I will remember 2011 as the year when the Linux desktop took a huge step backwards. After decades of evolution we finally had a nice Gnome 2 based desktop providing a clean and efficient environment where one could focus on getting the work done. Even the Ubuntu variant with their this-makes-me-wanna-puke-brown and purple theme was okay, because it took only a few mouse clicks to switch back to something more pleasant looking, e.g. the Clearlooks theme. All this is gone now as the majority of Linux desktops come with either Gnome 3 or Unity – two equally useless and pathetic attempts at making the Linux desktop look like a cellphone.
eCAM32 camera mounted on the Overo
A few closeup photos showing the eCAM32 3.2 megapixel camera mounted on top of the Gumstix Overo Water, mounted on the Tobi expansion board.
Gumstix Overo Water + eCAM32 camera demo
As promised in my last post, here is a quick demo of the eCAM32 3.2 megapixel camera connected to the Gumstix Overo Water. I am presenting two videos, one showing the setup where the eCAM32 camera board is mounted on top of the Gumstix Overo Water, the other one being a screen cast demonstrating some of the most common settings of the camera. I am using the Tobi expansion board because it has Ethernet interface allowing me to stream H.264 encoded video to a host PC running linux.
Butternut HF2V on 10 and 15 meters
Two recordings I made during the 2011 CQ WW CW contest showing how well the Butternut HF2V receives on the 21 and 28 MHz bands. The videos were recorded using the Funcube Dongle equipped with the HF converter kit and my GNU Radio based software defined radio receiver, GQRX.
Butternut HF2V check 2011
I usually check my Butternut HF2V vertical antenna every spring to see how much it has suffered during the winter. The winters in Denmark can be very windy and wet, which is not very good for an antenna. This spring I was rather busy and I postponed the annual check until now. I haven’t used the antenna for a long time, so I didn’t know what to expect. Physically, the antenna is still standing and only one of the four guy ropes needed to be repaired since the last check more than 1.5 year ago.
The e-CAM32 and e-CAM50 cameras
As I mentioned in my previous post, I had only had limited success with the Caspa VL and Logitech UVC cameras. While both cameras work with the Gumstix, the Caspa seems to take poor images while the Logitech USB camera performance is limited by low USB bandwidth. Therefore, I have decided to try my luck with cameras from e-Con Systems.
Video encoding using the DSP is working
I’m happy to report that I am now able to encode video on the Gumstix Overo Water using the DSP in the OMAP3530. It wasn’t difficult to make it work but it took several attempts at building the kernel before I got it right and, as you might know, cross compilation takes time.
Work continues on the OMAP3 VPU
A year has passed since we had a Gumstix Overo based video recorder onboard an amateur rocket and it is time to resume working on it. This time I will continue towards the original goal, namely live radio transmission of video encoded using the built-in DSP.
Howto receive and decode NOAA APT images with the Funcube Dongle and Gqrx
One of the great advantages of software defined radio receivers is that tuning receiver settings is a matter of adjusting software parameters. Gqrx is no different here and has optimal settings built in for weather satellite reception. This tutorial describes how to receive automatic picture transmissions (APT) from NOAA weather satellites using Gqrx SDR, record them to a WAV file, and finally decode the images using the free and open source Atpdec decoder. If you follow this guide you can end up with very nice results such as the one shown at the end.
Qthid 3.1 with Mac OS X Lion support
The Qthid Funcube Dongle controller version 3.1 has now been released. This release includes the necessary fixes to make qthid work on Mac OS X 10.7 Lion. Thanks to Mike KØZAP for the patch!