We Start Drilling On Tuesday.....

Or at least that's what my stepson says we can use it for if it doesn't work!
Didn't get too much else done today other than get the tower solidly mounted to the deck, clean up some of the aluminum carnage in the garage, and get the antennas ready for final assembly and test. The 'outermost' four of the eight mounting bolts go through the steel frame of the trailer, so this thing is rock solid and stable. You could probably pick the whole thing up by the tower and it wouldn't flex very much. And in case you're wondering, the orange "Dunce's Hat" you see is a cut-down traffic cone. After I install the mast, I'll use a hose clamp at the top of the cone to clamp it to the mast, and I'll have a nice, inexpensive rain shield for the Azimuth rotator.
Tonight I have to make the power cables for the 300 Watt VHF and UHF amplifiers I have, and maybe I'll mount them to a plate of some sort so they don't go sliding around on the table when we use them, and I might mount a couple of small fans to push some air across the heatsinks to keep them nice and cool.
Time for dinner now. One of the reasons I knocked off early outside is that my stepson has fired up the grill and is cooking a nice Tri-Tip that he started marinating last night. He's quite an accomplished chef, and the YF and I always look forward to his creations.

Project Update

I got the tower partially mounted on the trailer today. I squared it up in its final position, clamped it down, measured everything 3 or 4 times, took a deep breath, and drilled the holes. Then I realized I didn't have any bolts long enough, so off to Home Depot for some 5/16-18x2" galvanized bolts, flat washers, split locks, and nuts. I would have preferred stainless, but my normal supplier for stainless hardware closed early today, won't be open until Tuesday, and I've got a deadline to meet! I also made up some backing plates out of 1/4" thick aluminum flat stock so the hardware holding the tower feet to the plywood won't dig in to the plywood deck on the bottom.
I've got this laid out so I can pull two of the bolts holding the legs to the feet, loosen the other two, and the tower will pivot over to one side so I can get the mast, cross-boom, and antennas mounted without needing a 15' ladder to drop them in from the top.
I should find out Sunday if this works "As Advertised"!
Film at eleven.......

Trailer Tower Project

I'm in the home stretch! I still have to put the fenders on the trailer, wire the tail and running lights, and get it registered and licensed, but it's a "roller" right now, and I'm happy! Spent most of the day fitting and cutting the plywood and shim strips I had to make, and counter-boring six places on the backside of it so it would fit _over_ the bolts that hold the side rails to the cross-members. And doing one of my favorite items from High School Auto Shop, cleaning and packing the wheel bearings! I just don't trust the grease that they packed them with in China, so I washed all that stuff out with mineral spirits, gave 'em a blast of "Gun Scrubber" to get ALL the oily reside off, and then repacked them with some high temp disk brake rated grease. One of these days I'll buy the little attachment for a grease gun that lets you pressure pack them, but for now I put on some gloves, and relived my Freshman year in High School.
Well, part of it, anyway.
Hand-packing wheel bearings is not one of my favorite automotive tasks, but I felt it had to be done, as I've had wheel bearings fail before, and it always happens at Really Bad times, like going down the highway at 65 MPH.
So, the agenda for Saturday is to make up some backing plates for the bottom-side of the plywood where the tower mounting bolts will go, and get the tower mounted on the trailer. After the September VHF QSO Party next weekend, I'll pull the tower off, wire it up, and make an appointment at the DMV to have it "inspected" (all they check is that the VIN on the frame matches the Certificate of Origin) so I can get it registered and licensed. Having the tower transportable this way will make it MUCH easier next year at Field Day. I'm still trying to noodle out some type of leveling system for it, as it's always recommended to have a trailer "4-Square-and-Level" for this type of use. I was thinking of getting four of the hand-crank screw-type trailer jacks, one for each corner, but all the ones I've found require welding, and I don't own a welder.....YET! I looked at getting 4 scissors jacks, but ones that have enough lift cost about $40 each, and I really don't want to spend that much when for about $50 more I can get the weld-on jacks AND the welder.
More to come, including the antenna rebuild, after I post all the pix worth seeing on PhotoBucket.

Densest Element In The Universe Discovered!

From a friend....just too funny to keep to myself!

Pelosium:
A major research institution has just announced the discovery of the densest element yet known to science. The new element has been named Pelosium.

Pelosium has one neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 224 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 311.
These particles are held together by dark forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.
The symbol of Pelosium is PU.
Pelosium's mass actually increases over time, as morons randomly interact with various elements in the atmosphere and become assistant deputy neutrons within the Pelosium molecule, leading to the formation of isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientist to believe that Pelosium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentration. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as Critical Morass.
When catalyzed with money, Pelosium activates CNNadnausium, an element that radiates orders of magnitude more energy, albeit as incoherent noise, since it has half as many peons but twice as many morons as Pelosium.

I Fought For YOU.....

Thanks to Jeffro at The Poor Farm for finding this one.

They're Made Out Of Meat!

Sorry bacon lovers, this is a little SciFi movie that I've always liked.
At times, I think they're talking about the heads of the current "administration" in D.C., but then that's demeaning to real, genuine, tasty meat.
Enjoy!

FOUR MILLION Visitors!

No, not here.
Probably take me about 10e6 years to get there!
Drop by fellow blogger Brigid's site and give her some kudos for running one of the classiest places on the Net!

Basic Radio Bookshelf

One of the things about being prepared is making sure you can communicate to your loved ones when the SHTF. You can use anything from tin-cans-and-string, to CB radios, the little walkie-talkies they sell everywhere, Amateur Radio, and for the big spenders, satellite phones. Getting started in this can be quite daunting, but if you want something more than the range a CB or a $30 hand-held from WalMart can give you, you're going to either have to have a "Radio Guy" in your group, or learn about it yourself. Most of these books deal with Amateur Radio, but the principles and methods explained in them are applicable to all forms of radio communications. So, here's a minor selection from my bookshelf, in no particular order:

The ARRL Handbook for Radio Amateurs
The ARRL Antenna Book
The ARRL FCC Rulebook
The ARRL Operating Guide
RF Components and Circuits by Joe Carr
Practical Radio Frequency Test and Measurement by Joe Carr
Handbook of Electronics Tables and Formulas by SAMS Publishing

I've got dozens more on topics from Satellites to DSP, published by the ARRL and the RSGB, but the ones I've listed are what I consider to be a minimum to have.

Have An Accident, PAY A FEE!

Ouch! The city of Huntington Beach is going to implement a "Pay As You Crash" tax for non residents involved in traffic accidents within the city's boundaries. They're doing this under the guise of a "Cost Recovery Program", but I wonder just how long it will be before they start charging residents.
Here's the link to the article in the OC Register.

Basic Rules of Flying

Way back when, in another life, I used to fly what the guys in the Controlled Airspace Towers called "FLIBS", basically little planes that want to come land where the big planes do. If you know what it means, then you're probably a GA pilot, too.
Anyway, a friend of mine sent me these, and I thought I'd share them, as some are new to me.
Enjoy!

* Takeoff's are optional. Landings are mandatory.

* If you push the stick forward, the houses get bigger, if you pull the stick back they get smaller. Unless you keep pulling the stick back...then they get bigger again.

* Flying is not dangerous; crashing is dangerous.

* The propeller is just a big fan in the front of the plane to keep the pilot cool. Want proof? Make it stop; then watch the pilot break out into a sweat.

* The only time you have too much fuel is when you're on fire.

* Every one already knows the definition of a 'good' landing is one from which you can walk away. But very few know the definition of a 'great landing.' It's one after which you can use the airplane another time.

* The probability of survival is equal to the angle of arrival.

* A helicopter is a collection of rotating parts going round and round and reciprocating parts going up and down -- all of them trying to become random in motion. Helicopters can't really fly -- they're just so ugly that the earth immediately repels them.

* Learn from the mistakes of others. You won't live long enough to make all of them yourself.

* There are three simple rules for making a smooth landing. Unfortunately, no one knows what they are.

* The only thing worse than a captain who never flew as co-pilot is a co-pilot who once was a captain.

* It's easy to make a small fortune in aviation. You just start with a large fortune.

* A male pilot is a confused soul who talks about women when he's flying, and about flying when he's with a woman.

* Try to keep the number of your landings equal to the number of your takeoffs.

* Asking what a pilot thinks about the FAA is like asking a fire hydrant what it thinks about dogs.

NEW Uniden Scanner Makes It Almost TOO Easy!

I'm a regular scanner user, and I have several scanners and receivers for listening to all kinds of radio traffic, almost from "DC-to-Daylight". I get quite a kick out of listening to the local airport traffic (LGB has a real honey for one of their ATC's!), and it's nice to be able to punch up the frequencies (I actually have them programmed) for my local PD/FD so when I hear sirens, I can find out what's going on. I firmly believe that we have a right to know what our local agencies are doing, and that includes monitoring their radio traffic. Now I don't mind their using encrypted transmissions for *some* activities, but regular radio traffic should be in-the-clear.
There have been many evolutions of public agency communications, starting with one-way broadcasts from Police HQ at one end of the AM radio dial ("Calling all cars!"), to simplex repeater systems, and on to trunked systems. Trunked Radio Systems are complex computer-controlled entities, somewhat similar to our current "Packet Switched" telephone network. They operate on multiple frequencies/channels, with one called the "Control Channel", which listens for a radio to start transmitting, analyzes the information, and automatically sends commands back to the radio telling it the correct channel it should switch to in order to communicate communicate with other radios in its "Talk Group". It gets quite complicated, so I'll let the reader follow the links to read more about it. Its main advantage is that it allows many users to share a common radio system, conserving the limited radio spectrum available in most metro areas. It's expensive, and has had more than it's share of developmental problems during the early days.
Later came APCO-25, also known as P-25, for "Project 25", which was a switch from analog to digital modulation. Although APCO-25 can operate perfectly well in simplex and repeater operation, combining it with trunking brought us to the current systems widely deployed here in the US.
When the big local agencies (LAPD, LASD) out here went to trunking, I wasn't too involved in scanner-listening, the city I lived in at the time kept their conventional radio system, and the big agencies kept a lot of their radio traffic operating "in parallel" on conventional non-trunked systems for interoperability reasons, and so I never bought a dedicated scanner that could deal with trunked systems. I just confined my listening to conventional radio systems in my area. When they went digital, I had to buy a new scanner that could handle the P-25 systems. My new scanner not only did P-25, but also conventional trunked systems, so by waiting, I got a "twofer".
One of the things about scanning is learning how to use your equipment, and getting a trunking-capable scanner taught me lot, including what a PITA it is to manually enter all the frequencies, talk groups, control channels, is it Motorola, EDACS, LTR, conventional trunked, all digital, analog, or mixed, or etc, etc, etc. The scanner itself could recognize and remember distinct individual systems, but it was still up to me to add the alphanumeric tags so I'd know *what* I was listening to. Fortunately, the scanner has a serial port on the back, and with the aid of a program for my PC, I was able to copy the frequency databases from the Internet, convert them to a form the radio could use, and upload them to the radio. Still, it took time to ferret out current, correct databases (Radio Reference is THE best!), grab them from the 'Net, paste them into the program, and upload them to the radio.
Now Uniden has come out with a new model that's made just for people who want to know what's going on, but don't have the time, inclination, or technical knowledge to get a digital-mode trunked radio system scanner up and running. Called the "Home Patrol", it comes pre-programmed with most major cities by zip code, touch screen display, GPS and USB ports, and has a removable memory card that can be used to load a new database, or to RECORD what you hear.
Availability should be September 2010, and the price is guesstimated at around $600.
Man, we never had it this easy when I got started in radio!