A Crummy Commercial

I was reading a book of short stories which became part of the public domain on 2026-01-01: Very Good, Jeeves by P.G. Wodehouse.  Earlier in the day the internet was "out" for over 3 hours so it was a chance to avoid the infinite scroll and read: source:  https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/77923 But although Very Good, Jeeves was written in English, this work was published in 1930 and Wodehouse was an Englishman - result was that there were references that I didn't understand.  For example:  Costermongers:  sellers of food, often from a cart, the cart being located in England Whelk-stall owners:  a whelk is a saltwater snail eaten by English folk The Sands of Dee:  tidal mudflats and salt marshes of the River Dee estuary between the Wirral Peninsula and North Wales (England adjacent - be careful when walking there !) Patience on a Monument:  sitting perfectly still, composed, and unmoving while enduring deep, silent sorrow or waiting, often smilin...

On The Beach by Nevil Shute is yet another atomic war, doomsday book / movie from the late 50s early 60s.   I recently did a Costanza, watched the movie instead of reading the book: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQY-4upNr7Q So I don't know how well it stuck to the book.  It was a Stanley Kramer production, usually his movies dealt with serious, important subjects although there was It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World :)   In On The Beach Ava Gardner was still a beauty and Gregory Peck was still handsome - certainly a watchable movie although a little long.  And there was a plot point related to radio and Morse code which I won't spoil.  Hearing  Waltzing Matilda  over and over becomes a little tiring after a while though. I did like the use of black and white film, somehow On The Beach,  Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe hit a little harder than they would have in color. https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-report-red-al...

I haven't gotten any sap for the last week, it had turned cold - really need that pothole weather where there's a freeze at night but then a sunny thaw during the day for any sap to flow. Finally got the thaw today courtesy of the sunshine and a strong wind out of the south.  So I drilled the last three trees in the morning and got some sap in the afternoon - only a little over 1/2 gallon but certainly better than nothing.  I will check the sap again about sundown. But the Green Bay weather people say it's only a single day thaw.   March will be coming in like a stick-to-your-tongue popsicle.  No sap for you, Chuck ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

The Jaycar Short Circuits transmitter was blogged on here previously: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/12/jaycar-am-morse-code-transmitter.html I mentioned the damped sine wave output and after a little looking I finally figured out why the circuit acted that way.  The ferrite rod used was from an AM/FM tuner by Oak, bought at Olson Electronics last century.  The connections I made to the smaller winding (L2) were intermittent and were apparently shorted in the circuit  So I tried replacing the ferrite rod with the coil from an old GE radio.  There is no secondary winding (in effect L2 is replaced by a short) so there is no feedback to sustain oscillation, the output waveforms: the flip flop output is in yellow When the flip flop connection to the base of Q3 goes low, the coil energy is dissipated in the tank circuit resulting in the damped sine wave. the signal (blue trace) is a damped sine wave with a frequency of about 1.3 MHz  And I purposely excluded t...

In the olden days of the 20th century, headphones were sometimes called: cans.  Well here is a 21st century version of high impedance cans (really can, a single element): It uses the headband from a defunct Gemini headphone - the dynamic elements and padding were removed.  Cable ties were then used to attach the Altoids round tin lids (actual cans).  Then a piezo telephone sounder, a CPE-6080, was wired to a 3.5 mm jack.  Then a standard 3.5 mm cable can be used to connect to a radio.  I did try these with the Elecraft K2 headphone jack and they are usable although not super comfortable.  I could add another piezo to the other can in the future but for now this is it. I also tried it with the old crystal set but no luck, the antennas currently in place are too small to be of use or some connection has broken over the winter - I'll try them again in the spring when antenna time returns. High impedance ?  Yes, although there is a peaky response: the CPE-...

No, no, not that Astro, he was an early 1960s phenomenon. There you are, the CIR Astro 200, a late 1970s ham radio, one of the first synthesized HF rigs.  Here is an interesting blog by KA7OEI: https://ka7oei.blogspot.com/2025/05/refurbishing-cir-astro-200-hf-amateur.html Notice the price: Not cheap considering a ham could get nearly four Heathkit HW-101 rigs for about the same money.  The thing I noticed wasn't so much the price but those six panel mounted switches: The switches look a little amateurish (maybe appropriate considering the market?) - CIR should have bought 6 extra hex nuts and properly mounted the switches.  Previously blogged on here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/09/panel-mounting-switch.html Maybe it was a question of cramming it all in there and there was no room to accomplish proper mounting ?  A rig which was supposedly a subsequent version of the CIR Astro 200 was the Swan Cubic Astro 150: Here they ditched the panel mount switches for the m...

I was using this needle nose pliers recently: "Omega" the last letter of the Greek alphabet, that should have been a warning.  I also used to have a matching diagonal cutter but stopped using that due to poor performance.  I got both tools at a True Value sometime during the 1980s.  Unfortunately these pliers don't always hold that well, the stiff piece of copper wire slipped and I ended up pinching my index finger: it hurt like crazy, luckily the skin wasn't broken Doesn't look like it's that bad but this is the umpty-umpth time this has happened.  So I've finally decided to replace this finger mangler with something of better quality.  Probably I'll get a Klein, Xcelite or Channellock - some brand I've heard of.  I'll see what I can get on Ebay (the only place on the island with tools happens to be a True Value so forget that !).   Has it really taken me 70 years to learn something so basic ?  Buy cheap tools at your own peril ! Best Regard...