2022 Wrap-Up & Greatest Hits

On the whole, 2022 wasn't that bad.  Some ominous clouds on the horizon, but pfft, when haven't there been?  Anyway, following past years' practice, here's my pick of the best from each month followed by the handful of "most visited" posts (from whenever years) for the blog:

• Jan: On the Air Again  Yes, it's a compromise antenna, but you know, it works.
• Feb: Alkaline Battery Blues  Hundreds of dollars later, I never want to see a Duracell again.
• Mar: Tech Observations from the Santos Fat Tire Fest  Major trends in mountain biking noted.
• Apr: Hiking the Garden of Eden Trail  
• May: OK, Webb is Up & Working  Whew.  So many moving parts... and they pulled it off!
• Jun: Three Songs for this Week  Cranky after a mild run-in with covid.
• Jul: Webb Images in Context  
• Aug: WTF #1 & WTF #2  I love the future, but only if it has some correspondence with reality.
• Sep: Morrison Springs  Aaah, nature.  Reality.  History.
• Oct: Ham Radio Heats Up on the Forgotten Coast
• Nov: Time for a Review of the FT-891  
• Dec: The Whole Month  Kind of a lame month for posting; take your pick.

On to the Greatest Hits.  Not a lot of changes from last year (here, compare for yourself), but still useful:

• Yaesu FTM-7250d Quick-Start Programming  May 2019
• Shortwave Antenna: Vertical or Horizontal?  October 2020
• Yaesu FT-70 Quick-Start Programming  June 2020
• The Quick & Dirty Guide to Getting a Ham License for Tech People  December 2017
• Programming a Yaesu FT-60 using CHIRP  July 2017
• I thought it was hot yesterday  June 2015 – huh, just a random pop-up solstice post
• Time for a Review of the FT-817nd  January 2018  now sadly discontinued!
• Osprey Syncro 5 Hydration Pack Review  September 2019  Finally, something not radio-related.

And that about does it.  Will be back sometime soon, as soon as something interesting happens.  In the meantime, have another pic from September (taken at the same time as this one) showing a beautiful orange fall sky:

5 Watts from Hell

With a QRP radio in Tate's Hell Swamp, that is.  (completely unrelated to 40 Watts from Nowhere, btw) Nothing remarkable, just a short hike on the High Bluff Trail and a couple of hours play with the FT-817nd.  Lots of interesting listening, plus four voice contacts.  Lots of fun.

Mostly though, it was an exercise in "how fast can I get out the door?"  Everything was pre-sorted into a storage box, all batteries charged, just a matter of putting it in a pack after lunch and going.  Naturally I forgot several items: the one-ear earbud that I prefer using outdoors, the spiffy arborist line that makes antenna hanging so easy, hanging line for the HF antenna (used the one from the VHF antenna), and multi-tool.  (Glad the batts in the tuner held up, because without a phillips screwdriver on the multi-tool I never would have gotten them changed.)  Made it all work anyway, but there is much room for improvement.  Do and learn.

Then I came back to civilization to find that the current version of this radio has been discontinued, due to parts availability problems.  Two announcements of this, at QRPer and The SWLing Post respectively: End of an Era and The Yaesu FT-818ND has been discontinued  Lots more detail there, including down in the comments.

Anyway, it was a good day on the trail, with temps in the mid-60's and a sunny blue sky.

ps and to add on & review:

• earbud
• arborist throw line & bag
• antenna hang line
• multi-tool
• band plan – going to pick one of the Nifty (brand) laminated manuals for this.  I've been relying on printed inserts into the clear front pockets on notebooks, but those are large-ish and I simply neglected to bring one on this lightweight hiking trip.

Repeat: Do and learn.

Yet Again, The Christmas Comet Returns!

Yes, the same NASA APOD from years past.  It's becoming a tradition.

I suspect these color combos are no coincidence.

I was slowly chewing through a review of the hope and promise and cynicism of the early 90's in The GenX Reader the other night, when returning to the sofa with yet another whisky I noticed the album cover of what I was listening to, and all the rest of it had sort of lined up.  Nothing profound, just a snapshot of an evening on the sofa reading while listening to an old favorite.

I remember a 1987 road trip down south (as in "south of Tallahassee," which at the time meant getting out of the Deep South and into more Miami Vice-type territory) shortly after seeing The Replacements play.  There was this inescapable feeling that a change was in the air.  In retrospect some decades later, others seem to agree.

All-Up Weigh-In

It occurred to me that pack weight matters, so what the heck does that new Yaesu FT-891 (which has yet to see a trail, btw) actually weigh, and how does this compare with the FT-857d and FT-817nd?  After finding the single most important piece of backpacking gear (luggage scale), here are the results in pounds:

• 
  FT-891:     5.00
• FT-857d:   5.62
• FT-817nd: 2.72
• FT-60:       0.78

Note that all three HF rig weights include their respective Portable Zero roll cages and microphones.  The SOTAbeams speech compressor is included with the 817, because it's pretty much useless for voice without it.  The '60 hand-held is included because the 891 doesn't have VHF/UHF capability.  Add in its weight with the 891 if you want a more apples-to-apples comparison, but even that is a little off since the '60 carries a built-in battery, is only 5w, can be operated simultaneously with the HF rig, etc. etc.

In the end, the 891 is so close to the 857 in weight that it's all down to rounding errors.  And ps, in the end, the 817 and associated lightweight gear comes in at about 5 lbs, while either of the two QRO radios with their laptop & other gear will tip the scales in the neighborhood of 15 lbs.  Pick your back pain to power ratio.

Brief Movie Review: Top Gun Maverick

All the good stuff you've heard is true.  It starts with the best elements of the first movie, then in the first segment adds a healthy dose of The Right Stuff – specifically, the part where Chuck Yeager briefly pokes an NF-104 into the top of the atmosphere.  Even so, there's just the right touch of humor.  Pitch-perfect.  After that, there's a hell of a lot of the fun in the same vein as the best from the Raiders of the Lost Ark series.  TGM even pulls off the generational hand-off that Kingdom of the Crystal Skull flubbed so badly.  In short, there's a lot for the movie geeks to love here, which explains why Quentin Tarantino has such high praise for this flick.

This movie tells a thrilling story, has interesting characters who develop just a little, and has no real missteps.  While it doesn't carry the heavy story of a Casablanca or LoTR, it pretty much defines the term "movie magic."  3.5/4 Stars

What took me so long to see it?  Don't you make the same mistake.

The Uncertainty Principle Well Explained

If it has waves, you can be 100% confident that it has uncertainty in one form or another.  If the uncertainty principle in quantum mechanics seems at all strange to you, then watch this video.  TLDW: It simply falls out of the math, and is about as unexpected as 1 + 1 = 2.

We see the same effect with light, sound, ocean waves, etc.  Nothing weird going on here.  It is admittedly a little outside of our everyday experience, but then so were pens that didn't inconveniently leak ink in our pockets just a few decades ago.

Meanwhile, back at the mead hall...

Just a nice pic from last Saturday, when everyone (except the photographer) suddenly went for a refill.

50 Years Ago, Right About Now

... we left the Moon for the last time in the 20th Century.  Article at This Day in Aviation.

Shouldn't be too much longer until we're back.

Bonus posts in the back catalogue: The Day the 60's Ended and 5 Lessons from Apollo

Wasn't Me

I can't vouch for this poster's veracity, but even if it is a prank it still needs posting:

Beyond that, not a lot going on here.  Just the mid-winter scramble.

Cool, but still Do Not Want

Every once in a while something crosses my desk that makes me do a double-take.  Such is the old Soviet TU-123 Hawk reconnaissance drone.  Take the cheaper, disposable version of a MiG-25 Foxbat engine and shove it into a pointy supersonic airframe with a bunch of cameras in the nose, and you end up with something right off of Wile E. Coyote's design table:

Yeeesh.  Glad these never got used for real.  Article at Wikipedia.  Not sure how to tag this one, so file it under "scifi."

ps: I knew that thing looked familiar.  Definitely scifi.

There's a Lesson in this Article Somewhere

However, I don't think the right people will be listening.  Crucial Computer Program for Particle Physics at Risk of Obsolescence at Quanta Magazine.  Top-of-article tag line:

Maintenance of the software that's used for the hardest physics calculations rests almost entirely on a retiree. The situation reveals the problematic incentive structure of academia.

It's odd, but it is also true.  The crazy thing is that funding managers too often don't want to hire on a pipeline of young up-and-comers to fill these gaps, and then there's a mad scramble when The Old Dude up and decides he'd rather be sailing with the grandkids.  It's akin to the deferred maintenance problem, but with a multi-decade time scale.

Other than get better management, no, I don't have a solution either.

A Front Panel Protector Cap for the FT-891

After this week's earlier post on getting the FT-891 going, here's one more on getting this thing trail-ready.  Some time back I'd put a set of Portable Zero rails on my FT-817nd, and had added a cardboard cap to protect the front panel when I shove it in a pack next to who-knows-what, so of course I had to do the same for the FT-891.  Looking around for a suitable piece of cardboard to construct this, it was right in front of me: the box the rails came in.  Just had to cut down the width a little, fit it all together, and tape the new end securely.

In pics, here it all is:

Rails installed (l) and the box they came in (r).

Yeah, just the right height.  In fact, made for it.

Mark it before cutting.  Leave some extra for the fold-over tabs; test fit and trim as needed.  Kitchen shears work well here.

Fold over the ends, close with packing tape, and finish with painter's tape to hold it on to the radio.  Done!

To quote Darth Vader, "All too easy."  You can find the rails from Portable Zero here for a price much, much lower than repairing a broken front panel.  Adventure awaits.

