A Crummy Commercial

I was looking for an IC which has been discontinued, the XR2211 / NJR2211 tone decoder / PLL.  I looked in the usual places and have found some but then I thought: "what about NTE Electronics ?" So I tried them and the site won't open.  I tried checking the is it down page: Then I tried a search and found this: https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/nte-no-more The site was indeed regularly backed up on Archive, the last being August 1, 2024.  So maybe the hosting / URL ran out at the end of July ? Anyway, yet another parts vendor lost for electronic parts for repair or replacement.  Bummer Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I thought this Tales from the Cube was interesting: https://www.edn.com/heathkit-transceiver-recalled-after-meeting-specs As I recall this was the HW-2035 ?  No, per Chuck Penson's book, it was the HW-2026 (I remembered that only one number changed when the new fixed model came out, HW-2036 ;)  A friend worked at the Heathkit store in Milwaukee during this period.  He said that this was a big deal at Heathkit - I believe the president then was Dave Nurse ?  Anyway he ordered the recall and Heathkit took the returned radios and destroyed them (and cut off the microphones, too) to make sure that they weren't resold - cutting off the microphone seemed symbolic to me, like ripping the buttons off a dis-honored officer's coat and breaking his sword in half :) Which of course reminds me of this opening theme from Branded: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=80Bp4N1PCcI Finally here is an interesting examination of the HW-2026: https://www.w6ze.org/Heathkit/Heathkit_111_HW20

I was supposed to get this: from Informed Delivery, some numbers above address deleted last Saturday (September 7, 2024) - it didn't arrive - also didn't arrive on Monday-Thursday. Normally if it was junk mail, who would care ?  But it was the monthly statement from my broker.  Was it just mis-delivered ?  Did it jump off of a conveyor and end up on the floor ?  The worry is some bad actor gets a hold of it and does mischief. I'll probably see it eventually but I decided to switch all my financial statements to electronic, hopefully it will prevent this from happening so much. But it is a loss of trust, no wonder the post office is losing business.  And maybe it is also part of the reason for the kit sales slump - customers may not trust the USPS or me ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Recently I've been watching these bite-sized but informative Lucasfilm documentaries from the Young Indy TV series: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DFwG9lNz0cU playlist:  https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLxq8tinwe551mcM_kxaq_Ja-H-yeuckQN They mostly cover that late 19th through the mid 20th century history when the Indiana Jones stories were set.  When I was in school it seemed like every year history and social studies classes always started with Euro expansion and trade routes and we never seemed to reach this period :)  I think these programs are very worthwhile. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I still subscribe to the ARRL Contest Update even though I was never that interested in contesting (unless Field Day is counted).   A new comes out every 2 weeks. - I started subscribing probably due to the recommendation of another ham.  While it always covered contests and QSO parties, it also used to have a LOT of technical content.  W0AX, Ward was the editor when I first started getting it, roughly 10 years ago ?  But it has changed editors several times since then until now it has very little technical content. There is an archive going back to 2002 which I may start checking when I need some technical inspiration: http://www.arrl.org/contest-update-issues Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I thought this was an interesting video: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I0BJe6l2u7c Other than a ball cap and knit cap during appropriate times of year, I never wear a real hat - had some when I was a kid (we used to attend church on Sundays).  I haven't worn a suit in decades either. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw this cool picture in the September/October 2024 issue of On The Air   from the ARRL: from page 11 But it immediately put me in mind of Van Gogh, he loved to paint (or maybe he HAD to paint) sunflowers, here is one but it isn't as vivid as the Sunspot picture: Those lines of magnetic force coming out the the spot remind me of the heavy application of paint that Van Gogh used to use. Maybe I was thinking of Starry Night ?: Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I became aware of the brand: FNIRSI - they sell oscilloscopes among other items at low prices.  Here is a dual channel: They have other scopes that sell in the $25 range, low bandwidth but might be enough for some ham applications ? One thing I thought of for Morse code or of couse, RTTY:  Lissajous figures.  So just for the heck of it, tried it with my older B&K 2190d scope.  Here is a Lissajous figure of 10 MHz WWV zero beated to a 600 Hz audio signal: I'm not sure why it isn't a closed oval but you get the idea: circle = zerobeat in phase I didn't hear any RTTY or really even that much Morse code but they'd look similar, just "hairier" (due to the noise). BTW it turns out that the cheapest FNIRSI scopes are only single channel so I'm not sure that a rarely used, over $100 scope would be worth it just for off the air Lissajous diagrams - it was just an idea for a Sunday afternoon :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw several space related items today: https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/leaving-behind-its-crew-starliner-departs-space-station-and-returns-to-earth/ As Thurston Howell might have said:  "Good Heavens !  X-rays !" (a screen cap from a NASA IR video) . that sand really is white https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/boeings-problem-plagued-starliner-spacecraft-comes-back-to-earth-tonight/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/new-glenns-debut-will-slip-into-november-as-nasa-decides-to-not-fuel-escapade/ https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/with-nasas-plan-faltering-china-knows-it-can-be-first-with-mars-sample-return/ and I usually watch Marcus House on Saturday morning: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2kGk4OmNy50 Very glad that Starliner made it back OK but I still think that the decision to fly home empty was the correct one.  BTW Marcus House usually goes into excruciating detail on the doings of Spacex each week but I suspect that that is due in large part to all the

