A Crummy Commercial

I dug out the Morsemaster II, last mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/11/morsemaster-switches-part-ii.html I tried it out but it didn't seem to be working.  After fiddling with it a little I could hear a really faint stream of Morse code.  After opening it up I decided that the earphone jack might be bad so I took it out - WRONG. The sidetone uses a 555 timer circuit, some variation of which has been used by many hams for a CPO.  I finally realized it was the 220 uF output cap.  So I replaced it with a 100 uF cap (all I had at hand) and bingo, it worked, very loud and thumpy !  I had to turn down the volume. it wasn't born bad - it became bad  :) I decided to check the cap value, the AADE LC Meter manual cautions against polarized caps so I dug out the B&K 810C cap meter.  Here is the reading: So sometime along the line that cap lost almost all of the original value.  And since capacitive reactance is inversely related to capacit...

What was the biggest news out of Super Bowl 60 for me ? The perfect weather ?  (yawn, it's California) The ads ? (no, I wasn't able to watch the game) Seahawks 29, Patriots 13   (no, not this either) Bad Bunny halftime show ?   (nope) Coincidentally I saw this on Sunday: https://x.com/WiscoGrant/status/2020553342003318952 source:  https://www.campbells.com/products/chunky/pabst-beer-cheese-with-potatoes-chorizo/ Are you kidding me ?  They also have: source:  https://www.campbells.com/products/chunky/pabst-beef-bacon-beer-chili-with-beans/ BTW in case the combo of Pabst and cheese sounds weird see the bottom of this post: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/12/frizz.html Pabst-ett was a "cheese-food" created and sold by Pabst during prohibition.  Described as: "a pleasing combination of cheese, milk protein, milk sugar, milk minerals"  IOW: Velveeta ? source:  https://www.pabstmansion.com/2022/06/pabstett/ update:  Helpful Househol...

Recently I became aware of Kwik Trip Dunkers due to this guy: https://www.si.com/fannation/college/cfb-hq/news/gennings-dunker-2026-nfl-draft-prospect-profile-grades-rank-measurements Apparently he is a BIG fan of Culver's, the fast food chain that originated in Wisconsin.  Anyway Dunkers are a cake donut in various rotating flavors sold six to a box. But when I saw pictures of a Dunker: I immediately thought of Egekvist donuts in a box.  They were also boxed cake donuts sold at Mann's.  But somewhere along the line either Mann's changed wholesalers or Egekvist went out of business because they stopped being offered.  I tried looking for a picture of Egekvist donuts but this was the only one I found: the Egekvist ones were in the yellow windowed boxes source:  https://www.flickr.com/photos/40150075@N04/44967499092 It's so fuzzy that I'm not sure what brand is what, but you get the idea.  It's not that the Egekvist donuts were super great, it was more t...

The summer of the moon landings, 1969, I had graduated from grade school and was about to start high school.  So I took a couple of summer classes at Nicolet High School.  The first one was mechanical drawing - this was way before computerized drawing CAD programs of course.  But the other course was touch typing.  And then I never did any typing again for 4 years !  Also you don't remember touch typing without using it.  Finally, touch typing depends a LOT on the particular keyboard layout - muscle memory gets developed and it's hard (at least for me) to shift to a different keyboard on a computer.  I never really nailed down touch typing numbers (and certainly shifted number symbols) but now I can sorta no look type but with the caveat of lots of mistakes.  I remember a fellow named Tony at GTE would marvel at how fast I could type on the Sentry IC tester terminal and how fast I could make mistakes :) It turns out that I didn't really ever use t...

The GE World Monitor radio was mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/09/seven-days-in-may-movie-version.html Today I noticed an ad for an Admiral AM/FM/SW Transistor Portable: never knew about this radio And that got me thinking about the GE.  Where did I first see the World Monitor ? the hard to see price was $199.98 source:  https://archive.org/details/newsweek74julnewy/page/n245/mode/2up I was scrap booking the space program in 1969 and would try to buy Newsweek, Time, Life - we also got National Geographic in the mail then. Why didn't I just buy one ?: Even now I'd have to think a while about spending over $1700 For one thing I DID have the Hallicrafters S-120.  And I was 13 years old in July 1969, no way I would ever see that much cash. Just for the heck of it I tried searching on the Sams Photofact with the GE World Monitor: TSM-148  Bang: there it is on the wonderful WorldRadioHistory site !  Just dumb luck. https://www.worldradiohistory...

I was reminded recently of the author, Paul de Kruif - one of his most popular books was called: Microbe Hunters which I read as a kid.   https://archive.org/search?query=microbe+hunters+de+kruif&sin=   (you can tell it was a popular book by all the copies on archive !) Hunger Fighters was another of de Kruif's books and has a Wisconsin connection in the last three chapters: https://archive.org/search?query=hunger+fighters+de+kruif&sin= I made it through four years of college at UWM (University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee) with an Electrical Engineering degree.  But the University of Wisconsin at Madison is the biggest school in the state and arguably the best.  It has a long history of accomplishment.  One of the tellers of those tales of UW history is Professor Dave Nelson.  Here is one of Prof. Nelson's lectures on PBS Wisconsin: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0axP7Hq6HzQ   (Tom Zinnen must be a dad because he does tell dad ...

Going over to my Grandparent's house was a regular thing when I was a kid.  One memory I had this morning was of a small bookcase in their living room next to the davenport.  Mostly filled with books it also had a marble ashtray that was never used.  Supposedly it was made from Hitler's doorstep by some GIs?  My Grandmother was with the Red Cross during World War II - anyway that was the story I got, IOW a conversation piece. But the thing I remembered today was this book spine: blue and gold, very Cub Scoutish, that's just how I remember it, no jacket source:  https://i.etsystatic.com/6694032/r/il/aa3abb/5616935458/il_300x300.5616935458_6zm5.jpg I don't think I ever asked about the book or looked at it but today I wonder what it was about.  Apparently a novel also made into a movie.  Should I go full Costanza and just watch the movie ?  Or maybe get the book and try reading it ?  The book is on archive: https://archive.org/details/oilforlamp...