2023 Wrap-Up

With this year's Greatest Hits already out of the way, let's launch right into the year-end wrap-up.  These may not be the most popular, but they're the ones that I think are the best.  Also for bonus & Honorable Mentions, there are Winter Field Day, FT-70DR, & New Orleans post series at the end.  Enjoy!

• Jan: First Gen Stars Probably Spotted by the Webb Telescope, of course.
• Feb: Railroad Defect Detectors  Boring but important.
• Mar: Santos FTF: Home | Crash | Test Rides | EPIC! | Wrap
• Apr: New Bike!!!
• May: Apalach Tour of Homes
• Jun: Sopchoppy historical society talk; the stuff we learn.
• Jul: Biking at Munson
• Aug: On the Town, yikes
• Sep: Rainbow.  Yes, September was dull, and that's a good thing because hurricanes.
• Oct: What nobody tells you about ham radio.  Video link, plus TLDW list.
• Nov: One More Buffett Album
• Dec: Mountain Biking 101  Not my content, but it's a great video on why to move on this one now.

Bonus Series

Winter Field Day: At the Corner | Back From | Review | Results

FT-70DR: Quick Start | Chirp Programming | Splits | '60 comparison | Batt Management | Go hike already!

New Orleans: Streetcar Pic | Passage | EVERYTHING  Almost.

And that about does it for this year.  One more parting  pic, then see you again soon in 2024.

Live & Panoramic from Wright's Lake Trail!  Seriously y'all, go hiking.

Mounting Biking: Stereotypes & Reality

30 minutes of crashes

I laughed so hard I choked.  Been there, done that, got the x-rays; I've either done or seen done a lot of what's here (excluding those big flip-jumps, no just no).  Horrifying, but funny in a you-can't-look-away vein.  OK, now back to reality.

Mountain Biking IS NOT What You Think – in just 8 minutes

This is more my speed.  Think "hiking on wheels, enjoying the woods."  Way more fun.  Pretty much if it's a built-up stunt jump or a skinny-ass bridge over some perfectly good riding dirt, I don't want anything to do with it.

Onward to the new year.

Ghost: Can't Really Recommend It

After long ago reading Tam's take on John Ringo's novel Ghost and the rest of the Paladin of Shadows series, I just stayed away for a decade or so.  Finally though, after finishing two of Ringo and Mike Massa's tactical-badasses-meet-zombies books (thoughts here), I jumped in anyway.  At least the first novel in the PoS series, and just on kindle – so it was really cheap and doesn't take up any space.  BLUF: Not my cup of coffee.  Ringo wrote this and its sequels to get this stuff out of his head so that he could go on to more productive work, then got badgered into publishing it.  Frankly, he shoulda left the money on the table.

If  all that sounds cryptic, here, read the way-too-sunny blurb at 'zon, and read a much-too-long review at this moribund blog.  The book was a popcorn-muncher to be sure, but life's too short for guilty pleasures like this one.  Too damn sickeningly gooey, like a jar of Nutella and a spoon at 3am, but not sweet in any way.  No, just... no.

Christmas Comet!

I mean, what's Christmas without a spectacular comet?  From a 2021 APOD post:

Merry Christmas, all!

The Shiny Gold-Plated Dozen

12 Major Discoveries by the Web Space Telescope in 2023, at Space dot Com

If this stuff doesn't make you sit up in wonder, check your wrist for a pulse.

Just getting the sunshield to open up correctly on this thing still makes my jaw drop in amazement.

Raise One for Joe Strummer!

... for he died 21 years ago today, so Death is now drinking-legal age.  Medium-longish article at LouderSound, mostly a post-Clash biography.  Go & read over this long Christmas weekend.  In the meantime, have a listen:

All I've got for the day.

Sun Cycle 25 Update & Media Hype Over Recent Flare

In response to a question last weekend from The Darling Daughter about "one of the largest solar flares ever recorded" (to which my reply was, "huh, barely noticed"), here's a recent post discussing the matter over at Silicon Graybeard.   TLDR: Yes, it was a big flare for the last decade, but not even close to record-setting over the last half-century, so don't believe the hype.  Anyway, go read the article, there's a lot of informative interpretation and discussion of what's up and what to expect in the next few years.  Here's a gratuitous graphic swiped from the above-linked post, which in turn was copy-pasted from NOAA's site.

Things are already pretty good, and the next couple of years are going to be even more radio-fun.

I used to dabble in radio condition fore/now-casting, but these days I just look at the band summaries here.  Much less trouble, and generally more accurate than what I was coming up with.

You'd Better Watch Out

Trying to have grown-up talk at those holiday parties, I mean.  Especially when the holiday cheer is flowing.  Article at NPR about how to avoid family fights at the Christmas table, well worth your 5 minutes' read.

