio.  I installed the realtime kernel but there was no menu in Grub 2 on what kernels that are installed.  I checked and both kernels are installed.  I read more about Grub 2 which is much different than the older version.  I made Grub 2 detect all kernels on the laptop but still no menu to boot up in.

10/21/2009

Making changes to these pages because of this new miration by Google.

6/3/2009

Slurpcast:  Mark Bernay & Wes get together once a week to eat dinner and chew and slurp into a microphone. Oh, yeah, we also discuss the latest technology and Internet news and often relate the new items to older technology.

5/18/2009

I moved Paul Mack the Moviemaker page to the main server.  Geocities will no longer be hosting for free later this year.

5/6/2009

My free number from Old Saybrook CT 860-853-2313 is no longer working.

DSL Extreme announced that they will be able to provide speeds up to 50Mbps.  This will be only for areas that are covered by FiOS.  If you want a static IP address you will need to order a business account.  I saw one option that places the speed at 20Mbps up and down.

Introductory residential pricing for Fiber Extreme is $99.95 per month for up to 50 Mbps; $54.95 per month for up to 20 Mbps; and $39.95 per month for up to 10 Mbps.

That's compared with Verizon's pricing for FiOS Internet with a one-year contract of $144.95 per month for up to 50 Mbps down/20 up ($139.95 bundled with home-phone service); $59.99 per month for 20 down/5 up ($54.99 bundled); and $49.99 per month for 10 down/2 up ($44.99 bundled).

Asked why the pricing schemes were different, Henson said, "We don't control the retail prices that our wholesale customers set for their services."

Henson also noted that the DSL Extreme service does not include several features that are part of FiOS Internet, including: Verizon's portal or e-mail services; exclusive online content such as ESPN360, Disney Connection, and NFL Network programming; and the Verizon Internet Security Suite. In addition, customers can't purchase FiOS TV or Verizon voice service from DSL Extreme.

 4/30/2009  More Pirate Stations

The one at 87.9 is still broadcasting from south of Ventura Blvd just off of Reseda Blvd.  They seem to be on in the afternoons to evening time.  Most of the time it is playing OTR shows of Gunsmoke.

There is another one at 99.1 and it is located in the area of Devonshire and DeSoto in Chatsworth.  It is not on every day.  They play popular music and kids programming.  I can pick it up almost two miles away.

There is another on 92.1 and they say that they are the only All Jewish station for Los Angeles.  I will need to listen to it a little closer for their website address.  I can pick it up in the eastern part of the San Fernando Valley.  My TV antenna points the direction that I think the station is but cannot pick it up.  It is about as strong as the 99.1 in my car, and the 99.1 comes in strong through my TV antenna.

3/25/2009  New Television Antenna

I have a new antenna up, a Winegard HD 7698P.  I bought mine from Summitsource.  The cable going to the old antenna needed to be replaced, along with the old mast that was bent.  

Now I get the channels that I wanted, plus channel 24, the PBS station in San Bernardino.  They have four channels like KCET 28 does.  I thought that maybe I could pick up the new digital channel 8 on Mt. Wilson.  They direct their signal due south so I can't pick it up.  The recent winds spun it around so I need to tighten it down.  Maybe this summer I'll be able to pick up the San Diego stations.

3/21/2009  Pirate Station Alert!

Today I found a pirate station on 99.1 FM near the corner of DeSoto Avenue and Devonshire Street.  I was able to pick it up as far south as Nordhoff Street. It was not streaming a station off of the Internet like some of the others.

There is also the one on 87.9 FM near Reseda Blvd and about 1/2 mile south of Ventura Blvd.  It seems to be on every day after work and plays OTR Gunsmoke episodes.  It has been on for roughly a year.

I don't hear FRANK-FM anymore.  It had been moving around to 99.1, 87.9 & 95.1 and it covered the whole San Fernando valley. This one was the most professionally done.

A friend told me of a station that was playing Jewish programming.  It was on last week.  I could barely pick it up in Canoga Park.  It must be out by my friend's way and he lives in Sherman Oaks.

1/28/2009

This is the main reason I have DSLExtreme and not the cable provider for Internet service.

Time Warner Cable Business Class

$149 per month 

4000 kbps down/384 kbps up

(plans available up to 10 Mbps down/8 Mbps up)

Includes 5 static IP addresses 

Allows for servers

DSLExtreme

$59.95 per month (plus basic phone service approx. $11) 

6000 kbps down/768 kbps up

Includes 8 static IP addresses 

Configurable firewall

(All servers blocked, major ports blocked, or no ports blocked)

Configurable reverse DNS entries.

1/19/2009  Linux Expo

This is always fun to go to.  It's not just Linux stuff.

 12/5/2008  DTV Transition

When the television stations shut off their analog signals,  they have the option to go back to their old channel as a digital station.  That means that the stations will be giving up their second channel that they have been using as their digital channel.  Here in the Los Angeles area the following channels will go back to their original channel.  7, 9, 11, 13, 18, 28 & 34.  The rest will remain on their second channel.  I should call some of the stations like channel 5 to see if they will be changing their logo, since their new channel that they have been on is 31.

 Make sure that when February 17th comes, that you perform a channel scan or search on your TV or converter box.  That way you will be able to view the channels that have made the change.

Los Angeles 7, 9, 11, 13, *28, 31, 34, 36, *41, 42, 43

Here are some documents to look at from the FCC.

DTV Assignments

DTV Assignments Appendix B

City                                         NTSC  DTV  KWatts   Height

ANAHEIM                                56       32       1000          949

AVALON                                   54       47         350           937

CORONA                                   52       39            54           912

HUNTINGTON BEACH      50       48       1000          949

LONG BEACH                          18        18           111          889

LOS ANGELES                           7          7             11.2      978

LOS ANGELES                           9          9             12         951

LOS ANGELES                          11        11            40.2     902

LOS ANGELES                          13       13            14.1       899

LOS ANGELES                         28       28         107          913

LOS ANGELES                            5       31      1000          954

LOS ANGELES                         34       34        392           956

LOS ANGELES                            4      36          711           984

LOS ANGELES                         58       41          162          901

LOS ANGELES                         22      42          486          892

LOS ANGELES                            2      43         300          947

RANCHO PALOS VERDES 44      51       1000          937

SAN BERNARDINO               30     38       1000          909

SANTA ANA                             40      23            50          900

VENTURA                                 57       49      1000           937

 I forgot to mention that I have an account on SIPBroker.  So by dialing one of the SIPBroker PSTN Gateway numbers, you can reach me by dialing *9339-4111

11/17/2008

I have installed Ubuntu Ultimate Edition on my spare laptop hard drive.  The program for searching and downloading the necessary proprietary drivers came up.  I was able to download the drivers for the wireless Broadcom chipset, the dial-up modem and the ATI video drivers.  It worked!  No need for downloading 'ndiswrapper' and transfering the Windows drivers for the wireless.  I enabled Compiz by going into the Preferences and Apperience.  Then clicked on the effects tab and chose the last selection.

11/6/2008

There is an important firmware update for the Sipura / Linksys IP Phone SPA941.  This update will enable lines 3 & 4 by default.

I added a page on how to add a Sipbroker routing code to your Trixbox system.  also added the help forums for Asterisk, Trixbox, PIAF & FreePBX.  Also updated instructions on how to add a streaming radio station to your IVR Menu.

9/19/2008

Since I moved, now I can set up a Free To Air satellite dish.  There are a number of channels that are free.   On the last link the Ku band channels are highlighted in green.  I don't have room for a big dish which is C band.

I need a new antenna for the outside. The old one is a bit bent up and so is the mast.

9/10/2008

I have made some major changes to the Trixbox PBX page.

8/18/2008

I updated my Trixbox to this new v2.5 beta and after a reboot no longer has access to the network.  I tried 'netconfig' and it says 'file not found'.  It's time to reinstall.  I hope my recent backup from two days ago will work on this new version.  I'll be going from version 2.4 to 2.6.1 which is the latest.

I'm going to try setting up a DID number from a company called Vitelity.  I have the settings in a link on the PBX page.

8/10/2008

I have finnished moving into my new place.  There is still a lot to do, especially unpacking.  This is going to be an ongoing project.

6/30/2008

Added a new page about problems I have had with some Linux distributions.

6/4/2008

The Gizmo Project has something called Backdoor Dialing. It lets you dial telephones, including mobile numbers and land lines from carriers such as Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, etc., without going through the traditional phone system.

If my present settings don't work, I have an alternative at the bottom of the page here.

2/14/2008

PBX In A Flash from Nerd Vittles looks like a good alternative to Trixbox and their lack of MP3 and text-to-speech (Flite) support.

2/6/2008

I now have some GroupBell and Phunfone recordings on my SIPPhone number 1-747-601-1541. I'm trying to add more sound effects like sounds of calls going through old switching equipment.

I'm going to look into this text-to-speech application called Cepstral.  It can be used with Asterisk. Here is their Demo Page.

Here are two new pages. One that solves a problem and one that involves adding a new free DID number.

Unknown Destination Problem

using upgraded FreePBX v2.4.0beta2.2

Free DID from ipcomms.net

1/30/2007

I upgraded to the latest Trixbox v2.4 and found some changes that breaks my system. One is no MP3 support, so that means that I can no longer stream Internet radio stations on an extension. Another thing is that Flite, the text-to-speech program hangs up the phone line.

I have gone into the Trixbox forums to see if there is a solution to these problems.

1/19/2008

I have made several changes to the Trixbox PBX pages and their sub pages. I missed several items in setting up the system and on how to set up a SIPPhone number.

Right now I am having a problem with the speech to text called Flite. Right now the command hangs up the phone line. 

11/14/2007

I'm looking for another place to live. Hopefully closer to my work.

10/22/2007

I installed Mandriva installed on my laptop.  It worked fine out of the box except for the wireless.  I have a page on the solution.  At first I had PCLinuxOS installed and the wireless worked fine when using 'ndiswrapper' and the Windows drivers off of my other hard drive.

9/13/2007

I have updated and added some pages related to Trixbox.

Adding Free World Dialup

Adding a Callcentric DID number

8/26/2007

New Trixbox related pages 

Configure Trixbox for IAX access to the Uddle CBC Asterisk PBX

Adding a FreeDigits Number

Adding an IPKall Number

SIP Number as an Extension (Example: A K-Fone Number)

Asterisk v1.4 CLI Commands: Use it to troubleshoot a problems

8/15/2007

I have added some instructions on setting up Trixbox to work with FreeDigits and IPKall numbers.  There is also instructions to setup Trixbox to connect up with Blair Alper's CBC box in Chicago.

I just finnished a page having to do with adding a SIP phone number as an extension.  The example used is of line 8 of K-Fone.

5/23/2007

I have added a few things related to Trixbox on My Trixbox Page.  There is a provider of free DID numbers, FreeDigits.  Mine is located in Ogden Iowa.  There have been some problems in getting to work with Trixbox.  Their help page on getting it to work with Asterisk and configuring with AMP is confusing, since Trixbox now uses FreePBX NerdVittles and all of the menus are different. FreePBX is a Standardised Implementation of Asterisk that gives you a GUI to manage your system.  has a page on configuring FreeDigits.  Scroll down to see it.  After work I'll see if this configuration works.  It says to leave the "Incoming Settings" blank.  If that doesn't work, there is one more thing to try.

I have added some phone sounds to my SIPPhone/Gizmo number 1-747-601-1541.  When you call in, you enter the three digit Phunfone tape number.  I'm up to tape #100 for now.  It says the tape number, then from some tones I generated using Audacity, along with some other phone sound.  Audacity has a feature to generate tones.  I went through the list of tones for creating MF tones.  Each of the two channels had one tone generated for 0.2-seconds plus 0.2-seconds of silence.  Then combined the two channels as stereo (from two groups to one group).  Next chose mono for both channels and saved it as WAV files.  Next was to convert the files to .SLN and reduce the sample rate to 8K.  Below is the command line to convert to 8K mono, lower the volume, and convert to a .SLN file.

sox KP.wav -t raw -r 8000 -s -w -c1 -v -0.3 KP.sln

I took an MP3 file of a call from some old equipment and edited it around the MF tones being played.  It is of a Panel Switch. 

