Gravitational Wave Announcement Thursday

Go read about it over at phys.org.  Don't look at me to explain, I have no background in these things.  I do hope that it's a positive, unambiguous result though.

Fine Tuning Your Coffee

As seen in this article sent by the Darling Daughter.  All pretty basic stuff, and it all adds up.  Get it wrong and the results are unpleasant, but fortunately it's difficult to get it wrong.

"Laboratory grade"?  Nah, this is way better.  At my lab, lab grade coffee means two hour old Folgers brewed from a plastic can that's been open for a week.  Any port in a storm.

Times for Some Blues

Not "time to play some blues," it's "times the blues comes on shortwave."  Mostly as a note to self, here are the current showtimes for Last Radio Playing, pulled from the pdf listing at WWCR's web site.  All times are U.S. Central.  Schedules change, days get longer, frequencies get higher.  Unfortunately the Tuesday evening show is gone.

• 1:00 am Saturday, 4.840 MHz
• 1:00 am Saturday, 3.215  (yes, same time slot, different transmitter)
• 2:00 pm Saturday, 12.160
• 6:00 pm Friday, 5.890
• 7:00 pm Friday, 4.840 (just on the first Friday each month)

Makes it easier to find "that ol' devil music" scattered amongst all the preaching.

Here's an Interesting Ham Blog

Right here: M0JCQ's Ham Blog.  Based in the UK, the usual topics revolve around hiking with lightweight ham radio set-ups.  More specifically, reports from Summits on the Air activations (lots of those), reduced power operations, PSK-31 hints, all those sort of things that make trail-weight radio operations worthwhile.

While you can go to the main link above, these three in particular got my attention: Top 10 Reasons to Take Ham Radio Portable, PSK-31 Tips for Beginners, and a Yaesu 817ND vs. Elecraft KX3 comparison review.  The guy does a nice job of showcasing the active, practical, outdoors side of ham radio.

Hm, I really do like those little FT-817 radios, but on the whole I'm glad to have an FT-857D with 20x the output power.  I can always turn it down, but it's nice to have the option to turn it up on RF-noisy days.

Upcoming Gravel Grind

At Camp Shelby, just south of Hattiesburg. | Web (well, Facebook) Site | More Info |

Looks interesting.  Probably make this one.

This is a lot like doing grant proposals.

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I'll refrain from further comment.

Gravity Waves – Explained!

And in an understandable manner too, and why we should care at all.  Over at PhD Comics.