Christmas Comet!

I mean, what's Christmas without a spectacular comet?  From a 2021 APOD post:

Merry Christmas, all!

The Shiny Gold-Plated Dozen

12 Major Discoveries by the Web Space Telescope in 2023, at Space dot Com

If this stuff doesn't make you sit up in wonder, check your wrist for a pulse.

Just getting the sunshield to open up correctly on this thing still makes my jaw drop in amazement.

Raise One for Joe Strummer!

... for he died 21 years ago today, so Death is now drinking-legal age.  Medium-longish article at LouderSound, mostly a post-Clash biography.  Go & read over this long Christmas weekend.  In the meantime, have a listen:

All I've got for the day.

Sun Cycle 25 Update & Media Hype Over Recent Flare

In response to a question last weekend from The Darling Daughter about "one of the largest solar flares ever recorded" (to which my reply was, "huh, barely noticed"), here's a recent post discussing the matter over at Silicon Graybeard.   TLDR: Yes, it was a big flare for the last decade, but not even close to record-setting over the last half-century, so don't believe the hype.  Anyway, go read the article, there's a lot of informative interpretation and discussion of what's up and what to expect in the next few years.  Here's a gratuitous graphic swiped from the above-linked post, which in turn was copy-pasted from NOAA's site.

Things are already pretty good, and the next couple of years are going to be even more radio-fun.

I used to dabble in radio condition fore/now-casting, but these days I just look at the band summaries here.  Much less trouble, and generally more accurate than what I was coming up with.

You'd Better Watch Out

Trying to have grown-up talk at those holiday parties, I mean.  Especially when the holiday cheer is flowing.  Article at NPR about how to avoid family fights at the Christmas table, well worth your 5 minutes' read.

Top Five Posts for 2023

I keep wanting to type "2024" already.  Usually I have the opposite problem after the first of each year.  Anyway, spurred on by K0NR's Top Five Posts for 2023 published yesterday, and figuring that the 12-month stats aren't going to change much in this last 1/24th of the year, here we go:

1. Yaesu FT-70DR Quick Start Programming (2020).  It's a simple list of steps.  Print a few out, put one in your station manual, one in your backpack.  You are going backpacking with your '70, right?  ps: You can program it with chirp too, but it's kinda weird.
2. Programming a Yaesu FT-60 Radio using Chirp (2017).  An oldy moldy goldy.
3. Yaesu FTM-7250D Quick Start Programming (2019).  An excellent if no longer produced radio.  I picked up one for the vehicles on the used market this year, and only paid 25% over what I'd paid for the first one new.  Yaesu, take note.  People love these things.
4. Shortwave Antenna: Vertical or Horizontal? (2020).  Practical advice on how to use a relatively short random wire receive antenna for... practically everybody.
5. Osprey Synchro 5 Hydration Pack review (2019).  No longer made either, sadly.  Despite its many quirks, that suspended mesh back was a real innovation.  A quick look over at the Osprey packs site shows that they've gone to the same mesh-over-foam-grid as many of their daypacks, which is still pretty darned good and probably enough for anything short of summer dirt biking in the Deep South.  Anyway, I'm glad that this list wasn't all radio stuff and that the one item was bike-related.

There'll still be best-of end-of-year month-by-month wrap-up (with extra-hyphens) toward the end of the month.  These are just the posts getting all the hits in 2023.  Back to K0NR's list, the the first item is Choose Your 2m Frequency Wisely.  I very much agree.  In 2024 we should all beware of choosing... poorly.

50 Years Ago Today

We left the Moon for the last time, at least in the 20th Century.  A day to mark.