Wright's Lake Redux

 Made a leisurely hike of the Wright's Lake Trail again today with The Big Sis.  With someone else along it was easier to take more time exploring trail features such as the dome swamp in the last picture from the last hike's blog post (here).  But the best part?  The water in Coffee Creek was down about eight inches bringing the top of the bridge above water level.  Here's a much, much better pic than in that last post:

See?  I told you there was a bridge there somewhere.

Seven Off-Beat King Cakeoids

 Detailed over at Atlas Obsucura.  Happy Mardi Gras, all!

Getting to Sleep

This is something I've always struggled with, how to quiet my mind and get to sleep in a timely fashion.  Reading is good, but at some point I have to turn off the light.  Usually that's enough to wake me back up and get back to the tossing and turning.  Also, I often will drop the book, lose my place, and so forth.  It's messy.

Last week over at View from the Porch / aka booksbikesboomsticks, Tam posted a link to the NYT Mag about how a remarkably high percentage of people use the BBC's Shipping Forecast get to sleep in Britain.  I suppose it works if you're within radio range.  On this side of the pond however, Coast to Coast AM is my go-to sleep remedy.  Nothing like a good ghost story to sooth the senses.  It helps to have a radio with a one hour shut-off timer, because you don't want to have the show's second segment segue into a discussion of, say, exorcism while you brain is forming its own dreamlands.

Railroad Defect Detectors

This is pretty cool, especially if you live near railroad tracks and have a little bit of radio-fu:

http://database.defectdetector.net/

It works just like the Google maps we're all familiar with by now, and shows the locations of RR defect detectors as clickable links that give their status and broadcast-to-train frequency.  Any old analog scanner or wide-band VHF walkie-talkie is enough to pick these up if you're close by.  Or you can get more range with a discone scanner antenna on maybe an outside mast if your situation warrants.

Anyway, a lot of people are worked up about a flaming tank car rolling unheeded through their towns for tens of miles a few weeks ago – and rightly so! – but what could they do about it?  Well, here you go, now you can at least know when a fiery disaster is coming to a ditch near you.

I don't live near any tracks these days, but here's a screen capture of my old area, showing two relatively nearby defect detectors:

The Internet: It's good for something more than memes and cute cat pictures.

Last Call for the FT-818nd

After producing these for over 22 years, Yaesu has discontinued their classic field radio's final version, the FT-818nd.  However, they're not quite gone, and there seems to be one final batch out the door and just now coming onto the market.  Article over at QRPer about where to get one.

My thoughts on the matter... this series of radio needs to be continued, but also needs a complete refresh  (lighter, improved UI, built-in speech compressor, etc).  It seems that none of this will happen now, as Yaesu doesn't seem to have any replacement in the pipeline.

Here are my thoughts from five years ago about this little jewel.  I'm almost tempted to pick one up as a backup, but no, let someone else enjoy it.  If I buy another radio, I need to move on to other, newer radios anyway.

Was that a Ham Balloon?

 Over at his blog, The Silicon Graybeard asks Did the USAF Shoot Down a Ham Radio Balloon?

It's at least plausible.  No, not my corner of the hobby though, so beyond the above link I have nothing more to add.

Meteor!

Last night, about 3am UTC / 10pm EST a meteor estimated to be about 1m diameter, harmlessly fell over the English Channel.  What was interesting is that it was detected before impact.  Here's a video:

Cool!  No wait.  Hot.

ps: Article at the BBC.  More video and pics.