GROAN.....Endless Meetings!

Even though the launch went fine, we still have to do all the debriefs, and go over "Lessons Learned", and play various "What If...." scenarios.

One of the Lessons Learned was something I've been harping about for some time now.

One of our telemetry receivers shut down at about L-3 hours due to an over temp condition. While others were agonizing over "What Do We DO!?!", I grabbed my Surefire G3 and went around to the rear of the rack.

Sure enough, the filter on the cooling fan was PACKED full of crud. After getting approval from the system owner, I pulled the fan, slid the filter out, blew it out with canned air, and put everything back together.

I was finished, and the receiver was back receiving, about 15 minutes before the Official Committee To Find Out What Happened came out of the conference room.

They were stunned I had it "fixed" so fast.

And then I pointed out that I'd been telling TPTB for several years that little things like this will cause a launch abort one of these days. If this had happened an hour or so later in the count, there's a good chance we would have scrubbed the launch, at a rather HUMUNGOUS cost compared to the value of the fan, filter, and whole damn receiver.

At least I wrote down all the information on the label on the fan so we can order some spares. Spare fans like this probably cost $10~$15, and are readily available.

They interesting thing is that we just got these receivers back from a "Full Calibration, CLEANING, and Adjustment" from a factory authorized service center!

And they charged us about $1500 EACH to go through these old codgers and "certify" them.

I'm willing to bet there'll be just a few phone calls made over the next few days.........

Yep, It Worked Again

Successful launch, and I tracked it over the horizon.

Next up is an upper stage burn, then spacecraft separation.

But since my job is done, and I have to go over and tear down and stow equipment tomorrow at 0800, I'm going to bed!

Goodnight, all.........

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L- 2 Hours, 30 Minutes, and Counting.....

And we are GO to begin fueling the launch vehicle!

Launch will be streamed live on USTREAM.

L-8 Hours and Counting.....

Tonight's launch of Intelsat-21 will be available for viewing at the Intelsat website.

I spent 14 hours over on the Launch Platform yesterday getting antennas aligned and working through some "issues" we had.

They've NEVER "problems", even though they are, but rather "issues".

I'm sure you all know the drill!

Enjoy the launch if you're up that late!

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Firefly

Since we've been delayed 24 hours, I've been watching the Blu-Ray discs of "Firefly".

I watched "Serenity" a couple of months ago, and now I wished I would have waited until I'd watched the series.

It was a stunningly good series, and highly underrated while it was being aired.

I just finished the first disc, having watched the first 5 episodes, and I'm up to where River has finally stated speaking to the other crew members. I particularly liked the way she "charmed" Badger.

And sweet little Kaylee has started showing some open signs of her infatuation with Simon.

I've had these discs for a couple of years, and just now got around to watching them.

I don't believe I wated so long to watch such a well-made series.

We've Arrived......

At the launch site, that is.

We're starting L-3 operations so I'll be pretty busy the next few days.

Launch is set for August 17th at 2356PDT.

More info can be found at the Intelsat website.

CUL!

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Obama Whines Michelle Doesn’t Collect Salary As First Lady

Good Lord above!

What doesn't this poser of a "president" want now?
Isn't it enough this POS has almost single-handedly destroyed the American economy, put our great grandchildren in hock, and made a laughingstock out of us?

If we don't get this unprintable piece of SHIT out of office, along with a good chunk of his crooked, communist cronies in November, our beloved Country is surely doomed.

To borrow a phrase from wirecutter:

FUCK OBAMA!

Read about it here, at Freedom Outpost.

RCBS "Rock Chucker" Ordered

I received an email from Midway that I had some special "Birthday Deal" pricing available, so I looked over what they had for relaoding gear, and then ordered the Rock Chucker kit, and some accessories.

I bought three die kits, in 45ACP, 357 Magnum, and 30-30 Winchester, some "decapping pins", an internal/external deburring tool, and a primer pocket cleaner.

The total, with shipping and an NRA "Round Up" contribution, came to $430.

I'm sure I'll be spending more, as I'd like to get a digital scale, sets of dies for 30-06, 308, and 40S&W, and probably other things that I'm sure I'm going to need!

AND I'll need some case cleaning supplies, too.

What do you guys use for cleaning your cases? One of the tumbler/vibrator types with various media, or do you do the "wet" cleaning with commercial cleaning solutions like I've read about? I'd think the tumbler/vibrator types would be easier, as you don't have to worry about flushing out any chemicals from the cleaned cases, and then drying them.

So, I still haven't gone over the $600 self-imposed "limit" I told my sweet little wife I'd hold myself to.

And I'm studiously reading the "ABCs of Reloading", and the "Modern reloading" books I brought with me.

I doubt if I'll ever try to work up "special" or "match" loads on my own. I'd rather just stick with the published loads, and use this gear to get my shooting costs down to where I can go out more often. The ammo cost isn't a big factor now, but that could change at any time.

Hmm.....probably ought to start looking at getting some primers and powder, too......

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ouch, Ouch, OUCH!

OOPS.....had a minor accident today at work.

It's been drizzling out here, and when I was outside, coming back from an equipment space with no inside access, I slipped and fell.

Now, I'm *always* careful onboard, and even when we're tied up at the dock back at our Home Port, I use BOTH handrails when traversing the stairs, or 'ladders' in ship-speak.

I was two steps from the bottom, holding both rails, when my feet went out from under me.

BOOM! All 200 pounds of me came crashing down on a wet, steel deck, from about three feet in the air.

I landed on my right hip, just aft, and bit below, of the big pelvic bone. Took me a couple of seconds to realize HOLY SHIT, I'M ON THE DECK! and get my bearings again.

Two marine crew members came over, helped me up, and asked if I wanted to go up to the hospital. I shook myself a bit, and decided nothing was broken, so I told them no, and in a bit of a daze, went back to the EGSE room where I normally work.

My at-sea Manager (a good guy) was there, and after I told what had happened, he sent me to our Safety guy to file a report. The Safety guy wrote everything down, inspected my shoes to make sure they were "approved" (they're non-skid) and said going to the ship's Doctor was my call, but he recommended it.

So, back up to the 3rd bridge deck, and into our little hospital. I talked to the Doctor, and then he gave me an exam, and asked a bunch of questions. At this point, it doesn't look like I broke anything (I've broken stuff before, and believe me, I would have been screaming bloody murder while laying on the deck when this happened!), but I have a huge bump (pardon me, "Hematoma" in med-speak) on my hip almost the size of my fist, and he says I'm going to have one doozie of a bruise in a few days.

Now since we're scheduled to launch on the 17th, that means I have to go over to the platform on the 16th to set up a bunch of equipment. Thankfully I get to go on the helicopter, and the helipad is on the same level as our equipment shelter. The only problem at this time is I have to climb a ladder carrying my tool bag up to the top of the shelter, and if I'm not limber enough to do it...............

For now, I'm just going to take it easy, and try and keep somewhat mobile, because if I sit down for more than about 15 minutes, it's kinda hard to get back up.

And I haven't told my dear wife yet........

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Decisions, Decisions.....30-06, or 308?

Well, I'm about *this close* to ordering an M1 Garand from the CMP.

I'm going to get one of their "CMP Select" grades, that's pretty much been remanufactured, with new wood, but one naggling little choice remains.....

Do I order one in "period correct" 30-06, or go with the more "modern" 308?

I've read up on the ballistics of both, and while they're fairly similar, they each have their strengths and weaknesses.

My thinking is that if/when the Schumer hits the fan, 308 might be a tad easier to come by than 30-06.

What say you?

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Out At Sea Again....Light Posting For A While

I'm out here to support boosting another up for Intelsat, so I have to be careful what I post.

I'll try and get a few things up over the next couple of weeks.

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Three More To Go....

WELL....my lovely wife and I sat down and went over our finances, how much I'll get from S.S., and the pensions I'll get from three previous employers, and we decided I can retire next year.
I'll still do some consulting work, and since clients I had before my current employer called me back a year ago April are still
calling me asking if I can do some work for them, I think we'll be just fine.The "Three More To Go" title relates to the fact that I'll only have three more launch campaigns to go on before my "R-Day".
I'm leaving Sunday morning for the current mission, then there's one around the end of November, and one more in late January/early February.
After that, they have NOTHING on the manifest, and the grapevine indicates nothing in sight, either.
Who knows, I might get laid-off again before I **officially** make my plans known, in which case I'll take unemployment for as long as I can get it.
I have several opinions about why they don't have customers lined up, but I'll save those for next August.
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Why Gun Control Made Aurora Shooting Inevitable

There's a very good article over at the California Political Review website about the shootings in Aurora.
The writer doesn't own a gun, but he supports our Second Amendment rights.
Give it a read, I think you'll find it very good.

Beginner's Reloading Advice?

I'm seriously thinking about getting started in reloading. I'm pretty sure I understand the basics, having helped my best buddy do it many times before I moved out here to Kaliforniastan in 1980, but I'm also sure things have change a LOT since 1980!

SO......I'm calling on my friends out here to suggest

1. Some good beginners books about it
2. Some good quality equipment; press, dies, scales, et al
3. Sage advice about how to do it, and store my supplies, safely.

I know a LOT of you have far more experience in this than I do, so if you had it to do over again, where would you change things, and what "rookie" mistakes did you make?

I promise I won't laugh.

God knows I've made plenty of rookie mistakes in most things I did when I was young and first learning about whatever new endeavor struck my fancy.

Now that I'm older, I ask and read anything I can find before I dive headlong into things!
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Too Much Work, But a Bit of Fun Today

I'll be headed out on another launch campaign next Sunday, and since I've been working 10~11 hour days, I haven't been posting much.
We finished our RF System checkouts early today, and since the Meteorologist was MIA, I blew off helping him do the Weather System checkouts (DUH! He wasn't even on the ship!), and headed for home.
I stopped in at my mailbox, and picked up a new Uniden BCD996XT scanner that I ordered the other day. Now, the Uniden BD796D scanner I have here in Radio Central is still perfectly serviceable, and the little Uniden Home Patrol that's out in the living room is a marvel, but my son mentioned the other day he'd like to put a scanner in his car, and since his birthday is coming up in a couple of months, I figured this would be an ideal "excuse" for me to get his present early.
Gee, I have to know how it works, and how to program it if I'm going to support it, don't I?
Now while Uniden includes some "free" software to program these, and there are some other free programs out there that can do it, I'm very partial towards using BuTel software to program these. The really cool thing about the BuTel software, is that if you have a subscription to the RadioReference website, the software will automatically connect, and sort out the frequencies, control channels, Talk Group ID's, and all the other things you need to know about a Trunked Radio System from the online databases Radio Reference maintains, and presents them in a very logical, READABLE manner so you can decide what to save to a local database, which you then upload to the scanner.
Sure beats buying a handful of crystals every time you want to change frequencies!
This all started the other day when he and I were talking some radio stuff, and he told me what systems he wanted to be able to listen to. Some of the things he wanted are on a "conventional" radio system, but the others are on a trunked system, which pretty much killed the chances of him being able to use one of my older scanners.
ANYWAY.....the BCD996XT is quite a capable receiver. You can plug a GPS into it, and as you change areas, it will change what systems it's receiving on-the-fly.
I haven't really begun to scratch the surface of this radio,but I'm sure by the time his birthday gets here I'll have it pretty well sorted out.
Gee....I might even have to buy him a new one, as this one will probably be worn out by then!
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CNN "Gun Control" Op-Ed Piece and Rebuttal

Thanks to Old_NFO, I found this site that gives the rebuttla to the brain-dead CNN piece.

Fisking a Gun Control Editorial
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Quiet, Relaxing, Goof-Off Day

We're in the midst of our next launch campaign, so I've been pretty busy at work the last week or so.

We busted our tails Thursday and Friday, with the result that we (my little RF group) didn't have to work this weekend.

SO....I slept in till 9 this morning (oh you sluggard!), and I've been just goofing off today. My son is coming over tomorrow so we can work on his car stereo/navigation unit, and I'm taking the Mrs out to dinner tonight to one of our favorite places, George's Greek Cafe.

If you *EVER* get in the Long Beach area, stop in for some of the best Greek food on the planet.  Friendly staff, excellent service, very reasonable prices, and as I said, most excellent Greek cuisine.

And I've been making some drawings and little fiddly bits for the all new-and-improved portable satellite station I'm going to use next year at Field Day.

I've got a super duty, 5' tall all metal surveyor's tripod that I bought for about $30. I'm going to make an aluminum mounting plate to bolt my Yaesu G-5400 Azimuth/Elevation rotator to it, separate the two rotator sections with about 3' of 2" heavy wall aluminum pipe, use one of my "spare" fiberglass cross-booms, a "spare" dual-band antenna, some preamplifiers I just bought from a friend, and I'll have an antenna setup that gives my 90% of the performance of my "big" setup, that's about 1/4th the weight, and 10 times easier to set up and tear down.

"Knucle Draggin' My Life Away" on Hiatus

Ken (wirecutter) over at "Knuckle Draggin' My Life Away" has decided to take a break for a while.

Although I'm sure 99% of the blogosphere knew this before me, I understand it.

C'mon back anytime, Ken.....you've got a lot of friends out here!

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You Didn't Build That

My buddy Jeffro found this, and it's amazing.

WELL on it's way to becoming one of the top websites of the year, I'd say....

You Didn't Build That

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20 Reasons Why It's Good To Be Barack Obama

1) It's all the golf you can play and as many free vacations as you want. The teleprompter tells you what to say to the crowd and if anybody makes a joke about you, someone calls him a racist!

2) You get a Nobel Peace Prize just for showing up.

3) No matter how much worse black Americans do under you than George W. Bush, Kanye West is never going to say, "Barack Obama doesn't care about black people."

4) You can eat a dog and PETA will still love you.

5) No one seems to find it odd that you simultaneously repeat Harry Truman's famous line, "The buck stops here" -- as you blame George Bush, Republicans in Congress, greedy corporations, the European economy, and even ATM machines for your many, many failures.

6) The Occupy Movement still loves you despite the fact that you've shoveled billions of dollars in taxpayer dollars to Wall Street firms via bailouts and loan programs.

7) You can have a net worth of 11 million dollars, go on multiple 6 figure vacations per year, and hobnob with the wealthiest Americans at swanky 40k a plate fundraisers; yet no one bats an eye when you criticize Mitt Romney for being rich.

8) The press doesn't incessantly repeat the body count in Afghanistan in every article about the war, like it did when George Bush was in Iraq.

9) You get to keep Gitmo open, sign on to the Patriot Act, fight in Afghanistan and kill terrorists with drone attacks while leftists complain that you haven't tried to go after Bush for committing "war crimes" because he did the same things.

10) The mainstream press judges you not on what you've done, but on whatever you happen to be saying right this moment, even if it's different from what you were saying yesterday.

11) After creating jobs overseas with stimulus money, you can criticize Mitt Romney for having a Swiss bank account without being laughed at despite the fact you're holding fundraisers in Switzerland, Sweden, Paris and China.

12) The same press that was utterly uninterested in your background when you ran for office in 2008 considers Mitt Romney's religion, what date he left Bain Capital, and how hard his wife worked when she was taking care of their kids much more important than anything you did over the last 3 1/2 years as President.

13) You can simultaneously block the keystone pipeline and ANWR while you hold up offshore drilling in the Gulf and demonize oil companies, yet claim with a straight face that you're trying to reduce gas prices.

14) Despite the fact that you're conducting war across the globe and have never served in the military, nobody calls you a chickenhawk.

15) Even though your administration helped kill 300 people with guns, including an American citizen, gun control advocates have zero interest in getting to the bottom of it.

16) You have the single most important job on earth and yet, most people seem to be thrilled that you're spending more time campaigning for reelection than you do working.

17) The mainstream media is much more concerned with the possible racism or bad motives of anyone questioning you than it is with whether your policies actually work.

18) No matter how much of an utter failure you are, most black Americans feel compelled to pretend you're not a disaster because they're afraid everyone will judge them by how incompetent you turned out to be.

19) You have a National Debt Charge Card with a limit of "Infinity" and you're not scared to use it.

20) Your biggest accomplishments so far after killing Osama Bin Laden are ending the manned space program, having the longest string of over 8% unemployment of any President since WWII, putting more Americans for food stamps than any other President in history, killing the work requirements in welfare, giving up on stopping illegal aliens, adding more debt in three and a half years than Bush did in eight, and decimating America's health care system with the least popular entitlement program in history. Yet, you still have a chance to be reelected. It doesn't get any better than that.

Go Kart Racing

A week or so ago when my son and I were were headed back from the range, he mentioned that we should go kart racing one of these days.

Well.....we went today.

Now I've done more than just a bit of racing in the past. I used to run SCCA B-Production cars, and even won the regional title back in 1974.
And I've done my share of after-hours racing out on the deserted two lane blacktops back in Illinois. We knew the roads very well, and blocked off both ends, and any intersecting roads, and went at it. Not "Street Racing" in the sense that you hear about in the news, but still pretty illicit. The cops knew we did it, and pretty much left the group I was with alone, as we NEVER did anything in town, and strongly discouraged all our peers from doing stupid shit on the main streets, side streets, or any other streets in town.
A few years ago, one of my buddies talked me into going to driver's school down at Lake Perris. My buddy continued his kart racing, and last I heard was doing quite well in the Denver area.

ANYWAY....we went to the K1 Speed  indoor track today, and I had an absolute blast. The karts are electric powered, with a 20 h.p. motor, and can reach speeds of 40~45 mph.

The facility is clean, well-equipped, and the staff are very friendly and helpful. If you have a question, or need some help, somebody is there pronto to assist you.

Now some people might say this isn't "real" racing, but then they've probably never raced anything in their lives.

Trust me, this IS "real" racing. The karts accelerate very quickly, have more than enough power to slide through the corners controlled by the throttle (NOT the fast way around), have hydraulic disc brakes, real racing tires, a 3-point harness, roll bars, and look to be fairly well built.

My first race had me throttled back electronically, but the second race they let me have full power. Took a few laps for me to get on my game (it's a perishable skill, just like marksmanship), and I started turning faster laps.

I'm sure we'll be going back, as my son wants a rematch after I beat him!
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Get OUT!

Courtesy of USA_Admiral

ZOMG!!! THE SUN EXPLODED!!!!!

This whole current flap about the Coronal Mass Ejection that happened earlier this week is a big ZERO.
We've had MUCH larger Solar Flares and CME's in the last several years, and there's been little to NO damage on the Earth.
The satellite operators have far more to worry about, but even they haven't seen anything from this one.
The fact NOAA and NASA can't agree on how big/damaging this one is/was/MIGHT be should tell you something.
Personally, I tend to favor NOAA, as they've always had a better grip on Space Weather than NASA.
The lead-in picture is from an M7.9 solar flare that occurred on 24 March 2012, and the bottom picture is from today, 14 July 2012, at 19:16 UTC.

Police Action In Downtown L.A.

Been listening to my scanner for a while, and there's something going on around 4th/5th and Spring/Broadway.
They were using an air unit (chopper) to vector the police around to try and box up a crowd that had attempted to roll over a van and torch it.
"Less Than Lethal" approval came through about 15 minutes ago, and I just heard them give the order to fire:
"Bean Bags Only, Target The Instigators".

Hmmm....wonder if this will make the news tomorrow?

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It's Raining.....

In Southern California.
In July.
Huh....must be GloBULL Warming!
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50 Years Ago Today......

Telstar was launched.

While not a Geostationary satellite, it never the less ushered in a new era in telecommunications.
Since it wasn't in a Geosynchronous orbit, it had to be tracked across the sky, using the Andover Earth Station, built by AT&T.

Launched from Cape Canaveral using a Delta rocket, it had an orbit with a perigee of approximately 590 miles, and an apogee of approximately 3680 miles.

Telstar I and II are both still in orbit, though they have long since gone silent.
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Antique Power, Modulation, and Audio Transformers and Other Things

Whilst stumbling around the Web, I came across this site, which has TONS of specs and catalogs for old, ancient, power, modulation, and audio transformers.

If you're into old tube gear, check out The Bunker Of Doom!
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A Day At The Range With My New Buckmasters Scope

And what a day we had!
My new Nikon Buckmasters 3-9x40 scope is just what I needed! I can't say enough good things about this scope. Incredibly bright, clear viewing, plenty of eye relief, I can focus it to compensate for my glasses (YAY!), and each click moves the shot the amount it's supposed to.
Well....I was moving it 4-clicks at a time to start, because I needed to move it several inches, and 4-clicks moved it one inch. Each click equals 1/4 MOA, which works out to be 1/4" at 100 yards.
I got settled in with my Lead Sled, and fired a few shots to see where it was hitting, and went from there. I walked it in up/down, took several shots to confirm it was holding the new settings, and then walked it left/right until it was hitting right where I aimed.
Yeah, I "wasted" some ammo getting POA to equal POI, but I'm still pretty new at this, and I'm still learning how to do it, and watching carefully as I changed the adjustments on the scope. I looked at this exercise as not so much in getting the new scope zeroed, but rather as getting a feel for how to do it, and a feel for the how the adjustments reacted.
It turned out to be well worth the 20 or so rounds I spent experimenting.
I brought along some Remington 150gr Core-Lockt, some 150gr Sellier&Bellot, some 150gr  stuff I got from another place, and some 150gr Hornady LEVERevolution.
The Remington and S&B shot extremely consistent, while the "other" stuff was all over the place.
The Hornady was very interesting stuff. The box said that at 100 yards, it should shoot +3". Now, they don't tell you +3" compared to what, but compared to the Remington and S&B, it shoot just slightly above the black circle on my 5.5" targets, which is pretty damn close to 3".
And wonder of wonders, 12-clicks down put it where it was supposed to be!
Compared to the last time I took the Marlin 336 out to zero the OEM scope, this was a joy to do. The OEM scope didn't seem to adjust correctly, and it seemed to change it's zero over the course of the day. I understand that I was basically paying the rifle, and the scope and rings were just gravy. The prices these go for seem to bear that out, as a 336W is $500, and a 336WS is $548.
I don't think $48 can get you a very good scope and a set of rings!
Oh, yeah, the OEM rings. Couldn't use 'em. While I could get the scope and rings off the rail as a unit, I couldn't get the screws holding the top half of the rings loose! To start with, they're metric socket head caps screws, and the only hex keys I have in metric are ball drivers. These screws were in so tight, I was afraid of either stripping the head, or the ball-end of my driver, or both.
Since I had purchased some Warne rings in high, medium, and low, I decided to just use those, and leave the Marlin scope and rings together as a unit.
Since I was into it this far, I tried all three heights to see what best fit me, and wound up using the low rings.

The picture was taken at the end of our session on the long range, and shows some interesting things.
The bottom target shows (on the white paper) where I was walking it in, the top target shows me shooting off-hand standing at 100 yards, and the middle target shows the result of the barrel getting hot. The middle target was shot last, and although I kept it pretty much on center left-to-right, the elevation was changing. By the time I'd finished the middle target, the barrel was too hot to touch!
Yes, a 30-30 lever action rifle is NOT meant to be rapid fired for 10 minutes straight, and boy, I sure do understand that now!
 The bottom target only has two "big" holes from my 30-30, and the rest of the small holes are from my son's Mini 14 with aperture sights. It was the first time I've ever fired a Mini 14, and although that target sure won't qualify me as a Rifleman at Appleseed, I'm actually surprised I did that well at 100 yards with iron sights.
After spending a couple of hours on the long range, we went down to the short/pistol/steel target range for another couple of hours. I had a ball shooting my Marlin 1894C in 357 at the steel targets, and was clobbering them out at 100 yards with those funky "Buckhorn" sights it comes with. Took me a few shots to get the rear sight adjusted for elevation, but after that it was BOOM.........CLANG! My son got quite a kick out of the 1894, too, and said he didn't know how much fun it was to shoot a little rifle like that.

So all-in-all, we spent five hours tromping around out in the fresh air, went through 80 rounds of 30-30, 200 rounds of 223, 100 rounds of 17HMR, 100 rounds of 357, 100 rounds of 45ACP, and 100 rounds of 40S&W.

And we had a ball!
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Off To The Range

I'll report back when I get home....

Lifeguard Saves Man...AND GETS FIRED!

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This is just freakin' NUTS.

He's sitting in his tower, and somebody comes running up to tell him about a struggling man in the surf.

He goes, rescues the guy, fills out an incident report, and gets fired on the spot!

DOH!

Several of his fellow lifeguards quit in protest, and now the contracting company that manages the lifeguards is back pedaling on the issue.

Ya think?

Anyway, read all about it here.
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President Reagan's 4th of July Speech --7/4/86

THIS is what a President tells his country on Independence Day!

Enjoy!

Independence Day

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Happy (?) 4th of July, everybody.
I'm still in a dizzy over what our crumb-bum-in-chief is getting away with, and the recent Supreme (double??) Court decisions.
Oh, well.....
Going up to Angeles Shooting Range on Friday with my son and his cousin. I'm going to sight-in my new Nikon Buckmaster scope (3x9x40) on my Marlin 336, and blast some steel with my Marlin 1894 in 357.
My son will be bringing his step dads Mini 14, and I'm looking forward to shooting one of those.

Everybody be safe, and watch out for each other!

And I'll leave you with a quote from General Curtis LeMay's 1968 book, "America Is In Danger":

"People who wish to remain free must be willing to bleed for freedom"
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Bill Whittle on "Fast and Furious"

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As usual, he hits the nail right on the head.

His closing remarks are brilliant.



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High School 1958 vs 2012

Found this over at Godfather Politics, one of my faves.

Just couldn't resist posting it here.

HIGH SCHOOL — 1958 vs. 2012

Scenario 1:
Jack goes duck hunting before school and then pulls into the
school parking lot with his shotgun in his truck’s gun rack.

1958 – Vice Principal comes over, looks at Jack’s shotgun,
goes to his car and gets his shotgun to show Jack.

2012 – School goes into lock down, FBI called,
Jack hauled off to jail and never sees his truck or gun again.
Counselors called in for traumatized students and teachers.
………………………………………………………………….

Scenario 2:
Johnny and Mark get into a fist fight after school.

1958 – Crowd gathers. Mark wins. Johnny and Mark
shake hands and end up buddies.

2012 – Police called and SWAT team arrives –
they arrest both Johnny and Mark. They are both charged
with assault and both expelled even though Johnny started it.
…………………………………………………………………………

Scenario 3:
Jeffrey will not be still in class, he disrupts other students.

1958 – Jeffrey sent to the Principal’s office and given a good
paddling by the Principal. He then returns to class, sits still and
does not disrupt class again.

2012 – Jeffrey is given huge doses of Ritalin. He becomes a zombie.
He is then tested for ADD. The family gets extra money (SSI) from the
government because Jeffrey has a disability.
…………………………………………………………………………..

Scenario 4:
Billy breaks a window in his neighbor’s car and his Dad gives him a
whipping with his belt.

1958 – Billy is more careful next time, grows up normal, goes to college
and becomes a successful businessman.

2012- Billy’s dad is arrested for child abuse, Billy is removed to foster
care and joins a gang. The state psychologist is told by Billy’s sister
that she remembers being abused herself and their dad goes to prison.
Billy’s mom has an affair with the psychologist.
……………………………………………………………………………….

Scenario 5:
Mark gets a headache and takes some aspirin to school.

1958 – Mark shares his aspirin with the Principal out on the smoking dock.

2012- The police are called and Mark is expelled from school for drug violations.
His car is then searched for drugs and weapons.
………………………………………………………………………………….

Scenario 6:
Pedro fails high school English.

1958 – Pedro goes to summer school, passes English and goes to college.

2012 – Pedro’s cause is taken up by state. Newspaper articles appear nationally
explaining that teaching English as a requirement for graduation is racist. ACLU
files class action lawsuit against the state school system and Pedro’s English teacher.
English is then banned from core curriculum. Pedro is given his diploma anyway but
ends up mowing lawns for a living because he cannot speak English.
……………………………………………………………………………………..

Scenario 7:
Johnny takes apart leftover firecrackers from the Fourth of July,
puts them in a model airplane paint bottle and blows up a red ant bed.

1958 – Ants die.

2012 – ATF, Homeland Security and the FBI are all called. Johnny is
charged with domestic terrorism. The FBI investigates his parents -
and all siblings are removed from their home and all computers are confiscated.
Johnny’s dad is placed on a terror watch list and is never allowed to fly again.
……………………………………………………………………………………………………..

Scenario 8:
Johnny falls while running during recess and scrapes his knee.
He is found crying by his teacher, Mary. Mary hugs him to comfort him.

1958 – In a short time, Johnny feels better and goes on playing.

2012 – Mary is accused of being a sexual predator and loses her job.
She faces 3 years in State Prison. Johnny undergoes 5 years of therapy.”


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Google Censoring Shopping Results For Firearms

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DUH!
It hope it comes back and bites them (HARD!) in the ass.

Read all about it here.
,

Taps for America

1776~2012
May She Rest In Peace
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Todays SCOTUS Ruling

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I haven't read it.

I may try to read it later.

I see people saying it's a victory for us conservatives and the American people, and I see people saying the ruling is a complete disaster, and this crappy piece of legislation should have been sent to Hell, where it belongs.

