This sort of television almost makes me wish we had Japanese-style game shows instead.

Almost.

This is more of a technical review rather than an plot synopsis. If you want that, check out http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1659338/

On a total impulse after seeing the promo on the "barker" chanel, I ordered this movie on demand Friday night. I remember hearing numbers stations fairly frequently in the 1980s when I was doing a lot of SWL, and figured it might be a good popcorn movie.

The movie looks OK, but as usual there's a lot of hardware overkill when it comes to Hollywood's interpretation of security. Think underground bunkers, "mantrap" gates, and bank vault doors all over the transmitter facility. Of course, there's no rent-a-cop at any of the gates or remotely viewed cameras over secure fiber links to the station, only a laptop computer that is running the typical Hollywood easy-hack operating system and several iMacs in the main transmitting room. There's no shots of transmitters or other radio equipment (I don't even recall seeing a mixer in the "studio") and there's no engineer or technical people at the site. Being an underground bunker, it's also very very dark all the time.

The plot requires a super-intelligent, but completely helpless woman, to read the numbers out over the air once a computer generates the cypher code. Of course given the mechanical sound of all the numbers stations I've heard, this is completely wrong, the voice might be female but is just a computer playing out audio files. This super-intelligent woman still manages to talk into the wrong side of the mic (a Neumann U87, which is mounted vertically with the capsule on the side http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Neumann_U87.jpg). This is forgivable except that there's a big metal band that runs over the top, and you'd think the sound guy might point out the error to someone anyway.

At any rate, the way they describe the decode process isn't too far off from what most people accept as how it's really done, but greatly simplified. There's also a lot of plot holes that would become apparent when you realize that only one station had been compromised (that earlier was said to only send instruction to European operatives), yet instructions were sent to operatives all over the world. And again, I just couldn't get over the fact that an ultra secure location has almost no security or outside monitoring, nor was there any upper-level monitoring of the messages being sent. I don't want to give away too much, but suffice to say the whole system seems to be way too easy to game with far too little security to make sense.

The CIA guy assigned to the station does a lot of shooting, gets shot a lot and John Cusack does a good job of trying to make it an action-thriller. But the script really wants to be more of a mystery, or romance, or something. It certainly didn't have anything to do with radio.

I've never had any issues with buying online until last month. I'm looking at buying a new base station. After finding a "deal" on the eham classifieds I started the process. When I asked if the seller took pay pal, he provided me his account email address, which was not the same as the address we'd been using (BTW both were yahoo.com addresses, don't know if that's a red flag or not). At any rate, I Googled the paypal email address and the first hit was a post in a wrist watch forum saying the address in question was a scammer address. Needless to say, bargain or not, the deal wasn't going to happen. The seller did say his email account was hacked, but after I called it off I haven't heard anything from the seller, and I notice "he" pulled the classified ad.

Interesting note: According to QRZ.com, the scammer happened to use the callsign of a former Ohio cop. I made sure I mentioned this to him when I called off the deal.

I just took down my 28' vertical in a tree. It had 2 18' radials, 180° apart. Connected with a 4:1 UNUN it would tune on any band, and was great at picking up the S9+ powerline noise in the area.

There's a lot that goes on "behind the scenes" in the APRS-IS when it comes to messages. For the most part, it works, but both parties have to send at least one position report prior to trying to send a message. The exception is if you are going through all local links (which may be the case if you're just trying to reach your wife). Composing messages is tedious on the front keypad, but can be done. You might be able to use the AFSK or Bluetooth TNC mode on DroidAPRS to make it easier. Also would work if one party has call service and sent yes or no type questions to the other party on the radio.

If the message is going over the Internet you might find that the local gateway operators block traffic, but I've not had that happen anywhere around here.

A google search for Superjack and following a few links led me to this site:
http://www.geo-orbit.org/sizepgs/tuningp3.html#anchor485744

The Superjack is a linear actuator arm used for positioning a C band satellite dish. Looks like it was modified to raise or lower the antenna in a very interesting way. I'd have to see the inside, but according to this (http://www.satelliteguys.us/threads/150256-Connecting-a-SuperJack-QARL-3024-actuator) page, that limit switch is actually a turns counter to send feedback to a satellite receiver to help position the antenna.

Wow that is very good. Thanks for posting.

Also take a look at the more recent Icom units. They have been moving to a USB interface that emulates a sound card and serial interface built right in. It makes for a one-cable solution and nothing else to buy. I used an IC-7200 during field day last year at the club PSK-31 station and it worked very well. Icom also has a remote control program that will control nearly (if not all) functions of the radio. I don't know of any program that will control 100% of the FT-897's functions.

Nothing really wrong with them, but keep in mind the 857/897 aren't the best for computer control, and some of the tech is getting long in the tooth. The price is right though. Understand, I own an FT-897d and an FT-817 and have been happy with them, but there's better stuff out there today, even from Yaesu.

I tried using an Icom R-10 for a downlink when starting to build a duplex station. It did a fair job at picking up SO-50 and almost nothing on linear satellites. I could pick up the VO-52 beacon when the satellite was directly overhead, but that's about it.

Later I bought a used FT-817. Difference was night and day. And it wasn't too expensive either. I think I have more in coax and antennas than the cost of the 817.

Thanks for posting the video. I noticed some movement on the servo bracket when first starting up, maybe put a rubber shim in the U bolt? I use old bicycle innertubes. Just anything that can get some grip instead of metal on metal.

Make sure you are using the correct wiring scheme on the CAT-5 cable:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Power_over_Ethernet#Power_capacity_limits

I usually use T568B wiring on straight cables and it works OK. If you wire a T568A on one end and a T568B connector on the other it will make a "crossover" cable, saving you the need to buy a switch to interconnect 2 devices.

Try using a short 6' jumper as a test. If it works, there's your answer. Also, it could be that the POE feature is not true POE and doesn't like the 48VDC or so that the trendnet injector is putting out. If that's the case, there are passive injectors available, but I don't know that 5VDC would survive the 100' trip out to the antenna.

You can use APRS Droid in AFSK mode to transmit and receive packet using the audio speaker and microphone. There was a simple circuit in QST last year to make a DATA interface for Android devices that would key a transmitter when audio was sent from the Android device. Might be a little tricky interfacing with your HT, but I'm sure there's a way.

How the antenna is mounted might have something to do with how water is handled. I've seen a few matches that if they were mounted "on top" would pool water and destroy themselves.

BTW, I'm not trying to start an argument, just attempting to be precise.

Once again, AFAIK, there is no built in APRS capability in the ID-51a. D-star uses a completely different type of digital modulation, as well as a non-APRS frame format for sending GPS data.

However, there are D-star gateways that will convert the D-star information to an APRS compatible frame:

2013-03-22 13:50:49 MDT: KB4SHQ>API51,DSTAR*,qAR,KA4YMZ-B:/221950z3517.04N/08102.38W>068/000/A=000736HELLO

Note in the frame (pulled from APRS.fi) the DSTAR* route. Unless there's someone in the local area who is routing position information between the D-star network and the APRS network, the only points these two networks touch is on the Internet, through the APRS-IS. If that's all you're interested in, that's fine. But if you want to have your position be seen on your buddy's TH-d72, it won't happen without a lot of manual routing that may or may not work, depending on how the RF links in your area are configured. Generally, position reports are one-way (RF to Internet) on the APRS-IS, to keep from flooding the RF channel. One question I have is what frequency are you transmitting on for sending position data?

More info about the D-PRS to APRS gateway software can be found here:
http://www.aprs-is.net/images/D-PRS.pdf