Ax0n’s Den

So I have decided to add an ATSC tuner to my HTPC machine. My choice, the WinTV 1800. I have a few extra PCIe slots and aside from USB devices, this appears to be the only other device supported. In fact, it appears to be the only PCIe device supported. Only the ATSC tuner is supported at this point, though it looks like people are working on the analog tuner, which drives the Svideo in and the FM tuner as well.

So my device arrived and I realised that my rabbit ear antenna probably isn’t going to be work well. After a few scans with dvbscan, I am actually picking up everything except KIMA and FOX, according to antennaweb. Fox apparently isn’t broadcasting on ATSC yet ;/

A quick google search for HDTV antenna tells me not to waste my money on expensive internal antennas, that I should either get a good external UHF antenna or build one myself for cheap.

I looked locally for a DB4 or DB2 external antenna. I have an extra coax run from my roof, so this would have been idea. However, no one in town sells them apparently.

On to option B i guess. So I find two sites that describe how to build a custom DB2 antenna. The first describes how to make it out of coat hangers for less than $10. Upon reading, I already have everything needed except the matching transformer and spare metal coat hangers. In the comments, people talk about using romex… now that is something I have spare of. The second site describes pretty much the same design, only the demensions are a little off.. 7″ instead of 5 3/4″ between Vs and it’s build using a 2×4″ instead of a 2×1″, but is ment to include a deflector and a rotor.

Ultimately, I wind up using a spare piece of 3×1″ with 5 3/4″ spacing and romex. I got the matching transformer from Radio Shack, because I was sure they would have it. However it was $6! I found out later they have them at Bimart for $1.30.

After rescanning, I am now getting KIMA and much better signal on all the other transponders.

I’ll upload pictures when I get a chance.

So I was able to get motorola software update, p2kseem and p2kcommander loaded on a windows machine today. Once I got the auxilliary devices to actually show up it was smooth sailing. I have my subsidiary code now and everything that can be unlocked has been. Unfortunately I have inadvertently enabled some sort of stutter dial tone that happens both for outgoing calls AND incomming calls, which is really freaking annoying. The next step is to get a new theme on my phone, and the back LCD image to something other than the Motorola M.

I also picked up a USB Bluetooth Dongle. I spent some time trying to get my phone working to learn that my phone isn’t exporting a DUN service, only Voice and OBEX. Zolan has some expertise in this arena, so hopefully he will be able to assist me with the DUN portion.

The good news is that by way of obexftp ond gnokii I can now access my phone’s filesystem, contact list and calendaring!

Of course, this now means that I will be retiring my Microsoft Wireless Notebook Laser Mouse for a Wireless Bluetooth mouse so I only have to have one dongle sticking out the side of my laptop. Plus the Bluetooth dongle is so much smaller…

So my old cell phone has randomly been “locking up” every since my daughter decided it need to be dunked in a glass of milk 6 months ago.

Well I finally got fed up with it and got myself a Motorola RAZR V3c. I like everything about it so far except that it’s not as easy to hack as I had first though. The tool for linux for P2K phones don’t seam to work with the CDMA RAZR’s, and the tools for Windows don’t seam to like accessing the device through vmware.

Minimally I need to access a native windows machine to upload a theme and seems, and then I can do the rest of what I need over bluetooth from my laptop in linux I think.

You must wonder why I’m relentless and all strung out
I’m consumed by the chill of solitary