Monday Montage

The final WidsMob Montage modified photo of 2018 was



which Adrian, Bettina, The Weaver of Grass, Wilma and Ragged Robin correctly identified as



the flower bud of a Christmas Cactus. Now in full bloom at just the right time.

Many thanks to everyone who has joined in and contributed guesses, usually correct, over the past year. I will have to have a hard think (not easy) in the new year what to do for some puzzle photos in the future.

Nestbox Visitor

Every few days I check the video recordings to see whether any activity in the camera nestbox has been recorded. All I usually see is a spider creeping about. That was until I checked yesterday and was delighted to see a very brief visit by what appears to be a Blue Tit. The visit was less than ten seconds so I grabbed a couple of blurry stills:

     

It just hopped down to the bottom and immediately hopped back up to the entrance hole.

Talking Pictures

Mainly of interest to UK residents.

Do you prefer to watch older films which didn't have to rely on gratuitous violence and foul language to be 'entertaining'? If so you may be interested in a free film channel I only found by accident.

Called TalkingPicturesTV it can be found on Sky, Freeview, Freesat, Youview and Virgin. They show a whole range of films from 1930's to 1980's. They include comedy, war, drama, mystery, SciFi and westerns plus some old public service information films, some from the British Film Institute and interviews with starts of yesteryear.

Obviously someone has to pay to keep a channel viable so, as is the way of things, it is supported by advertising breaks.

You can find details about the channel and the schedule on talkingpicturestv HERE.

I have no connection with them other than being delighted to have found the channel.

Meteor Scatter

We are entering the annual Geminid meteor shower.
Instead of pretending to be a brass monkey standing outside watching for them I decided to try using them to communicate using amateur radio.

This is done with a special computer program which repeatedly sends bursts of very short signals for fifteen seconds and then listens for any signals for fifteen seconds. The transmissions are sent out in all directions. With luck a small portion will be scattered from the ionised trails left behind each meteor as it burns up in the atmosphere and picked up by another amateur radio station. Hence the mode of communication is known as meteor scatter.

I had installed the latest version of the software I use and gave it a try out.
Many amateurs link the software to automatically report any signals it decoded to a web site so I could see that my signals were being picked up in France, Germany, Denmark and Sweden as well as the UK.

Last night I made my first ever two way contact using meteor scatter with a station in Wales.
The program looks like this.



The top section shows a visual representation of any signals received.
On the left are the decoded signals.
On the right is what I send and what is sent to me.
M1BTR is my callsign. JO03 indicates approximately where I am in the country.
CQ means a general call for anyone to reply.
R, or sometimes RR, means message received.
73 is the code used for Best Wishes. Usually used as a Good Bye at the end of a contact.
Other numbers can refer to the strength of the received signal, time, and the frequency being used.

Many colours are used to make it easier to see what is what.
Red for messages transmitted to me.
Yellow for messages I transmit.
Green for any station I have made a successful two way contact with.
White for a message that is being sent between two other amateur radio operators.
Pink for a general call from a station I have not contacted yet.
A dark mauve would be used for a country I have not contacted at all.

Indoor Rainbows

Standing on the mantelpiece is a tall candle stick which has a cut glass (plastic?) section.
When the low Sun shines through the end window I end up with various rainbows displayed.

Animated Text - First Attempt

Had a bit of a blenderising session with Blender running in Ubuntu.



Watched and followed the detailed instructions in the superb YouTube tutorial by tutor4u
(Wood Chipping Text Animation) but chose a different texture.

Next stage will be to use a different font now I have found out how to choose the one I want.
That's the theory, anyway.
It also needs a bit more depth / thickness.
Finally I need to find out how to make the background transparent.
Green screen wouldn't work as the hedge is green.
Might try a blue background.

Not certain yet what the finished video will be like.
The first idea was to have the message appearing from a wind blown hedge.

Monday Montage

A reminder of last week's WidsMob Montage modified photo



which started out as



and was correctly identified by Adrian, Ragged Robin and Wilma as a cactus plant.


This will be the last puzzle picture for this year.



which was a photo of what?

If you would like to have a guess then please leave it in the comments.
They will be revealed, along with the original photo, next Monday.