5/17/2007

I could not make it out to the Southern California Asterisk Group last night.  There was so much traffic on the 405.  It was averaging 11-MPH.  It took an hour and a half to get from Sunset Blvd to the 110 freeeway.

5/14/2007

Added a Photo Gallery.  You can find it on the left.  It has some Vegas pictures.

5/13/2007

Now you can call in by calling one of the by SIPPhone access numbers by SipBroker or one from SIPPhone. The number is 1-747-601-1541 then type in the three digit number.

5/11/2007

I finally got Phunfone recordings running on my home phone.  There is the Phunfone announcement, then you enter in the three digit tape number.  Right now there are just the first 30 tapes.

The next thing would be to add my Free World Dialup number and offer up the recordings there.  I have it setup on FWD but for the moment, my SPA-2000 needs to be turned off since it is configured for that line.

5/10/2007

The extra PC is now running Trixbox v2.0 with updates.  The install was easy.

When it finished, I typed in 'netconfig' and entered in the static IP address, net mask, gateway address, & the DNS address.

Next enter 'help-trixbox' and change all of the passwords.

Next update the software with 'yum -y update'.

I should create a separate Trixbox page, showing what I have done to make it work.

4/5/2007

I still have a cough and some congestion.

This weekend I need to get this place fixed up.  Paul Bunnell and a few other people want to come over and dub some reel-to-reel tapes.

I'm going to start playing around with Asterisk PBX.

3/5/2007

I've been busy and sick lately.  I went to the Los Angeles Asterisk User Groupmeeting last month.  There were some interesting topics.  It gave me an idea to record these meetings (if they will let me).  I found the best field recorder for doing this.  Blair Alperdemonstrated it on his show (LTUAE).  It's the Zoom H4.  Blair compared it to the Edirol R-09 and the M-Audio MicroTrack. The H4 won out with all of it's neat features.

Uncle Jeffy from Fluke sent me some pictures of some Fluke fliers, a neat Zzzzzz poster, and a picture of Al Diamond at the Fluke studios.

10/30/2006

Here is the video of the guy that was the voice for Dial-A-Joke.

Video: Windows Media

Video: RealAudio

10/9/2006

I'll be meeting with the guys that started Dial-A-Joke back in 1970.  I hope to take some pictures.

10/7/2006

The company picnic was nice.  It was at the Santa Anita race track.  I'll be posting a couple of pictures.

9/25/2006

I received four tapes of Phunfone from Stu.  I'll be posting them on the Phunfone page soon.

8/22/2006

Paul Bunnell was interviewed on a tech podcast called Tech Help Weekly.  This is his first podcast.

The Superfone tape has been transfered to digital without any problems like sticky tape.  The time consuming part is converting it to RealAudio & Windows Media files.  Since Joe wants quality, I am encoding an extra file at a higher bitrate.  The two bitrates are for RealAudio @ 32K & 50K.  Windows Media files @ 37K & 70K.  These are the closest values I can find on the encoders.

8/18/2006

I went to the SoCal Asterisk User Group meeting last night.  They had an interesting talk about soft phones on PDA's.  About which ones work with what versions of Windows PDA OS's.  It wasn't too bad staying up that late.  I asked one of the guys to help me with a couple of problems I'm having with my Asterisk setup.

8/17/2006

I got TrixBox running on my spare machine.  I have tried out the X100P card on the  line.  There are two problems.  First one is the PSTN line answers into an Asterisk disonnect recording.  I guess I need to assign it an extension.  The second is the DSL modem doesn't like the X100P hooked up.  It's trying to connect but can't.

If you are in Southern California and would like to attend the Asterisk Users Group Meeting, it is tonight from 6-9pm at the Heritage Park Library.

Irvine Heritage Park Library

(949) 936-4040

14361 Yale Ave

Irvine, CA 92604

Tonight there will be having a demo of SIPX, a review of the SNOM 320 phone, and a look at FreePBX, the new version of the Asterisk Management Portal. Also, more books to give away from O'Rielly!!

8/15/2006:

Have not been doing much with this.  Been busy with work, my life and my webpages.

This weekend I hope to get Asterisk running and have it answer the landline. There are so many things that I need to do.

Regina has a get together on 8/26 at the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company in Long Beach.