Amazon Fire TV disconnecting from network very often

I faced this issue when the 2018 Fire TV stick was disconnecting soon after connecting to the WiFi network. I tried restarting multiple times, switched 2.4/5/ GHz networks, and even restored factory settings, but it was consistently loosing network after a while. Soon I was suspecting some hardware issue.

As a final try, I logged on to my Asus router console and checked for the connected wireless devices. Surprisingly, there was two devices with the same IP address! So there you go - an IP conflict. Never have I experienced a conflict on my router - Asus RT - N66U running Merlin firmware.

Quickly assigned a permanent IP for the Fire TV stick and the problem is solved. A very rare problem and lucky to have it solved sooner than throwing the stick away.

The Fire TV is live and kicking now. Its a tough beast!

Raspberry PI Zero W as Print server

I bought a Ricoh SP111 Laser printer and unfortunately it is only USB and having experienced WiFi printing, it proved to be a serious inconvenience.

Enter Raspberry Pi Zero W !

I bought Raspi Zero W to make my printer available over WiFi. Basic idea was to have the RasPi as a Linux print server running CUPS.

There are several details available on the internet on how to do this. But I had to struggle to get it working in the end, due to some missing subtle details. The following steps were done to make it work.

1. Install Raspbian Stretch Lite. (Followed this blog post https://www.losant.com/blog/getting-started-with-the-raspberry-pi-zero-w-without-a-monitor). The SSH and Wifi credentials are enabled/stored in the sd card, so that the PI will come up online after the first boot and available over network.

2. Install CUPS. (Followed this blog post https://rux.vc/2017.03/raspberry-pi-zero-print-scan-server/)Caveat ^^ Do not set the DefaultAuthType to None. Leave it to Basic, otherwise it is not possible to Add Printer via the web interface.

3. Install Ricoh SP111 printer. (Followed this post https://askubuntu.com/questions/641405/ricoh-sp111-printer-setup-help)

4. Share the printer. Make Shared to Yes in /etc/cups/printers.conf

5. Install the printer in clients. I installed the printer in Windows 10. Followed this post (https://zedt.eu/tech/windows/installing-an-ipp-printer-in-windows-10/) Note that the Windows driver need to be downloaded from Ricoh website.

PDF Trouble

I was able to print from Word but the PDFs were not printing. The CUPS log says that the print job is sent to printer. There is no error whatsoever, but no print out. Tried various setting in Adobe Reader (where I opened the PDF) print setting. Finally only when I opted for "Print As Image" the print came out.

How to get an Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) Licence in India

Licensing
There are two categories of license:
1. General Grade
2. Restricted Grade

The restrictions in the second category are:
1. Transmitted power (only upto 50W in HF and 10W in VHF/UHF, compared to 400W and 25W respectively for General Grade).
2. Terrestrial only (operating through Satellite repeaters is forbidden, receiving is OK).
3. Voice only communication (with some exception in the VHF/UHF bands)
4. 5GHz band not allowed (wonder who uses it anyway)



The written exam consists of two parts:
1. Radio Theory and Practice (Exempted for those holding degree in Engineering/Science or Diploma in Engineering and have subjects electronics/telecommunications)
2. Radio Regulations

Morse Test - transmit and receive at 8 words per minute (only for General grade)

Reference:
http://www.wpc.dot.gov.in/DocFiles/a...guidelines.pdf

Tests are conducted monthly at metro cities and once in 4 months at other monitoring stations (mostly state capitals)

For starters the Restricted Grade is the way to go. It hardly makes a difference, unless you really want to get into serious contests, DXing, etc.
I would suggest the best option for aspirants is to join a local Ham club, preferably one which conducts exams regularly. There are many in South India, PM me if you need any contacts. There are many active FB groups also. The Vigyan Prasar website has a search facility to find out the nearby Hams.

Sequence of events are like this:
1. Apply for exam (filled up forms, gazetted officer attested copies of supporting documents, exam fee DD(₹100))
2. Wait for hall ticket.
3. Write the exam.
4. Wait for result (2-3 months)
5. Result will be forwarded from local WPC office to Delhi.
6. WPC will share the details with IB dept.
7. WPC will wait for clearance from IB.
8. IB will forward the papers to the local police station.
9. Local police station will verify the applicant address. (mostly they will give a call and ask to visit the PS)
10. Verified papers sent back to IB, then to WPC
11. WPC gets the IB clearance and initiates the license issuance.
12. WPC sends a letter requesting to send license fee(₹1000/2000) and another set of attested documents.
13. Once WPC gets all the required papers, it will issue the license and send to the applicant.

* Update: The IB clearence has been removed for a majority of the Indian states, except for some areas that still requires it.

In my case, the entire process was done in 11 months, and I consider myself very lucky. But this seems to be the order now, atleast in major cities. Usually the delay is caused by the local PS. I joined a club and it also helped in getting the papers in order.

But I urge anyone not to get let down by this process. It is a govt process and it will eventually happen. Things have very much improved in the last few years and many steps are streamlined.

Getting Started
Once you get your license, you can immediately be on air. One catch, you need to have the equipment, and to import one you need to have license. But you can always make one your own which is fun.

Regarding the cost, it depends on your budget and sky is the limit. A descent low power HF radio can be built for as low as 2k. A lot of Chinese manufactures have sprung up making cheap VHF/UHF radios, costing as low as 3k, which are not cheap at all in performance.

Amateur Radio (Ham Radio) in India

I am sure most of us know something about Amateur Radio, but did not pursue the hobby due to various reasons. Radio Amateurs (a.k.a Hams) are traditionally pioneers in many technological experiments. Be it any DIY stuff, Hams would have been there done that. The "first true" social networking, it brought like minded people across the world together. The invasion of computers and internet affected the hobby and there were a dearth of youngsters taking up hobby.

I myself believed that the hobby was dead, during the late 90's, with the advent of mobile phones an cheap internet. But the Hams kept innovating and evolved making better use of the latest technologies and kept pondering over the never ending challenges in radio communications.

Amateur radio for the uninitiated, is "establishing a radio station at home and communicating using his radio equipment wirelessly to another radio station". The communication could be in voice or digital mode - from the vintage Morse code, to the more advanced digital modes using computers. The kick for many Hams is the fact that they are "off grid", not dependent on any public or private infrastructure for communication. You have your own radio frequency spectrum. (BTW, the RF spectrum is the most expensive "natural" resource in the world raking in huge revenue for the governments.)The government grants the license to operate the station after successfully passing the written test and other formalities.

The Indian scene is not for the light hearted, especially the licensing part. The antiqued procedures will set back the aspirant by 1-2 (or even more) years, waiting for his license after writing the exam. Compare this to a 10 minute procedure in many other countries. Also the rule does not permit one to operate the radio at other locations than the home station, where the license was granted. This means one cannot operate "mobile" e.g. on his vehicle. These are the some deterrents for many aspirants to take up this hobby, in the modern world.

While the procedures may be age old, we are definitely not lagging behind, in terms of technical achievements or dedicated Hams. We had our own satellite - Hamsat - launched by ISRO in 2005 which served the hams worldwide for almost a decade.

Within the Ham community, there are varied interests, while some chase "DX" contacts, some like to "home-brew" their equipment, while others chase the "birds" (satellites). Popular activities include Hamfests, DX-peditions, Fox hunting, providing communications to motor sports. Hams provide voluntary emergency communication support during natural disasters, when all the other means of communications fail.

I am sure there are many Hams on the forum, and I hope they will contribute to this thread.

BTW, I got licensed last year and got my call sign Victor Uniform 3 Bravo Oscar Juliet
(pretty late in the game actually, I am the 3rd gen ham in my family and I hope my next gen too take up this wonderful hobby, someday!)


Some links in the Indian context.
http://vigyanprasar.gov.in/ham/ham.asp
http://wpc.dot.gov.in/exam_amatr.asp
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio_in_India

Raspberry PI Notes

Getting Started

On Windows PC, get the following to connect directly

1. DHCP server from http://www.dhcpserver.de/
2. Putty from http://www.putty.org/
3. TightVNC viewer from http://www.tightvnc.com/download.php

Setting Remote

1. Telnet connection: follow - 
2. Remote desktop: follow - https://www.raspberrypi.org/documentation/remote-access/vnc/

Setting WiFi

Reference:

http://www.howtogeek.com/167425/how-to-setup-wi-fi-on-your-raspberry-pi-via-the-command-line/

sudo nano /etc/wpa_supplicant/wpa_supplicant.conf

Compare the contents of the file, if it exists, to the following code. If the file is empty, you can use this code to populate it. Take note of the commented lines (indicated by the # marks) to reference which variable you should use based on your current Wi-Fi node configuration.

ctrl_interface=DIR=/var/run/wpa_supplicant GROUP=netdev
update_config=1

network={
ssid="YOURSSID"
psk="YOURPASSWORD"

# Protocol type can be: RSN (for WP2) and WPA (for WPA1)
proto=WPA

# Key management type can be: WPA-PSK or WPA-EAP (Pre-Shared or Enterprise)
key_mgmt=WPA-PSK

# Pairwise can be CCMP or TKIP (for WPA2 or WPA1)
pairwise=TKIP

#Authorization option should be OPEN for both WPA1/WPA2 (in less commonly used are SHARED and LEAP)
auth_alg=OPEN
}

Web server

CherryPy

1. Commands for installation:
   sudo apt-get install python-pip
   sudo pip install cherrypy
2. The package will be installed under:  /usr/local/lib/python2.7/dist-packages/cherrypy/

Reference sites:

• http://docs.cherrypy.org/en/latest/tutorials.html
• https://raspberrypiwonderland.wordpress.com/tag/cherrypy/

3/6/2020
On Pi 2B , installed the latest Raspbian Full version with Kernel version 4.19.118-v7 #1311
WiFi did not work out of box with the RTL 8188EU dongle.
Installed driver using http://downloads.fars-robotics.net/ script
http://downloads.fars-robotics.net/wifi-drivers/install-wifi


14/6/2020
Pine 64. Xenial
Wifi Driver Update
https://medium.com/@daniel.cohen/setting-up-usb-wifi-dongle-on-pine64-dc41def83c75

Amateur Radio Licence

Here is the timeline of my amateur radio license application and further milestones.

2010 December: Wrote General Grade Exam at Bangalore (Little Elly School)
2011 January: Gave the Morse Code Test (Did not clear the receive part)

[Goes to cold again]

2013 November: Joined IIH and attended classes (Only the regulations)
2014 January: Wrote Restricted Grade Exam at IIH Bangalore (25/1/2014)
2014 April: Results declared (11/4/2014) +76days
2014 July: Got a call from the Police Station for the verification (17/7/2014) +97days
2014 Sep: Got the letter from WPC notifying grant of licence and payment of fees (01/09/2014) +46days
2014 Sep: Got a letter from WPC stating that the attestion has deficiencies - Attesting officer's Name, Designation and place of posting should be mentioned. (26/09/2014)
2014 Oct: Re-sent the attested copy for age proof (08/10/2014)
2014 Nov: Called WPC Delhi to inquire the status. Told that the license is under approval and it would be sent in a week's time. (13/11/2014)
2014 Nov: Got the license by speedpost (28/11/2014)

Took 307 days from the day of writing exam.

How to add Point of Interests (POI) to Nokia Lumia device

All Nokia Lumia comes with Here maps that work offline. You can download the maps available for any region worldwide. "Here" maps allow to search for locations and is fairly accurate. But many times, the places may not turn up in the results, especially remote getaway places. You found the place in Google map but how do you store the location in your Nokia Lumia?

Here is a way to do it.

• Login to here.com from desktop and choose Collections. Here you can add locations that get sync'd up with your Nokia Lumia. (In the Here application in phone, login using the same id)
• Any arbitrary location on the map can be right clicked and "Collected" (Right click and choose "Collect this location"
• If you need to add a point from Google maps, copy the location (lat, lon) from google and paste in the search box of here maps and the location will be pin pointed.
  (for copying the lat/lon, enable the "Drop Lat/Lon" tool from the Beta labs in Google Maps).
• Organize the newly added location to collection/folders. The new locations will be sync'd up with the phone in no time.

Moto G Dual Sim Error

I had this Moto G for couple of months now and only one sim were used till now. I got a new BSNL prepaid sim card on Saturday and installed it in the second slot. All good so far and the signal showed up in the top of the display. I was doing some Dual Sim settings and suddenly the signal vanished and says "No Service". The sim was marked as disabled and a cross sign appeared along with the sim card symbol. Flight mode and back did not make any effect. Reset the phone and the sim got enabled again, but after 3 mins the sim got disabled. (This was repeatable). I could call the BSNL customer service (1507) during this period using the phone.

Worried that it could be an issue with Moto G and the one month period for exchange with Flipkart is also over. Swapped the sim card slots and the same issue repeats for the new sim card. Certainly the issue with the sim card. Thought of going back to the BSNL to exchange the sim.

Somehow, during this period, the SIM got fully activated and the problem never happened again. Apparently the phone was disabling the SIM when some of the service was not fully active for the sim. And no error codes/messages were given.

The Moto experience is back to glory. They have designed the dual sim software very vell and is very intuitive and convenient.

LG 32LD330 LCD TV USB Hack to enable Media Player

I recently stumbled on a website that detailed on enabling a hidden feature in LG TV, at least for some models. I have a LG 32LD330 LCD TV which is a bare TV that don't even have an audio out (the search which led to the said webpage)
http://openlgtv.org.ru/wiki/index.php/Access_hidden_service_menus_/_modes

I also have a Protouch universal remote that can send arbitrary codes. Fired the secret menu codes and opened up the USB menu option in no time. Mighty impressed. Wonder why LG doesn't enable the media player by default?!

Canon Pixma MG3170 CISS (Continuous Ink Supply System)

I bought the Canon Pixma MG3170 CISS from flipkart couple of months back and bought a generic Canon CISS kit from eBay at the same time. Though my usage is not heavy, the cost of the cartridge prompted me to go for the CISS kit.

Installed the CISS right from the beginning. There were not many videos on Youtube for this particular model, but people had done it. Installation is a bit tricky. Some of the instructions/photos on the web requires one to dismantle the scanner assembly on top, but I found that it is not required. This model is a multi-function printer and thus there was not much space above the cartridge for the ink tubes to move around. Also I had to remove the cartridge door to route the tube inside. The cartridge door does not have any functionality than to hide the cartridge. The tubes were held to the channel below by using two paper clips that was cut short.

Let the pictures do the talking. As you can see the black ink is not filled up in the tube. There seems to be a minor air leak in the black cartridge tube connection. This does not affect the printing, as the black cartridge is now in a 'refill mode'.

The CISS tank stays on the right side, same level as the printer.

The ink tube is routed below the main front door. It has a very narrow gap just to pass the tube through.

The tube is held on to the floor in front of the cartridge replacement door. The cartridge door is permanently removed. I removed it by using a small screwdriver on the left side and popped out the hinge pivot.

The ink tube passes along the edge of the metal channel and is held on by two paper clips. The paper clip has to be cut to shorten it and form it such that the tube is firmly held on to the channel. This part is tricky because there is very narrow gap between the metal edge and the cartridge path.

The tube goes on the top of the cartridges.

Whole CISS arrangement.

Leave just enough length of tube so that the cartridge moves freely. 

About a purchase of a Bluetooth dongle from eBay.

Purchased a dongle from eBay for ₹145. Item arrived super fast by Bluedart. Plugged in to usb port and surprisingly there was no indication of new device found by windows. Tried in different PC,but no luck. Thought that the device is bad and reported to the seller. Got a ridiculous reply that the product is covered under warranty and take to the nearest service center. Service centre for an el-cheapo chinese dongle??? Hmmm.. Waited for a few days and today evening just decided to open the dongle and see if I can fix it. Popped open the cover and got a shock??

Update: Thanks to the eBay Guarantee program, I got full refund after opening a case. 

SysExporter - Nice utility

I found a nice utility to extract the data from common windows controls. It was useful for me to copy around 100 rows of list view data which otherwise would have taken me hours to copy to a document by hand.

http://www.nirsoft.net/utils/sysexp.html
Thanks to Nir Sofer for an excellent application.

Run time error 5992

The other day I stumbled on this error in Word 2007
Run time error 5992 'Cannot access individual columns in this collection because the table has mixed cell widths.'
I was working on BeyondCompare to generate HTML file difference reports and paste this to Word. BeyondCompare report uses tables and it had a few rows that spanned across multiple columns. This was causing problems for Word VBA. I looked for solutions on the web, but unfortunately could not find any. It seemed silly because the individual columns can be moved manually using the margins on the ruler, but the script cannot access it. It became clear that this is limitation of Word VBA interface and I need to look for work arounds.

I edited the HTML to remove offending spans and pasted the tables to Word and this error is gone.

Another solution is to probably to use script to remove the spans in Word itself or work on the individual cells adjusting its width.

Upgrade to Ubuntu 12.04

Took the plunge yesterday and upgraded my 10.04 LTS to 12.04. This Unity thing was holding me from upgrade last year with all those negative comments. At the moment, I am lost actually - where are the menus and stuff! May be I'll get used to it after a while.
Some Observations:
1. Laptop is running cooler - they seemed to patch a power management issue was hogging for long time.
2. Upgrade was smooth and all programs seem to be intact. Usually I had to spend atleast a day to fix all the issues after an upgrade - searching the net for issues and finding solutions.
3. Not all applications are Unity compatible, leaving a mixed bag. Therefore the windowing experience is confusing and inconsistent. e.g. Firefox and chrome.
4. I expected to get new versions of applications with 12.04, but did not. e.g. Gimp is still 2.6.
5. Meanwhile, while typing this post, I closed the browser at least three times, while trying to open the menu from top left corner. Thanks to Chrome, I got the windows back, along with the unsaved blogger post!

Laptop running hot? Fans might be clogged!

Just yesterday, my sister left her old laptop with me to have it re-formatted. It was terribly slow and I didn't see any improvement even after restoring to factory state. Now, I had hated this restore thingy, which copies the image from a hidden partition to C drive. But this time, it was god send, and the restore took hardly 15 mins. When I checked the CPU temperature (using an utility called SpeedFan), it was hovering around 75degC. I knew it was high and could feel the fan running at high speed all the time.

Now, this is an 8 year old laptop and I thought the fans and heat sink could be clogged, though I could not see any dust when looking through the sides. Searched for disassembly videos on youtube and luckily got one. Finally reached the fan assembly and saw this:

Took apart the fan assembly, removed the fan from the housing, cleaned up the fan/fins using a small brush. It was not easy. Wish I had compressed air can.

Assembled the whole thing back, booted up and after running a while with all browsers with flash pages, ran the Speedfan again. This time the CPU temp showed 65deg C. That's a lot of improvement. The PC seems to run better, though not to my expectations. But the fan speed seem to be normal.

Micca MPLAY media player

I bought this Media player, primarily for the dual-use in Car as well as Home. It is value for money, can play from SD card and from USB stick/hdd.

It can play the following specs.

	File Type	Video Codec	Audio Codec	Notes
Video	*.AVI	MPEG4, DivX, Xvid	MP3, AAC, PCM	720 x 576 Max
	*.MP4, *.MOV	MPEG4	AAC, OGG
	*.VOB (DVD)	MPEG2	MPEG, PCM
	*.MPG, *.DAT	MPEG1/2	MPEG MP3
	*.RMVB, *.RM	RealVideo	RealVideo, AAC, MP3	1024 x 576 Max
	*.3GP	MPEG4	AAC	640 x 480 Max
Audio	*.MP3		MPEG Layer-3	32kbps-320kbps
	*.WMA		Windows Media Audio	32kbps-192kbps
Photo	*.JPG, *.GIF *.BMP, *.PNG			JPG 7800 x 5280 Max

Here are some quirks.
1. The format selection is based on the extension, so one needs to save the file as correct extension to read the file properly.
2. The player seems to slow down due to some reason, especially with Xvid codecs.

I use a Handbrake to transcode the video files to the right codec the player can play.

Quick reference: Audio and Video Commands in Linux (Ubuntu)

Extract audio from a movie and save as mp3
ffmpeg -i input.avi -vn -acodec libmp3lame -ar 22050 -ab 256k -ac 2 output.mp3

Extract to wav file:
ffmpeg -i input.avi -vn -acodec pcm_s16le -ac 2 output.wav

More info:
http://howto-pages.org/ffmpeg/

Electrolux fridge freezer fan motor replacement

We took a vacation for 10 days and decided to keep our fridge switched off. We were back, switched on the fridge and got a burning smell after a while. Found that the fan in the freezer was not working. Since it was a Saturday late evening and the service call would not happen until Monday, I decided to give it a try to fix myself. I opened up the freezer back plane and found that the fan motor was indeed not working. Took it out and the next day set out in search of a replacement motor. Went to SP road (The place in Bangalore for all electronics/computer spares) and found most shops closed being Sunday. Enquired at a few places and got to know that I need to look at Chikpet for electrical appliance replacement parts. Headed to Chikpet and enquired in a few electrical shops and got to know that one Prakash Electricals stocks the replacement motors. To my dismay, I found the shop closed and was about to leave. After a few strolls, found another Prakash stores and the small shop indeed had the motor. It didn't looked as good as the original one, but the dimensions matched. I was worried about the rotation direction of the motor, the shopkeeper assured me that all Freezer fan motors have standard direction.


Got back home and replaced the motor in no time and was happy that it worked. But something was wrong, the bottom section was not cooling enough. Since the original fan was not working, I did not know which direction the fan should run. After careful looking, it seemed the direction of the motor was reverse. The fan should blow air into the freezer from behind (the cooling coils), but the new fan motor was blowing warm air into the cooling fins. Since it is an AC motor, reversing the terminals won't change the rotor direction. Disappointed, I decided to call in for service and put the old motor back. But later, I thought why don't reverse the rotor, so that it turns opposite direction. The motor assembly was simple and allowed me to change the rotor orientation. Put the motor back and the fan now works correctly. Though the replacement motor is a bit weak and I am not sure how long it would work.
 
Here are some pictures:

Freezer's back plane removed. The fan motor is mounted on the back plane and has channels for air circulation. The square cavity on the top is where the fan draws air from.

Old motor. Had markings MSP63S 10mm Motor.

 New motor in place. The rotor doesn't rotate as smoothly as the old one. The rotor is exposed.

Electrolux 235L (EKL 235FF) wiring diagram

This is the second time our Fridge needed repair, after close to 8 years of purchase. First, it was the defrost timer that failed and had to replace.

Royaltek RBT2300

I had purchased the Royaltek RBT2300 GPS logger sometime in 2008 and have been using it during my driving trips. This performs reliably well and thought of writing something about it.

Basically, this is a GPS receiver with bluetooth module that allows one to pair a Mobile/PDA/PC and get the GPS data in NMEA format. It has a logger function also that stores the GPS data in its internal flash memory at regular (configurable) intervals. The storage is huge and it has never ran out of memory even with 10-12 hours of logging (5s interval).

Issues that i have found.

• When downloading the GPS data from the device on the same day, the last portion of the data would not come out. If I log some seconds on next day and then try again, I would get the whole data for the previous day without any issue.
• If I switch off the device during some breaks in the trip, the logging gets screwed  up. The continuety is lost sometimes.

Some tips for usage.

• While on a trip, connect the device to the car adapter and never switch off till the end of the trip.
• 5 second logging seems to be reliable and anything less can cause issue for long trips.
• Wait for a day and log a few seconds in open sky (GPS lock) and they download the data for previous trip.

Microsoft PowerToys equivalent

I have been using Microsoft PowerToys since Windows 95. Was really surprised to know that Windows 7 doesn't support the old Powertoys. I was missing SendToX  - the most coolest among them. Also the 'Command Prompt Here...' menu. After a few mins of search on the web found a compatible/equivalent software: http://www.gabrieleponti.com/software/#sendtotoys