Rockmite

This is so cool that I had to tell someone. I have been on a kit building binge. Problem is that most of the kits I've been building I can't use because I can't do Morse yet. I finally got all the parts for the Rockmite40 together. Finished building the BLT yesterday. Hooked a long wire (antenna)up to it... plugged it in... and Nothing!!!! Bashed head into wall. Took BLT apart. Found stupid stuff that I had done and unstupided them. Put it back together and plugged it all back in and Nothing!!!! Bash head on bench repeatedly. Look at power supply. Yep, that would be 13.8 volts (all ham stuff seems to run on 13.8 volts as opposed to say 5, 9, or 14 or even 24). Plug in headphones. Nope, nada. Nothing there. Bang head repeatedly on work bench. Disassemble BLT again. Nothing obviously wrong and given that the number of parts in there is about 5 there's not a whole lot to go wrong. Checked the wire diagram and it was right. Hmm, must be Rockmite. I haven't smoke tested it yet.

First digression (actually 3rd but they've all been on point). To smoke test something is to plug it into a power source and see if it becomes a voltage to smoke converter. There are standard practices (rituals) one is supposed to follow. Things like rub blue mud into one's navel in the light of the new moon while forgoing the pleasure of installing the components into the chassis so that you can trouble shoot if things go wrong. I forwent this standard practice as I did a bang up job and knew that there would be no smoke when I plugged it into a power source. Just pure clean electronic goodness. End of digression.

Dawning realization with concurrent feeling of nausea in general stomach area (no blue mud, stuff really works) that I was probably going to (ghaack!) have to disassemble the #$%^& thing. Before hurling said Rockmite40 object at wall I notice something strange. The power cord looks weird.

4th digression. There is structure to troubleshooting. Usually doesn't involve a lot of shouting unless you are in my shop. Then there words and actions one should not be offended at if you enter into said sanctum. First step, always, is to ask the eternal question "IS IT PLUGGED IN?" Because in the thrill of the chase when one is staring at a non-functioning box about to be hurled at the wall and one finds that the power cord was forgotten to be plugged in (or even installed) one tends to feel, ummm, very chagrined. While I had not screwed up that badly and said unit was plugged into a real live power source it didn't look like a sturdy connection. And low and behold I examine the el-cheapo power supply that I have bought from an online discount house that sells product retrieved from dumpsters while throwing out the old laptops and find that the tip is the wrong size. I am not getting a good connection into the box. It was the one sort of like the one that the kit designer had recommended but was even cheaper (really hard to accomplish by the way) than the one they had recommended. What to do. I go online today and find the first part number of the connector that was soldered to the power supply. Then I find the data sheet for it and get the exact measurements. Mine is to long and too wide. No kidding. I find another supplier. That's close. That has something that may work but is not readily apparent from the low res pic on their website. I have to go to.....

The Shack. Now, since a few years ago when the "Shack" became a phone retailer and a retailer of crappy foreign computerized toys and RC cars one could find electronics parts. The name itself is a direct reference to what hams call their radio installations. Whether it is a room or a shed it is typically referred to as The Shack. Not thinking that they will actually have electronics supplies I go and check out "The Shack". And lo, they have stuff. And in this instance it was pretty cool. Way totally overpriced but really great idea. It is a power supply with no tip on it. And then a wall full of tips. Every kind of power supply tip imaginable. So that no matter what you needed to plug in you could find a way to replace the power supply that you left sitting in the Ulan Bator airport when chasing a connecting flight. Price was insane ($26 for both pieces as opposed to the $2.50 one I had bought from the dumpster divers). So bring said tip to employee and ask if he knew what the length dimension of said tip was and could he tell me. Look was priceless. "How am I suposed to know how long the stupid plug is?" I then get to educate an enquiring young mind about the mysteries of the "Data Sheet". I now appear to be an under rock dweller. I suggest that if he could navigate that internet thingy to his corporate site he could then look up the data sheet and share that information with me. This involves calling over his manager to see how he should proceed. She suggests that he look it up at "RadioShack.com." Which with mighty pressings of two stubby fingers the young gentleman in question finds that that information is not included. Hoping that I am not out $26 I reassure myself that I can bring it back if it's not the right one and I purchased said overpriced item. I then squirrel it away in my back pack and go back to work. At the end of the day I race home and eat noodles and then find all the pieces parts and using the brand new spiffy power supply and a pair of headphones I smoke test the Rockmite 40 and BAM! No not a voltage to smoke converter I was imitating Emeril. BAM! it squealed. Like proverbial porcine equivalent. It worked. It talked to me (the keyer wanted to be set to a speed and it beeped a morse s to let me know that.) This is so way cool that eventually I will have to post a picture of the entire rig once I change out a couple of the resistors so that I can run it off of batteries in the field. Whoot. That was just another case of not so instant gratification. What is it you ask? Oh, it's a morse code transmitter that fits into a case smaller than a pack of cards that works on the 40 meter (7MGhz) band of the short wave frequencies. And another incentive for me to learn code.

nerd test

She never mentions the word Addiction, in certain company

This is hard. I am a junkie. That word conjures visions of opiates, or crack or powder cocaine or plenty of really hardcore substances. My death of choice is nicotine. I am on day 3 of trying to quit using a nicotine patch. Trying to talk about this to non-junkies is useless. They don't understand. They think they do, and mean well, but they haven't a single clue. They don't know the feeling of being willing to sell out your best friend, family member, or lover to the Nazi's just to get your fix. They think it's just a matter of willpower. Of having intestinal fortitude. They don't know what it means to be a slave. To be owned. To be humiliated and still need whatever you're addicted to. But when it gets right down to the nitty-gritty they think you have a choice. Let me set the record straight. You will do anything no matter how low down and humiliating it is to get what you need. That's it. Period. And unless you're a junkie you don't understand this. No matter how supportive someone is, and how much they are willing to be there for you, they can never understand this aspect of addiction. I am finding with the patch the lack of desire for a cigarrette, but I still crave the act of smoking. Even when I was on Zyban I still smoked. I smoked less, but I still smoked. With the patch however I don't feel the urge for a cigarette I feel the urge to smoke. I am discovering my triggers. The things that make me want to smoke. Stress, coffee and the morning paper. The ones I miss the most is with my morning coffee and the newspapers. Alcohol for sure. I have smoked for so long that I have no idea or memory of what it is like to be a non-smoker. And I sometimes wonder what I am going to do to fill up the time that I spent smoking. And what I am going to do for a social network once I quit. All questions for the future. Right now is for fighting the urge to go back to the safe and the comfortable. Even though I know how it is killing me.

Utata Speaks

A very cool project that an artist collective I belong to has just published. You should browse it.

Oy Vay

Originally uploaded by Mitch Eaton/bodhi47.

Off camera lighting. I guess we can now observe that the most prevalent lighting in the roller rink is fluorescent. Why? Everybody's greenish yellow. I might be able to photoshop this with a color correction layer, but maybe not. This flash stuff is making my head hurt.

Late Spring Moon

Late Spring Moon
Originally uploaded by Mitch Eaton/bodhi47.

Ever since I was a little kid and our Dad woke us up to come see the The Landing On The Moon on the black and white TV in my parents bedroom I have been fascinated by this sight. We used to have a Reader's Digest Collection of albums (vinyl) of all of the communications that went back and forth between Houston and the Apllo Spacecraft and the Eagle Lunar Lander. I even tried to assemble a model of the lunar lander. I was a space freak. And I've been trying ever since to figure out a way to get that National Geographic Magazine photo of the moon. I knew it would be like shooting against the snow, having to stop down the camera to compensate for the grey point. But until now I've never had a camera that I could crop the picture and still get this much detail. This rocks. You don't know how much I get a kick out of this shot. Is it perfect? Nope, but gosh I could sit and look at it for hours.

Does it take an Einstein?

Does it take an Einstein?
Originally uploaded by Mitch Eaton/bodhi47.

Does it really take Einstein to bring this to our attention. I love this quote. Why? Because I live in a city where this is not self-evident. It's an ivory tower city. A city where people have gotten so used to having people take what they say on faith. And they say a lot. And sometimes what they say is meant to draw your attention away from what they don't want you to know. Today we found out that after 3 years of chasing someone we had already had in custody the estimated 100 billion dollars we have spent in Iraq has finally paid off by killing one guy and his posse. It will not make a difference. For every Al-Zarqawi we blow up there are at least 100 more to take his place. Why does it not matter if we kill Bin Laden? Because the thousands of minds he has molded and shaped in his training camps are like bacteria. They feed and grow in isolation. Once he has germinated them they self-propogate. Al-Zarqawi no longer matters. He is in Heaven with 21 virgins. He died fighting his good fight. Instead of capturing the enemy and wringing him for all he was worth, we martyred him. We continually try to deal with this problem utilizing beltway logic. It's tragic. The jihadists do not have our agenda. They do not care if they have cable tv, a new SUV, a house in the burbs, or a fat bank account. They want to die killing us. That and only that is what they are living and dying for. Be honest, when you figure out that a consequence of your search for truth brings up something you find distasteful or unpleasant you own it as well as the parts that you find good. Does our government really think that we are that easily led around by the nose? That we are so media unsavvy as to not recognize a red flag waved in our face to distract us? So we killed a terrorist. As long as the conditions exist that led to his development are around, there will be thousands more just like him.

They're at it again

Open letter to:

Senator John Warner
Representative Jim Moran
Senator George Allen

One of the few things in our society that is a level playing field for everyone is endangered by greedy corporations who want to inhibit innovation and the egalitarian way in which the internet functions. It is a direct attack against entrepreneurs and the free dissemination of speech and news. The phone and cable companies already have a monopoly on the access to the internet via modem and broadband, and now they want more. In some ways this boils down to a free speech issue. Without access to the "fast lane" the small business, the citizen journalist and the entrepreneurs who have made the internet a thriving tool for prosperity for all of us will be penalized and relegated to a backwater of society. It will squash innovation and stifle the voice of the common man. Is this the kind of society that you think is worth voting for? I hope not, and I will keep this in mind in both the mid-term elections this year and the larger elections coming in 2008.