Happy First Day of Not Hurricane Season

Sure, that's yesterday's date.  I queued this up to post yesterday for today.  Doesn't change much (I hope).

Time for a Review of the FT-891

TLDR: A potentially great field or even home radio, somewhat hobbled by a clunky user interface (UI).  Well worth the $600 – $650 street price as is, but if the UI and data mode messes got sorted out I would happily pay 50% more.

Pros: Triple-conversion superhet receiver with at 3kHz roofing filter, adjustable noise blanker, and an aggressive digital noise reduction (DNR) chip, all of which work to cut interference very effectively.  Weight and form factor are similar to Yaesu's previous king-of-the-trail, the FT-857d.  A somewhat improved UI, now with three user-programmable front panel keys and a much bigger screen.

Cons: UI still not up to snuff.  Often but inconsistently drops various settings during changes in operating band, mode, or memory channel.  Bizarre offsets in the PSK data mode, and seemingly broken upper bandwidth software-defined control on the general-purpose data mode (but there's a work-around, so read on).

what a mess, on the ladder of success   Testing new hardware is never a neat process.  On to the review.

OK, from the short version above it probably sounds like I don't like this radio, but to the contrary I'm impressed.  Furthermore it is a worthy successor to the venerable FT-857d, and at this price it is too good a rig to pass up.  It just took some wrangling to get past the quirks in the UI and get everything going.

The one setup tip to take away pertains to using an external sound card interface such as a SignaLink.  Simply set things to upper sideband mode and skip all the data mode settings ("PSK" and "Other") altogether.  This will necessitate some jumping into the deep menus to adjust down the TX power when switching between voice to digital, something that is easily forgotten and (if forgotten) not good for the radio's power transistors.  It would have been convenient to set the radio's data mode to 25w and SSB to 100w and forget all this, but there it is.  (This all took two days of spare time to figure out, ugh.)

The remainder of the setup was straightforward.  Also, the radio works well with an external MFJ-939Y autotuner.  That part was plug-and-play, as advertised.

About that direct computer cable data mode input on the back, sure, I'll bet it works great, but I'll never know because the only driver Yaesu has released is for Windows OS.  So it's data via SignaLink and audio input (mercifully, on the data port) for the foreseeable future.

Back to the receiver.  It's a triple-conversion superhet with a staunch roofing filter and a stout digital noise reduction chip acting on an intermediate frequency (IF).  If that sounds like the big FTdx-1200 base station, well, that's essentially what it is.  In a side-by-side comparison of published specs they are only slightly different, and certainly not enough to notice in use.  In a lucky coincidence last week I worked two similar Ohio stations minutes apart, one on my FT-857d and one on the FT-891.  In this RF-noisy location, the step up from the older double-conversion superhet with an audio frequency DNR circuit in the 857 was like night and day.  Most of the useful bandwidth and IF shift controls present on the 1200 are also there with the 891, albeit with most of them buried in the first level of menus.  Well, Yaesu did have to make some concessions to a portable's smaller control panel, so no complaints there.

This brings us back to the UI.  It really is an improvement over the older 857 and its brethren, the FT-817nd and FT-897, which all share the same wretched control set-up.  The three programmable keys on the 891's front panel are a very welcome addition that somewhat redeems the new UI.  Overall though it's just not that much of an improvement, and maybe not enough to justify the change in interface.  Also random flip-flops in control setting when changing bands and modes is a most unwelcome "feature."  Doesn't Yaesu test this stuff?

Perhaps the biggest change from the FT-857d to the new FT-891 is the omission of 2m and 70cm band capabilities.  I hate to see them go, but dumping 2m and 70cm reportedly allows for a more robust transmitter.  Furthermore, the field use for these two line-of-sight bands is so different than the other covered bands that they warrant their own dedicated radio.  Taken together, it makes sense.

For all that, it seems that not everyone is happy with these changes.  The street price of the FT-891 has settled in the low $600's, while just last week two discontinued FT-857d's on MTC Radio's used equipment page were sold at $1000 – about 30% over their original price.  Personally, I'd take a new 891 and a new 2m/70cm dual-bander for about the same money.

To sum it all up, the FT-891 is a potentially great field radio, somewhat hobbled by its clunky UI.  It is well worth the current street price, and if Yaesu got its UI and data mode weirdness sorted out I would happily pay 50% more.  Next radio though... maybe not a Yaesu.  I want to see if another company can pull off the magic and come up with a less ragged UI.  In the meantime though the FT-891's a keeper.

ps, and to ask and answer an obvious question: Why get a new FT-891 when I've got a perfectly good FT-857d that I like so much and is all dialed in?  The 857 is getting up in years, having been bought used and at an unknown age seven years ago.  Also, at this price they're practically giving away 891s these days.  Sometimes you've got to future-proof your camping radio capabilities.

