Thursday, November 19, 2015

I Feel A Great Disturbance In The Force......

"The Force" being those like-minded people who observe Truth, Justice and the American Way.

At the least "The American Way" as I remember it from growing up in the 1950's and 1960's.

I'll be nice to you if you'll be nice to me.

BUT, steal my car, insult my wife, break into my house, or kick my dog, and I'll be on you like stink on you-know-what!

Yes, I'm one of those "bitter clingers" who's damn tired of seeing my beloved country being destroyed by the current resident of the White House.

I'm one of those far-right wing nutjobs who asked embarrassing questions in 2008, and said things like "NOBODY knows who this guy is, so be careful".

After all, I grew up in the shadows of Chicago, and listened carefully to my Father when he spoke about Chicago-style politics and Hizzoner Mayor Daley.

Now besides all the job killing regulations, restrictions on free speech, and rampantly enforced Political Correctness, the current resident in the White House is going to allow thousands of unverified political "refugees" into our country, and this man-child says he won't take "NO!" for an answer.

And this person still has 12 months left in his tenure.

We're being stripped of our rights, the Constitution is being flagrantly ignored and bypassed, the economy is in the dumpster, and now we're being asked to allow tens of thousands of "widows and orphans", most of which are young military-aged men, into our country.

The inmates are truly running the asylum.......

Tuesday, November 17, 2015

On The Border

From the album of the same name, released in 1974.

I find the lyrics to be strangely relevant.....




Cruisin' down the center of a two way street
Wond'rin' who is really in the driver's seat
Mindin' my bus'ness along comes big brother
Says, "Son, you better get on one side or the other."

I'm out on the border, I'm walkin' the line
Don't you tell me 'bout your law and order
I'm try'n' to change this water to wine.

After a hard day, I'm safe at home
Foolin' with my baby on the telephone
Out of nowhere somebody cuts in and
Says, "Hmm, you in some trouble boy, we know where you're been."

I'm out on the border
I thought this was a private line
Don't you tell me 'bout your law and order
I'm try'n' to change this water to wine

Never mind your name, just give us your number, mm
Never mind your face, just show us your card, mm
And we wanna know whose wing are you under
You better step to the right or we can make it hard

I'm stuck on the border
All I wanted was some peace of mind
Don't you tell me 'bout your law and order
I'm try'n' to change this water to wine

On the border
On the border
On the border
On the border
On the border
Leave me be , I'm just walkin' this line
On the border
On the border
All I wanted was some peace of mind, peace of mind
I'm out on the border
On the border
Can't you see I'm tryin to change this water to wine
Don't you tell me 'bout your law and order
Sick and tired of all your law and order
Sick and tired of it

Friday, November 13, 2015

Attacks in Paris

THIS is what you get when you have open, or extremely porous borders.

I fear another 9/11 here, but worse this time.

And the Islamonazis are telling the Kremlin "You're next".

Wonder how well that will play out........

Tuesday, November 10, 2015

Veteran's Day

Thank you to all who have served, and are in the service now.

We had our annual Veteran's Day celebration aboard the Iowa on Saturday, and it was great.

Food, live music, displays of military vehicles, and Vets all over the place.

The Army even brought in one of their new helicopters, and set her down on the fantail about 1000.

Sorry for the crappy picture, but all I had with me was my phone, and between operating the radio and helping a few other crew members, I just didn't have time to get close to it.

It's a Eurocopter from Ft. Irwin, and the paint scheme is generic "bad guy".



Anyway....a splendid time was had by all, and we were honored with numerous veterans who had served during WWII, a couple who had served on the Iowa.

Truly the Greatest Generation......

Trump's SNL monologue

For those that didn't get to see, or who don't watch Saturday Night Live, here's The Donald's opening monologue.

Not much to it, though.....



Saturday, November 7, 2015

Me and Windows 10

The Silicon Graybeard has an excellent post on the Windows 10 almost-forced "upgrade" that's coming.

Go RTWT. I'm sure there's some good comments coming, as he has LOTS more readers than I do.....

He and I have exchanged a few emails about the state of Amateur Radio software for Linux, and I assured him it's a very healthy state, and MUCH Ham software for Linux is under active creation and development.

Here was my reply in the comments, edited here for linking and clarity:

I know exactly how you feel.

I have two applications that depend on Windows, and will NOT run under WINE (A Linux program) or the CodeWeavers "Crossover" stuff.

One is PowerSDR that runs my Flex Radio Systems 5000A, and the other is the drivers and software for my Maxtrox High Definition video capture card.

Those two machines will stay with Windows 7, and after Micro$oft stops supporting Win7, I'll just do my best to keep all the required anti-virus and anti-malware software updated, and pull the Ethernet cable out of the machine so it's off my LAN when I'm not updating them.

When the two vendors stop supporting the software on Win 7 is another matter, which I haven't thought much about.

Matrox still releases updates for the card, as does Adobe, who updates their Premiere Pro video editing suite that came bundled with the card. When they completely stop supporting the card, I'll probably try and sell it, possibly with the PC it's in, as the PC was built specifically for that card, and it's pretty well optimized as an audio/video editing system.

