Bills Posts

I can’t remember when or how I first discovered Star Trek. I think I might have read about it. or seen something on a friends TV. I know that it was first broadcast at a time when we didn’t have a TV. So every (I think wednesday, just for that hour, I would go to a friends house to watch it – they were a friend of my mums, not mine – they must have thought I was mad watching this rubbish – their thoughts I assume, definitely not mine. For I was captivated.

Here was a universe that I definitely wanted to be part of. I loved the Enterprise, I though Kirk was an excellent captain and Spock was my hero. I think I was probably going through a difficult time then and I imagined modelling myself on spock, and suppressing my emotions. I thought the stories were fantastic, I thought Uhura was stunning, everything about it was just brilliant.

I still the original series DVDs and pick up the occasional episode on TV. I thought the next generation was an . absolutely logical step, and what a wonderful Picard Patrick Stewart was, along with the rest of the crew.

Although I like a lot of the Voyager episodes, the series didn’t grab me in quite the same way as TOS or TNG. I think DS9 was in a similar vein really. Although I did watch most of the episodes of both series. I’m just really pleased that the franchise has lasted. Some of the films were rubbish, to be frank especially Star Trek 5, the final frontier which was in my opinion tripe. One of the best and most enjoyable, was the voyage home, which I still occasionally watch. Of course I suspect people will disagree with me.

More about TV shows I have liked later. In the meantime, here are some random pictures – not taken recently.;

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Perhaps I should have entitled this entry as “Names”. Do you find that some names stick in your mind? They do with me. For the life of me, I cannot remember when I first heard the name The Venerable Bede. I had no idea who it was.

I think I found out a while ago that he was a monk, and that he was famous. I didn’t know what he was famous for. I was surprised today to find somebody who’d never heard of The Venerable Bede. I don’t know why I should be surprised at that. I don’t think I’ve ever discussed Bede with anybody. I don’t know why I should think that everybody would know about a 6th century Monk.

I can’t now remember what triggered me to dig a bit deeper in to him. Something did though. Anyhow, I found out that he lived in the 6th century, or thereabouts and he wrote “The Ecclesiastical history of the English People” I looked him up on amazon and acquired a book for a few pence. The book is about him, not the history, but I’ve just found an audible version, 13 hours of listening. I’m not yet sure if I want to commit one of my credits to it.

Apparently, Bede was prodigious in his output. Not only the history, poems, prose, educational material and other religious texts. In that age, when the only method was by hand how did they manage to be so productive? Perhaps I might get an indication as I read the book. I’m not far into it. I can’t help thinking; what would he have been like if he’d had a computer and a printer?

Fascinating stuff.

Here are some random pictures;

Thursdays is Isle Of Wight Radio Society Thursday Night Net Night.

On a Thursday, I like to run the net starting at 2000 and running through to 2100. Some nights there is a topic other nights are “Natter Nights” . Even though, with a topic, callers on the net can raise any issue they wish, having a topic merely provides a focus, if people can’t think of any other issue to raise. Usually, when a TNN is run with a topic it is not only entertaining, but it is educational as well. It’s rare that I don’t learn something.

Tonights topic was wireless scanners. There are two ways of conducting scanning; frequency and channel. Depending upon the capability of the scanner channel scanning is best, these are known set frequencies, that may be allocated a name or a number, for example, Southampton Vessel Traffic Services, commonly Southampton VTS manages ship movements into and out of Southampton and through the Solent, it operates on Marine Channel 12, or 156.600 MHz, scanners can be programmed so that you now the name of the primary channel user, they will then cycle through all the channels, stopping whenever a signal is detected. Scanners have a serious purpose, but they are also fun.

What I found out tonight was that my Uniden scanner only really deals with higher frequencies, there are frequencies used by ships and aircraft, if satellite isn’t available. I’d never even thought about HF. Once again, a very pleasant hour passed.

Here are some random pictures;

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Are you a starter or a finisher? I tend to think of myself as a starter, but I’m not really sure. My problem is I like to be involved. To give you an example; After becoming licensed as a Radio Ham, I was very keen to become a member of RAYNET. I’ve been a member for three years now. During my first year, in my journal (not a diary because I only wrote when I felt like it) just after I joined RAYNET, I wrote in large red letters, underscored with a border around it DO NOT JOIN THE COMMITTEE. By the end of the year I was secretary of our group. I do this with everything. I have a project that I’ve started, already I’m not sure if it is a good idea, but it is growing legs, and I have half a dozen people involved. it involves a number of articles for the journal for our radio club (i’m on the committee for that as well), I’m also a Neighbourhood Watch coordinator, and am the Gosport NHW Twitter account holder.

Every so often something gets too much for me and I have to get rid of it. I know that what I am doing at the moment is manageable, so that isn’t a danger. But I did join an organisation as I wanted to volunteer in the local community. I knew fairly quickly that I had made a mistake, and that the role involved too much (in my view) responsibility – for me at least. So I had to let the chairman and the organisation down. I was becoming stressed over it, and that was as a volunteer – not a good position to be in.

This mornings walk was the first one in four days. I don’t normally go out early at the weekends, and I had a work commitment on Monday, and overslept on Tuesday. It wasn’t as cold as it was yesterday morning, but it was blustery, so I really appreciated my hat, coat and gloves. The frustrating thing is that with dawn now receding from my reach, I can still see the beginnings of the morning sky, and this one looked as though it would be quite spectacular. And I had to walk away! Oh well. There’ll be another one.

Here are some random pictures for you.

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After a long day at work involving an early rising, I managed to oversleep this morning. I’m sure I’ve said previously that if I am no able to get out of the house before 0610, the walk isn’t worth doing as it is such a rush, that it becomes not so enjoyable. Anyhow, I woke up at about 0600, I knew that even if I got a move on, I wouldn’t get out of the house before o615, so I enjoyed a bit of extra time under the duvet.

The trouble is when that happens I miss something. One thing I missed was an interesting #Breakfastclub, the trouble here is that they are invariably good, so I am guaranteed to miss a good chat. Another thing I miss is some photos of the harbour, you never know what the sky is going to be like. This mornings little gem though, was the first proper frost of the season. I know there will be others, but this was the first proper frost in Gosport. I’ve added a couple of rather pathetic pictures. I promise . I will try sand do better tomorrow.

On the first and third fridays of the month, my Amateur Radio Club – Horndean & District meet. This evening I sat a table with few of the other members, and what a really good evening it was. Some very interesting and entertainin g talk.

I new of course that both the #Breakfastclub, and the Thursday Night Net were listened to, but I don’t normally get to meet the listeners – well, I did tonight. To the extent that we might have a couple join us next week – we may have to wait and see.

I said in my facebook post that I hadn’t really wanted to get up this morning, but that I was glad that I did. It was both a pleasant walk, even if slightly cold, and a very good #Breakfastclub.

Looking forward now to a nice day tomorrow, and then the Nevada Open Day – which should be very nice.

I’ve been listening to Sohpies World – the book about philosophy. It’s very interesting. We’ve just has Socrates & Plato, and are now on to Aristotle. It is being read very well. I will try and think of something to write about it.

Here are some random pictures.

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On a Thursday Evening, I act as network controller for the Isle Of Wight Radio Society Thursday Night Net. One aspect of the net, is a live feed via facebook. If you are interested, look for the GB3IW page on FB, and you will see broadcasts going back over time.

One of the things I like to do when the net is finished, is to write a few notes about the evenings session and list all the participants – even if they just call in to say they are only going to listen. Them taking the trouble to do that is really appreciated. Anyhow, it’s this writing lark that I want to talk about, it’s like I’m a one-shot wonder boy. I write something, and that then drains me so I can’t write anything else.

For some reason this evening is an exception because not only doing my morning facebook post, I’ve done this evenings GB3IW TNN post, and now I’m doing this. I really didn’t know I had it in me.

Several times when I’ve been writing my blog post on the iPad, I have managed to erase what I’ve written before posting it. I find that I just can’t be bothered to go back and have another go so end up not posting anything on that particular evening.

So, there is this evening’s post. Here are some random pictures from this morning’s walk. They tend to be a bit samey this time of year.

