A Crummy Commercial

On The Beach by Nevil Shute is yet another atomic war, doomsday book / movie from the late 50s early 60s.   I recently did a Costanza, watched the movie instead of reading the book: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQY-4upNr7Q So I don't know how well it stuck to the book.  It was a Stanley Kramer production, usually his movies dealt with serious, important subjects although there was It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World :)   In On The Beach Ava Gardner was still a beauty and Gregory Peck was still handsome - certainly a watchable movie although a little long.  And there was a plot point related to radio and Morse code which I won't spoil.  Hearing  Waltzing Matilda  over and over becomes a little tiring after a while though. I did like the use of black and white film, somehow On The Beach,  Dr. Strangelove and Fail Safe hit a little harder than they would have in color. https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/05/book-report-red-al...

I haven't gotten any sap for the last week, it had turned cold - really need that pothole weather where there's a freeze at night but then a sunny thaw during the day for any sap to flow. Finally got the thaw today courtesy of the sunshine and a strong wind out of the south.  So I drilled the last three trees in the morning and got some sap in the afternoon - only a little over 1/2 gallon but certainly better than nothing.  I will check the sap again about sundown. But the Green Bay weather people say it's only a single day thaw.   March will be coming in like a stick-to-your-tongue popsicle.  No sap for you, Chuck ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

The Jaycar Short Circuits transmitter was blogged on here previously: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/12/jaycar-am-morse-code-transmitter.html I mentioned the damped sine wave output and after a little looking I finally figured out why the circuit acted that way.  The ferrite rod used was from an AM/FM tuner by Oak, bought at Olson Electronics last century.  The connections I made to the smaller winding (L2) were intermittent and were apparently shorted in the circuit  So I tried replacing the ferrite rod with the coil from an old GE radio.  There is no secondary winding (in effect L2 is replaced by a short) so there is no feedback to sustain oscillation, the output waveforms: the flip flop output is in yellow When the flip flop connection to the base of Q3 goes low, the coil energy is dissipated in the tank circuit resulting in the damped sine wave. the signal (blue trace) is a damped sine wave with a frequency of about 1.3 MHz  And I purposely excluded t...

In the olden days of the 20th century, headphones were sometimes called: cans.  Well here is a 21st century version of high impedance cans (really can, a single element): It uses the headband from a defunct Gemini headphone - the dynamic elements and padding were removed.  Cable ties were then used to attach the Altoids round tin lids (actual cans).  Then a piezo telephone sounder, a CPE-6080, was wired to a 3.5 mm jack.  Then a standard 3.5 mm cable can be used to connect to a radio.  I did try these with the Elecraft K2 headphone jack and they are usable although not super comfortable.  I could add another piezo to the other can in the future but for now this is it. I also tried it with the old crystal set but no luck, the antennas currently in place are too small to be of use or some connection has broken over the winter - I'll try them again in the spring when antenna time returns. High impedance ?  Yes, although there is a peaky response: the CPE-...

No, no, not that Astro, he was an early 1960s phenomenon. There you are, the CIR Astro 200, a late 1970s ham radio, one of the first synthesized HF rigs.  Here is an interesting blog by KA7OEI: https://ka7oei.blogspot.com/2025/05/refurbishing-cir-astro-200-hf-amateur.html Notice the price: Not cheap considering a ham could get nearly four Heathkit HW-101 rigs for about the same money.  The thing I noticed wasn't so much the price but those six panel mounted switches: The switches look a little amateurish (maybe appropriate considering the market?) - CIR should have bought 6 extra hex nuts and properly mounted the switches.  Previously blogged on here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/09/panel-mounting-switch.html Maybe it was a question of cramming it all in there and there was no room to accomplish proper mounting ?  A rig which was supposedly a subsequent version of the CIR Astro 200 was the Swan Cubic Astro 150: Here they ditched the panel mount switches for the m...

I was using this needle nose pliers recently: "Omega" the last letter of the Greek alphabet, that should have been a warning.  I also used to have a matching diagonal cutter but stopped using that due to poor performance.  I got both tools at a True Value sometime during the 1980s.  Unfortunately these pliers don't always hold that well, the stiff piece of copper wire slipped and I ended up pinching my index finger: it hurt like crazy, luckily the skin wasn't broken Doesn't look like it's that bad but this is the umpty-umpth time this has happened.  So I've finally decided to replace this finger mangler with something of better quality.  Probably I'll get a Klein, Xcelite or Channellock - some brand I've heard of.  I'll see what I can get on Ebay (the only place on the island with tools happens to be a True Value so forget that !).   Has it really taken me 70 years to learn something so basic ?  Buy cheap tools at your own peril ! Best Regard...

