Math, explained.

Over at xkcd.  Just in case you missed it.

On Two Wheels

The BBC just published a photoessay with the theme of "on two wheels."  Pleasant enough, go flip through.

Me, I'm going biking in a few minutes, once lunch and coffee settle a little more.

Alkaline Battery Blues

Blog post over at The Silicon Graybeard.

TLDR: Don't trust name-brand high-performance alkaline batteries such as Duracell and Energizer.  In recent years, manufacturers have been optimizing for performance and leaving out crucial anti-leak features.  The result is corroded battery compartments left and right.

The fix?  Go over to rechargeable NiMH batteries wherever possible; I recommend Eneloops.  The modern low self-discharge versions hold up for at least a year, and I have yet to see one leak.  The downside is that they usually have a slightly lower output voltage.  In the few cases where it matters, use slightly down-market alkaline batteries from Kodak, Sunbeam, Fuji, Sony, etc.

I'm still cranky about that good Fluke multimeter I lost last summer to a set of leaking Duracells.  Later this weekend I'm going on a search-and-replace run through the household.

ps, months later:  Missed the Duracells in the thermostat, so $185 to have that replaced.  Seriously, rid your home of these cursed objects now.

Fanless Fans

I have been making the same "don't stick your hand through that!" joke about these things, as well as about AM loop antennas for years now, but SMBC Cartoon does it full justice.  Be sure to read the mouse-over text and and to hit the big red button at then end for extra jokes.

A Tale of Two Tuners

Recall last month's posts about getting a new antenna up and in praise of a basic but full-featured manual tuner?  I have a small addendum in that department.

In this above-described setup, I was initially using my transceiver's internal tuner on the higher (well, 40m and up) bands with the external tuner set to bypass mode, then switching the internal tuner off and using the external tuner for 80 & 60m.  I could tell though, things were struggling, especially on 30m.  Transmit on 30m somehow seemed to be dead.  The crossed-needle display on the external tuner was reading about two times the input power, which was somewhat strange (and should have immediately raised a red flag...), and I just wasn't making any contact there.

In search for some answers, I put the handheld SWR meter on the transceiver input to the antenna/external tuner system, and found that the resistance and reactance were both were very high on 30m.  On 20m and up, no problems, but this antenna is designed to function there anyway.  40m seemed OK, though kind of shaky.  Again 60 & 80m where whacky, but I was using the external tuner to strong-arm them into functioning on those bands, so nothing unexpected there.

With this clue in hand, I plopped back down on 30m, switched off the transceiver's internal tuner, tuned up manually, and bam, had two contacts within a half hour on 30.  40m seems better-behaved as well.  My guess is that, by forcing this little antenna that could to tune bands that, by all rights and antenna theory, it should never work on and using the transceiver's internal tuner in series with a bypassed tuner (lots of bare wires inside of that), it was puking RF back into the external tuner which promptly shunted the power out through ground.  I mean, when you try to put shove wavelengths in the 30 to 80 meter range out through an antenna that's only 6.4 meters long, stuff like this is just going to happen.  Good thing I built in a decent grounding system (rtfm) and a feedline choke  from the start, otherwise all kinds of bad things could've popped out.

The 5k Blues

Did the Seaside 5k over the weekend.  Not much to write about it: bog slow, a little sore afterward (took a dip in the 60F Gulf and popped an ibuprofen, fixed that right up), had a good time overall hanging out with family.  I'm really not a runner, being firmly on the bike side of the fence, but it is sometimes good to get out there and do it anyway.

Parking next door to the Truman House before the race did lend an air of surreality to the proceedings.  Didn't even notice the setting moon when I snapped the picture, that's an added bonus.

Not Dead Yet

Despite the best efforts of Alphabet/Blogger to botch up their writing interface  – remember the frustrations of summer 2020? – I'll keep going at this, with more content up shortly.  Still, here's an interesting article on how blogs die: 

Bones of the Blogosphere: What's the right way for a blog – or a newsletter – to die? 

Key quote from the last paragraph:

... these spunky publications are cultural resources. Many of them contain immense amounts of information and research that would be more or less impossible to gather again.

I'm certainly seeing this phenomenon here.  As mentioned at the end of 2021, this blog has become something of a watering hole for a handful of simple radio-related questions that deserve simple answers, that somehow couldn't be found elsewhere.  Pfft, I even find myself referring back to it, and every time that I do so I think "I really ought to print that out and stick it in a notebook somewhere."

OK, my commitment to readers: If I quit: (a) I'll say so in a post within a month of quitting, (b) the content will be left in place, if for nothing more than to answer the above-mentioned questions, and (c) there is no Item c.  I do have to admit though, my original reason for starting this blog (a central spot for family and friends to check, so that I didn't have to email out links) has somewhat faded.  Still, blogging has its uses and it remains fun.  I'm here, for now; isn't that all any of us can say?

The Super Bowl Commercials, at a Glance

You can find a short compilation of them (probably all you want, maybe more) at NPR's roundup.

As usual, they're pretty clever.  All I got for today.

Gap Point Trail Re-Hike

Nothing out of the ordinary, just re-hiked the Gap Point Trail on St. George Island today.  (last year's account here)  Weather was spotless and with temps in the high 50's.  Saw lots of wildlife: red-tailed hawk, massive flights of ducks over the bay (probably redheads), a few harmless snakes, and the usual complement of songbirds.  Spotted an osprey nest.  Here, have a picture of East Slough:

Picture is a pano wrap, so imagine this stretched out over 180 degrees.

Not a lot else to say.  You have to go do it to really get it.