Flex Radio Systems has already said they'll be doing one final "rollup" update for PowerSDR, but as with all things Flex, it's anybody's guess when that will happen, so I'm not holding my breath. As long as the radio continues to function, I'll keep a PC to use it with cobbled together, and complete disk images, made weekly, in case I lose a drive.

The only thing I AM sure of is that Micro$oft is not getting one more dime from me......

Tuesday, November 3, 2015

Illustrated Guide To Gun Control

From the fine folks over at Western Rifle Shooters Association...




Cool Tuesday

Had a cold front go through last night bringing a little rain and clearing up things a bit.

It's in the mid 60's today, so I'm enjoying the outside weather and doing some work.

Dumped some soggy dirt out of the wheelbarrow and moved the 'barrow off to the side of the garage to free up some driveway space. Have an old BBQ grill and some other things that are getting moved out to the street for the junkman that comes by daily, and that will free up more driveway space. Then I can move the Supra around easier so I can finish degreasing the underside after I get it up nice and high on the jackstands again.

Tomorrow is my "Iowa Day", and we have several things to get knocked out. First is getting a specific antenna reconnected to an antenna coupler down in the transmitter room with an adapter I made that adapts 3-1/2" Heliax to a female Type-N connector. Some of the other guys are finishing up mapping out the connections between some of the Red Phones and the SA-2112(V)4/STQ "Coke Machine" audio router. All the cards were removed from this big box, so we have to manually patch the receive audio, transmit audio, and push-to-talk signals between the pins in the sockets the cards used to plug into, a royal PITA!

Red Phone:




Coke Machine:



And there are LOTS of wires feeding it:



Every one of those big connectors has something like 40 pairs of wires, plus the shields, going into it.

We're only going to map out three or four Red Phones to it, but since we can't figure out the cable numbers, it's hand-to-hand combat with a continuity buzzer and the wires in the connectors.

And we still have the continuing saga of a "bad" URR-74 receiver (MIL version of a Watkins-Johnson 8718) where we've been spinning our wheels for six months. The one guy I'm working with wants to find out exactly which part has failed, and according to the single company that still services them, that's not the way to go. These receivers are loaded with Tantalum electrolytic capacitors with a known history of slowly degrading over time and becoming "leaky". The vendor has told me "Replace part X, and then part Y. If that doesn't fix it, replace ALL the tantalum caps in it." Some people don't like this "shotgun" approach to repair, BUT if you have 40 or 50 parts in the box, and each one has degraded slightly, the end result is that it looks like one or two have failed almost completely, when the real culprit is that they've all failed "just enough" to degrade the entire receiver. You can't say that "this" part or "that" part was the cause when each one of the 40 parts caused 2% or 3% of the "failure". You simply have to replace them ALL to see an improvement.

And I have two more association members that I have to get checked out and cleared on the procedures for operating our Amateur Radio equipment, and them issue them the key to the equipment locker. We're keeping control of the equipment much tighter, as we've had a couple of incidents where people have come in to operate, and found the settings on the radios to be randomly flipped around.

We now lock up some of the equipment, and Management has installed a video camera tied in to the security system so if it happens again we'll know who did it.

Oh, well....lunch is over. Time to get back outside, and back to work!

Saturday, October 31, 2015

Hapy Halloween!

Got the candy ready and some spooky music playing on the home theater receiver.

And the living room scanner is running on the local PD frequencies so I'll know if anything hinky is going on in the area.

We don't get a lot of visitors. Usually one big bag from Costco is more than enough.

And the neighbors across the street are having a party tonight, so I expect we'll have some extra visitors this years.

Have a safe one!

Friday, October 30, 2015

What In The HELL Happened To "WIRED" Magazine?

I've been reading WIRED (I refuse to link to them, that's how pissed I am) since about 1995, a couple of years after it first started up.

It used to be a cutting edge-of-technology magazine for telecommunications, computers, and the computer/hacker culture.

They broke stories, started trends, and influenced the hacker culture to some extent, and had excellent articles.

Over the years, I noted a left-leaning drift, and within the last 12~18 months they went all East Coast/Beltway/Metrosexual/Global Warming/bullshit/Democratic Party/Renewable Energy/Obama-is-god bat-shit crazy.

Long gone are articles and interviews with the movers and shakers of the PC and Technology Industries.

No more "Japanese Schoolgirl Watch" column, either.

The newest issue came the other day, and who's on the cover as a "guest editor"?

Serena Williams, the freaking tennis player!

I have no problem with Ms. Williams as an athlete, as she's proven her prowess repeatedly. But as a guest editor of a TECH magazine?

Fuhgeddaboutit.....

And then there's the headline, in red print, on the cover....

"Let's Change The Future.......Race, Gender, and Equality in the Digital Age"

What a crock of CRAP!

With this issue, WIRED has finally crossed the line from being an interesting tech magazine, to being just another East Coast, Big City "Lifestyle" rag, as if there aren't enough of those out there already.

I didn't look inside the "magazine", even for curiosity value. It went right in the dumpster, and so will all the others I get until my subscription expires.

I'm just glad it comes in a plastic wrapper so I don't have to soil my hands with it......

What's Up, More Paint, and Rain.....

 Another two weeks of Summer have passed. Got a decent amount of rain a few days ago, a full quarter-inch, and we got another tenth last nig...