ARDUSAT: Arduino In SPAAACE!

Billy's Arduino Uno board arrived yesterday and he has been working on getting the LED to blink. (We bought the board with funds generated by people who have been entering Amazon through the SolderSmoke blog site -- thanks.) We really like the little Italian board. On it you will find a map of Italy, including Sardinia and Sicily. And there is a notation on the board noting that its production was carbon neutral. Bravi!

The video above shows one of the cooler applications of the Arduino board.

Our book: "SolderSmoke -- Global Adventures in Wireless Electronics"http://soldersmoke.com/book.htmOur coffee mugs, T-Shirts, bumper stickers: http://www.cafepress.com/SolderSmokeOur Book Store: http://astore.amazon.com/contracross-20

Sicily, Mt. Etna... and The Godfather

Here's some Italy travelogue, well, actually Sicily travelogue. Above, our two heroes are seen with the Etna volcano in the background. Etna is Europe's largest active volcano. It was spitting out lava while we were there. The top is currently at about 10,800 feet (3300 meters). (It varies!) We went up to the 8200 feet (2480 meters) level (via cable car). Here is what it looked like from there:
It was COLD up there. We didn't stay long. Within 90 minutes of this picture being taken, the kids were back at sea level, and in the pool at 80F.

Here is a GoogleEarth View. The yellow marker shows the place at which we took the picture of us in the snow. (The Google shots were from May/June 2006).


Those of you who are fans of The Godfather movie will remember this scene:
Well, here we are, in the same place (but without the shotguns):

Francis Ford Coppola filmed most of the Sicilian scenes not in Western Sicily (where the village of Corleone really is) but in the East, near the beach resort of Taormina, in the village of Savoca. The Bar Vitelli is where Michael Corleone met Apollonia's father. Savoca also has the church where Michael and Apollonia began their brief and unfortunately explosive marriage.

We really liked Sicily. It is a beautiful place, rich in history, and with really nice people.

From Sicily: An SSB Transceiver using only 5 tubes!

It's 5:30 am. I'm in the shack with a cup of coffee. The only sounds are birdsongs from the window and an Italian 80 meter SSB QSO from my Drake 2-B. Life is good.

And it got better when I found the rig pictured above. It is the work of Andrea IW9HJV and Johnny IW9ARO, two obvious victims of "The Knack" from Sicily.

It is a beautiful 20 meter SSB transceiver. And it uses just 5 tubes. While it doesn't have the bi-directionality of the BITX-20 (you can't really do that with tubes) it does share the BITX-20's simplicity and elegance of design.

The web site of Andrea and Johnny is another work of art. Check it out!
http://www.webalice.it/hotwater/RTX5x20.htm
Bravo Andrea! Bravo Johnny! Bravissimo!