A Beacon for all the Area X Fans

Following up on reviews of Annihilation, the Two Sequels, and The Movie, it seems that the lighthouse (yes, the actual lighthouse) has been re-lit.  Article at The Tallahassee Demagogue.  No word however about the status of the tower.

Can't wait to see it in person.  That is all for today.

More Gravel Adventure

Out along the northernmost reaches of the bayfront seawall – you can just see I-10 from there.

It's a dangerous business, Frodo, going out your door.  You step onto the road, and if you don't keep your feet, there's no knowing where you might be swept off to.  –J.R.R. Tolkien, The Fellowship of the Ring

It's even more dangerous with a gravel bike.

Bike Ride & Mid-Century Arc-eology

Today was a beautiful day to get on the CX bike.  What's more, with the lower traffic due to the current situation, I'm taking the opportunity to ride into areas of town that are usually off-limits to bikers with good sense.  Some of these are places I haven't been in for twenty years or more, if ever.  Back to today's ride, it was up into the north side of BSL, including Cedar Point, the area around Hollywood Casino, the north side waterfront, and... the WMEJ radio tower.

Formerly a local and blues 5KW AM station, since being flooded in Katrina, WMEJ has passed through a series of re-structurings and finally settled into a Gospel niche.  OK, not my thing, but it's still interesting to get a close-up visit.  You can read the little there is on the station at its wikipedia page.  And here, have some pictures:

  

   

Clockwise from top left: The Tower.  Tuner cabinet and tower base.  Tower base close-up.  Transmitter shack.

Things were in rough shape around the site.  No signage beyond a "No Trespassing" on the fence around the tower base (don't worry, I didn't).  But here's the crazy, noteworthy thing: you could hear the broadcast from inside the tuner cabinet.  Something's corroded, loose, or maybe something's grown into it for this to happen.  Here's a demonstration of how random junk can demodulate an RF AM signal into audio:

Heh!  Except that the audio from WMEJ was from decay, not innocent (if dangerous) tomfoolery.  Let's take a closer look at that tuner cabinet:

Yeah, a bunch stuff growing around it, maybe into it.  That's not good.  BTW, that ratty-looking wire sticking out from the insulator in the side is the main tower feed.

Anyway, it was a really fine day for a bike ride, into parts I usually don't venture, with an unusual stop along the way.  And yeah, while there's an unmistakeable air of decay around this tower, the rest of the ride was sunny and uplifting.  This stop was, however, really interesting.  Something different.  Gravel bikes take you to places like this, there's no stopping them.  Adventure-seeking is annealed into their frames when they're made.

ps: We all deserve a better picture of the tower.  Even in this current shape, towers are still awesome.

As always, click to embiggen.  And no, that's just lens flare and a cloud, not some whacky ionization effect.  Believe me, I would've heard it were that the case.

Winter Field Day 2020 Results

As expected my overall score was a little better than last year: about 50% more contacts, but one fewer band, and same number of bonus points (aux power, outdoor, remote).  Anyway, results here. (may not play well with some browsers).

TLDR version: #117 out of 299 outdoor stations, and #7 of 49 QRP (low power) outdoor stations.

And that's not bad.  The whole point of the exercise (apart from just having fun in the woods) is to practice versatility in communications by heavily encouraging operating across a broad swath of bands and modes (voice, Morse, digital text) under simulated emergency conditions.  Despite lots of gaps – no Morse or satcomms, and a relatively low contact count – operating voice and digital across the three bands that were useable all added up.

Here are some previous posts on WFD 2020: Pre, quick take w/ pictures, and post-analysis.  Use the search bar and "WFD" to find results from 2017, 2018, & 2019.  Already looking forward to 2021!

Nah, that's just the Yaesu UI

From a new review of the Yaesu FT-817 over at eHam.net: "CPU seems possessed"
(link; you may have to scroll or even search down a few reviews)

Like this post's title says, no, that's normal for these little radios.  Keep trying, you'll get the hang of it.  If you need to take a break, take a break, perhaps with some holy water on the side.

Lots of people keep saying it: The first ham radio company to come out with a sane interface will own the market.  Personally, I'm beginning to believe that these companies are run by communists, because they seem to hate money so much.

Oh, and then there are the reviewer's comments about battery life being less than three hours.  Simultaneously spot-on, known, and irrelevant.  Yaesu continues to release perfectly good radios with 20 year old battery tech, so you'll have to supply your own.  They'd be better off stuffing a speech processor into that dinky battery bay.

For all that, once you get the hang of operating one of these little jewels, they're not bad at all.  I do believe though that fully a third of new hams are driven out of the hobby in the first year by poor user interface design though.

ps: If you want more of my thoughts on this radio, just use the search bar.  You'll find lots here.

Skywatching

Going into the weekend, here's something a little nicer, from NASA'S APOD:

As usual, click on the "watch on youtube" to embiggen.

Oil Price Trends

Yesterday: –$37/bbl
Today: –$10/bbl
Later in FY20-Q3: $(12 + 8i)/bbl (projected)

It's... it's... just unreal.

The G.M. Speaks

And you'd better listen: In the Strange Land of Robert Heinlein, a 1984 interview in The Washington Post.

It's worth the look back 36 years, to see how much has changed, how much is the same, and how much is much, much worse – and some few things are better.  About 15 minutes' read, so get to it.

Still Here.

Still here, still healthy.  Just got nothing to say at the moment.  More later.

ps: Finally figured out "Uncle Bud."  It's kinda like the Cajun Tom Bombadil song.  Here, have a listen to the adult version:

All the songs from Middle-Earth would sound so much better if set to accordion.  Especially those dreary adaptations of Dwarf tunes at the start of The Hobbit.  No really, think about it for a minute.

I guess that's some content, right?

Garbage Math

Of obvious relevance to recent news stories, from xkcd:

Did I say "recent"?  Er, make that any news story involving any sort of math.  Square that if legislation is to be based on the results.

An Awkward Silence

Why the longer-than-normal pause in comms after Apollo 13's reentry?  Here, watch.
https://www.bbc.com/news/av/science-environment-52281273/apollo-13-the-silence-in-the-blackout-from-those-who-were-there
In fact, it was a shallower than normal reentry, just took a minute longer.  A nerve-wracking minute, to be sure.

Some Rays of Sunshine

https://milkeninstitute.org/covid-19-tracker for covid-19 drug trials.  LOTS of them.

So how're they doing?  Here's a round-up article:
https://www.the-hospitalist.org/hospitalist/article/220766/coronavirus-updates/remdesivir-tops-list-promising-covid-19-treatments

And here's a 3 day old article on the leader of the pack, remdesivir:
Study finds remdesivir effective against key enzyme of coronavirus that causes COVID-19

Science, folks.  It's working.

ps: This just in today: https://www.statnews.com/2020/04/16/early-peek-at-data-on-gilead-coronavirus-drug-suggests-patients-are-responding-to-treatment/

Event Adaptation

Two radio events with two different means of adaptation, both at ARRL links:
Field Day 2020 – A Time to Adapt by operating individually.  But it's at the end of June, so who knows.
Annual Armed Forces Day Crossband Test Postponed from May 9th to... sometime.

Hm, my take on all this is that I usually have something else interfering with Field Day, usually a fishing trip with family, so the whole thing is moot.  Oh, I drag along the QRP rig in its go-box, but somehow it never quite gets on the air.  And for the crossband test, it's been fun in the past but I still need to figure out how to operate split on the '1200.  Maybe get to that if I can find a spare rainy weekend day.

In any case, this year's ARRL Field Day graphic is pretty damn groovy, so I've got to order a shirt:

Additional thoughts and mentions of these topics at KB6NU's place and The SWLing Post.

Enhanced On-Board Apollo 13 Pictures

Some nice photo enhancement shown at the BBC site.

All I got for today.  Did get a bike ride in though.  Misty, slightly rainy, didn't get any pics.  But don't worry, those Apollo 13 pics are much better than anything I could have snapped.

50 Years Ago: Apollo 13 Launch

Fifty years ago today, Apollo 13 launched.  Here, read the Wikipedia article, watch Deadly DIY in Space clip at the BBC, then go watch the movie.

Take a minute to appreciate the skill and can-do that brought these three astronauts home safely, and think of what you can do today to work toward a solution for the current crisis – even if it's just turning off the news and getting a good night's sleep.

Not a Podcast

I'm irked.  So many formerly excellent podcasts have gone over to hiding their download links behind some "works for sure!" third-party interface, and thus have effectively disappeared off my listening radar.

Just to be clear:  Do I have to sign up for some hinky, privacy-stealing third-party site?  Then it's Not a Podcast.  Do I have to "subscribe" on Apple's encrusted iTunes store or similar platform?  Not a Podcast.  Does this third party promise to automagically deliver content to my device, whether I want that episode or not?  Then it's Not a Podcast.  Or maybe it's audio-only on youtube with a still image?  Not a Podcast.  Or worse, do I have to watch some guy's male pattern baldness bob around on a video while he looks down and reads what should've been a simple blog post?  Definitely Not a Podcast.

However, is there a conveniently labeled mp3 link displayed prominently on the page?  Now, that is a podcast.  What's more, only that is a podcast.

I don't have time to sort out ever-churning interfaces, subscriptions, video-to-mp3 rippers, those kinds of nonsense.  Download links have been around since before the web, and they work.  Drag-and-drop to get from a download folder to a device also works.  Why mess up a good thing?

Max Brooks has Something to Say

And say it he does over at this week's episode of Big Picture Science podcast.  Lots of relevance for these times, his recent PSA with his dad Mel, and some discussion of his upcoming book Devolution, which will be out on June 16th.  He talks a lot about the current crisis, comedic salve to help people cope, zombies, bigfoots ("bigFEET!" comes a deep voice from the woods behind the backyard*), and a long-existing yet tragically neglected government plan for dealing with these sorts of situations.  

BTW, if you're interested in actually reading these plans so briefly mentioned just after minute 25, here are the links: National Response Framework and Biological Incident Annex.  Noted, downloaded, loaded onto the kindle... perhaps more commentary later.

Anyway, it's Max Brooks speaking his mind.  That's always worth a listen.

*Ten internet nerd points if you get the reference.

LotR Revisited

Several people I've talked with lately have mentioned either re-reading or re-watching The Lord of the Rings.  Interesting, because so have I, at least in part.  Specifically, starting with:

"I wish it need not have happened in my time," said Frodo.  "So do I," said Gandalf, "and so do all who live to see such times.  But that is not for them to decide.  All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us."

From there, I read through the escape from Moria and have set things aside for a moment.  Probably pick back up in a few days however.

Lots of deep, comforting thoughts in these books.

Yet Another Song of the Day

This'll get your blood moving:

Another Song of the Day

A good thought for these times:

That's all for the moment.  But stay tuned, will think up some content soon.

Song for the Day

One of the best things about the MS Gulf Coast is that you can get a lot of Louisiana stations, especially on the AM band.  Of that bunch, one of the best is KLEB "The Ragin' Cajun" on 1600-AM.  Their morning show, The Hotsauce Express, generally plays this song somewhere along the proceedings:

Who says there's nothing good on radio anymore?  You just gotta look.

In the News Today

The Outdoor Industry Association announces new backpack volume standard.

Astronomy Picture of the Day shows a unique view of Arrokoth (TAFKAUT).

That is all.