Vakkotaur

It's Spring or at least threatening to be. And I'm getting just a bit antsy to do some antenna work and get properly on the air again, at least 2m and 70cm. HF would be nice, too, but one or two things at a time.

Of course, Jay wants to get his convertible out of storage as well, and that requires dry weather as the area around the storage site is quite muddy when wet. Between those two things, the forecast rain, snow, and worst of all freezing rain & ice are sadly predictable.

Allegedly in a week or two we'll have "normal" weather. We'll see.

And yes, I am fully aware of the quip that any antenna put up in good weather will never work right. I can do antenna work at subzero temperatures, though I'd prefer not to. I do draw the line at working in rain (esp. of the freezing variety) and blizzards.

There weren't any forums jmaynard had to be at on Saturday, though he wanted to go to (and did go to) the FCC forum in the morning. I didn't go to that, but explored a bit more of the convention space. I didn't expect to see everything and I likely didn't, but I got to see a good chunk of things and a couple minor purchases here and there. When we met up again, I got to see the Tron Guy's effect on people. It's sort of a Rorschach test. Comments run from "Oh cool." and "Wow." through "What.. is it?" past "That takes guts." to no comment at all, but just looks of amazement, bewilderment, amusement, or bemusement.

The Icom folks had hired a couple people who did very good bit as obviously female robots. Ray, one of the Icom folks, made sure to tell the Tron guy to show up at 2 PM when the robots would make another appearance. He did. They did. I have pictures. I also learned a bit about performance shtick from watching and interacting with at least one of the "robots."

A small subset of the D-Star group met up for supper after the close of the convention for the day. Well after, actually. A few of us stayed longer than perhaps should have at the D-Star booth and had some trouble exiting the Hara Arena building. A bit more fiddling around was needed to get to a place that would have room for us in a reasonable time, but it all worked out. It turned into a long day, though not a late night.

Sunday morning was pretty much like Saturday for me, though Jay attended another D-Star related forum. We looked through the outside area as things were winding down and it showed. Many folks had already packed up, others had stuff marked down, in some cases to free.

We stayed for final drawing. My ticket number had not come up for any of the hourly drawings and, alas, it didn't come up for them when the unclaimed items were drawn for again, nor when the bigger items were, nor when the really big items were. As all but the last twelve items were "must be present to win" and many had left, things went on a while as numbers were called and nobody claimed anything. Dayton is not an Icom only show by any means. (From Friday night: "Is any manufacturer not here?" "No.") However, Icom was certainly a major force. Sure, there were prizes contributed by Alinco, Kenwood, Yaesu and others, and there weren't small things either, but Icom had the most or at least the most really big ticket items.

When we finally left Hara Arena, it was well past lunch time. Since there was a Skyline Chili around, we had a late lunch there. I've now had their "5-Way" (which is not 5-alarm) and for what it is, it's good. It's also not what I think of when someone says "chili." I didn't spot the bottle of hot sauce until after I'd finished.

...do you remember when we
Stayed up all night to get
Pittsburgh on a crystal set? -- Dearie

I received a "Rocket Radio" crystal set as a gift some time ago and didn't do anything with it until recently. I'm not sure why I delayed so long. Anyway, I strung up the antenna wire and connected it, and was a bit surprised at the set not having a place for a proper ground connection. Curiously, the instructions suggested using a metal cold water pipe as an antenna. What? That's a ground connection, if you can find such plumbing nowadays.

At first I heard nothing, no matter how much I tuned around. I tried again in the evening as the AM band picks up after nightfall. Sure enough, I heard something faint. But something wasn't quite right. I couldn't place it until I heard the station ID. It was KFMC, the local FM station. It didn't matter where I tuned. I seemed to have an antenna and no tuning to speak of (well, evidently just enough somewhere for slope detection to work) and got only the strongest signal around - even if it was about 100 MHz too high.

That makes me wonder what I heard on crystal sets in the 1970s. Then I also would only get one local station. But which band? Back then stations still could simulcast on AM and FM, and WJMT did.

In the 1980s I had an interesting experience with a "radio" that really lacked any tuner as such. It was length of antenna wire, a ground connection, a detector (roughly, the bit that converts from radio to audio -- in a crystal set, that's what the crystal does), and an audio amplifier. With no selectivity, it picked up pretty much everything at once. Mostly it picked up stronger shortwave broadcasts.

Only getting the local FM station on a crystal set tuned for the AM band is disappointing. I suppose at least it picked up something besides the local RF hash of the computer(s). Still, it'd be nice to pick up a station in the right band. And I don't expect to get Pittsburgh.

The WB television network and the UPN television will be combined into one network and renamed "The CW." I can almost hear the jokes already about the letters ought to be reversed. As an amateur radio operator, I do not think of television when I hear or see the letters CW. What I think of is something that uses far less bandwidth than television. I am amused by the thought of the identifier in the corner of the screen, known as a bug, being one of these which would be very appropriate for a CW bug.

I bought a small 6-meter sideband (well, SSB and CW) transceiver a couple years ago. A few weeks ago I finally uncovered it again and removed it from the box. Today I finally finished up the power cord (it's not a thing that just plugs into a wall socket). The radio powers up and seems to be doing what it should, though I don't have a 6-meter band antenna for it yet. One more thing to do. But for now at least the capacitors can stay formed.

A lot of travel, but still good. Thursday afternoon we (jmaynard and I) started off, and hit the Twin Cities during the anything but a rush hour. Rather than wait in the car in traffic, we waited at Lindey's and had some great steak. Then back on the road. XM's old time radio channel again was good to have.

Friday was a bit of shopping (I got - and spent - part of birthday present early). The trip to the shoe store went well. Hard to argue with steel-toed leather Oxfords for $10. And then it was dinner time with the usual excess that holiday meals always seem to be. Visited some with my grandmothers. One of them will be ninety this Wednesday.

Saturday was the trip back, by way of the Minnesota Repeater Council meeting. A couple things threatened to take far longer than they needed to, but finally were taken care of. I doubt the issues have gone away, but the compromise should hopefully mean things won't run quite as hot as they had been before. Got home not too late, but didn't do very much. Just as well.

Sunday was a pleasantly slow day of recovery. I did, eventually, manage to work on the COLT again and finished up Looney Tunes #10 from January 1995. Hopefully I can get through, or at least well into, #72 (Jan. '01) this week. Then there won't be any completely empty years - just gaps.

Last night I did ask kinkyturtle to do for #100 what he did for Animaniacs #25 as the cover has (almost?) every Looney Tunes character on it. Excluding the odd one-shots, of course. I think. I doubt I'll be able get to #100 all that soon, though. Next week would be probably be the earliest. And I'm wondering if I can keep up the one issue per week rate. That would get me caught up on three old issues per month, while not falling behind on new issues. But I'd need to keep that up for 14 months.

And now, a somewhat delayed rant: ( xchat color rant/how-to )

It seems that early in a year is when I tend to get somewhat back into working on the COLT. And then something happens (faire season, general laziness, whatever) to mess that up and I wind up even more behind than I was before.

Now that the comics are sorted and arranged (if not completely, nearly so.. still have to stow many) I've been starting in on the COLT again. So far it's just updating the Production Index - the list of WB numbers for the stories printed. But I do want to get back to actually writing up the issues and such. If I can keep at it, I will eventually catch up, right? Well, if I keep at it often enough.

jmaynard and I will be off to a hamfest in Madison, WI this weekend. I'm pondering taking my old laptop, shan, and a couple comic books along and seeing if I can maybe do something useful Saturday evening. The evening before a distant event is generally pretty much wasted, so I may as well try it. If I get nothing done, well, no change from the usual.

I didn't take my laptop with me anywhere last year, but Jay had his and could dial up with it, at least if the ISP covered the area we where in. Also, we've gotten to know many folks and tend to wind up going out for supper with some folks. Sometimes a low key thing on Friday. More often as part of an "invasion" (of a local restaurant) Saturday night. And Sunday night tends to have the drive back home.

So I guess I take shan with me a couple times and see how things work out. Shan isn't terribly powerful by today's standards (it's a 486DX75, I as I recall)but since all I plan to do is text editing, it's more than enough. If I actually get to using it, that is.