Maybe I'm not tactically savvy enough when it comes to things like this, but I had hoped (and prayed) that the entire thing would have been ruled patently UNconstitutional.

And I see people are praising Justice Roberts for his "Brilliant Thinking", and "Chessmaster-like Strategy".

I think Claire Wolfe was wrong.

It's time now, or will be very soon.....

At least there was some good news, in the vote declaring Holder in contempt.

Maybe we do have some time left, but it's getting shorter and shorter....

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And I Thought I Was Having A Bad Day

.
Ever have one of those days when you just felt everything was turning to shit?

Well, I *was* having one until a few minutes ago.

They posted the new launch schedule at work today, and we'll be out at-sea over Thanksgiving AND Christmas.

Shit....

AND TPTB have decided that EVERYBODY has to start at 0600.

Double shit....

And then I just went over to The Poor Farm to see what my friend Jeffro was up to.....




His whole place burned to the ground while he was out delivering some oil storage tanks in Michigan.....




Kinda makes my "problems" look pretty lame.

Please, drop on by his place, or say a prayer, or both.
He's a good, decent, honest, Salt-of-the-Earth guy, and I think he could use a little support about now.

Thanks......
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An Afternoon At The Range

Since I haven't been to the indoor range in I-forget-how-long, and I took today off work to unpack the Jeep and recover from Field Day, my son and I went out this afternoon for a couple of hours.
It's nice getting there at 2pm, as we had the whole place to ourselves, and used the lane next to ours to stack our gear, reload our guns, prep the targets, etc.
He brought his step-dads Remington Viper 522, and his Sig P226. I brought my Kimber TLE-II 45ACP.
As usual, it took a a magazine full of 45ACP before I got "good" again, and the the whole first mag I was chanting "Front Sight, PRESS, Reset, Front Sight, PRESS, Reset" as I dusted the rust off my marksmanship. At ten yards. they were all in the black, but not nearly as tight as I know I'm capable of. Still, they were all within a "Dinner Plate Sized Circle" as propounded by the NRA for Basic Home Defense.
By the second mag I had them all within a space I could cover with my hand, so the skills came back pretty quick.
The Remington Viper 522 my son brought is an interesting little rifle. It was the replacement for the Nylon 66, which I owned a LONG time ago, and regret giving to my best buddy before I moved out here to Kaliforniastan. My buddy still has it, and shoots it regularly, and tells me it's none the worse, but I still miss it.
The 522 lived up to it's reputation for the plastic magazines it came with being pretty crummy, and we had numerous failure-to-feed malfunctions. Once we switched to the aftermarket steel magazines he brought with him, it settled right down, and we burned through all the "old" ammo he brought with him. We had a bunch of failure-to-fire malfunctions, and although the round showed a solid hammer strike, it just didn't fire. We started to use some Federal "Value Pack" ammo I brought with me, and spent the rest of the afternoon alternating between shooting at the 1" stick-on circles he brought, and using our handguns.
By the time we were finishing up for the day, people were starting to come in, including some local LEO's who use the range for qualifying.
All-in-all, we had a great time, and we're going to try and get up to Angeles Shooting Range in the next week or so for some rifle time.
And I'm definitely going to try and get to an Appleseed event after the August launch that I'm scheduled to go on.

Field Day

Well, so far it's been pretty quiet. Nobody fell off a tower or out of a tree, or blew up a radio or generator, at least not yet.
The Solar Index dropped off last week, and with it, HF propagation. We only have 1 'Big Gun" station this year, and he's running CW, where each contact nets two points. The other two stations we have set up, besides mine, are using fairly low dipoles and a vertical. They're doing kinda-sorta OK, but I doubt if we'll get even one-third the points we scored last year.
Things went pretty smoothly for me setting up the satellite station, and I was ready to go about 20 minutes before the event started. The first satellite pass didn't occur until 45 minutes later, so I ran around and helped everybody else chase Murphy away.
So far I've made 16 satellite contacts after untangling a couple of problems of my own, and the higher-elevation passes will occur later tonight.
Next pass is AO-7, and it happens in 10 minutes, so I'll end this.

The Most Interesting Comrade In The Whole World

H/T to Alvie

Field Day Preps

Well, I brought the 4'x6' U-Haul home tonight, and even managed to back it into the driveway without running off the concrete, or taking anything out.
Tomorrow I'll tip over the tower, and pull the VHF antenna off the cross-boom, and then pull the cross-boom out with the UHF antenna still bolted to it. This allows me to do the minimum of dis-assembly, which means the minimum of RE-assembly at the Field Day site on Saturday morning.
I tested all my gear last weekend (and had a ball doing it!), and it's all packed and staged in the garage, ready to put in the trailer tomorrow. Saturday morning I'll hop in the Jeep, and head down to the site. My son will meet me there with the tent and the other camping gear, and we should have everything running by 11am when the event officially starts.
We usually set up on Friday, 24 hours before the event starts, but this year we're down to about one-third our normal strength, and nobody is staying overnight at the site.
I'm NOT leaving my generator, radio, and other support stuff unattended there!
Our three most experienced operators, and all their equipment, will be operating with one of the other clubs they belong to, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the other club.
We've been running category "5A" or "6A" the last several years, but we might be "3A" this year, if another club member decides to come out.
The number in the category refers to the total number of transmitters we have on-the-air, and the letter indicates our power class. "A" is for off-the-grid, generator operation.
Six transmitters might sound like a lot, but you can have multiple transmitters on the same band, as long as they operate different modes. We usually had one SSB, and one CW station on the three most popular bands, but things can change around quickly if there's a "Band Opening" with a lot of activity. One of the CW stations might decide to go operate SSB, say if 10 Meters gets hot, and the CW band he was operating in wasn't producing many contacts.
Field Day is NOT supposed to be a contest, but that's the way most clubs approach it these days. I think the record was a club operating something like "157A" ( !! ), but in reading about their operation, they kind of bent the rules by about 90*!
Field Day is supposed a simulated emergency test, where we all go out away from our normal stations, and operate with portable equipment and power sources, as a test of our preparedness. It's also a good opportunity the show the General Public what Amateur Radio is all about, and to (try) and introduce them to the fact that there are other ways to communicate besides using a cellphone or the Internet.
And it's a good test to see if all your radio junk that's been buried in the garage for the last 12 months still works!
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Happy Father's Day!

......And I'm going to play radio ALL DAY!

Thank You For Your Service

H/T to Jeffro

Satellite Station Up And Running

And it was remarkably painless!
I was a bit concerned about using my newer laptop with Windows 7 this year. The 4-port USB-to-Serial converter I'd been using for years did NOT have Win7 drivers, so it forced me to get a newer version. Then Windows remapped all the ports compared to what I had been using on my older laptop, so after a bit of digging, I had the correct cable on the correct port, and was able to set up the radio, the tracking interface which tells the rotor controller which way to move the antennas, and my HP GPS clock.
And it all worked!
I could easily hear myself on the FO-29 downlink, and had a chat with a guy in San Diego. Not exactly DX from here, but the satellite's footprint was mostly over the Pacific, so I was lucky to have somebody to talk to.
FO-29 is a Grand Old Lady, having been launched in August of 1996. She's had some battery trouble, but the guys at JAMSAT have kept her running all these years. They've been turning it off during extended eclipse periods so the batteries don't go completely flat, and they've done a superb job.
Now I just have to wait for some more passes that are over this area, and see who else I can yak with.

Field Day Is NEXT Weekend

And I'm dragging all the stuff out of the garage and shack to do a dry run.
The picture is yours truly from 2010. The smile on my face is due to the fact that I'm in the process of making 35 satellite contacts....the best my club had EVER done!
In 2011 I made 45 contacts, another "record" for the club. This year we've lost a couple of satellites, AO-51, and HO-68. AO-51 was an FM only bird, but HO-68 was a linear transponder (SSB and CW), and I made about HALF our contacts on it last year.
AO-51's batteries finally failed after 7 years in orbit, and HO-68 suffered a failure of a relay used to switch things around, and has been beacon-only since January 2011.
Back later with more.....

New Flavor at Baskin Robbins!

From one of my friends.....

In honor of the 44th President of the United States , Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream has introduced a new flavor: Barocky Road

Barocky Road is a blend of half vanilla, half chocolate, and surrounded by nuts and flakes. The vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and usually denied as an ingredient. The nuts and flakes are plentiful.

The cost is $92.84 per scoop...so out of a hundred dollar bill you are at least promised some CHANGE..!

When purchased it will be presented to you in a large beautiful cone, but after you pay for it, the ice cream is taken out of the cone and given to the person in line behind you at no charge.

You are left with an almost empty wallet, staring at an empty cone and wondering what just happened. Then you realize this is what "redistribution of wealth" is all about.
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Have To Agree.....

Courtesy of The Feral Irishman!

Help Find Out How Your Local PD Is Using Drones

The guys over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have published a handy little guide of things to ask your local PD.

Here's their opening paragraph:

Since last month, when EFF released a list of the sixty-odd public agencies that have already received from the FAA approval to fly domestic drones, the issue of drone surveillance has reached front and center in many Americans’ mind.  Yet barely any information is known about what law enforcement agencies plan to do with these unmanned flying vehicles. So we want your help to gather this information into one place.

To find out more, head on over to the EFF website, and read the whole thing. 

If you don't want to read the entire thing, here's a link to the questions.

I've been an EFF member for some years now, and while I may not agree 100% with them, this is a worthwhile venture on their part.
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Colorado Fires *UPDATE*

Well, the stepson's GF heard from her Mom today.
Their house is still standing.
She said it's a bit scorched, and the deck is gone along with all of the outbuildings, but the house itself appears intact.
Her parents haven't been allowed back in the immediate area yet, so they don't know if it's habitable or not, but at least it's still there.
She's headed back today to help with the mountains of paperwork that come with a loss like this.