A Crummy Commercial

As often happens I'll get an email out of the blue: your reserved library book is available - often a book I barely remember reserving :)  This time it is Chip War by Chris Miller.   An interesting book although since it's from 2022 in some ways (the recent AI craze) it's aged out. (Actually the AI boom is addressed in this edition with an extensive appendix).   Here are a few observations on the book: The Transistor Girls by Paul Daniels => As my Grandmother might have commented:  "spicy" https://archive.org/details/bwb_P9-EJQ-315/page/146/mode/2up GCA => I confess I'd never heard of this company, they invented the stepper lithography at the suggestion of Morris Chang (founder of TSMC) ?  But they dumped Nikon as the supplier of their optics so Nikon went into the stepper business, listened to customers and did better than GCA. Micron => Everyone has heard of Micron in Idaho but I didn't know of their relentless focus on cost and process improv...

The trail cam captured a non-deer picture Friday morning: It's EASY to understand that birds are descended from dinosaurs once you hear a Sandhill crane calling - LOUD ! On the way to the store on Friday I saw one of the new poles, this one at Airport and Jackson Harbor roads: This pole was part of the reason for the 8 hour power outage on Wednesday, mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/05/wiec-strikes.html Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

OOPS ! source:      https://x.com/NASASpaceflight/status/2060164928472854821 the Ars Technica article: https://arstechnica.com/space/2026/05/blue-origins-new-glenn-rocket-just-exploded-during-a-static-fire-test/ The New Glenn rocket uses methane and oxygen - methane is dangerous stuff.  I remember watching a NOVA program in one of the early seasons about hydrogen.  The show mentioned this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cleveland_East_Ohio_Gas_explosion Natural gas (mostly methane) is clear/odorless/heavy so it can creep along the ground and mix with oxygen to form an explosive mixture that just needs an ignition source.  This is at least partially why those open flames are seen in oil fields.  If the methane can't be captured it must be burned or eventually everything goes blooey.  Every heating season there are news stories about houses blowing up or burning - usually the family is away and natural gas is the cause.  Methane is dangerous !...

Mentioned the 1931 Nautilus arctic expedition a couple days ago: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/05/nautilus-radiogram.html Then I came across this term which also referenced 20,000 Leagues Under The Sea ?  Point Nemo https://allthatsinteresting.com/point-nemo Apparently there is a lot of space debris at the bottom of the Pacific at Point Nemo.  It's a relatively safe place to direct space junk because it is so remote.  But the Pacific is really deep at Point Nemo: This reminded me of an old time radio show called: Latitude Zero    Here is a brief article in Time Magazine , June 22, 1941: https://time.com/archive/6788665/radio-latitude-zero/ Unfortunately there is only one episode available in mp3: https://s3.amazonaws.com/RE-Warehouse/l/latitude_zero_1941-02-11_first_show.mp3 It was an unsponsored "summer replacement" - that was the summer before the attack on Pearl Harbor - this probably meant that a lot of the people working on the show, including Howard Du...

A customer mentioned the MMX Zero: https://www.wimo.com/media/akeneo_connector/media_files/M/M/MMX_ZERO_Reference_Manual_V1.1_images_formatted_final_copy_2d27.pdf He had a question about interfacing the MMX Zero to the Keyall HV kit.  So I looked at the manual but the thing that stood out to me was: no schematics.  What was going on inside that box ? Also, the MMX Zero is essentially a Morse code terminal.  In effect, Morse code is now like Radio Teletype: JADM - Just Another Digital Mode ?  Maybe I'm just getting old but even if I had the technical prowess to create such a product (I don't) I doubt I would.  Morse code was the genesis of the hobby - having a magic box do all the work for the operator ?  I think that's a step too far. Recently the Elecraft KH-1 also came to mind.  Again, looking at the manual: https://ftp.elecraft.com/KH1/Manuals%20Downloads/KH1%20Owner's%20Manual,%20rev%20B7.pdf No schematics.  Not even in the kit manual: https:/...

I saw this on Pinterest: What the heck is this about ?  Fortunately an internet search found these pages: https://www.usni.org/magazines/proceedings/2005/november/oceans-1931-first-nautilus-north-pole-expedition https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hubert_Wilkins#Nautilus_expedition Very weird.  The Navy took a World War I sub out of mothballs and let a guy from Australia (Hubert Wilkins) to refit the boat and rename it Nautilus.  In 1931 the Navy allowed Wilkins to use it for $1 a year to go to the Arctic and conduct a scientific expedition.  Finally, rather than returning the sub the Navy let Wilkins scuttle the Nautilus off of Norway near Bergen in 200 fathoms or 1200 feet of water when the diving planes on the boat didn't work.    Radiogram notes: Bergen => the city in Norway Sverdrup => one of the Norwegian members of the Nautilus Expedition LCD Wilkins => ??  not sure who this is (I assume a different Wilkins with a Lieutenant Commander USN ran...

When I first saw this photo: I immediately thought of this episode of Gilligan's Island (season 2, episode 7): Here's the video clip: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7yiCgPAZ64o Infrared light is wacky.  Getting a little exercise with the new trail cam while having a little fun. But get away from me with the crazy glowing eyes ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

I got this email on Friday, May 22, 2026 from WIEC (Washington Island Electric Co-op): I have seen those poles lying there by the side of Airport road just north of the Airport itself.  They are both wooden poles but each has two steel crossed arms.  If I had known what was up and had had my new cell phone I could have grabbed a picture :) It's good to get a heads up on a power outage but what'll I do without my internet.  My laptop could work briefly but not for 8 hours.  The Starlink internet uses a fair amount of power, at least 25 watts, so I don't have any kind of inverter / battery combo that could power that either. I'll have to actually take a walk, read a book or take a ride or ?  Wednesday is a bad day to go shopping at Mann's store as they are often out of the sale / fresh items.  It'll be like experiencing the dark ages !  :) Here's an idea: an 8 hour warmup for Field Day ?  I could get out the tent, put up some wire to trees, put the ...

I was toying with the idea of planting a garden this year.  The old garden has become overgrown with trees blocking the sun and bittersweet everywhere (NEVER plant bittersweet !).  But it did have a fence around the outside to keep the deer out. This year I was thinking of moving to new ground with good sun.  Usually I wait until after Memorial day before planting just in case there is a killing frost.  But then I saw this picture from the trail cam (I moved it to a new spot, pointed it north): Zooming in and counting them (I gotta increase the resolution to high): I count 6 deer - with 6 deer around I would have to either put up new fencing or move the old fences or the whole garden would just become a salad course for the deer.  I've seen nice patches of wild asparagus just be decimated by the deer.  This year they are even cropping some of the ramp greens in the woods.  Unfortunately my Dad gave away the electric fencer that we had for the sheep....

jacksonharbor@att.net was the email address I used for the beginnings of the kit business.  The island was still dialup internet service then.  I had signed up for ATT Worldnet which had an 800 number that you called into - they then charged you for every minute of connect time on a monthly basis.  I remember one friend emailing a greeting card attachment that cost me like $4 to download !  But overall it wasn't that bad a deal until ATT dropped Worldnet - there was no way to keep my old email address :(  I've mentioned this before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/04/when-internet-changes-its-usually-for.html So when I finally got this new cell phone going I thought:  hey, sign up for a free att.net email address !  I had never been able to try this before because you had to have cell service to get an att.net email address. So I tried it and got this: I then tried sending a message to jacksonharbor@att.net via gmail and got this: so I don't know what...

Previous mention: getting rid of DSL here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/05/shedding-load-or-may-4th-be-with-you.html Although Starlink has already emailed that after my trial period the monthly rate will be increasing $5 to $55 per month :( But in happier news, May 20, 2026 was the last day of landline service from Frontier.  I finally was able to get my old home landline number transferred to Mint Mobile.  If I had known it was this much of a hassle I would have just dumped the landline number and gone with a new one.  Frontier got to charge me for another week or so of landline service, is any big company that mean that they would lie just to get a few more bucks ?  I hope not, probably just some disinterested employee ?  Anyway it's done ! Strangely I still have landline dial tone on May 21st but probably that will be gone soon. Having cell phone service is weird though for a first timer like me,  it's like the cell phone is a new body part that has ...

I *should* be doing any number of other things but I bought a trail cam.  A Muddy Pro-Cam 16 - it was the cheapest "name brand" trail cam I could find on Ebay that would mail it.  Nicely both batteries (8 AA) and an SD card were included as a bundle.   Here is my first shot - the quizzical look is because I was trying to set the date and time which obviously I hadn't done :)   Depending on how well it works I might buy another one as a sort of security cam, pictures being so worthwhile these days.  As with most anything there are zillions of options, many seem to be cut-down cell phones which can be hooked up to a wireless cellular network - but those are a LOT more expensive.  Here is my first deer, yesterday afternoon not too long after setting it up: At the very least I will get some exercise walking out to the camera every day to check for any pictures.  I used the included strap to belt it to a tree near a deer path.  Here is how it...

A Roz Chast cartoon in The New Yorker - the bearded prophet carries a sign which reads: "THE END OF YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM IS NEAR": source:  https://media.newyorker.com/cartoons/6a0387dc4ca8f0266f755ca3/master/w_1280,c_limit/a61789.jpg I thought of this in connection with both Android and Windows (what'll Windows 10 users do when the extra year of support on Windows 10 is up later this year ?). I just got a new Android device, it had version 15 - of course right away it wanted to update to version 16.  And I *think* I might get another version updated to 17 - and that's it. But the problem is that the apps are jealous of the latest OS version - they want it to be a certain level or that's it, no dice.  With a previous Android device support ended at Android 11.  December 2025 this broke my banking app.  So I wasn't able to deposit kit checks via the app, I had to mail them in to the bank :(   Now I can use the app again on the new Android device versi...

I just had to post this picture of Charles P. Steinmetz in his 1914 Detroit Electric car: Outside the car are Marjorie, William, Joseph Jr. and Joseph Hayden Sr. - they were Steinmetz's adoptive family.  Maybe Mom Hayden took the picture ?  :)  That car had a tiller and could be driven from the back seat.  It didn't go that fast or far but Schenectady wasn't that big a town then. Here are a few articles on the car, Steinmetz and GE: https://spectrum.ieee.org/charles-proteus-steinmetz   The original Steinmetz car was found and restored:  https://www.union.edu/news/stories/201404/Shifting-gears-A-new-home-for-Steinmetz-car A Steinmetz bio:  https://archive.org/details/steinmetzenginee00klin   The General Electric book,  Men and Volts : https://archive.org/details/menvoltsstoryofg0000john Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I was living in Milwaukee in 1957 but I was 2 years old so that's my excuse for not remembering this: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5ssyM57Kjo The first World Series played in Milwaukee - 7 games and the good guys won !!   I had seen Tony Kubek on all those NBC MLB games on TV and knew he was a Yankee - he often mentioned Stengel, Berra, Mantle and so on.  But I didn't know he was from Milwaukee.  He's still alive and living in Appleton, Wisconsin. The Yankees and the Braves played another 7 game series in 1958 as well but the bad guys won that one: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d15WrNtLTeg I've blogged on the Braves before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/06/the-bat-versus-ball.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/12/warped-perception.html https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/09/leaving-early.html but by the time I was old enough to be a fan the Braves were headed for Atlanta - they weren't all that good at the end in Milwaukee. Best R...

After mentioning the Video Toy Walkie Talkies yesterday: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/05/toy-video-walkie-talkie.html I remembered when I was a kid one of my friends had one of these: from 1965 xmas catalog, remember the need to buy the crystals and battery This was a superhet, better than the blue Knight-kit C-100 super-regen walkie talkie.  The C-555 also had a volume control and an earphone jack.  Well the problem was that I didn't have the money for either a C-555 or a C-100.  Here is the closeout price: Note that the buyer still had to buy 2 crystals and a somewhat unusual 9V batter so the actual price would inflate to this: you have to add $5 worth of crystals plus a 62 cent battery to the $8.95 sale price Even at the end of the C-555 product life it was just too much money.  Eventually my Dad bought me a pair of walkie talkies like this Midland: The ones he bought were from Olson Electronics and were white but otherwise the same.  They were 50 mW supe...

 A pair of these for $15.19 ?: And yes, that speaker grille on the front does look like the Cisco logo: source:  https://www.ebay.com/itm/306853705822 Amazing !  I saw a video on them from BigClivedotcom: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IPn97d48Rww Also, the fact that the pound and the dollar are about the same value ?  I can remember when the pound was worth like $5 ? Ask yourself: How much different are these from cell phones, NanoVNA, Tiny SA, digital oscilloscope, trail cams or any number of other devices? But I am resisting the temptation to buy a pair of them, it's another one of those, buy it, fool with it for 15 minutes and then stick it in a box to molder away.  I don't need any more stuff like that :) BTW, maybe someone took this assignment seriously ?: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/11/someone-needs-to-get-busy-on-these-its.html Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm