Gates Are Finished, And More "Small Steps"

 The gates have been completed, and we've already used the new gate on the North side several times.

Makes it MUCH easier to access the backyard when you're in the front.

 

The small shed will go back here late Fall, early Spring.

I'll get one big enough to hold the garden tools and some other items, but small enough to allow easy access to the gate.

The next project will be to get this basement egress window well squared away.

It's been like this since we bought the house almost five years ago, and we're thankful it hasn't gotten any worse.

The aluminum tower is my antenna mount for my satellite antennas. Still not sure what I'll do with it.

And over on the South side of the house, we have the replacement gates.

From the back:

And from the front: 

These should be strong enough to withstand the storms we get here, but I'm still going to use a ratchet strap in the Winter.

Both Little Guys were over for their visit today, and the littlest one is right on the edge of full-fledged walking. He can take three or four steps before he goes down on his rear end, but if he can have one hand on something, it's off to the races!

Just about finished rebuilding the transport mechanism for the Pioneer cassette deck I've been working on. It was dirtier than first examination revealed, so *everything* had to be taken apart, cleaned of old grease and grunge, and put back together. 

And it almost takes a Watchmaker's skill to do so! Many small plastic washers *of various thicknesses* that have to go back where they came from to keep the clearances In Spec, tiny springs and screws, and .....GASP! Numerous "E-Clips" to hold things together.

These things:

One trick I've learned over the years is to have a small, powerful magnet in your hand when you pop them off the shaft. They have a tendency to go sailing across the room, and they're a PITA to find teen-tiny ones in the carpet! The magnet keeps them from getting away, and is a good 'storage space' for them.

My son signed the lease on an apartment today, so he'll be moving out. Living here, he's 30some miles away from where he works. His new place is TWO MILES from his shop. He'll be driving far less, and burning much less fuel. He also won't need to continue renting his storage space, so that's another savings.

I'll sure miss having him around, though.

Y'all have a great weekend, and Be Safe Out There....

Gate and Post Progress, and Grandson MkII's First Steps!

 First things first....

Yesterday when Both TLG MkI* and TLG MkII were over, the MkI was out with Grandma, and the MkII was with me. I'd been holding both his hands and walking him around, but he still needed assistance. He was standing at the entrance to the sunroom, holding on to the door jamb, when he heard Grandma and MkI come in. He turned to their voices, and let go of the doorjamb, and took two full steps, before he realized he didn't know what he was doing, and promptly made a graceful landing on his rear end. Sat down, actually.

Then he turned back towards me and let out big giggle. Just amazing to watch another little human develop.

AND......on the "Fence Front", we have some major progress.

Here's the posts and pickets for the fence part of the new North gate. Yes, it's a small gate.:

Some weird sorcery of light sources and shadows altered the perspective, making it appear to be crooked/misaligned. Trust me...it's STRAIGHT!

Here's the South gate, with the old gate panels temporarily screwed into place so Pebbles can't slip the surly bonds of the backyard.

New 6x6 ( ! ) posts waiting for the concrete to cure:

 

Quite a difference in anchor posts, eh?

And over on the other side of the backyard, we have two new antenna support posts installed. I'll layout the pilot holes I have to drill after the concrete cures.

 

Sited exactly where I wanted them:

This will get rid of the clutter of tripods, masts, guy lines, deadweight anchors, and coax that currently clog the patio area.

Hope y'all have a pleasant weekend, and be safe out there!

* "TLG" is "The Little Guy", our first grandson. When the second one came along I decided that rather than have two, separate, cumbersome acronyms, I'd just keep one, and designate them as "MkI" and "MkII" for convenience

"South" Gate Replacement, and New "North" Gate Project Starts On Friday

 Hip-Hip....HOORAY! We're finally getting the infamous "South 40" gate replaced after 5 years of struggling with it.

