simon43

IMHO,with the world in its current state of uncertainty, any and every country should plan for 100% production of its electrical supply, and not rely on any other country for the fuel or resource to create that electricity. Thailand can supply 60% of its needs from its own natural gas. What about solar power, tidal/wave power, nuclear, biomass? Don't be at the behest of another country who can increase resource prices and availability as they wish.

View from the yard. I'm about 500m from a beautiful and deserted beach. I go swimming every early morning. The tall mast (21m high) supports one of my radio ham antenna wires. The antenna in front of it is for sending SSTV (TV pictures). It's not high enough yet but I have to work out to get it higher without the wind blowing it over...

Hey! Is that my crazy ex-wife?!! 🙂

That's the map overlay produced by the software itself. I see no sign of a signal (eg clouds). The overlay should generally be your region, since the satellite passes over your position, taking about 10 minutes to do so. Whereabout in the world are you? A simple, fixed dipole is not the best antenna, since the satellite passes over and above you. Are you able to physically hold the antenna to 'aim' it at the satellite position?

I can't see all of your Satdump screen, but the step by step process is: - start Satdump with your SDR and antenna connected - make sure you have added your latitude/longitude under the General Settings tab - in 'Recorder' tab, click on 'File Source' and select your SDR type and click on 'start' - make sure that the SDR gain slider if turned up to about 35dB - you can adjust the FFT settings to get a visible trace - click on 'tracking' and then click on 'Schedule and Config' - Add NOAA15,18 and 19 to the 'Search selected' list - Click on 'Engage Autotrack' and you should see all 3 satellites graphically displayed for their next visible pass times. - Now disengage the autotrack and add the frequency 137.620 for NOAA-15. Click on 'Live' and select 'NOAA APT' as the processing type. - repeat for NOAA-18 (137.9125) and NOAA-19 137.1) - engage autotrack again and close that pop up window. Now the 'autotrack engaged' should be a green 'yes' and your tracking display should show the next time to acquire the 1st of these 3 satellites (AOS). When this happens, the Satdump should start to show the received signal. After about 12 minutes, it is loss of signal LOS and then Satdump will automatically process and save the received images in the directory that you specified in General Settings. Why might you receive nothing? 1 - You forgot to enter your lat/long or entered them incorrectly 2 - Your SDR/cabling has a fault 3 - Your antenna is not suitable (what antenna are you using?) 4 - Your view of the sky is obscured by trees, buildings etc. Let me know how you get on! To show what is possible, I received this image today when NOAA was only 5 degrees above my horizon, passing over India. The image is not perfect, because it was way off 'illuminating' Thailand.

Then I just relocate to the Philippines for good. No family here, rented house, rented car, totally mobile... 🙂

End of the month means invoice time for my online science teaching 🙂 This month (June 2025) is special because I will also start to receive my UK state pension some time near the end of the month, and then next month and then again... Life is good....

The only action that can save the UK is some kind of military takeover of the government, arrest/jail Starmer and his cronies, impose martial law, deport all illegal immigrants to somewhere totally miserable and cold, like St Kilda.

Just correct the headline: "The town where ANY older man can pay to find a young female hooker" Nothing wrong with that. But don't fool yourself that she loves you. She loves your money, nothing else.

Tin-hat nonsense from a chiropractor. Jeez.......

More interesting than propping up a bar, trying to drown my liver or chatting up some ugly tart who probably has a todger twice the size of mine.....

I think some members are 'professional' shills, posting controversial and put-down remarks to generate more comments and clicks. "Went to Pattaya a while ago and most of the single old men walking around looked like their Mother and Dog had just died" It's a medical condition 🙂 As you age, gravity moves the tissue of your face downwards, including the sides of your mouth. Older people also lose muscle mass. The end result is that many old people are unable to smile because they don't have enough muscle mass in the small muscles used to lift the sides of your mouth upwards!! 🙂 The solution is to exercise those muscles. I walk around smiling at everyone.... When I die, I will look like the joker...

Saturday morning, and last night's rain has stopped, but bad rain storms in Yangon region...

"If you aren't social, you can be lonely in any city" True, but it doesn't apply to everyone who is not 'social'. I don't looking for social interaction, but I'm a very friendly person if someone approaches me. But I much prefer my own company and I'm definitely not lonely.

Yes, walking club, hiking club, rambling club.

Badminton, swimming club, cycling club, walking club.....

