August Main Meeting: Home Automation interactive discussion 29/08/19

Photo by 수안 최 on Unsplash

Our resident home automation expert  Roger Harris will be chairing the discussion on Linux based home automation. want to learn or have something to comment on say Home Assistant or Domoticz  then this is your chance to have your say. This is a wide ranging discussion from the high level software above to the drivers and custom firmware required for the control hardware and home brew solutions based on ESP 8266/ESP32  and other such hardware. As usual this will be held at the Cock Hotel Wellington Thursday 29/08/19@7pm, hope to see you there!

 

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Counting Meteors with SDR RTL Dongles 17/08/19

Shropshire Astronomical Society is a regular visit for us and this time the trip out  to Rodington Village Hall set us up for a particularly well attended event with  Heather doing a presentation on Meteor counting and tracking using a PC and RTL Dongle as a SDR Receiver

Space debris of all types hit the atmosphere 24/365 and cause the air to ionise which in turn reflects radio waves back  to the observer, if this signal is not normally receivable  then  you can count the meteors by counting the signal pulses. In this case the source of strong radio waves was the GRAVES transmiter in France  during the demo the signal was received several times a minute with the back end of the Perseid shower making up the bulk of the objects observed. Heather will be making the talk available to download and we’ll be linking to this when available so if you are interested in trying this for yourself click here when available!

Space Guard Centre and BBQ 10/08/19

Thanks to Ian and Heather for organising this all day event  firstly at the Space GuardCentre in Knighton  just over the Welsh border.  Spaceguard is home to several wide-field telescopes including one from Cambridge University which is currently been re-commissioned with a suitably way out project name Drax

One of the currently operating  telescopes at Spaceguard.

The tour is a fun couple of hours been taken around the site learning about the work of not only Spaceguard but also other agencies mostly in the USA as well as the good work been done by Amateur observers. Make sure the human race doesn’t go the way of the dinosaurs take a trip here and maybe make a small donation to their Asteroid hunting efforts!

 

Space is hungry business and after a drive through the Shropshire countryside we all arrived at Heather and Paul’s place and we had a very pleasant BBQ and fun chat.

Thanks to all who organised the day and those who came and made it a happy time!

 

August Mid Month 09/08/19

Nice to see folk coming to the Arleston Inn event even  though we are in the middle of Holiday Season. Productive and fun as usual.Looking forward to the September events and the start of the Autumn.Winter season!

July End Of Month Meeting 25/07/19

Future’s so bright I gotta wear shades!! We’ve had a lot of successful projects come together over the last few months. The group Balloon project has finally got a full set of launch data and photography. Data analysis is underway  and a further launch is very soon. Personal projects such as Roger’s Home Auto project are at a very interesting stage.  We have a stand at the TDARS Rally on the 1st of September and we willbe looking to display our wares and also gather some new members(Help here will be appriciated BTW). We shalll be discussing all these and many others so I will be happy to see you Thursday 25th at 7pm Cock Hotel as usual….

July Mid month Meeting11/07/19

Once again time for the mid month meeting held as usual at the Arleston Inn (7pm start). Usual project focus to this meeting as well as a social chat! Plenty has been going on this month so expect reports from the BATC meeting, Our telemetry and Satelite weather demo at the Astronomy Event   and  the SLUG balloon launch  from Church Stretton to Richmond  London!!

 

 

June End Of Month 27/06/19

Why cant you just fly a balloon, what is a NOTAM and what happens if your flight is heading for a military base or the Ocean? Find out at our next meeting not only that but more Linuxy how to link your programs with FIFOs and how this can make the impossible work. All interesting stuff see you there!!