Ahmad Hadeed Blog

Am currently applying for an Amateur radio license (Ham Radio), after easily passing the written exam there is still a practical exam here in Kuwait where trainee are trained & then examined practically.

My 1st "QSO" or amateur radio conversation took place on the 12th of May 2009 at 16:51 UTC with Italian guy named "Moreno" call sign "IK6LBV" (India Kilo Six Lima Bravo Vector).
The conversation was conducted from the Kuwaiti Amateur Radio club station "9K2RA" (Nine Kilo Two Romeo Alpha).

Then other "QSO"s:
"IZ6CLZ" (India Zulo Six Charlie Lima Zulu)
"IT9NMJ" (India Tango Nine November Mike Juliet)
"II2ERBA" (India India Two Echo Romeo Bravo Alpha), which is a special event station for celebrating 20 years of the Amateur Radio League in Albino Italy, guy named Slavyo (hope the spelling is correct).

Then yesterday 17th of May 2009, I went on the air with my 1st "DX" ever, I screwed up @ the beginning xD, but soon I was doing okay.
Didn't record all call signs on my book here, they are all logged into the computer there.

Spoke to a guy in UAE, Germany, Italy, Russia & others.

One of the stations were a Russian airport with special call sign.

Anyways, my exam should be tomorrow Tuesday 19th of May 2009, where I would be asked to speak to some people on the air then start call, I think I need to practice one more time, hope my trainer would give me some time today so I'd go DX for the second time & get used to it, specially when ppl pile up for a 9K2 Call!

It is kinda confusing the 1st time where you listen to many signals being mixed up & all those call signs & then you have to pick a station, also for a 1st timer it's a little bit stressful knowing all those ppl are listening & knowing that your not quite yet a professional operator :P.

So for all people, if someone reads this before my exam time (I doubt), I should be on the band (20m I assume, depending on the propagation & the will of my examiners) around 13:00 UTC or 16:00 Kuwait time, from station "9K2RA".

Wish me luck ;) ... Nine Kilo Two Romeo Alpha going QRT, 73's

The Moment to Last Forever!

Yes, I do suck in drawing I know :P

But I had this idea of time dilation in the theory of relativity.

t = t. / srt(1-(v/c)^2)

P.S: For the moment to last forever "v" should equal "c", I just made it a little closer to reality here :P .. lol

In this equation & with the speed of .99999c, 5 minutes would last 18.6 hours.
1 day would last 223.6 days.
"c" equals the speed of light = 3*10^8 m/s.

The bottom line, if you travel @ the speed of light, time stops!

The Green Red Light !

Just imagine saying that to your local police officer :P
A question in my modern physics book (Relativity Chapter) says:

“A physics professor claims in court that the reason he went through the red light was due to his motion, that is was Doppler shifted to green”

Now some may not know what is the meaning of Doppler effect, so I'll explain that briefly.
You sure do remember standing on the sidewalk where someone angry is passing by you in his car with his hands on the horn, or maybe an ambulance or a fire truck where passing by.
The sound is always with a higher pitch when the sound generator is approaching while at lower pitch when leaving. This is called the Doppler effect, it's basically depending on the speed of motion of the object, speed of sound in the medium (in the case of sound) & the initial frequency (the sound of the source).

Now in the case of light, things gets a bit more complicated, since light moves at the speed of... (well, light of course). The relativistic effect should be included.

The relativistic Doppler effect is indicated by the law:

Where:
c = Speed of light = 3*10^8
Lambda = wavelength
For the red light = 650 nm
For the green light = 550 nm
u = The speed of motion.
Note that: u = -u in case of approaching.

Doing the math to get u, we discover that based on the professor's claims, he was driving with a speed of (5*10^7 m/s), a more convenient unit (180*10^6 km/h) or (112.5*10^6 miles/h).

Well, if it was me, I'd pay the fine for crossing the red light rather than that cosmic over speeding! :P

Few days ago, my Windows has been deactivated. I was using an un genuine copy of Windows XP Pro. (Well I've tried Vista on my new semi super computer for a week & simply couldn't take it, I had to have a Windows OS for my games ASAP).
I have installed it on my computer & was planning to purchase the key cause I just like to do it legally.
Unfortunately, all shops where selling Windows Vista "or as I call it Zefta" (Related to Arabic term Zeft, which is bad).

So what happened after SP3 was installed is that it counted down 30 days & then locked.
So I was working on my computer (Running Linux OS as default BTW) & wished to go play some online gaming, So I restarted into my gaming OS (Pointing that Windows is useless in terms of reliability & security) only to discover that Windows has been locked.

I discovered some quite interesting stuff when it comes to activating your Windows the pirate way but I'll not mention it cause am one of the guys who encourages to have a genuine copy. It might seem a lot to pay over a $100 for an OS that will only be used for gaming, but I think it's better than stealing anyways.

So I was going around trying to find a way to override the activation process or at least change my invalid key to a valid key (Hacked), just temporarily to play the game & then I'll have the headache searching for a shop selling Windows XP Pro the next day somewhere here. (Don't blame me nor the shops, but it's Microsoft whom decided to stop their support to XP for their other crappy OS Zefta!)

I then discovered a post that suggested to Open MS Narrator & Open IE from there for Internet browsing & maybe run "My Computer" & view the files.
Well, I took it beyond that. I accidentally discovered that if you try to access the C drive of your computer via IE that Windows will crash its self to the desktop & unlocks the desktop, taskbar & other startup applications.

It was so hilarious that I was laughing like a maniac! It's just simply unbelievable! Microsoft Windows is just so buggy that they even fails to safely secure the OS even if it should be locked.

The video is on Youtube.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kw3YD-jvEaU

If you have seen my last post, where I was anxious about my new computer. You'd probably think am quit happy with it, well, things took different direction.

After assembling it, pressing the power switch, nothing happened! (Fans spun for split seconds).
After so much troubleshooting we decided it's a motherboard issue & took it to the place we bought it from.
After he played with it a bit, strangely it worked out.
Took it back home, connected it & pressed the power button & nothing happened.
After more troubleshooting on what the hell was the problem, discovered that one cable connecting the chassis with the motherboard is causing the issue. Decided not to connect it (HD Audio Cable).

As I'm starting to depend heavily on Linux for a daily use, am loosing up on Windows and since Windows Vista is in the market, I will soon be demanded for fixing problems for family & friends, so I should keep up with it. Plus, my graphics supports DirectX 10, which is supported on Vista only (For now, till hackers make it available on XP, maybe it's already there).

So I installed (Microzeft Windows Zifta), that's what I called it. With this semi super computer rated 5.6/5 by Windows Vista. It's slow, hangs, crashes & exits games by it's self.

So, after testing it for almost a week, I decided to go back to XP, knowing that all that time I've been trying to install Kubuntu (for several days) but with no luck. (Problem with BIOS RAID 0).

I then started the process of removing Vista & installing XP.
When installing XP it cannot recognize the RAID configuration, so you should use the F6 floppy included, knowing that the DP35DP motherboard does not support floppy drives, yet the only luck I had have is to accidentally have a USB external floppy drive.
So I started the installation & choose the drivers for my chipset RAID controller ICH9.
When Windows loads the rest of the drivers & starts starting the installation, it crashes with the BSOD.
I then tried to preload the chipset drivers (the whole chipset drivers, not the Intel Matrix Storage only). Because some other components might not be new to Windows & causes it crash.
I then had trouble for hours for making a bootable flash, so I could put the Windows setup files with some extra files ($OEM$\$$\...) with Intel (INF) files.
I then decide to make a bootable CD, which seemed impossible after all my programs failed to do one, I've been struggling all night.
I then thought of transferring the original installation CD into an ISO file & then edit the ISO file to contain the extra drivers, somehow it failed, the CD didn't boot.
I then had the idea of even starting the installation from the original CD & when the F6 time comes I'll switch CDs, so the installation would load the updated drivers & that worked. I then continued to load the Intel Matrix Storage drivers from F6 floppy & then, it crashed again!

Finally, am resetting BIOS to set the HDD's as IDE (NO RAID NO AHCI). :(

I then started installing XP, which is going smoothly, I've just finished installing Intel's drivers & Nvidia. But my system is slower with no RAID 0 :( , I've sent Intel an email 2 days ago, yet no reply.

Planning to Install Kubuntu 7.10 after finishing with XP.

It's now 6:12 Am, I didn't sleep & am so frustrated & angry because the RAID 0 didn't work as the majority of other stuff I tried.
I have 4 lectures today, starting @ 9 Am, Nano technology seminar is also held @ our university which I have to attend.

What shall I say, I'm one with worse luck on earth.

Pictures of the Crash, coming soon.