I think I have not ranted for a while, right? Just recently I bought a simple dual band handy transceiver, to be able to use the repeaters here. So far however I have not had a single QSO with it.
Repeaters are a difficult topic in Taiwan. Years ago I had the chance to witness the construction, installation and later failure of a "repeater" in Taizhong. Said repeater consisted of an Alinco mobile dual band transceiver in crossband repeater mode with two linear amplifiers, one for 144 and 430MHz each. That repeater was set up in a back metal box (with fans, but that did not make any difference) and installed on a building roof - directly under the sun. Do I need to elaborate what happened? Probably not.
The local radio law mentions repeaters, but AFAIK it is impossible to apply for one. Besides, 430MHz in Taiwan is only 2MHz wide: 430-432MHz. There are no repeaters on 144MHz (probably copied from Japan). So how come there are repeaters on 430MHz when you can not apply for one and do not have the space to place uplink and downlink within the allowed frequency range?
The answer is "emergency services". When an earthquake or typhoon takes down regular communication networks, these repeaters are supposed to allow communication in a wider area, ideally throughout the whole island. This is however like a China Crisis song - wishful thinking . "C6" is the repeater supposed to cover the Gaoxiong area. So far I could not open it with my handy transceiver, not from Zuoying, not from Sanmin, not from Xiaogang. So I think I better not rely on it in case of a real emergency...
Emergency services was of course only an official reason to get the repeaters approved. They are connected to echolink, and in the Northern part of this island, people even seem to be using them on a regular basis. But now comes the technical side: You may already have wondered how a repeater fits into 2MHz. The answer is simple: It does not. the downlink frequency is 430.980MHz, uplink frequencies are above 439MHz.
Did you notice the use of singular and plural? Good. This is not a joke. There was a time when even the uplink was on the same frequency. Not kidding. People even noticed that this caused problems (Hear, hear...), and I only shook my head when I read about those problems on the local Skype chat. This is FM! Two FM signals on the same frequency will cause interference or you will only hear the stronger one. So, if a station is closer to C5 (the Tainan repeater) than to C6 (Gaoxiong), but can be heard by both repeaters, while a replying station can only reach C6, do you think the calling station will hear the reply? I think not...
So the solution was to use different uplink frequencies, but still use the same downlink frequency. Ingenious. Do you have an idea how much time it takes to set those frequencies up in your transceiver? Usually you would set a shift (say, 7.6MHz in Europe), and then just tell the transceiver to use shift on certain frequencies. If you follow standard frequency assignments, your transceiver may even switch the shift on automagically. Here however...
Let's see if I can convince anyone to fix this mess...
Wow, now the spam is really rolling. I always had the occasional spam user registration once in a while, but the last two days it seems there were about 200(!) registrations, and all under the name "girl, girl", many with an e-mail address that contained some Chinese name, so I guess the author of the software behind all this is of Chinese descend.
If this goes on, I will probably close down registration completely, at least for a while...
I would really like to put the person responsible for the electrical wiring at the place I am living now into a room with 200 angry Narn. Or if that is not possible, he should for the rest of his life live in a house where all sockets are tied to just one fuse/breaker of 10A...
I replaced a socket today, because I noticed it became rather hot when I was baking bread. Searching for the correct breaker to not electrify myself in the process I found that almost all sockets here are tied to one single 20A breaker! The only exemption I noticed was a socket in the kitchen, probably meant for devices with higher power consumption. Unfortunately I can not plug oven or microwave in, because around that socket there is no space to put anything bigger than a plate. Even the fridge is currently still running from the same net. I really don't understand such a person's mind...
My oven alone consumes 1200W when upper and lower heat are both on. Microwave is 800W. I don't know how much my fridge consumes, but somehow I doubt it is only 200W - and since we use 110V here in Taiwan, that's about it. My computer equipment is on the same net, the iron (1000W again) too... Also all lighting is on one (but different) breaker, but that is somehow acceptable.
I suppose at least the washing machine will have its own line/breaker. But again my confidence in local planning skills has received an enormous boost...
May I rant? I think I may, this is my site after all. Having been an interpreter in a former life, I have been trained to use standard tongue in any language I use. Dialects may be understood, but they make communication harder. And what is hard for human beings may be impossible for computers - deviations from standards usually result in errors. This is one reason why I am a very strong opponent of any website or networked application that is "made for IE".
Why is it necessary to write HTML, Javascript or CSS especially for the one browser that violates or ignores all kinds of standards? Why not write standard code and accept that IE is not able to display a few things correctly? Other browsers will be able to...
But this is still nothing. Other browsers have learned to at least disguise themselves as Internet Explorer, so users do not need to worry about funny error messages, like asking you to upgrade your 2011 browser to one from 2001 ... So what can you do to throw them out? Simple: Use ActiveX!
In case you do not know: An ActiveX element is a piece of software that a website installs on your computer - to access that website. Indeed, for some sites it is not sufficient to use the Internet Explorer to access that site, you still need ActiveX on top of it! Security issues? Pah...
If you have been browsing the web for a while, using all kinds of browsers on different operating systems, you may ask now why someone would need ActiveX to access a website when you and me can do so without. Well, fasten your seatbelt: My current employer purchased some kind of collaboration software written in Java and running on a Windows machine. That site requires (in 2011) "IE6 or higher", according to the error message I get with any other browser than IE. But the best...
There is a window for a "message center" on the site. I never saw anything inside other than a question mark when I used Firefox/Chrome on Windows. Then I used IE and was surprised to see - text. Yes, those experts managed to require ActiveX to display text on a website! I am completely flabbergasted by so much professional expertise...
Since I complained, the software company will send someone next week to try and "enlighten" me. I am looking forward to his futile attempts at answering my questions...
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