thebaldgeek

Just getting my @Raspberryshake2 seismograph back online.
Turns out there are 4 of us up in North Idaho. Cool.
You can view my live data here: stationview.raspberr...
It will go a little crazy a few times over the next few days as I put a lid on the vault. I hope it's going to be ok in winter!

#earthquake Mag 8.0 Depth: 74km Location: 133 km SE of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatsky, Russia
That is a truly massive earthquake. Tsunami Advisory is taking a 'watch and measure' approach to this one. Will keep an eye on it and update this thread as needed.

#earthquake Mag: 6.6
Depth: 574.967km
Location: south of the Fiji Islands
Large, but very (very) deep.
No tsunami warnings for any locations.

#earthquake M 7.3 - 87 km S of Sand Point, Alaska
Time 2025-07-16 20:37:39 (UTC)
Depth 20.1 km
I really need to get busy and build a new seismic vault for my @Raspberryshake2 While you can see the quake on the heliograph, it could be a LOT clearer!

Just powered up my @Raspberryshake2 seismograph.
For now, it's just sitting on the workshop floor (concrete slab).
I will see what my vault options are over time. Need to think about snow and stuff up here.
But for now, great to have it visible on my DIY digital dash.
raspberryshake.org/r...

Currently 12:50PDT, been working on the C-Band satellite dish tracking for about 45 minutes. Making good progress.
Still need to set the alarm for 00:30PDT to retry the bottom of the orbit tracking since I failed last night.
Moving 1300 miles north has changed quite a bit of the setup.

True to my last post word. I'm awake and up, looking for the C-Band signal so I can get the satellite dish tracking dialed.
Not a sign. So that means I have the whole dish out of alignment.
Tomorrow I will re-level it and check the top of the orbit alignment and set the alarm again for 24 hours.

Yeah, I know, only 8 aircraft on the map from my C-Band dish right now. I have more adjustments to make... Like the top of the sat 'orbit' is nowish, so that means I have to set an alarm for 1am to adjust the bottom before the tracking can take over.
Also, a reminder about filtering by squawk codes.

ADSB first light at new digs.

I've my C-Band dish tracking controller powered up and connected to the az/el motors on the mount in the yard.
You can see me 'sweep' the dish up/down and left/right (orange plots) as I peak up the signal.
Not getting many decodes yet, so got more work to do, but it's good progress.

Well, making a mess of this!
Going to step away and take a day off. Go for a drive and just breathe.
Wife and I are going a little stir-crazy working on this place for a solid three weeks now.
Looking forward to our first Idaho neighborhood fireworks tonight.
Stay safe, everyone.

New house ACARS decoding layout. I have more wall space than desk space in the workshop.
Normally, I talk about the website or software, but it takes a good amount of hardware to run an ACARS ground station.
I have more to add yet, still unpacking boxes.
Ask, or details here: thebaldgeek.github.io/

You Little Rippa!
I found it!
Not quite strong enough to decode yet, and I need to wire up the two tracking motors (alt/az), but I'm very happy it only took about 5-7 minutes to locate the C-Band spot beam from Inmarsat 98W in Idaho.
Will press on with the install to get it stronger and decoding!

Clearly there is no C-Band data from 98w on the website yet...
The delay?
Firstly, @amazon same day delivery is actually 3 day in Idaho. But hey, I got two 'We sorry emails'.
Secondly, the irrigation pipes are along the exact same path as I need to put the dish cables.
No ETA but working on it.

Making progress to getting my 98w C-Band dish feed back up and running.
Trench in the cables (coax for signal and 10 core for tracking motor control), punch them through the side of the garage, connect up the two computers and see if we can get some aircraft data flowing - probably 5-8 hours work.

Call signs on tbg.airframes Some people don't care even a little about callsigns, while others are aware of their significance in military missions and civil routes, bu...

New blog published about how I do my best to extract and, more importantly, how call signs are displayed on the site.
If you have wondered about the F, V, L, C in front of the calls, this blog is for you.
k6thebaldgeek.blogsp...

#earthquake Mag: 6.1
Depth: 101.614
Location: 71 km ESE of Sarangani, Philippines

Quite deep this one. That's what got my attention.

Scott on BlueSky gave me a UAV ICAO via chat.
Its a new one for the list.

"Danish Schiebel Camcopter S-100 drone seen on the flight radar circling at the mouth of the North Sea, 4550 feet altitude. #SEG17 #44784E"

Have added it now to the UAV button on the trackmap page.
tbg.airframes.io/tra...

143e APAC STDC (Marine Broadcast) feed is back up.
Using the #satdump CLI as described on my page here:
thebaldgeek.github.i...
Explore the messages here: tbg.airframes.io/das...
APAC feed gives early warning of North Korea rocket launches.
Never a dull moment on the site.

Need some #satdump help @aang23.satdump.org

I have 2 RTLSDRs connected, SN #1 and #2.
From the CLI, how do I select the SDR?
Nothing mentioned here: docs.satdump.org/sdr_options....

I've got the 98w STDC (Marine Broadcast) feed back up and running.
I'm also working with our Aussie mate to try and get his STDC feed back up, as it always gives early notice of North Korea rocket launches.
I'm still open to input on reformatting the STDC page or how to add its feed to the main site

Website Update:
Great news! I pushed hard today and got the small #discoverydish mounted on the roof, and so 98w 4F3 (AOR-W) is back up and running, feeding mission codes, etc, to the site search.
This leaves my large C-Band dish to get back up and running. Working hard on that as well!

Website Update:
25e feed is back up.
3 out of our 4 feeds are working as usual. Just my 98w feed is down. Im working really really hard to get it back up and running.
tbgmap.airframes.io/

Website Update.
Our 25e (Alphasat - UK/Euro/Middle East) ADSC feed is down.
This is not part or related to the outage a few days back.
I've reached out to our guy over there and hope I've caught him before he goes to bed!

One map that is constantly underutilized is this one.
It only shows military airframes and you can browse through any ACARS msg on each by clicking on it and then each message.
You can see where its from, usually uplink L-Band at the moment.
tbgacarshub.airframe...
Works best on PC/Laptop.

Busy day, just sitting down at the computer now.
Seeing LOTS of comments from well-meaning #avgeeks about how a lot of the tankers are 'going dark' and 'running in stealth' etc.
No. Just rotten timing my site feeds going down.
Use all the maps, not just the 2-3 popular ones.
tbgmap.airframes.io/

Website update:
Some ACARS feeds to the site are coming back online.
C-Band and L-Band for the Americas are still going to take some time yet.
But super happy it's going smoother than expected.

News! The website is up, but ALL feeds are down.
This is a 'planned' event.
I hope to get everything restored in about a week.
More details here: k6thebaldgeek.blogsp...
The aircraft and #avgeeks wait for the dumpster fire flames to reignite!

Sometimes I am still surprised at the coverage a few dedicated #avgeeks have built together over the past few years.
tbgmap.airframes.io/
#adsc #adsb #acars #aviation

#earthquake M 6.3 - 17 km NNE of Paratebueno, Colombia
Depth 10.0 km
I'm sure that woke up a lot of people in Bogota just now.
Hopefully no damage.