The yellow arrow above is pointing to a new steel cable installed today.  Presumably for fiber ?  We'll see !  They wrap the fiber around the steel cable.  I imagine this will take a while since they haven't advanced the fiber down Jackson Harbor road yet. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Bing (Microsoft's search engine) started doing the old rate limiting this morning - instead of allowing 30 quick searches for 150 points (or 50 searches if mobile searching is included for 250 points) searching is limited to three every 15 minutes.  So now it would take over an hour to reach the 150 point daily limit.   To be fair Microsoft rewards does allow me to send a little over $10 a month to a charity.  While I would like to claim this is totally altruistic on my part, I can't - I recently found out that a cell phone is now required to redeem the Microsoft rewards for something in the Microsoft store like a movie.  But the charitable giving doesn't need a cell phone. So now I'll have to spend more time to send that $10 a month to charity, a smart person would probably skip wasting time on this and just donate real money, but not me. When the internet changes it always seems to get worse. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw a weird little icon pop up in Gmail: So being curious I clicked on it and got this: Yeah, I don't think so, sending $20 a month to billionaires ?  No thanks. Besides, what about that name ?  Does that mean I would become the twin of something/someone ?  Or that there are two AI entities, maybe up in the sky ?   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

For some reason I tried bidding on a Lionel Communications Lab on Ebay.  I've mentioned these before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/12/lionel-communications-lab-mark-i.html This particular auction was for a mark II lab, so a little fancier than the one I had.  I basically just pulled the figure of $50 out of the air and then deducted for postage, bidding $35.01,  here's a record of the bidding: It's interesting, the original bidder bid $15.  A couple days later a second person bid - he won the auction at $224.72 (plus tax and $15 postage).  The only thing the other 3 bidders did was to jack up the winner's price :) I dodged a bullet there :)  The original advice that Ebay gave me is still sound - bid the maximum you want to pay and walk away, if the other person gets the item, don't worry - generally there will be another one offered in the future. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Leaky Helium, balky thrusters and now weird sounds, too !  Maybe that pinging sound is a Boeing trademark (boing!) https://arstechnica.com/space/2024/09/starliners-speaker-began-emitting-strange-sonar-noises-on-saturday/ Luckily Starliner will be back before Halloween ! Also: I was listening to The Golden Age of Radio on WBAI with Max Schmid.  Max had some rare old time radio from 1934 including the first Vic and Sade show sponsored by Crisco:  info: https://wbai.org/upcoming-program/?id=10314  archived show:  https://wbai.org/archive/program/episode/?id=53174 The Vic and Sade show sounded like a transcription meant for the west coast.    BTW this show was part of a batch from this collection by Anthony Jaslow on Archive: https://archive.org/details/rare-radio-programs-nbc-transcriptions-1933-1934 Like going back 90 years in a time machine ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I thought the editorial by Bill, AJ8B in the September issue of the K9YA Telegraph was quite interesting: source: https://k9ya.org/ Bill offers his opinions and information on the ARRL cyber incident based on his professional experience of experiencing a ransomware attack at his workplace.   One thing in particular caught my eye:  how do you know that your backups are "clean" ?  In other words, maybe the payload was present for days/weeks/months before it was deployed.  If a restore of a backup along with a thumb of the nose to the criminals is done you might very well be experiencing the same thing in a short time, then what ? BTW, this kind of stuff even happened before ransomware and the internet - worms and viruses would infect floppy drives.  I remember the windows "shop" where I worked the founder and lead programmer continually had to ask for help because he would re-infect his PC with a virus or worm (I recall that one of them was called Stoned), the tech su