A Crummy Commercial

I tried searching for the word: caspetitious    found here: Did you really mean: capricious (Google) or captious (Bing) ?   Why no, if I had meant something other than caspetitious I would have entered it, right ? This is the only link Google found: https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/EB/O-P-Q/Pohl_ed%20-%20Assignment%20in%20tomorrow.pdf Which happens to be a link to the same story I was reading but the title is different: The Frightened Tree , page 163.   Here is the one I was reading:  Protective Mimicry , page 37, February 1953 issue of Galaxy Magazine : https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1953-02 I have mentioned the Luminist archives before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/08/luministorg.html Here is a link to the Luminist site:   https://www.luminist.org/archives/ Plenty of reading material on Luminist. So what does caspetitious mean ?  There is a word: cespititious: Since it's only 2 letters different let's say Galaxy made ...

All of a sudden this morning Digikey started sending email to my old email address: Why ?  Has Digikey been hacked ?  Have I ?  I changed to my hotmail address in February 2025 because I don't check the "official" Jackson Harbor Press address that much.  Also at that time I was thinking of discontinuing the website which would have killed the email address. Here's the last hotmail message:    I changed the email back to hotmail, hopefully it'll stick. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I saw this on the IEEE Spectrum site: https://spectrum.ieee.org/electric-delivery-vehicles-amazon-also Maybe it's just the old guy in me but this sounds like a pretty cool idea.  Nothing is said about consumer sales so to me that means $$$.   One interesting detail is the tires / wheels.  The steel (I assume) wheel has a lot going for it compared to normal spoked bicycle wheels.  The lack of spokes means almost indescructable wheels.  Broke spokes are the bane of my bicycle existance.  A solid wheel would also be more efficient in applying power than stretchy-bendy spokes.   Also those tires look to be automotive, maybe tubeless ?  Automotive tires can last and last compared to ratty old bicycle tires.  The downside of that wheel / tire combo is the weight added.  I imagine that wind loading on that van version would be minimal in an urban setting. It sounds like Amazon isn't counting on drones for all of their future delivery ...

I saw this box (actually 1/2 of a box) on Ebay but was intrigued: source:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/356752319266 I had no idea that GE had a series of educational projects for kids like this - That led me to a search which found this manual on an interesting site in Spanish: https://www.ccapitalia.net/descarga/docs/1961-general-electric-EF-140.pdf The GE analog computer project in turn reminded me of this: The American Basic Science Club Analog Computer - I got one as a kid - not sure what happened to it.  I *think* I still have the ear phone but not the cardboard box.  I recall seeing it in Boys' Life or one of the other magazines in an ad like this:   I must have seen this ad (in a Sears catalog ?): because I was expecting a meter but I got the one shown in the Boys' Life ad with the ear phone :(  Here is the inflated price: Here is a site by the son of the man behind the American Basic Science Club: https://www.americanbasicscienceclub.com/ Lots of docs up th...

Still thinking about Halloween: we used to do the quizzical arched left eyebrow in Wisconsin, too :) , and what's more Halloween than The Zombies: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q4nmxz5bQhk Which led me back to Digger: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/11/this-shorpy-picture-takes-me-back.html I finally found the picture of my Digger model: Somebody should have done a better job of dusting (also painting).   BTW, that's our female Siamese cat, Chibby-chan looking on. =>   See you in Dragsville ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw a post by W5JAG on the diyaudio.com site that there is a company called Zeenko that may still make the SA602 calling it the ZeeTK NE602A: https://www.diyaudio.com/community/threads/no-rf-gear-here.309531/page-48#post-8134732 https://www.zeenko.tech/mmics ZeenKo makes gear like the TinySA: https://www.zeenko.tech/tinysa that requires the 8 pin mixers.  So this is good news although these are SO parts (Surface Mount, 50 mil lead spacing) NOT DIP parts (which to be fair have been gone a long time).  I don't know if these are actual new silicon or if they are possibly newly packaged old silicon ?  I didn't see any on Ebay but did see this on Aliexpress: source:  https://www.aliexpress.com/item/1005008766921262.html I imagine that that price is puffed up by the tariff tax - if the Supremes strike the tariff tax down the price might decrease ?  We'll see. BTW I did join the diyaudio site, lots of activity and obviously it's not all just about audio.  I'm st...

Heinlein felt that July 20, 1969 would be a very important date in history, the start of Man as a space faring species, not just an expensive stunt to beat the Russians I saw this video pop up on my feed and with all the spacey stuff recently on this blog I felt I had to watch it again: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MxiCIX6rp2Y the video title => " Destination Moon (1950) is Way Better Than I Expected "  is the very definition of faint praise. :) The "George Pal-ian" special effects were fun (I'm still not sure how they distorted their faces on takeoff), the movie tried to make the trip as accurate as old Heinlein could imagine.  The 4 astronauts even have visible beards at the end of the movie :)  The matte paintings and backgrounds were very "Bonestell-ian": https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/bonestell.html One thing they got right:  the photographs on Apollo 11 were taken with a reflex camera, a Hasselblad (SLR) - in the movie they ha...

The Blue Origin big rocket was able to land the first stage on a ship on the second flight: source:  https://arstechnica.com/science/2025/11/blue-origin-caps-second-heavy-lift-launch-with-first-offshore-landing/ I was looking at a video of the landing, either my internet is chopping up the video or Blue Origin's video was choppy: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S2NlWjNWvXo But then Youtube served a link to this video on the side: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DXUuExL8Cac Amazing !  A jet powered glider !  With a guy on top !   I wonder if this is what it's like to be a bird (with a lot of self control :).  It doesn't look super safe but it does look like fun.  Sorta like those flying videos that Peter Sripol used to do, mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/01/ricky-nelson-died-in-plane-crash-on-new.html Small aviation is DANGEROUS !  BTW, "be careful" translates to "Ki o tsukete" in Japanese (heard this many times as a kid, it never ...

