A Crummy Commercial

I was using the old Thinkpad and it seemed like things were kinda slow.  Checked the available disk space and it was pretty low, 20 GB. So why not upgrade to a bigger drive ?  I looked on Ebay and holy cats, the prices:  UP ! The current 240G drive from a couple years ago: current 240G price: Since I wanted a bigger drive, a current 500G drive price: So I also checked on class 10 128 G sd cards (I use them for backups), August 2025 price: Current 128G SD price: Since the $ 13.66 includes tax, the actual price was $12.95.  So the inflated reality in less than 1/2 year from the same seller is 19.99 / 12.95 => 54% higher ! Who knows exactly why the prices are up, probably a combination of the tariff tax, inflation and postage increases. I'm sure I could shop around and get better deals but with storage media I like to buy new from a reputable brand and a seller I know who uses the USPS.  Bottom line: I decided to dump about 100G of files on the Thinkpad that I w...

It would have been nice if the Pack had beaten the Bears in the 1st round Wildcard game but this was the next best thing: The sudden death of the Bears quest for the Lombardi trophy :) source: https://www.chicagotribune.com/2026/01/18/chicago-bears-los-angeles-rams-playoffs/ Live by last second heroics game after game, die by the last mistake of the season ! WHOOPSY ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I saw a picture on Face of a Hallicrafters S-108 receiver with an outboard S-meter from Lafayette.  It was a TM-59a from the early 1960s, here is the catalog page from 1962: And the inflated price: Here is the schematic clipped from the BAMA manual: A very high impedance triode DC amplifier.  It wouldn't be that easy to add to a transformerless set like the Hallicrafters S-120 though - powering the filament / lamps would mess things up for one thing. schematic source is the TM-59 manual:   https://bama.edebris.com/manuals/lafayett/tm-59a/ IF I ever do bring back my Hallicrafters S-120 as a receiver, an S-meter would be a nice thing to add.   BTW, I'm still not sure what radio (with S-meter) was used on Mission Impossible : https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/08/s-120-with-meter.html but it was certainly in the same S-120 family.  The Lafayette HE-40 was similar to the S-120 but added the meter and a couple of switches: the inside looks just like an S-120...

Recently Youtube has been serving up videos that are kind of boring, same old stuff.  So I went into my vvideo.txt file and found a 1950 movie on Archive called: Mr. 880 : https://archive.org/details/mister-880-1950 While watching the credits at the start I noticed that the story was based on a New Yorker article by St. Clair McKelway.  Actually it's a three parter, August 27, 1949, September 3, 1949 and September 10, 1949: As might be expected of the New Yorker, it's an interesting read - I don't think I've ever heard of a person with the first name: St. Clair (or Saint Clair ?).  McKelway wrote quite a few articles for the New Yorker and seemed to specialize in crime.  I'll have to read some of his other articles. Mr. 880 is a good movie - well worth viewing.  It follows the case as presented in the magazine pretty faithfully although the Secret Service man played by Burt Lancaster and the love interest played by Dorothy McGuire are absent from the article....

This radio strikes me as impossibly French: Google translate version source:  http://rxcontrol.free.fr/Receivers/RS560/ The white face, aluminum knobs, tiny speaker and meter, unusual dial - it's a very interesting looking radio !  It actually reminds me of my stereo from JC Penney which had that same look with the silver face and metal knobs. MCS 3210 - I never liked those metal knobs    The RS560 is a solid state receiver from the 1960s with germanium transistors.  Looking at the internal pictures with the shielded boxes I imagine a very expensive radio machine. What does impossibly French mean ?  something like this: https://www.roadandtrack.com/car-culture/a45737315/renault-4-history/ The wheelbase was different on the driver and passenger sides due to the rear suspension :) Remember the Renault Alliance ?  One of the last of the "Kenosha Cadillacs".  I remember reading something similar about the car - but I couldn't find the article online....

I doubt there are many people who could use this free book: http:www.designinganalogchips.com http://www.designinganalogchips.com/_count/designinganalogchips.pdf for the titled purpose, actually designing an analog IC chip.  But there is a lot of good / interesting information in the book for the rest of us (at least in the first chapter which is as far as I've gotten :).  The author is Hans Camenzind, the designer of the famous 555 timer chip which is still in production / use even after decades: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hans_Camenzind As hams well know the 555 is the basis of numerous code practice oscillators and sidetone generators. One thing in the book that reminded me of when I worked at GTE was when he mentions that an epitaxial or "epi" layer is often used in IC manufacturing to create a controlled substrate for the transistors on top of the silicon wafer.  The only reason why I remember this is that I remember a production meeting I attended as the IC test ...

I guess that CES (Consumer Electronics Show) is now also a vehicle show ?  I saw this IEEE Spectrum article on a motorcycle with a solid state battery: isn't a battery more electric than electronic ?  :) https://spectrum.ieee.org/ces-2026-solid-state-batteries Verge is that company that makes a motorcycle with a hubless drive rear wheel - like something from Tron, mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/07/this-is-really-cool.html I didn't know they were in Estonia - about the only "tech" company I ever heard of from that region was Minox of Riga in Latvia.  Minox was famous for their "spy" cameras.  But apparently Verge of Estonia has beaten the bigs to a production solid state vehicle battery.  These batteries are close to the ideal: quick re-charge, long life, safe with the highest capacity.  Although not cheap at about $35,000 for the 370 mile range version of the motorcycle.   Previous mention of the only time I ever went to CES: https:...

