A Crummy Commercial

I saw this picture on Shorpy recently: source: https://www.shorpy.com/node/27808  This reminded me of my Grampa, Charles A. Olson.  He was a paint salesman for National Lead in Wisconsin from roughly 1926 until sometime in the mid 1950s.  He would travel around calling on the local paint stores, taking orders, solving problems and probably doing more than a little schmoozing.  We used to go over to see the grandparents probably every other weekend.  They lived in a stone house near Lincoln Creek Parkway in Milwaukee.  Grampa used to tell stories about his life as a salesman.  But I'm afraid that since I was a kid at the time I didn't pay much attention.  He started in the old days of salesmanship when the trainees would go to the factory and learn about how paint was made and about all the technical aspects.  One thing I remember is that my Grampa always took the company line on lead paint even though his best friend, Harvey (a lawyer), would...

I was listening to a Brewers broadcast on an old Sony CFS-1030 boombox (AC powered) when suddenly I heard a pop - and then it was dead.  No smoke was seen or odor noticed so not sure what happened.  I got the box apart and there is no evidence of any problem, so now it's time to start buzzing things out to see what may have opened up or shorted.   I found the service manual here: https://elektrotanya.com/sony_cfs-1030.pdf/download.html  Here is the power portion of the schematic: The Australian version seems to have fuses, this one just has jumpers. I believe the problem was that I was using a small switchbox to turn the radio on and off (since it can't be turned "off off" because the power transformer is connected directly to the AC line).  Unfortunately this switch box has 3 positions: center off, full power and 1/2 power (half wave rectifier).  I was using the switch box with a foot heater which didn't care about AC versus pulsating DC.  Howeve...

 The previous mention of the idea (timed Clapper): https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/07/another-project-idea-new-clapper.html  Found this board: It's from the projects page: http://wb9kzy.com/projects.htm  Here is the zip: http://wb9kzy.com/muter.zip  And the schematic: I added a series diode to the + power input to protect against polarity reversal (also managed to add a short).  I also scared up a 4 MHz ceramic resonator from the Island Keyer II kit.  This prototype was built on an early Island Keyboard circuit board.  The Hamlin relay was put on a right angle daughter board. I also found an old Sony IR remote from a defunct Trinitron, installed the batteries and took it in a dark bathroom with my cell phone to check for IR emission: humans can't see what a cheap camera phone can, IR But the problem: the Muter just doesn't seem to recognize the mute button presses.  I did a capture of the decoded IR remote mute press here: First there is a low sy...

 I was surprised to see 3 of these on the sale counter at Mann's on Saturday morning: Usually the only time the Paczki show up are on the Monday before Fat Tuesday: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/03/it-is-that-time-again.html  I bought one box of four but I did also get two of these "new to me" brioche English muffins: I will say, the primary difference that I noticed from the regular English muffins was that they set off the smoke alarm quicker  :)   Also, the briche English muffins aren't as crispy - but one nice feature, they are pre-sawn apart unlike the regular ones, fork split my eye ! So plenty of carbs this hot and muggy weekend ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

Myron Cook has a lot of enthusiasm for geology, it's easy to see that - and this video was no exception: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=906cxbrk_yM  He enjoys being outside and making observations.  And then his videos communicate that to the viewer by weaving them into an explanatory story.  Either Myron has help or he is a wiz at video, too, because the presentation is first rate.  The use of drones is particularly effective for communicating the scale of the formations.  This shot of Myron walking across these limestone / gypsum formations was particularly cool: It reminds me of the flagstone driveway and patio we had when I was a kid in Fox Point in the 1960s.  Only these "flagstones" are maybe 100 times the size. I took an Earth Science class as a freshman in high school.  The teacher was Alden Larson who also had that enthusiasm for his subject.  Sometimes we got out of the classroom, once we did a cross section of the Milwauk...

Recently I mentioned a work around for viewing Youtube videos in a private browsing window. https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/07/youtube-sign-in.html  It has stopped working using Soldersmoke blog embedded Youtube videos among others: It was too complicated a fix anyway - I guess I'll just skip Youtube videos mentioned on Reddit or Twitter. Apparently this is another VPN related issue.  If I turn off the VPN then Youtube lets me view videos with no problem.  But why even have a VPN if I always have to turn it off ? The overall Internet seems to get worse every day. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

I finally did find the microphone module from Ebay which might be applicable to a Clapper circuit.  The "red" version is known as a KY-038 and has an electret microphone fed into an LM393 comparator IC but the KY-038 also has a direct mic output.  But I have a "blue" module:    It has 3 inputs/outputs instead of 4.  A little searching found this schematic on an Amazon page: source: https://www.amazon.com/DAOKAI-WE-DA-054-P-Microphone-Sensor-Module/dp/B09YYH736J?th=1    Nice !  So the blue module feeds the microphone into a transistor amplifier which then drives one half of the LM393 comparator. There is a level adjustment pot - when there is a loud noise a green LED goes ON.  This is strictly a binary output (on or off) - this microphone is NG for audio, it's meant to detect noise.  As I recall I bought it for use with a Zerobeat kit without knowing this. One reason why I might have put this blue module away is that the level adjustment ...

