brainwagon

Lest you all think I’m merely a robotic automata without any sense of sentimentality or soul, I present the following. Thanks Alex for the link.

Lots and lots of good information, rather Euro-centric (they seem to have lots more fun with satellites than we do here in the states) but I’m impressed by the depth and breadth of the information contained therein. Found it while searching for information about a helical cavity filter. Weather Satellites Addendum: You can read about […]

Try reading some of this drivel. Rebel Science News

In about a month, the ANDE satellite (otherwise known as NO-61) will deorbit. Last night I was out hunting for it, and heard a single AFSK packet which didn’t decode properly. It’s pretty hard to bounce something off it since it only wakes up for 1s out of ever 15s looking for packets. This satellite […]

Just a link to a webstore that carries stuff of interest to amateurs interested in APRS tracking. They have a chinese import HT for $90 that might be good. Argent Data Systems – APRS Hardware

Causes of Death Are Linked to a Person’s Weight – New York Times About two years ago, a group of federal researchers reported that overweight people have a lower death rate than people who are normal weight, underweight or obese. Now, investigating further, they found out which diseases are more likely to lead to death […]

This guy is now in our lobby at Pixar. You should be seeing him next June on the big screen.

Yep. Another earthquake. I had just gotten of the phone with Carmen when I felt the slow, periodic roll of an earthquake. The shaking was relatively slow but fairly large in magnitude, and persisted for nearly ten seconds. The cat was not particularly happy with the shaking either, and he meowed to be let out […]

Well, I’m not much for operating really, but I have been trying to work up the courage actually talk on the AO-51 amateur satellite.  It was down from October 18th, but today was back up and running the repeater.  I am still using a handheld Arrow crossed Yagi, so my hands are pretty busy, but […]

I spent yesterday wandering around Pacificon. Nothing too exciting to report: I picked up a book or two, no major purchases. The QRP related activities were a lot of fun, and I managed to win a bid for a BLT tuner kit from qrpkits.com . Oh, and I decided to try to upgrade my Technicians […]

From the AO-51 status page: AMSAT – AO-51 Control Team News At 1848Z 11 OCT over Europe, the software on AO-51 crashed, shutting down both transmitters. Subsequently the repeater and BBS will be down for several days while the command stations reload. Sorry for any inconvenience. I’m bummed.

Well, there is no post-season joy for the A’s this year, but as I glance in the left margin, I recall one of the most incredible games I’ve ever attended: the 12th inning victory of the Athletics over the Red Sox secured by Ramon Hernandez’ bases loaded, two out bunt. It was the most ludicrous, […]

I recorded some in Audacity. Here you can see the spectrum display. It wheedles back and forth between two tones which are clearly visible. You can also see some considerable fading in the signal. Them’s the breaks of propagation.  If you look really closely, you can see another, weaker signal in the spectrum directly below […]

Well, i was playing with the TenTec some more, and noticed that it wasn’t very mechanically stable . The VFO wanders considerably just from the capacitance of objects in its vicinity, by as much as a couple of hundred Hertz. It’s time to get this thing mounted permanently in the box I ordered for it. […]

Well, I feel stupid. After days of figuring out why I was getting an ugly feedback squeal coming everytime I tried to plug in my TenTec 1056 into something. Finally, today, on a total lark, I swapped out the cable. And… voila. Worked perfectly. So, here’s some Morse code recorded directly from my radio (recorded […]