More Rain on the Way

We probably won't get as much as Wirecutter will, but still, they're predicting at least an inch, and probably more.

The bad thing is that this time we're going to get it all in about 24~36 hours.

Hopefully the backyard won't flood too bad, as all the dirt is still wet from the last rain that came through.

And for an AAR on Saturday's "NRA First Steps" class, it was another winner.

We had 22 students, the max the classroom can hold, and 4 assistant instructors.

The lead instructor handled the three people who had prior experience with firearms, but wanted to get some training, and the rest of us handled the 'balanceof the students.

Everybody listened, was safe, and we saw some students go from Can't hit the paper", to scoring 80% or better on the last 10 rounds on target session.

Another great day ay the range!

December 7th, 2014 on the Battleship Iowa

Spent all day on the Battleship Iowa today, mostly in the radio room working HUGE pile-ups calling us.

Everybody we talked to thanked us for getting and keeping the Iowa on the Ham Bands, and manning it so often.

We operate NI6BB every holiday, except Thanksgiving and Christmas day when the ship is closed, and almost every Wednesday, during the hours the ship is open.

We talked to the Missouri, the Lexington, the Hornet, the Midway, several of the museum submarines, and heard the Wisconsin, but couldn’t get through to them.

We had an elderly man at the morning ceremony who is a Pearl Harbor Survivor, and a wonderful gentleman.

Later in the day I was honored to meet and talk to a 93 year old woman who was a nurse on a hospital ship stationed at Pearl during the raid.
 
And they both told everybody they met to never forget what can happen to Our Nation when it gets complacent.

Quite a somber day.

Busy Weekend Coming Up

Well, let's see....

Saturday morning I have the "First Saturday Of The Month" breakfast with the radio club I'll be bailing out on (long rant, check the older posts), and then I'll be helping with another "NRA First Steps" pistol class, then a reunion party for a bunch of my former work mates from the satellite launch place I retired/got laid-off from, and then I'll be on the Iowa all day Sunday for the Pearl Harbor Memorial.

I'll be wearing one of my "NRA Certified Instructor" shirts to the breakfast, which will probably pop the fuses in the one Ultra-Liberal, Politically Correct member we have.

Oh, well.....no use trying to please everyone.

Rainy Day on the Iowa

Spent today aboard doing Grey Radio stuff, mostly reading the manuals, as yours truly has been "appointed" as the Lead Technician to get the original transmitters fired back up.

So, after helping the 70 and 80 year old guys go down to Broadway in search of some replacement parts for one of the "Red Phones", I spent some reading the manuals on the exciter, power amplifier, and the auto-couplers.

I learned that the exciter only puts out around 100 mW (+20dBm), and the high voltage in the power amp is 2250 Volts.

The amps are capable of running up to 1500 Watts output, but the manual cautions to not go over 1250 Watts, which is a kick because EACH of the power tubes is rated for about 5kW plate dissipation!

Man, talk about OVER designed!

And then I helped the Old Guys (I'm a youngster there!) work on the "Coke Machine", which is this beautifully built rack of equipment (Hughes Aircraft in Irvine, CA built it) that basically a switching matrix to route secure and non-secure communications around the ship.

I ponied up for a big 24VDC power supply so they could get parts of it working, but ALL of the circuit cards were pulled from it while it was in the Mothball Fleet, as it's a system still in use.

None of it's classified, and we're having a hard time finding stuff for it.

Anybody have any "1149570 TIM Manual Patch Cards", or "1149565 LIM Manual Patch Card" spares just sitting around?

Sure would make it easier to set up the manual patches we need to make so we can route audio from the "Red Phones" to and from the Radio Room and Transmitter Room.......

A Little Rainy Day Music

By Bachman Turner Overdrive.

This is one of their lesser know songs.

Has some really nice guitar work.

Enjoy!

Rain!

And boy, we need it!

It started raining about 0500 this morning, and is supposed to keep up through Wednesday morning.

So far it's been a nice, steady rain, with the rain gauge showing .39" since this storm began, but it's starting to pool in all the low spots in the backyard, and the scanner has a lot of traffic about road closures due to flooding.

No word on any mud slides, though.

And the dog, who doesn't like to go out in the rain, is in "Max Bladder Hold Mode" right now. She'll go scratch at the door, I'll open it, and she sticks her head out the door, looks up at me, and heads back in the house.

As soon as it beaks a bit, I'll grab her and get her to go out, whether she likes it or not.

AND, we're up to .93" since midnight, which is quite a bit for us to get all at once.

Visio 2010 Is A MAJOR PITA!!

God, I can't believe how freaking AWFUL this software is.

I've been using Visio for over 10 years, I've mad over 100 drawings with it, and it seems like every single time I stop using it for a few weeks, I have to learn it all over again.

Even doing something simple like changing the default line weight is cumbersome, and the changes you make don't carry over to the individual stencils/shapes stored in your library.

The earlier versions at least had the menus laid out in a logical manner, but nooooo, that wasn't good enough for Micro$oft, and they changed everything around, and I can't find sh1t in their newer structure.

IfI have to bang my head against the keyboard until Its bloody learning this POS software again, I'll just take the time to learn one of the Linux vector drawing programs I have, as they don't change things around on a whim.

Either that or I'll just make the damn drawings by hand, scan them, and convert them to a pdf for distribution.

Gawd.......what a pain this little project has become!

UPDATE

Did the entire project in about 35 minutes using "gschem" on my Linux box, and I'd never used the program before.

It reminds me a lot of the free software (Windoze only) that PCBExpress gives you to do your boards.

Since this will be hand-wired, and I don't need boards produced, I just wanted a nice looking schematic to go into the operating manual.

The project is an interface board from a sound card on a PC to a Kenwood HF radio so we can do "Digital Modes" on the Iowa.

Here's a copy of the schematic, but it didn't render very cleanly when I did a quickie rendering from PostScript to PNG format.

Rain On The Way....YAY!

Heavy overcast this morning, and I can smell rain on the wind.

NOAA forecast is for scattered showers today and tonight, haevy rain starting Monday night through Wednesday morning.

We sure need the rain, and hopefully we'll have a wet winter.

It's been extremely dry out here the last 5 years or so, and the reservoirs are down to their lowest levels in 20 years.

This afternoon's satellite view:

Happy Thanksgiving

Hope you all have a very Happy Thanksgiving!

Fairly Quiet Out Here In La-La Land

Been listening to scanner most of the night.

Well, actually THREE scanners.

One is set up to scan most everything out here.

One is set up to scan the "Media" frequency assignment, which are those channels the news crews and news choppers use.

And one to scan just the stuff for Long Beach and Signal Hill.

Why three?

Well, the "main" scanner has so many channels to scan that it might stop on something trivial, like a call about a burglar alarm, and miss something big, like a "peaceful protest" that turns ugly.

The "Media" scanner is interesting, as these guys talk to each other the way you and I would, and don't pull any punches about what's going on.

And the "Local" scanner, since it has fewer channels to scan, can rip through the entire channel list in nothing flat, and not miss anything close by.

So far the only signs of Bad Shit going on is the chatter on the LAPD and LASD channels about groups of people throwing stuff on to cars from freeway overpasses.

There are several "large crowds" marching around, but other than the people tossing stuff from overpasses, I'd say it's relatively quiet.

There has been an unusual amount of radio traffic down in the port area, though. Mostly vehicle stops, and most of the people stopped are from out of the area, so not sure if that means anything.....

Beem Busy Again.....

Had a ton of yard work to do this last week, along with doing some "deep cleaning" of various parts of the house, as we're having guests over for Thanksgiving.

And I dug out, scrubbed up, and tested some older radio gear that I'm giving to a friend who's just about ready to take his General Class Amateur Radio exam.

The gear is a complete Yaesu FT-310 with power supply/speaker, microphone, and an external VFO that was entrusted to me by my buddy The Wandering Minstrel, with the promise to him that's find it a good home.

This isn't the radio, but it's representative of the model type.

And the soon-to-be General Class ham was thrilled to get it, and thanked me profusely.

I mowed the back yard with my little electric mower, edged the driveway and walkways, and used the weed whacker to get all the stuff along the side of the house that the mower can't get.

I went to Home Depot and got six BIG bags of black dirt (next time I think I just have a half truckload delivered!), and filled in a bunch of low spots, and seeded/watered the areas. And I put out stakes with string between them and strips of yellow caution tape hanging on the string to keep Pebbles The Wonder Dog from "exploring" these new areas.

A couple of shouts of "NO!" has convinced her (so far) to keep away from them.

I really let the back yard "go to seed" this last year, hardly watering it, and it died out in big sections. When we had Swisher, he and Pebbles would chase each other around the yard, chewing up the dead grass, leaving bare spots that turned into mini-dust-bowls, so hopefully with some fresh dirt and grass seed, it will come back this winter.

Sad Puppy!

Well, Little Miss Pebbles had a vet visit on Monday.

She's had a mild case of conjunctivitis, which we thought cleared up from the eye drops given to us at the previous vet visit, but it came back, this time in both her eyes.

And she has these "bumps" on her back that look like insect bites, very unusual for this time of year here. I spray the back yard twice a year for fleas, ticks, and other critters, and we use Advantage flea treatment on her, so we weren't sure what was going on.

And the day before I took her back in, she started licking her left front paw, and would pull it back from me when I went to look at it.

Time to go see Dr. Grain over at the Evening Pet Clinic again!

I can't say enough good things about the pet clinic. They really care about their little furry (and feathered!) patients there, and treat you like family when you show up.

After I checked in and was waiting, I noticed on of the nails on her left paw seemed to be red, maybe bleeding a bit, and then I remembered what had happened several days before.

I was bringing in a bunch of stuff from the car, and couldn't see where my big feet were going, and stepped on one of her front paws! Normally this hasn't been a problem, as she's quicker on her feet than I am on mine, and the carpet cushions it some.

Well, this time I stepped on her when she was right at the door, on the hardwood entry area. She didn't yelp or cry or anything, and I dropped what I was doing and called her back, She wasn't limping, and didn't seem to be in any pain, so I apologized to her (apologize to a dog?) and didn't think much of it.

When I hoisted her up to the exam table. though, the Doctor and I immediately noticed one of her nails was broken right where the fur stops and the nail begins.

SO, he removed the broken nail, swabbed the area with Providone Iodine, and wrapped it up, saying to leave it covered for 5 days so it would "seal up" and not get infected.

And then we put "The Cone" on her, to (TRY and) keep her from licking/chewing/tearing off the bandage on the paw.

And the good Doctor says the bumps are most likely allergies to some type of insect bite, and to give a Benadryl twice a day.

So, here she is looking a bit upset over having a bandaged foot, AND a cone her.

Poor puppy.....

Belated Happy Veteran's Day

To all who have served, and are currently serving....

You my have deepest gratitude and respect for your service to our country.

I had a post scheduled, but must have messed something up, as it didn't post.

I would have posted this morning, but I spent the entire day on the Iowa helping with tours, and assisting a film crew, but mostly operating NI6BB.

We had a very nice memorial service and wreath ceremony this morning at 0900, before the ship opened to the public.

And since there's a film crew aboard, some of the tour route was changed, resulting in a few people getting "lost" a bit, and having to be shepherded back onto the tour route, and out of the areas not normally open to the public.

When I got to the starboard side hatch for the Communications Center this morning, the hatch was closed, but not dogged.

I didn't realize how heavy the hatch was, having never opened it before. It swings easily on the hinges, but has a lot of mass, so getting it moving, and stopping it again, took a bit of muscle.


Hope y'all had a great day!

Putin's Motorcade

Shamelessly swiped from Western Rifle Shooters.

No description required.....

Saturday Relaxation

Did all the yard work yesterday, except for trimming the tree in the backyard. The damn thing grows like a weed, and I'm going to have to rent a chipper to grind up what I'm going to lop off it.

Wife has a friend staying with us, so I also cleaned house Thursday and Friday. Had to put the dog outside while I ran "Mr. Kirby", or she goes nutso chasing it around.

So today I'm just kicking back tinkering on some radio gear that's been waiting to get on the bench so I can clean it up, check it out, and sell it on eBay. Over the last 5 years or so I've been grabbing radios at good prices, and stashing them in the garage, bagged up so they don't get all critterfied. I've got about 35 out there, with a total investment (so far) of bout $1800. Add another couple of hundred bucks for parts they might need (tubes and electrolytic/paper capacitor replacements) and I've got about $2k in them.  Considering their total worth once I'm done with them is about $10k, it's a nice way to pick up some additional cash to support my hobbies.

Project for the next few weeks is to get the garage cleaned up and sorted out so I have enough room to get the Supra in there for the winter.

I really don't want to leave a rust-free 1980's Toyota outside for the rainy season. They have a tendency to want to return to Mother Earth if they start getting soaking wet for long periods of time!

We Made Them An Offer They Couldn't Refuse

Well, way too early to tell if the election yesterday will have much effect on restoring our Constitutional Republic, but I found this cartoon a bit amusing.

I Voted

And so did my sweet wife.

I'm not sure how much good it does to vote conservative out here in Kommifornia, but hopefully our two votes canceled out two from the moochers and looters.....

Pardon Me While I "Take Five".......

Spent all day Wednesday on the Iowa troubleshooting a receiver/coupler/antenna issue, and then all day Thursday and Friday down at the Maritime Museum repairing the Amateur Radio station located on the second floor.

A week or so ago we had an Icom PS-30 power supply that went casters up, so one of my friends and I replaced it with an Astron RS-35. The original power supply had been installed almost 30 years ago when the station was built, so we definitely got our money's worth!

After we pulled the operating bench away from the wall, we were horrified at the state of the wiring. Cables had been run without any regard to wire management, and were crisscrossed every which way, and many were tangled knots of AC power, DC power, Coax, and control cables.

We also had FIVE plug strips that were daisy-chained all along the floor.

First order of business was to remove everything, trace it back, and label both ends of the cables. Then we mounted a Rig Runner DC distribution block, installed Power Pole connectors on all the DC leads, and remove all the plug strips.

There were already four plug strips mounted under the bench, and connected to master switches on one end of the operating bench, but I guess it was just easier to run new ones than use the existing ones.

All the AC distribution wiring was cleaned up, all the AC plugs were labeled, the existing (old) plug strips were labeled, and many feet of jumbled up coax and control cables were shortened, coiled up, and labeled.

And we also removed the original barrier strip that was used to distribute the DC power from the defunct power supply.

The original installation, modified (poorly!) over the last 30 years, would definitely be on my top five "World's Worst Wiring Kluges".

So it's finished, and I made up a nice 11"x17" Visio drawing to go into the station operating manual, and the archives we keep detailing (usually!) the modifications made over the years.

So pardon me while I kick back and "Take Five".......

Haloween Weirdness

While passing out the candy tonight, I had my Home Patrol scanner on so I could keep up with police activity.

While I didn't catch the area where this was going on, it definitely falls into the "YGTBSM" category.....

A guy wearing a hockey mask, and wielding a chainsaw, was chasing Trick-or-Treaters around!

I wouldn't have believed it if I hadn't heard the frantic scramble by the cops to find the guy......

BOOOOOO! Happy Halloween!

For your scary viewing pleasure I present THRILLER!

Say whatever you will about Michael Jackson, he sure was talented.

Antares Launch Failure

This was the first flight of the Anatres Launch Vehicle using a new Russian built engine.

The vehicle and the Cygnus CRS automated cargo spacecraft were carrying just under 5000 pounds of supplies to the International Space Station, along with a whole bunch of "cubesats" for deployment

The engines are shipped to the US, and modified by Aerojet for the launch vehicle.

I've watched the video several times (and watched "other" videos of it), and it appears to be either a nozzle or perhaps a turbopump failure. If you watch the exhaust plume, you cab see a significant brightening and change of shape right before the vehicle explodes.

This is a major setback for Orbital Sciences, and the loss of almost 5000 pounds of supplies and experiments for the ISS.








And here's a very interesting aerial view:

Make Him Own It.......

As usual, Mr. Whittle makes perfect sense.

Get out there on November 4th and VOTE!

But then I doubt if any of the people who stop by here need to be told that.....

70th Anniversary of the Battle Off Samar

 

"In no engagement of its entire history has the United States Navy shown more gallantry, guts and gumption than in those two morning hours between 0730 and 0930 off Samar"

— Samuel Eliot Morison, History of United States Naval Operations in World War II, Volume XII, Leyte

Undoubtedly one of the most lopsided Naval battles in history.

6 escort carriers, 4 destroyer escorts, and 3 destroyers held off twenty-three ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy, some outweighing them by over thirty times!

The incredible story of Taffy 3 was published in "The Last Stand of the Tin Can Sailors" by James D. Hornfisher, and it's a gripping read.

The Battle Off Samar was part of the Leyte Gulf Campaign, and was the end of an operational Japanese Navy.

The story of Taffy 3 has also been covered on The History Channel, and The Military Channel.

For a detailed review of this Naval action, please go read the entire Wikipedia entry. It's just an amazing story of bravery and courage.

One of the Iowa volunteer crew was on the USS Hoel, the first American ship to be sunk, and I'm looking forward to meeting him.

New Phone

Well, my trusty AndroidX has been slooowly dying these last few months, and last night it finally got so bad I decided ti junk it.

The trade-in allowance was only $5, and it's worth more than that to me as a sledgehammer target after all the aggravation it's caused the last few months.

The touch screen was getting very hard to use and unresponsive, making it very hard to dial out or return a call. Last night it started ringing, and I was busy, so I ignored it. Looking at the incoming calls, I saw it was a friend of mine, so I spent about 10 minutes ( ! ) trying to call him back before I gave up. He called me back about 10 minutes later! I thought the call never connected, but it did, and when he asked what I needed, and I told him I was returning his call of 20 minutes earlier, he said he hadn't called me all day.

So, I went down to the Verizon store last night, signed in, and waited.

And waited.

And waited.

After about 45 minutes, I threw in the towel, and came home. The new Galaxy Note 4 went on sale last night, and the place was a zoo. I spent my waiting time looking at all the phones, and decided on a Galaxy S5, which I went back and got this morning.

Took about 20 minutes in-and-out, so that's one of the bennies from being "unemployed", and being able to do my shopping during the day.

I haven't played with it much as I want it to fully charge, and I'm busy reading how to root it so I can uninstall all the crapware it come with, and have FULL control over the GPS and camera/microphone functions.

When this one wears out, I'm going to seriously look into just getting a TracFone!

Inert 16"/50 Caliber Shells on the Battleship Iowa

Had a good day (as usual!) on the Iowa today. We gave the commercial radio test for the Marine Radio Operators Permit to two people, who both passed with 100%.

Then I took some pictures of the Inert 16"/50 caliber rounds, and went "back to work" on the AN/URR-74(V)2 radio receivers.

One of them appears to have a problem on the -15 Volt buss, as the regulator mounted on the back panel of the radio is getting too hot to touch after being powered on for 10~15 minutes. The encoder for the main tuning also has a problem, as no matter which way you turn the knob, the frequency increases. One of the other guys in the Gray Radio Group knows what the problem is, so it's on the punch list for that particular radio, along with troubleshooting what's making the regulator get so hot.



Here's a better view of the stacks of pallets with the shells:

And here's how they're packed, two per pallet:

Here's the label on the end of the pallet stating the weight. Since each shell weighs 1,900 lbs, the weight of a High Explosive shell, this would indicate that the pallet alone weighs 450 lbs:

Off to the end of the stacked pallets is this Shell Carrier. I'm sure there's a more correct name for it, but I don't know what it might be. I don't know if we already had this, or if it came with the shells:

The Rotating Band, which engages the rifling in the barrel, has sure seen better days:

And there's some damage to where the band is attached to the shell. It almost looks like it was deliberately cut away:

Some stenciling on one of the shells:

The pallet stack as seen from the other side. We sure did get a bunch of these:

I have no idea what this equipment is for:

Nameplate on the above equipment:

Looks like this one was NOT "Handled With Care":

Here's another one that tried to escape:

Here's some close-ups of the Rotating Band:

The tip of the shell:

Some markings on the strapping. 1947, maybe?:

Markings on the pallet itself:

And since I was outside, and it was a beautiful day, here's one of the whaleboats, and our BIG forklift:

The whaleboat's helm:

Not sure what these numbers mean, but they're not stenciled on; they're cut into the hull:

Always good to spend a day on the Iowa. I found out the other day one of the volunteers was on the USS Hoel during The Battle Off Samar.

I'm going to have to meet him!

Tuesday Already?

Well, I was out-of-it on Monday. Had some kind of stomach bug, and spent most of the day either in bed, or in the bathroom.

Feel a bunch better today.

I'll be taking my camera with me tomorrow and get some pix of the dummy shells at the Iowa.

Also have two commercial radio exams to help with, and we'll be doing some performance testing on the receivers in Radio Central.

Always good to spend a day on the Iowa, almost as good as spending a day at the range!

What a Drone Can See From 17,500 Feet

Pretty damn impressive.

And "they" say they have no idea what was going on at Benghazi.....