A Crummy Commercial

Mentioned finding property boundaries recently: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/06/land-navigation-okay-surveying.html I did try Google Earth and another phone app but I ended up deleting them both.  Not especially accurate or easy to use.  There is another app called Landglide but it doesn't seem to be free and also appeared intrusive - I didn't even try it. Then I was looking up property stuff on the Door County gov site and voila, it has something that is probably as close as the apps, for example: This shows the border of my property near the tree line, the pictures are fairly recent because you can see the piles of birch limbs in the field from the big ice storm from spring 2025, the pictures must be from fall/winter 2025 (no leaves on trees) ?  I suppose a MacGuyver would be able to tell the date from the tree shadows or ?  :)  Mentioned the storm here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-few-pictures-of-ice-storm-aftermath.html Here's a slight crop of ...

I've mentioned the Canadian Football League before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/10/2024-canadian-football.html While the NFL fiddles around with mini-camps and easing into practicing for the 2026 season, Youtube served up this week 1 of the 2026 game: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zdoYNILYd4 Former Packer, Kabion Ento (48), recovers a fumble in OT for the Montreal Alouettes, 1st CFL game 2026.  This helped the Alouettes beat the Hamilton Tiger Cats, 30-27. First Packers pre-season game is August 13 - first 2026 regular season game is September 13  :(  The last game is in January 2027 !  The Super Bowl: February 14, 2027 - Happy Birthday to Jack Benny ! The last Montreal Alouettes game is October 23, 2026 - the CFL Grey Cup (equivalent to the Super Bowl) is November 15.  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I finally got a single picture of bats by the front door: Blurry, off kilter and the camera is still not aimed high enough.  AND it is so blurry that those might even be birds instead of bats ?  Are these considered UFA (Unidentified Flying Animals) ?  The more I think about it, these are probably birds, a bat would have a larger wingspan, right ? Here is a cropped version: ?? But the camera does sorta seem to function as a scare-bat - maybe I will try setting up an aluminum ladder I have in the same area as the camera tripod to see if it also works as a scare-bat.  So I am not bats, there are bats (maybe), this picture is the receipt (kinda like all the lame UFO pictures :). Finally, renaming UFO as UAP is as dumb as changing Twitter to X !  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw a couple of items concerning navigation recently.  One was this Veritasium video on GPS jamming in Europe: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz23G_UXCGA Those wacky Russians !  The one thing they didn't mention was who tipped off the GPS researcher to the jamming in the first place.  Probably the same one who provided the raw GPS data ? The other was this IEEE Spectrum article on using magnetometers for navigation: https://spectrum.ieee.org/magnetometers-hidonix-astranav-gps-alternative Both are interesting - one thing that I've been interested in as a property owner is just where are property lines that aren't line of sight from the corner stakes that the surveyors drive in.  At one time I looked at DGPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS But apparently DGPS is gone in the US.  But you might be able to do a local DGPS, say put a DGPS broadcast station at a known point (USGS benchmark or the corner stake of a property)  then...

Before the June 3 2026 game between the Brewers and the Giants - here is Brewers pitcher Robert Gasser getting stronger ?   source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nCGer90o57o I just happened to see this tweet, the photo is amazing: source:  https://x.com/ukpackers/status/2062272827898646941 Nicholson AND Nitschke working on a movie, who knew ? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Head_(film) source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MoIFxrXU-v8 For 1960s Packers fans, Ray Nitschke doesn't get much screen time but at least it's pretty early in the movie so you don't need to watch the rest if you don't want to. And here is the most profound part of the movie at about 43:10 in: "Pleasure, the inevitable byproduct of our civilization - a new world, it's only preoccupation will be how to amuse itself - the tragedy of your times, my young friends, is that you may get exactly what you want" In other words: it's Huxley's  Brave New World BTW, in this zoom in yo...

I finally found the CQ Magazine article by W1FB from October 1997 on an antenna switch construction project.  I've mentioned it several times, for example: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/10/dougs-desk-in-cq-magazine.html Here are the schematics: I remembered the article as using automotive relays (aka Bosch) which is correct BUT I also remembered it as employing a power saving circuit for the relays - that isn't true. So I don't know if I am thinking of a different article/author or ?? Here is a short relay power saver video: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CqLfx7yIhIE It shows the concept of bridging a series resistor with an electrolytic cap - this allows the relay to pull in but the relay current decreases as the cap is charged. I don't know what to say about my memory though :( Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I *think* I have bats - no belfry here but bats that roost at night by the front door.  I see the signs, yuck.  So I thought I'd setup the trail cam overnight to confirm.  But all I got was this: An old geezer barely awake.  Also I didn't have the cam aimed high enough - there's no viewfinder. This reminded me of an episode (season 3, episode 22 per PlutoTV) of The Andy Griffith Show where Barney sets up a camera to catch a thief at the gas station.  Here is the cam (a folding camera yet) with a string on the shutter: Route the string: Finally attach the string to the door: Then Barney opens the door: The next day after the robbery Gomer comes in with the picture of the thief: I hate when that happens :)   I'll try it again tonight - if I get skunked again maybe I've discovered that the trail cam is actually a scare-bat ?   Update, 2026-06-04:  Skunked again !  All I got was this IR perp photo:   I'll try one more night and then de...