Other Hobbies and Interests

I believe that we should all live a balanced life, so in the interest of trying to stay balanced, here is a summary of some of my other interests!

 

Some of my other interests include:

 

Photography, both still and video. I enjoy taking photos and videos in nature, this combines well with hiking/biking and QRP portable operations. Processing the photos and videos digitally afterwards is also interesting and it is amazing what can be done with a good PC and the right hardware and software. Have a look at my Photography page!

 

All my photography is now digital, I believe this is the only way these days! I currently use mostly Canon but also own some Nikon equipment and Phase One MF digital back that fits on a Hasselblad body.

 

Most of my photography is nature related including flowers, birds and animals as well as landscapes. I also enjoy photographing aircraft, both full size and models. Model Portfolios are also becoming quite popular as well as special events.

 

Flying I have build a few Home build aircraft, a KR1, KR2 and Zenair Zodiac 601HD in the past. I now own and operate several aircraft. This is GREAT fun, I just wonder why I have not done this a long time ago!

 

KR2 - ZS-VYZ

KR2 - ZU-CGR

I am planning on installing a Yaesu FT-587D in this plane in the near future.

 

Bushbaby - ZU-BSE

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One of the reasons why flying is special.



Camping next to my plane during the annual Bush Pilots Fly-in

Radio Controlled model aircraft (Gliders, scale, pylon and aerobatics). I am currently working on a ATV transmitter
to install in a model plane to get a different point of view!

 

 


F3A pattern aircraft, I love the challenge of competition flying!


Extra 330L, Large scale aerobatics plane.


F5J gliders


Mosquito scale RC aircraft, one of a growing number of scale planes in my collection.

 
Sailing (I owned a 37' sloop) and have spend 2 years sailing and operating /mm. 

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My previous Yacht being taken out of the water for painting and anti fouling.

Update 07/06/2023: After trying to decide if I should buy a motorhome to explore Southern Africa or if I should buy a yacht and explore the world the yacht won!

So I am now the proud owner of a Roberts 53 called Katti. I have just started doing some work on her, checking all her systems, and there are lots of them, as well as upgrading the electronics a bit. I also want to do some woodwork inside to change the layout a bit. Since she has lots of space I havve decided to convert one cabin into a study/shack. Once she is at the point where I am happy to sail her I want to sail her from Durban to Knysna so she is closer to my home QTH, we have also decided to move to Knysna to be closer to the yacht so that I can spend more time working (and playing!) on her.

Now I just need to decide what radio(s) I want to install in her. I want something compact witha great RX, the radio also needs to run from 12V. The radios I am looking at at the moment is the FTdx-710, FTdx-10 and the Icom IC-7300. The FTdx-10 is the favorite at the moment. Unfortunately I would most likely need to import.


SV Katti, early morning in Durban.

Astronomy, I have build a 10" telescope and radio astronomy is a field I am very keen on. I am hoping to start a new telescope project in the near future. I would like to build a large reflector telescope but I must first finish my motorcycle restoring projects! In 2020 I added a decent tracking mount and a 750x200mm f/5 refractor telescope. I am using this mostly for astrophotography.


My new telescope and equatorial tracking mount


Image captured by my system

A collection of my astrophotography photos can be seen HERE


Computers
, hardware and Software and integrating it with my other hobbies. Recent areas of interest include computer based DSP and weak  signal detection, something that links in with SETI nicely.


Image Processing
, also tying in with Astronomy. With modern digital cameras it has become so easy to take photos to process, I have modified a Samsung digital camera to allow me to take very long exposure photos through the telescope, these can then be enhanced with digital image processing to provide images that was impossible unless you had access to huge telescopes a few years ago. I have written some software (written in C and running on a X-windows based Linux system) that can enhance images to bring out detail that was not visible on the original image, this was done at least 2 decades before similar software became commercially available.


SETI
, we are NOT ALONE !! I am currently (2007) in the top 1% of Seti@home contributors worldwide running more than 20 systems including a couple of HP and Sun RISC systems.
Update: The SETI project is sadly for all practical purposes dead so I am no longer "number crunching".

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