A Crummy Commercial

Last year I put up a post on April 15th on the maple season: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/04/2025-maple-report.html So I thought I'd do the same this year.  Only processed 70 boils this year, resulting in 18 pints of syrup.  The new mass measurement method is working pretty well although I still get a flip out of the bimetallic breaker at times.  2026 was disappointing though, the season started maybe a week earlier in February but I did 14 fewer boils and have 6 fewer pints of syrup.  There was a cold spell and a blizzard which affected sap collection.  But I now have 51 gallons of distilled water (sap) to consume which should last me into July. So now it's time to pull the taps and start washing everything out.  And get on with other spring tasks. the syrup from the last boil just fit into a 4 oz jelly canning jar Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Interesting video on testing ICs by Asianometry: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXULADjnO5s I think Asianometry is a "one man band" so there are bound to be some mistakes in there.  For example (a nit pick) it was Takeda Riken not Takeda Rikan :)   Also Allen-Bradley made carbon composition resistors but he showed a picture of what appeared to be a film resistor on ceramic (with the spiral pattern).   Also not sure on his diode diagrams (they look backwards to me :) And I was told it was pronounced: Shlum-ber-jay: Fairchild is easier to pronounce than Favre or Schlumberger :)   Anyway nothing wrong of huge importance.   This video is a good history of how IC testing changed over the years and which IC test companies made it into the 21st century.   Personally I worked on the Fairchild IC testers but we used Teradyne testers at GTE, too, especially for linear.  About the only thing I knew about Teradyne was that they called their tes...

A customer, Jer, AA1OF, sent me pictures of his completed SMT Zerobeat kit.  It's a beautiful job of both photography AND build quality - I wish I could do work like that.  And I took the liberty of slimming down the picture size, too. I wonder about that pot marked 104, that looks aftermarket to me, but we'll allow it :) For comparison here is my photo of the prototype from the website: I stopped using those orange trimmer pots The prototype does work although not as pretty :) If interested, here is a link to the SMT Zerobeat kit (in stock): http://wb9kzy.com/smtzb.htm FYI: the SMT Zerobeat is a surface mount version of the Grandson of Zerobeat kit.  It allows a Morse code operator to quickly zerobeat a transceiver with another CW signal to within roughly +/- 10 Hz.  Just tune carefully until the center green LED is lit. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

It was good to hear that the Artemis II mission astronauts splashed down safely after a successful mission.  I have to admit that I didn't follow it quite like I did with the Apollo 8 mission in 1968. . . . . . People may not realize what the year 1968 was like.  It started bad, at least for the United States.  The North Koreans captured the USS Pueblo.  Then the Tet offensive in Vietnam exploded - it was eventually crushed but the Viet Cong and the North Vietnamese mounted a countrywide battle that took me by surprise and I imagine many others.  There had been lots of somewhat optimistic reports about the war over the years so even though the offensive wasn't a military victory it was a publicity triumph for the "bad guys".  It helped change both the war and the US elections.   LBJ decided not to run for another term as President. The next big thing were the assassinations, starting with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. in Memphis.  That touched ...

The blog from yesterday on HELP! :  https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/04/help.html    Yes, the shot of George and the grass cutter guy: does show a record player in the background.  It appears to be a KB Discomatic EL-POR: The next question:  was it John Lennon's Discomatic OR did John acquire it while making the movie ?  Because he had one: https://www.lawrencestrauss.com/jljukebox.html wiki:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon's_jukebox And so did Beatles manager Brian Epstein: source:  https://www.capitol6000.com/recordplayers.html So I'm suspicioning that the movie shoot inspired the Discomatic purchases.  I do remember seeing the show:  John Lennon's Jukebox on PBS - it concentrated on some of the songs in the Discomatic - here is the English version: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgABKFLOKj8 unless interested in a LOT of English ads, skip ahead to about 13:30 Here's a site on the unit: https://discomatic...

In the summer of 1965 I was 9 years old.  The local shopping center, Brown Port, had a new movie theater open in February: https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/31412/ Previously the closest theater to my house was the Fox-Bay on Silver Spring in Whitefish Bay.  The Brown-Port theater was easier for kids to get to, although the Fox-Bay had a balcony.  One weird fact, one of my classmates lived on Port Washington road at the entrance to the theater.  His family actually physically moved their house about a mile south to Glendale, just past the Lutheran church. Anyway, I wish I had access to the Milwaukee Journal archives to verify this but I remember going to see the Beatles movie,  HELP! multiple times that summer at the Brown-Port with my friends.  So I remember the movie.  A copy of HELP! was posted on Youtube: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUAbwGnxRXk The stuff I thought was the coolest was near the beginning: They approach 4 differ...

I saw this picture on Shorpy: https://www.shorpy.com/node/27886 and immediately thought: that's an SUV that an NFL player might own :) The wiki page: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lincoln_L_series 1924 or 1927-28 version ? (from the Wiki page): But they need to add running boards to the 2026 version: I *DO* remember watching: The Good Guys on TV but I don't really remember the shows.  Apparently a 1920s era Lincoln limo was used as a cab: Herb Edelman and Bob Denver    I guess the 1920s Lincoln body style varied a lot because the body was made by various coachbuilders which was then melded with the Lincoln frame and running gear.  So yes, the driver might actually be out in the elements like a coachman of old ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm