A Crummy Commercial

Notebooks have been mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/01/power-supplies.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/03/notebook-index-file.html But I thought that this video was really cool: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nLbvYv1WiZ0 It reminds me of two things:  the videos of catalogs on Youtube where they browse through page by page: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k14oj-4mExY   And the Engineer's Notebooks from Radio Shack by Mims: https://archive.org/details/Forrest_Mims-Engineers_Mini-Notebook_-_Communications_Projects_Radio_Shack_Elec But the fun thing in the video is his inclusion of the shortwave soundtrack, brings me back to those old Hallicrafters S-120 days of my youth ! I've got to see if I can find graph paper type notebooks, I usually just use the lined composition marble notebooks but the cool kids all seem to use the graph paper style. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Gallipolis, Ohio 1943. Young horn player at the Decoration Day ceremonies Source: https://www.loc.gov/pictures/resource/fsa.8d30316/  FYI: Decoration Day was observed on May 30th of each year, originally to decorate the graves of Civil War soldiers.  It eventually changed into Memorial Day which now is always a Monday at the end of May. Here is a Vic and Sade OTR show with the topic: Decoration Day https://archive.org/details/vicandsade1/VS_37-05-28_-_Decoration_Day_Parade.mp3 Nobody gets it, Vic, not even your own family. And that is true of Vic and Sade as a whole, many people don't get it.  It's my favorite show. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

  https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=49705 Starts at 1 hour 15 minutes into the broadcast if you want to random access. Per Max Schmid:  Lost JEAN SHEPHERD from WOR-NY on Friday May 29, 1970   “Kit Building, or 'Throw Away Unfinished Kits' Day” from the Zirul Collection.   1970 was pre-ebay or pre-online free classifieds of course. I've mentioned this before but my favorite Rodrigues kit cartoon from July 1969 Electronics Illustrated page 108: the rest of the kit cartoons are good, too ! source: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Electronics-Illustrated/Electronics-Illustrated-1969-07.pdf I remember one time my Dad bought a sailing ship model kit.  And it was literally pieces of wood in a box with instructions !  No molded plastic that snapped together.  Actually tiny planks of wood for the hull and deck that had to be cut, pinned and glued.  It is still around here somewhere - Dad developed severe cramping in his hands so he gav...

This doesn't sound good: https://www.theatlantic.com/science/archive/2024/05/climate-change-la-nina-summer/678526/ Mentioned this before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/08/hvac-comfortable-rate-of-cooling.html We are always seeking a comfortable rate of cooling - we need to Goldilocks the planet, make it just right ! Think of being sick with a fever, internal temp goes from 98.6 F to 104 F and people get concerned, he's burning up !!  Extended living at high temps is just not good for human machinery. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I had noticed a video pop up on Youtube from Dave Letterman, something about Remembering Bill Walton ?  Here it is: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DfQlIoekUo4 But I've been fooled by Letterman before - witness the Martin Short retrospective: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kXG7KuUw0ZE So the Letterman title difference is:  remembering = death, best of = a clip video Anyway, I thought this was a nice post by Kareem: source: https://x.com/kaj33/status/1795193834902561117/photo/1 Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I took a bike ride on Sunday.  First over to the Co-op to drop off my payment.  There were many trees snapped off or fallen over west of me on Jackson Harbor Rd.  Also noticed a little further west that the Sorensen house on Jackson Harbor had been demolished, I assume it was done on purpose, new owners ? After riding to the Co-op, proceeded on to Foss Road where I saw several interesting things.  First a Karman Ghia convertible driving south on Gasoline Town Rd - followed closely by a Tesla Cybertruck !  Yes, the Memorial Day weekend is the official start of tourist season on the Island and the return of the snowbirds. Finally I heard a lot of sirens while on the east end of Foss Rd but before I got to them I saw this little house (maybe a converted garden shed ?) in the woods on the south side of Foss Rd.  It's very mysterious and tiny.  Now that the leaves are finally out it can get gloomy in the woods along Foss Rd.  Then on the way back home...

I was listening to this episode of Vic and Sade recently: https://archive.org/details/vic-and-sade-1946-10-10-xx-mr.-zee-moves-in/Vic+and+Sade+1939-06-01+(xx)+Grandpa+Snyder's+Christmas+Cards.mp3 Christmas cards in June - what a concept.  I was briefly in the Christmas card racket as a Cub Scout, lured by all the fabulous prizes available in the ads in Boys' Life.  It turned out that it wasn't easy to sell and the card company kinda got huffy if you didn't sell enough - yet another total disaster of my youth. Endorsed by the Mick source: http://books.google.com/books?id=HEFsdunJeZMC&pg=PA15 But I digress, actually the real life hard of hearing salesman I encountered on the Island was similar to Grandpa Snyder and his cards EXCEPT that he sold tombstones !  He kept calling me, even came to the door once, and it was the same thing, just refused to take no for an answer.  He was either hard of hearing or just so thick skinned that he refused to believe that I didn...

The Hollywood Reporter did a nice summary of Darryl Hickman's life and career: https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/movies/movie-news/darryl-hickman-dead-grapes-of-wrath-leave-her-to-heaven-1235908481/ I guess that Darryl will never get a chance to go to Milwaukee and see them: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/03/man-bone-found.html I've mentioned The Human Comedy before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/12/pie.html Darryl was also in that movie, playing a not too bright kid, Lionel, friend of the character Ulysses. Ulysses and Lionel (Darryl)   My favorite part of the movie was when the gang goes to steal apricots from old man Henderson - and the old man is inside the house wishing he could make the apricots ripe for the boys even though it is only March :) Darryl's brother, Dwayne was the star of Dobie Gillis: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/06/this-doesnt-sound-good.html Both brothers had decent careers and (I hope) good lives. Darryl and Dwayne Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY...

Other than Astro's treadmill: then now   , George's flying car (sorta, the Jetson copter car doesn't fold into a briefcase) 1961 flying car . 1961 folded . 2024 flying car and Rosie the Robot (again, sorta with Boston Dynamics Atlas et al.) fictional Rosie meets George . Fact: Electric Atlas we still aren't quite in the world of the Jetsons. But then I saw this image from the ESA Euclid satellite of Meissner 78: source: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/05/daily-telescope-observing-a-distant-star-nursery-in-unprecedented-detail/ source: https://www.jpl.nasa.gov/news/new-images-from-euclid-mission-reveal-wide-view-of-the-dark-universe and thought: where have I seen that before ?   Of course, the Jetsons opening: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTq6Tofmo7E This Jetsons stuff is finally kinda-sorta-lamely coming true !! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Washington Island had another power outage on Wednesday.  It was REALLY windy on Tuesday night.  I thought the windows on the south side of the house were going to blow out.  I didn't hear: "the train" - tornado survivors always talk about the sound being like a train - so it wasn't a tornado, just crazy strong winds.  I'm not sure exactly when the power went out (trying to sleep and ignore the storm) but the power was off here until 7:36p on Wednesday evening.  As previously mentioned I never appreciate how nice it is to have power until it is gone. I never did followup on the previous outage on April 2 to 4 2024: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/the-spring-storm-power-outage.html I was gonna buy some Sterno or a camp stove or something - never did.  One thing I might be able to justify is some MREs or HDRs (Humanitarian Daily Rations).  I didn't want to open the fridge and also couldn't cook anyway (electric stove) so it would be nice to have read...

Yes, the Packers actually lost 20-17 !  This was the last time the pro team lost to the College All Stars in this annual exhibition game.  The Packers were the reigning champions of the NFL in 1962.  The Packers were without Hornung and Nitschke and would eventually end the 1963 season 11-2-1, losing twice to the Bears (eventual NFL champions in 1963) !  There is a fun video summary of the game on Youtube: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n3RVD0vwbqQ And yes, they do add an S to Soldier Field in Chicago (as well as almost everything else): I happened to watch this video because I first saw these two video highlights of the Packers 1962 and 1963 seasons: 1962: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n-Fafx4LQDs 1963: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KsslTbfQ06A Here is a nice pdf file on the game: https://static1.squarespace.com/static/5f74ae00944b1e78127cb621/t/63fe70f984799e6482095546/1677619450234/1963_CASG.pdf The Packers drafted or acquired these defensive College ...

Yesterday the SX-88 was mentioned as a 4-gang type of receiver, here are the dual 4-gang tuning caps, main tuning and bandspread: But the SX-88 wasn't that popular, however the Hallicrafters SX-28 was also a 4-gang general coverage receiver but thanks to World War II tens of thousands were sold.  And as can be seen in this photo from the manual there are the four ganged caps but (similar to the SX-88) some of the caps have multiple sections - the complexity boggles the mind ! Also per the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallicrafters_SX-28 one famous listener to the SX-28 was President Truman in the Oval Office !  It is on that little table below the other table behind the Truman desk:   The SX-28 was arguably the best general coverage receiver during World War II, so why not the best for the President ?  :) Truman photo sources: 1946 https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/photograph-records/73-2306 1947 https://www.trumanlibrary.gov/photograph-records/82-54-121 may 23 1...

I've mentioned the Gilligan's Island radio (with the telescoping antenna) before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/05/fallout-shelter.html Well I finally found an AM radio with a telescoping antenna in an old Esquire magazine, the Westinghouse 666P-5:   source: https://archive.org/details/Esquire-Magazine-1958-05/page/n71/mode/2up Let us take a look at the schematic of the Westinghouse courtesy of Beitman's 1959: https://archive.org/details/BeitmansMostNeededRadioDiagrams/1959/page/n159/mode/1up The 666P-5 has an ugly power supply (no transformer, shame on you Westinghouse !) - with the directly heated cathodes I bet it started to hum as soon as the filter caps began to dry out. But it does have a tuned RF amplifier so just that extra oomph for portable use, say on a vacation up-north ?  I'd classify this as a "3-gang" type of radio - most AM radios just had a two section variable cap, one section for the oscillator, the other to tune the input bandpass - ante...

This Hint and Kink from the June 1958 issue of QST was previously mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/05/qst-june-1958.html I found an old Polaroid 35mm film cassette to use as a solder holder.  The end cap wasn't crimped on (it was instant slide film to be developed at home) so it worked just like the Kodak Snap Caps: It should work as well or better than my old solder holder method (solder wound on an old wine "cork"):   Previously I used empty plastic solder wick holders for solder but they don't hold that much and they melt if someone is careless :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

A review of 1958 QST ending with the December issue: smaller pdf:  https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/QST/50s/QST-1958-12.pdf online viewable or larger pdf:  https://archive.org/details/sim_qst_1958-12_42_12 items from the issue that I found interesting: the villain of the book/documentary: Empire of the Air p 10   He made it to 85 while Armstrong killed himself at 63.  Not directly related but there is no justice in this world. Working Ionospheric Scatter on 50 Mc.  p 28    Yes, that Joe Taylor, his first article published in QST Cut the guy wires and run, 50s style  p 49 There were a record 11,316 Hams on 1958 Field Day - I wonder how many participate now ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

A review of 1958 QST continuing with the November issue: smaller pdf:  https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-DX/QST/50s/QST-1958-11.pdf online viewable or larger pdf:  https://archive.org/details/sim_qst_1958-11_42_11 items from the issue that I found interesting: Cheap and Simple RF Indicators p 16   Now we have LEDs but someone will have to pursue woofle dust Gil cartoon p 23   If we only had stores like this now :) The Knight Receiver p 45   B.G. mentions that 83YZ2726 isn't a handy name for this kit but I noticed that few of the reviews in 1958 QST actually show the front of the item being reviewed.  While there are usually pictures of the guts of the item these reviews would have been more useful for easy recognition IF the front of the rig had been shown.  Especially in this case where the 1958 catalog doesn't have the same number in the review, only this: semi-obligatory inflated prices: That's a lot of money for a single conversion general ...