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.

July 1...

So far, so good.