Ms. Swan Starts Her "Nose Job".....Finally!

I have to admit that I let this go far too long before I addressed it. The black paint on the front urethane bumper was bad when I got the car in that the black had been slowly chalking off, and you could see the primer in large sections of it. It wasn't down to the plastic yet, but several years of neglect took care of that.

This is a year ago, before I started on it:

The yellow area is where the paint and primer had completely failed, and weathered away. The darker yellow has been exposed to the elements the longest, and has gotten oxidized and rough.

Fast forward to a couple of days ago....

I sanded the entire bumper to remove the worst of the oxidized, weathered yellow tint, and to remove the paint where it was severely weathered. In places where it was solid, but dull, I just scuffed it up good to promote adhesion of the new paint.

This is after the first sanding. The black splotches are where I've applied the special "Flexible Bumper Repair" filler material. It's a two-part system used to fill in pits, dings, and small divots, and can also be used to glue split and torn bumper covers back together. It cures to a very flexible material that sands easily and accepts primer and paint.

One of the tricks to use it for filling small cracks is to grind out the crack (or divot) so you're down to good, solid material, like I did here:

And here:

This gives the compound something clean to bond to, and usually stops the crack from propagating any further. I used a carbide ball-nosed bit in my Dremel, and it went through this stuff like warm butter.

After it cured overnight, I sanded it all down again, cleaned it, and inspected it. Some of the pits and voids hadn't filled in all the way, so they were given another coat of the filler.

The object is to get the cracks and divots filled in so that once sanded, you can't feel them with your finger tips. The "lightning bolt" in dark grey on the left side is the desired result, and the spot to the right of it needed a bit more filler.

This is just about the final result:

As you can see on a closer level, I had a whole lot of little cracks and divots!

I'll let this sit overnight, and then clean it again tomorrow morning. If it passes the "Finger Tip Test", which I doubt, I'll mask it off and prime it. Primer usually reveals more flaws, so I envision at least one more round of sand/fill/sand/prime/sand before it gets the topcoat of satin black "Flexible Bumper Paint", some kind of weird stuff with enough warnings on the can to scare DuPont.....

6 Meter SSB and FT8 Report

Spent the morning and early afternoon jumping between SSB and FT8. I could hear stations on SSB, but they were at my noise level or slightly above, meaning it would have been very difficult to complete a voice contact for me and these old ears. I wound up making one contact to a guy in Kentucky, and one to a guy in Louisiana, and it took about 5 minutes each. Some stations were booming in, but there was a huge pile-up of others calling them, and my ~50 Watts to a dipole 10' off the ground just don't cut it. I looked up the callsigns I was hearing, and yow....these guys were running "Super Stations", with multiple stacked antenna arrays, and "Full Legal Limit" power amplifiers.

This is a "stacked" antenna array. A short lesson in antenna arrays follows:

 It consists of 4 separate antennas, each with 7 elements (the short horizontal  things), mounted specific distances apart, and fed with power dividers and very carefully cut and assembled lengths of coaxial cable. An old "Rule of Thumb" for Yagi antennas is that doubling the number of elements gives you a 3dB increase in antenna gain. 3dB equates to a doubling of the "Effective Radiated Power". Since a 7 element antenna like this has roughly 10dBd of gain on it's own, doubling to two antennas gives you 13dBd gain, and doubling the two antennas to four antennas gets you 3 more dBd, for a total  16dBd of gain compared to a Dipole like I'm using. 16dB is a factor of 40, so if he were running 1000 Watts of power, the antenna would focus it by a factor of 40, making it act like he was running 40,000 Watts to a dipole like mine.

My dipole would probably disappear in a cloud of smoke if I ran 40kW to it! The coax would probably pop like a fuse.....

This array belongs to the fellow up North of me on I-25, the first Ham antenna I saw in Colorado on our first trip out here. An antenna system like this is what a "Super Station" would run. They get extremely large at "Shortwave" frequencies, but on 6 Meters, where the elements are only 5' long on each side, you can build some pretty outrageous antennas.

