Fifthly rambuncion!
Fifthly rambuncion pearly man say on the day of the staying homeness.
Off to the west!
Cna I feel a persimmon gimmin to the teeth?
she asks
I find it to be cartoon on the chin to win the grin from within!
respons the lad.
repose and switch scene.
Grasped, said Lady makes way to boat, held tight as a lover by her lover in the boat, she stutters a recollection of breezes, and doesn't want to take five for an answer
This is about the west is it not?
Her lover is in fear, so he asks questions on his mind and heart
This is about us
a sigh and pushes off the bank down the land of glass and earth. up stream the paddling, too far left and it is over the edge, too far right and it nowhere.
Can you see the fishes here?
Eyes ask more about seeing than her lips.
Monday, January 30, 2012
Monday, January 23, 2012
Les Ouefs, Avec Des Collages
I eh, seem to have misaved the recipe. At one point in thyme, I had written it all out, and all I needed was the picture. Now all I have is the picture.
Here's the only details I can remember.
Omelette is an egg white only style, I used four. I didn't use butter, I used canola oil to lightly slick the pan.
It was tastey.
I don't remember what herbs/spices when inside besides cayenne (they were all green, btw) and sage. I did toast garlic in the pan before laying the eggs down. The garlic was in the shell of the omelette, not the middle.
Sorry I don't have more than that.
Wednesday, January 18, 2012
Walking the Dark Side
Don't tell anybody, but....
since the second week in November...
I've been operating QRO. Not always, but most of the time.
Seriously, the QRPrat has been QRO, 100 watts even.
Mostly on 40m.
So here's the full story: I had been saving some money for a KX3 when I realized that I will probably not be able to just up and save the dough to get one. All of a sudden, on QRP-L, there came listed for sale a Swan 100MX for the right price. I was still a little short, but no worries, the owner hadn't had any interest in the radio, so he would let me put a down payment on the radio to hold it, and pay the rest when I had it.
Awesome! I love this hobby!
In the middle of August, my new old radio came to me, I opened a somewhat damaged box to reveal a damaged radio. Thank you post office! Specifically, the rear part was dinged, in a manner that looked like radio death. I read the manual and hooked it up to the powersupply without turning it on. No smoke, smells, flashes, or explosions. So far, so good, I hooked the radio up to the antenna tuner, and the antenna tuner up to the 40m dipole I have deployed in the trees. Plugging in the Mic, I turned the knob to click it on, and Behold! There was noise. Sweet glorious noise. The receiver receives.
Peaking the Preselector for max racket on 40m, and making sure the tuner was also at max racket and in power measurement mode, I found a clear frequency, turned the radio to CW Vox (thats how you operate semi-breakin on a Swan 100MX), and made sure the mic gain was set all the way down. I wanted to gently break the news to my tuner that there was going to be some "real RF" coming down the pipe, and not "The Killer Watt" it was used to seeing. I pushed the mic key to produce a sidetone. Tone present, no power out! Just what I was hoping for. If I had power out right now, there would have been problems with the mic gain knob. Hey, this is a QRO rig, but it can be QRP when I want it to be. I began increasing mic gain, hoping to see the power needle move on my tuner...
No Dice.
No transmit.
No cookie, no joy in Mudville.
No DX chasing, no nuthin'...
NO POWER OUT
I was heart broken. I had saved so much, said no to a lot of things I wanted to get just so that I could save for this radio. When I saw the picture of what they looked like, I knew I wanted this rig. There's a guy on the west coast who keeps these things running, and according to him, I'd probably be looking at paying what I paid for the radio to get it fixed (side benefit being a complete alignment from a guy who's job was aligning these things when they were built!), so that option was out of the question for the moment.
Fortunately, the Swan 100MX is a real radio.
Let me 'splain what I mean.
Most people own appliances, not real radios. An appliance is something you use without knowing what's going on inside it. Appliances come with a lot of bells, whistles, capability and performance.
Real radios can have some of this, but most don't. Real radios are about the operator, and what the operator can do both with and too the radio. I'm not downing appliances here, my 2m and up gear is just about garaunteed to always be an appliance. It's hard to build that stuff well without a precision oriented set up. It's done all the time, but not by me. Appliances tend to be most useful when it's vitally important to transmit information, but when I'm wanting to play radio, I want a real radio.
Popping the top on the rig was a breeze, and I was confronted with a beautiful example of what happens when someone designs a piece of electronic equipment with the expectation that the user will be poking around a bit under the hood. That's another hallmark of a real radio, you can use the radio while poking around in it. Here's a picture of my radio:
Notice the simple layout of the radio, Everything does what you think, no menu settings about it.
Simplicity is beautiful, but meaningless if the radio doesn't transmit. I don't have a license so I can listen, I have one so I can talk back! Fortunately, the radio came with a full set of service schematics as well as the owner's manual. each section has its own board, and servicing the radio is as simple as popping open the hood, finding out where the board you want to work on is, and "fiddlin' until fixed".
Did I say that was simple? heh.
Once I understood the layout of the radio, it became simple, first clear and obvious problem was the large ding on the back of the radio, so I began looking for problems on boards that were somehow attached to the back side of the radio, and I needed to somehow restraighten the chassis a bit. I figured the main problem was that whatever board was attached to the rear chassis had cracked a circuit trace, or shorted a part. I was nervous though because the ding was next to a large heat sink, and large heat sinks usually mean "Final Amplifier Section." sure enough, when I got the covers off, I could see that the finals board was mashed conspicuously against the filtering section. Yikes! Not good. The final amp transistors in this radio are no longer in production, if something has gone wrong with them, I'm beat!
The first thing I decided to do was replace the antenna connector. It has the standard SO-239 on the back, and replacing it was not all that much of a challenge. Replacing it also didn't affect the powerout at all.
GRRRRRRRR.
It was time to take rear off the chassis, and get to the bottom of the finals board.
Getting it all apart was no small feat, I had wires to bend (and break, and then reattach), screws to keep track of (hehe, babyfood jars to the rescue!), and then a schematic to puzzle over.
Things looked a little hinky right where rf entered the finals board. There was a driver and buffer amplifier there that looked all twited up, I'm pretty sure those transistor legs shouldn't be like that....
I poked and prodded with an orange peeler I've modified for use on radios. It's nonconductive, and once upon a time I needed something that could turn shielded inductor slugs, so, I wound up with this thing!
After making sure everything was bent back into place as well as I could get it, and that nothing was shorting anything out that wasn't supposed to be, I applied power to the rig, with the rig wide open. No spoke, no smells, no worries!
Time to see if I can transmit, and......
IT WORKED!
weeeeee!
Having too much fun, I did a little dance!
Now I have a QRO radio in the mix. I wish I had a true power meter, that way I could tell when I am QRP and when I am QRO with the swan!
Time to have fun...
since the second week in November...
I've been operating QRO. Not always, but most of the time.
Seriously, the QRPrat has been QRO, 100 watts even.
Mostly on 40m.
So here's the full story: I had been saving some money for a KX3 when I realized that I will probably not be able to just up and save the dough to get one. All of a sudden, on QRP-L, there came listed for sale a Swan 100MX for the right price. I was still a little short, but no worries, the owner hadn't had any interest in the radio, so he would let me put a down payment on the radio to hold it, and pay the rest when I had it.
Awesome! I love this hobby!
In the middle of August, my new old radio came to me, I opened a somewhat damaged box to reveal a damaged radio. Thank you post office! Specifically, the rear part was dinged, in a manner that looked like radio death. I read the manual and hooked it up to the powersupply without turning it on. No smoke, smells, flashes, or explosions. So far, so good, I hooked the radio up to the antenna tuner, and the antenna tuner up to the 40m dipole I have deployed in the trees. Plugging in the Mic, I turned the knob to click it on, and Behold! There was noise. Sweet glorious noise. The receiver receives.
Peaking the Preselector for max racket on 40m, and making sure the tuner was also at max racket and in power measurement mode, I found a clear frequency, turned the radio to CW Vox (thats how you operate semi-breakin on a Swan 100MX), and made sure the mic gain was set all the way down. I wanted to gently break the news to my tuner that there was going to be some "real RF" coming down the pipe, and not "The Killer Watt" it was used to seeing. I pushed the mic key to produce a sidetone. Tone present, no power out! Just what I was hoping for. If I had power out right now, there would have been problems with the mic gain knob. Hey, this is a QRO rig, but it can be QRP when I want it to be. I began increasing mic gain, hoping to see the power needle move on my tuner...
No Dice.
No transmit.
No cookie, no joy in Mudville.
No DX chasing, no nuthin'...