MFJ-939Y tuner works with FTdx-1200

Since putting up my apartment rooftop mini-W3EDP last winter, I've been wrangling it into 50 Ohm functionality with an MFJ-948 manual tuner.  Works fine.  However when switching bands the entire process gets a little tiresome.  Not to mention that I fried one radio some years back with this thing, so I'm still a little gun-shy and overly-cautious when tuning up.  Anyway, it's cumbersome.  So on a lark while testing out the new FT-891 (review forthcoming this week) and swapping cables around, I tried plugging the MFJ-939Y autotuner I'd paired it with into my main home radio, the FTdx-1200.  (Don't forget to go into the menus to switch the tuner from internal to external.) Mind you, the manual didn't exactly say it would work with this radio, but it did mention others in the series so I suspected that it would probably work.  Or maybe just fry a kilobuck of hardware... what'stheworstthatcouldhappen?  So I hooked it all up and:

Yeah, worked great, needn't have worried, should've begun using this thing from the get-go last January.  I'm keeping the manual tuner in the path between the radio and the autotuner however, for both the crossed-needle power/reflected power/SWR display as well as for the coax cable switching capability.

Also note: The 939 powers just fine via the control cable, you don't need to plug it in to 12v separately.  Not clear at all in the manual.  In fact, there's a lot that's not exactly clear in that manual.  Don't sweat it though, because with supported radios it's plug-and-play.  (Almost.  Remember, change the tuner menu setting to external.)

Here, you can read up on the specs at the manufacturer's web site, which includes several informative videos.  I found a like-new one on MTC Radio's used page for about 1/3rd off – a lucky hit – but even at full list the 939 tuner's a bargain.

They make this in several Yaesu-compatible versions, as well as for Icom and Kenwood radios.

The convenience is good to have, at the level of not quite but almost game changing.

Fred Brooks, RIP

It crossed my desk today that Fred Brooks, the author of The Mythical-Man Month died last week.  You can read the NYT obit here and a more personal note from a colleague here.

It is hard to over-state the influence Brooks had on my work, though I am neither in computer science nor had any direct contact with the man.  However, being in computational physics, I have had occasion to work on or even run medium-sized software projects, and found great value in his insights (described previously here).  If a programming project ever turns out to be more than one scientist can handle (in a reasonable time, on budget, on schedule, etc. etc.), reach for Brooks' book.  And if your organization doesn't support you in building the team needed to complete the task at hand and you find yourself in a morass of memory-swapping into a snail's pace of error-prone development, that is a giant clue that it is time to move on.

Black Friday Special

This, from over at xkcd:

Let me add one for the Machiavellian quantum political philosopher on your list: Switch handle for the out-of-control trolley with a screen occluding the observer from the politicians on each branch of the tracks.  (Normalization factor of 1/sqrt(2) applied.  Batteries and indeterminately dead/not-dead cat not included.)

Well that was bloody-minded.  Have a good post-Thanksgiving weekend, all.

Futzing with the FT-891

*grumble*grumble*  It's OK, but piping data into this radio is a pain.  Why the 1500Hz offset in one otherwise useful mode?  *grumble*grumble*  Will try to sort out storing settings in memory this morning, that's always good for a lot of work-arounds.  *grumble*  More later this week, especially if the weather stays bad.

later in the day: Yep, got it working.  Lots of needless fiddly stuff, but work it does and the hard part is done.  Talked (well, texted) to a ham over in Texas on 20m.  All is well, and it's a keeper.  Ordered a roll cage to protect the faceplate & miscellaneous protrusions when backpacking.  Adventure awaits.  But first I'm going to get some sleep.

Book Mention: An Atlas of Extinct Countries

Sometimes countries just don't work out.  Sometimes countries weren't good ideas to begin with.  This breezy little book  explores some of these wrong turns of history.  It's divided into four main sections, corresponding to the four main ways these countries were founded: Chancers & Crackpots / Mistakes & Micronations / Lies & Lost Kingdoms / Puppets & Political Footballs.  You have to admit, the names of these sections pretty well sum up the reasoning and mechanisms by which most nations, extinct or existent, were founded.

Here are a few illustrative examples from the book:

• The Ottawa Civic Hospital Maternity Ward, created so that a Dutch princess could have a baby in Canada during WWII without causing a constitutional crisis (on the off chance that the Allies would win the war and The Netherlands be restored)
• Libertalia, a pirate haven on the northern tip of Madagascar, which was not in reality nearly as cool as that sounds
• Dahomey, which had a real existence, somewhat fictionalized in a recent film
• German Democratic Republic, and good riddance to both it and the Cold War

Of course my personal favorites are The State of Muskogee and The Republic of West Florida, living as I do sandwiched in the wilds separating the two.  There are plenty more countries, each accompanied by a map; some extremely brief header material giving the population, language, cause of death, disposition today, and some curious locator keywords; and finally a one to three page history.

As with this week's earlier mentioned The Conspiracy Book, the Atlas of Extinct Countries is comprised of short chapters detailing each each of its subjects in more or less sequential order.  This makes for good bedtime or "five minutes to kill" reading material.  Also, most new nations begin as little more than a conspiracy, so there's that commonality as well.

All in all, this book is fun reading to peck at in odd moments over a couple of months.  As the intro chapter concludes, ALL HAIL NEUTRAL MORESNET.

Home Sweet Home

Book Mention: I Am Legend

You've likely already seen one or more adaptations of Richard Matheson's 1954 novel: The Last Man on Earth (Vincent Price, 1964), The Omega Man (Charlton Heston, 1971), or I Am Legend (Will Smith, 2007).  This short novel however is still very much worth the read, if only for its influence on the zombie and post-apocalyptic genres.

Set in the late 1970s following a short WWIII that the U.S. "won" (for an exceedingly poor value of "won"), Robert Neville is a sort of everyman protagonist stuck in an impossible situation: he – and he alone – is somewhat mysteriously immune to the zombie-vampire bacterium that has brought down civilization.  (A zombie-vampire?  Yes, this symbiotic bacterial infection causes its victims to have some of the features of each: mindless shambling combined with a vicious thirst for blood, fear of sunlight, etc.)  Where did this new hell come from?  It's not clear, but it was probably a last-ditch bioweapon used by one side or the other that got loose in the aftermath.  Anyway, Neville has lost his wife and daughter, and everyone else too.  Each night he has to barricade himself in his home while the monsters cavort and rage through the streets and attack his house.  Each day he goes through the motions to salvage whatever he needs to stay alive.  However, without any hope, how can he keep his mind and sanity alive?  Then hope arrives in a most unexpected form.  But is it the hope he wanted?

OK, no more or we'd be getting into spoilers.  If you read it, you'll just have to power through the first third of the book.  (It took me two tries, but I'm glad that I did.)  It's grim and gray and seems kind of pointless, but it's all about setting the mood for what comes later.  If the twist and the ending seem like something out of a Twilight Zone plot, just know that Matheson went on to write 16 episodes of that TV series.

Recommended, but only if this sounds like your cup of coffee.

Book Mention: The Conspiracy Book

Subtitled A Chronological Journey Through Secret Societies and Hidden Histories.  Sure, you've heard of lots of these: the Pythagorean Brotherhood, the Hell-Fire Club, Skull and Bones, the Thule Society, etc.  You can go down all kinds of ratholes sorting out what is what.  Or... you can let John Michael Greer do the in-depth reading and then enjoy his mercifully brief one-page summaries.  Probably all you need or want to know about most of this stuff.  One page each, with a very nicely illustrated opposing page on each topic.  Also, the binding and design have a deluxe feel, so skip the e-book and get this one in hardback.

While each topic is presented on its own here, there is substantial cross-referencing to show how some of these conspiracies fed into others.  It all makes for an easy episodic read, but there's enough linkage to encourage further research if you are so inclined.

Finally and worth mentioning, there's been a rift between the author and publisher detailed here.  If you are having trouble finding at your local book store, there's a link to the author's Bookshop web site at the link.

Deep Fried Coffee: Why?

Video here.  It's an alternative way of roasting beans, as opposed to dumping your cup of Folgers into the frydaddy.  That would likely be...  explosive, as in turducken gone tragically wrong; not a recommended as a best practice.  Anyway, deep fried coffee sounds kind of interesting, in a completely mad scientist sort of way.

TLDW version:  Coffee, barely.  Espresso, no-just-no.

I will never get those 13 minutes back, but now you don't have to bother.

The Time Change Blues

Not a particular problem around here (solution in a moment), but this kicked over the gigglebox anyway:

And the promised solution:

Auto-sets via WWV's time signal.  You do have to enter your time zone, ONCE.  After that, change batts every couple of years (no leaky AA batts, please), and then forget about it.  Keeps up with both local and Zulu time, on the off chance you need to phone any of your Zulu friends.  All for the low, low price of $79 one can be yours.  Yeah yeah, you could set the stove clock from your cell phone too, but would it be as cool nerd-riffic?

A Weekend at the Seafood Festival

Look, I didn't take many pics, and the ones I did were no where nearly as good as these at The Times.  Here are the links:

• Friday's Festivities
• THE Parade (there is no other, puts Macy's and Thoth both to shame)
• Oysters & Crabs: Racing, Shucking, Eating (do not get out of order)

I'll leave the click-throughs to y'all.  On a more personal note, pretty much all I did was eat fried mullet & roe, and talk & catch up with friends, and ate too much yet again.  Took it easy on Sunday and played radio with the new Yaesu FT-891.  (Preliminary impressions: Overall favorable, a more modern replacement for the FT-857d, with all the crazy menus we've come to expect from Yaesu.  Expect more on this in a couple of months.)

Meanwhile, out in the astroid belt...

Wasn't me.  Not this time, anyway.

Hat tip to one of the nephews on this.

Miss Ol' St. Louie

It's a nice musical interlude by J.J. Cale on this partly cloudy Halloween day.

A real pro makes it look easy.

High Bluff Monday

Yet again hiked the High Bluff Trail two days ago.  It was a little hot, things are a little bushy, and overall it was a really nice day.  Not a lot to add beyond some of my past posts on the subject.  Here's the one worthwhile pic I took, an inchworm on a black-eyed Susan:

Halloween Stuff Over at Atlas Obscura

Link to the page-of-article-links here.  My favorite?  The one about the rougarou of Louisiana.

Once saw one of these while out biking the Mississippi side of the Pearl River, which makes the border with southeast Louisiana.  He was shouting something at me across the water.  What was it?  I dunno, I don't speak French.

Then I woke up.

Ham Radio Heats Up on the Forgotten Coast

Perhaps the only silver lining to the very dark cloud that was Hurricane Ian is that a bunch of people around here – "here" being where Ian didn't hit, but was in the crosshairs for a couple of days – have dusted off their Amateur Radio licenses, gotten on the air, and are starting up a local club and a couple of nets.  Here are the particulars to date:

• Some activity on the 2m FM calling frequency, 146.52 MHz, which is kind of nice.
• a Tuesday net at 7pm Eastern on 146.450 MHz FM, and
• a Thursday net at 7pm Eastern on 28.450 MHz USB,  nb: both are accessible with the lowest level license
• Perhaps most promisingly, a club seems to be forming up.  The initial organizational coffee meeting will be at Carrabelle Junction, 88 Tallahassee St., Carrabelle at 10am Eastern.  Got a license?  Interested in ham radio at all?  Come on in.

So yeah, the wheels are turning.  Finally, one more bit of good news:

On that note, oh look, it's time to go ride.

post-meeting note:  Overall, pretty good results.  A rep from the Franklin County Emergency Operations Center showed, and it looks like we may be able to help out getting some of their non-functional gear up and running.  After that, we'll just try to build on the early successes.

Fall Butterflies

Just walking down the street downtown today, bunches of butterflies in an empty lot full of flowers.

VHF, UHF, and All That

Here's an excellent post over at the K0NR web site spelling it all out.  Also, here's a good graphic summary:

Nice use of a log scale on the x-axis.  Makes things more intuitive.

To help non-technical folk orient, the AM broadcast band is just off the left side, the FM broadcast band ("3 meters," although no-one ever calls it that) is smack in the middle tucked between the 6m & 2m bands, and bubble-pack FRS walkie-talkies slide into the gap between 70cm & 33cm. 

Glad to be in Mid-October

Whew.

ps: So much for that good news.  Here's the latest:

Happy CB Day, to All!

"Huh?"  Look at the date, Bandit.

But it's fall in Florida!

From over the transom at SMBC, here's one for this first week of October:

As usual, go to the original for a couple more gags; one in the mouse-over, one at the big red button.

Fall's Here

Hurricane season is a long way from over (especially farther down south), but this evening was a pleasant, dry mid-70's with cool, clear air blowing in from the north.  Fall's here.

New Book Mention: The Flesh of Your Future Sticks Between My Teeth

There's a relatively new genre out there called cli-fi, a mash up of "climate" and "science fiction."  Pfft, I've even written about a couple of novels from this shelf, namely Star's Reach (by John Michael Greer, not so coincidentally the editor of this anthology) and more recently Termination Shock.  It's up-and-coming, enough that there are several periodicals devoted to it.  Naturally some of these veer into the hypocritically endarkened ends of the world, and as such have set themselves up for mockery.  Which brings us to a short satirical collection, The Flesh of Your Future Sticks Between My Teeth: Stories from the Gristle Cli-Fi Parody Contest.  You can read up on the inspiration and history of this weird amalgamation here (be sure to follow the several links back to the origin story), but let's just dive right in on the stories themselves.  First and foremost to keep in mind is that these stories are not intended to be good, they are intended to satirize the gunk that is already being published.  On to the dirty dozen!

• Tell It to the King of Sweden, Honey: An American golddigger takes on a Greta Thunberg stand-in.
• A Modest Contribution: unwittingly made by the sort of people who'd resort to suspended animation to avoid onrushing hard times.
• Kathy vs. the Barbarian Horde: After their high-tech defense system crashes, Berkley deals with the local desert warlords in a farcical manner that's a pretty fair reflection of analogous past events.
• Human-Derived Product: Amusingly dry.  Don't read this one after a heavy meal.
• A Chi Town Doctor:  In which a quasi-doctor navigates Mad Max-esque gang-run Chicago.  The closest this collection has to a straight-up story, it's only just enough over the top that you can tell it's a parody.
• How the Conspiracy Theory Generator Saved the World:  AI-enhanced dogs do their very best to save their beloved humans.  Because that's what dogs would do.
• Atlanta Is Broken:  A Quest to restore the last remaining data center to functioning order, if only the repair crew can ignore all those damn Confederate flags.
• The Penitent Lands:  Sensitivity training language and attitudes run amok in a near-future Paris.
• The Recalcitrant Savior:  A novel yet gut-wrenching solution to our energy problems.  100-proof satire!
• Scions of the High Road:  Like a bad road trip with a gang of glam rock opera characters.
• The Merchant of Progress:  Another "the sleeper awakes" type story.
• Power to the People:  Never forget the law of conservation of energy, because it'll come back to get ya.

Some of these are intentionally bad, some are more obliquely satirical, all worth the read.  It's a mad, mad mixed-up greasl-fueled ride.  Only take it if you want it.  Get yours here.

Because Dull Chainsaws Attract Hurricanes

Shoulda sharpened this thing months ago.  But today seems like an auspicious time.

Coffeeneuring Returns for '22!

As usual, details here.  Sure, I'm in.  Just let me get past this week's hurricane first.

Reed-Solomon Codes Well Explained

Article at Quanta, but here's the TLDR infographic that gets to the nitty-gritty:

Why do all this?  Chiefly transmission error detection & correction without having to send overly-redundant data.  Additionally, as a component in encryption seems to be an equally useful byproduct.

I'd always wondered about these things, they being not generally in my particular thicket of the physics-and-math woods.  Explanations usually took the form of "you know, REED-SOLOMON CODES, everyone knows about them, sheesh" or "here's a semester's worth of linear algebra to ponder, after which the point will become transparent."  It's good to have a comprehensible short version.

Neal Stephenson's Latest: Termination Shock

Lots of interesting ideas here, chief of which is solar geoengineering to combat ever-increasing temperatures, being pushed by a part visionary, part bullshit artist billionaire Texan.  The title refers to the downside of abruptly ending such a project, which, of course, someone has to try doing before the end of this novel.

The Good: Big Ideas – they've got to be big if they're going to cool the planet.  Interesting characters, all well-developed by the author; we know what motivates just about every one of them.  A decent sense of history.  A handful of new technologies extrapolated to interesting extremes.  Yet the core geoengineering technology could have been deployed (had we chosen) decades ago, so that's solid tech.

The Bad: This novel really needs an edit to boil down its bloated 700 pages to a more compact 300 or so.  Still, it was a compulsive page-turner, so even in its current form it wasn't that much of a chore to read.  One of the key technologies, earthsuits (a sort of personal air conditioner overgarment), were so sporadically deployed that they seemed more like window dressing than a key fact of then-current life.  Finally "performative war" is just a ridiculous concept and its chief practitioner, a drone-enhanced semi-cyborg with a fighting staff, is even more so.  There's plenty more to bag on here, but you get the point.

So... I don't know.  I'm glad that I finally made it through a Stephenson novel.  I swear, I tried and tried on both The Diamond Age and Snow Crash, just couldn't chew my way through either of those, not even with the aid of a crack team of Formosan termites.  And to be fair, Termination Shock was an OK read, if not taken too seriously.  But with a big idea like blocking climate change via technology and triggering a series of disasters and small wars, it's not exactly a comedic setup, so "if not taken too seriously" doesn't really work here.  Meh, time to move on.  2.5/5 Stars.

Movie Review: The Northman

TLDR: Hamlet, with Vikings and an otherworldly edge.  Bloody as all hell.  Not for the faint of heart.  If you think you can stomach it – and they consciously toned down some of the Viking Fun & Games – see it.  4.5/5 stars.  Trailer Link

Why not 5/5 stars?  At times it was difficult to tell one viking from the other because everyone was so covered with filth and blood.  Occasionally this muddied the story line, but hey, that's what a re-watch is for.  See the movie, watch the special features, then re-watch with the commentary track.  There's a lot to unpack here.

Wrap it up, I'll take it.

Morrison Springs

Back in mid-late August, several of us trekked up to Morrison Springs, near DeFuniak Springs.   Here is a link at The Florida Guidebook site, and here is the obligatory picture:

Note: Swamp trees but crystal clear water.  Not a common combo.

Afterward we drove up to DeFuniak Springs for lunch, and did a little touring around afterward.  Growing up less than three hours away, I had no idea that the second permanent Chautauqua site – a sort of 19th Century TED talk circuit – was situated there.

All in all a top-notch day.  With Ponce de Leon Spring nearby and still unexplored, another trip up there is in the wings for next summer.  One of the best parts of the whole thing is remembering to bring a mask and snorkel!  It totally changes the entire experience from a mere swimming hole to being down in the cold, cold water.

In a total side-note, we also made the yearly pilgrimage to Wakulla Springs this past week.  As always it was very nice, and the water was considerably clearer than during last year's visit.  Saw a couple of manatees, and one large bowfin – about a 30 inches.  Weird fish, they sport gills, swim bladders, and lungs.

Weird Wednesday

This Depression-Era Science Trick Transforms Water Into Pie at Atlas Obscura.  I swear, I always thought that "water pie" was a joke, just like "jam sandwich."

The Apalachicola Public Library is carrying John Ringo's Black Tide Rising series (search here, type in 'ringo').  Main series reviewed at this blog here, follow-ups reviewed here.  Good to see something fun and compulsively page-turnable and so damn plain weird on the shelves.  It's not old Mrs. Dodd (bless her heart) running the library these days!

The "Still Up" Light Reassuringly Blinks Green

Still here.  Just been busy with late-summer adventures.  On tap: N FL spring swimming hole adventures and a discussion of Neil Stevenson's latest sci-fi novel.  Be patient, I'm waiting for a rainy day when I'm stuck inside.

SLS Explainer

Just in time for tomorrow's planned launch, here're the basics, over at youtube:

Bonus video: Full-up booster core test at Stennis in March 2021.  Skip to the 56 minute mark to get to the actual eight minute (!!!) full duration test.

As usual, click to embiggen.  Big rockets are better that way.

JWST, WASP-39b, and CO2

Article at the Bad Astronomy blog.  Go read, not a lot I can add (beyond my jaw dropping in amazement once again).  Be sure to watch the embedded twitter video half-way down, there's a lot of key information there.  With error bars!

Obligatory swiped image.  Be sure to go to linked article for full discussion.

Pretty Much How It Is

xkcd 2662.  You should go there now to read the mouse-over text.

Pics from weekend adventures coming soon, but I'm too lazy to post just now.  Stay tuned.

My Week So Far

False start, crunchy sounds, up-front bass, amazing result: Alex Chilton (Alt Version)  

Hell no I didn't get up this early to post; I dropped it in the hopper Sunday for 5am on Monday.

Just Say "No" to Tape Measure Antennas

Article at Hackaday, with link to a deeper analysis.  TLDR: Springy steel tape measures and the like make miserable antennas, because physics.

Also worth watching (if you're into antennas), Keven Loughin does a two-part test and destructive tear-down on a commercially available steel tape antenna at his vlog.  TLDW: About the same performance as the rubber duck antenna that comes with most handheld radios.

So, what does work?  If you want something professionally made, there are any number of aftermarket whips that give somewhere from 3 to 6 dB gain.  For next to nothing and five minutes at the bench, a tiger tail will give you perhaps 3 dB gain.  If you have handy trees around, a roll-up slim jim works well, in either a DIY or ready-made version.  If you want full-on performance, the DIY cool(?)-factor, and don't mind its eight foot size, the Jurassic Duck Mk. II does really well.

But tape measures?  No, just no.

Science WITH the Gobbledygook

A fifteen minute video over at Sabine Hossenfelder's blog, turning the usual "without" to "with."  I'm just putting up a link; any more would be redundant.  Both funny and worrisome, it's very much worth your time.

A Quiet Week

With the relative quiet, I've actually had time to read through a couple of papers, re-consider a research path, read a few hundred more pages into a somewhat depressing book on global economics, ride the gravel bike, and enjoy a little late-night rum.  However, here's the quiet I'm most pleased about:

Considering how things are going these days...

... this seems about right for the times.  Ramones live in '78.  Probably works better if you embiggen it

Whisky Tango Foxtrot, Part 2

The Georgia Guidestones are explained – inasmuch as such things are explicable at all – in a recent blog post by Greer, The Great Rehash, Part Two: The Future's Cold Eyes.

I'd been wondering about this whole thing.  I was vaguely aware of this... site? for some time now, but it was pretty far down on my list of subjects for contemplation or car trips.  Greer's article puts its construction and subsequent destruction in the larger context of our times, and makes the whole thing much less mysterious.

Rest in Pieces.  Kind of wish I'd made that road trip now.  Nah.

BTW, the "Part Two" in the title begs the question, where is Part One?  Here you go, The Great Rehash, Part One: The Best and The Brightest.  Greer does the work for us and reads Klaus Schwab's Covid-19: The Great Reset, then explains why it's a bunch of recycled 1970s-era eco-doom drivel (hence the connection with the Guidestones) and not worth your valuable reading hours.  I had downloaded it in pdf a while back, but somehow never quite found the time....  Anyway, there it is in a 15 minute nutshell.

As with yesterdays WTF?, this gets the tag inner coyote, but there's actually some there there so it gets a big ideas as well.

Whisky Tango Foxtrot, Part 1

While I was aware of this project from over at Jim Kunstler's Eyesore of the Month, I hadn't seen the full on pre-marketing web brochure until today.  Here, browse at it for a few minutes and wonder at the fresh batch of WTF involved in trying to sell people on "zero-gravity living" "in a natural setting" in the middle of a damn desert.

Yes, yes, dream big.  Please.  But just not after taking a load of hallucinogens.

As far as tags, only inner coyote seems to cover the whatcouldpossiblygowrong avenues this could take.  It surely doesn't qualify for a scifi tag, as that needs to be at least somewhat constrained to physical reality. 

Antennas to Test, however...

I can't wait for October and the cool, bug-free breezes of fall.