Lightning Maps

During this morning's QSO I disconnected the antenna feed twice due to nearby lightning. I looked at various lightning data web sites I had bookmarked and found one that let me pan and zoom to the degree I wanted. Below are two screen shots from LightningMaps.org that uses data from Blitzortung.org to overlay a Google map. When I selected Real Time near the upper left corner on the initial map I found I was able zoom in and pan. I also could select the amount of history to display, using check-boxes across the top of the map.

First is the view captured at 0722 CDT, 3/10/2015, with 2 hours of data. 

Click above to enlarge view.

Next is the view from 0930 CDT and shows 24 hours worth of data, using more colors.

Click above to enlarge view.

I intend to keep this site handy for future reference.

Sudden radio black-out on low bands

click above to enlarge view

Yesterday morning during the 3740 kHz QSO with W4UOA, N4NR and K4JPM, we noticed a sudden, extreme drop in signal level on 75 m. We switched to 60 m. Carl and I could not hear each other, and Dennis could barely hear us. We were keeping in touch on the chat room. A brief visit to 40 m had similar results. We suspected a sudden solar event, and Dennis pulled up the graph shown above and shared the link with us via the chat room. The time stamp on the page bottom was just after we noticed the big signal drop. Dennis later added the red arrows pointing to the big spike.
He reported later spikes in an update to his Facebook post and included this link to the flare photos published by NASA.

The current X-ray Flux graphs are available here.

Two online malware scanners

A recent issue of PC World magazine suggested two free online malware scanners as a supplementary check of your Windows PC that may already have installed anti-malware software, or if you are having current malware symptoms:
Free Online Virus Scan - Antivirus Software - Trend Micro USA
Free Virus Scan | Online Virus Scanner from ESET 
I mentioned these to the Monday morning radio group, and used them later on my two desktop PCs that currently have the Avast Free AV installed.


On my office PC, 2006 vintage with two drives, I first rain the ESET online scanner. It ran for 2 hours and appears to check all files. It found several instances of potentially unwanted applications  (listed below) and deleted/quarantined them. Drive C is the newer Win 7 drive; Drive F is the older Win XP drive, which I almost never boot up now. I did a Google search on the reported Win32/InstallCore.QW and found the tally at virustotal.com to be very interesting:
https://www.virustotal.com/en/file/2ca33500c1e3c129aad55a092717a9044cd0e1919e24ce78211ebd4611572826/analysis/

Next I ran the Trend Micro Housecall and it found nothing. It took only a few minutes to run and I'm not sure if it also checks for potentially unwanted applications in additional to the truly malicious stuff.

On the ham shack PC, 2013 vintage with two drives, the Trend Micro Housecall scan found nothing. Then I ran the ESET scan, with the option again set to include potentially unwanted applications in its search. It took just over an hour to scan the two drives (315,385 files). On the older drive F, that was originally in the office PC years ago, it found two potentially unwanted applications. The program automatically quarantined them and gave me the option to delete them upon completion of the scan.

I concluded that both online scanners are worth running if you have current malware symptoms or just want to occasionally supplement your normal resident anti-malware software.  As malware developers and users have become more sophisticated and sneaky with their methods, it is more important than ever to not rely on any single protection method and to be even more vigilant about emails and web links.

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Results of ESET scan on 2006 vintage PC.  User names replaced with ****.

C:\Users\****\AppData\Local\Temp\ICReinstall_Evernote_5.7.1.5586_inst.exe   

a variant of Win32/InstallCore.QW potentially unwanted application    deleted - quarantined

F:\Documents and Settings\All Users.WINDOWS\Application Data\InstallMate\{16782E9C-E344-47BD-

A045-B9BA79870632}\_Setupx.dll   
a variant of Win32/InstalleRex.U potentially unwanted application    deleted - quarantined

F:\Documents and Settings\****\My Documents\Downloads\aoeprzip.exe   
a variant of Win32/OpenInstall potentially unwanted application    deleted - quarantined

F:\Documents and Settings\****\My Documents\Downloads\outlookexpress-setup(1).exe   
Win32/DownloadAdmin.G potentially unwanted application    deleted - quarantined

F:\Documents and Settings\****\My Documents\Downloads\setup-bluegriffon.exe   
Win32/DownWare.W potentially unwanted application    deleted - quarantined

TPWINLOG 2015 in Windows 10

Click above for large view

TPWINLOG 2015 installed flawlessly in the Windows 10 Technical Preview that I have running in a virtual machine hosted by Ubuntu 14.04 Linux. This screen shot shows the program window displaying some practice contacts I entered for test purposes. I also verified that the Print ToFile feature produces the desired text file.

I don't know yet if I can test the CW send feature with this arrangement.

Supplies for Crawfish Boil

Here is one example of a local grocery store floor display of supplies for a crawfish boil. Included are: 80 quart pot, packages of crab boil and crawfish boil spices, round plastic trays (in Mardi Gras colors), and cases of canned beer.