Yah! I finally have my new bed scheduled for delivery. Time to say goodbye to the air mattress and be an adult.
Walked about 3.5 miles today.
Needed a restroom while out walking so bought a soda from a food cart so I could get the code. It smelled so good that I came back later and they had the dish I had wanted a few days ago.
@Adventurer@3goodthings Congrats on the new bed! Every single air mattress I have ever slept on deflated overnight, except for some sleeping pads for camping. 😆
1999 plan from #Swatch (the colorful timepiece folks) to have the Russians deploy a #satellite that would transmit messages provided by Swatch fans back to Earth via amateur 2m frequencies.
The messages, gathered via the Swatch Web site, related to the Swatch company’s campaign to establish the “Swatch Beat” as a new “global concept of time.”
Needless to say, this aroused some controversy in the #HamRadio community.Transmissions never took place.
I ordered an Eton Field Elite receiver via Amazon Warehouse. Someone there decided to ship an electronics item - a radio with an LED/LCD display - in a plastic bag! There was no box, ZERO padding or protection, not even bubble wrap. We actually heard it arrive and we literally jumped in our chairs due to a loud crashing sound - the sound of the Amazon driver dropping the plastic envelope containing the radio on our tile front walkway. It survived, with dents and many scratches. Unbelievable! smh
@vitriolix Sometimes they make perplexing decisions when packaging. I wonder whether it's an employee that just doesn't care, or one that is too rushed by Amazon to care, or maybe the employee has brain damage or something... I once had them deliver a glass jar of jam in a similar unpadded plastic envelope, and to my non-surprise it arrived shattered into fragments.
Tomorrow I'm interviewing big-time audiobook narrator Scott Brick, who narrates the "Dune" books, and Kevin J. Anderson who has written many "Dune" books.
Do you have any questions you'd like me to ask them (I'm especially interested in questions about the language of "Dune").
@grammargirl I am familiar with Scott Brick's name and work on audiobooks (including Dune) and he is exceptionally good... I have a question which is that, with there being so many Dune books, does he ever get tired of reading yet more books from the same series, or does he develop a pleasant familiarity with them?
I can't remember who it was that said that trains approaching crossings blow the CW for "Q" (dah dah dit dah), but I can confirm that you are mostly quite correct! Since I started paying attention a few days ago, I have found that they mostly do, but not always. Perhaps 20% of the time they just blow one long blast or something that seems random...
@tek_dmn Interesting to learn.. I'm just basing this on the crossing that's nearest my house, so I hear the horns quite clearly! And yes there's a series of them, which could lead to them getting jumbled up. Or maybe the guy on the horn was distracted by cars or people on/near the track or whatever, also an issue around here.
@tek_dmn I've noticed that the length of the "dits and dahs" can vary a lot too, like most could be automated or similar, but others definitely sound unusual, like all the horn blows are twice as log as usual... Thanks for the info!
Birthday #POTA commence. Starting high moving lower as the day wears on. Currently 28.408 MHz. Will try to post updates in the replies, but cell signal is sketchy.
@Geojoek I saw @N4JAW and @kelvin0mql lamenting the conditions earlier, due to another solar flare. I'm not getting much POTA right now, mostly hearing other people making some contacts... 20m was just wonderful the other day, but that was well after dark when it finally quieted down.
#NASAWebb mapped the weather on an exoplanet 280 light-years away, where it’s cloudy on the nightside and clear on the dayside—with equatorial winds howling around the planet at 5,000 miles per hour. (1/6)
@spacetelescope 2300ºF is, in my experience, considerably more than what is needed to forge iron!... Do they know what those amazing atmospheric winds consist of?
Inspired by late night mastodon.radio conversations, I put in a low-ball best offer on a TRS-80 Model 102, not expecting it to be accepted, but it was. So I guess TNC field packet is a go? What have I done? 😜 🤠
Looks minty. I will order a replacement RAM backup battery and a re-cap kit just in case (battery certainly needs to be replaced), that's like $20 in parts. And a DB-25 to DB-9 RS-232 cable.
@ve3qbz Seems like with that RS232 cable you just need to have a friend who's enough of a hoarder to have a pile of them to give you one for free... (Don't look at me, I dumped all of mine a few years after I no longer used them! 😅 )
@Stormgren@ve3qbz Hahaha, I take great pride in only being a very second-class hoarder. I currently have WAY too many extra USB cables and others, and I'm definitely like that meme about the dad who doesn't want to throw away a decent piece of wood. 😆
@ve3qbz@tsherrygeo@ai6yr@douglasvb I suspect that most coax connectors are added manually, either entirely or to some degree, so there is labor involved that makes the shorter cable lengths less economical... But prices seem a bit crazy anyway! I was relieved to recently get a custom 50' length of BuryFlex with connectors for 70-something bucks. I expected $100+.
Screencap of live video that was happening as I made my 2nd parachute mobile contact today. Waiting to hear and hoping they'll be on 20m next. #hamradio
I went to my local ham swap meet this morning, sort of. The problem is that it's in a picnic area that is completely surrounded by sportsball fields, so there was zero parking anywhere within several blocks, even after three complete circuits of the area. SO I gave up and will be getting things done around the house instead. Yay.
@toxi You are very fortunate! We have the Sierra mountain range which is also glorious (perhaps not so much as the Alps) but it's about a 2-hour drive from me to reach.
I am just one chapter into Steven Wright's new novel "Harold" and I can't remember that last time I laughed so hard reading a book (probably never).
And yes, that Steven Wright, the deadpan comedian that Rolling Stone magazine once listed as the 15th funniest comedian of all time. #bookstodon#books#laughoutloud
@NeadReport Ha, that's a relief! I think I got him mixed up with Richard Lewis, another funny guy from the same sort of era. Glad he's still around as he's one of my favorites... "I think it's wrong that just one company makes Monopoly."
