Of Taxes, Snakes, & Other Things

Got the taxes off to the accountant yesterday.  Got the monthly Panama City bank & big-box store run done.  Sinuses continue to improve, but still not quite good.  Not enough biking, about to go put in some miles.

Here, have an article about snake places over at Atlas Obscura.  All I got for this morning.

A Visit to the Panama City Publishing Company Museum

A nice day, and only an hour-thirty drive from home.  I walked in, breathed in the type wash and lead, felt at home right away.  With the exceptions of a Heidelberg windmill press and a non-functioning Linotype, I could've gotten down to work within minutes.  Really nice people, on a slow day.  Here, read all about it.

Nice part of town.  There was a farmers' market going on this fine Saturday morning, and a nearby pizza emporium was ready with our lunch in just a few minutes.  A day well-spent.

Winter Field Day 2025 is Wrapped

All done, from home this year (more on that in a minute).  Thirty one contacts total, 25 digital, 6 phone, across 80, 40, 20, & 15m.  Here, have a bunch of random notes on the matter.

• 15m was LIT UP this year, and in fact that's where I made most of my contacts.
• 20m was good too.  40m was useable, and 80m was a stretch but the little antenna that could came through and got me that band as well.
• The FT-710 was a joy to use, but it drinks power at about 1.3A when just listening.  That's about double the draw of the FT-857d.  All that computing power and the big shiny waterfall display come at a cost.
• Draw in transmit was about 10A for 100 watt SSB and 25 watt digital transmissions.  To sustain operations at that draw level – about 4A average – you'd need at least 240 watts of solar panel and appropriate storage to maintain day and night operations.  For fun operating no more than 8 hours a day 80 watts of panel would be needed.  Round it up to 100 watts so as to have enough left over to run a coffee grinder.
• The event used 28.5AH out of the 40AH LiFePO4 battery.  Towards the end though, on transmit there was a 2 volt drop at the battery – pretty serious.  But the radio kept going and all seemed OK.
• On recharge, the battery drank in 29.5AH.  That's a loss of 1AH, or 2.5% after sitting for eight months.  Not bad at all!
• Of the four objectives that I thought were feasible while operating from home – running 100% on alternate power, copying the WFD special bulletin, using multiple modes, and operations to include one six-hour continuous operating period – all four were met.
• It was easy to copy the 18:15Z WFD special bulletin on 20m from the NW7US Ohio station .  That transmission was in Olivia 8/250.  Even when someone dumped a PSK-31 signal right on top of the Olivia signal, the copy was perfect.  The 00:15Z K1DDN transmission on 40m out of Colorado in Olivia 8/500 was just as easy to copy as well.
• I like most of this year's changes in the rules, with one exception.  Formerly there was a points multiplier for each band/mode combo worked.  This year, there's a single 6x multiplier iff you work at least six bands.  Zero if work less than six, and no more than six if you work more bands.  Note that these are bands, not band/mode combos.  That's tough, and it comes as an all-or-nothing step function.
• Probably just as well, because I forgot to grab a few 40m phone contacts when I easily could've.
• Back to the cold weather and operating from home this year.  It seems that I wasn't the only one to chicken out with this arctic cold blast coming in a few days before.  In 2023, 37% of the stations I worked were in the Outdoor class (as was I); this year, that was down to 16%.  That's a pretty significant drop.  It was a cold week and I think a lot of people needed a break.

Well, that was all fun, even though I missed out on my camping trip to Wright's Lake.  I'll try to squeeze one in in next month, and put up the mid-size W3EDP, 6m slim jim, and 2m/70cm 'jungle' jim.

And That Was The Ice Storm That Was

Most of Panhandle Florida got snow, but we had a half-inch, maybe an inch of ice storm.  Yuck.

Franklin County Shares Memories of Winter Storm Enzo at The Times, with lots of pictures.

Pretty rough, about the net equivalent of a Cat 1 hurricane.  My power stayed on, but the various heat pump compressors and outside faucets for which I'm responsible needed some TLC for a couple of days.  Power was out to about half of the county.

Oh for goodness' sake, these things are back?

Oval chainrings on mountain bikes, read all about their latest revival at Singletracks.  Several decades ago I had some success with these things on a road bike, but can't possibly imagine their "help" when climbing up technical roots on a mountain bike.  I once test rode a mountain bike with Biopace rings back in the day, and the feeling was akin to the "help" you get from an over-eager chihuahua while trying to open a door to take the dog on a walk.

Onward and... sideways?

Winter Field Day – Too Damned Cold This Year

Yeah, I'm bailing.  With lows in the mid-20's up at Wright's Lake, it'd be no fun tent camping.  Living in Florida, I just don't have the cold weather clothing and gear for this.  I've already fought an ice storm this week and don't have it in me to huddle in the bottom of my sleeping bag to survive the night, when I should be at the radio raking in the 80 and 40m contacts.  Also, LiFePO4 batteries really don't like sub-freezing temperatures.  In fact it's pretty easy to kill LiFePO4's in those conditions.  So yeah, that's it, I'm not wimping out, I'm doing it for the batteries.

Turning to a backup plan, I'll operate from home this year.  Looking over the list of objectives, (1) operating 100% on alternative power, (7) copying the WFD special bulletin, (9) using multiple modes, and (11) six hours of continuous operation all look feasible.  It's not what I'd planned – and I really, really wanted to hang up that slim jim antenna and make some 6m contacts – but it's not nothing either.  Plus, I get to go to the farmers' market at Scipio Creek and the BBQ cook-off here in Battery Park this weekend.

In Praise of Physical Media

There are a lot of people out there who love-love-love video streaming.  Great.  I'll largely stick with physical media though, because (a) I'm at the tail-end of this internet train spur so service is highly unreliable, and (b) what if an old favorite move or series gets politically unpopular or is simply ground under the wheels of corporate maneuvering?  Either way with option (b), it's gone-baby-gone and there's nothing to bring it back.  Also, streaming services don't seem to maintain a decent back catalogue.  From what I've seen, they're more like the modern equivalent of Blockbuster Video, where it's easy to find the latest in the "Robo-Death Lust IV" type movies but just try to find Kagemusha or something from back when Woody Allen was still funny and relevant.

Anyway, Giant Freakin Robot has an article today on the matter, mostly as it relates to The Expanse series.  Go and read.

The downside of buying physical media is that you've got to devote shelf space to it, and sometimes you get stuck with prize turkeys.  Speaking of which, anybody want a blu-ray copy of Oppenheimer?  Ugh, I thought so little of that movie when I finally saw it that I didn't even bother to review it.

New Fortran Compiler

Back sometime around my birthday last fall, somebody put these over at GitHub for various Mac OS versions on both ARM and Intel hardware.  YeeHah!  Just downloaded it, will install sometime tomorrow – wait, lookit the time – today.

Here, let's have some suitable celebratory music: Lyndsay's Gonna Drive by Rumble Club.

ps, mid-day: Installed in less than a minute, worked without any weird unix-fu invocations.  Onward & upward!

Winter Field Day 2025 – Looks Like a GO

At least, if the weather holds.  Here's the 10 day forecast for Bristol, the closest town that has a forecast.  It's going to be Damn Cold a few days ahead of the event, then moderate towards the weekend – which is perfect, because the cold should knock down the bugs.  If you're new around here, here's the Winter Field Day site – it'll answer all your questions.  Here's the blurb for our (or just my?) camp from the WFD site locator:

Once again, W4ZNG and whoever the heck else wants to show up will be at Wright Lake in the Apalachicola National Forest off of SR 65, at the very northern edge of Franklin County.  This probably includes the Tate's Hell Amateur Radio Club (THARC), but being a highly informal group, it's hard to speak for the other members.

To get there from Hwy 98: Turn north on SR 65, then after 22 miles, turn left onto Wright Lake Road (it's a dirt road, but well maintained).  At about a mile and a half, turn right onto the campground road (it's well marked).  Enter the campground loop and look for an old blue F-150 and a bunch of antennas.  (note: there is no "Wright Lake Road" sign, but it is two miles past the Fort Gadsden sign)

The extended weather forecast looks good but, being tent-based campers, we do reserve the right to curtail operations if the weather turns truly awful.  (We're in this for the cool weather fun, not to prove ourselves in inclement weather – we'll save that for hurricane season!)  If there are any last-minute changes in plans, we'll post them at the website link.  The plan is to set up on Friday mid-day, be on the air at start time, and then operate into Sunday afternoon, leaving time to break camp and get home well before sunset.

We should be operating on HF on 80m-10m, as well as 6m, 2m, and 70cm – if the tropoducting conditions smile upon the atmosphere during the event.  All on solar power, of course.  Cell phone service at the site is almost non-existent, but we will monitor 146.52 as a talk-in frequency.

Bring your own coffee cup (though we may have some spares), and any gear you might want – especially camping gear if you're staying.  Campsites at the Nat. Forest campground are $20/night.  Breakfasts will be eggs and spam, and feel free to BYOG (bring your own grits).

Keep watching this space for updates.  Especially regarding the weather.  Now I've got to get busy and build a new HF antenna!

ps: weather's looking fair-to-good for next weekend:

One for a Monday Morning

All I got.   So far today.

Wooden Satellites – Not As Crazy As It Sounds

Building the main structure of a satellite out of wood kind of makes sense.  If it's already kiln-dried, it's not going to warp.  Good strength-to-weight ratio.  Non-conductive.  Environmentally friendly on its inevitable reentry.  And we certainly have the construction techniques down.  It's time to try building and deploying one, and JAXA has done just that.  Article here.

All I've got for the moment.  Last week was a trying one.  This week: hacking out a large bush interlaced in poison ivy.  Eh, better to do it in cold weather than hot.

A Couple of Neat Techniques

In the past few days, I've stumbled across some neat tricks that are worth passing on.  Both of these apply to ham radio, but the first one also applies to any 12v wiring (cars, boats, etc.) that uses blade fuses.

Using an extra blade fuse as a fuse puller, very short at 1:21.  Once you've seen it you'll recognize the utility of this type of fuse's design, despite its non-obviousness.  One of those tidbits of knowledge that should but doesn't get passed around, I guess.

Setting microphone gain and speech compression using an external power meter, starting at the 6 minute mark (but you probably should watch the whole thing).  I sort of knew of this, and you can do this after a fashion with only a transceiver's power meter, but it was always so poorly documented.  It's much clearer how to do this once you've seen it in this video.

All for today.

My Year So Far

So far I've stayed ahead of events, but still it's been hectic.  No, I won't elaborate further.  It might give that pilot a heads-up on which direction to start turning.

Dumping My ARRL Membership – For the Time Being

This one kind of hurts to post, because the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has done a lot of good for amateur radio over the years.  They've been our lobbying representative, have published a pretty good collection of technical books, and put out a decent monthly magazine, and many-many other things useful for ham radio operators.  There was a time when I would absolutely not been without a membership.  However, lately internal drama has taken the shine off the organization, and I am loathe to re-up.  Coughing up a million bucks in ransom to restore their antiquated database last summer didn't impress me much either.  It's not the dues money (though the fees have gone through the roof), it's more that I don't want to support the incompetent drama queens running the show.

My membership just expired at the end of last year, and in the months running up to then I was simultaneously receiving renewal notices and reading blog postings such as this one and forum discussions like this.  I kept deferring the decision, but time has run out and so has my patience.

So I'm out – for the time being.  If the ARRL can sort out their socks, I'll be back in a heartbeat.  But they seem to have been taken over by bean counters, they're not listening to members, and so the only remaining constructive thing to do is to drop out.  It's a pity that there isn't a competing organization out there.  We'll see what 2025 brings.

'Forbidden Area' Adaptation on Playhouse 90

Last October I blogged about reading Pat Frank's novel Forbidden Area, and mentioned that there was a TV adaptation written by Rod Serling.  Found it, at long last!  Link.  (note: doesn't play on Safari, works fine on Firefox)

It's... eh.  The super-genius female lead in the novel gets demoted from being a key member of the Enemy Intentions Group to merely its secretary, and finally has a dramatic meltdown in the arms of Charlton Heston.  The central cause of why the B-99 bombers keep blowing up is tipped off way too early.  There's some two-fisted drama in the last 20 minutes that hasn't aged well.  Apart from all that, it's a decent adaptation of the fair-to-good source novel.  At an hour and a quarter length, it's probably time better spent than on what's in the theaters these days.

Garden of Eden Trail on New Year's Day

Lots of people out for the hike.  Perfect New Year's Day sunny & cool weather.  Beyond that, not a lot to add from the original post about the place.  It was a nice way to start the year.