Coffeeneuring Stop #8: Dwarf Cypress Boardwalk in Tate's Hell Swamp

OK, so last year's last last documented coffeeneuring ride was through a hurricane disaster area.  The only way to top that this year was to take a trip into Hell – specifically, Tate's Hell Swamp – all for a cup of coffee.  Onward to the details and pictures.

1. where: Dwarf Cypress boardwalk in Tate's Hell Swamp, just east of Eastpoint FL

2. date: 11/29/21

3. what: Honduran dark roast, brewed in a French press and brought in a thermos

4. notes: Mid-50's clear late fall weather.  The gravel roads were dry without being dusty.  After months of around-town riding, it felt great to get out on open roads and spin.

5. distance: 15 total miles: 6 out, 9 back on a slightly different route

Let's have the pictures, with a few short notes at the bottom.  Click to embiggen, if so inclined.

This way to coffee.

Even here, a divine light still shines on the gravel bike.  Note the boardwalk in the background.

Out on the boardwalk, up in the treetops.  The trees are about 15' high.

Note how much higher the pine trees in the background are.

Even the ditches are pretty out here.

If the locale seems familiar, it's been blogged several times before: July 2019 (look at all that green!), January 2021, and March 2021.  It's always a good place to visit, whether via bike or car.

And that concludes The 2021 Coffeeneuring Challenge, themed c+1.  What will 2022 bring?  Stay tuned, we'll find out.

Coffeeneuring Stop #7: Cafe con Leche

Hey #7 already, and somehow this year has gone really easily and well.  The biggest problem has been that I'm too darned close to the coffee shops here in downtown, so I have to swing by to pick up my sister to get the required ≥ 2.0 miles in!  Anyway, here it goes:

1. where: Cafe con Leche, Water Street, Apalachicola FL

2. date: 11/24/21

3. what: black eye, with an arepa for lunch; the Big Sis had the house special latte

4. cool, after-the-cold-front weather; as with most of these rides, the gear of choice is the gravel bike

5. 2.0 (whew!) miles round-trip

OK, this picture of the bikes, me, and coffee is really bad, so I'll just keep it small and tuck it in above.  The new pedals did very well with street shoes.

Well, we're not done yet.  The theme for this year is "c+1" so c+1 (or c++?) is what we're gonna do.  Stay tuned for more caffeinated action.

Don't Try This One at Home, Kids

All about OOK neutron modulation, at Hackaday.

Shortwave Listening Post Basics

An article on "things you need to enhance your shortwave listening, especially with portable gear" was published at The SWLing Post this past week.  Along with many useful suggestions and additions in the comments, it's worth your 15 minute read.

All I got for today.

Big ol' Lunar Eclipse Tonight

Here's a decent article, complete with times, what to expect, etc.  I won't rehash any points; if you're interested, just go read it.  I probably won't be up for it either, but then you never know.  I expect that APOD will have some amazing pictures over the next few days.  In the meantime... you have been notified.

This reminds me, satsumas are back in season.

Grind On

Addendum to Saturday's Coffeeneuring Stop #6 – the new pedals are now on the gravel bike.  I'd had an ancient set of Gen 1 Mallets on this bike, but they gave up the ghost last spring.  In the interim I'd been running a spare set of Eggbeaters, but they kind of crimped the bike's style.  Here the pedals need to (1) be no-compromise clip-ins, (2) ride OK with normal shoes for those casual spins to friends' houses – or a to a nearby coffee shop, and (3) take an off-kilter stomp without complaint when I fumble a clip-in and Mr. F-250 is bearing down.  The naked Eggbeaters were light and had #1 down pat, but they failed badly on Items #2 & #3.  Much better now, and on this afternoon's test ride they checked out 100%.

In other upgrades from the earlier version, the pins are much better than the old stamped-steel front and back screw-on plates, and the spindle end caps are now compatible with Crank Bros' grease injection fitting.  Small, incremental changes to be sure, but the new pedals are noticeably better.

It's a good coffeeneuring trip when you stumble upon the pedals you'd been looking at for six months.  Grind on.  More specifically, dark grind on, because I'm sipping a cup of smooth Honduran right now.

Hm, maybe 2020 wasn't so bad...

I mean, when 2021 features an actual plague of scorpions in Egypt, maybe we've got trouble.  Here's the article:

3 dead, hundreds injured after storms rouse scorpions in Egypt over at NPR.

