The Keys

But you're probably not going to like 'em all that much.  Behold:

From SMBC sometime last week.  Link here.  Be sure to click through for the mouse-over & big red button.

Two Methods, Related Result

Previous post & discussion: New paper: Life could be older than Earth itself (2013)

New paper: The possibility of panspermia in the deep cosmos by means of planetary dust grains (arXive pre-print, 2024)

Accompanying popular article: Life Spreads Across Space on Tiny Invisible Particles, Study Suggests (Science Alert)

The actual paper, at only four pages, is quite short.  The Science Alert article may be more to your taste however if you don't have a math-heavy background.  I'll suggest skimming both.

Two completely different approaches, and not exactly looking at the same question either, have come to complementary results nonetheless.  It would not surprise me at all if biosignatures are found in nearby solar systems over the next decade or two.  It may well turn out that life finds a way, and in a most unexpected way.

Views from the Past

Default Mac wallpapers from OS 9 here

Default Mac Wallpapers from OSX here

Heh, remember this one?  Oh I sure do.  A bunch of abstract jellyfish made a hit with some colleagues.

Odd, there's really no category tag for this one, and I refuse to start doing #nostalgia.  Just leave it blank.

Still Good for a Laugh

Damn, I remember seeing this on the live broadcast.  Been a while.  For some reason it crossed my path again this week.  The late 70's weren't all bad.

The Curious Case of Coyote v. Acme

It appears there was a movie actually made, that now is on the verge of being entirely canned, centered on the premise of Wile E. Coyote suing Acme Company over defective products.  Based on a short 1990 humor piece in the New Yorker (link), somebody thought it would be a good idea to expand the concept into a feature-length film.  Hm.  Honestly, that part has me a bit skeptical, but according to an article at The Wrap it did well in test screenings.  (when done here, read the rest of the linked article, it gives quite a bit of background)  Now it seems that a clique of studio execs, infected by the "developed by our predecessors, gotta hate on it" bug and having never bothered to actually watch the film, after shopping it around at an inflated price, have decided to trash it for the tax write-off.

This is either the best decision-to-dump since Batgirl or the worst since Firefly, and frankly, I don't have the data to decide which.  However, now that the ruckus has ensued, I want to see it.  (Heh, now there's a marketing ploy, and a new sort of twist on the Streisand Effect.)  Still, if this thing disappears into the memory hole over a cheap tax dodge, Warner Brothers will have earned the enmity of creative minds across the planet.

OCMS at the Opry, Tonight AND Tomorrow

650 kilohertz, amplitude modulation, starts at 0100z (8pm EST), & point that antenna towards 36N 86.8W (near Nashville TN).  Or you can cheat and just stream it from here.

Old Crow Medicine Show, Live and bounced off the ionosphere tonight & tomorrow.

In case you need a pre-show refresher, here's your catch-up listen and here's all about the show.

The MFJ Shakes

MFJ makes some mighty nice ham gear, but often there's an initial tune-up.  For a side project I recently bought two MFJ-1124 distro panels, one of which is pictured below.

It's a good, neat way of splitting out power from a single source among several radios.  Simple, robust, pre-made, safe.  No scrappy wires hanging out anywhere.  Better than I could put together.  But.. what's that rattle?

Eh, the nuts on the backside of the binding posts were all loose – not even finger tight – except for one that was completely off and  rattling around in the case.  Glad that happened, otherwise I might not have found out until too late!  Popped it open (4 phillips screws), fixed it, tested it, then repeated for the other 1124 just in case, but everything was fine.

MFJ makes good stuff.  "Mississippi's Finest Jewels."  Just, nobody's perfect, so always remember to give MFJ magic boxes a good shake before powering them up for the smoke test.

Let's Get This Week Started

Some things are so great that they need no explanation.  Others merely defy explanation.  Some achieve both.

PSKer & EasyDigi Update

I haven't been using my iPhone & EasyDigi interface to do PSK-31 digital as much as I used to.  Mostly, out of practice, but there was also a documentation issue.  My little 3x5 card "field manual" didn't quite have everything on it, including some oh-by-the-ways/gotchas I used to know but have somehow forgotten, and some features I knew were there but was also out of practice of using.  Too many after-findings scribbled in the margins.  Also, some iPhone 4s-specific things like "take off that bulky case."  Worst of all, there were no "now let's get back to voice" instructions, meaning that that procedure had to be reverse-engineered on the fly in the field every time.  Doable, but another layer of unneeded complexity.  So, I've spent the last week fiddling with the interface and the FT-817nd, and re-documenting things. (here's the original, now superseded documentation)  Before this too gets lost in a miasma of half-remembered things, here's the new doc:

EasyDigi Setup; (done) = set once & forget

1. PSKer: Gears > Always use built in speaker: Off (done)
2. iPhone:
• Settings > PSKer > Mic: On (done)
• Phone Volume 4-5 bars
3. Radio:
• Sp/Ph Switch --> Ph
• Volume/AF: all the way down, then slightly up; avoid overload
• VOX f-10A: On (only works with SSB, which we'll be using)
• VOX Delay #50: 100ms (done)
• VOX Gain #51: 35 (done)
• SSB Gain #46: 10 for digital (65 for voice)
• Set PWR to 2.5w
4. Use V/M to get to correct memory to set frequency, then use < > to use USB mode.
5. Adjust phone output, watching ALC meter while transmitting.

To Get Back to Voice Operations

1. Sp/Ph --> Sp (unless using phones)
2. VOX f-10A: Off
3. SSB Gain #46: 65 for voice (10 for digital)
4. Set PWR to 5w
5. Use band, mode, volume, etc. per usual voice operations.

Also Useful:

• #38 Op Filter: CW/Off/SSB -- my '817 has a 500 Hz CW filter under the 'SSB' setting. YMMV.

Finally, the 3x5 card was replaced by a 4x6 Rite-in-Rain page.  Slightly larger, much more robust.

This lightweight interface and a little plastic USB keyboard chops 3 out of 4 lbs off of pack weight relative to hauling out the laptop and SignaLink.  (That's -6 dB in weight!)  It's a little cramped for contest weekends, but all I really need for weekday trail afternoons on 20m.  Don't forget the 3.5mm-to-Lightning dongle, the EasyDigi interface box needs it.  I keep a dedicated dongle the same bag.

Rainy day.  Read, nerd out, fiddle with gear.  What else you gonna do?

Two Good Things

With so much going on, two good things have crossed my desk in the last few days.  First up, here's Tuesday's launch of a Falcon 9 ISS resupply ship.  The entire video is 22 minutes, but the good part is all in the first 10.  Watch for the booster's beautiful landing, starting around minute 7.  Go full-screen to watch.

Additional commentary at The Silicon Graybeard's blog about the unusual partnership between SpaceX and Northrop-Grumman for this flight.

Next up, over at Lawdog's blog, Cedar recounts an encounter with a pollster pushing for solar power-friendly results.  Her response: Nuclear Power or Bust!  Smart.  Go & read.

Some of those images of the Falcon 9's landing look like something out of a sci-fi movie, but nope.  This is real life.  There are good things in 2024, as much as we may have to look around for them.

ps: Back to the Falcon 9, here are some screen grabs of the booster landing.  Just.... wow.

And that is how it is done.