A Crummy Commercial

I think any reasonable person knows that millionaires and billionaires are responsible for illegal immigration, for example, our President: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/report-reveals-pipeline-of-undocumented-costa-rican-immigrants-at-trump-club-a-very-open-secret/  Why aren't millionaires or billionaires put in jail or deported ?  HA ! But it made me remember this parody from Mad Magazine 110 (1967): source: https://archive.org/details/mad-magazine-1967/MAD110/page/n39/mode/2up  Here's a simple, stupid solution to illegal immigration:  put a Trump or a Walton or some other millionaire or billionaire in prison and that hiring or banking or landlording will stop PDQ - and no prisons or airplane flights will be needed, those folks will go home on their own. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

OR  prototype for a sniper ray ? source: https://spectrum.ieee.org/darpa-optical-wireless-power  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

I was watching the highlights of the 2025 MLB All-Star game.  The weird thing was hearing players talking to the announcers DURING THE GAME !  I thought it was another way to feed the novelty machine.  I suppose a live player camera is for next year ? source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ykqhonhqios  But the voice fidelity was remarkably good.  It made me think of the Apollo 11 landing.  Neil Armstrong said he said:   That's one small step for a man, one giant leap for mankind. But what was actually heard was:  That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind.   The "a" after for was either not said OR not heard.  The audio quality of the Apollo voice link was NOT high-fidelity.  It was confusing. Youtube decodes it like this: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dgllSrCo7Fg  Curious Marc did a huge series of videos on Apollo Comms: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uvUq81jIzPg&list=PL-_93BVApb58SXL-BCv4rVHL-8G...

Not really but sometimes Farnsworthing Morse Code causes problems.  Farnsworthing is sending Morse Code at a relatively fast speed with exaggerated spacing in between the characters to result in a lower overall speed.  W1AW does this during code practice at slow speeds to prevent the listener from "counting".  5 WPM code practice is sent at 15 WPM with extra spaces. https://www.arrl.org/code-practice-files  https://www.arrl.org/files/file/Technology/x9004008.pdf  You want to hear/recognize each Morse character as a sound, counting the dits and dahs will work up to a point but it slows you down.  Kind of like reading out loud (aka moving your lips) is slower than reading silently so teachers discourage young readers from verbalizing what they are reading. A customer had a problem with his Island Keyer II keyer (http://wb9kzy.com/ik2.htm) .  He was trying to record:   QRL?  into a memory.  But the Island Keyer II wasn't recording the quest...

The only mail I'm supposed to get today: is for my parents, both dead for over a decade - and I will probably get them tomorrow at the earliest :(  So now I have a day to stew about them.  The one for my Mom is probably just a sales pitch.  But the one for my Dad is from where he used to work at Johnson Controls so that might actually be something ? This reminds me of when issue after issue of Vogue started being mailed to my Mom who had been dead for years.  The subscription just started up all by itself, never saw a bill, there was no way to contact Conde-Nast about it on the internet that I could find.  Just weird that a free subscription for a fashion magazine would start for a woman who was over 90 when she died years ago.   Update 2025-07-15: I didn't get the letter to my Mom but the one for my Dad from Johnson Controls did appear - it was the usual data breach report with an offer of free credit monitoring form letter.  Has everyone everywh...

I have been using this W1FB JFET preamp design from March 1979 QST: Here it is in a tin: The problem is that while it does amplify it also oscillates and that makes it hard to tune up.  However I found this design: source: https://www.qsl.net/wn5y/ra01042.htm  project: https://www.qsl.net/wn5y/ra01000.htm  This WN5V receiver was available from the now defunct BG Micro: I've never tried a grounded gate (or base) amplifier before but apparently they are often more stable.  Now to actually try it ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

This morning I heard a snippet of a Dimension X old time radio show.  From July 12, 1951: Time and Time Again .  Usually I don't care for time travel stories but this was an interesting one.  Most of the Dimension X and X-1 shows were derived from short stories which appeared in Science Fiction pulp magazines.  Time and Time Again was written by H. Beam Piper and was published in the April 1947 issue of Astounding magazine: I *did* notice E. A. Van Vogt on the cover :)  So I find the first page of Time and Time Again : But on the facing page I saw this: Even in 1947 these two things were present: mistakes and humorous acknowledgement of those mistakes. :) BTW here is an mp3 of the Dimension X episode: https://www.oldtimeradiodownloads.com/sci-fi/dimension-x/time-and-time-again-1951-07-12  Here is the April 1947 issue of Astounding  magazine: https://archive.org/details/Astounding_v39n02_1947-04_AK/mode/2up  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://...