This thing was a Charlie Foxtrot from the get-go. It wound up being double the original "verbally quoted" price, but we were in a bind as the fence had to be down for the bucket truck to get in there and remove the dead cedarwood tree. When that was done, I thought it would be a good idea to have the single walk-through gate replaced with a double gate that would allow a big truck back there to erect the planned tower. The doofus made the gate plenty wide (14', cuz that's what he remembered as the width of a county road), but never built it strong enough. The seven foot wide gate panels were hung with "Home Depot Quality" hardware, and the lags would loosen up, causing the gates to sag.

Eventually, the holes got elongated so much that even the "toothpicks-and-glue" trick wouldn't work. He also built the gates to the grade, rather than properly grading it and having a "straight" bottom.

The new gates will be anchored with 6x6 cedar posts rather than the standard 4x4, and be of metal construction with wheels on the bottom, with cedar pickets mounted to it. Kind of like what I've always called a "corral gate" or a "stock gate", which is what I wanted in the first place. So, there will be some proper grading and landscaping done to allow the gates to properly work.

BUT....starting tomorrow, he'll be working on the North fence panel, which will be moved towards the street about 9', and turned into a gate for easy backyard access from that side of the house.

View from the street:

And from the backside:

All the mulch in the front is wasted space, so moving the panel towards the street and making it a gate will free up space in the back to put in a small garden shed to keep the gardening tools in. As it is now, with the tools stored in the garage, you either have to walk the tools through the house, and out the sunroom/radio area, *OR*, fight with the gate to get it open, and then fight to secure it closed so Pebbles can't make a break for it.

SO.......since he'll be here tomorrow digging holes and planting poles, I'm going to have him install the two 4x4 8' long posts I've had in the garage "since forever".

One post will go a few feet "this way" from the long mast, and the other will go off the end of the patio slab, behind where the kettle is sitting. The far post will be the new home of the 20 Meter vertical, and the other post will be for a discone antenna. This means the long-wire antenna will be coming down, and the center support for it will be repurposed to mount the 6 Meter vertical.

I'll paint it camo, and nobody will ever know it's there.......

RAIN! Glorious RAIN!! And Happy Independance Day!

 

 

 Ahhhhh....so nice to smell it coming in, feel the temperature drop and the wind pick up.....and then it comes. Gently at first, and then it turns into the first really good downpour of the year. By the time it turned back into a nice, steady drizzle to when it stopped (for now?) was almost an hour. I'd give you a reading from my weather station, but it hasn't recorded any rainfall! The rain measurement consists of two modes, individual increments, and a "Storm Mode", which sees it raining, decides "Oh, this is a storm", and records the rainfall for a "Storm Event", which means it doesn't end that mode until it hasn't detected any rain for a (user adjustable) time. Since they're stored in separate registers, I'm thinking my software is only reading the "Storm Event" register, and reporting it. Something I have to look into when I rebuild the little server PC and install a fresh load of the latest release of Kubuntu, a Debian-based distribution of "The Linux Operating System". The little server has been chugging along for 272 days without a reboot or update. I can't update it because I picked a version of Kubuntu that did not have Long term Support, and I missed the window to upgrade it to a newer version. It could be updated, but it would be far too much work. I'll grab all the weather data off it before I wipe it.

Tomorrow (Saturday) is the city's fireworks display, so The Kids and both Little Guys will be over, as we have an "open space" area in this neighborhood that provides a very good view. He's been getting do good at driving my little R/C truck, that I went out and got another one so we could chase each other around the backyard.

Not quite the "International Race of Champions", but I was getting tired of him waxing my tail when he had the truck, and I had one of his other "Radio Controlled" (barely) toys. Hey, equal equipment for all! These are excellent beginner's R/C models as they have full proportional steering and throttle, compared to the "Bang-Bang" controllers his other vehicles have.

And we'll be flying the flag this weekend in remembrance of a day long ago, in a country far, far away...

UPDATE.......

The rain collection bucket had some trash in it, blocking the entrance to the tipper bucket inside the housing. It had a whole lotta water in it, and after I cleared the hole, it indicated .35" of rain, so yep, we got some rain!

Busy Week, Beautiful Weather, Amateur Radio Field Day

 Having gorgeous weather the last few days, and got some (more!) yard work done, and enjoyed evening strolls around the 'hood with SLW, and Pebbles.

