So Much for That One

It looks like the Storm Formerly Known as Sara has rained out over Central America:

I still twitch a little bit about these late-season storms.  Hurricane Kate in 1985 – on Nov. 19th! – was particularly bad, and late October Hurricane Zeta in 2020 was just plain unexpected.

ps, mid-afternoon:

Good to see.

Across Franklin County via 80m

I knew it would work – it's only about 26 miles and just over the horizon – but until you actually get it to work, it's best to assume that it doesn't work.  A friend in the Carrabelle area just put up a low 80m dipole (i.e., NVIS sky-warmer), and I've got that 21' zepp stretched horizontally over a rooftop at my place downtown that sort of tunes 80m – the new grounding system has helped a lot – so we had to test this potential link.  Works great, 25 watts was enough to make the hop, and 50 watts cleaned the signal up considerably, so check that box, 80m (i.e., near 3.9 MHz) works well enough for cross-county comms off my that tiny zepp.  Good to know, good to have tested and made work.  Will test further this week with the North FL Phone net.

Inset: propagation wheel showing the best bands for this hop.  Surprisingly, 30m looks good here too, but that's digital-only (counting CW as digital), and we were using voice.  As usual for NVIS work, the real answer is 80m by night and 40m by day.  Be sure to click to embiggen the image, because squinting that hard would be ridiculous.

Green line is the short path (26 miles), red line is the long path (24,000 miles).

That accomplished, I dialed over to WSM to listen to the Grand Ole Opry and ran smack into Old Crow Medicine Show's short set.  Not having checked the schedule, that was a treat.  Later, dishes done and while reading the manual for the FT-710, I flipped on WSM again to maybe pick up the Opry's second show, and there they were again.  Second helping!

Wonderfully Dark Humor

Wonderfully dark humor, over at the three-a-week web comic Johnny Optimism.  It's about a wheelchair-bound boy and his dog and the odd characters in the hospital where he seems to not so much live as to merely pass time.  One in particular sticks in mind, from last February:

Yeah, they're all kind of like that, though often not quite as funny(?) as this example.  Enjoy.

No, Really, I'm Good on Gear

However, if you're shopping for the mountain biker in your life, you could do a lot worse than these two lists over at Singletracks online magazine:

• Under $100
• What they really want

But seriously, I'm all full up on gear at the moment.  Though I do have to thank one nephew in particular for this Lezyne multitool for my recent birthday.  (still need to pick up a few threaded carts however)  The more I fidget with the thing, the more impressed I am by it.  That was a true surprise, thanks!

Back to the articles, this one item just makes my collarbone ache:

Ninja MTB Turbo Kicker Jump Ramp – in case you know of any ninjas in need of a good swift kick?

Can you believe that it's been ten years since the infamous collarbone incident?  My, how time flies... when you're flying over the handlebars.  So if you're tempted to give somebody a "Ninja MTB Turbo Kicker Jump Ramp," you might also consider a gift certificate to:

Take if from the ones who know: The pros shop at ACME.

ps: Some goodies for the gravel biker set as well.

Academic Translator

Dead-on.

As a matter of fact...

On Monday I wrote "Well, that's it for 30 years of bikes.  As far as the doctors' bills, I've probably spent more on those than the hardware shown here, but I'll spare you the details."  This evening I totaled things up, and as a matter of fact...  they're so close that it's a toss-up.

Not my clavicle – I have a healed break, but no plate.

Hey titanium's not cheap, whether it's going on your bike or being implanted into your jaw.

ps: Above image from this article about continuing mountain biking into your 70s.

On This Election Day...

... it is good to reflect upon this  September 2016 BBC article, Vote rigging: How to spot the tell-tale signs

It originally focused on a crooked election in Gabon, but hey, look around.  You may recognize some of this in your very own country.  Six points to watch in the article, to which I'll add one more:

• Voting machines that are easily tampered, and that use closed-source software.  There is no reason whatsoever for insecure machines running mystery meat software to still be in use after the questions that have continually arisen since the 2000 presidential election.

And there you have it.  Go vote, and may the greater of two evils lose.