Cool codec conversion utilities on Linux

I needed to convert some video clips from format A to format B.  (The video clip started as an OGG format)

• I tried to upload the whole clip unedited but YouTube could not handle the OGG format and conversion.
  
  
• I ended up using some video editing software (and trimmed it down a bit.) When I tried exporting the final product so that I could upload it to YouTube I was not happy with the file size to quality trade-offs.  (Yeah, I am bandwidth limited here in the middle of now where.)  I ended up exporting to a couple of different formats and uploaded one of large files (H264, MOV, MPEG4)
  

I was not completely happy with the experience and decided to do some more research. I discovered (no surprise) that the current flavors of Linux have some powerful utilities assuming that you are willing to work from the command line.

I have a many of the audio and video codecs loaded so I did not actually need to install anything new... your mileage may very.

Here are a couple of examples:
ffmpeg -i fileA.ogg fileA.avi
ffmpeg -i fileA.ogg fileA.mov

The file size and quality were very good. I am sure that with some additional tweaking I could improve upon the results of tonight's exercise.

Take a look at:  man ffmpeg   for more details

SO-67 Sunday night

A rare one....

I got an email from Chris KC0YBM indicating that he was going to try to work SO-67 tonight. I am not a huge satellite guy so I was not really aware of SO-67 until I went out to the AMSAT page.

I was working some 80m PSK and participating in the Sunday night QRP/homebrew net at the same time. So I figured that I might as well record the satellite pass for Chris and maybe try to work a couple of folks. I ended up getting in the log prior to losing the bird.

73 de NG0R

AA5PK on SO-50

I worked AA5PK on the tail end of another SO-50 pass.


I actually missed most of the pass and looked up from doing something else. I decided to swing the beam and see if I could try to work any someone.

I went out to QRZ to look up the info about the callsign. Glenn has a nice looking shack. He has some AZ/EL control of his antennas which is a semi-rare thing for most folks.

73 de NG0R

Working some birds

I typically don't spend a lot of working satellite QSOs. I was curious to see if I could record the downlink audio on top of video from the prediction & tracking software that I use. I am trying to capture some audio and video for a presentation that I am working.

Here are two quick clips:

It is a good starting point. (The native resolution prior to going to YouTube is quite a bit higher.)

Kingston Sleet

Winter is coming....

Here is a little weather video that I shot yesterday on my cell phone. The sleet sounds like hail. About 5 minutes after the sleet stopped the heavy snow started.

QSO with the ISS (NA1SS)

I was able to work the International Space Station on Friday evening and again on Sunday morning.

Image courtesy of NASA

Col. Douglas Wheelock operating NA1SS aboard the International Space Station.

Col Wheelock is scheduled to fly back to earth on Thanksgiving day around 10:45pm central time. He has been very active during his free time making contacts on the radio.  The ISS has an excellent signal when it is active.

Now I need to figure out how to get a QSL card from them.  :-)

73 de NG0R

Archery Class

Jake and Ben are taking an archery class in Litchfield.






It is a neat class one night per week. The group of kids there seem to be having a good time and are making good progress.

Fall Birthday Party

OK... I am a little behind on posting photos.  Here are the photos from the 2010 birthday pool party.











Happy birthday Jake, Ben, and Joe

NG0R First QSO via Satellite

I spent some time in EN24 yesterday with some folks from the W0CRC (Crow River Radio Club).  Chris KC0YBM was putting on a demo showing folks how to work satellites to make some QSOs. He has a nice portable setup where he can operate from the back of his Subaru with an FT-8800R and an Arrow antenna.

I spent the afternoon shooting video and stills to put together a future presentation for a couple of the local clubs. As part of that activity I concluded that I should be able to make a couple of quick changes to my shack that would allow my me do the same thing from home.

So today (Sunday) in between the normal chores I managed to put a couple of new QSOs in my log.


It looks like I have a DST error in the log... should be 23:xx.. fixed.

AJ5C was my first QSO via satellite. K8YSE was my second. Both of the Q's were completed on the AO-51 satellite.

Here is a quick picture of my temporary shack from my camera phone.

I am running Linux with the program GPredict to figure out when the satellites will pass my area. I am running CQRLog as my standard logging program.  Nothing too fancy here, it is your basic HF+VHF/UHF/Microwave+QRP shack. (My Elecraft K2 is not in the picture as I am doing some work on it over at the work bench)

I used a FT-1900 (2m FM) as the uplink radio connected to my 144mhz SSB/CW weak signal antenna. I used a FT-7800 (deaf on 2m but 70cm FM works fine) as the downlink radio connected to my 432mhz SSB/CW weak signal antenna. Both beams are on my VHF tower. The antennas are not really tuned for this high in the band but they seemed to play ok.



Since AO-51 is a FM bird you dial in the uplink frequncy 145.920mhz and just leave it alone. I then dialed in the downlink frequency of 435.300mhz. I then swung the antennas to the southwest and waited.  AO-51 rose in the southwest and then made an arc to my northwest and was pretty easy to follow. I had some slight doppler shift on the downlink so I ended up tuning in at 435.305mhz.

QSO with AJ5C

QSO with K8YSE

The QSOs can be pretty short as there are a lot of folks trying to work people in a very short window. Typically it is callsigns + grids + roger/73. There are is some occasional chit-chit if there is time and it is not too crowded.

Sure, a nice dual-band/two-band-at-a-time rig like an FT-8800R would make this easier. This took about an hour to setup to make my first QSOs via satellite and cost nothing.

I will likely get a satellite friendly radio and an arrow antenna for portable operation while on photo trips, camping, and family outings. This was pretty fun. At some point I would like to try to work some of the linear transponders on SSB and CW.  --That is an adventure for another day.

73 de NG0R

Did you vote today?

A few quick images from my polling location this morning around 7:20am.....




The city of Kingston has two booths... on the other side of the room the township of Kingston has quite a few more.





The optical reader is pretty neat. It counts the votes in real time and they have a paper copy of the ballot in case they need to do a recount.  (Belt and suspenders approach)



The city of Kingston has just over 100 people pre-registered to vote. (I am not sure how many the township has... but I suspect that it is quite a few more based upon the number of booths that they have.)