2022 Wrap-Up & Greatest Hits

On the whole, 2022 wasn't that bad.  Some ominous clouds on the horizon, but pfft, when haven't there been?  Anyway, following past years' practice, here's my pick of the best from each month followed by the handful of "most visited" posts (from whenever years) for the blog:

• Jan: On the Air Again  Yes, it's a compromise antenna, but you know, it works.
• Feb: Alkaline Battery Blues  Hundreds of dollars later, I never want to see a Duracell again.
• Mar: Tech Observations from the Santos Fat Tire Fest  Major trends in mountain biking noted.
• Apr: Hiking the Garden of Eden Trail  
• May: OK, Webb is Up & Working  Whew.  So many moving parts... and they pulled it off!
• Jun: Three Songs for this Week  Cranky after a mild run-in with covid.
• Jul: Webb Images in Context  
• Aug: WTF #1 & WTF #2  I love the future, but only if it has some correspondence with reality.
• Sep: Morrison Springs  Aaah, nature.  Reality.  History.
• Oct: Ham Radio Heats Up on the Forgotten Coast
• Nov: Time for a Review of the FT-891  
• Dec: The Whole Month  Kind of a lame month for posting; take your pick.

On to the Greatest Hits.  Not a lot of changes from last year (here, compare for yourself), but still useful:

• Yaesu FTM-7250d Quick-Start Programming  May 2019
• Shortwave Antenna: Vertical or Horizontal?  October 2020
• Yaesu FT-70 Quick-Start Programming  June 2020
• The Quick & Dirty Guide to Getting a Ham License for Tech People  December 2017
• Programming a Yaesu FT-60 using CHIRP  July 2017
• I thought it was hot yesterday  June 2015 – huh, just a random pop-up solstice post
• Time for a Review of the FT-817nd  January 2018  now sadly discontinued!
• Osprey Syncro 5 Hydration Pack Review  September 2019  Finally, something not radio-related.

And that about does it.  Will be back sometime soon, as soon as something interesting happens.  In the meantime, have another pic from September (taken at the same time as this one) showing a beautiful orange fall sky:

5 Watts from Hell

With a QRP radio in Tate's Hell Swamp, that is.  (completely unrelated to 40 Watts from Nowhere, btw) Nothing remarkable, just a short hike on the High Bluff Trail and a couple of hours play with the FT-817nd.  Lots of interesting listening, plus four voice contacts.  Lots of fun.

Mostly though, it was an exercise in "how fast can I get out the door?"  Everything was pre-sorted into a storage box, all batteries charged, just a matter of putting it in a pack after lunch and going.  Naturally I forgot several items: the one-ear earbud that I prefer using outdoors, the spiffy arborist line that makes antenna hanging so easy, hanging line for the HF antenna (used the one from the VHF antenna), and multi-tool.  (Glad the batts in the tuner held up, because without a phillips screwdriver on the multi-tool I never would have gotten them changed.)  Made it all work anyway, but there is much room for improvement.  Do and learn.

Then I came back to civilization to find that the current version of this radio has been discontinued, due to parts availability problems.  Two announcements of this, at QRPer and The SWLing Post respectively: End of an Era and The Yaesu FT-818ND has been discontinued  Lots more detail there, including down in the comments.

Anyway, it was a good day on the trail, with temps in the mid-60's and a sunny blue sky.

ps and to add on & review:

• earbud
• arborist throw line & bag
• antenna hang line
• multi-tool
• band plan – going to pick one of the Nifty (brand) laminated manuals for this.  I've been relying on printed inserts into the clear front pockets on notebooks, but those are large-ish and I simply neglected to bring one on this lightweight hiking trip.

Repeat: Do and learn.

Yet Again, The Christmas Comet Returns!

Yes, the same NASA APOD from years past.  It's becoming a tradition.

I suspect these color combos are no coincidence.

I was slowly chewing through a review of the hope and promise and cynicism of the early 90's in The GenX Reader the other night, when returning to the sofa with yet another whisky I noticed the album cover of what I was listening to, and all the rest of it had sort of lined up.  Nothing profound, just a snapshot of an evening on the sofa reading while listening to an old favorite.

I remember a 1987 road trip down south (as in "south of Tallahassee," which at the time meant getting out of the Deep South and into more Miami Vice-type territory) shortly after seeing The Replacements play.  There was this inescapable feeling that a change was in the air.  In retrospect some decades later, others seem to agree.

All-Up Weigh-In

It occurred to me that pack weight matters, so what the heck does that new Yaesu FT-891 (which has yet to see a trail, btw) actually weigh, and how does this compare with the FT-857d and FT-817nd?  After finding the single most important piece of backpacking gear (luggage scale), here are the results in pounds:

• 
  FT-891:     5.00
• FT-857d:   5.62
• FT-817nd: 2.72
• FT-60:       0.78

Note that all three HF rig weights include their respective Portable Zero roll cages and microphones.  The SOTAbeams speech compressor is included with the 817, because it's pretty much useless for voice without it.  The '60 hand-held is included because the 891 doesn't have VHF/UHF capability.  Add in its weight with the 891 if you want a more apples-to-apples comparison, but even that is a little off since the '60 carries a built-in battery, is only 5w, can be operated simultaneously with the HF rig, etc. etc.

