A Crummy Commercial

I was looking at the April 2023 issue of CQ Magazine: https://cq-amateur-radio.com/CQ-April-2023.pdf source (along with 5 other issues from 2023): https://cq-amateur-radio.com/  and came upon this blurb: And no, this is apparently NOT an April Fools joke, here is one of the Cobra models: https://www.crutchfield.com/S-faGtpjhb6gL/p_079CCBR75A/Cobra-75-All-Road.html here is a less expensive "classic" model: https://www.ebay.com/itm/115827762656 I dunno, I doubt there's a rebirth of CB due to FM but it might make CB more useful along with CTCSS.  These rigs don't appear to be hackable to 10 meters (or 12 ?) though. BTW, yes, I am always the last to know :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

is it a radio or a rack for storing a parachute ? source: https://www.missionbelle.nl/ I remember the BC-348 that my Fox Point neighbors, the Hamels, had in their basement shack.  I realize that it might not be considered among the best receivers but I was fascinated by the (I assume) smooth worm gearing on the main tuning.  Certainly a lot smoother than the tuning on my HW-16 ! But no, I have no interest in buying one - just another thing I'd fiddle with for 15 minutes and then rarely touch again ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

http://naqcc.info/newsletter.html I had never heard of this club before, there are many QRP clubs out there, some with interesting newsletters.  The current issue of NAQCC looks good. Help !  I'm drowning in novelty  :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

So that's why the TV antenna rotator stopped working !!  No wonder with only two of the three rotator cable wires still intact. Since there really isn't much TV activity around here and since the antenna post had been bouncing against the house during a recent storm, I took the silly antenna down.  I think an antenna element may still be lying on the roof.  The antenna wasn't too bad for $30 when purchased 25 years ago but time came to cut the wires and run ! (semi-obligatory ham radio/Field Day reference) I can still receive the local PBS translator station in Ellison Bay with an inside the garage antenna.  If I get ambitious I have a little two bow tie antenna and a nice preamp that I could setup somewhere but that'll wait till spring/summer. It was 40 F here Saturday so at least I got outside and accomplished something. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm    

Grounding of Ingenuity per Ars Technica: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/nasas-mars-helicopter-has-made-its-last-flight-above-the-red-planet/   Update:  Anton Petrov did a Mars video with an update on Ingenuity:   source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=At3xiYtITHo   That's the reality of Mars.  These books portray Mars as it should be: source:  https://youtu.be/sLTBRG0y6iw https://archive.org/details/arthur-c.-clarke-audio/05+The+Sands+of+Mars+1951+ I remember my Dad had a college astronomy text book from roughly the same time as those two books were written.  Most of the pictures were small, fuzzy and black and white.  So Heinlein and Clarke didn't have the benefit of multiple robo-missions to Mars (or Venus also).  Their written works were made on the basis of slim data.  It is interesting that none of the authors from the golden age of SF anticipated the use of satellites and robo-landers before manned exploration. Best ...

I had no memory of this: Alan Bean with Surveyor 3, Apollo 12 in background source: https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/31/man-and-machine/ . bounce print source: https://moon.nasa.gov/resources/202/apollo-12-mission-image-view-of-the-surveyor-iii-craft-which-landed-april-19-1967/ The reason for my re-discovering the Apollo 12 and Surveyor 3 connection is that it was mentioned on this page about the Jaxa SLIM lander: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/01/a-japanese-spacecraft-faceplanted-on-the-moon-and-lived-to-tell-the-tale/ It made an accurate landing but one of the engines malfunctioned and it wasn't able to land correctly.  One of the mini-robots took this picture: I betcha I've got this Apollo 12 info in my scrapbook but at the time I was probably too busy saving the newspaper and magazine stories than reading them completely.  The only thing I dimly remember was that the TV camera was messed up (didn't one of the astronauts try to tap (repair) it with his geology hammer ...

While finding the Accu-Keyer notes from the blog yesterday I came across this schematic and notes: On the back I found 1976 Glen Gates Gang Field Day log sheet number 130: Here it is in black and white: Old mimeographs never die, they just fade away, right Doug ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

  https://archive.org/details/arthur-c.-clarke-audio/38+c+The+Wind+from+the+Sun+1964+by+Arthur+C.+Clarke.mp4 This is audio of a story which I remember reading in 1964.  I was a Cub Scout then, in 4th grade and the space race was ON.  This was such a cool story and the artwork was neat, the diagonal cover motif was very memorable. https://books.google.com/books?id=HEFsdunJeZMC&printsec=frontcover&source=gbs_ge_summary_r&cad=0#v=onepage&q&f=false There are those who think that space exploration will result in making humanity a multi-planet species.  I suspect that people will just be wasting time having fun in more space than could ever be filled.  They will take pictures of themselves against the scenery, take pictures of their food.  Some will do pointless and potentially dangerous activities.  It's a continuing novelty quest. :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I know them as Molex pins, the exact part number or nomenclature is unknown to me.  Hopefully they've died out completely but in the mid 1970s they were a cheap way to socket IC chips.  As can be seen they are essentially the metal part of an IC socket but without any plastic or fiberglass for insulation.  They are on .1 inch centers, the same as a DIP IC.  Solder them into one side of the holes for a DIP chip and then the metal tab can be broken off with a little back and forth wiggling with a needle nose.  The problem is that since there isn't any insulation it's easy to short pins together accidentally.  Also they can easily be bent out of alignment.  Finally they don't hold the IC that tightly. I first/last used them in the Accu-Keyer by WB4VVF.  Why I chose them instead of sockets I don't know, probably just cheaped out.  Anyway, as can be seen here I ended up having a lot of trouble with them and replaced almost all of them with either ...

I remember one food misadventure in the 1960s when I was a kid.  My Mom was a big fan of convenience foods and of course, variety.  I can remember the TV dinners (they had aluminum foil trays then).  For some reason I also remember deep fried potato baskets that could be bought at the grocery store and then filled at home with something (preferably salty). One day probably during the summer we had tamales for lunch, something new. She asked me:  "How do you like them ?" And I said: "They're fine but kinda tough" so then she says: "you idiot, don't eat the wrapper" I didn't know that those were corn husks - they weren't green. :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Packers 21, 49ers 24   I think it was a young team that just ran out of gas.  They had gotten their collective second wind through the last 4 games but in the end reverted to making too many mistakes.  Probably just as well, my throat is sore from yelling ! A promising season though.  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I've mentioned the Ramsey before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/02/including-ic-sockets-with-kits.html Any time I wanted to try the Ramsey out it meant also getting out the DDS VFO and then hooking them together.  So I thought why not revert the Ramsey back to the original Varactor based VFO. Since I had just unsoldered 1 leg on 4 different parts (C2, C3, D1 and R5): . It was easy to unsolder the RCA jack for the DDS VFO and resolder those 4 parts.  I left the other mods in place.  A 7808  8 volt regulator was used in place of D2.  Also a cap was added across the feedback resistor to reduce hiss.  BTW, the HR-1 differs from the schematic - it has an 8 pin dual op-amp instead of the LM386 amplifier shown.  Not sure where the manual and schematic are for the HR-1.  Also, I added an LM386 audio amplifier on the bottom of the chassis. Then I tried it out and realized why I had added the DDS VFO input to begin with.  The receiver was drifty, ha...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2024/01/why-i-hope-the-atari-400-mini-will-bring-respect-to-ataris-most-underrated-platform/ I remember going to CES once during the 1980s at McCormick Place in Chicago.  I'm not sure why a telephone central office maker like GTE qualified us but it was fun.  The most memorable thing for me was the Atari booth where they had Star Raiders running on a projection TV.  I'm sure that people today would consider the chunky graphics and minimal sound effects to be nothing but I thought it was really cool being able to hyperwarp and shoot at bad guys and even blow up your own space station :) Not sure if I got an Atari 400 before or after CES but I was able to justify it due to the aluminum castings under the plastic exterior.  That provided shielding and both the 400 and 800 were the quietest home computers HF RF wise so therefore perfect for ham radio.  Unfortunately the RF quietness of a TV set wasn't going to be as good but at least ...

Packers 48, Cowboys 32 - as Jackie Gleason used to say:  "how sweet it is" don't do it, Micah, that's Aaron Jones: Should have stayed in the crouch, Micah: OWWW, Micah, OWWW! I was sorta able to watch the game on Foxsports.com but the combination of their stream and Frontier, yikes !     Now on to northern CA to play the 49ers ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw this on flace: I had one of these, as I recall it might have been bundled with the Knight-kit LC-1 CPO. I lent it to a kid in college and never saw it or him or his kinda mean girlfriend again :) I remember learning EISH54 (the exclusively or mostly dit characters) from the record.  But I never quite got to 5 WPM on my own as a grade school kid - I am just not much of a self-directed student. N4MW has provided a pdf copy of the Allied Code Course booklet (must be the same as the 78 version): http://www.n4mw.com/CPRecords/alliedcc.pdf I finally got to 5 WPM in high school with a summer course taught by Morrie, WB9JHW.  This culminated in a fall novice test for the four of us as I mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-novice-quartet.html I really got to get on the air one of these days !  Too cold/snowy for antenna work at 1F though. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

The QST archive on World Radio History: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/QST.htm only covers up to 1969 ? I was looking for information on counterpoise tuners after seeing this on face: one the the most intriguing names for ham gear Using google to search for W1FB and counterpoise found these: so there are two 1980 and 1983 issues up there.  What about 1982 ?, tried: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/QST/80s/QST-1982-02.pdf it is there.  All of the 1980s issues seem to be there: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/QST/80s/ What about 1972 ?  tried: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/QST/70s/QST-1972-02.pdf Nope, but it does have a few of the 1970s issues: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/QST/70s/ Yet another way to waste loads of time on the internet ! BTW, I think the W1FB article I was looking for was from one of his CQ columns but I don't have access to those paper issues and it's too cold to go over to the "archives". Bes...

It was really cold today.  Sunny but still only 16F in the afternoon.  Brrrr !   At least those blizzardy winds have died down. I took a short walk but the drifted snow was well above boot height.  I noticed these three indentations on the south side of the bushes behind the house.  It must have been 3 deer, 2 large and 1 small spending the night against the nasty north wind. . Deer sometimes have a miserable life. I had thought about doing some snow shoveling but the heck with it, too cold. BTW, Packers win 48-32 over Cowboys !  whut ?  As my Grandmother would have said:  "Holy Cats" Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm