A Crummy Commercial

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 ...

Cerro Autana, a tepui in Venezuela source:  https://www.instagram.com/p/DWXqIkkDbm_/ Recently Youtube served up this video:  source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4NfhaosoR3E That triggered a memory of watching this NOVA from 1986: Skydive To The Rainforest source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnmwf2jTi3w Served up in glorious 240p :)   And in the mid 1980s the DC-3 was still routinely flying: A wiki on tepui in general:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tepui Here's the wiki on Cerro Autana which mentions the NOVA in passing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cerro_Autana Why skydive instead of using a helicopter ?  Obviously in hindsight they should have used a 'copter (or stayed home).  But probably the people footing the bill for both the expedition and the film were the skydivers and skydivers like to skydive !  :)  But that woman breaking her leg like a green stick, yikes !  The fellow who was injured was more fortunate...

These pictures aren't super great but I'm including them for completeness.  First, a couple from 1972 Baldings Hill: Second, a couple (from prints) from the Evans farm, 1975 mockup: Mockup: the Glen Gates Gang would often have a rehearsal two weeks (?) before the actual Field Day at the end of June.  So it was a chance for me to take some black and white shots for myself. Third (from negatives) three of the tower raising - this also looks like a mockup, not many people and the extension pipes aren't inside the tower: The winch (usually manned by Mike Millar) would have been behind me in these pictures. One thing I didn't mention about the negative digitizing: I could only scan either 126 or 35mm film or slides with the Canon scanner.  But using the DSLR and the light source it will also be possible to digitize larger format negatives - for example although the first two pictures above were from prints, the camera used was an old Ansco 620 roll film folding camera (with ...

Previous blog post on the June 1979 QST cover photo: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/11/an-error-in-qst.html I got an email from a person in London, England and he attached this: He wanted to know if it was my picture and whether I was open to having it used as artwork on an album of electronic music. And also: did I have a higher resolution picture.  I pointed him to the Glen Gates Gang page: http://wb9kzy.com/ggg.htm which has this scan: http://wb9kzy.com/cover3.jpg Unfortunately I don't have the original slides, Sam Sansone, WB9LAB, had them and after he and his wife died I don't know what happened to them.  I was given a dupe of the slide (which is where that scan came from) but I'll be darned if I know where it is - along with all the other junk I've misplaced over the years - it must be here somewhere. So if that scan isn't good enough the second chance for that picture to be published is going to evaporate.  Stuff happens after over 4 decades - I'm hopin...

I remember hearing in high school during Field Day that our radio club advisor, Mr. Gates was a Swiss Miss hot chocolate drinker.  I can't confirm or deny that but I do know that sometimes I'll get an urge for hot chocolate when the November winds are blowing and there's no hot chocolate mix in the house, not even the store brand !  So today I came up with this simple, better than nothing, recipe for hot chocolate mix (taking a recollection of the old pound cake recipe as a guide):  For 1 serving made with 6 oz. of boiling water: 1 tablespoon of cocoa powder 3 tablespoons of dry milk 1 tablespoon of sugar 1 tablespoon of butter (3 pats) Mix the powdered ingredients together in a mug, heat up the water to boiling, pour it in and mix.  Stir like crazy and then finally add the butter pats and keep stirring until melted. Of course marshmallows can be added and vanilla extract too but I didn't have them on hand.  I would take it very easy with mint extract - easy to ...

I love this video: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ep9PQEb5-7U Made by these folks: Even the music is weirdly appropriate for the night :) I love how they shout out the important places: And near the start the lightning strikes remind me of the Beatles concert at Shea Stadium, all the flashbulbs popping in the grandstands, amazing ! I betcha those snapshots are all in picture albums somewhere :)  You can see the pink light in the middle of this: It's from a flash bulb. source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KzF1hTWpUWE I suppose it gets boring for the astronauts, especially since it's a much slower transition in real time but still it must be cool to see.  Semi-obligatory ham / Field Day content: I do remember seeing a spacecraft passing by on a Field Day evening but it must have been Skylab because the ISS wasn't a thing until 1998 - Skylab was more of a 1970s thing. Here is a closeup of the Door peninsula with the island at the top of the thumb and Green Bay dow...

