My stepson's girlfriend is from the Colorado Springs area, and her parents had to evacuate their farm last week.
WELL.....she got the news today that their place is a total loss.
Her Mom, Dad, brothers, sisters, and the dogs and livestock are OK as they moved all that over the weekend. but the rest of their stuff is gone.
Thankfully, her parents carried a lot of insurance, as her Dad also ran his construction business and Christmas tree farm from that location, but she told me today very little is left.
If any 'good' can come out of a personal tragedy like this, it should be a sobering reminder to document all your "stuff" that wouldn't ordinarily be covered by your homeowner's insurance.
Serial numbers, descriptions, and photographs, and keep them in a safe place away from your home.
And if you have unusual items that aren't specifically listed in a rider on your homeowner's insurance, make sure you get supplemental insurance to cover them.
I'm right now in the process of documenting all my radio gear and test equipment, "Just In Case".
Monday, June 11, 2012
Saturday, June 9, 2012
GROAN.....Finally Home
They (Da Management) posted our ETA at the Pilot Station three different times today, NONE of which were accurate.
Hit the Pilot Station at 1830, but they didn't get us tied up and drop the gangway until 2030. This is about an HOUR longer than 'normal'.
I swear, Longshoremen are the epitome of "I get paid by the hour".
Then, nobody told the marine crew we'd need a basket lift to get our luggage off the ship, so that was another 30 minutes.
And of course, my stuff was in the last load to be brought down.
Got home about 2200, and after I spend a few minutes winding down, I'm hittin' they hay!
See you all tomorrow.....
Hit the Pilot Station at 1830, but they didn't get us tied up and drop the gangway until 2030. This is about an HOUR longer than 'normal'.
I swear, Longshoremen are the epitome of "I get paid by the hour".
Then, nobody told the marine crew we'd need a basket lift to get our luggage off the ship, so that was another 30 minutes.
And of course, my stuff was in the last load to be brought down.
Got home about 2200, and after I spend a few minutes winding down, I'm hittin' they hay!
See you all tomorrow.....
Friday, June 8, 2012
About 30 Hours Out....
We're at 29*40'N, 127*W @ 19knots.
ETA at Home Port is approx 1800 on Saturday.
Can barely wait to get off the ship, and back home......
ETA at Home Port is approx 1800 on Saturday.
Can barely wait to get off the ship, and back home......
Thursday, June 7, 2012
The Union Creek Journal
Wonderful story, well written. I found it via a link posted by the good guys at the Western Rifle Shooters Association.
The site itself it a great one, but read the Journal in chronological order, then look at the rest.
Amazingly well done.
The site itself it a great one, but read the Journal in chronological order, then look at the rest.
Amazingly well done.
Monday, June 4, 2012
Quiet Night Off Hilo.....
Our Bell 212 took off about 45 minutes ago to take a sick passenger to Hilo. We're sitting about 12 miles off the coast on Dynamic Positioning waiting for them to return so we can get headed back to our Home Port in Long Beach.
There's some big whoop-de-dos going on in the bar tonight, but since I don't do bars anymore, it's a nice quiet time to sit at my desk and watch a movie.
Tonight's feature is "Ghost In The Shell 2.0" in Blu-Ray. I brought this one, and "Ghost In The Shell: Innocence" with me, which I watched Sunday afternoon. I think "Innocence" is a better movie as it goes into the characters more, but the first one is a classic, and I do loves my "classic" movies.
I also brought the entire collection of "Miami Vice" with me, but I'm a bit frazzled on those after getting through the first two seasons over the weekend!
Our re-revised ETA at Home Port is sometime Sunday, but we'll get a better ETA as we get closer to home.
There's some big whoop-de-dos going on in the bar tonight, but since I don't do bars anymore, it's a nice quiet time to sit at my desk and watch a movie.
Tonight's feature is "Ghost In The Shell 2.0" in Blu-Ray. I brought this one, and "Ghost In The Shell: Innocence" with me, which I watched Sunday afternoon. I think "Innocence" is a better movie as it goes into the characters more, but the first one is a classic, and I do loves my "classic" movies.
I also brought the entire collection of "Miami Vice" with me, but I'm a bit frazzled on those after getting through the first two seasons over the weekend!
Our re-revised ETA at Home Port is sometime Sunday, but we'll get a better ETA as we get closer to home.
Ten Interesting Facts.....
2) Only in America could people claim that the government still discriminates against black Americans when we have a black President, a black Attorney General, and roughly 18% of the federal workforce is black. 12% of the population is black.
3) Only in America could we have had the two people most responsible for our tax code, Timothy Geithner, the head of the Treasury Department and Charles Rangel who once ran the Ways and Means Committee, BOTH turn out to be tax cheats who are in favor of higher taxes.
4) Only in America can we have terrorists kill people in the name of Allah and have the media primarily react by fretting that Muslims might be harmed by the backlash.
5) Only in America would we make people who want to legally become American citizens wait for years in their home countries and pay tens of thousands of dollars for the privilege while we discuss letting anyone who sneaks into the country illegally just become American citizens.
6) Only in America could the people who believe in balancing the budget and sticking by the country's Constitution be thought of as "extremists."
7) Only in America could you need to present a driver's license to cash a check or buy alcohol, but not to vote.
8) Only in America could people demand the government investigate whether oil companies are gouging the public because the price of gas went up when the return on equity invested in a major U.S. oil company (Marathon Oil) is less than half of a company making tennis shoes (Nike).
9) Only in America could the government collect more tax dollars from the people than any nation in recorded history, still spend a trillion dollars more than it has per year for total spending of $7 million PER MINUTE, and complain that it doesn't have nearly enough money.
10) Only in America could the rich people who pay 86% of all income taxes be accused of not paying their "fair share" by people who don't pay any income taxes at all.
Saturday, June 2, 2012
Short Wave Radio At Sea
Even though I haven't be able to get a Reciprocal Operating Permit from the country where our ship is flagged, I do bring my little Grundig G3 shortwave receiver with me. On days like today, I enjoy going out on deck and tuning around the bands to 'see' what I can 'hear'. This weekend is Museum Ships Weekend, and I was able to hear KH6BB, onboard the U.S.S. Missouri anchored in Pearl Harbor. I'm going to send them a reception report, with an SASE, of course, and hope they get a kick out of being heard from 4*17'N, 149*43'W.
We're chugging along at 19 knots, and hopefully will be back in Home Port next Saturday the 9th.
I'll miss my YF's birthday, but I ordered her some of her favorite flowers from ProFlowers.com, the BEST place I've ever dealt with when it comes to sending floral arrangements.
The little Grundig is a better radio than I expected. It has Synchronous Detection for AM use, which helps eliminate fading, and although it has 1kHz tuning steps, the fine tuning control has a greater than 1kHz range, making it very easy to tune in SSB.
It also receives standard AM broadcast, FM stereo (with headphones), Aircraft Band, and has most of the standard Shortwave Bands available at the touch of a button.
Pleasant little radio for under $100, and would make a good addition to your bug out/emergency kit.
We're chugging along at 19 knots, and hopefully will be back in Home Port next Saturday the 9th.
I'll miss my YF's birthday, but I ordered her some of her favorite flowers from ProFlowers.com, the BEST place I've ever dealt with when it comes to sending floral arrangements.
The little Grundig is a better radio than I expected. It has Synchronous Detection for AM use, which helps eliminate fading, and although it has 1kHz tuning steps, the fine tuning control has a greater than 1kHz range, making it very easy to tune in SSB.
It also receives standard AM broadcast, FM stereo (with headphones), Aircraft Band, and has most of the standard Shortwave Bands available at the touch of a button.
Pleasant little radio for under $100, and would make a good addition to your bug out/emergency kit.
Friday, June 1, 2012
Successful Launch
Launched right on time, successful spacecraft separation, and successful spacecraft acquisition.
We'll pack up and stow our stuff Friday, and head for home.
We'll pack up and stow our stuff Friday, and head for home.
Thursday, May 31, 2012
Wednesday, May 30, 2012
Tuesday, May 29, 2012
Monday, May 28, 2012
Sunday, May 27, 2012
We've Arrived
Actually got here sometime last night/early this morning.
Won't be posting much while I'm here due to "Employer Paranoia".
I'll try and come up with some other topics when I have time.
Won't be posting much while I'm here due to "Employer Paranoia".
I'll try and come up with some other topics when I have time.
Thursday, May 24, 2012
Bullit Points
If you're a fan of "Bullit" with Steve McQueen, I think you'll find this little 99 cent download very interesting.
And best of all, ALL of the proceeds go to Steve's favorite organization, The Boys Republic, in Chino, California.
The Boys republic is the place McQueen went to during his somewhat troubled youth, and he creits them with turning his life around.
Get it here: http://www.bullittpoints.com/
And best of all, ALL of the proceeds go to Steve's favorite organization, The Boys Republic, in Chino, California.
The Boys republic is the place McQueen went to during his somewhat troubled youth, and he creits them with turning his life around.
Get it here: http://www.bullittpoints.com/
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
Day 5 At Sea
Reporting from 10*13'N, 143*26'W, 19.2kts.
Had our second rehearsal today, the one where they throw all the faults, failures, and 'anomalies' at us.
We came through with flying colors, as usual.
We're supposed to catch up with the launch platform around 0300 or so, and then we'll steam along with them down to the launch site at a leisurely 11kts or so. We'll do all our systems checks using our line-of-site microwave links, and run the last rehearsal.
Then it's one day to set up, one day to launch, one day to tear down, and head for home.
Just hanging out in my cube tonight watching "Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex".
Was going through a link a Ham buddy sent me, and I found a QSL card from the guy that taught me Morse Code oh so many years ago. Cel was quite a guy. He had served many years as a shipboard Radio Officer, and could talk to you, smoke a cigarette, drink a cup of coffee, and carry on a conversation in CW at 20+ wpm on the radio.
Quite a guy........
Had our second rehearsal today, the one where they throw all the faults, failures, and 'anomalies' at us.
We came through with flying colors, as usual.
We're supposed to catch up with the launch platform around 0300 or so, and then we'll steam along with them down to the launch site at a leisurely 11kts or so. We'll do all our systems checks using our line-of-site microwave links, and run the last rehearsal.
Then it's one day to set up, one day to launch, one day to tear down, and head for home.
Just hanging out in my cube tonight watching "Ghost In The Shell: Stand Alone Complex".
Was going through a link a Ham buddy sent me, and I found a QSL card from the guy that taught me Morse Code oh so many years ago. Cel was quite a guy. He had served many years as a shipboard Radio Officer, and could talk to you, smoke a cigarette, drink a cup of coffee, and carry on a conversation in CW at 20+ wpm on the radio.
Tuesday, May 22, 2012
Quiet Day At Sea
Reporting from 15*50'N, 137*28'W
Well....we're about half-way to the launch site. The weather's been cloudy, and over the next day or two we'll be going through the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a.k.a "The Doldrums".
This means we'll hit some rain, sometimes quite heavy, but no particular "storms" to mention.
Had our safety training on boarding/unboarding the helicopter, and a few other things. One of the pilots giving the life vest part actually pulled the ring so we could see how fast they inflate, and how big they got. Seems if you pop one open, you'll have some trouble getting out through the window, which you push out to act as the emergency exit if things get so bad as to require a water "landing". The Bell 212 we have onboard is equipped with floats, BUT if you slide the doors open, they slice into the floats, a definite Bad Thing!
One really good thing they did when this ship was in drydock a couple of months ago was to polish and rebalance the propeller. For the first time at-sea, the vibration level is very low, and things don't rattle around in our office area, which is at the stern of the ship.
Not much else going on for now. We'll get insanely busy the closer we get to the launch site, so we're all enjoying the time to relax for now.
Well....we're about half-way to the launch site. The weather's been cloudy, and over the next day or two we'll be going through the Intertropical Convergence Zone, a.k.a "The Doldrums".
This means we'll hit some rain, sometimes quite heavy, but no particular "storms" to mention.
Had our safety training on boarding/unboarding the helicopter, and a few other things. One of the pilots giving the life vest part actually pulled the ring so we could see how fast they inflate, and how big they got. Seems if you pop one open, you'll have some trouble getting out through the window, which you push out to act as the emergency exit if things get so bad as to require a water "landing". The Bell 212 we have onboard is equipped with floats, BUT if you slide the doors open, they slice into the floats, a definite Bad Thing!
One really good thing they did when this ship was in drydock a couple of months ago was to polish and rebalance the propeller. For the first time at-sea, the vibration level is very low, and things don't rattle around in our office area, which is at the stern of the ship.
Not much else going on for now. We'll get insanely busy the closer we get to the launch site, so we're all enjoying the time to relax for now.
Sunday, May 20, 2012
May 2012 Annular Eclipse At Sea
Reporting from 26*43'N, 125*28'W
WELL....nobody thought to bring any solar filters, so we're all being very careful, and only looking at the Sun when it's partially obscured by clouds.
There's a big bite out of the Sun, and it's noticeably darker than normal for this time of day.
Other than that, no excitement, nothing to report. The seas are calm, and we're only rolling a little bit.
I mad a BIG mistake yesterday by having too much for lunch, and it caught up to me about dinner time. My first day out I get a little queasy, so I eat light, and try to take an afternoon nap.
Didn't do either this time, and by 7PM I wasn't feeling too crisp. Climbed in my bunk about 8pm, read for an hour, and then s;ept for about 12 hours!
I'm reading "Iron Eagle" by Thomas Coffey, and out of the three books I bought about General Curtis LeMay, I think it's the best.
I do a post about LeMay in the next week or so, after I've finished "Iron Eagle", and "Mission With LeMay", which is his biography. He's a very different man than the press, and unfortunately history, portray him as. He NEVER said "Bomb Them Back To The Stone Age", although that quote is often attributed to him. It actually came from "Mission With LeMay", and was fabricated by his ghost writer, MacKinlay Kantor. LeMay was in the middle of many things at the time his "biography" was being written, and didn't proof read it as completely as he should have. He later stated that he regretted not being more careful about what went in to the book, and as a result, a lot of misconceptions abound about him.
That's it for tonight. Going to watch a DVD, and hit the hay.
WELL....nobody thought to bring any solar filters, so we're all being very careful, and only looking at the Sun when it's partially obscured by clouds.
There's a big bite out of the Sun, and it's noticeably darker than normal for this time of day.
Other than that, no excitement, nothing to report. The seas are calm, and we're only rolling a little bit.
I mad a BIG mistake yesterday by having too much for lunch, and it caught up to me about dinner time. My first day out I get a little queasy, so I eat light, and try to take an afternoon nap.
Didn't do either this time, and by 7PM I wasn't feeling too crisp. Climbed in my bunk about 8pm, read for an hour, and then s;ept for about 12 hours!
I'm reading "Iron Eagle" by Thomas Coffey, and out of the three books I bought about General Curtis LeMay, I think it's the best.
I do a post about LeMay in the next week or so, after I've finished "Iron Eagle", and "Mission With LeMay", which is his biography. He's a very different man than the press, and unfortunately history, portray him as. He NEVER said "Bomb Them Back To The Stone Age", although that quote is often attributed to him. It actually came from "Mission With LeMay", and was fabricated by his ghost writer, MacKinlay Kantor. LeMay was in the middle of many things at the time his "biography" was being written, and didn't proof read it as completely as he should have. He later stated that he regretted not being more careful about what went in to the book, and as a result, a lot of misconceptions abound about him.
That's it for tonight. Going to watch a DVD, and hit the hay.
Saturday, May 19, 2012
Ready, Set, GO!
Just shutting things down for the night. I have to pick up a buddy (ex Airborne Ranger, two terms in Nam) that I work with in the morning, and then off we go!
Y'all be good now, hear?
Y'all be good now, hear?
Thursday, May 17, 2012
Finishing My Preps To Get Underway
Took in my laptop, backpack full of DVD's, camera, and lenses this week.
Packing my rolling duffle tonight, and I'll drag that onboard tomorrow, as I hate waiting for the luggage lift they do.
Friday night I'm the auctioneer at my radio club's "White Elephant Sale" where we raise money for Field Day, and I don't want to be bothered with any support functions Saturday morning when I board the ship, so I'm 95% ready-to-go.
If the launch goes off on time, I should be back on June 9th.
The 870 is cleaned and loaded with low recoil 00 buck, and my YF and stepson know how to use it.
Her TRR8 357 is cleaned and loaded, and she also has three speed loaders ready to go.
And she knows how to use them all.
I think I can sleep soundly, knowing there's a bit of firepower readily available, along with our two 80 pound dogs......
Packing my rolling duffle tonight, and I'll drag that onboard tomorrow, as I hate waiting for the luggage lift they do.
Friday night I'm the auctioneer at my radio club's "White Elephant Sale" where we raise money for Field Day, and I don't want to be bothered with any support functions Saturday morning when I board the ship, so I'm 95% ready-to-go.
If the launch goes off on time, I should be back on June 9th.
The 870 is cleaned and loaded with low recoil 00 buck, and my YF and stepson know how to use it.
Her TRR8 357 is cleaned and loaded, and she also has three speed loaders ready to go.
And she knows how to use them all.
I think I can sleep soundly, knowing there's a bit of firepower readily available, along with our two 80 pound dogs......
Monday, May 14, 2012
Food Preps..."A Week In A Bucket"
I'll be the first to admit that my (our) long-term food storage preps could use a little more finesse.
Water?
Check!
Purifier?
Check!
First Aid?
Check! (courtesy of my son the EMT)
Communications? (you're kidding, right?)
CHECK!
Food?.....Food??......FOOD?!?
Uh, here, sir....kinda.
We have several cases of MRE's, a couple of cases of various canned meats, a couple of cases of soups and such, and a LOT of those fancy freeze-dried "camping" type meals that I bought when I was single, and before I knew better.
I've considered buying some of those "#10 cans" of stuff from the various purveyors of such, but what do you DO with all that stuff once you have it?
Lacking a plan on how to sort/organize/store/use it, I did what most people do.
Nothing......
WELL.....I stumbled across this article over at Mr. Rawles' place, and I'm stoopified at how simple it is.
You make up a week's worth of balanced meals (7 breakfast, 7 lunch, 7 dinner) out of all the stuff you've accumulated, and pack it away into "A Week In A Bucket", and store the buckets until needed.
Makes a pretty good grab-and-go, eat-for-a-week bug-out item, too.
Remarkably simple, and an excellent example of the kind of clear-headed, logical thinking that can save your butt when TSHTF.
.
Water?
Check!
Purifier?
Check!
First Aid?
Check! (courtesy of my son the EMT)
Communications? (you're kidding, right?)
CHECK!
Food?.....Food??......FOOD?!?
Uh, here, sir....kinda.
We have several cases of MRE's, a couple of cases of various canned meats, a couple of cases of soups and such, and a LOT of those fancy freeze-dried "camping" type meals that I bought when I was single, and before I knew better.
I've considered buying some of those "#10 cans" of stuff from the various purveyors of such, but what do you DO with all that stuff once you have it?
Lacking a plan on how to sort/organize/store/use it, I did what most people do.
Nothing......
WELL.....I stumbled across this article over at Mr. Rawles' place, and I'm stoopified at how simple it is.
You make up a week's worth of balanced meals (7 breakfast, 7 lunch, 7 dinner) out of all the stuff you've accumulated, and pack it away into "A Week In A Bucket", and store the buckets until needed.
Makes a pretty good grab-and-go, eat-for-a-week bug-out item, too.
Remarkably simple, and an excellent example of the kind of clear-headed, logical thinking that can save your butt when TSHTF.
.
Saturday, May 12, 2012
High-Performance HF Transceiver Design
From EDN Online.
It's an excellent article that describes the State-Of-The-Current-Art in radio design.
I'd expand on the article a bit more, but I'm too tired to care about much tonight.......
It's an excellent article that describes the State-Of-The-Current-Art in radio design.
I'd expand on the article a bit more, but I'm too tired to care about much tonight.......
Friday, May 11, 2012
Too Tired To Blog.....
As is usual, the last week of activity before we depart on a launch mission is brutal, with 10~12 hour days common. Tomorrow (Saturday) I'll be going in for another 10 hour day, and Sunday will be at least (on the books, anyway) 12 hours. We had planned some testing with the customer today, but they weren't in! Seems they found it necessary to take a day off "To spend time with their families before departing on the voyage".
And us?
We'll keep chugging along to the beat of the schedule drum with NO time off for our families.
I'm getting too old for this stuff, and when I turn 62 next year I'm seriously going to consider retiring, if the economy hasn't gone completely to shit by then, and I can afford to.
Taking the YF out for a quiet dinner tonight, as I won't be here all day Sunday, Mother's Day, and probably won't get back home until she's fast asleep.
BTW.....Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there!
*NONE* of us would be here without you.
And us?
We'll keep chugging along to the beat of the schedule drum with NO time off for our families.
I'm getting too old for this stuff, and when I turn 62 next year I'm seriously going to consider retiring, if the economy hasn't gone completely to shit by then, and I can afford to.
Taking the YF out for a quiet dinner tonight, as I won't be here all day Sunday, Mother's Day, and probably won't get back home until she's fast asleep.
BTW.....Happy Mother's Day to all the Mom's out there!
*NONE* of us would be here without you.
Sunday, May 6, 2012
Chino 2012 Airshow Pictures
As usual, we had a great time hanging out at the Chino Airshow.
The grandstand seats were MUCH better this year, being right on the flight line. Last year they were behind the walkway, and you couldn't really see much from them. They were so bad, in fact, that several times some of the staff came by and told us you could get a refund if you wanted to!
The weather this year was a lot warmer and sunnier than last year. My YF forgot to bring her sunscreen, and even though we took several breaks and sought out some shade, and some nice people sitting next to us offered some sunscreen, she was getting pretty cooked, so we left early, right after the B-25's got airborne.
The Planes of Fame Air Museum is a wonderful place, and if you ever get out to SoCal, it should be on your "Must See" list if you like airplanes. They have so much stuff in storage and on display that you can easily spend a whole weekend there just wandering around.
Stop in at Flo's Airport Cafe for some excellent chow if you make it there!
There's a few "duds" in the pictures, but most of them came out OK. I used my Nikon 80~400mm VR lens, and I'll never take it to an event like this again. It's slow to focus, loses auto-focus easily when you zoom on a moving subject, and is just too heavy to be lugging around all day. It's a very nice lens for what it does, BUT.....I should have taken my 80~200mm lens instead. This lens is one of Nikon's "Professional" line of lenses, being of all metal construction, and has lightning fast auto-focus. Since it was made back when film was king (yes, I still shoot film with my F4 or F100), so when used with a digital camera, it acts more like a 300mm lens, due to what's called "Crop Factor". I'll take the 80~200mm next year.
The planes in the airshow were fairly typical for Chino, but the guy in the little red Team Oracle aerobatic plane had everybody on their feet and cheering. One of the most impressive displays of flying prowess (and power-to-weight ratio!) I've ever seen.
Enjoy the pix!
The grandstand seats were MUCH better this year, being right on the flight line. Last year they were behind the walkway, and you couldn't really see much from them. They were so bad, in fact, that several times some of the staff came by and told us you could get a refund if you wanted to!
The weather this year was a lot warmer and sunnier than last year. My YF forgot to bring her sunscreen, and even though we took several breaks and sought out some shade, and some nice people sitting next to us offered some sunscreen, she was getting pretty cooked, so we left early, right after the B-25's got airborne.
The Planes of Fame Air Museum is a wonderful place, and if you ever get out to SoCal, it should be on your "Must See" list if you like airplanes. They have so much stuff in storage and on display that you can easily spend a whole weekend there just wandering around.
Stop in at Flo's Airport Cafe for some excellent chow if you make it there!
There's a few "duds" in the pictures, but most of them came out OK. I used my Nikon 80~400mm VR lens, and I'll never take it to an event like this again. It's slow to focus, loses auto-focus easily when you zoom on a moving subject, and is just too heavy to be lugging around all day. It's a very nice lens for what it does, BUT.....I should have taken my 80~200mm lens instead. This lens is one of Nikon's "Professional" line of lenses, being of all metal construction, and has lightning fast auto-focus. Since it was made back when film was king (yes, I still shoot film with my F4 or F100), so when used with a digital camera, it acts more like a 300mm lens, due to what's called "Crop Factor". I'll take the 80~200mm next year.
The planes in the airshow were fairly typical for Chino, but the guy in the little red Team Oracle aerobatic plane had everybody on their feet and cheering. One of the most impressive displays of flying prowess (and power-to-weight ratio!) I've ever seen.
Enjoy the pix!
Saturday, May 5, 2012
Airshow
Just got back, and I'm beat. It was a LOT hotter there this year than last, and my poor wife about melted. She can't take much sun, so we left right after the N9M Flying Wing did its act.
Pix later.......
Pix later.......
Thursday, May 3, 2012
Gettin' BUSY At Work
Well, we're all cranked up for the next launch, around the end of May if things stay on-schedule. Spent the last two days debugging the telemetry tracking antenna I normally run, and learning more about it, and it's history, than I knew before.
We found today that the bearing assembly on the spinning feed is "almost shot" (it's got a lot of play in it), and although we can physically move each axis through its range of motion very smoothly (the mechanical stuff seems OK), when we turn on the servos and use the manually position hand wheels, the elevation axis doesn't respond smoothly. It kind of 'bumps and jumps' in response to commands from the Antenna Control Unit.
We're not sure if this is in the servo electronics somewhere, or in the software settings, but it's not right, and either contributed to, or is the cause of, the loss of track we had last mission.
I was on top of it as soon as it broke track, and put it in manual mode so I could get it back on the profile. Since this happened at first stage separation, AND we were running a "strange" flight profile, we didn't give it too much thought until the post mission review of the equipment logs showed some weirdness.
We break auto-track about 25% of the time at one-two staging due to the fact that the retros they use to back the first stage away from the second are solid fuel, and puff out a huge cloud of ionized gas around the launch vehicle, and RF doesn't go through ionized gas very well. It's why there's a communication blackout during reentry. Normally the tracking antenna will "coast" through this loss of signal, and reacquire on it's own, but the last time I had to coax it back to doing it's job, and it just didn't "feel" right.
We have a back up antenna array, but this thing is the darling of the RF Group, warts and all.
Oh, well, we'll either get it fixed, or write a "Use AS-IS" on it, and I'll just have to be really sharp during the launch.
This weekend, the YF and I are going to the Chino Airshow, so I'll post a bunch of pictures like I did last year.
Always an enjoyable event!
We found today that the bearing assembly on the spinning feed is "almost shot" (it's got a lot of play in it), and although we can physically move each axis through its range of motion very smoothly (the mechanical stuff seems OK), when we turn on the servos and use the manually position hand wheels, the elevation axis doesn't respond smoothly. It kind of 'bumps and jumps' in response to commands from the Antenna Control Unit.
We're not sure if this is in the servo electronics somewhere, or in the software settings, but it's not right, and either contributed to, or is the cause of, the loss of track we had last mission.
I was on top of it as soon as it broke track, and put it in manual mode so I could get it back on the profile. Since this happened at first stage separation, AND we were running a "strange" flight profile, we didn't give it too much thought until the post mission review of the equipment logs showed some weirdness.
We break auto-track about 25% of the time at one-two staging due to the fact that the retros they use to back the first stage away from the second are solid fuel, and puff out a huge cloud of ionized gas around the launch vehicle, and RF doesn't go through ionized gas very well. It's why there's a communication blackout during reentry. Normally the tracking antenna will "coast" through this loss of signal, and reacquire on it's own, but the last time I had to coax it back to doing it's job, and it just didn't "feel" right.
We have a back up antenna array, but this thing is the darling of the RF Group, warts and all.
Oh, well, we'll either get it fixed, or write a "Use AS-IS" on it, and I'll just have to be really sharp during the launch.
This weekend, the YF and I are going to the Chino Airshow, so I'll post a bunch of pictures like I did last year.
Always an enjoyable event!
Tuesday, May 1, 2012
May Day Festivities
I haven't had the TeeVee on today, but I do have my scanner up and running, and there are "protests" (that's what the cops are calling them) going on around the L.A. area.
The magnet high-school where my wife works is on the campus of one of the state universities, so anytime I see a transmission from them, I listen closely.
So far things seem peaceful, but from the 'back chatter' taking place on some of the other channels, Da Cops are taking no chances, and seem to have a fair amount of resources staged in various places around the city, along with several air units. I should probably fire up my "Air Band Only" scanner and see what's going on with the Eyes In The Sky.
Should be interesting.
I'm working "at home" today, as I have some projects to do that I can't do at work (no tools or parts!), so I'll be listening all day while I tinker away.
Hmmm....somebody in one of the protest groups is "distributing flares".
Sounds like the "protesters" are now going to go from bank to bank all along Hope Street (irony?) in downtown L.A.
BoA, Wells-Fargo, HFSC, and several others mentioned.
The LAPD is doing well at keeping the OLA on their planned route, and preventing them from spreading out.
And I did hear one report of people walking along with flares.
Uh-oh...something's going on. ALL supervisors have been ordered to 5th and Hill streets.
Well....sounds like OLA has fizzled out. Nothing going on, and the only calls are to move police units so they can restore the normal traffic patterns.
The magnet high-school where my wife works is on the campus of one of the state universities, so anytime I see a transmission from them, I listen closely.
So far things seem peaceful, but from the 'back chatter' taking place on some of the other channels, Da Cops are taking no chances, and seem to have a fair amount of resources staged in various places around the city, along with several air units. I should probably fire up my "Air Band Only" scanner and see what's going on with the Eyes In The Sky.
Should be interesting.
I'm working "at home" today, as I have some projects to do that I can't do at work (no tools or parts!), so I'll be listening all day while I tinker away.
Hmmm....somebody in one of the protest groups is "distributing flares".
Sounds like the "protesters" are now going to go from bank to bank all along Hope Street (irony?) in downtown L.A.
BoA, Wells-Fargo, HFSC, and several others mentioned.
The LAPD is doing well at keeping the OLA on their planned route, and preventing them from spreading out.
And I did hear one report of people walking along with flares.
Uh-oh...something's going on. ALL supervisors have been ordered to 5th and Hill streets.
Well....sounds like OLA has fizzled out. Nothing going on, and the only calls are to move police units so they can restore the normal traffic patterns.
Saturday, April 28, 2012
Twenty Years Ago Today In L.A.
Today is the anniversary (if you can call it that) of the "Rodney King" riots here in La-La Land.
BonnieGadsden ran a series on it a couple of weeks ago, based on a series of forum posts by Texas Arcane long before there were blogs.
While there's been some "discussion" over the accuracy of the original posts, the important thing is to get the gist of it, and not quibble over some of the technical details.
This IS what will happen when TSHTF out here, and in every other big city.
Doesn't matter if it's caused by some "injustice", the power grid going down, a Massive Solar Flare or an EMP, or the total collapse of the U.S. economy. The cause of it will only partly determine the amount of time it takes to start and get up to speed.
And if the government is "down" or "off-line", it won't settle down until the damage and casualties reach absolutely staggering levels.
Be prepared, it will come sooner and faster than you think.
BonnieGadsden ran a series on it a couple of weeks ago, based on a series of forum posts by Texas Arcane long before there were blogs.
While there's been some "discussion" over the accuracy of the original posts, the important thing is to get the gist of it, and not quibble over some of the technical details.
This IS what will happen when TSHTF out here, and in every other big city.
Doesn't matter if it's caused by some "injustice", the power grid going down, a Massive Solar Flare or an EMP, or the total collapse of the U.S. economy. The cause of it will only partly determine the amount of time it takes to start and get up to speed.
And if the government is "down" or "off-line", it won't settle down until the damage and casualties reach absolutely staggering levels.
Be prepared, it will come sooner and faster than you think.
Thursday, April 26, 2012
Thursday Already??
Wow....time sure flies when you're having fun.
Working on another project for a friend of mine at work that should be interesting.
His younger sister is Autistic, and just loves playing records and singing with them. Her last little portable phonograph, like the type lots of us had a kids, bit the dust last month. I helped him find several suitable replacements on eBay, and he turned them over to me the other day so I could go through them, and make sure they work properly.
These are really simple little devices, with a single tube (25C5 in one, a 25EH5 in the other, both Beam Power Pentode tubes) grid-driven by the output of the cartridge, and feeding a transformer coupled speaker. Both had bad tubes (one very leaky, the other with a burned out filament), and bad filter capacitors. The filters in these are a dual section "cardboard tube" type, of 30uF/50uF @ 150VDC rating. Rather than get *exact* replacement parts (at $30 a pop!), I'm substituting two modern electrolytics of 33 and 50uF@200VDC ratings, for a total cost of about $4. These will work at least as well, and probably last much longer owing to the newer technology employed in their manufacture, and the higher voltage ratings.
I'll also replace both of the coupling capacitors, which are the old style paper caps dipped in wax. These are notoriously UNreliable, so I'll be using modern film types, rated at 630 Volts. As incredible as it may seem to those of us who actually fix things, and understand about the various types of parts used, I've seen these old, crummy paper caps sell on eBay for up to $30 each! Seems the "audiophile" crowd believes they have those magic properties that give you The Tone in your amplifiers.
Hmm....maybe I should list the ones I remove??
One of the players has a Selenium rectifier, and I'll replace that with a modern Silicon rectifier, and add a 33~47 Ohm 5 Watt series resistor to compensate for the lower Forward Voltage drop of the Silicon rectifier.
Selenium rectifiers can have nasty consequences when they fail, besides the stench they release. The Selenium compounds they produce are toxic, and replacing the old rectifier eliminates this hazard.
This should be a fun little project, and since I've never seen a schematic of one anywhere online, I'll draw one up, and post it here, along with a few pictures of the players.
Working on another project for a friend of mine at work that should be interesting.
His younger sister is Autistic, and just loves playing records and singing with them. Her last little portable phonograph, like the type lots of us had a kids, bit the dust last month. I helped him find several suitable replacements on eBay, and he turned them over to me the other day so I could go through them, and make sure they work properly.
These are really simple little devices, with a single tube (25C5 in one, a 25EH5 in the other, both Beam Power Pentode tubes) grid-driven by the output of the cartridge, and feeding a transformer coupled speaker. Both had bad tubes (one very leaky, the other with a burned out filament), and bad filter capacitors. The filters in these are a dual section "cardboard tube" type, of 30uF/50uF @ 150VDC rating. Rather than get *exact* replacement parts (at $30 a pop!), I'm substituting two modern electrolytics of 33 and 50uF@200VDC ratings, for a total cost of about $4. These will work at least as well, and probably last much longer owing to the newer technology employed in their manufacture, and the higher voltage ratings.
I'll also replace both of the coupling capacitors, which are the old style paper caps dipped in wax. These are notoriously UNreliable, so I'll be using modern film types, rated at 630 Volts. As incredible as it may seem to those of us who actually fix things, and understand about the various types of parts used, I've seen these old, crummy paper caps sell on eBay for up to $30 each! Seems the "audiophile" crowd believes they have those magic properties that give you The Tone in your amplifiers.
Hmm....maybe I should list the ones I remove??
One of the players has a Selenium rectifier, and I'll replace that with a modern Silicon rectifier, and add a 33~47 Ohm 5 Watt series resistor to compensate for the lower Forward Voltage drop of the Silicon rectifier.
Selenium rectifiers can have nasty consequences when they fail, besides the stench they release. The Selenium compounds they produce are toxic, and replacing the old rectifier eliminates this hazard.
This should be a fun little project, and since I've never seen a schematic of one anywhere online, I'll draw one up, and post it here, along with a few pictures of the players.
Monday, April 23, 2012
Radio Dazed....and Confused!
WELL....started out trying to fix a VCR for my brother-in-law. They have a huge stack of unlabeled tapes, some with grand-kid stuff on them. They want to have them transferred to DVD before the tapes deteriorate too far, but they only VCR they have died. Since it has all the classic symptoms of a dead power supply, and 30 minutes of Googling confirmed it, I swapped out ALL the electrolytic capacitors in the supply, even though they passed visual.
No dice, it's still dead.
I loaned him a working VCR I had wrapped up and stored in the garage for just such occasions when he was over here Sunday after church, so at least they'll be able to sort out the tapes before they bring them over here so I can do the transfer to DVD for them. I have a Sony Professional VCR, and a PC I built specifically to do this, so once I get them on disk, I'll use Adobe Premiere Pro to author some nice DVD's with fancy title cards, fades, etc for them.
Seeing as it was only 7:30 when I put the toe tag on the VCR, I went back to doing what I had originally planned for tonight, upgrading my Elecraft KPA100 100 Watt amp that I use with my K2 portable HF transceiver.
I built the amplifier when they were at "Rev. C", and now they're up to "Rev. G", so I have some upping to do.
WELL....I destroyed the thermal pads under the two driver and two final transistors when I lifted the main board off the heatsink, and even though the kit says it includes them, all it had was ONE pad for one of the final output transistors.
RATS....
I sent them an order, and the parts will be here in a day or two, so that just gives me some extra time to do the work carefully, since putting the heatsink back on is one of the very last steps.
Oh.....and I get to do one of my favorite radio activities.....winding two toroids.
-sigh-
No dice, it's still dead.
I loaned him a working VCR I had wrapped up and stored in the garage for just such occasions when he was over here Sunday after church, so at least they'll be able to sort out the tapes before they bring them over here so I can do the transfer to DVD for them. I have a Sony Professional VCR, and a PC I built specifically to do this, so once I get them on disk, I'll use Adobe Premiere Pro to author some nice DVD's with fancy title cards, fades, etc for them.
Seeing as it was only 7:30 when I put the toe tag on the VCR, I went back to doing what I had originally planned for tonight, upgrading my Elecraft KPA100 100 Watt amp that I use with my K2 portable HF transceiver.
I built the amplifier when they were at "Rev. C", and now they're up to "Rev. G", so I have some upping to do.
WELL....I destroyed the thermal pads under the two driver and two final transistors when I lifted the main board off the heatsink, and even though the kit says it includes them, all it had was ONE pad for one of the final output transistors.
RATS....
I sent them an order, and the parts will be here in a day or two, so that just gives me some extra time to do the work carefully, since putting the heatsink back on is one of the very last steps.
Oh.....and I get to do one of my favorite radio activities.....winding two toroids.
-sigh-
Saturday, April 21, 2012
Radio Daze
ARRRGH! I'm trying to get my Kenwood TM-D710 set up for remote operation without spending $500+ on a neat little box called "Remote Rig".
#1, I'd need one on each end, and #2, I doubt if I could get our IT guys on the ship to open up the specific ports I'd need to control the radio with these boxes. I already know the ports for Echolink are blocked, and they're unresponsive to opening them up for me. I can probably go to a Higher Authority to get them to listen to my request, but I'd rather use something else than fight the bureaucracy that's been growing since we came out of Chapter 11 last year.
I built a small "Shuttle" PC that I'm running OpenSUSE 12.1 on, and it doesn't have a serial port to connect to the radio. Now I don't normally have anything against running a USB-to-serial converter, but I'd prefer to have a "real" serial port to use in the PC. I bought several different add-on cards, and NONE of them will work with the latest Linux 3.1 kernel. Usually Linux is quite good at low-level hardware like a serial port card. These things work 100% in my Windows 7 PC that I use for some other radio stuff, like controlling my FlexRadio 5000A and my scanners, but the included drivers for Linux will NOT compile on the Linux box I built to use for this specific purpose.
So, I went off to Newegg again, and found some even simpler serial cards, and ordered a couple of different ones of those. The problem is that the "bridge" chip, an MCS9865, that connects all the 16550 UART chips in these things isn't properly recognized, and since I can't compile the damn drivers (it errors out with no specific error message....WTF?), it looks like I'll have to drop back 10 and punt.
For now I'll go back to the USB converter while I wait for the new cards to get here. If I can't 'talk' to the radio, I can't do what I want. The audio part is handled by the sound card in the PC using pretty standard VOIP stuff, but I need a way to positively control the radio, short of having my wife come into the Radio Room and turn the thing off if it gets hung in some weird state.
And on a more positive note, I completely finished and calibrated my LP-100A RF Vector Watt meter. It works 100%, and is an excellent station accessory for the Flex 5000A.
And yes, it's connected to one of the extra serial ports I added to the Windoze PC I use to run the PowerSDR software that controls the Flex.
#1, I'd need one on each end, and #2, I doubt if I could get our IT guys on the ship to open up the specific ports I'd need to control the radio with these boxes. I already know the ports for Echolink are blocked, and they're unresponsive to opening them up for me. I can probably go to a Higher Authority to get them to listen to my request, but I'd rather use something else than fight the bureaucracy that's been growing since we came out of Chapter 11 last year.
I built a small "Shuttle" PC that I'm running OpenSUSE 12.1 on, and it doesn't have a serial port to connect to the radio. Now I don't normally have anything against running a USB-to-serial converter, but I'd prefer to have a "real" serial port to use in the PC. I bought several different add-on cards, and NONE of them will work with the latest Linux 3.1 kernel. Usually Linux is quite good at low-level hardware like a serial port card. These things work 100% in my Windows 7 PC that I use for some other radio stuff, like controlling my FlexRadio 5000A and my scanners, but the included drivers for Linux will NOT compile on the Linux box I built to use for this specific purpose.
So, I went off to Newegg again, and found some even simpler serial cards, and ordered a couple of different ones of those. The problem is that the "bridge" chip, an MCS9865, that connects all the 16550 UART chips in these things isn't properly recognized, and since I can't compile the damn drivers (it errors out with no specific error message....WTF?), it looks like I'll have to drop back 10 and punt.
For now I'll go back to the USB converter while I wait for the new cards to get here. If I can't 'talk' to the radio, I can't do what I want. The audio part is handled by the sound card in the PC using pretty standard VOIP stuff, but I need a way to positively control the radio, short of having my wife come into the Radio Room and turn the thing off if it gets hung in some weird state.
And on a more positive note, I completely finished and calibrated my LP-100A RF Vector Watt meter. It works 100%, and is an excellent station accessory for the Flex 5000A.
And yes, it's connected to one of the extra serial ports I added to the Windoze PC I use to run the PowerSDR software that controls the Flex.
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Upside Down Land
Shamelessly borrowed from a wise man....OldNFO.
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
A Muslim officer crying "Allah Akbar" while shooting up an army base is considered to have committed "Workplace Violence" while an American citizen boasting a Ron Paul bumper sticker is classified as a "Domestic Terrorist".
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
Your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
A seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for calling his teacher "cute" but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if.....
The Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the 10 Commandments in their courtroom, while sitting in front of a display of the 10 Commandments.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of "underprivileged" drug addicts are left to rot in filth infested cesspools.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Working class Americans pay for their own health care (and the health care of everyone else) while unmarried women are free to have child after child on the "State's" dime while never being held responsible for their own choices.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid and subsidized housing.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
The government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Being self-sufficient is considered a threat to the government.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the constitution is really protecting the rights of the people.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
The rights of the Government come before the rights of the individual.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Parents believe the State is responsible for providing for their children.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
You can write a post like this just by reading the news headlines.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor defaults on his mortgage (while buying iphones, TV's and new cars) and the government forgives his debt and reduces his mortgage (with your tax dollars).
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Your government can add anything they want to your kid's water (fluoride, chlorine, etc.) but you are not allowed to give them raw milk.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
You have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
An 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burqa is only subject to having her neck and head searched.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Using the "N" word is considered "hate speech" but writing and signing songs about raping women and killing cops is considered "art".
NOW, it's time to change this and regain control of this country... We are better than this, and it's time for us to step up and VOTE!
Remember, Re-Elect NONE! Get rid of all the incumbents from the White House on down, regardless of party...
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
A Muslim officer crying "Allah Akbar" while shooting up an army base is considered to have committed "Workplace Violence" while an American citizen boasting a Ron Paul bumper sticker is classified as a "Domestic Terrorist".
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
You can get arrested for expired tags on your car but not for being in the country illegally.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if...
Your government believes that the best way to eradicate trillions of dollars of debt is to spend trillions more of our money.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
A seven year old boy can be thrown out of school for calling his teacher "cute" but hosting a sexual exploration or diversity class in grade school is perfectly acceptable.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if.....
The Supreme Court of the United States can rule that lower courts cannot display the 10 Commandments in their courtroom, while sitting in front of a display of the 10 Commandments.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Children are forcibly removed from parents who appropriately discipline them while children of "underprivileged" drug addicts are left to rot in filth infested cesspools.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Working class Americans pay for their own health care (and the health care of everyone else) while unmarried women are free to have child after child on the "State's" dime while never being held responsible for their own choices.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Hard work and success are rewarded with higher taxes and government intrusion, while slothful, lazy behavior is rewarded with EBT cards, WIC checks, Medicaid and subsidized housing.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
The government's plan for getting people back to work is to provide 99 weeks of unemployment checks (to not work).
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Being self-sufficient is considered a threat to the government.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Politicians think that stripping away the amendments to the constitution is really protecting the rights of the people.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
The rights of the Government come before the rights of the individual.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Parents believe the State is responsible for providing for their children.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
You can write a post like this just by reading the news headlines.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
You pay your mortgage faithfully, denying yourself the newest big screen TV while your neighbor defaults on his mortgage (while buying iphones, TV's and new cars) and the government forgives his debt and reduces his mortgage (with your tax dollars).
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Your government can add anything they want to your kid's water (fluoride, chlorine, etc.) but you are not allowed to give them raw milk.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Being stripped of the ability to defend yourself makes you "safe".
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
You have to have your parents signature to go on a school field trip but not to get an abortion.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
An 80 year old woman can be stripped searched by the TSA but a Muslim woman in a burqa is only subject to having her neck and head searched.
===========================================================
You know you live in an Upside-down Land if....
Using the "N" word is considered "hate speech" but writing and signing songs about raping women and killing cops is considered "art".
NOW, it's time to change this and regain control of this country... We are better than this, and it's time for us to step up and VOTE!
Remember, Re-Elect NONE! Get rid of all the incumbents from the White House on down, regardless of party...
Wednesday, April 18, 2012
Doolittle Raid 70 Years Ago Today
Growing up and watching movies like "Thirty Seconds Over Tokyo" and "Destination Tokyo", and with my Dad being a former SeaBee, I had nothing but the greatest respect and admiration for our fighting men.
They truly were "The Greatest Generation" of humble men who did what they had to do, didn't seek any fame our fortune from it, and then went back to civilian life.
70 years ago today, a small group of these valiant men took off in their B-25 "Mitchell" bombers from the deck of the USS Hornet, and flew just above the waves to attack Tokyo.
The attack didn't cause much damage, but was tremendous boost to U.S. morale, and scared the Japanese enough to recall a portion of their fleet to guard the home islands.
Today, only five of the original 80 flight crew members are still with us, the rest having passed on to the pages of history.
The Washington Times has a very nice tribute to these brave men. Go over and read it, and learn a bit more about this mission.
They truly were "The Greatest Generation" of humble men who did what they had to do, didn't seek any fame our fortune from it, and then went back to civilian life.
70 years ago today, a small group of these valiant men took off in their B-25 "Mitchell" bombers from the deck of the USS Hornet, and flew just above the waves to attack Tokyo.
The attack didn't cause much damage, but was tremendous boost to U.S. morale, and scared the Japanese enough to recall a portion of their fleet to guard the home islands.
Today, only five of the original 80 flight crew members are still with us, the rest having passed on to the pages of history.
The Washington Times has a very nice tribute to these brave men. Go over and read it, and learn a bit more about this mission.
Monday, April 16, 2012
Busy with Arduino and RF Vector Impedance Meter Projects....
FINALLY got all the little Arduino boxes built, and moved on to the RF Vector Power Meter I've been building for a year ( ! ) or so. This is the one that I went on a rant about winding the toroids for sometime back. WELL....I finished the toroids, and that meant I could finish the coupler. Last night I mounted the main board in the enclosure, and tonight I'm going to make some preliminary measurements in preparation for calibrating it.
I had to order some Schottky diodes to build an accurate RF voltage probe with. I have dummy loads that are almost exactly 50 Ohms from 1MHz to beyond 1GHz, so I have my "Known Impedance" to work with. Once I build the RF probe, I'll be able to accurately measure the voltage across the load, and calculate the power developed by my Elecraft K2, which will allow me to calibrate the "Power" part of the meter. I also have some 50 Ohm delay lines of known length, so I'll be able to calibrate the "Vector" part of the meter.
Knowing the forward and reflected power, the meter will calculate VSWR, and by knowing the phase angle between the voltage and current on both the forward and reflected ports, it can calculate the complex impedance of the antenna system, or anything else that gets connected to it.
And after I've cleaned up this project, I'll get back to finishing up the Collins 75S-1 receiver I've had torn apart for almost TWO years. I never meant for this one to take so long. I got it for about $75, and it was filthy, and didn't work quite right. I replaced all of the defective tubes, recapped it, and replaced some out-of-tolerance resistors. It was working much better, but before I did the alignment, I decided to "clean" it, and before I knew it, I had it torn down to almost the bare chassis. I replaced all the ceramic insert RCA jacks on the back panel (some had broken inserts; all were rusty), which meant drilling out the rivets, unsoldering/resoldering a whole bunch of connections, and then touching up the solk screened designations on the rear panel where I bumped them with my Dremel tool while I was grinding a dimple into the rivet head so I could drill out the rivets.
This one definitely got out of hand, but it should be really nice when I'm finished. The paint was in excellent condition under all the grunge, the knobs buffed out beautifully and I repainted the indicator lines and put new spun inserts in them. I even took Scotch-Brite and Nev-R-Dull to all the crystal cans for the heterodyne, BFO, and calibrator crystals.
Back to the workbench!
I had to order some Schottky diodes to build an accurate RF voltage probe with. I have dummy loads that are almost exactly 50 Ohms from 1MHz to beyond 1GHz, so I have my "Known Impedance" to work with. Once I build the RF probe, I'll be able to accurately measure the voltage across the load, and calculate the power developed by my Elecraft K2, which will allow me to calibrate the "Power" part of the meter. I also have some 50 Ohm delay lines of known length, so I'll be able to calibrate the "Vector" part of the meter.
Knowing the forward and reflected power, the meter will calculate VSWR, and by knowing the phase angle between the voltage and current on both the forward and reflected ports, it can calculate the complex impedance of the antenna system, or anything else that gets connected to it.
And after I've cleaned up this project, I'll get back to finishing up the Collins 75S-1 receiver I've had torn apart for almost TWO years. I never meant for this one to take so long. I got it for about $75, and it was filthy, and didn't work quite right. I replaced all of the defective tubes, recapped it, and replaced some out-of-tolerance resistors. It was working much better, but before I did the alignment, I decided to "clean" it, and before I knew it, I had it torn down to almost the bare chassis. I replaced all the ceramic insert RCA jacks on the back panel (some had broken inserts; all were rusty), which meant drilling out the rivets, unsoldering/resoldering a whole bunch of connections, and then touching up the solk screened designations on the rear panel where I bumped them with my Dremel tool while I was grinding a dimple into the rivet head so I could drill out the rivets.
This one definitely got out of hand, but it should be really nice when I'm finished. The paint was in excellent condition under all the grunge, the knobs buffed out beautifully and I repainted the indicator lines and put new spun inserts in them. I even took Scotch-Brite and Nev-R-Dull to all the crystal cans for the heterodyne, BFO, and calibrator crystals.
Back to the workbench!
Saturday, April 14, 2012
Serenity
OK, the YF and I finally sat down and watched "Serenity".
Kinda made us both regretting we didn't watch my boxed set of "Firefly" FIRST!
And now I finally get all the quotes I've seen floating around The Net these last few years.
I'm definitely going to take "Firefly" with me when I go out on the next launch, along with "Miami Vice", and "Dead Like Me", neither of which I've seen all the episodes of.
Kinda made us both regretting we didn't watch my boxed set of "Firefly" FIRST!
And now I finally get all the quotes I've seen floating around The Net these last few years.
I'm definitely going to take "Firefly" with me when I go out on the next launch, along with "Miami Vice", and "Dead Like Me", neither of which I've seen all the episodes of.
Bill Whittle on "The Narrative"
Found this over at USA_Admiral's place, who in turn found it at Adrienne's Corner.
It's stunning commentary, as usual, from Mr. Whittle.
And as he reminds us, The Signal WILL Get Out......
It's stunning commentary, as usual, from Mr. Whittle.
And as he reminds us, The Signal WILL Get Out......
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Thoughts For The Day....
Have a good weekend.
Playing radio/computer on Saturday, and watching the Long Beach Grand Prix on Sunday.
Sunday, April 8, 2012
Simple, Expedient HF Antennas
Don't worry, I'm still working on the series of articles I promised, oh, a year ago?
I've rewritten it several times, and it's 90% to the point of adding the illustrations to it.
I'll probably take photos of the various types as I build them out in the back yard, as I don't draw things "on the computer" very well, and I don't want to swipe random pix off the Web.
When this is finished, I'll post the sections of it, and if I can find a free place to upload a pdf for free access, I'll do that, too.
So hang in there, it's "In Work" as we used to say at Boeing!
I've rewritten it several times, and it's 90% to the point of adding the illustrations to it.
I'll probably take photos of the various types as I build them out in the back yard, as I don't draw things "on the computer" very well, and I don't want to swipe random pix off the Web.
When this is finished, I'll post the sections of it, and if I can find a free place to upload a pdf for free access, I'll do that, too.
So hang in there, it's "In Work" as we used to say at Boeing!
Friday, April 6, 2012
The Origins of "73"
The telegraphy abbreviation "73" has long been used between operators at closing to signal "Best Wishes". It also gets used on radiotelephone, and should never be used as the plural, as in "73's".
I know some Old Timers who insist if you're going to use it for voice, you should say each number separately, as in "Seven Three, Old Man".
I, personally, don't have a problem with hearing someone say "Seventy-Three", but the plural form just grates me.
Since my YF (wife, to non-radio people) edits the club newsletter, and is always looking for articles, one of our members sent in a scan of a page from the April, 1935 edition of "QST", the magazine of the ARRL.
Since the scan wasn't very high quality, I cut-and-pasted the print into a Word document, and then cleaned it up by hand.
Enjoy!
I know some Old Timers who insist if you're going to use it for voice, you should say each number separately, as in "Seven Three, Old Man".
I, personally, don't have a problem with hearing someone say "Seventy-Three", but the plural form just grates me.
Since my YF (wife, to non-radio people) edits the club newsletter, and is always looking for articles, one of our members sent in a scan of a page from the April, 1935 edition of "QST", the magazine of the ARRL.
Since the scan wasn't very high quality, I cut-and-pasted the print into a Word document, and then cleaned it up by hand.
Enjoy!
On the Origin of “73”
The December Bulletin from the Navy Department Office of the Chief of Naval Operations contains some extremely interesting information about "73."
The origin of "73" as the telegrapher's conventional signal of greeting has been ascribed to a dinner given to Andrew Carnegie on his 73rd birthday by the Order of Military Telegraphers. The dinner referred to was given on November 27, 1908, and the signal "73" was played upon in connection with his 73rd birthday. However, investigation indicates that the term "73" was used for many years prior to that time.
The following material, believed to be authentic, is quoted from the "Telegraph and Telephone Age," dated 1 June,1934:
"It appears from a research of telegraph histories that in
1859 the telegraph people held a convention, and one of its
features was a discussion as to the saving of 'Iine time.' A
committee was appointed to devise a code to reduce standard
expressions to symbols or figures, This committee
worked out a figure code, from figure 1 to 92. Most of these
figure symbols became obsolescent, but a few remain to this
date, such as 4, which means 'Where shall I go ahead?' Figure
9 means 'wire,' the wire chief being on the wire and that
everyone should close their keys. Symbol 13 means 'I don't
understand'; 22 is 'love and a kiss'; 30 means 'good night'
or 'the end.' The symbol most often used now is 73, which
means 'my compliments,' and 92 is for the word 'deliver.'
The other figures in between the foregoing have fallen into
almost complete disuse."
Mr, J. L. Bishop, Chief Telegrapher of the Navy Department Communication Office, quotes from memory the signals that were in effect in 1905:
1 Wait a minute.
4 Where shall I start in message?
5 Have you anything for me?
9 Attention, or clear the wire (used by wire chiefs and
train dispatchers).
13 I do not understand.
22 Love and kisses.
25 Busy on another circuit.
30 Finished, the end (YA) (Used mostly by press telegraphers
to denote the end of a story or closing out).
73 My compliments, or Best regards.
92 Deliver.
Monday, April 2, 2012
Shack Updates
I put aside the little Arduino project I'm helping my friend with so I could do some "Shack Renovation" this weekend.
Actually, it was more a "Clean-and-Toss" event, where I cleaned up a bunch of stuff, got some stackable storage bins, tossed out several LARGE cardboard boxes that I had "stuff" stored in, and in general neatened things up a bit.
One of the things I did was to get my ICom IC-R7100 and Uniden BC796D receivers set up, and fed them both off the little multicoupler I built sometime back.
The simplest way of looking at a multicoupler is to consider it a "Splitter with Gain", although it does more than that. It also provides 30~40dB of isolation between the receivers, which is good for keeping things like Local Oscillator leakage down to a minimum.
WELL....it's not working the way I intended, and rather than spend HOURS fixing it (trust me...it would take me longer to "fix" it than it did to *build* it), I decided to just leave the Uniden scanner connected to the Discone, and get a little 3-element Yagi that I can point at the airport so I can use the ICom to listen to all the airport stuff.
Yes, I know, it's a terrible waste to use an IC-R7100 to "just" listen to the local airport, but until I get the damn multicoupler working (looks like the amplifier isn't), that's what I'm going to use it for.
Well, me being me, I decided to build an airband Yagi, rather than buy one. I tend to be CHEEP about these things, and I've got piles of 1/8" and 1/4" brass and aluminum rod for the elements, and a ton of PVC pipe to use for a boom.
ANYWAY....snooping around the web for a while, I couldn't find any cookbook dimensions to build a 118~137MHz Yagi, so I figured I'd gin my own up. Gee...there's all these neat antenna design programs for Linux, so I'll just grab a couple and........
BLECH!
NONE of them do what I want! Oh sure, they'll all give me great plots of gain, directivity, and patterns, but that's AFTER I've figured out all the element dimensions!
DUH!
So, it looks like I'll have to start with a dipole cut for 127.5MHz, and then go with the old rule-of-thumb making the reflector and director 10% longer/shorter than the driven element, and then tweak the dimensions of where the elements are spaced on the boom until I get something that looks like it will work.
Maybe I should have just keep going building another one of the Arduino units. I've built three so far, and they all work "As Advertised".
OK....found a website that does *exactly* what I needed to do. It let me design a 2-element Yagi, that has about 3dB gain, and fits on an 18" boom.
You just enter the center frequency, a gain you'd like, a few other specifics,and it generates the element lengths, and spacing.
Sweet!
Actually, it was more a "Clean-and-Toss" event, where I cleaned up a bunch of stuff, got some stackable storage bins, tossed out several LARGE cardboard boxes that I had "stuff" stored in, and in general neatened things up a bit.
One of the things I did was to get my ICom IC-R7100 and Uniden BC796D receivers set up, and fed them both off the little multicoupler I built sometime back.
The simplest way of looking at a multicoupler is to consider it a "Splitter with Gain", although it does more than that. It also provides 30~40dB of isolation between the receivers, which is good for keeping things like Local Oscillator leakage down to a minimum.
WELL....it's not working the way I intended, and rather than spend HOURS fixing it (trust me...it would take me longer to "fix" it than it did to *build* it), I decided to just leave the Uniden scanner connected to the Discone, and get a little 3-element Yagi that I can point at the airport so I can use the ICom to listen to all the airport stuff.
Yes, I know, it's a terrible waste to use an IC-R7100 to "just" listen to the local airport, but until I get the damn multicoupler working (looks like the amplifier isn't), that's what I'm going to use it for.
Well, me being me, I decided to build an airband Yagi, rather than buy one. I tend to be CHEEP about these things, and I've got piles of 1/8" and 1/4" brass and aluminum rod for the elements, and a ton of PVC pipe to use for a boom.
ANYWAY....snooping around the web for a while, I couldn't find any cookbook dimensions to build a 118~137MHz Yagi, so I figured I'd gin my own up. Gee...there's all these neat antenna design programs for Linux, so I'll just grab a couple and........
BLECH!
NONE of them do what I want! Oh sure, they'll all give me great plots of gain, directivity, and patterns, but that's AFTER I've figured out all the element dimensions!
DUH!
So, it looks like I'll have to start with a dipole cut for 127.5MHz, and then go with the old rule-of-thumb making the reflector and director 10% longer/shorter than the driven element, and then tweak the dimensions of where the elements are spaced on the boom until I get something that looks like it will work.
Maybe I should have just keep going building another one of the Arduino units. I've built three so far, and they all work "As Advertised".
OK....found a website that does *exactly* what I needed to do. It let me design a 2-element Yagi, that has about 3dB gain, and fits on an 18" boom.
You just enter the center frequency, a gain you'd like, a few other specifics,and it generates the element lengths, and spacing.
Sweet!
George Carlin on Environmentalism
I used to be a huge George Carlin fan. Then he seemed to get really bitter, almost "unhinged" toward the end of his life, and it turned me off.
Here's some truly "Classic Carlin" with his take on the Enviro-Nazis.
As per Carlin at his best, he's 100% spot-on.
Thanks to Jeffro for finding it.
Here's some truly "Classic Carlin" with his take on the Enviro-Nazis.
As per Carlin at his best, he's 100% spot-on.
Thanks to Jeffro for finding it.
Sunday, April 1, 2012
1992 L.A. Riots
There's a series of posts over at BonnieGadsden that I encourage you to read.
For those of us who were out here in "LA-LA Land" during the riots, it's a chilling reminder of just how fast society can break down.
I was living in Redondo Beach at the time, right on the beach (Catalina Ave.) with two of my buddies. We were far enough off the freeways that we felt fairly safe, but the sight of all the smoke rising in the distance, and the constant reporting on the TV still gave us pause to wonder just how bad it would really get.
It took Governor Wilson three days to request assistance from the National Guard, and it wasn't until the fourth day that the Humvees started rolling into the city, and a semblance of order was restored.
I have a lot of Korean friends that I've made since then, and they still talk about it. Since the police (at least the LAPD was) were holed up in their stations, you were on your own, and the Korean shop keepers took defense of their property and families into their own hands.
For those of us who were out here in "LA-LA Land" during the riots, it's a chilling reminder of just how fast society can break down.
I was living in Redondo Beach at the time, right on the beach (Catalina Ave.) with two of my buddies. We were far enough off the freeways that we felt fairly safe, but the sight of all the smoke rising in the distance, and the constant reporting on the TV still gave us pause to wonder just how bad it would really get.
It took Governor Wilson three days to request assistance from the National Guard, and it wasn't until the fourth day that the Humvees started rolling into the city, and a semblance of order was restored.
I have a lot of Korean friends that I've made since then, and they still talk about it. Since the police (at least the LAPD was) were holed up in their stations, you were on your own, and the Korean shop keepers took defense of their property and families into their own hands.
Thursday, March 29, 2012
Sunday, March 25, 2012
0bamaville
As expected, the lefty loonies are tearing this to shreds.
Guess they can't stand the truth....
H/T to USA_Admiral for finding it.
Guess they can't stand the truth....
H/T to USA_Admiral for finding it.
Friday, March 23, 2012
Thursday, March 22, 2012
"California Tree of Liberty" Gone?
Hmmm.....just went to read his blog, and got a message it's been removed?
California Tree of Liberty
Anybody got a clue?
California Tree of Liberty
Anybody got a clue?
Tuesday, March 20, 2012
Just a Thought.....
Courtesy of Pink Floyd......
And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
From 1975, no less.
Wonder if they had a "vision".....
And did they get you to trade
Your heros for ghosts?
Hot ashes for trees?
Hot air for a cool breeze?
Cold comfort for change?
And did you exchange
A walk on part in the war
For a lead role in a cage?
From 1975, no less.
Wonder if they had a "vision".....
O.B.I.T. ***Coming Soon To An "Agency" Near YOU!***
One of the more scary "Outer Limits" episodes was O.B.I.T.
From the opening intro by the Control Voice:
"In this room, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, security personnel at the Defense Department Cyprus Hill's Research Center keep constant watch on its scientists through O.B.I.T., a mysterious electronic device whose very existence was carefully kept from the public at large. And so it would have remained but for the facts you are about to witness…"
Looks like the NSA is building their own these days.
And be sure to read some of the comments. Looks like there's a bunch of "us" among the geeks who read WIRED.....
From the opening intro by the Control Voice:
"In this room, twenty four hours a day, seven days a week, security personnel at the Defense Department Cyprus Hill's Research Center keep constant watch on its scientists through O.B.I.T., a mysterious electronic device whose very existence was carefully kept from the public at large. And so it would have remained but for the facts you are about to witness…"
Looks like the NSA is building their own these days.
And be sure to read some of the comments. Looks like there's a bunch of "us" among the geeks who read WIRED.....
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FOURTH time I've written this post. MY Muse has apparently vacated the premises, leaving me too busy doing other things to keep both m... -
With apologies to The Control Voice.... Yup.....got The Busies the last few weeks. Lots of stuff happening this week, including my Nuclea...