Small Wonders.....

And Fall Wonders, too!

I was able to snap a few pix of the trees here before all the leaves got blasted off by the cold and snow, and since Sarge and The Guys over at The Chant have been posting pretty pix, I thought I'd spring these on you.

Our Amur Maple tree in the front yard:

This variety of Maple doesn't get much bigger than ~25', but does extremely well here. It's a "Recommended" tree per The City of Fort Collins, and per the Wikipedia entry, "Produces copious amounts of seeds", which it does. When I was a wee lad growing up in Illinois we had maple trees. And so did the neighbors, of different varieties. The trees cross-pollinated, producing tons of seeds, and I grew several nice trees from seed. I've saved some of this years crop of seeds from this maple, and I'm going to try and get some started. We have precisely *one* place in the yard where a tree like this would be most welcome, so if I can get a seed to sprout, we'll plant it there. I doubt if I'll be around to see it get very big, but it'll be a tiny legacy left by me. A look at Google Maps of the house I grew up in shows a tree growing exactly where I planted one, so it might still be there, 60 years after I planted it.

And a tree that one of our neighbors has:

I'm no tree expert, but it looks an awful lot like the Birch tree we had back in Illinois. Seeing as we're in Colorado, it might be an Aspen, but the city strongly discourages Aspens as they propagate by runners, and can take over a large area very quickly. Reading about them brings to mind the problems I had with bamboo in the yard back in Kalifornia. Spent quite a bit of time, effort, and expense to terminate that stand with extreme prejudice!

Fall was quite pretty this year, and I even managed to get the front yard to come back, complete with about 30 sq ft of new seed that came up and took off like weeds. Half the back yard looks like the Mohave, minus the sand, and I'll have to bang away on that right early in the Spring.

I finished the new coax runs from the antennas to the entrance boxes I made, and got my FT-1000D back together again. Still has some problems, the most glaring being that it won't transmit on 40 Meters. I'm pretty sure the problem is in the Low Pass Filter Assembly, and fortunately that module is quite easy to service.

The Radio Controlled 4x4 truck is waiting for the yard to dry up so TLG and I can go out bashing with it again. I took it partially apart to check on some of the common wear points, and it's holding up quite well.

Since all we're going to do with the truck is bash it around the front and back yards, I don't want to spend money upgrading the little truck. I'm not racing it, but if/when something does break, I'll upgrade it with a better part, but that's it.

For the latent racer in me, I bought this:

It's a "3Racing Sakura Sport XI", four-wheel drive, 1/10th scale electric "Touring Car", and I'm building it to run in a "Spec Series". A "Spec Series" is where every racer is strictly limited on what equipment they can run, and it all has to be from an approved list. The chassis is pretty open, but the motor, speed controller, battery, and wheels/tires must be specific part numbers from specific manufacturers. The purpose of this series is to encourage slower speeds with older hardware, and make it more of a driver's match since the cars are so equal.

Since it's called the "Vintage Trans Am Series", all the bodies on the cars have to be 1960's/1970's pony cars, just like what raced Back In The Day.

I'm building a replica of the #8 Jerry Titus car, a 1970 Pontiac Trans Am:

There two bodies available, on from ProtoFORM:

Here's a nicely finished one:

And one from McAllister Racing:

I have one each of the bodies, and I'll probably go with the McAllister body for track-days, and do a very pretty job on the ProtoFORM body to be a display body.

See, I told you I wasn't going to modify the 4x4 truck!

Spooky Song.....

Don't know why, but I've always associated this song with Halloween. Maybe it's because I was in high-school, growing up fast, when all the things in the video were happening around me.

Spooky times, I guess.....

Birthday Party.....

I don't normally post stuff like this, but this picture came out pretty well. It's from the birthday party for the littlest one, in the center, flanked by our Little Guy, and her other cousin. All these little guys are two years old, and they'll be the same age until TLG's birthday in March.


I present you The Three Amigos, in full regalia for Halloween.

Winter Returns After a Short Break.....

Well, it was really nice here the last week. Temps were in the high 60's, nice and sunny, and quite beautiful.