Anyway.....As I was listening to the SSB frequencies, I would also flip over to the "Digital" frequencies every 30 minutes or so to see what was happening. Where I could barely make out the voice contacts, my monitoring software showed the band was alive with signals.

Here's my "Control Panel" for the WSJTX/FT8 software:

The leftside box shows the activity on the band, and the rightside box is a real-time spectrum/waterfall display.

The vertical stripes in the right box are stations transmitting, and this display shows  at least 10 that I can see. And this is at 10PM local time, on six meters. This is the result of the "Sporadic E" propagation mode, something I won't go into here.

I still feel a bit "remote" using the WSJTX/FT8 software, but geesh...you sure can rack up the contacts with it.

I've made over 70 contacts today, and I haven't looked at the how many "Grid Squares" or states I've contacted.


Update..... 

This is what a "dead" band (no propagation) looks like. The two strong signals (the patches of red) you can see are local guys. Otherwise, ain't nobody coming in.....

 

Sunday Update.....

The band was completely dead (NO stripes on the right hand box) until about 45 minutes ago.

Now it's wide-open, and blazin' hot.....

 

6 Meter Antenna Results

Annnnnd IT WORKS!

Worked 12 stations in the SE and Lower Midwest on Single Sideband this morning and early afternoon. Signals weren't rock crushingly strong, but running "S7" to "S9" with a local noise level of around S4~S5, so they're well out of the noise, but with some fading.

Then I switched over to the "Digital" modes, running FT8, and made a bunch more contacts, including the guy up near Wellington with a HUGE 6 Meter station. The digital modes are nice for racking up an impressive body count, but they're very "sterile", and I'm not sure I care for them. It took me a few hours to get the SSB stations I worked, and about 30 minutes to get the same number of contacts with FT8.

It goes like this:

You look in the display pane for the callsigns of received stations, double-click on one, and then just use mouse clicks to send "macros" (canned messages that are dynamically altered for each contact), then send "73" with a mouse click, and move on looking in your list for the next callsign to double-click on and start the process all over.

That's it.

No manually tuning around the dial hunting down signals, no trying to get their callsign, and making sure the other operator has yours correct, no fighting interference from other close-in stations or static crashes, just looking at the list of received stations, and mouse-clicking on one. Some people don't care for fighting to dig out a contact, and they're drawn to these modes, and good for them. Variety is  a Good Thing, even in Ham radio, and the technology behind the software is solid, but it seems "artificial", and a bit boring to me.

It definitely proves you can put a signal into an area. How useful that is can be debated, because a large portion of the signals are at, or below, your threshold of hearing, meaning you couldn't talk to them using voice, but the software manages to dig them out and display the transmitted data. Yes, there are many, many other digital modes where you can have a live, keyboard-to-keyboard chat, like we did with Packet Radio in Ye Olden Dayes, and some of the digital modes are capable of staggeringly good performance in digging signals out of the noise, making them extremely valuable for sending data when conditions are marginal-to-bad.
I guess it just lacks the Human Touch of actually talking to someone. Even if it's just a contest exchange consisting of a few words and phrases, at least I talked to a person.

I must be getting old.....

6 Meter Antenna Up and Running

And it only took me about three hours from start to finish.

The center is about 9' above the ground, just about a half wavelength, which is very good for a simple dipole.

And it's not super taught, but nice and straight. This is looking to the South along the wire and support ropes.

It's running in a line 30* West of North, so along a line 330*-to-150*, which is as "Broadside" as I could get it the the USA. It's up high enough to where it *should* be somewhat directional, but with the house and gutters being 1/2 wave away, and my 90' wire antenna located about 15' above it (they cross at about a 40* angle), the pattern is gonna be pretty wonky!

The North anchor point is a 5' section of mast clamped to the fence:

And the South anchor point is a screw eye into a tree. This way gives me lots of line on all three mounting points along the antenna so I can completely drop it to the ground for inspection and maintenance:

 The center point is hoisted through a "floating" pulley and tied down with the excess rope wrapped around a small halyard further down the tree. You can also see the coaxial cable "choke" about as close as I could get it to the feedpoint.