I never tire of this picture, mentioned a month ago: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/09/go-back-50-years.html Here it is again in the November 2025 issue of QST, page 100: Unfortunately Larry, WA9UMU (the call used on 1975 Field Day), is a silent key, that's what happens after 50 years :( Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

Brady at Practical Engineering has a new video about antenna towers: source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3nDdLiXS5wk I wonder what he would think of the Tilton Tower from field day ? https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/09/go-back-50-years.html   Of course the Tilton tower could be carried to a site almost anywhere using a Vista Cruiser or LTD Country Squire :) The thing is that while I do remember rain sometimes on Field Day or Mockup (we used to go out a week or two before the event to check things out) - but I don't remember any strong winds or storms on Field Day, maybe we were just lucky.  BTW I remember leaving my tool box behind at a Scout camp one year and getting a call to come and fetch it, those camp folks were nice. I also remembered this post: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/12/warped-perception.html No more glass Coke bottles but a champagne bottle or sparkling wine would be a good sub as an antenna base insulator. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy...

I found this home made lightbox - something my Dad whipped up for my Mom.  It was meant for tracing - used in art projects.  It's just a cardboard box with a small fluorescent fixture inside, fixture was probably for under kitchen cabinets.  There's a clear plastic top.  It's all held together with the handyman's secret weapon: duct tape, see: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/10/my-3-favorite-red-green-videos.html  I think the pontoon boat may be the only time on the show where duct tape was used on ducts ! But I might use it for a different purpose than tracing.  I have a lot of black and white negatives which I've never printed and am unlikely to ever print.  I've seen videos where a camera is used to take a picture of a negative and through the magic of Photoshop or similar software, the negative becomes a positive.  I can do this on my old Canon scanner but it takes forever and will only do 35 mm film (or slides).  I also have roll film n...

I was paging through the October 2025 QST online when I came upon this on page 94: Really unexpected but a pleasant surprise !  I took that picture in June 1975 with my Olympus 35RC.  When the Glen Gates Gang Field Day entry was sent in the picture got included.  Somewhere around here I've got a plastic bag with several copies of that issue - I remember going over to Amateur Electronic Supply (on Fond du Lac in Milwaukee) and buying them.  I've mentioned the November 1975 cover before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/06/field-day.html  The picture reminded me of Scott Tilton who died this year: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/04/a-novice-trio-no-more.html  Scott was the brains behind repurposing the tower to a transportable unit.  It's a shame that Scott's article for the tower wasn't published. Here's the Glen Gates Gang page with more of my pictures from Field Day: http://wb9kzy.com/ggg.htm  The fact that that magazine cover was from almost 50...

I had posted an inquiry on the Glen Gates Gang page this morning: http://wb9kzy.com/ggg.htm One of Mr. Gates' former students had seen the page and was wondering about Mr. Gates in an email.  This reminded me of the first time I went on Field Day in 1972 and we met at Mr. Gates' house across the street from Maple Dale school. After posting that inquiry I took a look at the obits and saw this one for Scott Tilton: source: https://www.jsonline.com/obituaries/pwix1156191 Scott was WN9JHX, his friend Morris Hornik was WN9JHW and Morrie's brother Bob was WN9JHY - a Novice trio !  Now Scott has died and Bob seems to have given up his call so Morrie is the only one of the trio still licensed as WB9JHW. from the 1972 Winter Callbook Scott was the lead member working the conversion of a commercial tower to the transportable tower used on Field Day by the Glen Gates Gang.  I had emailed Scott a few years ago wondering if he knew what had happened to the tower.  The last I reme...

I got this today: I'll probably renew but it is tempting to just walk away :) I used to hear: "cut the guy wires and run" after every Field Day - but it was never done. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

After learning that Bob Hamel had died: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/01/another-one-of-my-elmers-has-died.html I started thinking about ham radio and Field Day which I associate with Bob and the rest of the Glen Gates Gang ( Mr. Gates was our physics teacher at Nicolet High School): http://wb9kzy.com/ggg.htm One thing about the way the Glen Gates Gang operated on Field Day was that we were expected to spend the whole event on site which was well over 24 hours.  So normally I'd bring a sleeping bag, a tent, lots of beverages and all the other stuff that might be needed on a mini-camping trip.  I usually ate sandwiches and always would get what we called:  egg bread but today is referred to as challah or maybe brioche ?  As I recall we used to get Heinemann's egg bread, good stuff.   Anyway, thinking of egg bread made me want some - I've never seen it for sale at Mann's here on the island.  So I decided to make some using this recipe by a friend's Dad: ht...