A Crummy Commercial

I was attempting to peak up a double tuned LC bandpass filter for the 10/11 meter bands when I looked at my scope: The reading isn't 30 MHz as the DDS display says, it is 20 MHz.  That's not going to work, Chuck.   I popped the cover off the DDS and bingo, there is the reason: see the square can marked: 50.000MHz ? This is an AD9850 DDS design by Curtis Preuss, WB2V, in QEX of July 1997.  The firmware was modified by me but only in superficial ways.  The problem is that the clock to the AD9850 DDS is only 50 MHz.  A DDS can be expected to output a decent signal but only up to less than 1/2 the clock frequency.  If an attempt is made to specify a higher frequency than 25 MHz in this case either the firmware should flag that OR ??  See the PIC code on the projects page: http://wb9kzy.com/projects.htm    The PIC asm code in a zip:  http://wb9kzy.com/siggen3b.zip    Back to the drawing board, I suppose I could change the firmw...

I was doing my usual Saturday backup of the blog to Archive.org and noticed this: Previously as mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/08/bunker-of-doom-doomed.html  the August 2 and 9 backups were missing but now they are back, the internet is magical !  (and I DID do the backups) Unfortunately the Bunker of Doom site is still gone. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm   

This is big news in NE Wisconsin - the Packers have traded Kenny Clark and two future 1st round draft picks to the Cowboys for Micah Parsons.  I have mentioned Micah Parsons before: it's really true ! https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/01/micah-stay-away-from-our-qb.html  Of course the Packers had Aaron Jones, 33, to take care of Micah Parsons in that game.  The Packers crushed the Cowboys that game and Micah wasn't really that effective.  And now Aaron Jones plays for the Vikings and Micah and the Packers will have to face him twice. People are comparing Micah Parsons to Reggie White.  Reggie always seemed able to pick just the right time and make big plays like a QB sack, fumble or even a lateral to Leroy Butler for the first ever Lambeau leap. If Micah Parsons can match Reggie in clutch performances he will be worth every penny and the Packers will win the Superbowl ! BTW the only other Micah I remember was a fictional character, Micah Torrance on The Rifleman ...

I was listening to  The Jack Benny show - October 12, 1947: https://archive.org/details/OTRR_Jack_Benny_Singles_1947-1948/JB+1947-10-12+Jack's+Sponsor+Buys+Insurance+On+Him.mp3  Usually the random access ability of the music player on the phone lets me skip the songs (also the commercials, especially the Lucky Strike commercials, they are insidious) of Dennis Day or Kenny Baker but this time I listened to Dennis (about 14:25) sing: Ya Sure — You Betcha (Ay Ban Tank Ay Do) Hilda, oh Hilda, Ay ban tank you're grand. Will you oh will you let me hold your hand? If Ay should ask you, do you love me too? Say ya sure — you betcha. Ay ban tank Ay do. Oh Ay do, yes Ay do. By golly, by yimminy Ay do. If Ay should ask you, do you love me too? Say ya sure — you betcha. Ay ban tank Ay do. In Wisconsin Ole Johnson Fell in love with a sweet Swedish miss, Hilda Swanson. He wooed her, he pursued her. From Wisconsin her Johnson sings Swanson this song: Hilda, oh Hilda, Ay ban tank you're ...

I found a 20 db wideband amplifier based on the LT1252 amplifier.  I tried using it to boost the received signal from my 11 meter beacon on CB channel 4.  It certainly makes the signal noticeably stronger but seems to boost the noise just a little more than the signal, so no help.  Here is the LT1252 amp in a round Altoids tin: I will have to see if there are any "low noise" versions of the LT1252.  I suspect not, all of those active devices in that "op amp" configuration probably not going to ever be as good as a single device as far as noise.  But the LT1252 is very stable - I recall that some kit designers use one in ham radio rigs as a transmitter driver to make the kits more stable. https://www.analog.com/en/products/lt1252.html  Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

I mentioned kind of giving up on Bing: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/08/giving-bing-rest.html  Well after about 2 weeks of very little usage of Bing the stragety worked !   I was finally able to donate my points to charities: One thing is that I switched my VPN from a server in D.C. to a server in CA - maybe that helped ? Tomorrow I will see if Bing is limiting me as far as earning points.  Hopefully earning points without having to wait 30 minutes between sessions is now in effect.  I would like to be able to use points to extend my Windows 10 computers for another year of security updated. But maybe I'll just continue slacking off on Bing, as I said before it's probably easier to just send money to the charities than slaving away for Bing points (which are worth 1/10 of a cent for each point?). Update 2025-08-27: seems like I'm still being limited by Bing :( Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

This video on Marxy's blog was interesting: https://blog.marxy.org/2025/08/freedv-radev1-comared-to-sideband-at.html  560 km or about 350 miles apart on the 40 meter band during the day.   FreeDV exhibits that just above the noise "perfection" of a digital mode.  As long as there isn't too much fading it looks very promising.  The narrowness of the FreeDV RADE V1 signal is amazing - no one could complain about it's width, especially at such low power levels. At first I was wondering about the relatively low power levels used for SSB in the video.  But then I realized that when the "Bart head" is transmitted (digital transmissions all look like the top of Bart Simpson's head in the frequency domain) it's like going key-down CW or RTTY, in other words a 100% duty cycle.  SSB is generally much lower at 20 to 50% duty cycle so SSB is much less taxing on the transmitter than a key-down mode like RTTY.  I suppose a comparison of the signals might have ...

I was going to record a movie with the PVR - I've mentioned the PVR before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/06/class-10-works.html  So I try turning it on and nothing, no red LED, nothing.  Was it another victim of the recent lightning strike that got some LED bulbs ? https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/08/lightning-strikes.html  So I tried opening it up but first encountered this somewhat cryptic label over one of the screws: I actually had to use my electric drill to get the Philips screws out - usually the electric drill only gets used during maple sap season ! Anyway, I immediately saw a rather unsightly color around the electrolytic cap and the bridge rectifiers: Yuck !  Of course it's a switching supply with the AC line voltage being rectified and then pumped down to lower voltages used by the digital parts.  I've got plenty of 1n4007 rectifiers but 22 uF electrolytic caps at 400 volts ?  I might have to buy one of those. BTW I don't think this would ha...

Youtube served an old documentary on the cartoon TV show: Jonny Quest     It is a fan made film but well done, there were a number things I found out about the show: 1) Doug Wildey was the guiding force of the show not Hanna or Barbera.  He was a comic book guy not a cartoon guy and the art work shows that. 2) The music was composed and conducted by Hoyt Curtin, like many shows of that era the music was great 3) there were apparently subsequent Jonny Quest iterations but from a brief viewing they don't seem to be as good as the original. 4) Jonny was voiced by Tim Matheson when he was 16.  The other voices were familiar to any old time radio fan, one I recognized was Cathy Lewis who played some of the female characters (there weren't too many). 5) only 1 season of 26 shows (that'd be equivalent to 2.5 seasons of Rick and Morty ) 6) rewatching the shows there is a resemblance between Jonny Quest and Clutch Cargo although Jonny Quest was a much better show.  B...

Finally the Brewers won ! Losing 3 in a row to the Cubs was not good.    But they are back to 7 games ahead of the Cubs and they are the first team in MLB to 80 wins. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

Seems like another nifty tech oriented website is gone ?: http://www.bunkerofdoom.com/  Luckily there are a number of hits on the wayback: https://web.archive.org/web/20240521124557/http://www.bunkerofdoom.com/  On a related note, I heard about this software: https://www.httrack.com/  A way to fully copy a site to a drive and then be able to look at it offline.  Might be useful for backing up the Jackson Harbor Press site or maybe even for this blog ?  One thing about a wayback archive is that there are often "holes" - pictures just aren't always preserved.  I remember a friend challenging the notion of backups once:  "do you fully verify the backup ?"  -  honestly, no.  I've been subscribing to the concept: " do lots of backups and hope that the aggregate will have everything " :) Also, something weird happened to a couple of backups I did manually to the wayback of the blog: I usually do them on Saturday of the previous 7 days of blog ...

Recently I had gotten on the Nordic Track for under a minute when whoops !  My feet came out from under me - the strap had broken. The Nordic Track was a pretty ruggedly designed machine - meant to mimic cross country skiing motion.  There are two one way rollers under the skis which drive a flywheel.  The strap is a length of nylon webbing about 1 inch wide that rides in a groove on the flywheel.  The strap is wound most of the way around the wheel and is tensioned by a spring.  As the machine is used the strap rubs on the wheel generating warmth to the touch.  But this friction and heat must eventually break down the strap until snap ! Note that this is a much better system than the old stationary bike I had from AMF.  It just had an adjustable pressure roller on a wheel - eventually the wheel bearings heated up and froze. Here is a picture of the removed strap: Ebay still has listings for the strap: https://www.ebay.com/itm/255879679323  But $2...

I mentioned the roof at American Family Field leaking during the Brewer game in Milwaukee on 2025-08-09: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/08/two-highlight-videos.html  There were storms here on the island on that Saturday, too.  The power was out for about 1/2 hour in the late afternoon.  But before that there was a very close lightning strike near my house, flash and thunder at the same time and LOUD !  Luckily I had turned off the modem, computer, disconnected antennas and the phone line. But after the power came on I didn't check the outside and garage lights.  There is a long buried wire from the garage to a lamp near the mailbox.  It's on a ground fault circuit which usually trips during a storm.  But trying the lights a few evenings later (after resetting the GFI breaker) the lights were found to be dead.   The next day I checked and found these 4 dead LED bulbs: The three LED lamps on the left had been outside and they all rattle just ...

I was having trouble with a couple of weak stations.  The first was WDOR-FM, 93.9 MHz, the station I listen to the Brewers on.  One night the signal got noisier and noisier - then I realized that the rabbit ears (from an old TV set) with a shorting wire to make them a loop was the problem.  So I removed the shorting wire and then shortened up each each of the rods to 30 inches (half of the roughly 5 foot long antenna from 468 / 93.9).  This was audibly better ! BTW, I stopped trying to catch the Brewers games on the originating station, WTMJ 620 in Milwaukee (180 miles away) which isn't as strong as WDOR-FM in Sturgeon Bay (50 miles away). Next I was having trouble hearing my 11 meter thermometer beacon on CB channel 4 (27.05 MHz).  So I made up a quick indoor dipole by using the 468 / f formula again.  Made the dipole from some old twisted pair and the remaining skinny coax from MFJ. it was a nicely made thingy but I was never going to use it with an HT in...

I suppose in a year this post will cause me to yawn but right now it's just amazing to me how the Brewers keep winning.  If the other team makes even the slightest mistake the Brewers will take advantage. still not used to the automatic runner though when the Brewers win Youtube serves highlights some call him Mona, I call him Supersub with a pinch hit, first pitch, 3 run homer  The Athletic has been mentioning the Brewers recently: One thing that I see sometimes on the highlights: The fielders have cheat sheets, apparently the hit charting is insanely good - I wonder if Ted Williams could have hit .400 with this kind of fielding aid in use ?   MLB put up a highlight reel:  source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ge1ZWXZJo_I    I heard a snippet from a Jack Paar radio show (August 3, 1947) https://archive.org/details/Jack_Paar_Show/1947-08-03_0010_-_Jack_Paar_Show_the_-_Buying_a_House.mp3       where he mentions that the Dodgers had won ...