Top Five Posts for 2023

I keep wanting to type "2024" already.  Usually I have the opposite problem after the first of each year.  Anyway, spurred on by K0NR's Top Five Posts for 2023 published yesterday, and figuring that the 12-month stats aren't going to change much in this last 1/24th of the year, here we go:

1. Yaesu FT-70DR Quick Start Programming (2020).  It's a simple list of steps.  Print a few out, put one in your station manual, one in your backpack.  You are going backpacking with your '70, right?  ps: You can program it with chirp too, but it's kinda weird.
2. Programming a Yaesu FT-60 Radio using Chirp (2017).  An oldy moldy goldy.
3. Yaesu FTM-7250D Quick Start Programming (2019).  An excellent if no longer produced radio.  I picked up one for the vehicles on the used market this year, and only paid 25% over what I'd paid for the first one new.  Yaesu, take note.  People love these things.
4. Shortwave Antenna: Vertical or Horizontal? (2020).  Practical advice on how to use a relatively short random wire receive antenna for... practically everybody.
5. Osprey Synchro 5 Hydration Pack review (2019).  No longer made either, sadly.  Despite its many quirks, that suspended mesh back was a real innovation.  A quick look over at the Osprey packs site shows that they've gone to the same mesh-over-foam-grid as many of their daypacks, which is still pretty darned good and probably enough for anything short of summer dirt biking in the Deep South.  Anyway, I'm glad that this list wasn't all radio stuff and that the one item was bike-related.

There'll still be best-of end-of-year month-by-month wrap-up (with extra-hyphens) toward the end of the month.  These are just the posts getting all the hits in 2023.  Back to K0NR's list, the the first item is Choose Your 2m Frequency Wisely.  I very much agree.  In 2024 we should all beware of choosing... poorly.

50 Years Ago Today

We left the Moon for the last time, at least in the 20th Century.  A day to mark.

Mountain Biking 101. Er, make that even a little lower.

Here's a great video on why now is the time to get started in mountain biking, how to find a good deal on a used one, what to look for, what's currently so weird (but good for your wallet!) about the MTB market, how to bargain and still be a nice person, etc.  He even added "buy a helmet."  Yes, buy a helmet.  Gloves too, with full fingers for off-road, he didn't mention those.  The only other thing I can think of to add is to also look on Craigslist.  11 minutes, well worth your time.

David Drake, RIP

Announcement at his web site.

Articles at SFE, Wikipedia, and yet another essay at Tor.

I'm a big fan of his Hammer's Slammers series, plus a few other bits and pieces.  Someday I'll get to some of his other universe series.  Hate to see the man go.

High Bluff Trail & Yaesu FT-70d

In the gap two weeks between the opening few days taste of deer season and the For Reals Months Long Deer Season, I grabbed a quick hike today on the High Bluff Trail between Eastpoint & Carrabelle.  It was kind of impromptu: load the 22L pack with the day's supplies & go.  Beautiful weather, topping out around 60F under bright blue skies.  The trail was a little wet, maybe 3" at most, so I just bulled through and have my boots in front of a fan drying now.  The foliage was... well, it's what we've got here in NW FL.  Beautiful fall colors, no not really, but at least the turkey oaks can show a change of season.

I took along the FT-70 HT.  I'm getting used to it, and really starting to like it.  I kept it scanning the 2m & 70cm calling channels, the sports talk channel (the real one), and the local 70cm SARNET repeater.  Here's a short list of observations re the '70:

• The stock rubber duck antenna is convenient.  With the '70 on the pack strap (belt clip in a too-small cell phone pocket), it rides at the right height and the stock antenna doesn't poke my face or bang against my hat brim.  Perfect.  If only it performed better; more on this below.
• It was set up to scan the first three of the channels, but I wanted SARNET in there as well.  It's simple enough that I figured out without a manual.  Button's right there on the bottom row.
• Receive from the repeater – being 20 miles away – was patchy in the dips, but very steady on the hilltops.
• Transmit was somewhere between "no way" and "scratchy but useable" depending upon elevation.  This is no real surprise, as the repeater puts out about 10 dB more power.
• Solutions: (A) use the 16" long Comet whip antenna, gain maybe 6 dB, and live with it banging on hat brim; (B) previous, plus an 18" tiger tail ground wire, and gain maybe another 3 dB; (C) rock on with the rubber duck antenna for listening, then stop & hang the N9TAX antenna in a tree if I need to transmit.  Personally, I like Option C.  Also, when hiking Wright's Lake trail the duck'll do fine, being only 2 miles from the repeater.  Convenience for the win.
• A couple of feet of paracord (pictured) makes a first-class leash in case the clip fails.
  
• In real-world practice on the trail, I had to turn the speaker volume down and the mic gain up.
• The battery was already low, so I brought along a spare.  Didn't need it, but it was good to have along.  Li batts are light, too.  Remember, when not in use, pop a 70's battery out to keep it from running down.  Works great, these will hold a nearly full charge for... I haven't found out yet.  At least six months.
• The FT-70d has all but replaced the FT-60 as my go-to trail radio.  Still keeping the '60 though, because I'm thinking about branching off into satcoms.
• More on the FT-70d: manual programming, chirp programming, splits, battery management.
• As always: Do and Learn.

All for today.  Got to go finish unpacking, cleaning, & stowing gear.

You Know What Today Is

More from the air side of things at This Day in Aviation.

In Which Many of the Humans are Even Worse Than the Zombies

I'm referring of course to the Mike Massa & John Ringo Black Tide Rising series follow-on novels, The Valley of Shadows and River of Night.  Holy smokes, are these books ever grim.

OK, here goes:  Start with a weaponized rabies virus.  Then, taking off with one of the side-characters from the first book, Under a Graveyard Sky, this tells the story of what went on at top levels in NYC as the zombies took over.  A live attenuated virus vaccine is developed by a clandestine in-house lab at "Bank of the Americas."  (Hm, kind of a thin literary disguise there, but I suppose it's enough to fend off lawsuits.)  Of course a ready source of viruses to attenuate is needed, and there are all these damn zombies full of it just wandering around attacking people, so why not use what's at hand?  Ethical questions aside, of course.   However, the bank security team doesn't have the manpower needed to collect enough zombie bodies, but hey, the local mafia's pretty good about delivering bodies when times are good, so they cut a deal.  Then the police and NYC emergency management want in on the vaccines, so now everybody's in cahoots.  It's shaping up to be the start of a beautiful (if shady) relationship, but you just know that somebody's got to get greedy and sour the arrangement.

In the second book, the NYC survivors (ultimate badasses all, plus a mafia moll along for the road trip) are on the run to a series of safe houses and ultimately to a BotA refuge / alternate financial headquarters site, where they hope to help reboot civilization.  Unfortunately, some of the double-crossers from NYC have gotten there first.  Along the way it devolves into a Mad Max-style race against a warlord and his scavenger gang en route to the BotA refuge and a nearby TVA dam site.  Meanwhile back at the dam site, just imagine how much of an anti-zombie and anti-raider defense a team of demented engineers can muster with the electrical output from a giant hydropower dam.  Bad guys behind, some really bad people ahead, and something called the "Big Bad" – what's bunch of zombie-killers gonna do?  Yep.

Bad, bad people.  Some really good, good people in the story too.  As with the original four books, these read like eating tasty spiced potato chips, but they leave an even worse aftertaste.  It's all mostly leavened by the grim humor – the "Russian lesson" in the last chapter is, um, to die for.  Then there's an epilogue recap in a few pages from a new-minted E-4 character's notebook that's pretty funny.  Little touches like those finish out the whole thing on a good note.  Be warned though, these two books make the original four book series seem upbeat in comparison.

So, read, or don't read?  I dunno.  If you can laugh at awful situations and even worse people, maybe.  The Valley of Shadows has enjoyable elements of a detective/police/crime drama, watching them circle around and learn to work with each other against the zombie threat.  River of Night is more down and dirty, think Road Warrior kind of stuff.  Again and as with the original series, it reads like eating spicy potato chips: hard to put down and possibly sickening.  Your call.

ps: Don't forget the four follow-on anthologies.  Those are definitely less grim, possibly more fun.

Happy Last Day of Hurricane Season!

Actually have a lunchtime party celebrating the first day of Not-Hurricane Season to attend tomorrow.  Though the day is somewhat arbitrary, it's still a big damn deal around here.  Not a bad year, other than Idalia, which was pretty bad if you were in the path.  In any case, Happy Last Day of Hurricane Season!

This Needs Widest Dissemination

From today's xkcd:

As usual, click through to the original for the mouse-over gag.

The Fastest Rubic's Cube Solution

Christmas my college freshman year was The Christmas of the Rubik's Cube, and being a primarily science and engineering school, everyone came back to the dorms in January having received a half-dozen or so of these time-wasters.  Staring down the triple barrels of Phys II, Calc II, and Intro to Programming, there was simply no time to waste, so they languished in piles at the edges of our desks in a multi-colored scramble.

Then one day my roommate walked in, and was surprised to see that all but one in our room had been solved.  I'm sure this has been done many times before, but I'd simply used my pocket knife to pop all the face-blocks off each cube, then re-attached them in the correct order.  It's not a particularly new or clever solution – Alexander the Great did something similar millennia ago – but hey, it works.

As for that one cube I hadn't solved, the attachments for its blocks were barbed and they wouldn't pop off without breaking.  I saved it to challenge budding mathematicians, "Here, let's race.  You solve this one, I'll solve that one.  Go!"  "Wait, you didn't do it right."  "Solution's a solution.  Look, I've got to get back to my E&M homework.  We're doing method of images this week."

Look, life is hard.  Sometimes it's OK to take shortcuts.  Only be careful not to get cut in the short taking.  If it's a triviality to get something working (Rubik's cube, a balky diff pump, etc.) or a matter of safety (flat tire on a lonesome highway at midnight), just get the damn job done already.  For more knotty issues such as the method of images, it's good to understand the uniqueness theorem for Poisson's equation.  Once you understand the required preliminaries, then (and only then) you can go get the damn job done already, and with confidence in the result.

Plant Hardiness Zone Map Shift

The new USDA planting zone map is up, and yeah, the zones are shifting northward.  Article at NPR, and below are screen caps of the maps.  At the article though, it's pretty nice, at the top of the maps there's a flip-between-maps button, and at least the CONUS part perfectly overlays for easy comparison.  

Old, 2012:

New, 2023:

45 years of The Clash's "Give'em Enough Rope"

As of today!  Article over at UCR.  Scroll down for a bonus article ranking of all Clash albums.  Despite its usual low ranking in these sorts of lists, it's always been a personal favorite.  I never quite clicked with Sandinista! or – despite a handful of excellent tracks – Combat Rock.  Give'em Enough Rope always does the trick though, especially with the lyrics about a jailbird physicist.

Cool cover art, even if I don't agree with the sentiment.

Respite

The Season isn't quite over yet – not really until about the time the Christmas decorations go up.  However this is the first time in months when we haven't had at least an ominous thunderstorm tracking around the Atlantic basin, so today's tropical outlook is noteworthy.

My best time: 7 o'clock

People grumble about the time change from daylight savings to standard time (to which I just say "mgph" through a mouthful of coffee), then they wail in agony about the converse change in the spring.  It doesn't affect me at all these days, and it barely affected me when I had to keep some semblance of a schedule.  It all comes down to this: before 10am is too damn early, in which case I decide to – or not to – shoulder the burden and get on with whatever it is, or after 10am, which more or less counts as a civilized  hour.  But when it comes to creativity, I will start at 7 o'clock PM.  Is that daylight or standard time?  Who cares, I'm already up, have had a few meals and after supper coffee, and I'm ready to go.

If you want more on this topic, go read The Tyranny of the Morning People at Tam's place.  There's a bonus link to a mercifully short article at The Atlantic from there.

Musical Interlude

Straight from New Orleans, The Tangiers Combo:

That was a fun evening.  More on the group at their web site.

One More Buffett Album: Equal Strain on All Parts

Article and a sneak preview video at American Songwriter.  Album drops on November 3rd.  Damn straight mine's already on order.

ps: It looks like the Coral Reefer Band is sorting out how to keep the party going.  Article's at Rolling Stone, so take it for what that's worth.  Still, I hope they can figure something out.

pps: More on the new album at American Songwriter.

ppps: CD received, listened, re-listened.  TLDR: A good, consistent album.  Will recommend to friends.

Scary Pumpkins

But  just for people who have to pay for car repairs.  Happy Halloween!

A Sunny Day

At night.  That's the Moon glowing through the tree, down at the Lafayette Park pier.  Mighty bright.

Full-on Halloween bright.

Say, let's throw in one more:

Bit Rot

I've been noticing that many of the older images have been mysteriously disappearing from this blog.  While I understand IP, copyrights, and all that, a lot of these pictures I took myself or pulled fair-and-square off of Wikipedia.  Google, dammit, you're erasing the past and crippling my writing, and it's pissing me off.  Probably ought to start searching around for a new platform.  Maybe in the new year.

Stay tuned.

New Orleans, Oh Man!

In New Orleans on some family things last week.  I won't go into detail beyond listing places and links.  This post is going to be something like one of those funny songs where everything gets jammed together.  So... here we go!

Maspero's | Sazerac Bar | Streetcar! | WWII Museum | near Audubon Park to visit an old friend | The Avenue Pub | Cafe du Monde (the original, but too crowded on a Saturday morning, duh) so Cafe Beignet instead | Audubon Aquarium | Central Grocery for a muffuletta | Big Sexy Neon | Parkway Bakery (roast beef & shrimp po-boy?  Yes!) | French Market | and finally, when the food was all too much... a smoothie and an early bed.  Of course there were numerous other small side trips, stops, and adventures that didn't quite make the list, but trust me, if you go there you'll have many of your own.

Stayed at the Avenue Plaza hotel right on St. Charles.   With a streetcar stop right in front, there was no need to move the car for four days.  It felt downright civilized.  Location, Location, Location.

I don't think much more could have comfortably been squeezed into four days.

Passage from New Orleans

No, it wasn't anything like a bad experience.  It's just that, Monday morning headed east on I-10, there was enough smoke/fog/smog that most people had the good sense enough to slow down a little and turn on headlights.  The real problem was on I-55 headed north, on the west side of the New Orleans / Lake Pontchatrain area.  Article at the BBC, and graphic below.  I knew nothing of the events to the west when a family member called to see if we were OK, but we were already to Gulfport by then and all was well.

 

A serious problem for many.