The wire and the support rope are belayed to the end insulators with several cable ties. I've been doing this for years, and never had one slip. Since I drop my little antenna farm yearly for inspection and maintenance, I'll catch the cable ties deteriorating before they break.....usually.

A view from the "backside":

I can't post a graph of the SWR because I can't get my antenna analyzer program to run on this PC, but running it manually shows the VSWR is less 1.3:1 @ 50MHz, dropping to about 1.1:1 @ 51MHz, 1.2:1 @ 52MHz, and peaks out at 1.9:1 @ 54MHz.

Whether it radiates well is anybody's guess at this time. I can hear the beacon down in Aurora, a about 60 miles away. He's running 50 Watts into a "Halo" antenna mounted at 30', so that definitely shows it's working to receive.

It's probably too late at night to get any propagation, but I just finished connecting my SignaLink, so I'll snoop around on some of the digital frequencies for signals. The digital modes are amazing because you can actually make solid contacts with stations at or slightly below the noise floor, which is running around "S5" here.

6 Meter Dipole Antenna Project

After reading  SiG's post on Radio Propagation, and seeing his comments about the big 6 Meter opening he was enjoying, I made some comments about rarely operating 6 Meters, but enjoying the times I did.

In mentioning that I only have one radio that will transmit on 6 Meters, and that radio will be going on eBay soon, he replied that I should make a 6 Meter Dipole, hoist it up, and give my hand a try at the upcoming ARRL June VHF Contest that's scheduled for this coming weekend.

Hmmmmm....do I have enough "stuff" to build a decent antenna?

Wire? Check! Plenty of 12 gauge Davis RF "Flex Weave" on hand.....

Center insulator? Check! I have a Hy-Gain center insulator new-in-box.....

End insulators? Check! Would you like plastic or ceramic?

Support rope? Oh, yeah, got several hundred feet. Would you like new, or slightly used?

So I cracked the books, came up with some dimensions, and proceeded to cut wire, and belay the insulators to the ends of it.

Took me an hour to round up all the bits and pieces, and about another hour to lay out the wire, measure it to length and cut it, install the end insulators, crimp/solder some ring lugs on the free ends, and bolt it all together.

Here it is stretched out on the garage floor. It's about 9' end-to-end.

Oh, and since it's a Dipole ("Balanced") antenna being fed with Coaxial Cable ("Unbalanced"), we'll need a "Choke Balun" (more accurately a "Line Isolator") to keep RF current OFF the outside (The Shield) of the coax.

A simple VHF coaxial choke consists of 4 turns of cable, "solenoid wound", in a ~3" diameter. I wound mine using 48" of RG-8X cable and a cardboard Morton Salt container as a form. I put some cables ties on it to keep it from unwinding. This took another couple of hours to round up the parts, find something to use as a 3" coil form, cut the cable and put connectors on it, wind it, and secure it with cable ties.

Here's my feed line choke. Identical in function to the one I made for my 20 Meter (14MHz) vertical, but scaled down for 6 Meter (50MHz) operation.

And all put together and waiting to be installed. I taped the coax connection to the center insulator, both for some weather proofing, and to prevent the connector from loosening up when the antenna sways in the wind.

I was planning on hoisting it up today and connecting my antenna analyzer to it, BUT....it's windy as all get-out, drizzling on-and-off, and just not a nice day to do it. I'll get it hoisted up and swept on Tuesday.  That gives me tonight to get the radio and power supply set up and ready to connect to the antenna once I've got it in the air.

This is the first 6 Meter dipole I've ever built, and I'm sure I'll be in for a few surprises once it's up in the air and I connect the analyzer to it.

I'll be running my Old Faithful Yaesu FT-847 transceiver "Satellite Radio" as it's the only rig I have with 6 Meters. I'll easily be able to get this dipole mounted "In The Clear" more than a half-wavelength above ground, so it should work about as well as a dipole can work. And with 100 Watts of RF power out of the radio, and maybe 35' of low-loss feedline, I should be able to work most of what I can hear. If there's a good opening I should be able to make a lot of voice contacts, my preferred mode. If voice mode is too noisy/weak for me, I can switch over to one of the digital modes like FT8, and make lots of contacts.

More pix when it's in the air.

