Month: December 2021

December 30, 2021 – Bon Voyage 2021

December 30, 2021 /

Tomorrow is a holiday for me so this is the last post in 2021 and then we will be on to the new year.  As always, there are many things planned for the holiday and the weekend.  I mean this when I say that I am looking forward to getting into the new year and then things start settling down quite a bit.

I have already written about the year in review and my Festivus airing of grievances so I am not going to rehash all of that again.  But, I think it is always good to spend some time reflecting.  In many ways, I think 2021 was more difficult that 2020.  Yes, 2020 was crazy but it was also a new kind of crazy whereas 2021 was the same shit, different year.

I think one of the differences for me was my work situation.  Since I was very driven in 2020 to remodel the apartment, I was hyper focused on that project sun up to sundown.  Driving for Amazon, I had to concentrate on my surroundings, my driving and planning my next steps as well.  For example, I couldn’t really listen to my podcasts while I was delivering because I wasn’t paying any attention to what they were saying.  I tried, but it just didn’t work.

This last year, I have spent most of the working days behind a desk, where my mind wanders at times.  I think about what I want to make for dinner, what my project plans should be next, what do I want to write about for the week, how many chapters do I have to read in a week to keep up with my reviews, etc.  Don’t get me wrong, I can appreciate that kind of luxury, but I think it is kind of like being an addict.  You are kind of anticipating your next hit (I mean until work is over so I start on that project).  That mental mindset is different than you are not punching out until all of you packages are delivered.

People that know me, know that I am not emotional.  My wife on the other hand is.  We are yin and yang.  This has been a very difficult year for her, and by proxy myself as well.  There have been times of spontaneous tears, shouting matches as primary caretaker and patient, extended trips away from home.  I have had to play the role of peacemaker and lighthouse as well as Mr. Mom.  I suppose that is assuming the consequences of assuming the role of Patriarch for that half of the family.

Speaking of Mr. Mom, having teenagers has some benefits and a lot of drawbacks.  With all the time that they spent at home last year, they lost a lot of discipline.  Everywhere they are is a mess, meal time is literally almost anytime of the day and their personalities are driving me crazy sometimes.  One child is vegan every other month and the other picks and eats all the meat out of leftovers.  One child leaves for school at 7AM and returns at 8PM, the other selectively turns in assignments.  Neither feed and care for the animals or perform chores adequately or without prompting.  This causes friction with my wife and me as well as the kids.

I am not saying the calendar changing does anything about any of this.  It does allow me to reflect on what I want to change.  I want to be careful, this is a path that can lead back to where I was a few years ago, marching through time not with passion but because you don’t know how to get off the wheel.  It has the sights of deja vu, only I have been down this road before.  

The next logical step is to decide and make those changes.  This is where I get stuck a bit.  I am pretty good a laying out options, but moving forward is more difficult.  I suppose that it is more like you already know that you don’t like the choices so doing nothing is the easiest.  At least you know the downsides already. 

I think about some of the most radical changes that have occurred in my life, many of them were done without a lot of thought.  For instance, when I moved to South Carolina.  The truth is, I really didn’t want to do it.  I was happy with what I was doing and had only been in our house less than two years.  But, when the opportunity came up, I didn’t say no and everything just happened.  In retrospect, that was one of the best opportunities that I could have ever accepted.  There was so much learning and growing that came from it that if I would have stuck to my instincts would have never happened.

If ever there was a personality trait that I wish I had, I wish that I had to ability to know what I wanted and be decisive.  In contrast, I suppose I have the same type of discipline that makes a good scientist.  I want to collect all of the data, then analyze it and finally make a conclusion that the data supports.  What do you do when the data is inconclusive?  You perform more experiments until a clear analysis is possible.  Life definitely isn’t a well defined experiment with finite outcomes, so I am still collecting data.