In the end, the 891 is so close to the 857 in weight that it's all down to rounding errors.  And ps, in the end, the 817 and associated lightweight gear comes in at about 5 lbs, while either of the two QRO radios with their laptop & other gear will tip the scales in the neighborhood of 15 lbs.  Pick your back pain to power ratio.

Brief Movie Review: Top Gun Maverick

All the good stuff you've heard is true.  It starts with the best elements of the first movie, then in the first segment adds a healthy dose of The Right Stuff – specifically, the part where Chuck Yeager briefly pokes an NF-104 into the top of the atmosphere.  Even so, there's just the right touch of humor.  Pitch-perfect.  After that, there's a hell of a lot of the fun in the same vein as the best from the Raiders of the Lost Ark series.  TGM even pulls off the generational hand-off that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull flubbed so badly.  In short, there's a lot for the movie geeks to love here, which explains why Quentin Tarantino has such high praise for this flick.

This movie tells a thrilling story, has interesting characters who develop just a little, and has no real missteps.  While it doesn't carry the heavy story of a Casablanca or LoTR, it pretty much defines the term "movie magic."  3.5/4 Stars

What took me so long to see it?  Don't you make the same mistake.

The Uncertainty Principle Well Explained

If it has waves, you can be 100% confident that it has uncertainty in one form or another.  If the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics seems at all strange to you, then watch this video.  TLDW: It simply falls out of the math, and is about as unexpected as 1 + 1 = 2.

We see the same effect with light, sound, ocean waves, etc.  Nothing weird going on here.  It is admittedly a little outside of our everyday experience, but then so were pens that didn't inconveniently leak ink in our pockets just a few decades ago.

Meanwhile, back at the mead hall...

Just a nice pic from last Saturday, when everyone (except the photographer) suddenly went for a refill.

50 Years Ago, Right About Now

... we left the Moon for the last time in the 20th Century.  Article at This Day in Aviation.

Shouldn't be too much longer until we're back.

Bonus posts in the back catalogue: The Day the 60's Ended and 5 Lessons from Apollo

Wasn't Me

I can't vouch for this poster's veracity, but even if it is a prank it still needs posting:

Beyond that, not a lot going on here.  Just the mid-winter scramble.

Cool, but still Do Not Want

Every once in a while something crosses my desk that makes me do a double-take.  Such is the old Soviet TU-123 Hawk reconnaissance drone.  Take the cheaper, disposable version of a MiG-25 Foxbat engine and shove it into a pointy supersonic airframe with a bunch of cameras in the nose, and you end up with something right off of Wile E. Coyote's design table:

Yeeesh.  Glad these never got used for real.  Article at Wikipedia.  Not sure how to tag this one, so file it under "scifi."

ps: I knew that thing looked familiar.  Definitely scifi.

There's a Lesson in this Article Somewhere

However, I don't think the right people will be listening.  Crucial Computer Program for Particle Physics at Risk of Obsolescence at Quanta Magazine.  Top-of-article tag line:

Maintenance of the software that's used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely on a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.

It's odd, but it is also true.  The crazy thing is that funding managers too often don't want to hire on a pipeline of young up-and-comers to fill these gaps, and then there's a mad scramble when The Old Dude up and decides he'd rather be sailing with the grandkids.  It's akin to the deferred maintenance problem, but with a multi-decade time scale.

Other than get better management, no, I don't have a solution either.

A Front Panel Protector Cap for the FT-891

After this week's earlier post on getting the FT-891 going, here's one more on getting this thing trail-ready.  Some time back I'd put a set of Portable Zero rails on my FT-817nd, and had added a cardboard cap to protect the front panel when I shove it in a pack next to who-knows-what, so of course I had to do the same for the FT-891.  Looking around for a suitable piece of cardboard to construct this, it was right in front of me: the box the rails came in.  Just had to cut down the width a little, fit it all together, and tape the new end securely.

In pics, here it all is:

Rails installed (l) and the box they came in (r).

Yeah, just the right height.  In fact, made for it.

Mark it before cutting.  Leave some extra for the fold-over tabs; test fit and trim as needed.  Kitchen shears work well here.

Fold over the ends, close with packing tape, and finish with painter's tape to hold it on to the radio.  Done!

To quote Darth Vader, "All too easy."  You can find the rails from Portable Zero here for a price much, much lower than repairing a broken front panel.  Adventure awaits.

Happy First Day of Not Hurricane Season

Sure, that's yesterday's date.  I queued this up to post yesterday for today.  Doesn't change much (I hope).