A Crummy Commercial

kit means that it must be assembled by the customer From time to time I get emails from customers or prospective customers about a kit.  Usually it's something along the lines of: "will this kit work with my rig ?" And I usually try to answer promptly with an informative email.  First a disclaimer is included if I have no first hand experience with the equipment in question.  For example, I've never used an amplifier on HF so I'll mention this when fielding a tube amp / rig compatibility question for the Keyall HV.   I recently heard from a buyer of the original Keyall.  I wasn't sure if he had already been using the Keyall but he wanted to know if it would work with a solid state Kenwood rig and a Yaesu FL2100b amplifier.  I downloaded the manual for the Yaesu and saw that it used grid-block keying - the two amplifier tube grids were biased with a negative voltage which appeared to be less than the absolute value of -25 volts since that was the rating on the

I used to sell the Touch Paddle kit: notice the inter digital traces on the left http://wb9kzy.com/touchp.htm It was later replaced by the Touch Switch II and then the current PICPADL kit: http://wb9kzy.com/picpadl.htm The original Touch Paddle kit was a resistance based, skin conductivity circuit - a very low active power circuit which could be phantom powered via the dit/dah pullups. The Touch Switch II and PICPADL were capacitive sensing circuits which work better as paddles but at the cost of higher standby/active current. Getting back to the Touch Paddle circuit, it was very simple, just the 40107, an 8 pin CMOS IC, along with some caps/resistors and diodes.  The user made contact between the inter-digital fingers on the circuit board to "press" a dit or dah.  I used to fabricate a plastic sandwiched sleeve which fit over the fingers.  I discouraged the user from touching the fingers directly as they had solder-based tinning.   But I had a thought:  maybe this same circu

Per Ars, Archive.org data has been breached: https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2024/10/archive-org-a-repository-storing-the-entire-history-of-the-internet-has-been-hacked/ This is what it says on the site on Friday, October 11, 2024: Per the Ars article I did check that site and found this: I didn't even know about 2022 Question Pro breach - I *think* that is the way Kellogg's does it's surveys for Kitchen Insiders or at least the way it used to do them. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I had a problem with my Nikon 500 mm mirror telephoto lens.  It came with a lens hood built in (a cylinder of aluminum less than an inch high) into which a lens cap was screwed.  But over the years of non-use the lens cap could NOT be removed - it seemed like the cap and the lens hood had been welded together. Luckily the lens works OK without the screw in hood, so when I wanted to use the lens I just had to unscrew the lens hood. None of the other Nikon or other vendor lenses I own have screw-in lens caps so I've never had this happen before. I didn't want to use any kind of lubricant or penetrating oil on the cap and lens hood because I was worried that any residual oil might get on the lens and affect the coating. So I finally decided to try heating up the lens hood in a shallow pan of water heated on the stove.  But since the cap and hood were joined so tightly it was impossible to heat just the lens hood. Anyway, after 5 minutes or so I took the hood/cap out of the water,

Mentioned the 1963 game before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/05/1963-exhibition-game-packers-versus.html And they still had it as Soldiers' Field both on screen and in the audio: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CYWor0_DyVw It's right there on the sign, no s, Soldier Field: Didn't they trust the Chicago Park District sign ?  :)   This time the Packers won the exhibition BTW last week the Packers got this amazing catch from Jayden Reed, number 11: a no look catch But as Jim used to say on The Vicar of Dibley :  No No No No . . . Yes source: https://youtu.be/iRlqmTKyQx0 Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I used to work in the Receiving Inspection department at GTE Northlake.  In addition to the big computer controlled testers for ICs there were any number of custom built test sets for other items that were purchased.  These sets were designed by hardware guys and built by technicians - I remember the fellow who did some of my builds, a very nice guy named Vern who I tried to keep supplied with at least some work.   Anyway, one day I am walking around and see one of the repair techs, Wayne.  He calls me over to the bench where he is looking at a non-functional shoebox sized test set - I don't remember what it checked.  The thing that irritated Wayne was that the engineer (who had become a supervisor) had used a transistor radio, wired as a power audio oscillator rather than a Sonalert.  Where was Wayne going to find a replacement transistor radio ? His point was that he could order a new Sonalert from most any supplier and slip it in if the old one broke.  I remember the test set

I mentioned Every Frame a Painting in this entry: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/06/a-big-hotel-in-canada.html Later in 2024 Youtube started to pop up new videos on the channel, the most recent: What would Billy Wilder do ?  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X_aYXYUT5l8 The Sustained Two-Shot   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mn2Dcy-NDTw At least there are some good things happening in 2024 ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm