In the Beginning…was the Command Line

My latest dabblings in Linux prompted me to dig out my copy of Neal Stephenson’s “In the Beginning… was the Command Line” – it’s a wonderful read:

“So when I got home I began messing around with Linux, which is one of many, many different concrete implementations of the abstract, Platonic ideal called Unix. I was not looking forward to changing over to a new OS, because my credit cards were still smoking from all the money I’d spent on Mac hardware over the years. But Linux’s great virtue was, and is, that it would run on exactly the same sort of hardware as the Microsoft OSes–which is to say, the cheapest hardware in existence. As if to demonstrate why this was a great idea, I was, within a week or two of returning home, able to get my hand on a then-decent computer (a 33-MHz 486 box) for free, because I knew a guy who worked in an office where they were simply being thrown away. Once I got it home, I yanked the hood off, stuck my hands in, and began switching cards around. If something didn’t work, I went to a used-computer outlet and pawed through a bin full of components and bought a new card for a few bucks.”

Ubuntu – printer works too!

So far the Ubuntu expierence is going well. I can now print from my laptop over the network to a printer off of a Windows computer. I’ve also been able to connect my iPod and Ubuntu recognizes it as a drive and lets me play the songs from it. What I have had limited success so far with is playing DVDs and other video media. I have to do a little more research on that.

Ubuntu – total and complete victory!

I rethought my strategy and re-installed Ubuntu. My issue was getting the video to work properly – the fix required a change to the /etc/X11/xorg.conf. But unlike the other distributions that I tired installing (SuSE, Mandriva, Fedora, etc.) when you run the install for Ubuntu you don’t set a separate password for root. After some searching on the internet I found out that this was by design. I figured out how to get root access to make the changes I needed to and was able to get the GNOME desktop working. Then after more configs I brought up the wireless network card – how cool! I then proceeded to configure an email client to download my gmail from Google, which also now works.

Having a good evening!

Linux attempts

I’ve been having fun trying to install Linux on my laptop. I got the 2006 Edition of the Linux Bible by Christopher Negus which comes with a DVD and a CD with different distributions and “live” distributions. I’d like to get a stable distribution that will work well on a laptop, has a decent desktop manager, and will also support amateur radio applications. I tried the KNOPPIX live CD – and it worked nicely. But I couldn’t figure out how to install it to run other than as a “live” CD version. I then tried Fedora Core 4, but there was a flaw on the disk and locked up during installation. Ubuntu installed but crashed when I tried to bring up the desktop. Next was SUSE, which installed nicely but locks up when I try to bring up the desktop. My next attempt will be a commercial version of Mandriva.

David F. Mangels, AC6WO, SK

David F. Mangels, AC6WO, SK (Mar 29, 2006) — Author and Amateur Radio instructor Dave Mangels, AC6WO, of Temple City, California, died March 24. He was 63. An ARRL member, instructor and volunteer examiner, Mangels taught Amateur Radio licensing classes for a fee at the Technician, General and Amateur Extra levels. In 2001, CQ Communications published his book The Mobile DXer–Your Practical Guide to Successful Mobile DXing. Mangels had 302 DXCC entities confirmed on SSB, no doubt many of them worked while he was operating mobile or portable. Survivors include his wife, Fran, AD6DC, and a son, Gary, AD6CD.

Shore thing Virginia Beach lighthouse is a beacon of history

By KRISTIN DAVIS

Old Cape Henry Lighthouse should have disappeared when its lantern went black more than a century ago.

Cracks split through its stone face and inspectors deemed it unsafe. A newer, more modern one beamed a few hundred feet away, safely beckoning ships into the Chesapeake Bay.

But from the time Old Cape Henry went up in 1791 until its replacement was lit in 1881, the lighthouse was more than a guide. It was a landmark, a symbol of a young country’s progress.

So Old Cape Henry stayed.

That’s a lucky turn of history for me and dozens of others who climb its winding staircase on this warm March day. And lucky for the thousands of others who’ve followed in the keepers’ footsteps over the years.

This is my second visit to Old Cape Henry, one of a dozen lighthouses I’ve visited in Florida, Virginia and North Carolina. I do not collect miniatures or wallpaper my house in the bricked, painted and patterned towers, but they do intrigue me.

Lighthouses represent another age, when sailors relied on stars and simple instruments and beams of artificial light to guide them. They represent a time when a man or woman spent years by the lonely sea, climbing hundreds of steps in heat and cold and storms.

Today Old Cape Henry Lighthouse is just two miles from Virginia Beach’s hub, but getting there isn’t easy. Because it sits on Fort Story military base, visitors must first pass through security. This could involve a car search.

Once you are on the other side, away from the glittery allure of shops, restaurants and million-dollar beach houses shoehorned along the shore, you’ll find a largely unspoiled landscape–much like it was when light keepers lit Old Cape Henry’s oil lamps.

U.S. history here is nearly as old as it gets. The first permanent European settlers landed at Cape Henry in 1606, made their way up the James River and founded Jamestown.

Old Cape Henry lighthouse overlooks the place they first stepped ashore. Old Cape Henry came along 185 years later, after Virginia had gone from colony to state.

By then the beacon was long overdue. For half a century the Colonial governments of Maryland and Virginia got tangled in “red tape” over its construction. When the materials were finally bought and delivered, the Revolutionary War intervened.

The lighthouse was among the first orders of business when the very first Congress of the United States met in 1789. It was also the first federal work project.

Cape Henry Lighthouse took about a year to build and cost $17,700. (“Old” was added when the new one opened in 1881.)

The slim, octagonal tower was made with stone from our very own Aquia quarries in Stafford County–the same sandstone used in Mount Vernon, the White House and U.S. Capitol. You can also find it at Kenmore, home of George Washington’s sister Betty Lewis and her husband, Fielding Lewis, in Fredericksburg.

Workers had quite a time hauling the heavy, awkward sandstone all the way to the coast by way of the Rappahannock River.

Today the 90-foot lighthouse stands as tall and imposing as it must have in its early days, though I imagine salty winds and rain have faded it.

The light that warned ships is more than 100 years gone, but visitors can stand inside its lantern and see where oil lamps–and later, reflecting Argand lamps–once glowed.

It costs $4 to climb Old Cape Henry. A friendly staff sells tickets inside a quaint gift shop where lighthouse coins, books, coasters and shirts line shelves.

The shop’s back door leads outside, where Old Cape Henry stands at the top of a steep set of stone steps.

It is early March, but the weather feels more like midspring. The sky is soft blue, and warm breezes blow in from the bay.

Old Cape Henry is dim and cool, retaining its winter chill thanks to the stone exterior and brick lining added a few years before the Civil War. The black iron staircase spirals up like neatly positioned dominoes.

The view from the bottom is dizzying. I climb anyway, counting the steps as I go.

The original stairs were wooden–and flammable. They remained for 60 years without incident and were replaced during a renovation.

When I reach the platform where a vertical ladder leads to the lantern, I’ve counted 85 steps. But I can’t be sure because three little windows have distracted me along the way.

It is warm and bright inside Old Cape Henry’s small glass crown. I take in the unobstructed, 360-degree view.

This would have been a good day to be a lighthouse keeper, standing as high as the birds over a sparkling blue bay.

To reach KRISTIN DAVIS:540/368-5028
Email: kdavis@freelancestar.com

What: Old Cape Henry Lighthouse, the United States’ first. In operation from 1792 until 1881, when the New Cape Henry Lighthouse replaced it.
Where: 583 Atlantic Ave., Fort Story, Va., 23459. Virginia Beach is just a couple of miles away.
Hours: 10 a.m. to 5 p.m.
Cost: $4 for adults, $2 for children 3 to 12
Info: 757/422-9421 or on the Web at apva.org/cape henry

Next Solar Cycle to be Later but More Intense, New Research Suggests

NEWINGTON, CT, Mar 7, 2006–The next solar cycle, Cycle 24, will be a year or so late in arriving but will be far more intense than the current cycle now winding down–perhaps as much as 50 percent stronger. That’s according to a new computer model unveiled March 6 by scientists at the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) in Boulder, Colorado. The researchers developed the first “solar climate” forecast using a combination of groundbreaking observations of the sun’s interior from space and computer simulation. Key to predicting the solar activity cycle is an understanding of plasma flows in the sun’s interior.

“We understood these flows in a general way, but the details were unclear, so we could not use them to make predictions before,” said NCAR’s Mausumi Dikpati, who published a paper on her research March 3 in the online edition of Geophysical Review Letters. Magnetic fields are “frozen” into the solar plasma, so plasma currents within the sun transport, concentrate and help dissipate solar magnetic fields, Dikpati explained. She said the new application utilizes innovations in direct study of the sun’s interior as well as historical data on which previous forecasts have depended.

The new technique of “helioseismology” allows researchers to see inside the sun. Helioseismology traces sound waves reverberating inside the sun to build up a picture of the interior, similar to the way ultrasound technology can create a picture of an unborn baby. The new model, known as the Predictive Flux-transport Dynamo Model, has simulated the strength of the past eight solar cycles extending back to the early 1900s with 98 percent accuracy.

If proved correct the forecast offers a sort of bad news/good news scenario for Amateur Radio operators, but not all solar scientists agree with the newest prediction. NASA solar physicist David Hathaway has declared that Cycle 23’s solar minimum already has arrived. Nonetheless, Hathaway, who was not involved in the Dikpati study, says he is excited about the new model.

“It’s based on sound physical principals, and it finally answers the 150-year-old question of what causes the 11-year sunspot cycle,” Hathaway said.

Hathaway says his own research concurs that Cycle 24 will be more intense than Cycle 23. However, he predicts the next solar cycle will begin late this year or early next year rather than a year later. He points out that historical data suggest that the more powerful cycles begin earlier rather than later.

Under the model developed by Dikpati and her colleagues, the poor HF propagation of Cycle 23’s terminal stages won’t reverse course until late 2007 or early 2008, and Cycle 24 won’t peak until 2012. But higher intensity normally means more and longer HF band openings–with the exception of solar storms. As the sunspot cycle bottoms out, however, conditions can be more favorable for VHF and UHF operation.

For public utilities and satellite operators, the new model’s prediction regarding solar storms is mostly bad news. Depending on their intensity, solar eruptions–with their powerful releases of radiation–can disrupt power grids on Earth and satellite operations in space, including communications links and GPS. Previous forecasts for Cycle 24 had suggested a significantly milder intensity.

A next step for the NCAR researchers will be to develop an advanced model that can give advance warning of individual solar storms, says Richard Behnke of the National Science Foundation. NASA’s Living With a Star program and the National Science Foundation funded the research.–information from NASA, NCAR and news reports was used in developing this report

Acknowledgement: ARRL thanks Bill Sexton, N1IN, for his assistance in editing this article.