Space Weather for the Weekend

 And it looks like cycle 25 is off and running.

The forecast from Dr. Skov is below:

Yeah, she can be 'over the top' a bit, but she's got gen-you-ine creds and degrees and she knows her stuff.

Solar Flux should be in the low 90's for the weekend, with some good band openings.

I've noticed more Ionospheric Sounders in operation on the 20 Meter (14MHz) band than usual, and I've even see a few on the 40 Meter (7MHz) band.

I've been hearing Danie, ZS3D, in South Africa on 40 Meters on a regular basis, and that's getting me fired up to put my big 33' vertical back up. It's a full quarter-wave on 7MHz, and with the elevated radials, works extremely well.

Saturday Night Music

 One of my favorite songs, from one of my favorite bands, featuring one of my favorite guitar players.

It was also written specifically for one of my favorite TV shows, Miami Vice.

Hope you're having a great weekend. Really getting to be Fall here, with temps dropping into the low 40's at night.

Dead Juniper Removal - Part Deux

 Removing the dead junipers in the back yard came to a screeching halt earlier this year when my shoulder went on strike. I had some kind of big "knot" in the muscle that you could feel moving around when I moved my arm around. My Doctor ordered an ultrasound, which came back negative, the findings being "No Solid or Cystic Mass Found". 

Sooooo....off to Physical Therapy for 8 weeks, during which time the "knot" got smaller and less painful. It's still there, but not nearly as annoying as it was.

I still can't do a lot of the yard work I started off doing early this year, even if I take it pretty easy. I'm still having issues with getting lightheaded at times (hah....what's new, eh?), and my BP bounces around a lot, with the "Irregular Heartbeat" icon popping up almost every time I measure my BP. I have an appointment with my Cardiologist next month, and we'll see what he makes of the readings from the "ZIO Patch" I wore for two weeks.

ANYWAY.....now that my son is here, he's been helping out a lot with these things, and today he and SLW went bonkers on the junipers in the back yard.

They cleared out all the dead stuff back in Pebbles' "forest":

And then attacked the dead grove of them out on "The Point":

Sorry the pix are kinda blown-out. I'm so used to popping up the little flash on the camera, I did it out of habit, making the camera switch exposure modes.

I'll help with the raking up, and feed the apple tree in the background, later today when it cools down. I can't do too much more than light work when it's over 90*, so this is part of my "Taking It Easy" when I'm doing yard work, and it's also put a major crimp in working on the Toyota....

9-11 And I Feel "Empty".....

 That's about the only way I can describe it. All the blood, treasure, and broken lives served no purpose, other than to enrich some, and destroy others.

But they weren't the "others" we set out to destroy.

I'm greatly saddened by the astoundingly poor judgement shown in the recent "withdrawal" from the 'Stan. Grade school kids could have done better with minimal coaching. How do you even categorize this? "Withdrawal" is too nice a word, and so is even "Retreat". To "retreat" at least implies and orderliness to it. I don't even know if there's a single word that describes what happened. "Abandonment" is about all I can come up with. "Wanton and Willful Abandonment" doesn't even sound strong enough to describe the cowardly actions that took place.

Anyway.....we went to the Rist Canyon Mountain Festival today, a benefit for the Rist Canyon Volunteer Fire Department. It was great to see all the people there, without masks, enjoying the sunshine, music, food, and demonstrations put on by the RCVFD, Larimer County Sheriff, and the UC Health Lifeline helicopter crews. BTW, Helicopter N68RX is one of the choppers I see flying over regularly.

And a little girl did a bang-on rendition of our National Anthem. The canyon got quiet, she sang her little heart out, and there wasn't a hat on a head, or a dry eye.

When we returned home, we had the neighborhood block party to attend, and catch up with neighbors we hadn't seen in a while. SLW was marveling at the fact that NO permits, permissions, or regulations were required. They just coned off the street, set up the BBQ and some tables, and everybody brought a side dish.

A splendid time was had by all, and we're looking forward to TLG being here Sunday/Monday, as usual. His new little brother came home from the hospital after 80 days, and is doing extremely well. From the rate he's growing and gaining weight, I have a hunch he's gonna be a bruiser!

So life goes on, for now, and I hope you have a blessed Sunday.

Another Interesting Flight Path, But At Night This Time.

 I suppose with all the "Multi-Spectral" sensors out there these days, it doesn't matter much what time of day you do your mapping flights.

This is the first time I've seen one after sundown, though,

I Gots Nuttin'....

 Quiet week....

Took my son to the airport Tuesday, and he headed back to Lost Angeleez to get the rest of his stuff. He'll stay in St. George tonight, and then head up through Salt Lake, and East to Cheyenne, and South to here.

SLW came back last Sunday from a trip to see some friends in Oklahoma, which made two trips to DIA this week. Oh well, at least a good highway run helps keep my engine oil cleaner than just putting around town.

And I have a whole stack of things I dragged up from the basement so I can take pix of them, and list them on eBay. Been cleaning out Der Boonker, and found a lot of stuff I'll never use, lost interest in, or had had doubles/triples of, so that stuff's going out, too.

I really don't need seven scanners here in NoCo, where one is sufficient. And I'll be thinning back the Heathkit Herd shortly, too. It was fun having the stuff for "Show and Tell" back in SoCal, but the Ham Community is completely different here, and I haven't found more than a couple of people I share interests with. I really don't need five Heathkit Shortwave receivers, either.

I finished getting the SB-401 transmitter back together, tested, and aligned, so that one and the matching SB-301 receiver will go on the block, too. That pair was an impulse buy one night, and while it was fun to rebuild them, using them on-the-air isn't a "1969 Time Machine", but then I suspected that. A 50 year old single-conversion receiver with fixed selectivity gives the results I expected. Fun to play with and use casually, but a bit lacking when the going gets tough.

Have a good three-day weekend, and you can put away the white belt and shoes now....

Oh, No......Tear It Apart Again?

 WELL.......seems I miscalculated a bit when it came to measuring the the rack space I had for the new(er) TEAC A-4300SX tape deck.

It was a bit over 1/8" too tall to fit into the available space, so everything came off the shelf above, and I raised it about 2".

Now it even has enough room for an even bigger deck, with 10.5" reels, should I so desire.

 And since the Pioneer receiver had never been given a proper cleaning since I bought it, I dove into that.

Think I can handle this?

 

It was  more than a bit grungy inside:

 

 

I'm amazed at the amount of dirt all over this tuning capacitor:

 

And in other places:

Very clean under the bottom plate:

And I pulled the front panel off, as there was a motley collection of "dirt" on the dial and the backside of the glass, which just drove me NUTZ.

It took about 30 minutes with the shop vacuum and a soft bristled brush to knock all the splooge off the internals and vacuum it out, and another half hour or so to clean the dial assembly. Then I spent an hour or so cleaning the aluminum front panel, and another hour cleaning and buffing the knobs.

All back together and shiny again:

And here's the finished (for now...) rack, all back together (for now...) and playing beautifully.

Hope y'all have a great weekend. I have to shuttle down to DIA to pick up SLW who was visiting a friend for the last week. Spent a lot of good "Garage Time" with my son just hanging out and discussing Guy Stuff.

TEAC A-4300SX Wrap-Up

 This one was easier than the A-4010SU I did last month. It's a 10 year newer design, the chassis is more rugged, all of the oil-filled capacitors (aka the "Suzuki Firecrackers") have been replaced with newer film capacitors, and the electronics are completely new.

This picture is how it looked out-of-the-box. BTW, this was just about the best packed item I've ever received via eBay. Double-boxed with new styrafoam inserts, and extra cardboard under the seams so when you opened it up you didn't damage anything.

The reddish dust was from a blanket I temporarily used to cover it up. Entirely my fault, and bit of extra cleaning to do.

SUPER clean inside.

And all you have to do to access the monitoring/adjustment points in the electronics is to lay it on it's back, remove two screws, and slide off the bottom cover.

And TEAC even used a nice label on the inside of the bottom cover showing where all the points are.

And even though their Technical "checked" the belts and pronounced them "OK", I went ahead and replaced them anyway. They felt "sticky" to me, and that usually means they're degrading, and I had them, so new ones went in, along with cleaning the entire tape path, and demagnetizing all the bits. The counter belt required pulling the tape reel hub to get at, but it was just two setscrews. The capstan belt required removing three large screws and lifting a support brace out of the way, but it was far easier to do than the other deck, where I had to remove screws from the bottom of the chassis so I could lift out the entire capstan assembly to get at the belt.

The flat, gold colored brace running vertically in the picture comes off, and you can easily swap the belt.

 And it's a good thing I replaced the belts because the two setscrews on the reel hub, and the three screws holding the bottom of the capstan, were loose. Barely more than "finger tight", and could have easily caused problems down the road. Makes me wonder if they removed the belts to inspect them, put them back on, and never fully tightened the screws. Which begs the question..."New belts are only $10. Why didn't you change them?"....

And to finish it off, I cleaned and oiled the wood trim sides.

SO...it's all back together, and I'll post a pic after I lug it done to the workshop and get it in the rack..

And now I have a really nice A-4010SU to sell.......

Three Score and Ten

Well, I've made it around the Sun 70 times now, although somewhat worse for the wear. Got the results back from the 14 days I wore the cardiac monitor, and it confirms that I've got a lot of "missing" heartbeats caused by Premature Ventricular Contractions. Depending on what my Cardiologist says, it could be as simple as cutting down on coffee intake, to taking medication, to getting a pacemaker installed. I'm supposed to hear from them by Friday, if not I'll give them a call on Monday.

As the memes all say, it was a H3ll of a lot more fun being 20 in the 70's than being 70 in the 20's. If I tried half the stuff I did back then, I don't think I'd last more than a couple of weeks. I used to go blasting along in excess of 160MPH, and now I turn the radio down when traffic gets heavy.

No plans for the day other than waiting for the TEAC to get here, along with a set of belts for it. The listing said their Tech looked at it and pronounced the belts to be "fine", which either means they were replaced at some point, or the Tech doesn't know what he's doing. TEAC belts of that vintage tend to get soft, gooey, gummy, and disintegrate, leaving a mess inside the machine. I was lucky in that the belt in the 4010 deck had broken and was laying in the case, but I've seen pix showing the belts to be a ball of goo wrapped around the pulleys. Regardless, I have new belts for it, they're easier to change than on the other deck, and I'll swap them out when I have it opened up to inspect/service things.

Might go out for dinner tonight, might not. We're expecting some heavy thunderstorm activity later today, so we might just sit it out. Have a birthday party for one of the clan's young-uns on Saturday, and that should be fun seeing the rest of the clan, and just hanging out.

Enjoy the upcoming weekend!

 

Newest Acquisition

 This guy:

 Should be here later this week. It's another TEAC, an A-4300SX, and is ten years newer than the one I picked up last month. "If I Woulda Known..." last month what I know now about TEAC tape machines, I most likely would have passed on the A-4010SU I bought, and gone right to this one. The mechanical bits are 90% the same, as it's still a TEAC "A-4xxx Series" machine, but it has significantly updated electronics, and better heads. It also has switches to adjust the Recording Bias, and Playback Equalization, allowing the use of newer formulation tapes, like the "Type @ Low Noise" tapes, and the "Type 3 High Output" tapes, sold as "LN", and "UD" from companies like Maxell. All I used before on my big Sony deck was Maxell tape, and it was significantly better than the Type 1 tape. "Type 1" tapes are the reddish-brown tapes, and "Type 2" and "Type 3" tapes are almost always the dark grey colored tape, owing to the use of a different oxide coating.

And speaking of heads, they heads on this one look to be in excellent condition:

 

While my A-4010 shows definite signs of wear. They don't have any grooves in them, but show a definite wear pattern:

But way better than this one (photo courtesy of OakTreeVintage.com):

Now THAT'S a "groovey" tape head! I've seen machines advertised on eBay where the seller says "Plays and records fine, and sounds GREAT!", and then shows a picture of the heads worn this bad.

Uhhhhh.....no.

Anyway.....In the last month I've brought myself up-to-speed on the current state of analog magnetic recording, and found a great website with loads of information on the TEAC product line, complete with specifications, and reviews. They also cover every tape machine I've heard of, and a lot more I didn't know existed, or were too specialized/expensive for me back in the day. Eventually I want to "work my way up" to a TEAC 6000 series or 7000 series, but they're out of my budget range for now.

Been Keeping Busy....

 Went to see the "Toughest Monster Truck" show down at the Larimer County Fairgrounds, aka "The Ranch". I've been to lots of different motorsports events, but this was a first.

Good Gravy those things are LOUD. 500 cubic inches of Big Block Chevy, with a blower, running in an enclosed arena, can make quite a bit of racket through open exhaust. Glad I brought my Peltor muffs!

With Riverrider in mind, I post this:

Swiped from FakeBook, and of course the "Fact Checkers" had a field day with it.

We got some sprinkles, and 15 miles East of here got clobbered with ping-pong ball sized hail. Glad it missed us, but hope WSF got through it OK, as it was headed his way..

Have a good weekend!