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Pandas and Pasta

It’s a Sunday, so I got up early went for a run, took in a car boot sale and a flea market then went to the zoo.  I was done by lunchtime. Which sort of left a hole in my afternoon, which I filled by clearing a few faults on my phone exchange.  I’ve now got two fully working final selectors, with tie lines to connect them to my asterisk box.

Talking of which, I’ve managed to get an old “BT Voyager 220V”  adsl modem working as an ATA.  I bought it last week at a car boot sale for a quid.  As I’m just using it as an ATA and don’t need the ADSL functionality of it, I didn’t need to reflash it with a hacked firmware or anything.  All the required configuration can be done with a combination of its web interface and an ssh or telnet connection.

It’s proving reasonably stable (much more so than the Zoom ATA I paid over £30 for!) and I’ll be writing up how to configure it in the near future.  For now, it’s connected to the Asterisk box at the Dean Forrest Railway so I can make calls through their UAX13.

I fancied something new for dinner tonight, so made myself some pasta with purple sprouting broccoli, peppers and blue cheese.  It was rather tasty. I might have to cook that one a bit more often.

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Peanut Butter Cookies

3oz Butter
2oz Peanut butter
2oz Caster sugar
2oz Soft light brown sugar
4oz Plain flour
Pinch of salt

Blend the butter, peanut butter and sugar together until creamy.  Stir in the flour/salt.  Form into walnut sized balls, place on a baking tray and slightly flatten with a fork.   Bake for 12-15 minutes at 180C/Gas Mark 4 until lightly browned.

Leave on the tray to cool for 5 minutes to set, then transfer to a wire cooling rack.  Try very hard not to eat them all in one go!

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Another bloody squirrel

I really should find something else to take photos of this month.

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For Sale/Disposal – Tannoy/Grampian PA system

The Dean Forrest Railway has recently replaced it’s PA system, and the old one is being disposed of.

All those involved hate the idea of this kit just going to the tip, so we’re looking for someone to rehome it.  We believe this system came from British Rail (although I don’t have any details of which station) and the most modern parts of it were made in 1974 – much of it is earlier than that.  See the below for what equipment is included.  It would suit a collector, or someone looking for spares/repair.  It’s not a complete working system (there are no pre-amps or speakers included) and it’s been in service for over 40 years so can be a little grumpy at times!

Note that this is a PA system designed for driving 100V line speakers, and each amp is single channel only.  This is not suitable equipment for your mobile disco business!

Disposals Process
We want shot of this in a bit of a hurry as it’s bulky and getting in the way.  So these are the rules of the game:

• Collection Only - This equipment is *heavy* and would cost a fortune to crate up and ship by courier.  We don’t have the time or inclination to do so!
• Location – Dean Forrest Railway, Lydney, Forrest of Dean, England.  Directions here: http://www.deanforestrailway.co.uk/section.php?xSec=8
• Donations Welcome – We’re not asking a fixed price for any of this, but would expect some kind of donation to the Dean Forest Railway Telecoms Fund which we’ll use to keep our strowger exchanges going.  We’ll leave the size of the donation up to you.
• Deadline – This kit will be taken to the tip on (or very shortly after) 2nd April 2012.  Anything not collected by then will be lost.
• Collection Dates –  We’ll be available to help you cart it all away on Saturdays: 17th March, 24th March, 31st March.  If you would prefer to collect on any other day (Wednesdays and Sundays are probably the next easiest days for us) please just ask and we’ll see if we can arrange anything.
• Strictly No Warranty! – This is old kit, and this is a “sold as seen” thing.  We don’t guarantee it will work, or that it won’t burn your house down/upset your wife/husband/cat.

Grampian 7441 Power Amplifiers (3 of)
2 are believed to be working, 1 was in our spares store and is untested.   Two are missing the power switch, VU meter, and control panel bezel (as seen in the pictures below)  Note that none of the units have top/bottom panels on the cases, I don’t believe they were shipped with them.  At this stage, I think we’ve lost track of which were working.  You’d best take all three just in case!

Tannoy SPC/PS/5 DC Power Supplies (2 of)
These are of unknown condition, and are thought to be 24V power supplies.   We did have a known working one, but we’ve kept that.  These are untested.  If nothing else, the copper in those enormous transformers has got to be worth a bit!

Tannoy SPC/TA/50L Power Amplifier (1 of)
This was in our spares store and is untested.  Also pictured is a spare amplifier subchassis.  This appears to have been modified somewhat (I think the octal base shown is for a relay rather than a valve – I think it’s probably a speaker protection relay)  I think the spare subchassis is also missing the output power transistors.

Empty Tannoy SPV/TVA chassis (1 of)
This is a completely empty chassis, I think it used to be a pre-amp once upon a time.

