Meanwhile, Down Home at the Apalachicola Airport...

 The Forgotten Coast Freedom Festival Air Show was held today.  Pretty fun!  Here's the schedule:

And here's one of the highlights, a fly-over by two F-35's out of Tyndall AFB:

Lots, lots more going on there.  Two of the major performances involved T-6 Texan trainers.  The main air show part ran from just before 1pm to 3pm, but there was plenty to do from gate opening at 10am to close at 4pm.  Short and sweet.  Also... the weather was perfect!  So, yeah, again next year.

And Then There Were Two

Two successful commercial space launch companies with reusable first stages, that is.  Blue Origin gets one off of and back onto the ground in one piece: Video at the BBC  It's short, under two minutes.  Go and watch the whole thing.

Congrats to Blue Origin!  This is very good news.  SpaceX was the first, but with them there was only one company with this capability.  One is a special number because it shows that a thing can be done.  However, it's also only one corporate failure away from none.  With two, we have some redundancy.  I'm reasonably sure that companies three and four are about to spring into the spotlight.  Exciting times!

Quick Hike

With the cool snap today, on the way back from Carrabelle I took a (very) short hike on the High Bluff Trail.  Mostly it was to confirm that the picnic table near the east trailhead is still there and useable.  It is, so it looks like we're good to go for more hiking-with-radio adventures in this cooler weather.

Hits the Carrabelle repeater very easily, especially with the upgraded antenna.

The Oystering Rules Announced

 Article in The Times.  I'll need a little time to re-re-read this.  That is all.

"Toward the Unknown" – Surprisingly Good!

I'd heard good things about the 1956 film Toward the Unknown, but face it, I had fairly low expectations.  However, it turns out that it's pretty good in a Top Gun–meets–The Right Stuff way.  Made with the full cooperation and assistance of the USAF, the flight scenes are well done, the few special effects (mostly a practical mock-up of the X-2 rocket plane) hold up to modern viewing, and the tacked-on melodrama isn't too melodramatic.  At least, no worse than either of the Top Gun movies.  And while the historical details of the X-2 program are somewhat different than what is portrayed in this film, in several scenes it's close enough to echo some of the actual tragedies of the real program.

So, what's it about?  Here's the one-line summary from IMDB: A shaken Korean War veteran tests the X-2 rocket plane.  OK, that's the plot summary you get – no spoilers.  Let's move on to my summary:  Did you like Top Gun and The Right Stuff?  Then you'll like this one too.

Next Round: Space via X-15.

Just An Earbud

 On one hand, it's just an earbud.  On the other... "Wait, don't you mean earbudS?"  No, and that's what makes this one special.  It blends both stereo channels – if present; if mono output, well, it's still mono – and pipes it through one earbud, leaving your other ear free.  That's perfect for listening to podcasts or when out radio operating in the great outdoors where there are lions and tigers and bears and etc.  It's optimized for clear speech, not music, so be forewarned that this is its focus.  Results with music are... eh, don't even bother.  You probably have a good pair of music-focused buds laying around anyway.

Well, over at the SWLing Post blog, this simple thing has caused quite a favorable fuss, enough to warrant three articles and a raffle over the past six years:

• Review of the C.Crane CC Buds Solo (2019)
• Checking out CCrane's Solo Earbud (2023)
• CC Buds Solo: Two years into the mission... (2025)

This is one of those good little things that's easily overlooked.  Here's a link to the CCrane page.

See that big notch cutting out most high frequencies?  That's voice optimization.

Ground Wave Madness

 In recent months a question has arisen in local ham radio circles, most definitely including FCEM:

What if we have a real lulu of a storm that breaks the Carrabelle repeater antenna off the tower?

Now, on one hand, we see a significant impact about once a decade, and only a quarter of those have winds that exceed the antenna's wind rating (112 mph).  Multiplying through, and we have a 1-in-40 chance of an antenna knock-out any given year.  On the other hand, if we have such a hurricane, then that is exactly when we'll really-really need that repeater.  Putting up a tougher antenna with a 135 mph wind rating would improve our odds by a factor of five (at the cost of about 2 dB gain, plus begging our tower guy to go up there one... more... time...); 1-in-200 are odds I can live with.  Even so, things happen.  We need a fall-back plan.  I smell a project coming on:

GWEN  |  A 160m Band 'Rubber Duckie' Antenna

Coincidentally(?) I'm finally reading Mary Shelly's Frankenstein.  Inspiration comes from the strangest places.  In other news, our run of good luck continues: