A Crummy Commercial

Recently I signed up for Pinterest - I wanted to download a picture and that was the only way other than a screen cap.  So now Pinterest spams daily with "pins" or posts that users have made.  This one brought back memories: The one that caught my eye was the 1970 Maverick.  Not because it was such a great or beloved car (it replaced the Falcon :).  It was because the Maverick (don't confuse it with the current pickup truck, the 1970 Maverick was a car) was the cheapest American car listed at $1995.  Using our old friend the BLS calc here is the inflated price: I don't think there are any current 2025/2026 new cars for that kind of money.  Of course cars and trucks in general have been moved upmarket. The only reason why I remember that $1995 price was that Ford had placed ads in magazines of the day touting that list price, an unusual practice. I wonder how many of those $1 models were sold ?  I bought a similar model once but it was a Buick Riviera o...

Although I have plenty of flashlights and headlamps one thing I wanted during the last power outage was a stand for my penlight.  After the power came back on I thought of this: I'm not sure what that wooden block was originally used for, it has 6 1/2 stamped on one side.  It might have something to do with ships rigging ?  I've got a couple more, larger thicker blocks with different holes in them.  They've always been used to park a hot pot or tray. But with the addition of a cardboard shim, instant penlight stand.  Shine the bright light on the ceiling and there is enough light to do stuff with both hands.  When it warms up I may make some copies so I can have them in multiple rooms. I got that penlight on Ebay, it is a Maglite Mini 2 AA LED penlight.  It's a nice flashlight but not super crazy about the twist on/off switch.  I will have to see if there are better/cheaper metal penlights available on Ebay. BTW ULINE is that company that sells bo...

Remember the kid with soldering irons in both hands ? https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/10/i-am-not-ai-whisperer.html This cold winter morning (12F or -11C) I was collecting my Microsoft Rewards points when I saw a prompt to use the Microsoft AI for image creation. https://www.bing.com/images/create   It was supposed to be for a cold winter greeting ?  Anyway I tried it and got this: Here are the four in more detail: I guess Microsoft AI lives in a very complicated cybernetic world because these might also qualify for the messiest shack contest: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/04/messy.html This was my inspiration, an ARRL ad from the back of the first issue of QST that I ever bought (February 1967): Maybe it was the stylized lettering at the top but I thought it was both good AND memorable. I got the 20 Microsoft Rewards points, that's the main thing :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Doing a Janus on kits for the end of 2025, start of 2026.  Unfortunately more bad kit news. The price of the Keyall HV+ kit has been raised by $7:    http://wb9kzy.com/keyallhvplus.htm This is due mainly to switching to a US supplier for the circuit board.  Essentially the tariff tax strikes again because I refuse to pay a Federal sales tax on circuit boards made outside the US.  And I need a supplier who will mail boards (many US suppliers refuse to do this).  And the only one I have dealt with in the past is Oshpark, they are the ones with the purple solder mask and the gold plating.  I may try DigiKey's Red circuit boards in the future but for now it is Oshpark. a computer generated picture of what the new boards will look like, basically same as the old except purple and more expensive Happy New Year :( Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

 Two items: The Battery Saver kit has been discontinued: FYI purple soldermask indicates a Made-in-USA board http://wb9kzy.com/batsave.htm Reason: not that much interest. Second item: Postage/handling increased to $6 flat rate per order. Bummer that the only recent kit news is bad :( Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

During the power outage yesterday I got out the Baofeng UV-5RE and noticed that I hadn't charged it probably since the last power outage :(  I got the two nearby National Weather Service stations: 162.425 in Sister Bay WI: https://www.weather.gov/nwr/sites?site=WXN69 and 162.5 in Escanaba MI:  https://www.weather.gov/nwr/sites?site=KZZ35 I had Escanaba on the lower VFO (down arrow).  Then I tried pressing the orange call button for FM broadcast but no dice.  Not a huge problem since I do have a number of FM radios but it's handy to be able to check the radio in hand at the time.   But later after consulting the internet search (including reddit in a search still seems to help) it just says press the orange button and you get FM.  I also did a reset which changes the voice prompts to Chinese AND resets the bottom VFO to UHF. powerup after reset with lower VFO set to UHF but upper VFO selected (up arrow)   I finally figured out that the bottom VFO H...

The power went off sometime during the night - there was a lot of rain on Sunday followed by snow.  Luckily no ice storm this time, just a blizzard. The power came back on about 12:05p on Monday, right after I said out loud: "come on you guys" - a phrase Dad Olson used to employ :) I thought I'd do a quick blog in case the power goes out again.  I should also work on some list of storm prep stuff like recharging batteries, buying batteries, Sterno (or equivalent) and so on.  And it's time to get outside and start clearing snow, still windy here but the temps are supposed to plummet   It's just so nice to have toasty feet again !   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm