Sigh...

Recently I switched our DSL from Earthlink to AT&T U-Verse, and bundled the plan with a U-Verse Voice line.  I was somewhat reluctant to do so, given how for years I've believed that in a major emergency a copper POTS line with 48 VDC sourced from the central office is a better idea than a VOIP line with a four-hour battery backup.  However the cost savings were too good to pass up, E-911 is finally deploying, and 75% of the family have their amateur radio licenses.  If the poo-poo hits the rotating blade, I think we'll be OK - So bye-bye POTS line.

I have been pleasantly surprised by the service I've received.  The install went very well, and when the tech realized I used to work in telecom he even offered to double-bond my pairs so I now have a nice low-resistance line.  45 Mbps possible to a local fiber loop, I'm seeing about 30 Mbps effective with higher rates during the night.  Every customer service agent I've spoken to has been polite and knowledgable, and they seemed genuinely interested in making sure I'm happy with U-Verse.

Of course, I don't believe for a second that the Death Star has been magically transformed into a chirpy little startup full of love, compassion, and (with apologies to +Sandra Meow and +Paul Lannuier) cute cat GIFs.  The tiger can't change its stripes.  They're just hiding their megacorporate stupidity under a veneer of "We Wuv U" until I'm past my 30 day no-risk trial.  Which is why I'm not very surprised by today's incident.

Our U-Verse service was installed on 7-July.  Our old POTS service billing date was the 13th of each month.  I should have received a pro-rated refund on the extra five days, but I wasn't going to sweat that.  Then the 13th rolls around and I get a bill for my old POTS line.  I call the 800 number, wait on hold for 15 minutes, they quack at me for 10 minutes, and then tell me I need to speak with the other people in the POTS line department.  Call is transferred, gets lost in transit, call drops.  I call back, get through to someone, but their system starts sending DTMF tone sequences over and over again, so I have to hang up.  Call back again.  This time I get a human, and I explain the situation.  The following conversation occurs after I ask why I'm being billed for a month of my old POTS line:

• Agent: "That's just the way AT&T billing works."  
• Me: "I'm sorry, but I'm confused.  I switched to U-Verse on July 7th.  This bill is for services from July 13th through August 12th.  I'm already paying for U-Verse as of July 7th.  Why would I also pay for my old line?"
• Agent: "Let me see what I can do..."  [Much typing in background ensues]
• Agent: "Since you're a valued customer, I can offer you a credit of 50% on your bill."
• Me: "Well, I appreciate your offer, but you haven't really answered my question.  I'm paying for U-Verse now.  And I'm happy with it, by the way.  Why are you asking me to pay for my old service too?"
• Agent: "That's just the way AT&T works."
• Me: "You seem like a nice guy.  Let me ask you this...  Just between you and me.  Does this bill make sense?  I understand that you're just following company guidelines given to you by your boss.  If our roles were reversed, would this make sense to you?  Let's set aside the idea that this is quote-unquote "the way AT&T works."  Would you think this bill is fair?"
• Agent: [Pause] "Since I see that you switched to U-Verse, I can credit you for the entire bill."

I realize this is a naive notion, but wouldn't it be better if I didn't have to spend 30 minutes on the phone arguing for fairness in billing?  Clearly it's within their power to NOT try to double bill me.  This wasn't a mistake; the agent said clearly it's "the way AT&T works".  Had he said "Sorry, this is a mistake, I'll credit you in full right now." I would have accepted it as a mistake.  Did they think I wouldn't notice?  Why try to double bill me in the first place?  Why risk making me angry?  Why offer me 50% credit, then cave to 100% credit when it's clear I'm not going to back down?  I've been happy with U-Verse so far, even telling friends that I'm pleased so far with the equipment performance and the customer service.  That's gone out the window now.  I'm not sure if the agent realized I was still within my 30 day no-risk trial, or if maybe I got through to him on a personal level.  (The negotiator in me would like to believe it was the latter, of course.)  Regardless of what happened with the agent, the fact remains - this was a deliberate attempt by AT&T to take my money under false pretenses, and I'm unlikely to trust them again.

Workaround: Mac OSX Mavericks and Verizon UML290

I'm not a Mac guy (used to be, back in the 90's) but lately I've been using a MacBook Pro pending what I hope will be some interesting Chromebook releases after Google I/O.  Verizon's UML290VW 4G USB modem doesn't like to play well with the OSX VZAccess Manager.  If you're having trouble, here are some tricks to resolving this.

The problem shows up during the second connection, after being connected successfully once.  The VZAccess Manager app either doesn't recognize the modem, or it won't connect.  Unplugging and reinserting the modem doesn't help.  Nor does unplugging the modem, shutting down VZAccess Manager, and then launching VZAccess Manager and reinserting the modem.

The trick to resolving is in the process table, what OSX calls "Activity Monitor"  Steps to resolve:

1. Unplug the modem
2. Shut down VZAccess Manager
3. Open the Activity Monitor
4. Look for the process "vzwwirelessd"
5. Double-click on the process, click "Quit", then click "Force Quit"
6. Launch VZAccess Manager
7. Insert the modem

Apparently the Verizon daemon is unstable and needs to be kill -9'd before it can work again.  It's a fiddly and annoying fix, but it works.

Update 1-Dec-2014: OSX Yosemite breaks VZAccess Manager so it doesn't work with the UML290 at all.  No word on when (or if) Verizon will release an update to VZAM that resolves this issue. 

Net Neutrality?

Now that I'm restarting Oku Solutions (my consulting business) one of the things which has become painfully obvious is that my current broadband isn't up to the task.  Four years ago it worked fairly well, save for the occasional need for a modem reboot.  Now it locks up and/or slows down a few times a day.  Not good given that a lot of what I'm doing now uses cloud-based apps which don't always offer offline mode.  God help me if the kids decide to start streaming something.  I've given Earthlink an ultimatum - fix the problem or be replaced.  They promised a new modem (for which I've yet to receive the UPS tracking number) but I'm not hopeful.

So today when an AT&T U-verse reseller showed up at my door I actually went outside to speak with them.  After a lot of discussion it seemed like a reasonable deal; free installation, $50 gift card, 30-day trial, etc.  I figured I'd order, test it out in parallel with the new Earthlink modem, make my decision in the next 30 days.  Since U-verse uses a wireless link from the fiber hub, I could have both at the same time, right?  No conflict, right?

Nope.

Turns out that AT&T and Earthlink have some kind of arrangement which dates back to the early days of DSL.  Since Earthlink uses AT&T's wire to my house, they've agreed to some kind of "no poaching" agreement.  I would have to cancel Earthlink, wait ten days, order U-verse and wait for that to install.  Time offline = about 14 days.

Nope.  Since when do I not have free market choice?  Because 40 years ago Ma Bell ran a chunk of copper wire to my house, I'm not able to buy what I want?

Silicon Valley says "Meh" to Google Fiber

My friend Stephen Blum at Tellus Venture Associates recently posted about Silicon Valley's response to Google Fiber's "Fiber Ready Checklist".  Only five cities in the region (San Jose, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Palo Alto, and of course Google's home port Mountain View)  responded.  Of these, only Palo Alto seems to be serious about their response.  One city said it wants Google to fund hiring the staff needed to review the permits.  How about another idea: Streamline the permitting process.  Crazy talk, I know.

Silicon Valley generates so much technical greatness, yet for some reason it can't implement greatness for itself. I sat at a red light recently for almost three minutes, wasting gas, generating pollution, staring at an empty intersection. Meanwhile cities and towns outside Silicon Valley have interlinked traffic lights with adaptive prediction systems that allows timing to change as needed based on roadway, radar, optical, and other sensors. The Valley was one of the last places to get rid of A/B cable, and even in 2001 it lagged behind other metro areas in DSL deployment.  We know how to make great technology, but we don't know how (or don't have the political will) to tame runaway government bureaucracy which impedes deployment of that technology.   The fact that Google Fiber will provide residents of selected cities with free basic (5 Mbps) service - a huge economic opportunity for those cities - seems to not matter.  I suspect that we're once again rushing towards mediocrity, and that we're likely to get left behind while Google deploys fiber in cities like San Antonio.

Flying Red Horse

+Darian Drake posted this funny commercial to G+ earlier today.  The name of the energy drink "Flying Horse" brought back memories of something that happened when I was working at Verifone in the late 90's.

Verifone does Point Of Sale (POS) terminals. One of their target markets is "Petro" meaning gas stations, pay at the pump, etc.  My project assignment was to prototype an RFID-enabled POS terminal for Mobil Oil, with one of the design elements being that the Mobil logo (a red Pegasus) would light up if the transaction was approved.  The branded name for this system was "SpeedPass".

The project's execution was problematic.  We struggled to design a loop antenna that wouldn't have to be made by hand.  The product used ultra-bright LEDs - fairly new at the time - and custom Lucite "light pipes" to illuminate the logos.  The technician assigned to construct the prototypes procrastinated and ended up completing the work after the last FedEx pickup of the week.  Strapped for time I was preparing to take the shipment box to a FedEx depot when the UPS guy showed up to make a delivery.  I quickly filled out a shipping form for overnight delivery and handed the box over.  Turns out the story was just beginning.

Monday morning I came in to find several urgent messages on my desk.  (1997 - I hadn't yet bought a cell phone.)  The shipment had not arrived, and the sales meeting had started.  People (including Verifone execs) had traveled to Mobil Oil offices for the meeting - this was supposed to be the deal closure.  I quickly called UPS and got no answers.  Unlike FedEx, UPS didn't track packages every time they're touched.  The box had been put into a shipping container, and after that nobody could tell me anything.

The box didn't show up later that day as the UPS helpdesk suggested it might.  It didn't show up the following day, nor in the following week.  I called the UPS helpdesk every day, seeking news.  UPS wanted to compensate me for the loss, but how do you assign a value to hand-built prototypes?  How do you file a claim against the possible loss of a multi-million dollar deal?  I wasn't eager to repeat the painful prototype construction process.  Sales wanted the prototypes YESTERDAY - literally.

Ten days after my first call to UPS I was on the phone with the helpdesk.  I'd been speaking with the same person each day and while he was nice enough we'd made no progress.  Somehow I wound up telling him about the custom Lucite light pipes, and the Pegasus logo.  "What's a Pegasus?" he asked.  "You know, Pegasus.  The mythical flying horse?"  [typing sounds in background]  "I found it!  The box is in an overage center, listed under 'flying red horse' - we can have it delivered tomorrow."

That the shipment was listed under "flying red horse" is astounding.  The prototypes did indeed have a red Pegasus logo, but they also had the Verifone logo on the model/serial number plate.  They were inside individual boxes with the Verifone logo, and those boxes were inside a larger box again with the Verifone logo.  Someone had to have opened all the boxes, ignored multiple Verifone logos, and decided to list it by the 1 inch diameter Mobil Oil logo.

I sent an email to the team letting them know that (a) the prototypes would arrive the following day, and (b) the project name henceforth would be "Flying Red Horse".

Persistence

A few years ago I started experimenting with microphone audio processing as a way to way to improve my HF signal.  I live in a fairly dense suburb and haven't been able to put up a tower, so running >100 watts isn't really an option.  Speech processing such as that described in this article seemed like a good idea.

I started out playing around with a PC app called Voice Shaper by Alex VE3NEA.  (YouTube demo of Voice Shaper.)  This worked fairly well, had all the features I needed such as RF envelope clipping/limiting, compression, and equalization.  The only downside to Alex's app is that there's a digital processing delay, and I like to monitor my transmitted audio with headphones so I can detect if there's any distortion or RFI on the signal.  Voice Shaper's delay was enough to send me looking for other solutions.

Reading around I found that a few hams are using equipment like Mackie tabletop mixers, parametric equalizers, etc.  The one that caught my attention was the dbx 286a, a rack-mount microphone processor for studio work.  I found one used for a decent price and figured I'd be on the air no problems.  As it turns out, I was starting a journey of discovery which would teach me a lot about RFI, filtering, ferrites, and ultimately signal impedance.

I made up an adapter cable from the mic processor to my Heil Pro-Set Plus and another to the mic input on my Kenwood TS-2000 and started testing on the air.  I quickly discovered that while some bands were OK, others were causing some RFI on the transmitted audio.  Depending on which antenna I used, the RFI ranged from barely noticeable to so bad that it blocked my audio completely.  A couple of cases were so bad that even keying the radio caused RFI feedback which continued until I unkeyed.

So I started experimenting with adjusting audio levels, adding ferrites, grounding and tuned grounding, etc.  I found that I could clear up some bands, but others got worse.  After a lot of work I was able to get most bands working, but it bothered me that I couldn't get all of them to work.  The question haunted me, and the dbx processor sat near my station unused, silently accusing me of being an idiot.  Why won't it work?  Other people had clearly made theirs work.  Was I just doomed to wander the earth for the rest of my life in search of a solution?

Every few months I would get an idea and try again.  Modern HF radios use BALANCED inputs, and so I went through and made sure that nothing was pulling the differential pair to ground.  I didn't find anything, but at least I had eliminated that as a possible cause.  Maybe I had faulty bought equipment?  I tested using some other audio gear and found that the problem shifted around; some bands got better, others got worse.  I gave up for about nine months after that.

My most recent attempt proved to be the solution.  I had been listening to Ham Nation while driving and Bob Heil was talking about ground loops.  Something he said made me realize my mistake.  He was talking about balanced microphone inputs (already knew that) but he also mentioned that most radio microphone jacks are expecting a LOW LEVEL audio signal, whereas the auxiliary in port usually wants to see line level signals .  Clearly the mic processor was emitting a line level signal.  What if I connected the mic processor to the AUX IN port on the radio?  This proved to be the solution!  Not a bit of RFI on any band, or on any antenna.

It's a little embarrassing to admit that it took me so long to figure this one out, but I'm really pleased to have finally resolved this one.  I'm looking forward to finally getting some use out of the mic processor I bought!

Fixed: Toyota Highlander Brake Light

Note: This post has nothing to do with wireless. 

Toyota Highlanders are well made cars - I bought a 2004 for my wife who later upgraded to a Sienna minivan, so I took the Highlander for myself.  It's at 100,000 miles and still going strong.  However, apparently they have a known problem where the brake lights on one side will intermittently stop working.  I've had people pull up next to me at stop lights and tell me I have a light out, then I get home to find the light is fine.

Then recently the light went out and stayed out.  I replaced the bulbs but they remained out.  Fuses were fine, my trusty Fluke 77 said voltage was getting to the assembly.  Posters in Toyota forums said that dealers are asking $40 - $140 for diagnostic, plus possibly $300 to replace a "circuit board"...?  Sounds like a scam to me.

I did some searching online and found reference to how the contacts on the bulb holder will get compressed and not make proper contact. (Kudos to Berto for the original post and Kujath for the photos.)  Kujath suggested using a flat-blade screwdriver to bend the contacts a bit, but I think a needle-nose pliers works better since you can control the amount of bending.  I did both bulb holders and the lights are working just fine. 

TK-890 Amateur Radio Mod

Over the past weekend a friend of mine asked if I would help him convert his Kenwood TK-890 mobile to work on the ham bands.  I wasn't sure how successful we'd be, since most every online search came up with at best little information or at worst flat out statements saying "Nope, can't be done."  As it turns out, it can be done.  Kudos to Tim K for his notes posted to Radio Reference which gave enough hints to make this happen. 

In general this is how it went.  My friend wanted his radio to work on the Bay-Net repeater system, which operates 443.225 with a +5 MHz TX split.  TX was fine, but RX was giving a steady "beep-beep-beep..." which indicates PLL unlock.

In the PLL section, under the copper foil, are three adjustment pots: A = TC302, B = TC303, and C = TC301.  (Don't ask why they're out of order.)  According to the Service Manual, Pot A sets the PLL for the low end of the receiver range, Pot B sets the high end of the receiver range, and Pot C sets the TX PLL.  The goal is to monitor test point CV with a voltmeter and adjust for minimum voltage during RX and TX.  This requires re-programming the radio's test frequencies to match the band of interest, so you'll need the KPG software and cable. 

Once we had the PLL voltages minimized for RX and TX, I found that the radio's TX frequency was way off, so a frequency alignment was needed.  This again required the KPG software - for some reason we couldn't get the radio into Panel Test/Tune via the control head.  It was easy enough with the KPG, once we realized you need to press "Enter" to lock the modified value. 

Other things like adjusting the BPF and checking deviations should be done.  In the end, the conversion was very easy and the radio is working well on the UHF amateur band.

Android's UTC vs GPS Clock Error

Official Blog: Time, technology and leaping seconds

Google's Site Reliability Team blogged back in 2011 that "Having accurate time is critical to everything we do at Google."  This is an interesting statement, in light of the known issue with Android (i.e. Google) having a known clock error which equates to the difference between GPS Time and UTC Time. 

First reported back in 2009, the Android clock error is the result of the device's date/time being locked to the GPS time signals, but as I discovered and reported in 2010 the GPS driver fails to apply the time correction.  As of this writing the error is on the order of 15 seconds, and will increase over time.  The reason that GPS and UTC time differ is due to various factors, but the largest is that the two time systems are increasingly divergent due to "leap seconds" which are small corrections applied every couple of years to UTC time which attempt to keep the UTC year aligned with the "Solar year". 

You might argue that 15 seconds is not an issue, and for the majority of users this is true.  However for scientists, some professionals, and even amateur radio operators the error can cause huge problems.  In the amateur radio world we use smartphones to track the location of satellites and the International Space Station.  Depending on their orbit, most sats are visible in the sky for at most 15 minutes.  So the error in time means that an antenna pointed at the satellite will be incorrect by at least 3 degrees, possibly more. 

The thread on Android Google Code about this issue has grown quite long over the years.  I asked for users to report if their devices had the bug; over the years every post has been a "yes" with the one exception being a Nexus 4 running Android 4.2.1.  A response from the Android team has never been posted.  It would seem that "Having accurate time is critical to everything we do at Google" is a bit of a stretch - because clearly it's not even worth talking about when the inaccuracy is on Android.

Update: I picked up a Nexus 7 running Android 4.2.2 and find that the time issue is resolved!  So to be fair, the issue existed for a long time but "Jelly Bean" seems to have resolved the issue. 

Spectrum Analysis of a Smart Meter

We got our smart meter installed this past week, so of course I had to take a look at the RF signals coming from it. The results were very interesting!  I used the spectrum analyzer on an Anritsu S412E LMR Master™, which is fast enough to capture the 20 - 200 millisecond pulses in the 902 - 928 MHz ISM band coming from the PG&E electric smart meter (the meter itself was actually made by GE).

Summary of my findings?  As I expected, there's far more RF energy in the air from the TV and FM broadcast bands and cellular signals than from the smart meter's short-duration pulses.  You have to really hunt for the smart meter signals, which are buried underneath a lot of other stronger signals. 

The Un-Club: Validation

At ARRL Pacificon 2012 I presented "Club is a Four Letter Word" - during which I set forth the idea that most amateur radio clubs are hurting more than helping our hobby.  The thesis of my presentation was that, in the modern world where membership can be obtained by simply clicking the Like button on a Facebook page, and information on innumerable subjects can be obtained from YouTube and other sources, a traditional club structure is often not needed.  A recent article on the ARRL website entitled "The Un-Club" talked about many of these same ideas, and gave examples of how their group has rejected the traditional club model and the positive benefits from that approach. 

Consider Bay-Net in the San Francisco Bay Area.  It's increasingly one of the more popular amateur radio groups in the region, with a popular linked analog repeater system and D-Star node.  Bay-Net has no members; if you're on the email list, you're in the group.  Bay-Net doesn't hold regular meetings, except for a once-per-year gathering at which goals for the coming year are set forth for consideration and an informal expo is held where members bring in projects to share and discuss.  There are three "board members" (required to maintain the Bay-Net vanity callsign WW6BAY) but they're not treated any differently than anyone else and most of them group doesn't even know who they are.  We host a Field Day site every year and usually come in last place because we spend all of our time playing around with radios and gadgets instead of making contacts, but we always learn something. There are no dues; if we need to buy something we ask for donations and people step up. 

One of the great things about Bay-Net has been that it's attracted a lot of younger operators, which I credit in part to the "not a club" approach.  I encourage you to consider whether your club might be more efficient, more effective, and more inviting if it wasn't a club at all.

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Update: As if to yet again validate this idea, I received an email from a local club that allows non-members to monitor their mailing list:

We are having an election to make a change in the By-Laws. The proposed change is shown in RED LINE in the attached petition and adds the words "more than once" to the end of Article IV, Section 1 of the By-Laws. In essence the proposal is that the By-Laws be amended in order to allow officers to serve up to two one year terms in a row rather than only one term as presently provided. It would not extend officer terms and all officers would still stand for election each year at the April meeting.

Gaaahhhhh.....

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Update, Part II: I keep getting comments (here and on my G+ post) about the importance of f2f interaction and why clubs provide that.  Let me clarify: I'm not saying that Bay-Net never interacts f2f.  We meet up all the time, for a variety of reasons.  We just don't do it *formally*.  If we need or want to meet, we do.  What we don't do is waste time with minutes, financial reports, committee reports, voting, etc.