FRIDAY!! Neighborhood Updates and Some eBay Selling Tips...

Things are opening up here in the "Blue Sector" of Flyover Country, people are towing boats and campers, and it looks like we might be able to salvage the Summer.



In Local Neighborhood News, the young couple at the end of the cul-de-sac have split up, the slightly older couple in the house next to theirs have divorced, the house the really old couple lived and moved out of (the one where they took 4 dumpster loads of perfectly good furniture out of!) is now occupied by a young couple who work for the USFS, the house directly across the street from us has been sold ("Pending, Accepting Back-Up Offers" per Zillow), and a house just across the street from where our cul-de-sac starts is for sale.

And my eBay sales are roaring along. "Old Stuff" I'd picked up for just a few $$ has been selling for surprising amounts, and the newer things I'm disposing of have been going for more than I expected. Some of the stuff I'm "loosing money" on, but it's balanced out by some items that sold for well over what I was expecting.

Any eBay tips, drjim?

Yes, a few.

1 - Either submit your listing on Sunday morning, or schedule it to begin Sunday afternoon, California time. My experience, and it's been verified by others, is that auctions that end on a Sunday afternoon draw more last minute bidders than if the auction ends at 0300 on a Tuesday. And I've had items double and triple in amount during the last 15~20 minutes on a Sunday afternoon.

2 - Write honest, accurate, truthful descriptions of your items. Avoid "cutesy" terms like "MINTY!" and "RARE!!!!". Peppermint or Spearmint? "Rare" compared to what? I've seen items tagged as "Rare", and then found several of the same item further down in my search listings. Accurately describe (or try to) any known faults or issues with your item.  If the item doesn't work, say so, and sell it as "Parts Or Repair ONLY". Don't wish for the best and make up something like "It worked 30 years ago, so it should work now". If you write something like "I didn't know how to test/run/inspect this item" then your buyers will assume it doesn't work, and bid accordingly. It's like all the "Ran When Parked" memes you see on automotive sites, you ain't foolin' NOBODY! Include EXACTLY what's in your auction. If there's an item in the background, or you have it hooked up to other things to "demonstrate" that it works, clearly state those items are NOT included. Some people will squawk that you didn't include everything pictured unless you say it's NOT included. CLEARLY state your shipping and handling fees so there's no griping. Some items are expen$ive to ship, and some potential buyers will contact you to try and negotiate a lower cost.

3 - TAKE GOOD PICTURES! Include pictures of any manuals, original boxes, cables, cords, and accessories the item comes with. Since I mainly sell radio and electronic equipment, I take pictures of the front panel, the back panel, the top and bottom, and both sides of the case and cabinet. If there's a nick or a ding in the case or front panel that *I* can see, other people will see it, too, so I'll take a close-up of the flaw as best I can. I also pull the covers off so potential buyers can see how clean (or dirty) the insides of the radio are. This gives a good indication of well well the equipment was cared for, and stored. If I see rust or burnt parts inside the radio, I'll pass on it.  If you want top dollar, make sure your potential customers can CLEARLY see any flaws you pointed out in the listing. Use good lighting, and for God's sake, man make sure you pictures are IN FOCUS!

4 - Set your opening price to the MINIMUM amount you'll accept for the item. Yeah, I've done the opening bid of 99 cents and paid extra to have a reserve put on the item. It doesn't work any better than putting your minimum price as the opening bid, and you'll avoid the lookie-loos who put in a $1 bid just to see what the item sells for. And even though you list the item as an auction, you'll likely get a question or two asking "Buy It Now??". I just ignore them, or say "Sorry, auction ONLY".

5 - Be realistic in the value of the item. Just because you think it's worth $1000 doesn't mean that's what you'll get for offers. If you're at all serious about maximizing your eBay profits while minimizing your stack of junk in the basement or garage, you should be searching for similar items, and watching them to see what they go for. Sometimes it's disappointing to realize your prized Turbo-Encabulator has DROPPED significantly in value from what it was worth just a few years ago. For example, I have a nearly new (really!) high-end Sony SLV-R1000 VCR. It was Sony's top-of-the-line VCR, can record in "Super VHS", and can be used for an editing deck as it has a "Flying Erase Head", and all sorts of other "Prosumer" features. I paid about $900 for it Back In The Day, and I've barely used it. Maybe 6 tapes. Even has the original box, manual, set of bagged cables, the whole nine yards. A few years ago they were still going for $600~$700.

If I'm lucky, I might get $300, unless I happen to connect with a videophile who lusts for one with all the trimmings.

6 - Once you get a bid, and the item will sell, PACK IT UP. This saves irritating last minute hustling around to find a box, find some packing material, making sure you have packing tape for your tape gun, shipping labels, and other things that can delay you from shipping the item.

7 - Oh, yeah....packing and shipping your item. This can be highly variable depending on what you're shipping. For small, light items, you can wrap them in bubble wrap, box 'em, and ship 'em. That won't work for heavier and/or bulky items. Neither will throwing it in a box of packing peanuts and shipping it.

I'm going On The Record here to tell you do NOT use your friendly UPS store for packing your item! Every_Single_Large_Item I've received that was packed by a UPS store arrived damaged. I'm not saying they're 100% incompetent, but I have no other choice based on what I've seen. Pack it yourself, and you'll do a better job!

If you can find a place that specializes in shipping things like Personal Computers and other delicate things you'll probably be OK, but you'll pay dearly for it.

I bag the item in a trash bag, wrap it with at least one layer of heavy-duty bubble wrap, and add some additional padding over any easily broken protrusions, like the knobs on a radio. Then it gets boxed, with either more bubble wrap on the bottom of the box and down the sides so the whole thing fits snugly, -OR- a good layer of packing peanuts on the bottom, sides, and top. I prefer the bubble wrap because it's far less messy to pack, and your buyers will appreciate it, too.

For extremely valuable items, I'll line a box with cut styrofoam sheets, and make sure my bubble wrap "cocoon" for the item fits in the box snugly.

For really heavy stuff, I'll double box the item, but this starts getting expensive, as non flat-rate shippers also charge by the volume of the box. Double boxing an item can make it cost 30%~50% more to ship, so make sure you explain this to your customers.

When possible, I ship via USPS Priority Mail "Flat Rate" boxes. I have a stack of (FREE!) boxes and labels, and I can go in the Post Office, walk up to the self-service kiosk, and have my item shipped in 10 minutes if I don't have to wait for other people. I could do the "Stamps-R-Us" thing and print my own postage, enabling me to just drop the item in the shipping bin at the P.O., but I haven't.

I've had very good results with shipping small things this way, and it's fast, easy, and not too expensive.

I have set up an account with FedEx from years ago, and it makes it much faster to ship with them, even though they now know me at the local FedEx location. I greatly prefer FedEx for anything I can't safely cram into a USPS Flat Rate box. Their rates are reasonable, they're >99% "On Time", and they handle the packages with care. I've had ONE claim in 20 years with them, and they paid within 48 hours.

This gets me back to things that were packed by the UPS store. One item I bought was a heavy radio receiver. The seller dropped it off with them, and they packed and shipped it.

It was DESTROYED when I received it. They took a 65 pound, vacuum tube radio, and threw it in a box of peanuts, taped it up, and sent it off. The box looked like it was airdropped and the 'chute failed.

The seller filed a claim, I took it to a UPS center for verification, and they denied the claim! They said it was "Improperly Packed For Shipment". Well, DUH! Ya think? When the seller protested that it was packed by a UPS store, they shot back the canned message "Every store is an independent franchise, and we can't control what they do. Claim DENIED".

The seller was a lawyer. He sued the snot of of them and won. That's why I don't do UPS.

Anyway....there's more tips and tricks, but this post is running long, and I have items to inspect/test/verify and photograph.

And listings to write.....

Enjoy the weekend!

Ruh-Roh......Western Rifle Shooters Association Blog Taken Down.....

Just hear about it from Phil over at BustedKnuckles.

For the time being, WRSA has relocated here.

And as I saw on another blog.....maybe you can stop the signal.....

Almost time to go back to old BBS' to distribute info!

YCMTSU!

