bionic woman advertisement

My aunt subscribes to Entertainment Weekly. She gave my sister a pile of recent back issues and my sister passed them on to me when she was through with them.

The September 28th issue included an advertisement for the new Bionic Woman television series. The ad was a four-page insert printed on a heavier stock of paper than the magazine's normal page stock.

The first (cover) page is black with "A NEW LIFE BEGINS" printed in white. Turn the page and it is a two-page spread of the bionic woman's eyes. When you open the two-page spread completely, her right eye lights up in an unnatural green color.

I removed the insert from the magazine to check it out more closely. I slit open the bottom of the page on which the magic eye was printed and found two small circuit boards mounted inside connected to each other with two wires.

The larger board had two "watch" batteries mounted on it and an appendage on the side. I assume the appendage is a sensor that detects when the page is opened.

The other board provides the light (I assume with an LED) for the eye.

I was impressed. This is a very expensive ad that most people are just going to throw it away with the magazine.

I wonder how much this advertisement cost? It was not cheap.
And did anyone consider the environmental issues regarding the proper disposal/recycling of the batteries used in this advertisement?

my Sox are first

Today is the last day of the baseball season. The play-offs begin on Wednesday.

The season is long, beginning in early April and ending today, but it seems like it flew by this year.

I am happy to report that my Boston Red Sox had a very good season and finished in first place in the American League East.

Go Sox!

Surfin': Looking for Log Periodics of the VHF/UHF Variety

This week, Stan searches for a tree guy and some new aluminum to replace the old. Read all about it in this week’s Surfin’. After you read Surfin’, you can leave your comments back here.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that finds and features Web sites that are related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

maintenance

I was up on the roof this morning (before it got too hot) checking out the weather station and radio station installations.

I replaced some tie wraps that broke off a couple of cables.

The 2-meter APRS digipeater vertical Diamond antenna has a noticeable lean towards Europe, so I checked it out. I tightened the bolt that is supposed to prevent the lean and it improved it a bit. The base of the antenna is still a little loose, so I will have to revisit the problem on a cooler day.

144-MHz band opening

There is a small band opening here now on 144 MHz. My APRS digi is receiving lots of stations directly* from Cape Cod and the eastern Massachusetts shore. Best DX so far is N1YHR-10 in Barnstable, MA, over a 136 mile, 87° path, received at 1229 Z.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

144-MHz DX

Two meters was wide open to the south last night like it had been yesterday morning. Again, the best DX received directly* by my APRS digi station was WB4YNF-4 in Ahoskie, NC, over a 428-mile, 211° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

144-MHz band opening

Two meters is wide open to the south this morning. Best DX received directly* by my APRS digi station is WB4YNF-4 in Ahoskie, NC, over a 428-mile 211° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

144-MHz band opening

Two meters is open slightly this morning. Best DX received directly* by my APRS digi station is K3XY-3 in Eagles Peak, PA, over a 194-mile 243° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

144-MHz band opening

Two meters is open. Looks like a repeat of conditions on Wednesday with my APRS digi station receiving directly* N3KTX-8 in Ocean City, MD, over a 248-mile 207° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

Surfin': Finding Radio Videos and Deals Online

Find ham radio videos and "free" radio deals online. Read all about it in this week’s Surfin’. After you read Surfin’, you can leave your comments back here.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that finds and features Web sites that are related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

why I hate Senator Lieberman

Yesterday, "the US Senate fell four votes short of restoring Habeas Corpus, the fundamental constitutional right of individuals to challenge government detention, which the Republican Congress revoked in last year's Military Commissions Act. Fifty-six senators supported a procedural move to tie the Habeas provision to legislation authorizing defense spending--a step that requires sixty votes." - from Yahoo news

"Say it ain't so" Joe Lieberman, one of the senators who "represents" my state in the Senate, voted against the bill.

(Our other Senator, Chris Dodd, voted for the bill.)

144-MHz DX

Two meters is open. My APRS digi station received directly* KV3B-1 in Germantown, MD, over a 278-mile 229° path, N3KTX-8 in Ocean City, MD, over a 248-mile 207° path, and in the opposite direction, KQ1L-5 in Camden, ME, over a 264 mile 45° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

144-MHz band opening

There is a small band opening here this morning. My APRS digi station received W1MV-15 in East Bridgewater, MA, directly* at 11:01 Z today over a 105-mile 76° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil

I am a fan of films depicting doomsday. Fail-Safe and Dr. Strangelove are my favorites and I have both on DVD to watch whenever I feel like it.