We're headed to the CSU Flower Trial Gardens tomorrow where various types of flowers are grown to evaluate how well they do here in this environment. Some things grow here very well, and others croak rather quickly. Then it's off to Freddy's Frozen Custard and Steakburgers for some chow. Very good Patty Melts, burgers and fries, and their shakes and root beer floats are excellent.

  Thursday night I cleaned out one corner of the garage so the drywall guys could fix the damage from the plumbing leaks caused by the Incompetent Floor Guy.

The got here on-time at 0830, cut out the damaged drywall, trimmed new fire-rated drywall to fit the area, and had the tape and mud finished by 1130. They came back after lunch, put the final coat of mud on it, and cleaned up the area they worked in.

Very nice job:

They were a guy a some younger than me, and his 20-something son. who wants to go into business with his Dad, and Dad's teaching him the ropes. Great to see somebody doing that "live, and in-person". I wish them both well.

And I dove into the Pioneer cassette deck I bought a week or so ago. 

Pulled the knobs:

Then the front panel:

Then pulled the tape Transport mechanism out so I could do a full service on it. New belts, idlers, and pinch rollers, along with cleaning out all the 40 year old lubricant, and replacing it with synthetic lube and grease, and where required, "Light Machine Oil", a.k.a. "Sewing Machine Oil", "Honing Oil", "Gun Oil", and all its other names. You NEVER use products like WD-40 or 3-In-One Oil on a mechanism like this. Well, you can, but you'll be working on it again "Soon", to "Very Soon" if you do.

Trust me, as this is the level of disassembly involved in doing a rebuild of the transport mechanism:

In the picture below, you'll probably notice  a crack in part of the "Supply Reel Assembly" at about the 4-o-clock position. They're only replaceable as a complete assembly, and somewhat hard to find New or New-Old-Stock parts, so I'm going to rebuild them. The idler tire is mounted on the yellowed plastic wheel for it, and will require care in replacing so I don't damage the wheel.

These are the heads, capstans, pinch rollers, and tape guides before disassembly. This all has to be taken apart, cleaned, properly re-lubed, and the rubber rollers replaced. Then the spring tension has to be checked and adjusted as necessary using a spring scale. You can't see it here, but one of the rubber "Brake Pads" is missing from the Brake Lever Assembly. Since they both get replaced it's no big deal, except for the fact that they're getting very close to be NLA. I'll probably just fabricate some from a bit of neoprene tubing, or a couple of layers of heat-shrink insulation. They're not like the "Brake Pads" on an Indy Car of Formula 1 Car, at all. so there's quite a bit of latitude in replacement material.

And this all has to be properly reassembled.

Since I needed a few cassettes to test with, I found these at the local used records and books store:

I'll keep stopping in there to buy these whenever they have them, as they're much more reasonably priced there than on eBay and Amazon. The first two, left to right, are a "Type II", or CrO2 tape. The third one is a "Type IV" METAL tape, which this machine can use. It can also use the "FerriChrome" "Type III" tapes, but they're pretty much unobtainium, and are insanely priced.

And it's "The Last Full Weekend In June", so that means it's Amateur Radio Field Day, and the bands are wall-to-wall signals. 

So enjoy your weekend, be safe, and Viya con Dios.

Happy Father's Day to All the Dads Out There....

 I said it the other day, but it deserves saying again.

Happy Father's Day!

Drywall Damage Repair "In Work", and Scratch One Pergola For Now

 Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there! 

 Had some quotes to repair this damage from the botched flooring install:

$500 for Labor, and $250 for materials. SLW is waiting for other bids to come in before she cuts the P.O.

Several places called back about building a pergola over the concrete back patio. Every One Of Them told us to hold off, as the price on cedar is through the roof right now, as in $60 each for the size posts, and the other lumber is equally expen$ive.

So, no pergola/antenna support for now. I'll go ahead and install the other two 4x4x8 posts I have for my 20 Meter and 6 Meter verticals, and I'll site them in place to clear the eventual pergola. Even after we get the pergola installed, they'll be in better positions than they are now. I've been soaking the soil where the posts and ground rods will go, using my "Deep Root Watering"  spikes. These can wet the soil thoroughly down to about 30", which is deeper than the posts get set, and deep enough to get the ground rods easily started down far enough to really wail on them with a Demolition Hammer and adapter to drive them down the remaining 6 feet.

Enjoy the weekend, Happy Father's Day to all the Dads out there, and be safe.

100 Degrees, 8%, RH and a 10 MPH Breeze. I'm Headed to the Basement!

 Where's always a comfortable 72* +/- 2*, year-round.

I put the RH in italics because I know SiG gets amazed by it.

So, back to the basement. I finally got around to swapping out the "Two Sawhorses and a Door" worktables I'd thrown together a few years ago (that long?) for the new folding leg tables I ordered. I kept the doors to put on the new tables as a pound-the-snot-out-of-it work surface, and been getting the "Electronics Lab" back together and recommissioned again.

 Gives me more elbow room, and gets a lot of things off the floor. I'm already regretting getting 4' long table for the side table, so I'll get a 6' long one, and keep this one for the other side.

I'll rearrange things on the left side of this worktable, and put the 4' table there.

When I get to it.....

Have to make a dump run tomorrow, and run some errands. 

Which means I'll get BillB's package to FedEx, finally! It's sitting in the truck as I type this, Bill, so it'll be outta here tomorrow afternoon!

99 Degrees, 12% RH, 8 MPH Breeze......

 Yup....Summer arrived today with a vengeance. So warm even the Sacred Windmills wilted!

Gonna be HOT most of the week, with a slight chance of thunderstorms late in the afternoon. Glad I got our portable A/C units installed yesterday, and spent some extra time correct some of the installation issues all sorted out. Had to trim one of the plastic panels where the exhaust duct goes out the window, and now the filler panel/duct fit nice and snug in the windows without rattling or leaking air in/out of the room.

I had a drip system all planned out for the front garden, and SLW keeps planting more stuff, so now I have to layout the system again. From what I've been reading, installing a drip system is pretty easy, like building something with Legos. Lay out the tubing, cut it, add taps and smaller line, and install the drippers.

BUT....I'm sure it will be another "Adventure" in home owner stuff before I get the hang of it.

Have the new work tables set up in the basement shop, and slowly getting all the test gear recommissioned in it's new spot, along with another new item, an HP 8903B Audio Analyzer.

This will replace the two old Heathkit instruments I rebuilt, an IM-5248 IM Analyzer, and an IM-5258 THD Analyzer, and do what they did with greater accuracy and repeatability.

Stay hydrated, and be safe out there!

Sweet Little Wife's Front Yard Garden.

 She's been toiling over this since we first moved in, when it looked like this:

There had been junipers growing in the "red bark" area, and the previous owners had them removed. For a weed barrier under the bark, they used the bags it came in! That was a preview of coming attractions as far as the quality of workmanship we found elsewhere. 

We had the junipers by the tree removed, and it looked pretty desolate and messy:

We hooked up with a cracker-jack A-1 True Handyman (God bless you, Mr. Berkley!) who removed the red bark, set the concrete pavers for steps, and installed metal edging:

And SLW immediately set about getting some nice flowers planted:

Things have changed some in the last several years, as she learned the hard way to 1) ONLY plant perennials, and 2) DO NOT plant anything before Mother's Day.

So after the rains yesterday, I thought it looked so pretty that I'd post some "After" pictures showing the progress she's worked at.

Had to use the flash on this one, so the colors are a bit off....

 

It's still a Work In Progress, and always will be, kinda like a "Project Car". It's never done, just in between upgrades!

Oh...Note to BillB....Your packaged rotor was put in the car after I took this, and will be dropped off at FedEx in the morning. I'll send you the tracking number....

YOW! Look At The Rain!!

 Big thunderboomer is currently cruising through the area. Been raining heavily for the last 20 minutes or so.

So, no radioactivity for now. If I hear thunder, I disconnect the antennas!