Bonus Tab-Clearing Post: Leon Sinks Geological Area

Planning on a day trip once the weather cools a little.  Links:

• https://www.fs.usda.gov/r08/florida/recreation/leon-sinks-geological-area
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leon_Sinks_Geological_Area
• https://floridahikes.com/leon-sinks/

Wow but that is a beautiful picture of Big Dismal, shamelessly stolen from the first link:

Expect a follow-up post in the coming months.

Peak Hurricane Season, and...

Noted not gloated.

(Was that ever a saying?  It sounds so trite and flippant that it should have been, decades ago.)

Anyway, on to today's NHC forecast:

I'll take it!

I've got a batch of students going in for their Tech ham license test this evening, and many-many more interesting things for  later this week.  Stay tuned.

Bonus Tab-Clearing Post: The Fall of the USSR in Two Podcasts

Kind of lightweight, but still a good survey of the late 80s into the early 90s over at Stuff You Should Know.  About an hour for each segment.

• Part 1
• Part 2

Bonus Tab-Clearing Post: Doomsday Ain't What It Used To Be

Over at JMG's weekly essay blog: Economics: The Y2K Fallacy Revisited

Or, why bad times won't necessarily be all that bad.  Just keep your head out of the sand, out of the gloomy clouds, and on straight.  Push come to shove, we still have plenty of paper how-to books in libraries.

Bike Repair Stand Score!

So I dropped by the local bike shop this morning, and some guy who's moving had dropped off a bike repair stand just to get rid of it.  The owner didn't have any use for it, so he moved it on down the line to... me.  It's the same model as in the picture, though that's not my picture nor is it my stand.

Never had a bike stand before, though I have used any number of them through the years.  I'm sure I'll get decades of good use out of it.  In fact, I have one of these frame protector spray jobs coming up, and I'm sure this stand will be a great help.

Anyway, Skunk Monkeys Bike Shop, 41 Market Street, Apalach.  Great folks.

Bonus Tab-Clearing Post: Cave Rescuers Use Ground-Penetrating Digital Radios

Waaaay down in the 2200m band around 137kHz.  This article at Dan Romanchik's blog initially alerted me to it, but here are all the other links:

• https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DrsuT64SFB4
• https://qrp-labs.com/qdxm.html
• https://makezine.com/article/electronics/cave-radio-talking-through-solid-rock/
• https://calgaryherald.com/news/local-news/new-rock-piercing-radio-tech-helps-rescue-tourist-trapped-in-canmore-area-cave

Interesting stuff.  If I had any spare time and collaborators, I'd look into how this band propagates across large bodies of salt water.  Vertically polarized, of course.  If I get around to building something, I'll call a few friends over by Biloxi, or maybe contact some Tampa area hams.  Yeah, real soon now.

Reminder to Self: ARRL September VHF Contest This Weekend

It runs from 2pm on Saturday to 11pm on Sunday.  Think I'll try at least to pick up some 6m traffic.  Since putting up the new antenna last winter, I've barely been using it.  Anyway, links:

• https://thesilicongraybeard.blogspot.com/2026/09/alright-hams-next-big-vhf-contest-is.html
• https://www.contestcalendar.com/weeklycont.php#20591
• https://www.arrl.org/september-vhf    <---<<< Rules.  Kind of important.

Sorry, no spiffy graphics for this post either.