I was attacked!!!

Trying to rebuild my fitness I went for a bike ride around the adjacent suburbs.  After managing to build up some speed I was coasting along when I was hit on the side of my head.  The helmet took most of the impact however one sharp end got me on the temple between the bottom of the helmet and my sunglasses. 

In the nano second that followed my brain attempted to identify what had happened.  Puzzlingly I hadn’t passed a tree or other obstruction.  Then I was hit again followed by loud squawking.  That’s when the brain realised I was under attack from a Magpie.  It’s the Magpie swooping season and I must have encroached upon a nest.  Male Magpies are fiercely protective when there are chicks in the nest.  Pedestrians and cyclists are “fair game”!

Photo from the internet

I’m glad I was wearing sunglasses as I suspect he was after my eyes.

The Magpie is about the size of a crow and; for a bird; quite intelligent.  They are native to Australia and therefore protected.  Magpies will usually attack from behind in an effort to drive the intruder away.  One common way of preventing attack is to wear a hat with fake eyes painted on the back. 

Magpies can also be found in NZ where they were introduced from Australia (along with possums, etc, etc).  They are not protected and I remember one occasion where; after some children had been attacked; Jimmy Hendrick, the army engineering school sergeant major brought his shotgun to work.  That was the end of the problem.

Wifi Network Problem

It’s possible I may have solved another problem.  You may recall I made a home media server which streams video over wifi to the media players and TVs at the front of the house.  Sometimes the video would freeze or the player would report “video source too slow”.  Logically the media server computer couldn’t be the cause as it’s quite powerful.  Moreover it was unlikely the server software was the problem as it is configure to downgrade the video if the server was slow.  My thoughts turned to the Android TV, but after installing a free wifi analyzer app on the TV I identified the issue as a local network problem.  The wifi signal was struggling to get though all the internal brick walls between the router at the back of the house and the TV in the front room.

There appeared to be four possible solutions

• create a wifi bridge by installing a second router in the front room and wifi linking it to the main router.
• purchase and install some ‘mesh’ routers to expand the wifi network.
• run ethernet cables through the roof and down the walls to ports that  would need to be install.
• install an ethernet connection using ‘powerline’ connectors.  This enables the house 240V electrical cables to also be used as data cables.

My days of being able to crawl through roof cavities are over and if I attempted it I’d probably put at least one foot through the ceiling.  A ‘Mesh’ system would be expensive and creating a wifi bridge with a second router might not solve the problem.  Therefore the ‘powerline’ option was selected.  It was also one of the cheaper options

After some online research I opted for the TP-Link AV2000 powerline system.  It comes with two power adapters.  Each adapter has two ethernet ports.  One adapter was plugged into the 240V socket used by the main router in the study and an ethernet cable connected from the router to the adapter.  The second adapter was plugged into the 240V socket in the front room used by the TV. An ethernet cable was then connected between the adapter and the TV.  The two adapters were then ‘paired’ to create a data connection.  The TV connection was then switched from wifi to ethernet and a speed test conducted.  We now appear to have a much faster connection between the main router and the TV.  I’ve now gone one step further and re-flashed the firmware on our old (very old) Linksys router to DD-WRT firmware giving it a new lease on life and connected it to the second ethernet adapter port in the front room.  The old router will now broadcast a strong wifi signal around the front of the house.

Carol I can see my photos on Blogger which leads me to suspect the problem is at your end. 

Ade, Jenny I will attempt to get some photos of Jan on her e-trike.  Might have to use the ‘sports action mode’ on the camera if she is using the electric motor  Jenny, it sounds like Robin is data-casting.