A Crummy Commercial

"why'd you have to say that, impossible,  why'd you have to say that ?" source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tC4efdAv1LM BTW, per Heinlein, strap on wings might allow humans to fly: on the Moon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Menace_from_Earth https://s3.us-west-1.wasabisys.com/luminist/SF/FSF/FSF_1957_08.pdf (note that The Menace from Earth is followed by a 1 pager from Asimov: A Loint of Paw :) Other than being fun, why mention this ? Because I've always found it much easier to do a task if I know that it has been done before.  The real pioneers will either fail or they'll spend a lot of time/money on a problem.  It was so much easier to write a keyer program for an 8 pin PIC microcontroller after seeing that the fellows at Embedded Research had already created the Tick keyers.  (I did add my old favorite, the potentiometer based speed control).  After Yuri Gagarin orbited the earth it was easier for NASA to send John Glenn around 3 times.  S...

While pursuing a favorite activity, browsing magazines, I saw this cover: It's from the March 1934 issue of Radio-Craft magazine.  And the Phonosone article is by none other than Hugo Gernsback himself ! source: https://dn760003.eu.archive.org/0/items/Radio-Craft_1934_03/Radio-Craft_1934_03.pdf If you've never heard of Hugo Gernsback before try the wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hugo_Gernsback photo scanned from the November 1967 issue of Radio-Electronics magazine (page 4) by Michael Holley Swtpc6800. The phonosone itself was basically one half of a pair of headphones that were modified to provide for better bone conduction. No, I have not tried building one although the man on the cover does seem to be really happy  !  :) The inflated price of Radio-Craft : I will have to look to see if Mann's Store still has magazines for sale the next time I'm in there. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm 

The first joke from Annie Hall was mentioned before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/01/another-one-of-my-elmers-has-died.html But, as the literalist, seeing an old Australian magazine ad made me remember the final joke from Annie Hall : source:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3feAYfyjzk Here is the ad originally from Pinterest: From other sources I gather that Ke-Peg was (don't think it is available in the USA) a paint on or wipe on substance for fresh eggs to prevent moisture from escaping out and bad stuff like oxygen and germs from getting in.  From the months of peak egg laying mentioned you realize this is a southern hemisphere ad. https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/has-anyone-ever-used-kepeg-egg-preserver.226412/ The peg in Ke-peg may refer to polyethylene glycol 400 or PEG-400 (described as a clear, colorless viscous fluid): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PEG_400 Apparently PEG 400 is the active ingrediment in Visine ?: Mineral oil is an alternative coating t...

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

Interesting article from IEEE Spectrum : https://spectrum.ieee.org/ukraine-ground-drones Yikes !  Killer machines flying AND rolling around ?  No, thank you ! The vision of killer robots reminded me of this Philip K. Dick story, The Defenders : https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/28767 It was dramatized on the NBC old time radio show: X-1  (note that the story isn't quite the same as the Galaxy  original but the essence is there): https://archive.org/details/XMinusOne560522052TheDefenders Spoiler alert:  The story starts years after a doomsday nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union.  The remaining populations of both sides have retreated below ground to escape the radiation.  Both sides use robots called:  Leadys  to continue the fight above ground.  However the robots of both sides stopped fighting without ever telling the humans and instead created fake war news and video on how the war was continuing.  In the meantime ...

I found out that Practical Wireless , a UK ham radio magazine, is available via overdrive.com, nice !   https://www.overdrive.com/media/8765740/practical-wireless In addition Overdrive still has a few 2023 issues from the now defunct CQ Amateur Radio , too. https://www.overdrive.com/media/5855264/cq-amateur-radio I mentioned Overdrive and CQ before: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2024/04/cq-magazine.html Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I noticed that there is a fairly recent archive (posted March 19, 2026) of CQ Magazine from the start in 1945 through 1963.  Apparently after 1963 the copyrights are still in force.  So not too much modern content but still quite interesting. https://archive.org/details/cq-amateur-radio I tried checking the issues from 1948 for sideband articles, a couple of rigs were presented as well as an intro article.  There were also several construction articles in 1949.  In 1950 nothing until October, a receiver was presented. One problem when looking for articles on beginnings of single sideband is that the usage of the term, SSB hadn't become standard.  The first mention spotted was in September 1951 on page 46.  So I guess it's necessary to either read each issue cover to cover or search on the various terms used such as SSSC (Single Sideband Suppressed Carrier). I still haven't found any documentation on why standard practice is to use the lower sideband on the...

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...

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...

In the olden days of the 20th century Morse code keys were so common and cheap that you could do stuff like this: source on page 38:  https://www.worldradiohistory.com/Archive-Radio-TV-Experimenter/Radio-TV-Experimenter-1967-08-09.pdf BTW, I don't know what they are talking about at the end: "since most keys have both a make and a break contact" - I've never seen this - keys are single-pole-single-throw AFAIN.  I think the only way I could sanction this project is using one of those cheap keys with a plastic base like this one that came with the Knight-kit LC-1 CPO: Now Digi-Key doesn't sell keys (if they ever did).  They *might* sell you Fahnestock clips: (the key relay uses two Fahnestock clips) at $3.54 each in quantity 1000 and they have to be special ordered ! Yeah, I don't think I'm going to go into the key as relay kit business anytime soon ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm

I didn't know about this: https://books.google.com/books?id=N0EEAAAAMBAJ#all_issues_anchor Nice !   I had seen this online: 6 packs of soda in returnable bottles ! But as usual, it's just not quite good enough to read the details.  Fortunately it does give the date of the issue, October 4, 1963.  BTW, it was the 1st ad inside the cover.  Here are the items I wanted to read: And why is Jed totin' his shootin' iron to the store ? I guess Jethro was supposed to eat all that food - certainly Jed, Elly May and Granny weren't gonna ! The ironic thing is that the tradition of cheap food here in the USA may be giving us a bad legacy: bad health from eating too much (of the wrong stuff) and resentment now that food is cheap no more.  I've also seen these 1970's Will Geer ads for cheap eats at Arby's: September 1974 - I remember those glass bottles with the Styrafoam sleeves May 1975   Will Geer died a few years later in 1978, just a coincidence ?  pro...

I tried checking on an online magazine, mentioned before here: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2022/11/that-time-hitlers-girlfriend-visited.html I apparently don't read that site very often: It's been over a year since my last visit ?  Here is the explaining link: https://hakaimagazine.com/article-short/so-long-and-thanks-for-all-the-fish/ And here is a new website done by the same  people: https://www.biographic.com/ The internet loves to change but only seems to get worse.  But Biographic looks like an interesting site with a bigger portfolio than Hakai.   One strange thought: the Littoral Combat Ship USS Milwaukee (some of the LCS ships were built in Wisconsin and tested near the island) also only lasted about a decade: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2023/09/lcs-yikes.html Operating near the shore like the LCS or Hakai must be trickier than people thought ! Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY http://wb9kzy.com/ham.htm  

It happens: https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2026/02/byte-magazine-artist-robert-tinney-who-illustrated-the-birth-of-pcs-dies-at-78/ I didn't know Robert Tinney had a site with posters: https://tinney.net/product/1776 I *think* this is the cover of the first issue of Byte that I ever bought: I probably got it at Amateur Electronic Supply ?  Not sure on that. Unfortunately this is what the BYTE covers turned into after a while: I guess you can't blame them, editors are wordsmiths not artists.  They see a blank space and want to fill it with words (in sans serif type yet).  QST covers aren't quite the same since full color and large format, my own corny sunset cover: https://wb9kzy.blogspot.com/2025/09/go-back-50-years.html Byte kinda degenerated from a hobby magazine into yet another corporate rag - I suppose that's where the money was, at least for a while.   I used to enjoy fooling with computers - now they are just another appliance. Best Regards, Chuck, WB9KZY...