The web is so useful but can also be a nightmare. Service providers give us a useful (App) I don’t like that term but I will use it, then they notify us of ‘improvements’ in their service and terms and conditions. “Oh and by the way it’s no longer free” / “We are withdrawing the exact thing you use the system for on the 15th of March”.
The last message was the gist of what Dropbox are doing, I have used Dropbox exclusively for my Grabbers. When the Public Folder I have used for years goes Private my Grabs would no longer be displayed, all a visitor would see is a link with an invitation to download the Grab and you have to be a Dropbox user to do it.
I have the html for my QRSS Grabber running on Dropbox, after 15th March this will not be allowed either.
Thankfully I don’t link any photo’s in my blogs to Dropbox, that would be a pain to sort out, SugarSync did that one to me, it took ages to sort out. All I needed to do with my Grabbers was to use FTP upload for the Grabs, hang on my ISP does not allow FTP uploads.
Then I thought of QSL.net I have a dormant web site and e-mail address with them. I couldn’t remember my password and the e-mail address I used with the account years ago was @clara.net so I couldn’t organise a ‘change password’. The ‘Help’ page was very helpful, unusual I find, of course I couldn’t use the self-help so I send a help request explaining the situation. Wow, I had a reply, same day, with all the required information for me to get going again.
Some users have said goodbye to Dropbox completely. I decided to exploit it by using folders for my Grabs and uploading from those to QSL.net, I am going to have the full set of Grabbers available there. The original Grabbers can link to the stored Folders there. Using Dropbox I can see the folders on the shack computer from anywhere and very simply take Captures for mailing lists etc. Like this one taken at this moment from my VLF 8.2kHz monitor. The two lines at 8270.05Hz are two transmissions from DK7FC nearly 750kM away.
My old Website is on QSL.net. I have been a little embarrassed about it, I used nested Frames at the time, these days it is advised not to use frames on your websites because it may not display properly, it doesn’t, you see lines at all the boundaries to the frames. I was going to renovate it or scrap it one day, but when I looked at it found it interesting. Back then you didn’t have video on a website, I have several home-made animations, one in ‘high’, well higher, definition, I talk about 5 mins download time for that. So this old site is going to stay as a historical relic.
My Antique Web Site :- G3ZJO qsl.net
My Gabbers – Site 1 :- VLF Grabber – LF Grabber – HF Grabber – VHF/UHF Grabber
Site 2 :- VLF Grabber – QRSS Grabber
In time I will duplicate all Grabbers in case of outages or “improvements” in terms and conditions.
Radio - LF/MF to Microwaves 