Thank You To All Veterans

 Thank you all for your service and sacrifice.

Hang In There...It'll Be TGIF Before You Know It...

 And I've been keeping busy doing some yard work some wood cutting/splitting/stacking, cleaning the house for SLW, and just enjoying a nice, quiet, mundane life.  BTW...the new Hammer Drill splits small logs quite well, once they're dried. And it drove the ground rods in quite well, too.

Took the Supra out the other day for a couple of hours, and came back all invigorated. It's not a powerful car, with only 165HP in a 3,000 pound car it can't be, be it's very rewarding to drive it quickly. It's an "Analog Car" without Traction Control, ABS, Air Bags, or any of the other electronic nannies today's cars have. With the suspension work I did it corners extremely flat and predictably, and the larger, wider wheels with modern low profile tires give it an astounding amount of grip. The upgraded brakes are so good I constantly worry about getting rear-ended in traffic, as almost happened a couple of times back in Long Beach. Still have a bunch of cosmetic and interior work to do, along with some well overdue maintenance items (cam drive belt & tensioner, for one), but I don't want it off the road again as long as it was last time, so I'll portion out the remaining mechanical work into "weekend sized" chunks, and get the tasks crossed off as I do them.

The Pioneer cassette deck is on hold for now, pending some discussion with Those Who Know About These Things. I have a few things to try based on suggestions, but for now it's off the bench, as I really, really, really want to get my SX-980 receiver finished and back in service. I was almost finished with it, and then I found some scratchy, noisy switches that (still) need cleaning, and as I was doing the dial alignment, I noticed I hadn't properly cleaned all the dial behind the glass. Since that requires pulling the front panel (again), which is also required to get at the dirty switches, I put the project on hold while I did the Great Heathkit Audio Analyzer Rebuilds, which wound up taking months longer than I anticipated. I learned a tremendous amount in rebuilding the two analyzers, both honing my tech skills and i understanding how the measurements are made, which leads to a better understanding of what the measurement is all about. Worthwhile, but very time consuming.

And then I decided to get a cassette deck.......what was I thinking?

Anywhoo, just been hanging out with Pebbles while SLW is out, and using the fireplace a lot. I spent a couple of hours figuring out how the pull-screens in it work, and why they were so awkward to use. Turns out a couple of places had come unraveled, and were dangling about getting snagged on each other. I double twisted a few inches of stainless picture hanging wire, strung it through the floppy parts, and secured it off by twisting the ends together. Works fine, and now I can easily slide the screens back-and-forth.

And it beats paying $300+ for a whole new glass door/screen assembly, as I can't seem to find just the replacement sliding screens.

It's Not Monday, and It's Not Stormy, but I Like This Song....

 Overcast and 45* outside today. Was going to either take the Supra out, or do yard work, but Da Wedder ain't conducive to either.

SO......I'm going to bake some bread, and listen to music today. Have a nice fire and watch a movie later. SLW is up in BC with friends, so it's pretty quiet here. Just me and the dog....

Hope you all have a pleasant and blessed Sunday.

First "Real" Snow Of The Season

 We had some snow showers last week that covered the grass, but it was gone by 0900.

This started around 1600, and went until about 1900. Looks like about 2" on the snow table.

 Supposed to get another 2" tonight, but we'll see. Temps will be in the low 20's at night, so looks like Winter approacheth!

Only In Colorado....

 Do you hear a police call on the scanner for "Two Men Driving A Large White Truck Chasing A Deer Around A Traffic Circle....."

I think it's better than hearing of another 7-11 getting knocked over in Lost Angeleez.......

BOOOOO!!!! Happy Halloween!

 Hope all the little ghost and goblins out tonight reap their harvest of Fall Candy!

Be Safe!

Annnnnd..... The Pioneer CT-F950 is Still Messed Up.

 As soon as I put the front panel back on the CT-F950 deck the transport problems started again.

SOOOOO.....At this point I'm going to set it aside while I contact a guy on the AudioKarma forum who rebuilds the Reel Hubs and Spindles. The consensus is mine are excessively worn, and need to be refurbished. New clutch pads, replace any broken parts, test them, and send them back. I'm not sure what he charges, but it appears to be reasonable per other forum members.

Besides....I've had my SX-980 receiver on the back burner WAY too long, and I need to get going on it again.

Huh.....I Think I Fixed It....

 Spent a few hours going over the Pioneer CT-F950 cassette deck. I wicked all the solder off the switch connections, cleaned the board, and resoldered them all. I also went back over the areas of the board where I reflowed some of the connections that didn't look quite right, and yep....I caused a solder short in the right channel, effectively shorting the signal from the tape to ground. Cleaned all those up, and it appears to work.

Here it is playing an old Van Halen tape I paid a buck for.

Sounds good through the headphones, too. All the scratchy/screechy noise the switches caused is gone, and the switches work very smoothly now.

Now I can go through the Electronic Alignment procedure, set all the levels, and test it to see if it meets specs.

After that's finished and it's all cleaned up, I think I'm going to send it down the road. I just don't trust it as far as reliability goes. I just want to put a tape in it, or make a tape with it, to listen to. I don't want this back on the bench every 3 or 4 months.....

XM-4 A Sea Launch Mission

 Back in another life, I was a Satellite Chucker. We were basically a delivery service, getting your payload from 154*W, 0*N to a Geosynchronous Transfer Orbit. Our Senior Photo-Optics Specialist was a very creative photographer and videographer, and would put together a mission DVD for the launch crew as a souvenir. This one was made for the XM-4 mission, and was posted on YouTube courtesy of one of my Sea Launch friends.

Enjoy the show!

Meanwhile, Back On The Workbench.....

 Well, it looks like I fixed the transport mechanism, finally. I carefully watched how it worked through my magnifying lamp, and learned a couple of things about how the idler tire (driven by the reel motor I rebuilt) engages the take-up reel for either Fast Forward, or Play/Record. I could see it slipping (?!!?), so I blasted that entire portion of the transport with some CRC QD Electronic Cleaner, blew it out with air, and the damn thing works OK now.

BUT.....and there's always a "But"....My preemptive strike on resoldering all the connections for the Source/Tape Monitor switch was a flop, as now the right channel is completely dead when in the "Tape" position. I ran my audio generator into the Line Input, and that section works like it should. SO.....I either missed a connection, or wound up with a solder bridge on the board, most likely caused by using too large a tip in my iron. I didn't even think to change the tip from the "Heathkit Size" down a bit to "Pioneer Size", and it may have bit me.

The offending group of connections are dead center in the picture. Yeah, I had to pull the bottom panel, and take all the screws out of the motherboard to push it away from the chassis so I can get at the little critters.

I'll also recheck all the wired connections to the board in case I broke one loose.

And yeah, I'll check to make sure it works BEFORE I bolt it all back together!

Made A Nice Dent In The Woodpile....

 Cut, racked and stacked four wheelbarrow loads of wood today, and put the hurt on the woodpile.

Found some pretty little flowers growing in one of the junipers:

And as always, my faithful companion had Guard Duty. Gotta keep those pesky squirrels out of the yard!

This gave me four fully loaded shelves in my "drying rack", and left a bit less than half the wood I started with. I'll continue cutting tomorrow, but I'm rapidly running out of indoor storage, so I'll have to figure out something for the rest of the wood. Based on our past consumption of firewood, we have three years cut and stored, and at least two years remaining in the uncut pile. When properly operated, the fireplace is capable of keeping the house at a tolerable level, with little supplemental electric heat required.

That could change, and my stock of firewood might only make it three years total.....