Friday, December 10, 2010
Need audio reports for Podcast 128
How did 128 sound? I did drop off the lows, but I used the same filter I used in 127.
10% off on SolderSmoke The Book
Now through December 31. Use coupon code PEARTREE when checking out.
Thursday, December 9, 2010
Saturn and Rhea
After a long spell of looking almost exclusively at Jupiter and our Moon, I was very pleased to see that Saturn is now visible. It is up in the south-east just before dawn, to the upper right of VERY bright Venus. The Sky and Telescope screen shot is a good representation of what I saw. I was using a 6 inch reflector telescope. I could see Titan very easily, and I could also see Rhea by using the averted vision trick.
Above is a much better view of Rhea. This one was taken by the Cassini spacecraft last November. Rhea has been in the news recently because scientists have discovered oxygen in its atmosphere: http://www.astronomy.com/en/News-Observing/News/2010/11/Cassini%20reveals%20oxygen%20atmosphere%20of%20Saturn%20moon%20Rhea.aspx
Wednesday, December 8, 2010
Lynn Marsh, Boy Telegrapher, 1909
Note the steely-eyed look of determination and confidence. That's the same look that we see in the eyes of the 1925 radio builders (scroll down), and in the eyes of other knack victims.
Monday, December 6, 2010
SolderSmoke 128 is out!
http://soldersmoke.com/soldersmoke128.mp33 December 2010
Visit to Wright Brother's Kitty Hawk site
Antenna work on Veterans' Day
W4HBK's Pensacola Snapper
"Knackers of the World Unite" (even in the UK!)
Sky and Telescope Jupiter moons program
Listen to a meteor ping!
DSB DC WSPR transceiver
Other ham books on Lulu
Ubuntu Karmic Koala's Skyrockets
Movie Review: "Social Network"
LTSpice under Wine (in Ubuntu)
Forrest Mims
Broken laptop -- need advice
MAILBAG
New puppy en route
I'll update the rss feed tomorrow.
Sunday, December 5, 2010
MOJ goes QRSS
Mark W8MOJ (aka "MOJ") is the artist who created the latest SolderSmoke theme music. MOJ has recently gone QRSS with Slow Feld Hell. Above you can see the results as captured by W4HBK's grabber. Note that MOJ is giving HELL to the N2CQR shark fins!
Some SERIOUS young radio builders
No appliance operators in this bunch! Dave Lucas alerted me to Tom Glover's wonderful site: http://www.gloveradio.blogspot.com/
Ham Radio on NPR
Mike: KC7IT sent in this very nice quote from National Public Radio:
NPR's On The Media has a sweet little reference to ham radio this week, in their report from a conference about Twitter. Listen to conference organizer Jeff Pulver, starting at 4:15:
NPR's On The Media has a sweet little reference to ham radio this week, in their report from a conference about Twitter. Listen to conference organizer Jeff Pulver, starting at 4:15:
BOB GARFIELD: .... sharing thoughts is something people do, fulfilling a primal human need for keeping in touch, even virtual touch, with other humans. Conference organizer, Jeff Pulver:
JEFF PULVER: When I was nine years old I was a very lonely person, and I – maybe I’m always lonely forever. But my - I went to my uncle’s office one day and he had this strange radio and he turned it on, and he says, “CQ, CQ, this is K2QQM calling CQ.”
And all of a sudden these squeaky voices started responding to my uncle. And I thought, this is pretty cool [LAUGHS], that these strangers are now talking to my uncle. And I became obsessed between the time I was nine to about twelve and a half. I taught myself Morse Code, electronic theory, I taught myself the rules and regulations all about amateur radio. In high school, junior high school, I would spend 40, 60 hours a week on the radio. And that was my lifeline. That was where I connected. And all I had to say is I was Jeff from New York, and it didn't matter how old I was, it didn't matter what I did for a living. I had this.
And now all these years later, 6 o'clock in the morning to 7 o'clock in the morning, every day, wherever I am in the world, I'm online. But instead of saying, CQ, CQ, I say, good morning. And a magical thing happens every day.
-------
That was me too, way back in junior high on 2 meter AM with my Heath Twoer. Turns out Jeff's still active too. Nice.
73 de KC7IT
More QRPoetry from AA1TJ
This is actually prose, not verse, but it has a poetic element to it. It is not for nothing that we have called Michael "the poet laureate of QRP." Must be all that time up on the mountain. Whatever the motivation, we're always happy to get his messages, and we always find inspiration in them:
On the topic of QRP power levels; for me it all stems from the pair of "100mW" walkie-talkies that my brother and I found under the Christmas tree one year. I thought it was magical that we could walk around the neighborhood and still talk to each other. Then one day my friend and I was messing around and I heard some lady's (CBer) voice all of a sudden. It took a moment to figure out that she was talking to me (my first and last CB QSO). We only talked for a few moments but it left me wondering how far it might be possible to communicate with such low power. The electronics magazines I was just starting to read showed massive boat-anchor transmitters; none of which appealed to me. For me the excitement was trying to see how far I could talk with my MPF102 oscillator on 40m; and later, a similar xmtr made from a surplus 2N697 that I happened upon. It was around that time I first heard about tunnel diodes; exotic devices based upon the (still) mystical notion of quantum tunnelling. Of course, I dreamed about building a tunnel diode rig...a dream that would take 35 years to realize...to which I owe a huge debt to Seab, AA1MY...dunno if he knows to this day how big of a deal it was for me; which is why I was especially happy to see his, "with childlike joy and wonder" comment. Ditto for me. Speaking of which, last I showed my wife, N4KGL/p's QTH on the map located on his site "Nov 23rd Lunch Time QRP". http://www.n4kgl.info/ We thought it was fun to progressively zoom out from the parking lot where he was operating yesterday. Right away the Gulf of Mexico appears. Of course, Vermont eventually comes into view. Scientific American that did a similar series of zooms in a book some years ago. It began with a couple lying on a blanket in a park. Some pages later you're staring back at this "pale blue dot" (to steal Carl Sagan's wonderful phrase). Something else comes to mind from Tom Wolfe's, The Right Stuff. Do you recall the passage where Lovell covers the Earth with his thumb? "At one point I sighted the earth with my thumb—and my thumb from that distance fit over the entire planet. I realized how insignificant we all are if everything I'd ever known is behind my thumb. But at that moment I don't think the three of us understood the lasting significance of what we were looking at." Dunno why, but QRPp feels a bit like Lovell's thumb. It gives me the same sense of vertigo displacement; a tiny signal sent from a tiny man located in a vast, oceanic, Universe. I remember saying so to my pal, Jim, W1PID, only last year in connection to my voice-powered CW transmitter. Hearing the dits and dahs return yesterday...looking at my puny transmitter...Wisconsin, Florida, Guadeloupe Island; bouncing these little ripples off the ionosphere...hearing the friendly replies...who would not be overwhelmed by the thought of it all? These little radios are just the launchers; pinkie fingers dabbed in the cosmic pool of Being. The Argentinian writer, Antonio Porchia, said, "Beyond my body my veins are invisible." Jim Lovell's veins radiated from beneath the thumb he so casually dabbed over the Earth. His veins radiated not just back to far away Earth - to everything that he loved - but in all directions; to places he'd never even dreamed of. I'd better sign now. I'm headed up to the mountain-top TV transmitter in a couple of hours... That's how it is here, Steve; QRO pays the bills, QRPp gives the thrills. :o) BTW, Dave, K1SWL, has already given a big thumbs-up to our RockMite contact! 73/72, Mike, AA1TJ
On the topic of QRP power levels; for me it all stems from the pair of "100mW" walkie-talkies that my brother and I found under the Christmas tree one year. I thought it was magical that we could walk around the neighborhood and still talk to each other. Then one day my friend and I was messing around and I heard some lady's (CBer) voice all of a sudden. It took a moment to figure out that she was talking to me (my first and last CB QSO). We only talked for a few moments but it left me wondering how far it might be possible to communicate with such low power. The electronics magazines I was just starting to read showed massive boat-anchor transmitters; none of which appealed to me. For me the excitement was trying to see how far I could talk with my MPF102 oscillator on 40m; and later, a similar xmtr made from a surplus 2N697 that I happened upon. It was around that time I first heard about tunnel diodes; exotic devices based upon the (still) mystical notion of quantum tunnelling. Of course, I dreamed about building a tunnel diode rig...a dream that would take 35 years to realize...to which I owe a huge debt to Seab, AA1MY...dunno if he knows to this day how big of a deal it was for me; which is why I was especially happy to see his, "with childlike joy and wonder" comment. Ditto for me. Speaking of which, last I showed my wife, N4KGL/p's QTH on the map located on his site "Nov 23rd Lunch Time QRP". http://www.n4kgl.info/ We thought it was fun to progressively zoom out from the parking lot where he was operating yesterday. Right away the Gulf of Mexico appears. Of course, Vermont eventually comes into view. Scientific American that did a similar series of zooms in a book some years ago. It began with a couple lying on a blanket in a park. Some pages later you're staring back at this "pale blue dot" (to steal Carl Sagan's wonderful phrase). Something else comes to mind from Tom Wolfe's, The Right Stuff. Do you recall the passage where Lovell covers the Earth with his thumb? "At one point I sighted the earth with my thumb—and my thumb from that distance fit over the entire planet. I realized how insignificant we all are if everything I'd ever known is behind my thumb. But at that moment I don't think the three of us understood the lasting significance of what we were looking at." Dunno why, but QRPp feels a bit like Lovell's thumb. It gives me the same sense of vertigo displacement; a tiny signal sent from a tiny man located in a vast, oceanic, Universe. I remember saying so to my pal, Jim, W1PID, only last year in connection to my voice-powered CW transmitter. Hearing the dits and dahs return yesterday...looking at my puny transmitter...Wisconsin, Florida, Guadeloupe Island; bouncing these little ripples off the ionosphere...hearing the friendly replies...who would not be overwhelmed by the thought of it all? These little radios are just the launchers; pinkie fingers dabbed in the cosmic pool of Being. The Argentinian writer, Antonio Porchia, said, "Beyond my body my veins are invisible." Jim Lovell's veins radiated from beneath the thumb he so casually dabbed over the Earth. His veins radiated not just back to far away Earth - to everything that he loved - but in all directions; to places he'd never even dreamed of. I'd better sign now. I'm headed up to the mountain-top TV transmitter in a couple of hours... That's how it is here, Steve; QRO pays the bills, QRPp gives the thrills. :o) BTW, Dave, K1SWL, has already given a big thumbs-up to our RockMite contact! 73/72, Mike, AA1TJ
Saturday, December 4, 2010
SARA: The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers
My recent experience listening to live on-line meteor pings led me to the web site of an organization that I used to belong to: SARA: The Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers. Knack to the max in this bunch. These people are going for the REAL DX! Check out their site:http://www.radio-astronomy.org/
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