I remember seeing this one a while back: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5wqVhuAWyxc But this one is new to me: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IbOCkhhTs2w I assume they are both part of the Russian tradition of sad art ?  I shudder to think what the Russian version of Snow White would be like ! And of course the Carl Sagan television program: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3fXtsHNJdA BTW, COS/MOS is what RCA called their CMOS logic IC products: I used to use the subsequent versions of that book a LOT at GTE. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Saw this: Thanks Supremes for waiting a year - I've only had to discontinue some products and jack up the prices on others.  And no way to claim on lost opportunities. I'm just saying: we are already in the dystopia portrayed in fiction - endless novelty coupled with authoritarianism - a mishmash of 1984 and Brave New World - sorta: Cowardly 2026 And then there was this: 10 percent Federal sales tax, this is another way of telling me to shut down the kit business. update 2026-02-22: make that a 15% import tax for 150 days - will it be 10,000% tomorrow ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I started using my old Kodak Easyshare CX7430 camera more.  It's a lot smaller than the Nikon D40 SLR.  AND the Kodak has an optical viewfinder unlike many other cameras (cellphones et. al.) so you don't have to rely on a dim screen outside held at arms length. But I discovered a flaw today - the date setting won't go above 2025.  I guess Kodak figured that people would ditch a 21 year old camera ?  Not me ! I went to take these two pictures (Mann's had more Paczki on Thursday):   But the camera wouldn't power up, no juice, the last time I changed the Nimh cells was later 2025.  So I had to take out the cells and replace them - I did this quickly hoping that the date might be kept but nope !  I should have gotten an AC adapter (coulda, shoulda, woulda, but dint, Chuck).  So I ended up setting the year to 2025 (and 4 AM rather than 1600) as can be seen from this directory: everything was fine until yesterday afternoon Then I tried an experiment: se...

Judging from a sample of one (my Mom), Japanese people like spicy food.  I was never much for spicy food although it is a little like diving into cold water.  Once you get used to it, it's not that bad.   Anyway I bought some of these snacks on Ebay: It was gonna be a twofer.  A snack that while good is resist-able - I won't finish the entire can in one sitting, that's for sure.  But also, I remembered that the plastic lid from a Hapi Wasabi Peas was perfect for sealing up a partially eaten can of Campbell's Chunky soup.  Negative lesson learned: that is no longer true: The Hapi cans are bigger now, the plastic lid will fit tightly on a can of tuna though.  One other thing:  these peas will last a LONG time past the expiration date.  I found a can years after my Mom had died that I popped open and the peas were fine. The Ebay seller also included these freebies: I learned something positive:  a little chocolate eaten after a hot sna...

I have started drilling the maples: This is actually two trees right next to each other And yesterday the accumulated sap was over 4 liters so time to start boiling.  Unfortunately the result was well below a brix of 58 - IOW watery.  I must have made a mistake in the reading of the initial sugar concentration which appeared to be 2.6%.  Also, there was an extended power outage this morning of over 20 minutes so that may have messed my calculations up. Anyway, it is done and brown and fragrant.  It will require a finish boiling down later. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

A communications course I took in college was previously mentioned: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/05/the-bit-player-claude-shannon.html The bottom line:  the students wanted to learn how TV and radio worked, the prof and one student wanted to talk about signals and noise.  Unfortunately the practical side was emphasized but the theory was what we needed. Rita doesn't know what to think Anyway I clicked on this old Watch Mr. Wizard program and wish I had seen it when I was younger although I would have been only 7 or 8 in 1963: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l381_ho8KR8 Don Herbert does a nice job (especially considering he was on regular commercial TV) of explaining the topic of noise.  Really this is what ham radio is all about, getting your signal through the noise whether that noise is natural or man made. Don Herbert wiki:   https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Don_Herbert Don Herbert site (everything is sold out :)  http://www.mrwizardstudi...

It's the day before Fat Tuesday but the truck from the mainland comes up on Monday and Thursday so this is the day to go to Mann's.  I roll up to the store and my next door neighbor is out front and says: "weren't you just here last week ?"  - so I said: "Donuts, man !" I tried them and they were OK.  Boxed donuts are never quite as good as ones right from the fat but these were fine. It was a nice day here in the afternoon, sunny, above 40F.  If my tummy wasn't weighed down by the Paczki (only one) I'd go out and drill some maple trees !  :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I have a Thomas Nelson KJV Bible from the 20th century.  It was furnished through the courtesy of the Not Ashamed Ministries, Lawrenceville GA, director: Lloyd Ferguson.  Incidentally, I happened to hear about the free Bible offer from a SW broadcast of Not Ashamed Ministries, shortwave used to be useful :) As can be seen the words in red are those of Jesus. On a completely different subject: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/02/the-strange-case-of-peekaboo-power-bill.html I was thinking about the billing date and finally dug out the latest bill and saw this: This would have been more helpful BEFORE they started ! I'm afraid I usually just ignore the words in red on the power bill.  Maybe my customers do the same with my website and documentation ? Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm