Sunday, June 25, 2017

A busy week of many small tasks.


Some successes, many things still in progress, but no outright failures.  Of note:

  • "Why is there water under the dryer?  Hmmm."  Moisture coming back up the dryer exhaust and condensing on the cold steel of the machine is why.  A fix is in the works, but it would really help if this month-long rain jag would end.  I've seen humidity before, but this is nuts.
  • Too much jangle pop.  It starts with early R.E.M. (back when they were good), morphs through Let's Active tunes, and finally brings things back around to The Byrds and Bob Dylan.  Beats most of the stuff on radio today though.
  • ARRL Field Day.  Well, more like "air conditioned classroom day" for those of us in coastal Mississippi.  More a matter of safety than anything else.  I put in an appearance, then conversed with other FD refugees on the WARC bands, just seeking a little sanity.
  • Retrieved the road bike from The Corner Bicycle Shop in Gulfport yesterday, all shiny and tuned up.  Replaced cleats and test rode, but roads were too wet to really get out and ride.  Maybe tomorrow at lunch.
  • Go mountain biking?  Pfft, don't make me laugh.  Maybe with monster mudder tires.  And a snorkel.
  • Experimenting with a recent deal of a lightly used QRP radio, a (what else?) Yaesu FT-817nd.  The TCXO and 300 Hz. add-on boards make this thing into a PSK-31 monster, punching way above its weight.  Just had a contact with a guy in the Czech Republic – 5000+ miles on 2.5 Watts.
  • Also experimenting with high-zoot NiMH AA batteries for the FT-817nd, Eneloop Pro 2500 mAH's – the black ones, kind of the Darth Vader of the AA battery world.  It's sobering to think that eight of these AA batteries is about the equivalent of 1/10 oz of gasoline – enough to drive my Mustang about 120 feet at 55 mph.  Even the floor guy at Best Buy was all like "holy crap, what's in these things?"
  • Perhaps it's even more sobering to think that it's relatively easy to talk – directly – to Europe on that same handful of AA's.  The right amount of power carefully applied in just the right way can do remarkable things.
Well that's all of now.  Any of these could've made for a complete blog post, but it's been a busy week.  Maybe I'll expand on some of them in the near future, or maybe I'll come up with something new.

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