HF Saturday, Satellite Sunday

The plumber didn't come by today, but he called and promised he'd be by Monday right after work. He had quite a shindig at his place Saturday night, so I kinda-sorta didn't expect him to show up.
Saturday I spent several hours playing radio with my Flex 5000, and today I set the satellite station up to have some fun "On The Birds". I'd been wanting to try my Kenwood TS-790 on the satellites, but it was areal pain to get going. Most Kenwood radio of the vintage require a TTL-to-Serial converter, the IF-232C, but I'd never hooked up the one I had until today. I actually started out using a nifty little cable I bought some time back that integrates the converter into the backshell of the connector. It didn't seem to work, so I got out the official Kenwood interface, which also didn't work at the beginning. Turns out the TS-790 will *only* communicate at 4800 Baud, and requires the CTS line to be held high. I finally got things squared away in SatPC32, my tracking program, and proceeded to make a contact on FO-29. The Doppler correction was really bad, with the radio jumping several kHz at a time, and I had several other cockpit errors to contend with. Since I wanted to use my radios today, and not spend several hours configuring stuff, I put the TS-790 back in the shack, and dragged out my good old Yaesu FT-847, which "Just Works".
It's taken me about 10 years to get this setup to where everything "Just Works", so maybe the next time I'll spend some time seeing if I can get the TS-790 to "Just Work".
Hope you all have a great (or at least passable) week this week.

@@#!@%$^ Plumbing!

Well, I just spent the morning killing off my 'honey dew' list.
All EXCEPT getting the bathroom sink unclogged.
Now, I'm pretty handy when it comes to most things. Electrical, data wiring, framing, drywall, new doors and windows....I can, and have, done that stuff.
Plumbing just frustrates the h3ll out of me, other than putting in the parts for new construction or a remodel.
I'd been tinkering on getting it unclogged for the last several days, and had gotten it to just about drain fully, but then something else happened, or maybe I knocked the clog loose enough to float to another spot, but it won't drain AT ALL now.
OOOPS!
I wound up pulling the trap out this morning to find it completely clean, and then tried to run my mini-snake down the rest of the run, but it gets hung up about 6"~8" inside the wall where the pipe turns. It's a solid-blade type snake, more like an Electrician's fish tape than a snake, so it's not good at turning tight corners.
Oh, well......
The guy across the street is a Real Plumber, and a family friend, so he'll be coming over tomorrow afternoon to fix it for us.
That should give me plenty of time to get his favorite beer iced down!

*I'M* gonna play radio the rest of the day!

Gawd....I'm BEAT!

Groan....
12-hour days are no fun.
Lugging 40 pound test equipment up and down three flights of "stairs" on a ship is no fun.
Sitting inside a 12' radome while I work on stuff is no fun.
At least I have a stable (I hope!) job, which is better than this time last year.
On the plus side.....
Credit card? PAID OFF!
Pardon me while I go to bed early.....8:45 is early for me.

Judge Judy...."This Is What We're Creating"

I couldn't agree with her more!

H/T to Miss Phlegm Fatale.

Shipboard Life

Things I'm remembering about life on a ship......

1) Port is Left, and Starboard is Right

2) The front of the ship is the Bow

3) The back of the ship is the Stern

4) It's not the Floor, it's the Deck

5) It's not a wall, it's a Bulkhead

6) It's not the ceiling, it's the Overhead

7) They're not hallways, they're Passageways

8) ALWAYS pick up your feet when going through a doorway or hatch, or you'll trip on the Frame

9) Self-Closing doors will do so right as you start to go through them

10) NEVER call a Chart a "Map"

11) A ship will Pitch, Roll, Yaw, or Heave just as you're getting ready to take a sip of your coffee

12) Ship's coffee can double as general purpose cleaner and/or paint stripper (Our coffee is actually pretty good!)

13) The "Slop Chest" is not what it sound's like


And a whole lot more!

We The People......

Got this from a friend of mine.
Sure nails things, doesn't it?

Cowboys and Aliens

Just got back from the Art Theater where we saw "Cowboys and Aliens".
I liked it.
My wife liked it.
Good little summer movie, and I recommend it.
No, it's not "Firefly" or "Serenity", but it was fun, and the little place next door has great gelato!

"Castigo Cay" by Matt Bracken

I just finished reading Matt Bracken's latest book, "Castigo Cay".

Matt is the author of the "Enemies" series of books, which are a set of three books dealing with the near future of America. They're excellent thrillers, and I've read them a couple of times, so when I saw he had another book out, I preordered it, and started reading it as soon as I received it.

It's pretty good, but I like his first three books a lot more. "Castigo Cay" seems to drag a bit, and doesn't really "get going" until the last half of the book.

I think it's well-written, but not in the same vein as his first three books, which held my attention from start to finish.

If you liked "Unintended Consequences", and "Molon Labe!", then you'll love his "Enemies" series.

"Castigo Cay", while different, was a worthwhile read, a perfect "little book" for some light summer reading.

Gallows Humor....

Light posting this weekend as I'm working on my Honeydew list, but I thought you'd all get a kick (in the head?) out of this:

Let me get this straight . . . ...
We're going to be "gifted" with a health care
plan we are forced to purchase and
fined if we don't,
Which purportedly covers at least
ten million more people,
without adding a single new doctor ,
but provides for 16,000 new IRS agents,
written by a committee whose chairman
says he doesn't understand it,
passed by a Congress that

didn't read it but
exempted themselves from it,
and signed by a President who smokes,
with funding administered by a treasury chief who
didn't pay his taxes ,
for which we'll be taxed for four years before any
benefits take effect,
by a government which has
already bankrupted Social Security and Medicare,
all to be overseen by a surgeon general
who is obese,
and financed by a country that's broke!!!!!

'What the hell could
possibly go wrong?

Sub Off The Coast

I'm not sure what they were doing out there (backside of Catalina Island), but all day Monday and Tuesday we saw the sub going back and forth, accompanied by some small "patrol" type boats. Tuesday afternoon it looked like one of the small boats made a rendezvous with him, so I'm gonna take a SWAG and say the little guys were U.S. Navy, too.
NOBODY in their right mind would get so close to a sub that they could transfer people unless they were authorized!
I don't know enough about U.S. submarines to tell what class it was, but I know to see one run on the surface for so long is unusual.
Of course out where we were, there aren't too many other ships just hanging around!

For you guys that know far more about this than I do, I added a crop from one of the better pix I took.
Have at it!

Back Home Again

We got in this morning about 10am. Took another hour to get from the Pilot's Station to the pier, and then tied-down.
By this time the Purser (who has our passports) had gone to lunch, so we had to wait for her to show back up.
Then she had to call the Captain to see if it was OK to "release" us!
DUH!
Oh, well, she's new, and it was her first time out, so we all just sighed and cut her some slack.
Wonder how long the floor will continue to move under me now that I'm back on dry land?

Took some interesting pictures, and I'll post some after I finish unpacking.

There was a sub running on the surface the last three days, making rendezvous with some small boats. They never got closer than a few miles, but I thought it was quite interesting to see one running on the surface.

And there was a C-130 circling overhead a lot of the time.

Should have brought my 400mm lens this trip!