NO POWER OUT
I was heart broken. I had saved so much, said no to a lot of things I wanted to get just so that I could save for this radio. When I saw the picture of what they looked like, I knew I wanted this rig. There's a guy on the west coast who keeps these things running, and according to him, I'd probably be looking at paying what I paid for the radio to get it fixed (side benefit being a complete alignment from a guy who's job was aligning these things when they were built!), so that option was out of the question for the moment.
Fortunately, the Swan 100MX is a real radio.
Let me 'splain what I mean.
Most people own appliances, not real radios. An appliance is something you use without knowing what's going on inside it. Appliances come with a lot of bells, whistles, capability and performance.
Real radios can have some of this, but most don't. Real radios are about the operator, and what the operator can do both with and too the radio. I'm not downing appliances here, my 2m and up gear is just about garaunteed to always be an appliance. It's hard to build that stuff well without a precision oriented set up. It's done all the time, but not by me. Appliances tend to be most useful when it's vitally important to transmit information, but when I'm wanting to play radio, I want a real radio.
Popping the top on the rig was a breeze, and I was confronted with a beautiful example of what happens when someone designs a piece of electronic equipment with the expectation that the user will be poking around a bit under the hood. That's another hallmark of a real radio, you can use the radio while poking around in it. Here's a picture of my radio:
 | |
| The Swan |
Simplicity is beautiful, but meaningless if the radio doesn't transmit. I don't have a license so I can listen, I have one so I can talk back! Fortunately, the radio came with a full set of service schematics as well as the owner's manual. each section has its own board, and servicing the radio is as simple as popping open the hood, finding out where the board you want to work on is, and "fiddlin' until fixed".
Did I say that was simple? heh.
Once I understood the layout of the radio, it became simple, first clear and obvious problem was the large ding on the back of the radio, so I began looking for problems on boards that were somehow attached to the back side of the radio, and I needed to somehow restraighten the chassis a bit. I figured the main problem was that whatever board was attached to the rear chassis had cracked a circuit trace, or shorted a part. I was nervous though because the ding was next to a large heat sink, and large heat sinks usually mean "Final Amplifier Section." sure enough, when I got the covers off, I could see that the finals board was mashed conspicuously against the filtering section. Yikes! Not good. The final amp transistors in this radio are no longer in production, if something has gone wrong with them, I'm beat!
The first thing I decided to do was replace the antenna connector. It has the standard SO-239 on the back, and replacing it was not all that much of a challenge. Replacing it also didn't affect the powerout at all.
GRRRRRRRR.
It was time to take rear off the chassis, and get to the bottom of the finals board.
Getting it all apart was no small feat, I had wires to bend (and break, and then reattach), screws to keep track of (hehe, babyfood jars to the rescue!), and then a schematic to puzzle over.
Things looked a little hinky right where rf entered the finals board. There was a driver and buffer amplifier there that looked all twited up, I'm pretty sure those transistor legs shouldn't be like that....
I poked and prodded with an orange peeler I've modified for use on radios. It's nonconductive, and once upon a time I needed something that could turn shielded inductor slugs, so, I wound up with this thing!
After making sure everything was bent back into place as well as I could get it, and that nothing was shorting anything out that wasn't supposed to be, I applied power to the rig, with the rig wide open. No spoke, no smells, no worries!
Time to see if I can transmit, and......
IT WORKED!
weeeeee!
Having too much fun, I did a little dance!
Now I have a QRO radio in the mix. I wish I had a true power meter, that way I could tell when I am QRP and when I am QRO with the swan!
Time to have fun...
Thursday, December 1, 2011
HTMF!
Picket, AD4S, and the other band of NoGANauts can often be heard at NoGA meetings and on the NoGA net saying "I'm HTMF!" Having Too Much Fun! :D
A lot happened in November, and I'm writing a longer article about it. until I finish it, here's a sample of what's happened:
1. I fixed a radio.
2. I completed a radio.
3. New Antenna up! (tonite it was a source of HTMF)
4. DX is HOPPIN' on 40m, sample of calls I've worked,
DK8IT
HA8RM
ES5GP
ZS3Y (on 20m AT NIGHT! w my "newest" antenna.)
Just a sample folks, just a tiny sample of what's been going on.
There will be pics!
A lot happened in November, and I'm writing a longer article about it. until I finish it, here's a sample of what's happened:
1. I fixed a radio.
2. I completed a radio.
3. New Antenna up! (tonite it was a source of HTMF)
4. DX is HOPPIN' on 40m, sample of calls I've worked,
DK8IT
HA8RM
ES5GP
ZS3Y (on 20m AT NIGHT! w my "newest" antenna.)
Just a sample folks, just a tiny sample of what's been going on.
There will be pics!
Saturday, November 5, 2011
To Your Health!
Recently several things have converged in my thinking on life, society, The Way Things Are, and the Way Things Should Be.
1. Through the efforts of my beautiful, loving, caring, sensitive, knowing, wise, and hott wife, I am discovering something I've known for a long time. The "food" I have been eating is killing me. This includes Doritos and ice cream.
2. I have been watching the economy lately, here and abroad. Several things are converging which lead me to believe that we live in interesting times. I think primarily, it's an issue of democracy. We live in an era of democritized media, democritized entertainment, and democritized government. People everywhere are showing a lack of discernment. If people lack discernment, they will give their power to one who will sieze by force whatever the selfish want. Caesar is not dead. He waits.
3. My kids are growing. I want them to be useful. I want them to know how to make things, to be unafraid in making them, and to know that what they do is for the good of a Kingdom, and not for just themselves.
4. I am meant to be stronger than I am.
I've talked before about inertia being my enemy. I've made bracelets to fight inertia, read books, expanded my mind, exercized logic, and now it is time to exercize my body.
I'm changing my regular diet.
I'm reading more of my Bible, and watching less entertainment, and more informational TV (If TV can properly convey information, whole nother subject for a whole nother time.
But most importantly I'm exercizing my body.
A little at a time.
A little more some days, a little less others.
It's slow.
Mainly, right now, I am working on a solution to the problem, not a solution to the symptoms.
Make sense?
Lassiez les bon temps roulez!
1. Through the efforts of my beautiful, loving, caring, sensitive, knowing, wise, and hott wife, I am discovering something I've known for a long time. The "food" I have been eating is killing me. This includes Doritos and ice cream.
2. I have been watching the economy lately, here and abroad. Several things are converging which lead me to believe that we live in interesting times. I think primarily, it's an issue of democracy. We live in an era of democritized media, democritized entertainment, and democritized government. People everywhere are showing a lack of discernment. If people lack discernment, they will give their power to one who will sieze by force whatever the selfish want. Caesar is not dead. He waits.
3. My kids are growing. I want them to be useful. I want them to know how to make things, to be unafraid in making them, and to know that what they do is for the good of a Kingdom, and not for just themselves.
4. I am meant to be stronger than I am.
I've talked before about inertia being my enemy. I've made bracelets to fight inertia, read books, expanded my mind, exercized logic, and now it is time to exercize my body.
I'm changing my regular diet.
I'm reading more of my Bible, and watching less entertainment, and more informational TV (If TV can properly convey information, whole nother subject for a whole nother time.
But most importantly I'm exercizing my body.
A little at a time.
A little more some days, a little less others.
It's slow.
Mainly, right now, I am working on a solution to the problem, not a solution to the symptoms.
Make sense?
Lassiez les bon temps roulez!
Thursday, September 22, 2011
A man, a plan, a canal, Panama!
I palindrome myself. I desire to be a palindrome at least, the same forwards and back.
I'm coming up on the end of the week, my youngest child's birthday is today, my parents and Grandmother are coming to town, and I am in the middle of taking a thorough inventory of my diet choices.
There's a lot of stress here.
Fortunately, I can see the synergy of all that I have going on right now. I view my children aging as a milestone to be celebrated both for them, and a gut check for me, I always ask myself "How is my child better prepared for handling the world, and their roll in it now versus a year ago?"
My parents will be here. I don't get to see them as much as I like. I'm glad they like looking at my kids :)
My Grandmother has had an interesting life. This will be the first time she's been to my place, and I'm glad to see her. I really wanted to be in Louisiana this year for the 4th of July family reunion my family hosts at Possum Hollow (pronounced, poss'm holla) every year. Next year, I will make it a point to be there.
My diet stinks. It is improving.
nuff said about that.
Back to the youngun'.
She's a great kid. All my kids are great in their own way. The Youngest is great because of the smile she wears. It's almost always there. She's a real people lover too. I hope I can help develop that in her. I want to help her be someone who can reach out and heal. One day she'll do great things with her smile and winsomeness.
God Bless you Today Grace!
Be a Palindrome. The same forwards and back.
I'm coming up on the end of the week, my youngest child's birthday is today, my parents and Grandmother are coming to town, and I am in the middle of taking a thorough inventory of my diet choices.
There's a lot of stress here.
Fortunately, I can see the synergy of all that I have going on right now. I view my children aging as a milestone to be celebrated both for them, and a gut check for me, I always ask myself "How is my child better prepared for handling the world, and their roll in it now versus a year ago?"
My parents will be here. I don't get to see them as much as I like. I'm glad they like looking at my kids :)
My Grandmother has had an interesting life. This will be the first time she's been to my place, and I'm glad to see her. I really wanted to be in Louisiana this year for the 4th of July family reunion my family hosts at Possum Hollow (pronounced, poss'm holla) every year. Next year, I will make it a point to be there.
My diet stinks. It is improving.
nuff said about that.
Back to the youngun'.
She's a great kid. All my kids are great in their own way. The Youngest is great because of the smile she wears. It's almost always there. She's a real people lover too. I hope I can help develop that in her. I want to help her be someone who can reach out and heal. One day she'll do great things with her smile and winsomeness.
God Bless you Today Grace!
Be a Palindrome. The same forwards and back.
Tuesday, September 6, 2011
Modeling Antennas Using XNEC2C
So, being a linux guy, I get a little sad when people talk about how great EZ-NEC is. It's not ported to run in a *NIX environment, and there's been mixed results using wine or virtual box. I seriously do my best to not run non-native binaries on my computers, it's not natural, it just feels like a chimera. When W7EL releases a linux version, I'll try it out. As a result I've been playing around with XNEC2C.
I have no idea what I'm doing.
It's ok, though, I'm learning, and so far, the learning is fun. I picked up XNEC2C a few years ago, and thought I had it figured out. Turns out the only thing I was doing right was drawing the pictures :) I still have to figure out how to properly model feedlines, feedpoints, and ground. I also have to decide how particularly involved I want to get the modeling. I usually use trees for my antennna supports. Can the NEC2 Code handle trees? Can they be modeled? What about my neighbors metal roof? I'm pretty sure it's doing something strange with my radiation pattern.
I can see myself getting obsessed about modeling my QTH. How do I represent the patio, or the swingset?
It could easily get crazy, quick.
Of course I could just set everything up ideally...
"Oh what's that honey?"
"It's a model of a kite I want to fly at the beach."
"Sounds like fun!"
"Yeah, I think the kids would enjoy it"
In the meantime, I now have a reason to build a 9' tall Scott Sled!
That would sooooooo work!
Here are some pics of what I've learned so far
W3EDP, series of pics:
I tried to model the antenna like I would deploy it. Imagine the antenna going up, as high as the end of the 'counterpoise' and then out over a branch, and slanted back toward the ground. The section made from the 450 ohm ladder line could be supported by a collapsible fishing pole or something like that.
Click here to get the nec file, and check my data. Copy the text, and save the file as W3EDP.nec Then you should be able to use some antenna modelling program to view it.
Let me know how it works!
I have no idea what I'm doing.
It's ok, though, I'm learning, and so far, the learning is fun. I picked up XNEC2C a few years ago, and thought I had it figured out. Turns out the only thing I was doing right was drawing the pictures :) I still have to figure out how to properly model feedlines, feedpoints, and ground. I also have to decide how particularly involved I want to get the modeling. I usually use trees for my antennna supports. Can the NEC2 Code handle trees? Can they be modeled? What about my neighbors metal roof? I'm pretty sure it's doing something strange with my radiation pattern.
I can see myself getting obsessed about modeling my QTH. How do I represent the patio, or the swingset?
It could easily get crazy, quick.
Of course I could just set everything up ideally...
"Oh what's that honey?"
"It's a model of a kite I want to fly at the beach."
"Sounds like fun!"
"Yeah, I think the kids would enjoy it"
In the meantime, I now have a reason to build a 9' tall Scott Sled!
That would sooooooo work!
Here are some pics of what I've learned so far
W3EDP, series of pics:
 | ||
| W3EDP from the top, antenna running left to right |
 |
| W3EDP from the side, antenna running left to right. |
 | ||
| W3EDP from the edge, feed point is on the far end. |
I tried to model the antenna like I would deploy it. Imagine the antenna going up, as high as the end of the 'counterpoise' and then out over a branch, and slanted back toward the ground. The section made from the 450 ohm ladder line could be supported by a collapsible fishing pole or something like that.
Click here to get the nec file, and check my data. Copy the text, and save the file as W3EDP.nec Then you should be able to use some antenna modelling program to view it.
Let me know how it works!
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