Oh, and it seems the local snakes are riled up too.  Not the 2021 I ordered, would not recommend.

Coffeeneuring Stop #6: Blue Mountain Bakery

A simple cruiser ride from my brother's beach cottage for mid-morning coffee, snacks, and bike parts.  More on the bike parts below.

1. where: Blue Mountain Bakery, Santa Rosa Beach FL

2. date: 11/13/21

3. what: their basic brew-of-the-day, tasted sort of Columbian.  Black.  Oatmeal cookie on the side.

4. details: A sky-blue sky with a tailwind going, all along the bike path paralleling C-30, looking at back-of-the-dunes beach views, a bunch of packed-in but very nice cottages, interspersed with the occasional cluster of restaurants, bait shops, and -of course- coffee shops.

5. 8.2 miles round-trip.

Well this is something that's never happened, I rode a crank off a bike!  In fact, so did my brother.  We each wallowed out a pedal spindle screw-in point on a crank.  I think it had more to do with the cheapo cruiser bikes – no, wait, bicycle shaped objects (BSOs) – that the rental company staged at my brother's beach cottage rather than actual feats of strength, but nonetheless it did happen.  Weirdest thing, it's like the aluminum threads on the crank turned into cheddar cheese or some such.  Fortunately, next door to the coffee shop there was a bike store, so repairs were made while we got coffee.  (convenient)  Also, I found some new pedals for the gravel bike that I'd been looking for (that's what's in my left hand in the pic), so double bingo.  I'll throw in a gratuitous mention of Big Daddy's Bike Shop here, the people there are genuinely nice folks who got us back on the road in short order.

All in all, a successful if somewhat unusual coffeeneuring trip.  Also, we conclusively demonstrated that BSOs are no match at all for the likes of over-caffeinated gravel/tri/mountain bikers.

Green Flash

Over at today's Astronomy Picture of the Day.

These things are always cool on the rare occasion you see them.  It's really nice to see a zoomed-in and slowed-down video recording of one though.  If you've never seen one... well, here it is.  That, and you need to spend more time on the water where you can get a good view of the western horizon.

Coffeeneuring Stop #5: Seafood Landing Park

A nice stop at the last park/boat launch at the western edge of town.

1. where: Seafood Landing Park, Hwy 98 Apalachicola FL

2. date: 11/9/21

3. what: home-brewed dark roast; nothing special, just dark

4. details: Beautiful, clear 65F weather.  Interesting views from the well-maintained park dock.  Watched a porpoise hunting fish in the nearby shallows.

5. 7.9 miles round-trip.  Instead of the direct route down Hwy 98 (2.5 miles), I took the back way through Ave D to 17th Street, up 25th Street, up Gibson Road, then to Pal Rivers Road.  Back was much the same, with a shortcut down Ave M back into downtown.

Above: Bike, dock, coffee.

Side: Porpoise!

As always, click to embiggen.  (Why oh why did blogger have to "improve" their editing interface?)

Term of the Day: Grant Blight

You know that street repair project that should be done by local government, but languishes for years waiting for a chunk of Federal grant money?  Grant blight.

You know that weird out-of-the-way park for which some politician grubbed up grant funding, just so he could cut the ribbon and show up in the local paper?  You know, the park nobody uses now, has fallen into disrepair (what, maintenance funding?  pshaw), and now has become both an eyesore and an attractive nuisance?  Grant blight.

You know those municipal piers that are the centerpieces of local waterfront parks?  The ones that get roughed up every few years by hurricanes?  Cities and counties used to take care of them, and they got fixed pdq, usually in the winter following hurricane season.  Now they often sit for years, waiting for FEMA money to roll in.  Yep, grant blight.

Yes, I know well the reality of funding small projects these days: the Federal government vacuums up dollars from citizens by the truckload and then oh so graciously passes some back to local governments by the handful.  What, should local governments refuse these returned crumbs?  Probably not.  Still, the situation stinks.  Leaving the money local would get these projects completed faster, and at a tenth the cost.  But I present no solutions here, and seek only to define a new phrase.

Grant blight.  It's a shorthand way to describe what we see all over America these days.

Coffeeneuring Stop #4: Chestnut Street End/Bayfront

Every coastal town has these awkward little streets that run through neighborhoods and... just dead end into the local major body of water.  It's public land, the street in theory runs all the way to the high tide line, and there's frequently some kind of overlook (even if it's overlooking marsh, or rip-rap, or *STOP* barrier...).  At the same time, they're generally in neighborhoods and there are neighbors nearby.  Such is the case here, where a thin screen of brush separates a bayfront yard from the end of Chestnut Street, out on the west edge of town.  Looks like a place for a quiet up of coffee to me.

1. where: tail end of Chestnut Street, Apalachicola FL

2. date: 11/8/21

3. what: home-brewed Costa Rica, from beans bought from the coffee guy, the same guy in the farmers' market in Stop #1.  Brewed dark, strong, & black.  Thermos, cup, & bike shown in detail at right.

4. details: wonderfully clear early November day, about 65F.  CX bike.

5. 3.0 miles round-trip.  Dropped off the thermos at home, then went for another 12 miles of gravel.

This week features bayside stops, but next week we'll (hopefully) make it to the two actual coffee shops in town.  In the meantime, here's a panoramic pic covering about 180 degrees and showing the Bay.

That's the panoramic view and sun flare messing with your perspective, and not too much caffeine doing it to your optic nerve.  Note thermos bungied horizontally to the rear rack.  It's a chainsaw hauler!  It's a VHF antenna mount!  And now, it's a caffeine containment unit attachment point.

Meanwhile, over at The Argyle Sweater...

 Today's comic:

You should go over there right now (link) and bookmark TAS for your daily viewing.

As for me, I'll be out on the mean streets (as opposed to the mode or median streets) sometime after lunch today.

Arborist Throw Lines & Antennas

 Yesterday's outing was once again to the High Bluff Trail (previous outings here) to tune up old and test out new gear for the winter hiking season.  Long story short, I brought the QRP radio and made one HF contact and two SARNET-FL repeater contacts.  Nothing to write home about, but it was fun.  However this was the debut of a real game-changer:

Tuner, plastic bags, and one-earbud not included.

Even though I was only putting a line up about 25' to use an end-fed rigged as an inverted-V, that was the easiest 25' throw I've ever done.  First time out of the box and never used before, it took me only two tries to put the line exactly where I wanted it.  Then I practiced on a ~40' limb and, while the results were decidedly more mixed, limbs up to the 50' range seem now within reach.  The difference between working with the 21' "mini" W3EDP antenna and the 43' "medium" W3EDP is like night and day.  Putting the line up 85' for the full-on version is forever beyond my reach however.  That's OK, I'll continue to use it horizontally for 80 & 160m NVIS work.  In the meantime though, getting the mini up will be a snap and getting the medium up to full stretch is possible.  (Going to need to practice a little more though for that medium 43' one.)

Onward to the links & recommendations part.  Here's where I got mine: throw line & weight and throw line bag.  (huh, Bartlett Supply doesn't seem to have the bags in stock, so the second link is to the manufacturer)  The cheap slick poly throwline seems plenty serviceable, probably no need to go to higher-dollar stuff; 100' is plenty of length, probably all you'd want to manage.  A 12 oz. throw weight is also plenty.  I probably couldn't zip anything heaver to the heights I need.  Other useful stuff from the QRPer blog: how to pack a throw bag, and a field antenna's best friend.  You can dig around for "how to throw" yourself videos at youtube, they abound.

Anyway, yeah, get a decent throwline rig.  It's a game-changer, and way more portable than an air-driven PVC spud gun.

The Upside-Down Seasons

 Backpacking season just started!  So why all the heavy maintenance over at Section Hiker?

Ah, life in the Deep South.  Fall is when it's actually pleasant to open the windows and venture outside again.

Sync Detectors, Amplitude Modulation, and You

 There was a big article back in September on the subject of sync detectors an how they can take the "crunchiness" out of long-range signals.  <link>  There are some pretty impressive demo sound clips included.

TLDR: "Selective fading" effectively scrolls a notch filter over a signal.  When the notch happens to hit the carrier frequency, the carrier level drops and overall it's the same as an over-modulated signal – hence the crunchy sound.  A sync detector substitutes in a full-powered carrier, so the crunches never happen.  Also if your radio's sync has a USB/LSB option, you can use it to put a little more distance between what you're tuning in and some adjacent station's signal splatter.

Since reading this, I've been using the sync detector on my PL-660 more and more.  It's especially effective for medium wave AM stations out towards west, where the longer propagation paths frequently exhibit selective fading.  I've been using sync for years to eliminate spatter from adjacent stations, but for cleaning up WOAI (1200 KHz, San Antonio), that article was a real eye-opener.