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I joined the Gosport Society towards the begining of this year, after looking at the list of talks they had planned all of which (Even the Pubs Of Gosport) sounded very interesting.

And, My Golly, this evening was no disappointment . One was the meeting itself, which has inspired me to see if I can go to their Christmas Lunch, the second was the talk. This evening it was “Embarking the D-Day Armada” by Stephen Fisher. Stephen is a military archaeologist, who has an interest in concrete. Doesn’t sound very exciting does it? His talk takes you through the lengths the allies went through yto ensure that when D-Day came, they would be able to embark the soldiers and equipment needed for the invasion, get them off the other side of the channel and even through the countryside over bridges destroyed by the German army.

It includes the “Hards” the concrete ramps that enabled the landing crafrt to be loaded, the supporting roads that would be needed to get the men & materials to the Hards, the repair facilities needed for battle damaged landing craft and the Mulberry Harbours, in particular there is a museum in Welcheren in the Netherlands that comprises 3 intact mulberry caisons, you enter through one, the centre is a museum of Mulberry, and is partially buried – in this context, they were used to bolster the dykes that were damaged during the 1953 storms & Floods (this saw the beginnings of RAYNET in the UK) . There remains a lot of evidence of the infrastructure that was put in place, especially here in Gosport. Southwick Park, and the Map Room for the D-Day landings is there, I’ve had the honour of going to see that.

At the start of the evening, the Chair did his introductions, and talked about, amongst other things, the Gosport Railway Society, which I had no idea existed. It looks like they do an interesting range of talks as well.

What a fascinating evening. Just goes to reinforce just stuffed with history is Gosport.

Here are some totally random pictures for you. Of of interest is the picture of the grey night sky, with the streak of light in it. I don’t understand it, it can’t be the moon, it’s the wrong colour, but the source was static, and it was behind the clouds. Unusual.

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Once again, I find myself at the end of the day, sat at my machine, having done everything else and now wanting to write a post and not having a subject prepared. It’s frustrating. I’d like to have a week of posts ready but that means running ahead of myself – perhaps tomorrow, I might start doing that.

I would like to understand why I have such a problem with food. Once again, I ate too much at tea.. Not helped by eating a doughnut that someone had bought. What I should have done is put it in the bin. I will try and do this next time. I also had too much bread with tea. Whereas I should just have had my portion and accepted it.

Frustratingly, there was a thing at work that prevented me from going for my lunchtime walk. So, I am down on my steps and distances today. Under normal circumstances I can get 20,000+ steps and 17-18KM walked or cycled per day. Todays step tally is around the 16,000 mark. Oh well.

The moon is full at the moment, and is up early in the evening. The way I come home takes me past a couple of bodies of water, I’m in a position to exploit the light producing some pictures that I like. According to the forecast, I should be able to go for my walk in the morning – that’s good. There are some pictures from my morning walk also.

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After a fine breakfast in the Buttery, Elayne went off and did her Christmas shopping with her sisters. Bill here, took the cowards way out by going and looking for historic and interesting Chichester. He found a bit of each.

Knowing that there was a high certainty that it would start raining around midday, I decided I would do any outdoor activities first. Starting with the Canal. I’m not sure what you would call it – The Basin? a rectangle of water at the head of Chichester Canal. At the moment, it looks like Father Christmas and his troupe of Reindeer are relaxing and building up their energy before the Christmas rush.

I strolled probably for a bout 10 minutes down the stretch of the canal. It really was most relaxing and very scenic. There were some interesting houses on South Bank Street (or perhaps just South Bank?) From there, I walked back up South Street to the Cathedral. I had the opportunity of a guided tour which I declined saying I didn’t have enough time . So the vicar gave me a leaflet containing a guided route. One thing I didn’t know was that the ashes of the Composer,Gustav Holzt (The Planets) were interred there. Not the largest cathedral in the world, but intriguing none the less.

Fro m the Cathedral, I walked not much more than four minutes to the Novium, a smallish museum, covering an part of a Roman Bathhouse. Coming out of the Novium in to the forecast rainstorm. From there, after checking I decided to come home on the train. It had been a very pleasant and enjoyable day.

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