 Mariners 1, Brewers 0 It was quite a pitching battle.   BUT - the Brewers came back this afternoon and beat Seattle, 10 to 2 with 17 hits !  (like we used to say at GTE:  "can't we level load the shop somehow?" when they wanted everyone to work overtime - hey Brewers, let's level load the hits and runs :)   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm   

I was looking for a microphone module which *might* be suitable for a Clapper circuit mentioned yesterday: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/07/another-project-idea-new-clapper.html  I didn't find it but I did find this little box: Inside were these two circuit boards: They are demo freebie boards from Tektronix, something to do with scopes (why a new Tek scope is better than that hunk-a-junk you now have).  They both run off of a 9V battery.  The bigger one is strictly hardware, the smaller one has a microcontroller. I saw the older one on Ebay: https://www.ebay.com/itm/116648786652  $20 ?  No thank you please !  And another one with the box and manual for $50: https://www.ebay.com/itm/156433973966  Again, no thanks. There is a web page on the older board: https://w140.com/tekwiki/wiki/Scope_Evaluation_Board  which has the manual, I probably have the manual somewhere but this PDF one is nice !  Even 30 years later my B&K 2190d scope isn't...

I have mentioned The Clapper before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/01/the-clapper.html  and also here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/06/nuts-and-volts.html  The reason for thinking about The Clapper:  I've been listening to the Brewer games on the radio recently.  They have won 10 games in a row:  two more and it's free burger time ?: https://www.jsonline.com/story/sports/mlb/brewers/2025/07/21/brewers-winning-streak-free-george-webb-burgers-12-games/85306410007/  But the ads !  Every half inning there are three 30 second ads plus an ID and some bumper music and blather from the announcers.  Apparently there are clocks for everything now in MLB including the time between a half inning which seems to be 2 minutes.  Now the ads on the Brewers radio seem to alternate between the Brewer network ads and the local WDOR ads from Sturgeon Bay.  But still they are getting REALLY repetitive.  Something about radio ads bores into my brai...

 Sometimes there is a day where Youtube delights - Saturday saw two interesting new videos pop up: one from Tim Hunkin and the other from Ben at Applied Science. The first video: the final Secret Life of Components , a new Tim Hunkin video on Gears source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=raMCWfltyRs  The final ? Oh, no !  More videos like this one (only slightly different), please !  (channeling my inner Buddy Olson, our golden retriever - the chap loved to go for a ride in the car right up until a day or so before the end of his life). The enormous Herringbone gear in the Gears video reminded me of the Falk Corporation of Milwaukee.   Falk was located in the Menominee river valley of Milwaukee: The river is there - somewhere :) article on Falk:  https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Article/CS356  aerial picture source: https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records/Image/IM50681  herringbone picture source: https://www.wisconsinhistory.org/Records...

I mentioned code for PICs recently: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/07/the-code.html  Today I received an inquiry about the Norcal keyer chip: the PIC12F629-I/P is programmed by me to become the Norcal Keyer chip http://wb9kzy.com/norcal.htm  The ham then mentioned that he had built a home brew version of the Norcal Keyer kit for a beacon project but it didn't work.  He didn't realize that the PIC chip he had purchased was blank and wouldn't do anything until it was programmed.  So he just wanted to check that I still sell the chip.   When I heard this I offered to program the chip he had bought at no charge other than the normal  shipping fee (now $5 in 2025).  I can see where a customer might not want the hassle of packing up and sending the chip to me for programming but I thought I'd offer. I'll put something on the web site about this later but I also offer this service to customers in general:  if you would like me to program YOUR chip...

I think any reasonable person knows that millionaires and billionaires are responsible for illegal immigration, for example, our President: https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/report-reveals-pipeline-of-undocumented-costa-rican-immigrants-at-trump-club-a-very-open-secret/  Why aren't millionaires or billionaires put in jail or deported ?  HA ! But it made me remember this parody from Mad Magazine 110 (1967): from yellow pages for super heroes source: https://archive.org/details/mad-magazine-1967/MAD110/page/n39/mode/2up  Here's a simple, stupid solution to illegal immigration:  put a Trump or a Walton or some other millionaire or billionaire in prison and that hiring or banking or landlording will stop PDQ - and no prisons or airplane flights will be needed, those folks will go home on their own. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm