A Crummy Commercial

I've mentioned him before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/04/rodrigues.html But a search on the term Loof Lirpa from the April 2025 QST April Fools article found this: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/history-lirpa-labs which led to this: https://www.soundandvision.com/content/flashback-1958-if-not-charles I had never known that Rodrigues also was in Stereo Review.  Of course the wonderful worldradiohistory site has a bunch of old Stereo Review issues: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-All-Audio/HiFI-Stereo-Review.htm There is also a book of the Stereo Review cartoons, see the link in the first post: https://dynacotubeaudio.forumo tion.com/t3051-charles-rodrigu es-total-harmonic-distortion- cartoons-from-stereo-review Here is his first cartoon in the first issue of what would become Stereo Review: Here is a radio related cartoon: And here is my favorite: As I've mentioned before, sometimes the internet is still fun. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com...

I downloaded the April 2025 issue of QST.  First I should mention that I don't really miss the paper copy.  One thing that would be nice is an email letting me know when the new issue is available - there are now four ARRL publications so there is a lot of website checking involved.  Yes, the ARRL sends out an email called: The Current: The Current is nice but it's also a little tardy, The Current moves at the speed of Newington not near the speed of light :) The first thing I noticed was the ad for DaVinci video editing software: It seemed quite unusual for QST to have an ad for free video software.  At first I wondered if this was the April Fools article ?  Either the ARRL has good salespeople OR someone at Blackmagicdesign is a ham. The second thing I noticed was an article by WB9LVI: Dr. Steber was my advisor when I started at UWM.  I will say this: not sure what Dr. Steber taught in EE but the thing I learned from him was persistence.  He (like t...

I saw the above at the end of Curious Marc's latest video: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aPIZwqq_W_k I tried Google translate on a zoom in and got this: Japanese so maybe it was a bad translation: dumb instead of dump ? I remember one of those yellow signs I saw in a hamshack once, something like:  TEST IN PROGRESS  keep your cotton picking hands off the equipment !  something like this: source: https://storage.googleapis.com/hippostcard/p/234ef24dcee3a13b45e41acafac45cdf.jpg another example: source: https://d3h6k4kfl8m9p0.cloudfront.net/stories/L-Uysv.jgSeFdscFRE70BA.jpeg tech humor: simple and turn down the volume on the laughter. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm     

The Packers beat the Dolphins on Thanksgiving day 30 to 17.  The Pack dominated the first half and then kinda coasted the second half to the win. But there was one area where the Dolphins have us beat:  funny names.   Particularly Storm Duck and River Cracraft. Storm Duck River Cracraft   I feel there is some water related story involving these fellows somehow but these are their actual names. I guess it reminds me of Vic and Sade (or to a lesser extent, Fred Allen or even Dickens).  For example: Rush's school principal was named Mr. Chinbunny.  The garbage man was named Mr. Gumpox (he drove a horse drawn wagon pulled by his horse Howard, Howard had a sister named Bernice but she died).  The least favored members of the All-star marching team in Vic's opinion were two men, twins from Hoopston IL named Robert and Slobert Hink.  The local restaurant favored by the big boss of Vic's plant was called: The Little Tiny Petite Pheasant Feather Tea S...

I heard someone say (was it Jean Shepherd ?) that a play-on-words was the lowest form of humor.  Anyway I thought this was funny: source: https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Company-Publications/GE-Monogram/60s/General-Electric-The-Monogram-1968-03.pdf I also saw happened to notice the pun to the left of the screen: source: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k0Hh48wyuW0 BTW, semi-obligatory ham radio content: WB9JHW (the instructor of the summer Novice class I attended in high school) is a punster - shaggy dog tale teller, I remember the punchlines of two of his stories: 1) You'll de-feet the porpoise 2) charged with transporting gulls across state lines for immortal porpoises The stories themselves were long and not as easily remembered.   Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

