HomePlug / Powerline network vs MOCA / HomePNA Ethernet

I have 2 coax cables runnign to my living room. One for SAT TV, and another for TV/Internet from the local provider Stofa. The later terminates in a cable modem, and an analog signal to the TV. I can't pull the cables out, and replace one with an ethernet cable, so have to find another solution.

I have since switched my Internet to the local fiber ISP Waoo, who is providing 60/60 Mbit, and IPTV. I had a wireless bridge (WDS) connection between my office room and the living room, it was working fine at around 30-60 Mbps. But, when streaming HDTV @ 15-20 Mbps the signal is competely unusable.

So I decided to go for HomePlug AV500 and see if I could get the 30-40 Mbit stable connection people normally get under difficult conditions. My house is from 2007, so wiring is relatively new. There is around 15 meters from the living room to the location where I have the Fibernet -> Ethernet converter.

I was considering the TP-Link product, as I like their products in general, but it is not certified, and might give interoperability problems if I need more HomePlug. So I went for the Zyxel 4201 kit. They follow the Homeplug 500 AV standard, and are cheap. There are other products out there that are marked 600 or 650+, which also uses the ground wire. They supposedly gives 20% more performance. They are available with EEC 7/4 Schuko plug, so I would need an adapter to conect the ground wire. And they are way more expensive.

I found wall outlet on the same phase as the living room, and was able to establish a connection. But, iPerf only showed 9-10 Mbit/s thruput, and now even SD channels went blocky once in a while. So HomePlug is not up to the job.

So now I have ordered a Marmitek IPTV Coax Pro set, which uses the 2-68MHz frequency band to provide 200 Mbit/s Ethernet over RG59 coax. It will transmit TV signals on the same cable. This set comes with one adapter with RF-in, RF+Coaxnet out + 1 x ethernet, and the other device has a 4 port ethernet switch. All ethernet ports are 100Mbit, but you can use up to 16 devices on the same coax cabling, but the maximum bandwidth is 200 Mbit/s. Reviews of MoCa units seems to indicate normal thruput > 90 Mbps. So I am looking forward to receiving the boxes.

There are multiple MoCa 1.1 / HomePNA 3.1 boxes available. But there are some non-certified products as well, I specificly went for the MoCa box, in the hope that future expansion might be possible from other vendors.

MoCa 1.1 needs one 50MHz frequency range in the  range of 500- 1600 MHz.

Problem linking w/ libusb on Linux

Trying to compile the software for my weather station ( http://te923.fukz.org ) on Ubuntu 12.04.3 LTS, I ran into problems like this:

/tmp/ccPvR8eT.o: In function `te923_handle':

te923usb.c:(.text+0xe3): undefined reference to `usb_init'

te923usb.c:(.text+0x132): undefined reference to `usb_open'

te923usb.c:(.text+0x183): undefined reference to `usb_get_driver_np'

te923usb.c:(.text+0x19d): undefined reference to `usb_detach_kernel_driver_np'

te923usb.c:(.text+0x1ae): undefined reference to `usb_set_configuration'

te923usb.c:(.text+0x1f1): undefined reference to `usb_claim_interface'

te923usb.c:(.text+0x231): undefined reference to `usb_set_altinterface'

It took some time figuring out what the problem was. There were references to libusb-0.1 libusb-1.0 and fidderences in linking and calling conventions. There were references to -L for gcc. All os these failed to work.

The problem showed itself to be, that the -llib flag must come after the files that are to be linked with the library, so changing 

te923con: te923con.c te923con.h te923usb.c te923usb.h te923com.c te923com.h

gcc -Wall -lusb -o te923con te923con.c te923usb.c te923com.c

to 

te923con: te923con.c te923con.h te923usb.c te923usb.h te923com.c te923com.h

gcc -Wall -o te923con te923con.c te923usb.c te923com.c -lusb

fixed the problem, and allowed me to compile without errors.

Guess this GCC change will affect a multitude of software.

Short review of XCOM: Enemy Unknown

I recently bought XCOM: Enemy Unknown for my iPad (Playing on an iPad Mini), and I really love the game. Best game I have been playing for ages.

I love games like Civilization (been playing since 1991 when the first version was out) which is pure strategy and Rainbow Six which is a tactical shooter with purposeful missions. XCOM is some of the same, yet different. It is a strategy game in that you handle resources, research etc between the actual missions. And the actual missions are turn based strategy / tactical games with animation/cutscenes making it almost feel like a first person shooter. Sometime I feel too much time is wasted on the animations though.

The story line is good, and evolves through the game, all about an alien invasion force. There are different missions, some that repeat, and then 3 major events. You lose the came when enough countries pulls out from the council because they feel you don't give them sufficiently protection, and their panic level rises. You can lower panic level by doing mission in the countries, or putting satellites in orbit. You need to improve spaceships as well to shoot down UFOs.

You have different soldier classes (Rookie, Assault, Support, Heavy, Sniper) with different skills. The precision of the sniper increases with distance, so he is not too good in close quarter combat, but he can give good support from out of harms way. All other differs mostly in what weapons they can use, and their additional skills when promoted.

Personally, I save the game before the first move, as I hate it when I make stupid mistakes and some of my guys gets killed. I see each operation like a game of say Angry Birds", where I have to pass the level without anybody dying on me. Wounded is unavoidable, and OK. I try to keep secondary soldiers up to snuff, by taking one in on the not too difficult missions. Then they get promoted and assigned a class.

Most strategy sites tells you to level up 1-2 snipers as fast as possible, at least one sniper with Squadsight, Damn Good Ground, Opportunist, and In the Zone or Double Tap which can be left back and high, and provide very good support. And with disabling shot, he can help the rest bring down heavy targets too.

How to bring a Sipura SPA 2000 back to life

My Sipura SPA 2000 SIP ATA adapter just died after 6-7 years of continous operation.
The LED would turn on when plugged in, but the Ethernet never came up, and would never light up the LED on the switch.

Searching on the Internet, I figured out that it was likely the PSU going dead (The electrolyte in the capacitors will waporize over time). Tested with a 5V 1A PSU I had for use with a powered USB HUB, and the SPA2000 worked fine again, but the PSU got too warm for my taste. Found a 5V 2A PSU in a box, and everything is now running fine again.

I ordered a new 5V 2A PSU from China via eBay.com. $3 including shipping.

Cheap fix for a product I almost thought was dead. So remember, if things has worked a long time and stops working, it might just be capacitors having reached their expected lifetime.

Maersk Lego sets part 1

Working for a company in the Mersk organization, I called around to see if I could get the Maersk Lego sets with an employee discount, and finally managed to get it. So now I am the happy owner of the Lego Maersk Train #10219.

as well as the Lego Maersk Container Ship #10155, which will be waiting for me having time to build it.

Making decision to buy new Garmin

I need a new GPS / Heart Rate monitor, and I have now been researching a bit. It seems like nobody really competes with Garmin for integrated units. The other big name is Polar, of which I previously owned 2 watches, They do not come with integrated GPS, it is an external unit.

I am very tempted to buy a factory new Garmin FR 305 again, price is DKK 888 = $160 this week. But my wife says, that since I have been unlucky with that model, I should get another one.

The alternatives out there are the 310xt, 400 series and the 610. People seems to be unhappy about the 405 series and the touch ring, the 410 is not really what I want, and I tried the 610 in a store. I had almost decided this should be it. But I did not really connect with the pressure sensitive screen (it is not really touch), and knew I would not be happy with it because of that. So that left the 310xt and the 910xt.

310xt is the old model, and as I can see on the Garmin forums, it has many firmware bugs, and Garmin seems unable to fix them, As some people says Garmin has success despite of itself. The 310xt looks nice, and I like the orange color, and so did my wife :)

The reasons to get the 910xt over the 310xt is, that support and firmware focus will be directed towards that unit, it has a newer and better chipset with better and faster GPS reception, it has barometric altimeter, and then it has some swimming functions, that might motivate me to swim.

The 910xt should be out in november, now it is mid december or mid january, or sometime in february, there are many contradictory times reported now. Garmin US says ships in 5-8 weeks. Garmin Denmark says december,  Garmin Germany says Q4 2011. When I ordered locally, they contacted Garmin Denmark, who said it would likely be mid january.

But I think that Garmin has not released any information after they announced november 2011. If they were a professional company, they would go out and officially move the release date.

So now I am waiting for Garmin to release the 910xt, hopefully without too many software bugs and hardware errors.

Garmin and failed QC of repairs

I have had a great GPS watch, a Garmin Forerunner 305 for almost 2 years, and recently the battery more or less completely failed, and I couldn't charge it for more than 30 secs at a time.

Sicne I live in Denmark, we have a 2 year warranty on all products, so I returned it to the shop where I have bought it (Bilka), and they sent it in to Garmin for repairs. 12 days later I had what looked like a brand new watch, but in a bag labelled refurbished.

When I wanted to go for a run, I put the watch in the window for 10 minutes so it could get GPS lock before I went out. Then I put it on, and a minute later, I found out it was turned off. Found out it just took a slight tap to make it turn off. Repairs probably forgot to solder the battery wires :(

Back to the store. They again send it in, with the documents from first repair, and asks to make sure I get one that works. Well, they did not read that note at Garmin.

In my second replacement they probably forgot to solder the GPS antenna inside the watch. Here is a photo of the new one side by side with my wife's 305, after about 1 hour in the window.

Garmin does not seem to have much QC of repairs / refurbished products. I have asked for my money back, or a new-in-box unit from the retail store. I am happy with the watch, so I would like another 305. It seems like the 4xx series is a step down in size and functionality, and the better models are more than twice the price of the 305.

Garmin needs QC at their repair facilities. It is not acceptable that they ship 2 defective replacements to the same customer.