The rack and associated metalwork
This is heavy, and is not a standard 19″ rack.  It separates into 2 halves which makes it easier to transport.  Included are a selection of blanking panels.  As I understand it, the main chassis is about 21″ and the internal subchasis is about 19″.  Certainly some of the equipment that was mounted in it appears to be standard 19″ rack mount.  If split down into 2 halves, this would probably fit in a largeish car with the seats down.

Tannoy PA Monitoring Panel
This panel contains  an on/off switch, a 100V line transformer, a speaker and a volume control.  This is believed to be working (although the volume control is a little noisy.  Being a wire wound pot, it’s nothing a good clean wouldn’t sort!)

Documentation
We’ve got a folder full of documentation, including schematics for at least the Grampian amps (possibly the Tannoy as well, I only had a quick look) Also included is this rather fetching Grampian catalogue!

I think that just about covers everything.  If you have any questions about the above, please ask them in the comments.  I’ll do my best to answer all questions, but I live 30 miles away from this equipment on the other side of the Severn Bridge, so I can’t check much or take any additional photos!

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Crocus, Squirrel!

I went for a mini photowalk this morning (which is a rather grand way of saying “I changed the route I walk between the train station and work, and went via the park”)  and took yet more pictures of Crocus’ and squirrels.

I’m pleased with these two though.  I like the composition of both of them, and the light was lovely.  The squirrel has a real “sod off, those are *my* nuts” look on his face.

In other news, I’ve spent most of the evening tonight trawling the internet looking for clips of the first UK speaking clock, as voiced by Ethel Cain.  I’m trying to pull together enough clips from film, videos, interviews and other recordings of the clock to put together enough words to recreate it.

I’m doing quite well, but am still looking for the numbers 5, 11, 13, 14, 15, 16, 18, 19 and a nice clear “o’clock” – so if you know of any online video clips of Ethel Cain saying those numbers please post a link in the comments!

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Monday photowalk

As I mentioned in the photo-challenge specific post, Jonathan, Chris and I went for a photowalk at lunchtime.  We wandered down through Castle Park to the river.  I’ve lost count of how many photos of swans I’ve taken over the years.  I’m still trying to find interesting ways to photograph them!

I think this one gets close to being one of my better ones.  I like the pose, the feathers aren’t blown out and everything is in focus.  The only thing which brings it down really is all the junk floating in the background.  Still, not a bad effort.

One last photo from lunchtime – I like the lines on this building, and the way the gull flying past breaks into them.  I don’t have anything interesting to say about the building.  I’m not even sure what building it is.

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Leap!

This weeks photo-challenge is Leap! (In honour of the leap day that we had last Wednesday) So here’s a photo of a trials rider I took on a photowalk at lunchtime today.  It sort of fits the theme.

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Typeface

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Supervisor

I went for a photowalk on my own this lunchtime, and managed to cover quite some distance in my hour!  I was aiming for “no chimping” again, so was being very careful about exposure, composition etc.  Even so, my hit rate wasn’t great.  Of the 45 frames I shot, I post processed 6.

Both of the photos above were taken at a medical centre down by Castle Park.  I quite liked the stark, institutional brickwork (not to mention the odd shape of the building!)  And to see a gull poking its head over the top against the clear blue sky was great.  I’m glad that one came out more or less how I pictured it.

This one of the Shot Tower has potential, but the harsh light of the sun at that time of day made it hard to get a reasonable exposure.  This was the best one I took and I’m not totally happy with the exposure.  I think if it had been taken mid morning, the sun would have been almost behind me (instead of off to the right) and it might have been lit a little more evenly.  Then I’d have been able to get rid of the lens hood and wouldn’t have the vingetting at the corners.

Still, it was a very enjoyable walk all the same.

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Goats!

Jonathan and I went for another lunchtime photowalk.  We needed to go up to one of the Halls of Residence in the afternoon anyway, so we took the van to lunch and stopped off at Durdham Down on the way.

Up on the downs, there’s a small herd of goats* who are allowed to roam relatively free in a gully down the side of the Avon Gorge to control the scrub.  We only found 4 of the 6 that are supposed to be there, and there was a lot of twiggy vegetation in between us and them.  Still, it was nice to just stop and watch them for a bit.

The afternoon was spent effectively switching bits of the wireless network on and off until they worked again.  Yes, really.  £1400 worth of wireless access points needed to be unplugged, then plugged back in again.  No we can’t power cycle them remotely, because the POE switches we’ve got are rubbish and despite offering you the feature for switching things on and off remotely it never seems to bloody work properly and we have to resort to doing it by hand.

* (of course I’ve heard of goats!)

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