So last night, this big Arctic High came roaring in from the North, and this morning it's 25* and lightly snowing. There was less on the ground than I expected this morning. Forecast is for 1"~3" accumulation today, with another 3"~5" tonight, then Monday should be a break in the snow until Tuesday/Tuesday night.

All the NWS says about Tuesday night is "Snow Could Be Heavy At Times".

Hmm....they don't know, either.

And we're in for some cold nights, with tonight forecast at 9*, Monday night at 10*, Tuesday night at 7*, and Wednesday night at 3*.

And I didn't get my wife's snow tires mounted while she was gone, so I'll either be chilling my tail getting them on this week, or paying to have it done.

I got most of the leaves blown out of the gravel and flower beds, but didn't rake and bag them, as that requires the two of us. We'll probably just have The Yard Guys do it when they do their early Winter clean-up, and drag all the lumber our neighbor's cottonwood tree dumped in our back yard. Some of the branches that dropped out of their tree are several inches in diameter, and although the tree looks OK to me, the tree guys who removed the cottonwood in our yard two years ago commented that it had "maybe five years left in it", so I expect we'll see them removing the tree in the next few years.

So keep warm, stay dry, and I'm on my way to a birthday party for one of The Little Guy's cousins.

A Little of This and That.....

Getting ready for some winter weather here. Currently at 45*F, overcast to (very) partly sunny, and it was raining a while ago. We're expecting rain turning to snow, with a low of around 23*F tonight. Looks like a good night to light off the fireplace and watch a movie.


-OR- Play with my radio stuff now that it's all back together.

I had my Yaesu FT-1000D apart to fix some issues it has, and install my Inrad Roofing Filter. The roofing filter installation went fine, but I wasn't able to fix one problem, and while I did fix another, it seems I've now introduced a new one.

Sigh.....

The one problem I fixed was a resetting/rebooting problem when I tuned from 6.5MHz to 7.5MHz. The radio would start cycling like the power switch was being turned on and off, and it was hard to get it out of that mode. I traced the problem to the Low Pass Filter board, so I cleaned and reseated all the connectors, along with loosening and tightening the screws that hold that board, and ground it, to the chassis.

Well, it receives just fine now on 40 Meters, but it won't transmit. It's possible it wouldn't transmit before, and the resetting problem was masking it, so it might be a wash on whether I fixed that problem or not.

The other problem is with a printed circuit board with a whole lotta push-button switches on it. Yaesu calls these assemblies "Switch Units", and they're a multiplexed group of switches that use fewer wires than if every switch had it's own pair of wires. The four switches that don't work share a common circuit path, so it should be easy to find and fix the problem.

That's IF I could get the board out!

This particular board is buried behind the front panel, and to get it out would take me a couple of days to disassemble the radio that far. I could do it if I built a fixture like a rotisserie to hold the chassis, but I'm not sure I want to do that. My days of wrestling 55 pound radios around on the bench are behind me, and even if I built a fixture, I'm not sure I want to dig that far into the radio.

One other thing I've finished up while the weather is cooperating has been to get new coax runs installed between my vertical and wire antennas and the entrance box I hung on the house. That also entailed making up some new jumpers for the box on the inside of the house to the coax switch, and coax switch to the radio and dummy load. I now have nice, matching jumpers that are the correct lengths, and the installation looks a lot neater. And there's no more cables running in the house via the small gap between the door and frame! I'm sure my wife will be happy about that.

As far as the radio goes, I'm pretty much in the same boat that SiG is in regarding his Icom Linear Amplifier. I can probably fix it, but it would take a significant effort to do so, and I'm not sure I want to.......

Crazy WINDY Here Today.....

Mother Nature's doing a bit of 'pruning.....

The backyard is covered with leaves and small branches, and most of the leaves are off our maple tree in the front and ash tree in the back.

NWS is predicting winds of 20~30MPH with gusts exceeding 55MPH. The high today will be around 50*F, dropping to '30-ish' overnight.

Glad I strapped the back gate together, but now I have to change the securing arrangements because the yard guys are coming tomorrow to mow and mulch whatever leaves and things are in the front and back yards.

Other than that, I got nothin', and I'm just gonna hang out in the basement today working on some projects.

Here's The Latest On The Ham Radio and Cal_Fire "Dispute"

Per my "Friends In High Places", here's the latest.


Click to embiggen, as I had to do some fancy footwork to convert this through several formats to get an image out of it.

Uh-Oh...."Controlled Burn" Gets Out-Of-Control

And there's been a mandatory evacuation declared.

This is up in the Red Feather Lakes area, about 30 miles Northwest of here.

The full story is here, at the North Forty News website.

Prayers sent for those living up there.....

The Great "We Don't Need No Stinking Ham Radio" Flap In California

After having first heard of this a week or so ago, I've found out it's nothing like that which it seems.

Per the ARRL Southwestern Division Director:

The video in response to a lengthy lawyer-generated letter, written in reaction to a harshly worded letter from a CAL FIRE property management employee, makes certain statements about the Governor’s position or State policy that I have been unable to corroborate..

The State of California has not made any determination we can find  "that Ham Radio [is] no longer a benefit."What happened is that CAL FIRE has transferred responsibility for its communications sites to its property management department.  That department has the significant task of evaluating each site, its condition, use and tenants.  If a repeater not known to be associated with the emergency management function of a local jurisdiction is found in a CAL FIRE vault, the default action is to move it out or subject it to commercial rental rates.

Our contact in the California Office of Emergency Services suggests that, if any affected repeater is in any way involved with local emergency or government support activity, they should ask that agency to engage with CAL FIRE concerning the repeater.  If the agency makes the case, there is a good chance that the repeater will be unaffected.

Their advice, with which I agree, is not to elevate this to State Legislators or the Governor's office.

There has been similar activity in Southern California, wherein sites managed by the U.S. Forest Service have required repeater owners to post bonds to cover the dismantling of their sites if they cease operation. Negotiation has resulted in considerable easing of the original requirements and a modification of terms to help mitigate the short-term financial impact on those repeater owners.

So basically, somebody got ticked off, made some angry statements, and it 'went viral'.

Nothing to see here, please move along.....

Bye Bye, Sea Launch!

I'd heard this was "In Work" a couple of months ago. There was a lot of ITAR controlled equipment on the ships, and it had to be removed before USGOV would allow the ships to be permanently relocated.

This has been removed now, and negotiations are underway to finalize the departure of the two ships.

The entire article can be read here.

So Bye Bye, Sea Launch. It was a hell of a run while it lasted.....

Here Comes Winter!

Expecting the next three nights to be 25*, 15*, and 25*

I was just up at The Kids place to tend to the dogs, and in a 90 minute round-trip (including doggie time) the temperature has dropped 10*, and the winds are kicking up.

Expecting rain around midnight, turning to snow showers, turning to snow, with snow on Thursday, and a high of 33*.

And since the winds are predicted to be 30MPH or so, with gusts to 40MPH, I lashed the fence gates closed on the side leading to the back yard. I guess I'm getting acclimatized to here, as yesterday I drained and stowed the garden hoses and sprinklers, put the cold weather covers on the faucets, brought in the big sun umbrella after knocking the wasps out of it, and in general tried to clear the task list for "Winter Preps".

I think I got all of it, but we'll see.....

My Sweet Little Wife has departed on a three week vacation, and The Kids are gone until Sunday night, so Pebbles and I are on our own.

And I got this "present" on the way back from DIA:

Yep...a BIG rock came off the back of a gravel hauler, and I saw it milliseconds before it hit with a CRACK! like a rifle shot.

OUCH.....

I'm tempted to tray and have it repaired, BUT with the rain/snow, and below freezing temps the next two nights, it might get much worse before I can get it in to the glass shop.

I haven't lost a windshield to a rock hit since about 1986, so I suppose I'm overdue.

****************Update*****************

As of 2230 local time, it's down to 32*, there's a LOT of lightning and thunder, and it's snowing.