Attitude Control (I get it) I completely forgot about NOVA last night: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VAKnhanjXVI The second NOVA  program on the ISS had two interesting survival episodes.  The first was where an EVA astronaut's helmet starting filling with water from a leak in the cooling system of his suit.  They finally got him inside OK.  The suit helmet now has absorbent pads and an emergency snorkel (!) to guard against a water leak.  They mentioned that his suit had a CO2 alarm go off but they didn't mention (that I noticed) whether that alarm was related to the water in the helmet. The second survival episode shown was when a Russian science module was docked to the ISS - it then began firing it's thrusters and causing all kinds of problems.  The Russians never really quite figured out how to stop the thruster firing, the Russian module eventually ran out of fuel for the thrusters !  That's like the Bugs Bunny WWII cartoon where...

Wisconsin is fine as far as being a nice state to live in, blah blah blah.  But I gotta admit, Michigan has it all over us when it comes to geology.  Here is a geological map of Wisconsin: From Autumn 1967 issue of Wisconsin Tales and Trails magazine, page 28    Wisconsin is a geological dome.  In a geological dome the youngest rocks are on the outside diameter and the oldest rocks are in the center.  For example in Wisconsin the Milwaukee formation has the fossils - almost everywhere else is OLD. But Michigan is a basin: The youngest rocks are in the middle (Jur => Jurassic) and the older rocks are the outside rings.  So Michigan's got fossils (as well as hydrocarbons) ! One video I saw a while back by Alexis Dahl was on a big underground salt mine in the Detroit area, an amazing video, who knew ?: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ViFl7qWQF5U Another video which I saw just today from Scishow but featuring Alexis Dahl was on copper in t...

I found another item while looking for the Tiny Tora prototype, mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/11/where-is-it.html This is a WWVB clock I was fooling with in 2002: the wires going to the top over the ferrite bar were connected to the LCD, the 6 switches were used to control the PIC It is basically 4 parts: the microcontroller,  the WWVB receiver, the WWVB antenna and the LCD display.  I noticed that the LCD display is a "one chip" LCD display which means that it is a single 16 character line.  Oh yes, I need one of those for the AADE LC Meter: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/10/the-heck-with-it.html Here is the 1 chip, non-working LCD from the AADE: the single chip LCD, notice the chip was packaged not "blobbed" And here is the 2 chip working LCD put into the AADE: this LCD is blobbed (the IC dies are underneath the black plastic) So I quickly unhooked the LCD from the WWVB clock and unsoldered the pin sockets.  I then used up quite a bit of the ...

I continue to look for the Tiny Tora amplifier prototype as mentioned here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/11/where-is-it.html It's becoming a duel to the death, hopefully not my death.  I don't want this amp joining all the other junk that I've misplaced and can't find.  A line has been drawn, no more ! However I did find some other items including this: I mentioned it before here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/10/useless.html Here is the Johnson Smith catalog blurb again: NOT a kit :) I had it mounted on an old Sanyo cordless phone which I used as the transmitter for a mailbox alarm.  The switch has an SCR which latches on when triggered by a sound until the power is removed.  I didn't actually use the microphone, just the SCR which was triggered on by a microswitch on the mailbox door.  I must have broken off the corner of the board when I decomissioned the alarm after moving. I'm not giving up the search, even if it makes no sense, although the house mi...

and come to a station that was playing a song that you HAD to listen to ?  Today it was this one: That band was the complete package: singing, dancing and those funky outfits ! source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gs069dndIYk I was going to listen to the pre-net for the DX-60 net (3880 kHz AM, 1300 UTC or 7 AM CST Sunday) with my Sony ICF2010 to try out synchronous demodulation, see yesterdays post: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/11/synchronous-detection-of-am.html But I took the 3 minutes required to finish listening to September by Earth, Wind and Fire.  Amazing song with the horn section and a catchy beat. BTW, synch mode didn't work that well listening to the DX-60 net, got a lot of heterodyning.  I guess the PLL in the Sony synch detector keeps going with the same BFO setting after an AM station stops transmitting.  So if the next guy is off frequency the offset is audible as a tone.  Which is true when AM is listened to with regular product det...

Mikrowave1 has an interesting video on synchronous AM detection: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AFulmjw8SvE He covered several methods for creating the synchronized carrier for use with a product detector (mixer).  But the PLL method will be covered in the next part. I've always been fascinated by synchronous detection ever since getting a Sony ICF2010 shortwave radio.  The cool thing with the Sony is that not only is the AM signal demodulated synchronously, it also gives the listener the option of selecting which sideband to listen to when there is a loud-wide station on one side of the desired AM station.  If I pick the sideband on the other side, any interference from the strong station is reduced  The circuits in Mikrowave1's AM radio don't allow this although maybe it's covered in the next video.  Actually the main reason why I usually use the synch detector on the Sony is so that I can select the sideband.  Now of course it is possible ...

I looked for the prototype Tiny Tora amplifier but all I could find were some unbuilt boards: As I recall these red soldermask boards are from dirtypcbs.com.  I can't remember why I stopped using them as a board supplier, maybe it was the red color or probably it was just the other places were cheaper. I could build another one but I hate to give up on finding the prototype. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm