Swift Slows Down

The Swift gamma ray burst observatory satellite fell back to Earth yesterday, ending its planned two year mission after twenty two years of fruitful observations.  Article at space dot com, and more details at NASA's Swift page.  It's a pity last summer's re-boost mission didn't go as planned, but the damned thing had already lasted eleven times its originally planned lifespan.  That's a decent return.

Here, have some theme music.

New Antenna Analyzer Exorcism

Ye Olde MFJ-259B antenna analyzer – purchased used over a decade ago – had been getting a tad rattly for several years, giving inconsistent readings until sharply rapped across the faceplate a few times.  Lately though it was increasingly unwilling to straighten out and measure right, and finally seems to have given up the ghost sometime between last winter's project – wait, projectS – and last week.  Unreliable, and it only goes went up to 170 MHz.  I'd always wanted the ability to get up into the 440 MHz band anyway, so... I went shopping and found a screaming deal on a like-new Comet CAA-500-mkII at MTC's used gear page (shown in inset).

The meter arrived today, so I had to do acceptance testing immediately.  Pressed the power switch and hey presto!  Batteries already installed, lit right up.  Attached a dummy load onto the MF–thru–VHF port and yep, 1:1 SWR.  Looked for the N-to-UHF adapter... search... grumble... find... attached dummy load, and yeah, nearly 1:1 SWR there too.  Tried a few other items at hand like this little UHF antenna – OK, it's all good.

Then my suspicious mind took over.  Wait, batteries already installed?  Hm.  After brand name battery disasters of years past, better check that out.  Two small screws later:

Why would anyone put these accursed objects in an expensive piece of test equipment?

Fortunately they hadn't yet started corroding and the fix was trivial.

Safe batteries installed.  Now I can sleep nights.  Relatively speaking, of course.

Now what to do with the old MFJ-259B?  It's almost certainly reparable, but probably not by me on my limited time budget.  I'll hang onto it for the moment and try to unload it in the most honest fashion – "broken, probably reparable, bargain price" – at the next hamfest.  Whenever that might be.

Onward.  I've got antennas to double-check.

November, November

Just a rainy day, very little going on.  Well, at least there's this:

I'm not complaining.

Out for a Walk

Just a nice picture of the Moon coming up from the end of the park pier.  No more comment needed.

Fluke Multimeter From Space!

Well, almost.  They flew one on a balloon to 105,000 feet, parachuted it back, then tested it.  Results?  Good as new.  Video here.  Also worth reading from previous posts:

• In praise of Fluke's 101 and 107 meters.  (But if you do anything electrical for a living, go with the 117 or one of their task-specific models.)
• Care and feeding – no high-zoot alkaline batteries!  (and no capes!)

Sure, that was just a marketing video, but you have to admit that it was a cool marketing video.  Seriously, just save yourself the trouble and expense.  Get a Fluke.  Buy once, cry once, yeah; but they're really not that expensive.

New Video by The Chats

May be, may not be your taste.  The car is pretty cool.  <link>

Carrabelle Repeater is Back Up

Antenna replacement day was Saturday, and blogging has been light because of that and other goings-on.  Anyway, here are the unchanged frequencies:

Frequency: 145.23 MHz

Offset: -600 kHz (standard, probably the default on your radio)

PL Tone: 123 Hz

and here is a coverage map of this and other nearby repeaters:

Actual coverage will depend upon your station.  This is fairly representative for a vehicle with a decent antenna.

That is all for today.  I have bikes to work on.