johndball

[johndball]

VARA HF Setup Guide for KN4OLA’s IC-706MKIIG 📦 Hardware Inventory Item Description 1 Panasonic CF-33 laptop – Water-resistant for field use 2 ICOM IC-706MKIIG – Japanese model with fan mod, UT-106, FL-223, FL-101, TX/RX mods[i] 3 ICOM AT-180 – Automatic tuner 4 Signalink USB – Newer than 2018 or board version higher than v200 5 Signalink SLCAB6PM – 6-pin DIN; NOTE: AT-180 blocks 13-pin…

[johndball]

Ubuntu Azure 20.04 --> 22.04 --> 24.04 upgrade caveats

Like many others, I recently received the End of Support (EOS) notice from Azure for Ubuntu 20.04. With the clock ticking, I decided to upgrade my servers to Ubuntu 24.04 using the do-release-upgrade command. The upgrade process went smoothly overall, and I wanted to share a few insights and lessons learned from the experience: If on Azure, use Azure Snapshots to make a backup. Same for VMware…

[johndball]

Easily track Scouting America (BSA) summer camp participants

I created a Google Sheets to track the status of our unit’s summer camp participants. This Google Sheets reflects the status of our participants and includes most, if not all, of the questions needed during summer camp registration and check-in. Note that this form tracks the status of those items but does not contain the content of those items. Per BSA policy, the medical form column and…

[johndball]

Server 2025 Active Directory Certificate Services failure

[johndball]

Show Google shared calendars on the iOS Calendar app

I feel like I need this every… seven years or so. Just long enough for me to forget how to do it. Do you have a Google Calendar that has been shared with you but need it to show on your iOS native calendar app? Have no fear! Let’s go back to circa 2009. Sign into your Google account and visit this URL: https://www.google.com/calendar/syncselect Enable the calendars you want displayed on your iOS…

[johndball]

Wordpress blank page after posting comment fix

Looks like if you enable “Forbid proxy comment posting” using the WP Security plugin in conjunction with Cloudflare then comment posting on WordPress posts and pages will be blocked. If a user attempts to submit a comment then WordPress will dump them on a blank page. Just figured this out after, I dunno, running this setting for about a year.

[johndball]

Easily track Scouts BSA medical form, Youth Protection Training, and Photo release

I created a Google Sheets to track the status of our unit’s medical form (680-001_ABC), Youth Protection Training (YPT), and Photo Release. This Google Sheet reflects the status of our forms and will color code various cells based on validity. It is a work in progress so feel free to suggest improvements. Note that this form tracks the status of those items but does not contain the content of…

[johndball]

Second KLKU CTAF is live!

I’m pleased to announce that a second KLKU CTAF feeder on LiveATC.net is now live! My feeder, listed as “KLKU CTAF #1”, is three miles east of KLKU, positioned approximately twenty-five feet in the air, and is capable of capturing some ground audio depending on the aircraft’s antenna placement and position on the ramp/taxiway. I am unsure who runs the original KLKU CTAF feeder (#2), but based on…

[johndball]

Adding badge numbers to Watchguard Evidence Library using on-prem ADDS

[johndball]

Configuring the ICOM IC-7300 Remote Utility for Windows 11

[johndball]

Fixing the AWC URL on older MetarMaps

My CFI asked me if I could get the school’s METARmaps display board working again as it stopped working once the Aviation Weather site migrated to the new platform. There were many threads on the topic including an official post from METARmaps offering a paid upgrade to fix the problem without any instructions on how to fix it yourself. This is probably a good option for many, but I’ll throw a…

[johndball]

Restart Unifi CloudKey Gen 2 PoE from switch SSH command line

I have a Cloud Key Gen 2 that has been replaced twice and is now acting up a third time. Anyway, I needed to reboot it remotely as the drive is a 2 hour trip to this particular Cloud Key. If you have SSH enabled, log in to your switch and, with proper documentation, find the port number that you need to reboot and run this command: swctrl poe restart id [port number] Example: swctrl poe restart…

[johndball]

Adding the UAT 978 to an ADS-B 1090 receiver for FlightAware, Virtual Radar, and ADSBexchange

I’ve been running a FlightAware ADS-B receive since May 2019 and it has been feeding FlightAware, Virtual Radar, and ADSBexchange without issue for 4 years now (wow!). It has been servicing the Mineral, Virginia area, specifically my nearest airport which is (K)LKU. Recently, I became interested in UAT 978 (978 MHz) which is alternative to ADS-B 1090 (1090 MHz) with certain caveats. The theory…

[johndball]

Upgrading ownCloud manually

Because the official documentation is too verbose. sudo -i service apache2 stop cd /var/www/owncloud sudo -u www-data ./occ maintenance:mode --on [make a note of the apps listed here] sudo -u www-data ./occ app:list cd /var/www/ sudo wget https://download.owncloud.com/server/stable/owncloud-complete-latest.tar.bz2 sudo mv /var/www/owncloud /var/www/backup_owncloud sudo tar -xf…

[johndball]

Experimenting with Blue Iris, CodeProject AI, Intel, and Nvidia GPUs

[johndball]

Apple Watch Gmail aliases bug

Apple Watch Gmail aliases bug

[johndball]

Shodan.io scanning IP addresses (most likely accurate)

Shodan.io scanning IP addresses (most likely accurate)

I compiled this list from three websites and two Reddit threads. Put it in comma-separated format for an easy copy/paste in Azure, Amazon, and other services. As of 14 Nov…