I went and bought a 2.2 metre satellite dish... Had to screw all the bits together, took an hour but quite easy. Mounted on my garden wall. Connected up the feedhorn and cables to my laptop. Then tried to find the satellite signal by slowly moving the dish left/right and up/down in the general direction of the satellite. Couldn't find the damn thing and it was too hot to continue... Came back at 6am the next day to try again. No sun, but no signal... Came back this morning at 6am and finally found the satellite signal. Adjusted everything and locked all the nuts and bolts so that it can't move in the wind. Why such a big satellite dish for satellite TV? It's not to receive satellite TV, but to receive images from a South Korean weather satellite 35,000 km out in space🙂 (Yes I know that I can just look up at the sky to see what the weather is like, but I like to make things more challenging! That round feedhorn in the middle is actually a metal ice bucket that I bought in Laos ...)

Not being lonely in Pattaya does not necessarily mean having a Thai GF/BF/wife/partner etc. I'm happily single and when I'm at my condo in Jomtien, I pop over the hill on the baht bus to go shopping, meet some friends, enjoy a meal etc. If I were so-inclined, I could join the expat club, play golf, do team sports etc etc. The big mistake (IMHO), is that guys seem to assume that when in Thailand you must find a Thai GF etc. Why?? At my age, no Thai woman will be interested in me other than for my money, so why waste my precious time seeking one out? There are plenty of social activities in Pattaya that do not involve having a Thai partner - I heartily encourage these 'lonely' men to quit the UK and find a social life in Thailand...

Bunch of snowflake wokies.... I remember the days when TV presenters could make 'real' jokes about n*ggers, p*kis, w*ps and so on. Comedy ain't funny anymore.. 🙂

Give it a rest Bob. Every thread you start is anti-Thai. I really can't understand why you're allowed to get away with breaking one of the forum rules time and time again. (Well, actually I have a very good idea of why you get away with it, but I can't say this - other forum members will understand...)

Yes! In the 1980's I had 1 of these: I was working in London and of course the mobile network was analogue. So it was very difficult to get a clear channel. That didn't matter too much, because the batteries only lasted a few minutes!! 🙂

This is a photo of me (on the left) and one of my software engineers, as we worked on the design of software for one of the first smartphones for Ericcsson. I was the CTO for the company who designed the operating software for some of the first mobile websites. Amazing how mobile devices have progressed in just a few decades.

OK, there are 2 different systems: 1 - Low earth orbit (LEO) weather satellites at about 450km above the Earth, such as NOAA 15, 18 and 19, and the Russian birds Meteor 2-3 and 2-4. They transmit around 137 MHz. These are the images that I've been posting (except for that single whole-world image). Since they are close to the Earth, these satellites move faster than the Earth is spinning, meaning that they orbit the Earth every 90 minutes. In other words, you will only receive an image when the bird is passing over you, and at other times no image is possible since the bird is somewhere else over the Earth. Luckily, NOAA-15 passed over my location just 15 minutes ago, and here's one of the images received, with the intensity of the rain shown in colours: I use an SDR to receive the satellite signal and Satdump free software to decode the satellite signal. 2 - Geostationary weather satellites are about 50,000 km away from the Earth, in an orbit which means they move at the same speed as the Earth turns, meaning that they are visible all the time and always show the same area of the Earth. To decode these images, you can use Satdump again, but you need to use a dish antenna and feed horn to actually receive a strong enough signal. So that's the fun challenge for me 🙂 If you want to receive weather satellite images, using an SDR dongle and Satdump is fine. The easiest and strongest signals come from NOAA 18 and 19, but you do need to mount your receiving antenna clear of buildings/trees etc - my antenna is on a 6-metre pole. A simple dipole antenna should receive some signal, but a 'QFH' antenna works much better - see my photo of this kind of antenna that I built in a few hours from some wire and water pipe.

I also found Lampang dull. Worked there for a few weeks about 15 years ago, dull as dust. As for koh Lanta, I also lived there briefly about 2 years ago, Nice beach, but depressing because of the 'black crows'. I've learnt that living in a Muslim area is depressing, no-one wants to see walking black tents all day.....

Here's my real experience last night, I thought it was a dream, but turned out to be real. I'd gone to bed and was sleeping soundly, or so I thought. But around 3 am, I became aware of loud snoring. Since I live alone, in my half-asleep state I assumed that the snoring was actually me. So I thought no more about it until I consciously held my breath, and the loud snoring continued! That woke me up and I lay in bed listening to this rythmic snoring that sounded as if it was coming from next door. Except there was no next door.... The nearest house to me is about 50 meters away. Surely someone can't be snoring that loud? In fact, this snoring was so loud, that it could be just outside my bedroom window. The only way to find out was to quietly peer out of the window. And so that's what I did, carefully peering out into the darkness. Luckily, there was a little light from the nearby streetlight. Less than 2 metres from my bedroom window was a very contented brown cow, happily snoring in the field next to my house 🙂