Just heard on the scanner that a BOLO has been issued for two heavyset men in a gold Jeep Cherokee. They were talking with the people who called it in that they were "Looking for anarchists to shoot", and were heavily armed with "assault type rifles and pistols".

Earlier I head discussion of stretchers and a triage unit being set up "In case we need it tonight".

And some of the "Federal" frequencies I have programmed in are lighting up, and I've never seen that here.....

If I had a better antenna, aimed South towards Denver, I could probably get some of their wide-area coverage repeaters, but 60~70 miles is just too far with the little whip antenna I have on it.

Think I'll go clean some stuff, and inventory some other stuff, and get a few other things ready-to-use.........


1950MST - Colorado State Police just nailed a group making Molotov Cocktails at Colfax and Broadway, near City Center Park, next to the State Capitol.....

Getting a Bit "Spicy" in L.A.

Just got a text from my son. They're boarding up all the windows and doors at the large grocery store he works at near LAX.

No word on if they're going to send the employees home.....yet.


And on the local front, I see there were protests in front of the local PDHQ the last couple of days.

Read all about it here.

I have no idea of the history of our local PD in regards to complaints of excessive force.  I suspect a lot of these people are the local snowflake population out doing their virtue signalling.....

Late Spring Storm!

I've been watching the weather today, and we went from a 20% chance of rain to 30%, then to 40%, and now it's pouring, with "garbanzo bean sized" hail.

And it hurts when it hits!

It just started to rain, then small hail started coming down. By the time I'd cleared space in the garage,(maybe two minutes), and ran in the house to get the keys for SLW's car, it was raging, and I got pelted with a whole bunch of big hail while running (well, what *I* call "running") from the garage to her car.

That stuff hurts!

We got .15" of rain in a few minutes, and the yard was covered with hailstones. The hail melted within minutes as it was 85* here all day, and yesterday, and the ground was pretty warm.

I think we'll get some more rain, but the heavy stuff has passed.

Here's what my weather station recorded. Not the rapid rise in barometer and humidity, accompanied by a large drop in temperature.

And the radar from 2025 local time.

Still some out there, and the radar return indicates we should be having sprinkles, but nothing yet.

Spring Cleaning the Garage.....

Should probably call this one "Wake up, honey..."

Jammed up in the back, too....

And along the driver's side....

But after moving things around, rearranging things, and tossing some things away, we can see some progress....

I can walk through there again!

And finally, I can get to work on the ugly front bumper!

The tires that were in the bags taking up way too much room were the ones I had on the Jeep when I moved out here. They still have about 3/4 the tread depth on them, but I drive so few miles out here that I'm just going to leave the Blizzaks on the Jeep year-round. The "Summer Tires" are in the Jeep and will be going to Discount Tire for disposal, unless somebody wants them.

The small LED light fixture I had over the workbench went casters up, so I'm finally getting around to hanging the 48" LED fixture I bought last year.

This will get hung from the ceiling between the workbench and the front of the car. Should give me plenty of light on the front of the Supra, and some on the bench.

Sweet Little Wife has picked up a new hobby....refinishing furniture, of all things! She bought this really cool, very well made drop-leaf table at the ARC Thrift Store. It had some damage to the finish (it's 50+ years old), so she tried cleaning it. No joy....So she's gone down the rabbit-hole of learning to use stripper to get the finish off, then block sanding it with increasingly finer grit sand paper. She put one coat of finish on it, decided she didn't like the color, and stripped it all off again! She's learning very fast, and is getting an appreciation of what "Hand Made" means. In the meantime she's also picked-up an equally nice side table for $10, and an absolutely killer cedar chest made by Lane. We decoded the serial number and found out it was made in the Summer of 1941! So she now has a Pre-War, solid cedar with veneer, American-made classic piece of furniture. It has finish damage on the top veneer, and after realizing she had a real "heirloom", she decided to take it to a guy in town who does exquisite work.

Things are opening back up here, and life is slowly returning to normal. I'm sure the sheeple in town and the students will be talking of "The NEW Normal", but that's just something the chattering classes do. For the rest of us it means we can go back to living our lives pretty much as if nothing happened.

You know, kinda like "Global Warming"?