What Nobody Tells You About Ham Radio

Just a quick link today: WNTYAHR in 17 minutes at youtube.  TLDW, somewhat paraphrased:

1. The hobby is huge, with all kinds of sub- and sub-sub-hobbies.
2. For longer ranges you'll need HF and a General license (i.e., 2nd level of 3).
3. Help is increasingly online, decreasingly face-to-face, though that's still around too.
4. It ain't cheap.  (Though much of it can be surprisingly affordable.)
5. Some hams are down on radios in prepping – or any other practical use.  Sad Hams exist.
6. No encryption – it's a big illegal no-no, might be the one thing that gets you noticed (see #8).
7. No real (or legal) crossover with GMRS, CB, or other types of radio.
8. But it's not exactly like the FCC is enforcing, or even really looking. (except possibly #6)
9. An amateur radio license covers the person, not the radio.
10. Amateur radio gear is a lot of DIY, plug-and-play, figure it out yourself.  In a nutshell, it's STEM, not consumer electronics.

On the off chance this wasn't enough for you, get a copy of Ham Radio for Dummies* through your local bookstore.  Or read my Quick & Dirty Guide to Getting a Ham License.

I truly have many more interesting things brewing around in my brain today, though many of them are not blog-appropriate, and others will take a little more time to process out into suitable forms here on the interweb.  For example, a passage through New Orleans East in billowing clouds of marsh smoke.  Hang in there, interesting stuff is on the way.  Today's post... just seemed like worthwhile content.

----------------

*Yes, real book, and yes, I have been cussed out by someone who thought I was calling him a dummy when I recommended it.  A clear case of auto-diagnosis.

Just Back from New Orleans

And boy are my legs tired.  From hiking around the city, I mean; I used the Mustang to get to and from.  Anyway, picture now, maybe some commentary later in the week after I've unpacked and found my wits.  Likely somewhere in the bottom of the suitcase.

Just a street scene outside a bar & laundry on St. Charles.  I looked up from my table and snapped the pic on the spur of the moment.  It was all so simple, and if not perfect the result is at least pretty good.

Eclipse 2023

Not exactly the perfect ring of fire, but cool nonetheless.  The first pic is right at the time of maximum occlusion.  That's a partial eclipse alright.  The second is the shadow of palm fronds, with the gaps serving as miniature pinholes; the result is a pattern of crescent suns.

The background  looks blue, but it's really a white envelope used as a projection screen for the pinhole.

It looks like my palms have crescent-itus!  Whatever is the cure?  Oh that's right, just wait 45 minutes.  There's a pretty striking pic here of the same phenomenon, from elsewhere.

Remember kids, don't look straight at the Sun, even when the sky looks dim.  Use a sheet of cardboard to make a pinhole camera and keep those retinas intact.

ps, 10/15: APOD shows a pic of an "eclipse tree" with those crescents in the shadow here.

Don't Go There

Atlas Obscura brings us, on this auspicious day, 13 Unlucky Places to Avoid on Friday the 13th.

Watch out.  If Friday the 13th can get Art Bell, it can get you too.

Hurricane Party

Nope, no hurricanes prowling around at the moment.  Just a cool song.

Been busy, really busy.  More content along soon.

The Thing About Making it to October

The thing about making it to October is, while you know full well that some hurricane could come zipping across the Gulf this late in the season (Zeta!), you also get a breath of cooler air and a slight sense of relief from the weather in general.  The weather here is gray as a mild cool front blows through, and the extended forecast is for lows in the high 60's, dropping into the low 60's by next weekend.  It truly feels like the start of a new year, as it always does.

Just a Rainbow Over the River

The river, an oyster house, and a pile of oyster shells.

Some people say oyster shell piles stink.  Personally, I think they smell like a pot of gold.

Encouragement for AM Stations

The kick-off post for the I Listen! campaign, over at the SWLing Post blog.

The idea is that broadcast AM stations – really all stations, including FM and shortwave – aren't getting the feedback they need to bring in advertising dollars.  From there we step straight to budget cuts, fewer listeners, feedback loop...  in short, a death spiral.  This is a small, simple effort to help fix the problem.  If there are some stations that you particularly like, read the above-linked article and send'em a postcard.  You can find the mailing addresses easily by going to Radio Locator, typing in your zip code, then clicking on the little yellow "i" boxes next to a station's name.  Look for "Station Address" and hey presto.

It is a funny thing, but here on the Forgotten Coast there are only a handful of FM stations within the horizon, and exactly no local AM stations – everything's either DX over salt water by day or skywave by night.  (take a look)  It does make it a challenge to find new variety, yet even among this limited selection there's an interesting assortment of Tampa Bay area stations and WWL out of New Orleans.

A Thing of Beauty

1973 Mach 1 Mustang, 351 Cleveland.  Half-hour watch.  No, I didn't buy it, but I can admire it.

Well huh.  Direct video embed isn't working.  Go watch over at youtube.

Today's Florida Man Moment

Getting something out of the back of my truck today, I noticed something that looked like grass growing in the debris that had accumulated.  On second look, not grass, but seedling palm trees just emerging from their crowberries.  Of course I saved them in a plastic bag and planted them.  I need some palms across the back fence, and this is as good a way as any.  Maybe they'll make it, maybe they won't.

So yeah, people in other places may find random weeds growing in the back of their pickups.  Here though, it's palm trees.

Biosignatures Found on an Exoplanet

Nothing definitive yet, but still pretty interesting.  Two chemical compounds – dimethyl sulfide and methyl chloride – that are not known to be produced outside of laboratories by anything other than life have been found in the atmosphere of the 124 light year distant exoplanet K2-18 b by UK scientists using the Webb Space Telescope.  This is in addition to the usual carbon dioxide, methane, etc. that are generally encouraging gasses to find as well.

Here's a link to the paper at arXiv and here's a link to an explainer video.

Promising, but we shall see.

Eye-Popping

From the BBC's amateur photography collection on the theme of 'reflections':

You can view the rest of the collection here.

I must take exception however regarding the above photograph in the context of the theme.  The phenomenon in play there is not reflection; rather, it is refraction.  Beyond that one technical quibble, it's still pretty damned cool.

Old Crow at the Opry Tonight

8pm EDT, 650 kHz AM.  Details and listen-via-web (works, but not cool like skywave) at WSM's web site.

ps: During their set, they played Margaritaville in honor of the late, great J.B. and then followed up by closing with Wagon Wheel.  Playing stuff that delights the audience, that's what it's all about.

Coffeeneuring 2023?

Been doing this every year since 2017, then skipped 2022 due to... time, small number of local coffee shops, and... time.  So for 2023?  Put me down as a definite maybe.  Link to Announcement

Yep, a definite maybe this year.

All in a Night's Work

A little treat from APOD:

Trust me, you'll want to embiggen this one to watch.

About the H.E.S.S. telescope.  It's been quite the couple of weeks: a near miss by a Cat 3 (or was it a 4?) storm, radio work at the EOC, teaching a three-hour ham class to get some students ready for next week's Tech test, and fishing... oh man, what fishing.  More fish caught in the past week than I've caught in the last 12 months.  I'm exhausted, but back into the breach again tomorrow.  All in a night's work.

Let's Sum Up This Week

and then move on.

Nah, everything's good here.  Kind of a close call, and now Jimmy's gone.  Off fishing tomorrow.

Do Not Use: Circuit Symbols

From xkcd of course:

Permalink to #2818

Just the most doggy days of the dog days.  I'm going back to reading.  Will be around.

Hoo Boy

And away we go!

First Cool Front of Fall?

Or perhaps more of the first "doesn't quite melt the balls off a brass monkey" days of late summer.  The storms moved through very early this morning, clearing out by daylight, and I must say, 92F is vastly preferable to 98F.  

I noticed that some of my old biking (and crashing) grounds up near Bude MS dropped into the mid-60's as well.  Unfortunately those temperatures didn't quite make it this far southeast, but still 73F is much better than a low of 79F.  Whatever it is, I'll take it.

Out On the Town

Just a copperhead, out cruising Avenue D in the heart of downtown last Wednesday evening:

County Animal Control had things.. well, under control, and mr-no-legs is off to the snakey farm for a lifetime of free chow and donating venom for making antivenom.  (Why do the medical people have to call it 'antivenin'?  It clutters up the language.  Oh wait, it's from French.  No wonder.  Anyway, in 1981 the WHO (organization, not band) decreed that 'antivenom' is the preferred term for the English-speakers.  Works for me.)

But Is It Worth It?

People sometimes ask me about my new bike, mostly commenting on how good it looks, sometimes asking how much it cost.  That last one all too often comes off feeling about like this old Belushi skit, to which my stock response is "more than my F-150."  Unless of course if I'm talking with another biker who's genuinely shopping around, in which case it's an entirely different discussion.  Anyway, back to the main point: What does the extra cash really buy you, and where is the point of diminishing returns?

Well, here we go.  A knowledgable guy compares his $13,000 custom hardtail with a $400 Walmart bike.  The bottom line is that he's got some constructive, encouraging things to say to the person who just wants to ride a little before going all-in.

So is it worth it, to me personally?  I'm crashing less and my back problems have cleared up for much less than the medical expenses would've likely cost me, so even apart from all the extra riding joy, just on the cash cost, yes, 100% yes.

The Stuff Webb Finds

I have no idea, and evidently neither does the universe:

Discussion at space dot com.

As Seen on the Internet this Morning

And with that, I bid you a good July and all the best in August.

Yaesu FT-70 Battery Management

I swear, this place isn't going to turn into an FT-70 fanboy blog, but once I started scratching around some interesting things emerged.  Three videos:

1. charging cradle
2. charging times in cradle & direct plug-in
3. power-saving menu settings

TLDW summary:  Get the cradle.  Yeah yeah, it's $30 for a piece of plastic that should've come with the radio to begin with.  However, you can charge a battery alone without  having it in the radio with this, and with the cradle it charges 3x faster in a (mere!) 3 hours.  Also, get a spare battery.  Now for some menu settings (hoo boy); the first 5 are from the videos & comments, the rest are my bright ideas:

• 48 RX Save – 0.3 sec (up from 0.2)
• 10 BSY.LED – off
• 02 APO –  shut off automatically; maybe not all that useful, I'm not using it
• 14 DIMMER – dim display lamp, down from its default bright setting; I went from 6 to 2
• 59 firmware version – update it to 1.11 or higher to reduce parasitic drain when off
• 56 TOT – auto TX off; set to something like 1.5 minute, in case TX button gets inadvertently pressed
• 35 OPN.MSG – set to DC so you know batt voltage on power-up; 7.4v means it's getting pretty low.  It'll keep you aware of battery state when starting use.
• Pop the battery out when not in use to completely eliminate parasitic drain.

Combining these, one of the commentators on one of the above videos claimed to get his receive time up into the 16 to 18 hour range.  If you need more than that in an HT just get a spare battery, which you should've done already.  Plenty for a busy day on the trail.  Two more for scans:

• 52 SCN.RSM – HOLD at channel while someone's talking.  Why wouldn't you want to hear what's being said?
• 61 WX ALT – ON  Scan weather channels for alert tone when scanning.  BTW, it's the only way I've found to actually get over to the NOAA WX channels.  Smooth UI, Yaesu.  Real smooth.

Finally and as always:

• Use minimum TX power.  [F][PO] -> rotate knob between 0.5, 2, and 5w.

That's possibly the biggest power saver of all.  If 6 & 4 dB jumps (10 dB total) to the full 5w don't get it for you, you probably need a bigger radio.

FT-60 & ft-70

Following up on the last few days' posts, it is obvious that I've been wringing out how to program an FT-70.  But why, when I've got a perfectly good FT-60?  The biggest reason is the batteries.  The newer lithium ion batts for the '70 don't have the memory issues of the older NiMH in the '60.  After that the advantages are Fusion digital voice mode and slightly less weight – 18% less, not a lot but definitely noticeable on the pack.  The FT-60 wins out however in programming ease, ubiquity of accessories, and sheer damn mechanical ruggedness.  In short it's the Ford F-150 of hand-held radios.  But the FT-70's sufficiently tough, and it does have an IP54 dust & splash rating which the '60 entirely lacks.

This leaves me with the dilemma of whether to keep the old radio or not.  Weighing for keeping are all of the reasons given above, plus it's here in hand right now.  Weighing against keeping the '60 is maintaining two sets batteries, two cradle chargers, two of this that and the other, and most importantly, two sets of programming procedures in my head.  Also, with the 70's lithium battery's "recharge it any ol' time" characteristics, I know which I'll be taking to the field more often.

Meh, there's no hurry.  I'll hang onto the FT-60 for a while, at least until a good home with a new ham appears.

Yaesu FT-70 Split Programming

In keeping with yesterday's "write it down, pass it on" post, here's Yet Another on programming an FT-70.  You can do this using Chirp as well (link), but sometimes it's handy to do it manually.  And yes, for you AMSAT folks out there, it does work for cross-band between 2m and 70cm.

First watch Ham Radio-Scanner's brief video, just over 2 minutes.  Now on to the checklist!

1. Turn Radio ON.
2. Press [V/M] key to go to VFO mode.
3. Dial in receive frequency, modes, codes, etc.
4. Save by press & holding the [V/M] key.
5. Enter the channel name the usual way.  (So far this is regular kbd programming;  review.)
6. Press [V/M] key to go to VFO mode.
7. Dial in transmit frequency.
8. Press & hold the [V/M] key.  Release.
9. Dial back to the channel # used for the receive.
10. Key mic and hold (don't worry, it won't transmit) while pressing [V/M].
11. Go back to memory mode and confirm "- +" in the top display.

Remember "press" means press momentarily, while "press and hold" means for a second or so.

Finally, all of these cross-links are getting cumbersome.  If you want to find the rest of my stuff on the FT-70, use the search bar.  There aren't that many posts to dig through.

Write It Down & Teach Others

Just by chance, after writing yesterday's post about a somewhat involved task, I noticed that Sunday's NASA's APOD was about the Antikythera Mechanism.   There were techniques used in that device that were soon lost and not re-invented for another 1700+ years.  Look, if something's worth figuring out, it's worth documenting at the very least, and quite possibly worth teaching other interested parties about in a direct, hands-on manner.  Also it's quite likely that you'll be back at those notes for a quick walk-through before making repairs or jumping into a related future project, so even doing it for yourself is reason enough.  (Publish the results anyway, because you never know.)

Logbooks, journals, memorandum reports, videos, blogs, apprenticeships, grad school, etc.: They're what separates us from the ancients with their expensive penchant for repeatedly losing knowledge.

Yaesu FT-70D Chirp Programming on a Mac

It works but it's not a lot of fun.  Better than typing in 40+ channels from the keypad though.  If you just have a few repeaters to punch in, you're probably better off doing this from the keypad.  Here's the how-to on that.

First, watch Wiredhand's excellent video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bnS2rH8kp40  Seeing the motions will help you with the flow of this project before actually diving in and doing it.

Here are the steps:

1. Open Chirp.
2. Turn radio on.
3. Unclip the battery – don't take it out, slip it slightly up & off the contacts.  You'll want to be able to push it back in in the next step.
4. Hold PWR & AMS key, then slide & clip battery back in.  Radio display should show "ADMS"
5. Stand up, raise your hands straight up, and twirl around three times while humming the Oscar Meyer theme song.  This doesn't do anything, but it makes about as much sense as those previous two steps.  What idiot designed this UI?
6. Plug in USB cable.  Use the one that came in the box, and no others.  On the Mac end, plug directly into a USB port, not into any of those Lightning/USBC-to-USB adapters.  Don't have a free USB port?  Clear something out.  No adapters!!  And no capes!! either.
7. In Chirp menus, go to radio > download.  Hit OK.
8. On the radio, hit the Band button.  Display should change to "TX"   You should see a progress bar "cloning from radio"
9. Save a copy of the original blank memories under a separate name.
10. Edit channels as desired.
11. In Chirp menus, go to radio > upload  – do not hit OK yet.
12. On the radio, be ready on the Mode key.  Hit Chirp's OK, then Mode quickly afterward.  Upload should commence.
13. When done, unplug cable and cycle the power on the radio.  It should be good to go.

It's a pretty weird set of steps alright.  It may take you a couple of tries, especially on #4, but it does work.

Good luck.

Meanwhile, straight in from some alternate timeline...

...we have this academic paper: Donald Trump, Werewolf Spawn?  They actually seem serious.

Do you ever have that feeling that, well, things are not quite as they should be?  Yeah, me too.

Mad Scientific Purity

As seen at today's SMBC.  Be sure to go there for the mouse-over & big red button for two more jokes.

In case you're wondering, I'm only mildly peeved at the moment.  Yesterday was a pretty good day.

More Swear Words = Better Code?

I dunno, but it kinda works for me.  Link to original paper.  From the abstract:

We find that open source code containing swearwords exhibit significantly better code quality than those not containing swearwords under several statistical tests. We hypothesise that the use of swearwords constitutes an indicator of a profound emotional involvement of the programmer with the code and its inherent complexities, thus yielding better code based on a thorough, critical, and dialectic code analysis process.

They Make a Tool for That

After some years of fighting quick-links into place on bike chains, it occurred to me that there ought to be a tool to do this more professionally.  Turns out, Park makes one.  Behold the MLP-1.2 Master Link Pliers:

Forget the single-item shipping charges, I ordered one today after fighting that 12-speed chain's new quick-link for about a half-hour+.

BTW, the original 12-speed mtb chain held up pretty well.  Didn't get into the red zone on the chain-check tool until 540 miles of mostly gritty off-road use.  The chainline is wonky as hell on the inner cogs, but OTOH the narrow chain's so floppy that it doesn't seem to mind.  I still think that drivetrain technology reached its apex with the 3x8 systems circa 1995, but that's just the retrogrouch in me speaking.  The new 12-speed surf works just fine.

Saturday at Munson

Hot, but I just couldn't stand it any more: Back to Munson!  Here, have a trail map.  Now for pics.

What is this strange orange beast in the woods?

It's a long drive to Munson, so better get those miles in.

Munson has nice trails.  Not particularly challenging, but it does have speed speed speed.  In particular, Luge Trail is a hoot to ride, both ways.  Smooth & raised, this is a trail that has good flow.  The woods are mostly pine, some turkey oak.  Views?  Mostly sinkholes (unfortunately without water in the bottom) and more trees.  That's OK.  It's not going to be an every weekend thing, but more of a once a month thing.

Bone Music – Now On Shortwave!

When, where, what: 2000 utc (that's 4pm edt) this coming Sunday, 6160 kHz, & details (including a short video).  We may not be able to receive it here in North America, but I'm sure going to try!  Also, here's a previous blog post on the subject of Soviet bone music.

I do hope that it comes in OK, because, damn, but this is cool.

ps 7/9/23 2010 utc: Nope, not even close.

Feels Like Monday

After all the Independence Day goings-on, today feels like a Monday following a king-sized extended weekend with sprinkles on top.  What to do, what to do today?  Ride, statewide EOC net, teach class – will I never get away from teaching folks what their mammas should've already taught them about decibels yet again? – then back to what I actually need to be working on.  Here, have some theme music.

Not busy, just harried.  Though it has occurred to me lately to put the damn phone on "focus/sleeping/time-out" mode while out on the bike.  Much better.  Oh damn, that reminds me, down to my last pair of bike shorts, gotta put on laundry when I get in.  Yep, definitely a Monday, and I don't care what the calendar says.