Glen Beck "Suspended" By Sirius/XM Radio

Interesting article located here.


The gist is that Mr. Beck is suspended for a week, and his program will be replaced with David Webb.

Memorial Day Thanks

 
To all our fallen service people, and to fallen warriors everywhere who fought for liberty, I humbly give you my thanks.

I'll be on the Iowa all weekend helping out with NI6BB operations, and (probably!) doing some tour guide and escort duties.

All the tour guides and Security folks (yep, they wear red shirts!) know when "Radio" is manned and  having an event, so we usually get several visitors who ask to see the Comm Center. We're pleased and honored to show them the area and answer questions even though we're not on the tour route.

The Iowa is having quite a shindig, as usual, so if you're in the area, please stop on and say hi.

Battleship Iowa "Original" Transmitter/Receiver Update For Museum Ships Weekend

Haven't done a specific post on this topic in a while, and since Museum Ships Weekend is coming up, I figured it was time to let everybody know what's been happening.

As of this time, we have three of the transmitters working. One only puts out a couple of hundred Watts (it has low exciter drive to the final amplifier) and the other two put out approx 1200 Watts PEP when running in SSB mode.

Some of the pix below are courtesy of the excellent Navy Radio website run by Nick, K4NYW.

Nick has been a GREAT help to us, and has visited the Iowa.

THANKS, Nick!

Transmitters:

We have four operational R-1051 receivers, that have had the "chain belts" replaced with spares we received from the good folks on the USS Midway.


R-1051 Receiver aboard USS America:

If you ever get down to San Diego, please stop in and see the Midway. It's time well spent!

We also have three URR-74 receivers, which are the MILSPEC version of the Watkins-Johnson 8718 receiver. One of those works perfectly, one works but is low on sensitivity, and one works when it wants to.

URR-74:

For antennas on Museum Ships Weekend we'll be using the "Goal Post" or "Bull's Horns" antennas located on the starboard side by the #2 stack for transmitting, and the "Twin Whip" antennas mounted on the bridge deck for receiving.

We have two of the "Red Phones" manually patched through the "Coke Machine"; one on the bridge, and the other in FACCON, which is the correct name for what we call the Comm Center, or "Radio Room".

Red Phone:

Coke Machine:

We've trained up a crew of guys for the transmitter room that will set the transmit frequency and adjust the antenna coupler for minimum reflected power, and we'll have a guy in FACCON to tune the receiver if we have to "QSY", and another guy who will coordinate everybody, and keep the transmitter and receiver crews on the same page, and more importantly, on the same frequency!

Antenna Couplers:

"Goal Post" or "Bull's Horns" Transmit Antenna:

"Twin Whips" (to the right) Receiver Antennas:

We've tested all the gear on the air several times, and except for the fact that the 1051 receivers have a front-end "as wide as a barn door", and aren't the best to use on a crowded Amateur Radio band, everything is working well enough to hit the airwaves on Museum Ships Weekend, which is June 4th and 5th this year.

NI6BB will be on 17 Meters, at the upper end of the band around 18.164MHz, using this gear, which we refer to as the"legacy" equipment, and on the other ham bands using our commercial Ham Radio gear.



We'll be running SSB, CW, and PSK-31 this year, so hope we run into a few of you on the air!

The Trumpinator!

Stumbled across this and thought you might find it funny.....

Boeing Wins Case Against Sea Launch Partners

From a post on NASASpaceFlight.com:

Boeing wins case against Sea Launch partners

On May 12, 2016, judge Andre Birotte of the Central District of California, ordered RKK Energia to pay Boeing and its business unit, Boeing Commercial Space Company, BCSC, a total of $322.49 million in owed investments and interest.

The same ruling ordered KB Yuzhnoe and its production partner Yuzhmash, (both based in Dnepropetrovsk, Ukraine) to pay a total of $193.44 million.

The total sum owed by Russian and Ukrainian space industry in the Sea Launch debacle thus reached $515.93 million.

As the person making the post noted, it's doubtful that Boeing will get that amount, if anything, from their former partners.

Here's a nice history of the program from RussianSpaceWeb.com.

Every time I drive from Long Beach to San Pedro, I see the ships sitting there.

They haven't moved in almost three years now, and I'm sure the hulls are rather thickly encrusted with barnacles and other sea life.....

Tuesday Car Bashing

Well, not really "bashing" anything on the car, as I refuse to let it get to me.

It's an inanimate object and while working on it can be frustrating at times, I just walk away if it gets that bad.

All the bits and pieces of the EGR system have been cleaned up, and are being reassembled today.

Hopefully I'll have it running this afternoon, but had to take a break for lunch.

Patriotic Soda Display

Saw this over at a car-guy place, and since I haven't seen it before, I thought I'd share it.

Quiet Day

Thursdays are generally pretty quiet here.

Wednesdays I'm on the Iowa all day, so Thursdays are used to catch up on other things, and just kick back.

I've got the EGR passages in the Supra's intake manifold all cleaned out, along with the EGR valve and Vacuum Modulator for it.

I used a Hoppes 20 gauge "Boresnake" to get the passages all scrubbed out from fore to aft, and pipe cleaners and compressed air to get the valve and modulator cleaned out.

The red line shows the path of the EGR passage from the valve 'atthe rear, to where the throttle body bolts to the Upper Air Chamber" portion of the intake manifold. In the center is a core hole plug (aka "freeze plug") that you gently remove to gain access to the passage.

Photo credit goes to my buddy "Driftingmy85" over on the celica supra forum.

The entire HOWTO thread is located here in case you're curious about how to do it.

Tomorrow I'll put the whole shebang back together and take the car out for a run, AFTER I do the "apply full vacuum to valve to see if the engine stalls" test, which will tell me if the exhaust gas is indeed getting into the manifold.

I'll probably wait until Monday to go back to the smog test place and see if it passes.

If it doesn't pass, I'll get a replacement catalytic converter. I took back the Magnaflow converter I bought as it had an extra fitting for supplemental air injection which this car doesn't have, and it's the ONLY converter Magnaflow has in production that's supposedly for this car.

Two emails and a call to Tech Support at Magnaflow yielded exactly *nothing* other than "We'll get back to you".

Walker Products makes a California legal converter without the air fitting, so if if cleaning out the EGR doesn't produce a passing result, that's what I'll get.

Freedom.....I WON'T

Or as our friends over at the Western Rifle Shooters Association are given to say, resist.


I first read this little story by Eric Frank Russell back in high school, and thought it was quite interesting, and more than a bit quaint, but then I grew up in the Midwest, with all the accompanying values and morals that growing up middle-class in the 1960's Midwest entails, including taking your "obs" seriously.

It's a little story of a vast Terran empire reaching out to its long neglected colonies in order to bring them "into the fold", and most likely tax the living snot out of them.

The residents of one particular planet aren't about to be enslaved, and have pretty much perfected The Ultimate Weapon, and show the Terran empire what it can do.

So grab a cup of coffee, and head on over to abelard.org and read "And Then There Were None".

I'm sure you'll enjoy it, and maybe pick up an idea or three.....

TGIF!

Raining here in SoCal in May.....amazing!

So, with the rain, I'm not doing much on the Supra today.

Vacuumed the house (and fixed the vacuum!), cleaned the bathroom, and unloaded/reloaded the dishwasher.

We're going to see some female comic Saturday night, so I'll report back on that.

In the meantime, enjoy this old Leon Russel classic.

It has a great lyric in it...."The left ones think I'm right, and the right ones think I'm wrong".

Cruz Suspends Campaign

Trump beat him in Indiana, so Ted's throwing in the towel.

Details on all major news outlets.....

Cartoon courtesy of various places.....

You Tell 'Em, Charlie!

You tell 'em, Charlie!

Shamelessly borrowed from OldNFO.....