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YagiMAX: The best Yagi Uda antenna modelling software

Today I want to share with you a great Yagi Uda Antenna modeling software for amateur radio operator and enthusiast.

The most interesting part of the software is, it can help you to improve your design by projecting the antenna radiation pattern and estimating the radiation resistance (impudence) at any given frequency.

The application is created for the venerable DOS environment, thus some of the operating system might not be able to run it natively. However I found out that I can run the application successfully using DOSBox DOS emulator software under Ubuntu Linux. For your information, DOSBox is also available for Windows operating system too.

YagiMAX Screenshots

Here’s a couple of YagiMAX screenshot taken from my computer (running Linux, Ubuntu Gutsy). The antenna shown here is a 6 Element OWA Yagi for 2 Meter amateur radio band, scaled from its 6 meter counterpart, the design was taken from L.B Cebik website

yagimax yagi software model

yagimax yagi software model

Download YagiMAX

Here is a download link to YagiMAX 3.11. Hope that will help you in your work !

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Friendster’s Stupidity – Why I rarely logged in

Some of my friends were wondering why I did not log in my Friendster account for a long period of time considering that I worked in front of a PC all the time.

Well, I leave it up to these screenshots to answer those questions

FYI, most of these people have at least completed college-level education and are supposed to understand that forwading junk messages could disrupt any sort of communication network.

Oh well I might as well redirect people who questioned my long absence from Friendster account to this page next time. Boohoo social networking, I’ll be screening my FaceBook contact to avoid this sort of problem.

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Time to get a new mouse

Darn, guess I’ve to get myself a new mouse. Among most the things I hate to replace, I hate getting a new mouse the most. Probably it going to take me some time to get use to a new mouse in order to be more productive.

The current mouse still works, but its left button seems a little bit “trigger-happy” and I’m having trouble to perform drag+selecting text action. This might impair me when I’m manipulating graphics too.

Oh well better get a new mouse btw rather than complaining, probably I should get a new keyboard too..

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Going for Amateur Radio Examination

I haven’t attended paper based examination for quite some time now, especially when it involve me answering hundreds of objective questions. To be honest, I’m not that confident with this examination.

Don’t get me wrong. it is not that I doubt my electronic and radio communication skills, but its more to my self doubt when confronted with a bunch of objective questions, especially when I studied a lot of questions (but with confusing answers) regarding the examination tomorrow.

examination hall

I’ve been preparing for a couple of weeks for this exam, it will be attended by a lot of candidates, and I suspect that the venue would be filled with amateur radio old-timers or ham radio rig sellers that would try to persuade candidates to buy them.

For those who are new to this, amateur radio examination is a must for those who are interested to operate an amateur radio station. The examination will determine if you are qualified to earn a license to communicate with other amateur radio operator (hams).

ham radio operator

Although radio communication is considered an “old fashioned” way to communicate since we already have internet and mobile phones, ham radio is still favored by enthusiast as a way to meet new friends and organise activities over the radio. Currently, Malaysia has at least 4,000 licensed ham radio operator across the country.

Please refer to wikipedia page for more information about Amateur Radio in general, and MARTS website for Malaysian ham radio-specific information.

p/s: Ham radio operator is not a paid job, its a hobby. Any body can participate as long as they are licensed.

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Finally I’ve the time to add “Contact Me” form on my website

FInally after more than 5 years, that I’ve the time to add the-easy-to-use online Contact Form to my own personal website.

The site has been around since 2002 and has been relocated to 3 different web servers since its establishment. Previously the website serves as my online portfolio where it serves as a point of contact for potential employers to reach me.

Now I guess it is just a personal website where people can get to know me or contact me through the web page as I am not actively seeking for job right now (yes I am still voluntarily unemployed!)

For the curious mind, I’ve use some of the techniques describe here to create the Contact Form, enjoy!

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Upgraded To Ubuntu Gutsy Gibbon 7.10

Upgraded my PC operating system to Ubuntu 7.10 (Gutsy Gibbon). The upgrade took about 6 hours because of the amount of (free) softwares installed on my computer.

The upgrade was smooth and went without a single hick-ups. I’ve written an Ubuntu Gutsy upgrade tutorial here

Compiz (read: cool desktop effects) is installed by default and it just take one-click enable it and it work well to on my 6 year old Pentium 4 1.7GHz pc. Though I think a leap to the latest AMD(or Intel Core 2 Duo) processor would be nice.

All in all, I love using Ubuntu, easy software installation, no constant virus/spyware problem, low maintenance and less headache, enough said.

Screenshots