Surfin’: Hunting Broadcast Radio Transmitters

This week, Surfin’ wonders where the transmitter went -- and finds it on the Internet.

Whitney Houston Haunts My iPod

Whitney Houston died last weekend. I own her greatest hits CD containing 36 tracks, which I uploaded to my iPod years ago.  (My iPod is a sixth generation “Classic” with 160 GB capacity.)

With a total of 14,121 tracks stored on my iPod, Whitney's tracks represents a mere 0.25% of the iPod's contents.

I play my iPod during my 35-minute commute between home and work everyday and I usually listen in "shuffle" mode, which means the iPod randomly selects the tracks that it plays. In shuffle mode, the odds are 1 in 392 that the iPod will play a Whitney Houston song .

Believe it or not, my iPod played a Whitney Houston song every day last week during my morning commute. This morning, the first song my iPod played was a Whitney Houston song.

Weird!

My Daughter’s Book

My daughter Hayley wrote a book (her first) titled I Know Why They Call a Shell a Shell. Subtitled Tales of Love Lost at Sea, it is on sale on Amazon as a Kindle Edition. Print editions will be available shortly.

You do not need Kindle to buy and read the book. Free Kindle apps are available here for Mac, Windows (PC and Phone 7), iPad, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry. There is also a Kindle Cloud Reader that allows you to read Kindle books in your web browser.

Here is Amazon’s Product Description of the book:

“Told through the lens of the sea, each of the book's five sections chronicle the main character's journey away from tumultuous love affairs by weaving stories of her past with stories from literature, music, and visual art of both modern and classical significance.

“After nearly being murdered by a boyfriend, the main character promises herself that she will never let a man abuse her again. She figures that making this change, from dating abusive men to normal ones, should be as easy as flicking off a light switch, but soon finds that even after she's made the conscious decision to no longer involve herself in unhealthy relationships, the rest of her has yet to catch up with that thought. Still caught up in the dramaturgy of her relationships' past, she sets off on an emotional voyage to discover how she ended up on the shores of coastal New England.”

Please buy this book!

Surfin’: Learning Circuits and Electronics Online

This week, Surfin’ goes back to electronics school, but it’s free and online this time.

Surfin’: Chasing Aurora (But Don’t Tell My Wife)

This week, Surfin’ chases aurora on the air and on the tube.

LW Loggings

Early this evening, longwave conditions were improved over the last few nights and logged two new radio navigation beacons, both in Canada:

ZV - 274 kHz - Sept-Îles, QC - 673 mi
YY - 340 kHz - Mont-Joli, QC- 533 mi

Surfin’: Wikipedia vs CIA

This week, Surfin’ tries to determine the best place to just get the facts (Ma’am) about new countries.

Nothing New

I’ve listened up and down the long waves the last few nights and did not hear much and definitely nothing new.

After repeated delays that were out of my control, I plan to build the indoor loop antenna this weekend. I have all the parts; just have to put them all together.

It is still nuts!

It is the first day of February and the temperature reached 58.5° F early this afternoon on Compounce Mountain. Some locales in the state were in the 60s.

But cooler temps will prevail on Groundhog Day.