Author Archives: miketonge

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CV of Michael Tonge

CAREER OBJECTIVE

To carry on improving my knowledge and skills in Electrical and Electronic engineering, while helping my employers to maximise their business efficiency and profits.

SUMMARY OF ACHIEVEMENTS

  • Responsible for the design, development and commissioning of over 100 broadcast antennas and channel combining systems, with special regard to radiation patterns and power handling. These included one of the highest gain television broadcast antennas ever built (26dBi 80MW ERP).
  • Design and manufacturing of Aircraft Obstruction Lighting Systems. Including everything from fail-safe control systems, to high power neon lamps.
  • Responsible for the purchasing, maintenance and movements of more than £250,000 of Radio Frequency test equipment. Also designed and built passive intermodulation test rigs capable of measuring down to -160 dBc.
  • Supervision of multicultural teams during the installation, commissioning and maintenance of equipment in the United Arab Emirates, South Korea, Brunei and all over the British Isles.
  • Reduction of TV and Satellite installation errors by 80% within one month, by ensuring that all site engineers where properly trained and supplied with the correct tools.

KEY SKILLS

  • Electrical and Mechanical product design and simulation using 3D CAD/CAE software:
  • Solidworks
  • CST Design Studio
  • Numerical Electromagnetic Code
  • Ansoft Designer & HFSS
  • Project Management of product development, procurement, supply and installation
  • Technical Authoring and product handbook production
  • Prototype and Production electromechanical assembly and fitting
  • Home Television and Satellite reception system design and installation
  • Trained and experienced in high access working on structures up to 1000 feet tall
  • Writing of risk assessments and method statements
  • Development of systems and procedures for the design, production and commissioning of electrical systems
  • Object oriented software design and development using:
    • Visual Basic and VBA
    • Matlab and Scilab
    • Python and PyQT
  • Able to pass on knowledge and experience both in a formal training environment and through practical advice

Interests

  • Photography – Published
  • Music – From Miles Davis to Philip Glass and everything in-between
  • Local Arts – Drama, Street Art, etc.

CAREER HISTORY

2013 – 2014 Freelance Broadcast Antenna Engineer

Upgrading, fault finding and repairing antennas and combining systems in Brunei and Malta.

2009 – 20013 Self Employed IT Technician

Computer repairs, data recovery, upgrades and software configuration. Also training.

2007 – 2009 Freelance Electrical Design and Technical Authoring

Design and manufacture of Antenna Monitoring Systems, and writing technical manuals

2006 – 2007 Clarkson Evans TV and Satellite Installation Troubleshooter

On-site troubleshooting and installation procedure improvement

2003 – 2006 Various Employers Contract Electrical Prototyping

Building test equipment for aircraft avionics

1996 – 2003 Alan Dick & Company Promoted to: Broadcast Antenna Engineer

Design, development and commissioning of Broadcast Antenna Systems worldwide

1993 – 1996 Alan Dick & Company Test and Development Technician

Working with Coaxial, Waveguide, Coaxial and Stripline components

1985 – 1993 S & M Processing Factory maintenance engineer

Installing, servicing and maintaining photographic processing machines and other equipment

1978 – 1985 EEB Apprentice and Qualified Electrician

Training school and day release technical college. Industrial and domestic electrical installation.

TRAINING AND QUALIFICATIONS

  • CSCS Card (Operative)
  • Full Drivers Licence with no endorsements (ever)
  • Andrews Coaxial Connector Course
  • Visual Basic for Applications Programming course
  • Aztec Project Management Course
  • Total Access Climbing Certificate
  • Non-Ionising Radiation Safety Course
  • Alan Dick & Company Antenna Engineers Course
  • HNC Engineering Mathematics, parts 1 & 2 (Merits)
  • BTEC Electrical Engineering (Distinctions)
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Your Router May Be Inviting The Bad Guys In!

router

Is this a useless guard dog?

It’s been known for a long time that the plug and play features in most internet routers are a security risk. The general advice has been to turn it off in the settings, but most games machines use the feature to punch a hole through the firewall built into the router. For those people who really need it, the advice has been to use a second router (via DMZ) to connect games machines to the internet. But plug and play was only supposed to allow control of the firewall from inside the local network.

 

But now all that has changed!

I group of researchers at Rapid7 have written a white paper describing how they scanned the internet for routers and found that 2.2% of all addresses scanned had the plug and play functionality of the router expose to the outside world. This means that ANYONE can circumvent the routers firewall, get into the home or business network and start attacking the systems inside. This is a VERY bad thing! Worst still, even if you turn off plug and play in the router settings it still remains on to the outside world.

The problem has been caused by errors in some standard software libraries (libupnp) and bad implementation of the software by router manufacturers. It seems to be a problem in older router models from ALL manufacturers.

So what can you do?

The first thing you need to do is find out if your router has the vulnerability. Rapid7 have come up with a web tool to find the problem for you: Click here to run it.

My router failed the test. What should I do now?

You have two possible options:

  1. Check your router manufacturers website to see if there is a firmware update. The problem in the software was fixed some time ago and the manufacturer may have produced an update. Follow your routers instructions to install the update and then test it again with the link above.
  2. If that fails, get a new router. If it’s still under warranty, take it back to the vendor and demand a replacement. Your router is not fit for the purpose it was sold and your statutory rights may still cover it if the warranty has expired. Don’t forget to test your new router after installing it.

If you have any questions or need more information, please leave a comment.

 

 

 

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Electric Vehicle Running Costs

Electric Vehicle
How much does it really cost to run an electric vehicle compared to a good old fashioned banger? Are the emissions lower and if so by how much? These questions are hard to answer, but help is at hand.

About two years ago I created a little spreadsheet to make it easy for anyone to calculate the fuel consumption of electric vehicles and compare it with internal combustion engine vehicles. Today I’ve dug it out again, spruced it up a bit and I’m re-publishing it.

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POWER!

PylonsThis was originally written as a comment to this post by Robert Llewellyn. However as you can see, it got completely out of hand, so I had to turn it into a blog post and then create a blog to post it on. I blame Mr. Llewellyn for this and intend to find some way to punish him in the future!

The main problem with the media coverage of future energy issues is that it is impossible to do it sensibly in a three minute slot on the Today or any other program. Power engineering is an enormously complex subject, with many factors to take into consideration before making decisions. Very few people understand these factors outside the industry, because nobody is given the time or attention to explain them.

Well I’m going to have a go at explaining some of them and how they link together. I started my career with the Eastern Electricity Board (remember them?) and I’ve spent most of my time since doing electrical engineering of one sort or another. This is mainly an attempt to show the number of factors that push and pull at every decision in power engineering, not an endorsement for either side of an argument. Continue reading →