The World, the Flesh and the Devil is another doomsday film that I liked a lot, but have seldom seen. I saw it at a local drive-in theater when it was first released and I was 8-years-old way back in 1959. I saw it on television once, maybe twice, but that is all. As far as I can tell, the movie was never released on VHS or DVD.

I'd love to see The World, the Flesh and the Devil again (and again)*. If anyone is aware of where I can get a copy of this film, I would appreciate it.

* Being a techie even at age 8, I was fascinated with how they filmed this movie. Most of the film takes place on the deserted streets of Manhattan. This was long before special effects could sweep clean the streets of people, so I imagine it must have been a logistic nightmare accomplishing the same effect without special effects.

144-MHz DX

The band is starting to open. My APRS digi station just received N1YHR-15 in Bourne, MA (on Cape Cod), directly* at 12:33 Z today over a 122-mile 86° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

Surfin': Your Radio on YouTube

YouTube has a lot to offer the ham radio operator: over 1000 videos! This week’s Surfin’ tells you all about it. After you read Surfin’, you can leave your comments back here.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that finds and features Web sites that are related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

out of sync

I have been a fan of the Boston Red Sox since 1958.

How did I become so afflicted?

Back in the spring of 1958, Dad bought me my first pack of baseball cards. Opening the pack, I found a stick of gum and five baseball cards. Included in the five was Topps card number 1, Ted Williams.

I showed Dad my cards and he said that Ted Williams was the best, so I hooked my wagon up to Ted's team and have been following the trials and tribulations of the Scarlet Hose ever since.

Later that spring, Dad bought me a Red Sox yearbook and he bought me one every new baseball season until I could afford my own.

Forty-nine years later, I realized that I had not bought a yearbook this year with less than three weeks left in the baseball season. I had a complete run of yearbooks from 1958 to 2006 and I sure did not want to break that run, so I started shopping for the 2007 yearbook.

I figured I would find one online, but I could not find one.

I looked through magazine racks whenever I saw one, but still no luck.

Yesterday, I went to Wal*Mart to buy some cement to fix a broken tile and before I paid for the cement, I checked the magazine rack and, voila, I found a copy of the yearbook!

After I paid for my stuff and walked to the exit, I passed shelves of Christmas decorations and felt doubly lucky that my unsold Red Sox yearbook wasn't replaced with a Charlie Brown Christmas comic book on the magazine rack!

12-Band World Radio - $50 Value, Yours Free!

I get lots of e-mail trying to sell me lots of stuff, which I usually ignore, but yesterday, the subject of one e-mail caught my eye. It read "12-Band World Radio - $50 Value, Yours Free!"

How could I resist!

The e-mail was from Haband and in order to get the free radio, all I had to do was buy something from them online.

I figured that there must be something I needed. One thing led to another (as it often does on the Internet) and I came across a pair of women's boots on sale for $19.99; a pair just like the ones my wife had been looking for. I showed my wife the boots and she agreed, so I ordered a pair and wait for the radio.

I don't expect much, but the price was right and you ever know, I might be surprised. You can expect a full report here after the radio arrives.

monitoring for meteors on APRS

If you have been reading this blog the past few months, you know I use APRS to determine band conditions on 144 MHz. Today, Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, the inventor of APRS, suggested using APRS to monitor the band for meteor scatter propagation.

Here is the text of Bob's message, which he posted on the APRSSIG:

If you live in a remote area with only one APRS digipeater that you can hear, then you have a good chance of hearing some APRS packets via Meteor scatter.

Just point a good beam towards a high-density APRS area some 500 to 1000 miles away tuned to 144.39. (A preamp also helps)... Go to sleep and see what you have captured by the next morning. Just look on your map for any stations in that distance range. If you got any, then look at the path and be sure they were not heard via any digipeaters. If you heard them direct, or their local digipeater direct, then chances are you heard it via MS. Or TROPO.

See: http://www.ew.usna.edu/~bruninga/meteors.html

Under the recent optimization of the APRS network under the New-N paradigm, the amount of QRM due to dupes on the national APRS channel has been significantly reduced. This means those people in remote areas that normally only hear one digipeater, will hear lots of silence between the packets. These silent periods are all great opportunities to hear distant packets via meteor bounce (from the other 10,000 signal sources in the USA for example).

A beam that is low (to minimize hearing local QRM, but that can see down to 10 degrees or lower on the selected horizon, will be best.

During meteor showers, we can actually configure the local digipeaters for one night to be even further reduced from out-of-area QRM making it easier to hear more silence while still supporting local APRS only.

You can do this any night, or you can wait for the next Meteor Showers in Oct, Nov, Dec and Jan.

e-mail weirdness

Whenever I check my e-mail for the first time on any given day, I expect to find 50 to 100 new e-mails. Most of it is junk, some of it legit, but I can always expect a large quantity first thing in the morning.

Today, there was nothing new in my two e-mail accounts that are served by different Internet service providers (ISPs). A few new e-mails have come in since I first checked about two hours ago, but nothing like the amount I usually receive.

What gives?

If both accounts were on the same ISP, then I'd figure that the ISP was at fault, but the accounts are on different ISPs!

I don't miss the junk, but I am afraid that some real e-mail has been lost overnight.

Nuts!

pies

I am Polish-American.

Although I was born in Saint Mary's Hospital in Waterbury, Connecticut, my first language was Polish and that is all I spoke until my parents brought a television home from McCoy's radio store. Gradually, courtesy of the television, my ability to speak Polish took a back seat to English. Eventually, except for a few phrases, I forgot how to speak Polish.

With four grandparents who spoke mostly Polish, I understood the language. But as they died off, I did not have to understand Polish any longer and today, I have no idea what my current status is regarding my ability to understand the language.

Tonight, I took my wife and sister to Staropolska, a Polish restaurant, for dinner (which was excellent, by the way) and the subject of pets came up. During the conversation, I was trying to recall the Polish word for "dog." I was sure the Polish word started with the letter P, but I could not remember it.

When I arrived home, I looked "dog" up on an online English-Polish translation service and found out that the Polish word for dog is "pies," which is pronounced pee-is, as I remember (please correct me if I am wrong).

We own two dogs. My daughter named her bichon frise, Q-T Pie, I named my cockapoo, Pumpkin Pie, and collectively, they are known as "The Pies." What a coincidence!

another reason why I hate my ISP (AT&T)

Read Being realistic about municipal wi-fi and find out more about why I hate my ISP.

Collins 32S-3 and 75S-3B power connector pin-outs

I just inherited a Collins 32S-3 transmitter and 75S-3B receiver, but only one power cable with no indication which unit belongs to that power cable.

Does anyone have the pin-out of the power connectors on the 32S-3 and 75S-3B? If so, I would greatly appreciate that information.

Surfin': DCC at BDL

The 2007 installment of the ARRL and TAPR Digital Communications Conference is coming to an airport near me (and maybe you) and this week's Surfin' tells you all about it. After you read Surfin’, you can leave your comments here.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that finds and features Web sites that are related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

144-MHz DX

After a few quiet days, the band opened up yesterday and is open this morning. So far, the most distant station heard directly* by my APRS digi station is N3KTX-8 in Ocean City, MD (which is right on the ocean) over a 248-mile 207° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters

mad about Mad

Out of the blue, I received an e-mail from Dick DeBartolo. Dick has been a writer for Mad magazine for 40 years and has a daily podcast called The Giz Wiz.

He wrote to me because one of his podcast listeners mentioned my blog's slogan, "My subscription to Life expired, but I still have a subscription to Mad." I came up with it and it resides at the top of the column just to the right.

In his e-mail, Dick also kind of introduced himself and invited me to tour the Mad offices next time I am in the City.

Dick needed no introduction. I have been reading Mad since 1961 and am a big fan of the magazine, so I was certainly familiar with his great body of work and I was elated to receive an e-mail from "Mad's maddest writer."

I mentioned how my Dad worked at Eastern Color Printing Company, where the comic book was invented, and how they printed the four-color inserts for some of the Mad annuals back in the 1960's. Do you remember the Sunday Comic Section, Sing Along With Mad, and the Alfred E. Neuman life-size poster? They were all printed in my Dad's shop.

In response, Dick mentioned how Mad founder, Bill Gaines, claimed that his father, Max Gaines, had invented the comic book. How did that jive with my claim that Eastern Color invented the comic book? Well, Max Gaines worked for Eastern Color. (You can read about it here.)

Anyway, I will be visiting the City next month and plan to stop by the Mad offices for the official tour.

144-MHz DX

The band has been open up and down the East Coast (southwestern Maine to southeastern Pennsylvania) for two days. The most distant station heard directly* by my APRS digi station is N3KTX-9 near Millersville, PA, over a 211-mile 238° path.

* Directly meaning station-to-station and not via any repeaters