Sad to read today that the upcoming FPR32 release of TenFourFox, a browser built to run on older PowerPC G4 and G5 Macs, will no longer be developed.
I run TenFourFox on both a Power Mac G4 Quicksilver 2002 and a Power Mac G5, and have enjoyed having this option of a current browser that still runs and is able to access most modern websites on these older machines. Given that TenFourFox is developed and maintained by a single developer for free, it’s really nothing but outstanding that we’ve been able to enjoy having the option of running a modern browser on these aging machines.
After the success of getting my first couple of successful Navtex decodes a couple of days back, I left my PC, SDRPlay and YAND running overnight to see what I’d receive from different stations during the night.
Checking this morning, I got several messages from a number of different stations. Around midnight I was receiving from the Cambria station in Los Angeles. Over the following couple of hours I received transmissions from almost all the West coast stations.
Each message starts with ZCZC (referring to the Navtex page on Wikipedia here), then the next character (B1 field) is the station identifier. Stations are listed on the Station List page here, but there’s also a useful table in this doc covering all Maritime communications which is an interesting read:
This doc also has a map showing the location of each of the US and Canadian stations:
Here’s the messages I received overnight, from Cambria, Point Reyes, Astoria, and Tofino stations:
Cambria, Los Angeles – Station ID = Q
Astoria, OR, station ID = W :
Point Reyes / SF, station ID = C :
Tofino, Vancouver Island, Station ID = H :
This one is interesting, a warning re. a sub-surface scientific platform west of Vancouver Island:
Warning re. COVID-19 pandemic:
Astoria, OR, Station ID = W :
This one is interesting, Whidbey Island small arms safety warning:
The Packet Radio service on the ISS has been out for a few months, but during an EVA yesterday a cable was replaced and the service is back up again for the first time today.
I used my regular 2m radio , an Icom 880h with my homebrew copper wire 2m groundplane antenna in the attic, and transmitted on full power (50w), hooked up to a laptop via a Rigblaster, running UZ7HO soundmodem for the packet radio modem, and used the UISS software to send the APRS packets.
The pass was only 57 degrees at the highest, so it wasn’t a particularly high pass. I don’t think I started to hear packets until it was a couple of mins towards the peak. I heard 6 other stations get digipeated by the ISS: KB6LTY, K6FVC, N6RSX, KG6LHW, W7OSG and AB7DY, and I got about 3 APRS transmission digipeated (my callsign is KK6DCT):
If you’re wondering what this is about I have a couple of other posts from when I tried to get this working a few years ago:
