Cool Phobos Picture

This one is not from the recent fly-by. This one was taken by ESA's Mars Explorer in January 2007. I thought it was a very nice picture. There should be new close-ups of Phobos coming out this week.

Windows 2000, SMT, Olive Oil, Difference Engines

Hi Bill:

Just finished listening to SS 121. Fascinating as usual. In no
particular order:

- Microsoft is ending all support for Windows 2000 effective July
13th of this year. For us little guys there's only one impact, but
it's a doozy: no more security patches. My bench computer is still
Win 2k, so he'll either be losing his connection to the interwebs or
get replaced (don't think his little brain would take the current
Ubuntu release, but perhaps I'll give it a shot.) I'm a pretty tech
savvy guy so I've got no problem moving on, but I hate to toss
perfectly good hardware. Heck, I've got a 1965-vintage USAF surplus
VOM and a Fluke LED readout DVM on my bench (both relatively new to
me!) The scope, power supply and sig gen aren't much newer. I
think the odd duality of hams you pointed out (tech forward and also
sticks-in-the-mud) is another expression of an engineering mindset
that doesn't accept that the new must devalue the old.

http://blogs.technet.com/lifecycle/archive/2010/02/25/end-of-support-for-windows-2000-and-extended-support-phase-transition-for-windows-server-2003.aspx

- I'm starting to think the Sun has dropped life-cycle support for
HF, effective when I got my HF privileges. I'm following your weak
signal work with a lot of interest.

- I think I mentioned previously that I got to see the Babbage
Difference Engine #2 last fall. After hearing your Dobsonian
maintenance story using "API Grade Extra Virgin" olive oil, I thought
you'd be amused to hear that the BDE is lubricated entirely with corn
oil, which is apparently available in a variety of SAE weights. I
thought they should put a Bunsen burner under the drip pan and make
popcorn in there, but the docents weren't too impressed with my
engineering suggestions.

- SMT: I got my first serious taste of SMT while building, of all
things, a Nixie clock. It had two large quad flat pack (QFP) chips.
They weren't involved in the processing (which was done by a proper
DIP packaged PIC chip) but were the HV drivers (apparently actually
intended for use in a plasma TV). The manual instructed me to tack
down the corners, verify the alignment of all the unsoldered pins,
then just heat 'em and solder 'em down, ignoring pin-to-pin shorts.
After soldering all the pins, it then said to lay a piece of
desoldering braid on top of each run of pins, and heat it until the
excess solder wicked up. I was dubious, to say the least. But to my
complete surprise not only did the clock work on the first try
(meaning all 80 pins had been soldered correctly) but the chips
actually looked pretty good, too. Still a bit nerve wracking!

- In the "keeping old computers working" department I just ordered a
solid state drive to replace the oddball 1.8" drive in the little Dell
I use for travel. It runs Ubuntu pretty well, but I have to have Win
7 on there for work reasons, so I'm hoping the SSD will speed up the
latter (and not blow up the former - Linux and new technology haven't
worked out well for me in the past).

73,
Bob KD4EBM

Faraday's Transformer Diagram

Looks familiar, doesn't it? Reminds me a lot of the toroidal transformer diagrams that you see in the Doug DeMaw books. This is from an 1831 lab notebook of Michael Faraday.

Faraday's Shack and the First Transformer

In London, Billy and I visited Faraday's workshop in the Royal Institution. Poor Michael set up shop in the servants' quarters in the basement. The shop is still down there (behind glass and well-preserved now). The painting above depicts Faraday at work in his shack.

On display was the very first electrical transformer. And guess what guys: It was a toroid! Here is a picture of it:

I found one of Faraday's drawings of the toroidal transformer and its windings. It looks a lot like the drawings of Doug DeMaw! I'll scan it and post it tomorrow. Off to work now.

Pop Sci! 137 years of Popular Science. Free. Online.

I know I promised more about Faraday today, but I think Michael would agree that this story should take precedence. Niels, PA1DSP, reports that ALL 137 YEARS of Popular Science issues have been made available FREE ON-LINE. This is Billy's favorite magazine. Amazing. We're all going to have to quit hour jobs to have more time for this kind of thing! Three cheers for the publisher and for the boys at Google for making this possible. Here it is:
http://www.popsci.com/archives

At the Royal Institution

The Royal Institution in London is one of the world's most important scientific organizations. In the picture above, Michael Faraday delivers one of the famous "Christmas Lectures."

Billy and I visited the RI a couple of weeks ago and got to sit in the famous theater.

I even got to stand at the famous desk on which so much new science was presented to the world. More on the RI (and Michael Faraday) tomorrow.

Marconi's House in London

In London, the places where famous people lived are marked with Blue Plaques. I knew that Marconi's name was on the list, but I had never actually seen his plaque. When we were up in London last month we were staying in Marconi's old neighbourhood (Bayswater) so and Billy and I decided to take a look. Video by Billy.

This house is mentioned in the book Thunderstruck by Eric Larson and in Peter Jensen's wonderful Early Radio. Marconi lived here as a young man. His mother took him to London in order to get patent protection for his wireless invention. The way in which Marconi's mom watched out for her son's intellectual property rights reminds me of the way Bill Gates' dad watched out for his.

Marconi's arrival in the UK was a bit difficult. British customs officers were apparently very suspicious of the strange device being brought in by the young Italian. One book hinted that they might have thought that Marconi was involved in some plot to kill Queen Victoria. During the inspection serious damage was done to Marconi's rig.