 Here is a fun web page on the cartoons that were found on some of the schematics for classic Tektronix gear: https://vintagetek.org/tektronix-schematic-cartoons/ My favorites: pilot light external clock: external sync: One thing I used to work on at GTE were Programmable Read Only Memories known by the acronym: PROM.  I remember calling the local rep for Harris and got the secretary - she must have been new, when she inquired what the reason for the call was I just answered: PROMs.  And she said something like: "you mean like the high school dance ?" Yes, the high school dance :) Best Regards, Chuck,WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

 But apparently no one else did: Then there is always this sentiment from Tomorrowland :     Athena:     Frank, do you want to know why you could never make me laugh ?     Frank:         Why ?     Athena:     Because you're not funny. watch the scene here (it does spoil the ending):  https://youtu.be/AVLdJIn7Up4?t=329   Alas, probably true in my case, I could never make my Dad laugh (at least not on purpose). Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm             

 You know how it is, a funny picture comes to your attention and you need to share it with others.  In the olden days of the 20th century it might get stapled to a mailing list and routed around the office. I sent this picture (uncredited from Facebook, of course) to some people I used to work with, all test engineers: source: https://www.kg4cyx.net/img_20190918_144116_dro/ So I then get this picture in return: source: https://f4.bcbits.com/img/a0324090507_10.jpg Which reminded me of when I was a kid taking a couple of D cells apart (modern kids must be disappointed with alkaline cells, no carbon rod).  Unfortunately I took off the metal terminals while cleaning the carbon electrodes.   So I sawed a groove in each of the rods and then tried to solder some copper wire to them (which didn't work). I then plugged the wires into the wall socket.  I touched the two carbon rods together (holding the wires by the insulation, for safety !).  I was hoping for a...

 For many when it comes to cartoons and ham radio there is only Gil (Phil Gildersleeve).  Also Robert Beasley did a number of cartoons for QST.  Even some Dilbert cartoons were sorta related to radio.  But when I was a kid I subscribed to Electronics Illustrated.  One of the attractions was the page of cartoons, "Over and Out", in each issue drawn by Charles Rodrigues.  He also was published in Popular Electronics. My favorite kit cartoon: Electronics Illustrated July 1969 Another kit cartoon: Popular Electronics April 1965 The first radio clock ? Electronics Illustrated March 1964 Per this site http://comicstripfan.com/newspaper/c/caseythecop.htm Mr. Rodrigues is no longer with us.  Luckily worldrdiohistory.com has an almost inexhaustible supply of the old electronics magazines with his artwork. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

 There is always some kind of April fools article in QST somewhere in the fourth issue of the year. The trouble is distinguishing the genuine from the bogus. The April 2022 issue had a one pager explaining the reasons why the resistance of different elements varies. There are many good ones but the one I remember is from April 1994:  Digital Signal Processing: The Final Frontier.  Particularly this illustration: given enough time computers can do anything Certainly DSP has progressed since 1994, in the 21st century I'd expect AI guided DSP would be kind enough to add a little hair on top :) Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

 Any kid from the 1960s remembers the Johnson Smith catalog.  It was packed with "novelties" such as: this item: No doubt about it, the Johnson Smith people were Copysmiths, Star Class  (see the Space Merchants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Space_Merchants https://archive.org/download/CBSRadioWorkshop/CBSrw_57-02-17_ep55-Space_Merchants_Part_1.mp3 https://archive.org/download/CBSRadioWorkshop/CBSrw_57-02-24_ep56-Space_Merchants_Part_2.mp3 There are Johnson Smith catalogs from the 1950s https://archive.org/details/novelties-johnson-smith-and-co-1951-catalog  and the 1970s https://archive.org/details/JohnsonSmithsFunCatalog7921979  on archive.org but unfortunately nothing from the 1960s.  The 1951 catalog has more hobby stuff than the 1979 catalog - I guess the lesson learned by Johnson Smith was to specialize in silly. As a young person interested in radio I denied my inclination towards purchasing fake puke and purchased this crystal radio instead: I...