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.
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.
using upgraded FreePBX v2.4.0beta2.2
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 a Callcentric DID number
8/26/2007
New Trixbox related pages
Configure Trixbox for IAX access to the Uddle CBC Asterisk PBX
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 and all of the menus are different. FreePBX is a Standardised Implementation of Asterisk that gives you a GUI to manage your system. NerdVittles 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-09and 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.
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.