Not sure why but I remembered the name: Wendell Urth - a character who assists the police in four Science Fiction mystery stories by Isaac Asimov: The Singing Bell , page 98 https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v008n01_1955-01 Perhaps the inspiration for a singing bell might have been a burnt out vacuum tube or even a burnt out light bulb with filament particles ?  But it took Asimov's imagination to make something like that an ethereal sound maker. The Talking Stone , page 108 https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v009n04_1955-10 Asimov was an expert in biochemistry.  So maybe it was natural that he kicked around the idea of alternative life forms based on silicon rather than carbon ? The Dying Night , page 3 https://archive.org/details/Fantasy_Science_Fiction_v011n01_1956-07_MadMaxAU The rapid disappearance of actual silver based photographic film has been amazing - it'd be hard to try to make a video of this story considering that people aren...

It's getting to be tax season again so I pulled out my Canon printing calculator: Canon P1-DH III It calculates OK but there is something wrong with the printer: All the numbers and symbols on a line are printed in the rightmost column !  I suppose it's a mechanical fault of some kind - I dread ripping into the calculator to try and fix it though. If this is due to  entropy all I can say is: bad timing universe, bad timing. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Packers 27, Bears 31 Amazing shot of Watson fumbling into the endzone by Evan Siegle Packers photographer the only term worse than cinematic applied to football is operatic ! I guess this loss was to be expected since the Pack had lost the last 4 games.  This game was like a double Jekyll and Hyde but the two teams were out of phase.  The first half the Packers did almost no wrong, no punts, one missed field goal.  But in the second half the Packers punted quite a few times, scored one touchdown but missed the extra point and later missed a field goal.  The Bears started fairly strong in the 1st half but only had the single field goal.  But the Bears stormed back in the 2nd half and scored 25 points in the 4th quarter. The Pack just couldn't finish this season.  Maybe this just wasn't our year with the injuries to several starters.  Next year might be the last chance for this group, already they will lose players in 2026, possibly coaches ?  ...

Troubled efforts at backing up this blog to the Archive.org Wayback machine have been mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/12/the-gap.html   But yesterday Archive.org and the Wayback seem to have registered all my efforts at backup of this blog ?: the backups for the end of 2025 are there ! However I also tried a backup of the kit pages and got this: haven't seen this error before When the wayback was tried this morning I got this: same errors ? One step forward, one step back, doing the wayback dance ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

While reading the book: Bomb Shelter: Love, Time and Other Explosives by Mary Laura Philpott, she mentions this poem: the poem the mention of the poem by author Philpott source: https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43118/for-the-anniversary-of- And now in turn that idea has been planted in my brain as well !  But luckily with my always unreliable memory it will probably flee.  Hopefully no fine days will be darkened by the thought that this might be the same calendar day that I finally die. But I guess that's the idea of art, specifically poetry/song to make an indelible impression on the brain.  So now I've been infected with a concept but time will only tell if it takes hold. The Cathedral by Rodin was also mentioned in the book: source:  https://rodinmuseum.org/collection/object/103413 Of course I associate Rodin with The Thinker , which then leads to Dobie Gillis : 360p, sorry video quality mavens At the start of each show, Dobie would speak directly to the a...

At one time 7 Up contained lithium ?: BTW lithiated is a real word even if the spell checkers don't like it source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGTkk7gqA4Q the semi-obligatory Wiki link:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/7_Up The Prof has never lied to me yet ! My first reaction is to shake my head at those wacky folks back in the 20th century.  But considering the current dystopian environment which seems to be a blend of 1984 AND Brave New World  who am I to shake my head ?  We get the authoritarianism of 1984 blended with the novelty obsession of Brave New World .  And since lies are now presented as truth, who knows what to believe as far as health recommendations - let the marketplace decide, no need for those nasty regulations by actual scientists.  So as far as beverages, I'll stick with distilled water - no nutrients but no poisons either ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

The Tenth Victim was a movie based on a story by Robert Sheckley published in the April 1953 issue of Galaxy Magazine: The Seventh Victim (there was victim inflation then ?): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seventh_Victim Here is the story: https://archive.org/details/galaxymagazine-1953-04/page/n39/mode/2up And here is the episode on X-1: https://archive.org/details/XMinus1B/xminusone_570306_TheSeventhVictim.mp3 But I didn't remember either the original story or the radio version.  I remembered the movie, or at least I remembered the opening: https://www.dailymotion.com/video/x8kvh0m In Milwaukee channel 4, WTMJ, showed movies in the afternoon, they were called Theater 4 or Theater at 4, something like that.  The hostess was Judy Marks, the weather lady at the station.   I forget what time the news started but WTMJ had to cut the movies up quite a bit to get them into an hour or an hour and a half.  The Tenth Victim is a terrible movie but that ballistic brassiere ...