RialTech.Com - Taking Technology To High Places

One of my many hobbies is Ham Radio. My father tried to get me interested in amateur radio along time ago. But back then you had to learn morse code. So it wasn't until the pushing of one of my Radio Shack coworkers I went to take the test. By then you did have to know morse code anymore. But after being assigned the call sign N3LRG and with some help from my ham radio friends I took a course in morse code and ended up passing the 5 words per minute test. So now I am a holder of Technician Plus licence. My interest in Ham Radio is towards the computer side of the hobby. My first love is in packet radio which is like the Internet for hams. In fact a lot of the software that was written for the Internet was created by ham radio operators. So when I finally got on the Internet in 1994 I was already very familiar with the commands the Internet uses. Unfortunately my new house isn't the greatest for Ham Radio. Since I live in a small valley. But I do plan to put a small workshop up on the hill behind my house. Then I plan to put a packet node in the workshop to help me get out better. So there is hope that I will be on line again soon.

TRS-80 Speaking of computers I have been playing around with these thing since the summer of 1978. My first computer was a TRS-80 Model 1 computer. I expanded it to have a whole 48 kilobytes of ram storage and ran at 1.78 megahertz. I had to store my program on audio tapes before I got my first floppy drive for the machine. They held a max of 89 Kilo bytes of storage. This was also the first computer I used to get online with. I had a 300 baud acoustic coupler to connect to CompuServe. So my first email went out in 1981 before the Internet was publicly opened. My second machine finally got me into the world of MS-DOS in 1989. It was a Tandy TL2 computer that for the first time had a hard drive built into the machine. And it stored a whopping 20 Megabytes of information. It also had a built in sound chip and could display 64 different colors. And it even came a full 640 kilobytes of RAM running at a whopping 20 megahertz. The next machine I own was a Tandy 2500SX, now the calm to fame of this machine was it was the first computer that I had that let me connect directly to the Internet via a whole 2400 baud modem. I got on the Internet for the first time in 1994 via a company called Telerama. {Note I got on the internet one month before Netscape came out.} The oldest internet service provider in Pittsburgh and the third oldest in the nation. This machine was also the first computer that I gave a name to. Since it was the first machine I used to tied two computer together with. The machine was called NosBox due to the fact that it was the machine that I used to run my Ham Radio software on it.

My current machine are now called WinBox it is my windows based computer that is a Compaq 7000US 1.3 Ghz machine running Windows XP. This machine is my main work horse since it houses all my windows base programs. It is due to be place soon since 1.3 Ghz isnt very fast anymore. My second machine is called LinBox and thats my old windows machine. Its called LinBox since this is my main Linux machine and it is the machine that runs my personal websever RialTech.Com. Currently it is running Slackware but I have had Mandrake install on it also. Its fun to be running slackware again since thats the first version of Linuix I started out on, way back on version .9 of Linux. My final machine is my newest computer. Its called LapBox and its also a Compaq R3000 laptop running at 2.33 Ghz speed and it also has Windows XP. This machine is getting a lot of use since its the machine I run around with all the time. You should see the looks I get when I pull the laptop out in the middle of the desert.

Cisco DSL Modems & Router The neat thing that I am currently doing is hooking all this machine up to the Internet via Alltel's DSL service. I have a very nice Cisco 677 router that handles the DSL part of the network. But then it gets connected to my hub then though a in house Ethersenet network to connect all my machines together. Alltel DSL has a downlink speed of 768 kilo baud and a uplink speed of 128 kilo baud. This lets be do a lot of neat things. Fist I can be listening to a streaming Internet radio station while on a another computer down load a file while a three machine can be sending and receiving email's. So stay tune because this is the future of computing.

My newest hobbie is the one getting me the most attention now. Remember playing with little model rockets when you were a kid. Well I was searching a web site when I found out that there was a local NAR chapter that still launch rockets. So I decided to go up and see one of the launches. It turn out to be Pittsbugh Space Command and they were having one of there contest launches. It really impress me so I decided to get out one of my old rockets and show up to the next launch. Well the next launch was a launch called Dragon Fire which was a joint launch between PSC and Tripoli Pittsburgh. So I showed up with my little 7 inch tall rocket flying it on a little A size motor. Mean while I saw someone fly a LOC Magnum on a J size motor which totaly got me hooked on High Powered Rockerty. So feel free to check out my RialTech.Com and see my rise though the High Power community. I am now level 3 and a Tap member.

Page Created on 3/2/96
Ver 2 Created on 2/16/01
Ver 3 Created on 10/19/04
By Christine H. Rial
n3lrg@amsat.org
http://www.lm.com/~crial