A Crummy Commercial

This is an interesting article about tape recording in the postwar 1940s: https://spectrum.ieee.org/magnetophon-laugh-track I actually listened to the AI voiced version of the article which was good.  Although magnetic recording must have appeared to be inevitable, I suspect that having someone like Bing Crosby both use and invest in it didn't hurt.  AI also seems inevitable but very few prominent people (aside from the technologists) are touting AI - perhaps AI also needs a champion like Crosby ?  (What am I saying ?  :) I recall hearing that Bing was known as being casual in dress for his radio show but he apparently wasn't keen on doing two versions of the same show for the east and west coasts with hours in between.  I suppose another possible advantage of tape was that Bing didn't have to do the show in the evening, he could do it anytime during the week.  I knew about his investment in Ampex but had never heard about the origins of the laugh track bef...

Mentioned on the piclist: https://archive.org/search?query=subject%3A%22Elektor%22 also this Elektor collection: https://archive.org/details/ElektorMagazine/Elektor%5Bnonlinear.ir%5D%201974-12/ Per the wiki, a Dutch based electronics magazine so they may not all be in english, however it's always possible to use translate.google.com . the elektor site has a search including old issues: www.elektormagazine.com As long as the internet lives, I will NEVER run out of magazines to look at !  :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

AI is hated by many, especially the young, don't try to feed them "AI Slop" But this IEEE Spectrum article was interesting: https://spectrum.ieee.org/artificial-neurons-on-silicon-chips In this case, the grad student was sloppy by not connecting the substrate to ground and it may lead to a new way to implement AI that uses less power.  So sometimes it's good to make mistakes - so this AI sloppiness might be good, at least for the environment  :) It still boggles my mind that power used is a figure of merit embraced by the AI industry: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/04/data-centers.html It's like the Supermen from the planet Bizarro have taken over the tech leadership of Earth !  Why is using more power better ?  It's not but apparently that's the yardstick they use :(  It's also interesting that this new potentially power saving AI work is being done at a university in Singapore.  Singapore has (unlike the current US administration) decided to embra...

SM58 attempted destruction video:     https://www.instagram.com/reels/DaHqY6Yshvk/ SM58 wiki:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shure_SM58 SM58 Shure page:  https://www.shure.com/en-US/products/microphones/sm58 $119 (the switch adds $10) - I guess I am old, why destroy something that cost that much new ?  It does seem like a fairly decent value for a professional piece of equipment.  A page on the SM58 design: https://www.shure.com/en-US/insights/how-they-did-it-inside-the-sm58 I have one of these for the HT-37: It's been discontinued but I'd never purposely trash it. I guess the SM58 is supposed to be really hard to break: https://www.shure.com/en-US/insights/drop-the-mic-just-how-tough-is-the-sm58 So I guess it's more like Shure love or Shure respect rather than Shure hate - I blame the Mythbusters for this kind of activity. Update 7-17-2026: I saw this picture on face: Our friend the internet says that Shure moved in 1956 from Chicago to Evanston,...

https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/06/microsoft-adds-another-year-to-windows-10-extended-update-program/ Good news for once ?   Although I actually am typing this on a Windows 11 laptop, I do have a couple of other Windows 10 machines that I still use so this will be nice: Considering the chip shortages resulting from the AI bubble I can see why they might extend support, it's just insanely expensive to buy computer hardware.  SSD drives are twice the price they were recently. One thing: when Windows support does finally end the only nice thing is that a lot of stuff can be turned off which results in a faster bootup time IF you turn off the internet.  I have an old Windows 98 laptop that I use for printing and scanning - it never sees the internet and works just fine. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

Pupin source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aRUsfIW1aYM     Some internet links on Pupin and the loading coil: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loading_coil https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mihajlo_Pupin   Michael Pupin, from Immigrant to Inventor htm:  https://www.gutenberg.org/files/66886/66886-h/66886-h.htm pdf:  https://www.eserbia.org/images/books/Michael-I-Pupin-From-Immigrant-to-Inventor-1924.pdf Note that the video doesn't mention him but apparently this guy: Campbell https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_Ashley_Campbell   had also patented the idea (at AT&T) so AT&T bought Pupin's patent to prevent any legal wrangling ?  We know that these patent and IP tussles (such as Armstrong versus RCA or Edison versus Tesla) are exhausting, expensive and time consuming. But still, I had never heard of Pupin before - and I used to work for a telephone company :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

I saw a couple of items concerning navigation recently.  One was this Veritasium video on GPS jamming in Europe: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tz23G_UXCGA Those wacky Russians !  The one thing they didn't mention was who tipped off the GPS researcher to the jamming in the first place.  Probably the same one who provided the raw GPS data ? The other was this IEEE Spectrum article on using magnetometers for navigation: https://spectrum.ieee.org/magnetometers-hidonix-astranav-gps-alternative Both are interesting - one thing that I've been interested in as a property owner is just where are property lines that aren't line of sight from the corner stakes that the surveyors drive in.  At one time I looked at DGPS: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Differential_GPS But apparently DGPS is gone in the US.  But you might be able to do a local DGPS, say put a DGPS broadcast station at a known point (USGS benchmark or the corner stake of a property)  then...

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...

 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

This is really clever: https://spectrum.ieee.org/inchfab They don't mention packaging or for that matter, test.  But the concept of smaller wafers implying smaller equipment never occurred to me.  The IC fab machines that ASML makes are handling wafers which are at least 300 mm (think of something the size of an LP record).  Inchfab is using 100 mm wafers (smaller than a DVD). I remember one of the test engineers at GTE talking about when he worked at Teletype in Skokie, IL.  He mentioned that they had a 2 inch wafer fab there which really impressed me - I never knew that there were semiconductor fabs in the Chicago area.  The later Teletypes (like the model 43 ?) must have used these chips.  Think of a keyboard with a printer: I also recall him saying that Teletype worked on a 10-30 process.  Once they got to 10% yield they went into production, when they reached 30% yield it was time to advance to a newer design.  And sometimes they'd come back ...

What appears to be an AI voiced video about Heathkit: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lUQOG1hp54g I think the video was interesting but it really overstates the value and historical impact of Heathkit.  It also says that surface mount was the first killer of kits.  I don't think I'd go quite that far.  They rank cost as factor 2 but really surface mount was a part of driving cost lower. However I do think that Heathkit was important in my pursuit of radio and electronics as both hobby and career.  Ironically the trouble I had building the HW-16 was actually a boost: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/06/hw-16.html The HW-16 was really a receiver-transmitter.  There wasn't a lot of circuitry shared between the two halves.  The receiver was built on a circuit board and worked first time.  The transmitter was three tubes and built point to point - and much simpler than the receiver - but it didn't transmit right.  Thanks to the Heathkit m...

Interesting video on testing ICs by Asianometry: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXULADjnO5s I think Asianometry is a "one man band" so there are bound to be some mistakes in there.  For example (a nit pick) it was Takeda Riken not Takeda Rikan :)   Also Allen-Bradley made carbon composition resistors but he showed a picture of what appeared to be a film resistor on ceramic (with the spiral pattern).   Also not sure on his diode diagrams (they look backwards to me :) And I was told it was pronounced: Shlum-ber-jay: Fairchild is easier to pronounce than Favre or Schlumberger :)   Anyway nothing wrong of huge importance.   This video is a good history of how IC testing changed over the years and which IC test companies made it into the 21st century.   Personally I worked on the Fairchild IC testers but we used Teradyne testers at GTE, too, especially for linear.  About the only thing I knew about Teradyne was that they called their tes...

The blog from yesterday on HELP! :  https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2026/04/help.html    Yes, the shot of George and the grass cutter guy: does show a record player in the background.  It appears to be a KB Discomatic EL-POR: The next question:  was it John Lennon's Discomatic OR did John acquire it while making the movie ?  Because he had one: https://www.lawrencestrauss.com/jljukebox.html wiki:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Lennon's_jukebox And so did Beatles manager Brian Epstein: source:  https://www.capitol6000.com/recordplayers.html So I'm suspicioning that the movie shoot inspired the Discomatic purchases.  I do remember seeing the show:  John Lennon's Jukebox on PBS - it concentrated on some of the songs in the Discomatic - here is the English version: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rgABKFLOKj8 unless interested in a LOT of English ads, skip ahead to about 13:30 Here's a site on the unit: https://discomatic...

I've mentioned this before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/02/dialing-it-in.html Recently I was watching this video by Big Clive: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eGho4TCdtj8 which is quite interesting - this kind of accurate scale used to be REALLY expensive - fancy instrumentation op-amps and calibration.  But now anyone can get these scales (even with the tariff-tax) at reasonable prices.  The cool kids use them for measuring flour for baking - more accurate than dipping a measuring cup. But it occurred to me that I could use a digital scale to measure maple syrup with the result of a more consistent starting point for a boil.  I checked the scale I have: And it can handle 6000 grams maximum which should be more than enough for 4 liters of sap plus a container.  One problem:  I don't have a good container for 4 liters - 4 quarts is no problem but since 4 liters is 7.2 oz. larger, the Rubbermaid pitcher is just a little too small.  I will look at...

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...