Looking back to my first post of this year and my goalsetting, I accomplished none of these things.  The truth is, those are the logical steps to move this endeavor from a hobby to a business.  But, the real question is why didn’t I do any of those things?  I can make up excuses like I was working but the real truth is I didn’t want to.  To be brutally honest, I was lazy and didn’t want to put in the extra work that was required to do all of the small things to accomplish the larger goal.  I wanted to spend my extra time building my office, reading 1984 and writing my daily posts rather than I did working on a business plan.

I would liken it to my process oriented brain.  It is very easy for me to see the endpoint and make up all of the logical steps in between.  What is not as easy is to impart the intangible discipline to do it, primarily driven by desire.  Does that make me a loser who wants to live in misery?  A little bit because there is only so much whining people will tolerate from someone that appears chronically unhappy and it seems to be their own doing, especially when they don’t follow their own plan. 

To stave that off, it is up to me to figure out the motivations and do something different with my situation.  For instance, maybe I should spend my time writing a book rather than this blog?  Or maybe I should stop writing for a while and really figure out if podcasting is what I would rather do?  Or maybe I should narrow the focus of this and stick to one subject to build a targeted audience rather than my daily whatever is top of mind? Or maybe I should keep this as it is because I enjoy it and stop trying to wish I was an entrepreneur type of personality?

End Your Programming Routine: I think it is OK to not know what the future looks like as long as you are aware that is the case.  The lucky few know what they want and are doing it.  The rest of us know that something isn’t quite right. I want to be in the subset that keeps looking rather than accepting this is all there is.  That being said, I am going to make some changes in 2022, just not sure what that is going to be yet.  I am checking off 2021 and wish you a happy new year.

December 29, 2021 – Snow Days at 46 versus 13

December 29, 2021 /

We had snow on Christmas Day. It wasn’t in the morning but started coming down in the early evening. It snowed all night and continued the next day. The last time I remember having snow (on the ground) Christmas day was 1992.  From my memory, there has been one, true ‘White Christmas’ here in my part of Oregon, that was in 1988 where it started snowing Christmas Eve.

I had a four day weekend.  Friday and Monday were holidays for me around Christmas.  I spent Friday cooking as I made mole from scratch.  We had a low country boil for Christmas eve dinner.  Saturday was Christmas and Sunday was a down day.  Monday, it was back to work, so to speak.  Since my mother-in-law was staying with us over the weekend, it was time to get her back home.

I shoveled a path on the deck, stairs, driveway and a few access points.  Part of why I did that was forecasts were all over the map in terms of high temperatures.  I didn’t want the packed snow to ice over and be days worth of problems, including the driveway.  When I got to her house, I knocked the snow off of the awning, shoveled the snow off the roof, shoveled a path to the door.  We then discovered that the water line was frozen.  I spent an hour defrosting that and getting the water running.

When I used to work outside of the home, a snow day was not a day the office was closed, unlike the kids school or working for the state, like my wife.  I would plan extra time to get the car cleaned off and drive half speed or less.  When I had the ability or forethought to take my equipment home before the storm, I would work from home while everyone is watching movies and playing in the snow.

In 1988, my brother and I got mountain bikes for Christmas.  We road them in the snow and ice for the first time.  Needless to say, we found that combination didn’t work too well.  I don’t remember my brother’s outcome but I know that I laid my new bike down several times that day.

I suppose that I get my tendencies from my parents because a snow day was just a regular day.  They would go off to work in the morning and we were left to ourselves. We lived on a hill in the country and there was some traffic but not a lot.  We would start a fire in the woodstove in the shop and sled for hours down the hill, every couple of hours going into the shop to warm up and dry off.  

There is a stark contrast between what we did and my kids.  They don’t really play together, not even making a snowman or snowball fight.  I would estimate that they barely spent an hour a piece over the last couple of days outside.  Maybe they get it from me?  I was spent from the month of December and the hours in the kitchen over the last week.  I just wanted to sit down and watch football for a couple of hours.

It seems like a lot of people appear excited to have snow.  Here, it is about a once a year event.  But, the truth is, I don’t see a lot of people doing stuff and really taking advantage of it.  Maybe it is just a good excuse to do nothing?  I guess what I feel like is that there is everything that needs to get done, plus more work and time to do it.

My son asked me if I was excited that it snowed. I told him that I have spent winters in Michigan, Wisconsin and Canada;  not really.  I used to work for a Canadian company and the majority opinion was that it was better to live somewhere where snow was not in the daily routine.  One guy even told me that people had winter cars because of the salt on the roads (at least he did).  

End Your Programming Routine: I like seasons, I don’t think I would do well in a semi-tropical climate.  Last year I wrote about the transition to Winter makes you appreciate the Summer and was necessary for life to recharge and grow strong.  That being said, I am OK if this is our annual snow event.  It has been a number of years since we have seen any accumulation of snow.  I really appreciate that I don’t have to add several hours to my drive or even leave the house at this point.

December 28, 2021 – Brave New World, Chapters 1-6

December 28, 2021 /

So, I miscounted the number of chapters, there are actually 18. Divide by three and that should be six chapters per week.  Today, I will be reviewing the first six chapters of “Brave New World”.

If we think about the world in 1931, when this book was written and apply our critical thinking and knowledge of history,  we know that the world is in the beginning of the Great Depression, there is the rise of Fascism with the election of Mussolini in 1922 and the writing of Mein Kampf in 1925 and with it came the pseudo-science of eugenics.  That is a good place to start since this is really how the book starts.  Eugenics is the manipulation of human reproduction to have more desired traits and less undesired traits.

The book begins with a tour of the factory where babies are created.  It follows through with raising after they are born and then character development begins.  Some good stuff happens while touring the factory, here are some concepts from Chapter 1.

  • Slogans – A unified population is an obedient population.  That is done by having people believe the same things.  To do that, they use a motto or slogan ‘Community, Identity, Stability’.
  • Classification of people –  The concept of Alpha, Beta, Delta, Epsilon and Gamma (including + and – of each) individuals is introduced.  Knowing and accepting your place in society helps maintain order and stability.
  • Matching mental and physical maturity and purpose – Huxley is proposing through the director’s character that when the body is physically mature but the mind is not it leaves more time for a person to think.  This is an undesirable gap in that it could lead to rebellion or acting or learning or believing out of class.

In chapter 2, the babies are in the world.  There is a aversion to using the word born because that implies a natural childbirth which is not how they came to be.  This chapter is all about how the children are trained into class.  Including what clothes they wear, what stories they hear and what propaganda they are continuously looped.  

  • Learning + Nature = Wild = Ungovernable – There is a distinct attempt to keep people away from nature and natural experiences.  Too many and they start to rebel because they start to understand that this life is not right (proper).
  • Science requires understanding, Morality is programming – This one jumped out at me because I didn’t realize how true it was.  The spirit is that morality can be trained/taught/programed whereas truth cannot.  

Chapter 3 gets a little fuzzy as it is a series of flashbacks and character introductions.  It is a little hard to follow when it is a series of short sentences and jumping back and forth between different character groups.  Nevertheless there are some good new concepts.

  • Eroticism – Whether it is culturally expected promiscuity or something called ‘erotic play’ it seems like there is an supernatural focus on sexuality that is missing in a culture of test tube babies.  I think that it is further emphasized with the next concept.
  • Drugs – It seems that women are taking hormones for regularity or ‘Soma’ for feeling more or Soma for feeling less.  They are even required contraceptives so that women don’t end up pregnant.  There is also reference to abortion clinics so it must not be completely effective, pregnancy is definitely not permitted.

Chapters 4-6 are character and plot line development.  We find that there are some doubts in to complete belief in utopia.  The main character Bernard Marx opens up with a friend Helmholtz Watson and girlfriend Lenina.  He might have an ally in Helmholtz but Lenina cannot overcome her programming to even indulge in the fact that there might be more to life.

End Your Programming Routine: I am trying to get through the concepts that make this work a great text to end your programming, not spoil the book.  So, I could write more about the later chapters but they require more setup in terms of explaining what is happening in the plot rather than in your face mechanisms of control.  I did find it interesting that technology such as helicopters, rockets and television was mentioned in the 1930s.  I didn’t know that such technology existed at the time.  Stay tuned to chapters 7-12.

December 23, 2021 – Happy Festivus

December 23, 2021 /

As you know from last year we do celebrate Festivus here at AltF4.co. While most of the activities are difficult to convey in written format, the airing of grievances are particularly suited.  I think traditionally, grievances would be associated to people attending the dinner, but in this case I am not going to impose that limit.

I think that we all recall how the year started out.  January 6, a huge group of useful idiots stormed the US Capitol. With shock and amazement, six people died participating in a manufactured crisis and subsequent legal/PR/propaganda clusterfuck this turned out to be.  What a perfect beginning to 2021.

  • Oregon’s own Governor Brown – I saw a survey a couple of weeks ago that listed Kate Brown as the least popular governor in the United States.  It is no wonder that I have a problem here.  Granted, not all of Oregon’s problems are related strictly to the figure, but it is a good start.  Whether it is losing freedom or imposing administrative fear in the population, she has earned her Festivus place.
  • The ‘Rust’ crew – This has got to be one of the dumbest tragedies of the year.  Fools playing with guns mix live ammunition into stage work and someone dies.  I feel so bad for the director (and family) that was likely innocent but also the victim.  There is no doubt to me that Alec Baldwin is reaping what he sows here.  The flimsy excuses and nonsense that has subsequently come out as a result makes me hope that those involve pay dearly for negligence.  Even terrible accidents happen which I believe this was, the fact that no one takes responsibility for this is deplorable.
  • Useful idiots –  From Jessie Smollet, Antifa and woke culture to Proud Boys stooges both sides play parts in the ongoing drama.  As I keep saying, it doesn’t matter which side you are taking, if you take a side you are advancing the agenda of both sides of the political dichotomy.  We are all losers here.
  • Monetary Policy Makers, Politicians and Media reporting – The ‘official‘ inflation rate is 6.8% for 2021.  Those of us living in the real world know that the gerrymandering of the statistics that go into the number is a farce.  Let’s look at some items: OSB – 3X last year, 2x4x8 #2 studs- 2X last year, available ammunition – at least 2X last year, 20# propane tanks – 2X last year, ground beef – 2X last year.  I could go on and on about every time I turn around something is costing significantly more than it used to (anyone priced houses lately).  It turns out that if you take all the items out of the calculation that actually have inflation, then you can get to 6.8%
  • Politicians (again) – Let us not forget that much of the inflation is tied to ridiculous Covid policies and stimulus severely effecting the supply chain.  The claim that prices are driven by raw material costs and availability are direct reflections of paying people not to work, disbarring rental contract enforcement and economic stimulus that has no other consequences but inflation.  Many of you probably don’t realize (yet, until April) that the checks the government sent in the summer were advancements on the Child Credit.  That money will be factored into your total income and in my case, I will likely have to pay that back.  Thanks US Treasury.  I didn’t need it, nor did I ask for it but just tack $2000 onto my bill in April.

Here are some honorable mentions this year.  I will save some of my vitriol and describe a simply disappointed.

  • OSU Beavers football team – At times they looked brilliant and dominated opponents, including the PAC-12 champions Utah.  They were 6-0 at home but on the road they looked downright listless.  This includes getting shellacked by 5-7 Cal and losing to Colorado at 4-8 in overtime.  As much as I wanted this to be the year of change, it was clear after the LA Bowl that this was probably a fluke.
  • Las Vegas Raiders –   I have always been a Raiders fan but this year I was hoping for more.  The Raiders were also my father-in-law’s favorite team.  This was one sports team that we could cheer for in common because I definitely didn’t want to talk about how the Ducks are doing every year.  The rest of the family was hoping for a good showing too to help transition through the grief.  It’s not over, but it sure doesn’t look good especially after being blown out by Kansas City two weeks ago and squeaking by Cleveland’s third string offense last week.

End Your Programming Routine: Just because I listed a bunch of bad things above doesn’t mean there weren’t good things too.  This is however the Airing of Grievances so I stuck to topic.  As I wrap up the year here, I hope that you take time to enjoy the holidays and focus on what is important in life: God, family, friends and building the Quiet Insurrection.  We wont fix this by electing the right people, we will fix this by being a better neighbor, having compassion and loving those around us.  

 

 

December 22, 2021 – We Are On the Upswing

December 22, 2021 /

Yesterday was one of the days I anticipate starting about the first of November.  Since it was the Winter Solstice, all the days from here to mid June start to get longer.  I say this because this is a mental as well as physical transition point.  It is the wrapping up of the previous year and looking forward to starting the new one. 

At the 45th parallel, sunrise is 7:48a and sunset is 4:34p . That means we have a little over eight hours of daylight.  I noticed it acutely last year when I was delivering packages for Amazon when daylight was precious and made a huge difference in productivity.  Of course, I notice it now because I am alive and observant.  I will say that I start work around 5AM most days so I still get a couple hours of daylight most days that seem to make a big difference on feeling like it is dark all the time.

I thought I would take a look at the year that was and look ahead to the year that is coming today.  There were probably two themes within my control that dominated the year, those were restarting my career and basement cleanup.  Those two things seemed to go hand in hand as I built my office in the mess of the basement.  As I end the year, the cleanup job is finally done.

Ironically, I think the death of my father-in-law and the estate clean-up as much as it interfered with what I wanted to do, it also helped.  The cold, binary function of keep/toss was just a task.  Loads to be donated and to the dump were combined and executed.  

As the rains come each winter, I often haphazardly move items around to get them off of the floor.  That behavior often leaves things more disorganized than they were before I started, protecting my junk.  This year, I had one small area that I finished last week to make room on my bench so I could wrap presents.  Now, the basement is as organized as it will be and protected from the flooding that is possible each year.

I talked a lot about my office build throughout the year.  I still have things that I want to do but for all intents and purposes, that is done.  So, that was two major things that I accomplished this year. 

I did have other plans before my new employment, like I was going to build a wine cellar space in the basement.  I wanted to build a front yard garden, that never got started.  I wanted to spend more time developing this platform and a business plan, that never happened.  I only got a fraction of the range time, hunting, fishing and outdoors time that I wanted.  Those were some of the things that I thought I was going to do, but didn’t like build a new table for the kitchen area which is now a TV lounging area.

Looking forward to next year, there are things that will carry forward.  I think the wine cellar and front yard garden of some sort are some of them.   For sure, I am going to spend time exploring podcasting.  Part of my audio insert yesterday was getting started with that. 

New and easier things… I want to build the sofa table for my office so that I can move the stereo back into the office.  I want to brew some beer and optimize the keezer for fun.  I have a chainsaw that I want to get running and then get rid of.  I have more antenna designs and testing that I want to explore.  

End Your Programming Routine:  I heard a very insightful comment last week.  That was, the danger with a roadmap is that people take it as a promise with a due date.  I do believe that publicly stating is a form of accountability.  I did a great job of stating goals last year, but a poor job of following through.  Goals and purpose change, at least my life did last year.  It doesn’t mean that I don’t want this to be a growing concern, but I need to find my own way through it.  

December 21, 2021 – A New Book Review: “Brave New World” by Aldous Huxley

December 21, 2021 /

This is one of those books that often is paired with “1984” or “Atlas Shrugged”. I was toying around with doing “Fahrenheit 451” after Christmas but then I heard some information on “The Dangerous History podcast” the other day that brought this one up again. I highly recommend the whole thing, but in case you just want to listen to some Orwell interpretation, I clipped the relevant part here.

A Brave New World was published in 1932.  From the brief research that I have done, this work was an influence to both Orwell and Bradbury.  As it turns out, Orwell was actually a student of Huxley’s when he was a French teacher and it appears that they had a professional relationship. 

“Within the next generation I believe that the world’s leaders will discover that infant conditioning and narcohypnosis are more efficient, as instruments of government, than clubs and prisons, and that the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience.”

Aldous Huxley to George Orwell on publishing 1984.

What is going to make this review different than “1984” is that I plan to go through it quicker.  I technically have as much time as I need from the library but I am going to try and not take eight months to get through it. 

The plan is to review this book in five segments, this being one of them.  There are fifteen chapters, so five chapters at a time and then a summary.  This is also the first time I have read this, so my eye is not as tuned to the subplots and I am trying to follow the story line first.  That being said, I have already seen a bunch of good stuff in the first two chapters.  Of course with the holidays here, I don’t know if I will be able to keep this schedule, but let’s say that this will be compressed as compared to my previous review.

With the wide and quick swath through the book, I am going to again hit concepts.  This time, I am not going to spend  a bunch of time supporting the ideas to go along with them.  I will save that for the final wrap-up.  My ultimate idea is to build an AltF4 reading list for you to support the end your programming journey.  

I may have tainted my opinion a little, I read the introduction before actually reading the book.  So, I am not going in completely blind, I have some ideas about Huxley as an author, his influences and motivations when writing.  One interesting thing that this particular edition has is a timeline of Huxley’s life compared to world events.  Since I read it, I will introduce it here.  The three central influences are

  1. Henry Ford
  2. Sigmund Freud
  3. Jazz music

While I haven’t seen any biographical links to justify Huxley’s fixation on those particular topics, I will be keeping an eye out for them in the book.  I do have some working theories at the moment, but I will reserve those for the after I read the book.  One fact to keep in mind if you are reading along, Henry Ford was born in 1863 so the years referred to in the book AF630 would be 630 years after Henry Ford was born or the year 2493 AD to us.

As I develop this concept a little more, I will likely include more than just dystopian fiction although that is where we will start..  I am interested again taking another look at other titles like “Catcher in the Rye” and “Crime and Punishment” as well as non-fiction such as “Seven Habits of Highly effective People”.  Don’t fear, this isn’t going to be a book report blog, this is about developing a library of work and knowledge that supports the efforts of ending your programming.  

End Your Programming Routine: As you might remember from “1984”, my final analysis didn’t line up with the ‘tin-foil-hatters’.  On the surface, I see it.  But look deeper into the story and then try to put it together,  I couldn’t get there.  Is it great fiction – yes.  Is our course eerily charting the same direction – yes. Is it clairvoyant or a roadmap – No.  In fact, I think “Animal Farm” is probably closer to a roadmap.  That is on the list too.

December 20, 2021 – Gumbo

December 20, 2021 /

I made gumbo the other day. The inspiration for this recipe was a bag of okra in the freezer for some unknown reason. Having spent a couple of years in South Carolina, My wife and I came to appreciate okra more than the average Oregonian. I think that it was there because we tried to bread and fry some frozen okra a year ago or so.

I am going to talk about dietary adjustments and reasons later.  For now, we have stepped up the vegetable consumption and toned way down the carbohydrates.  Traditionally, gumbo would be thickened with roux or butter and flour.  Okra does help in thickening without the added flour.  That was another reason to use it.

Lets talk about gumbo at a higher level.  Creole recipes start with ‘the trinity’.  That is celery, onion and green pepper.  I don’t worry terribly about the ratios, but equal parts of all is what I shoot for.  I do however use what I have.  Sweat those and add the rest of the ingredients and heat up and done.

Mine had sausage, chicken and shrimp.  I throw in some Cajun seasoning salt and pepper and thyme.  Top with chicken broth to desired volume.  In my research, I found that gumbo has almost as many variations as there are available ingredients.  There is ‘Lenten’ gumbo that is all vegetables, some have tomatoes, some have limited meats.

Ah hah, I added the remainder (about one cup) of leftover tortilla soup as well.  Oh, I found some leftover pasta sauce (about two cups).  Now don’t go crazy, the basic ingredients in Tortilla soup was chicken, chicken broth, stewed tomatoes and garlic.  The pasta sauce was tomato sauce, garlic and green pepper.  The only thing that might throw it off would be basil, but I doubted that the after a good measure of cayenne it would be too evident.

Traditionally, this soup would then be ladled over some rice.  Not rice with sauce, that would be jambalaya but soup with some rice.  We had some leftover rice from Thai food in the fridge, I added about a 1/4 cup for my bowl.  This came out spot on.  You couldn’t taste the melded additions and it was complex and hearty.

About ten years ago, I started doing research about diet and the effects on health.  My wife has a history of immunocompromise issues.  Through my research, I found that gluten was a primary irritant for things like psoriasis. We tried paleo for a couple of months and her psoriasis went away. We slowly added starched back in and cut out a lot of junk food.  

I would say at this point we were reduced in our carbohydrate consumption to probably half of what it was before the last experiment with paleo but psoriasis came back.  So, we are going full time low carb.  For her specifically, gluten free.  I will have some carbs now and then, I had the rice, she didn’t.  As you know, I am not going to just throw out perfectly good food.  I won’t make a habit of making it again and we are not going to be militant about it.  Everyone should enjoy the festivities of Christmas.

End Your Programming Routine: Psoriasis, Psoriatic arthritis, cancer and diabetes all run in her family.  Eliminating gluten (and sugars) reduces inflammation in the body and all of those risk factors.  Inflammation also causes stroke and arterial buildup of plaque as well.  If the research is correct, this is the right thing to do.  I guess time will tell.

 

 

December 17, 2021 – An Nearly Free AM Antenna

December 17, 2021 /

This one has been a long time coming. I actually planned on building this last year at this time.  In fact, I took the materials to the Boy Scout Christmas tree stand last year to work on in the down time.  I will explain my foibles below.

The only real cost to this project was the wire.  I bought an entire spool at Habitat for Humanity for $3 because one of the real ends on the spool was broken.  The reason this was a problem was because when unwinding the wire, it became a rats nest of wire.  It took me hours to unwind and straighten.   That is what stopped my progress last year.  This year it got some priority because of my basement clean-up efforts.

Before I get too far down the road, the design and plans for this go to Dave Pederson at Trans World Radio which is a 501C ministry to connect the message of Christianity throughout the world.  The reason it is cheap is so it can be built worldwide with salvage materials.  Dave claims that this can be built in thirty minutes.   I would say that it took me a couple of years (just kidding a couple of hours).

My original plan today was to build this antenna and embed the YouTube video.  Right now, I have built the antenna and the video needs to be edited and assembled.  Part of why I am dragging my feet a little bit is that I don’t see any improvement with the antenna.  So, I don’t want to post a video that is marginal or potentially useless.  Or said another way, I am spending some time testing it first.

Getting into antennas is kind of a vortex of science namely physics.  I am positive that there is a lot to know that I don’t, but I do at least understand some of the basics.  Did you know that every AM antenna is is a big coil of wire situated inside the radio?  For that reason, the quality of AM reception is always directional or how the radio is sitting. 

Building an exterior antenna without connections to the radio and in theory get better reception does it by in some ways concentrating the signal.  My goal is to ultimately connect it to my receiver without a bunch of monkeying around with the antenna each time I want to change the signal frequency.  So, I am not going to be real happy if it turns out that I need to adjust the location of this antenna frequently.

It turns out that AM radio stations turn down their ‘power’ at night.  In my quick research, it seems like the amount of environmental electromagnetic interference is reduced.  This would cause some stations to stomp on other stations because of the lack of interference, hence reducing broadcast power to keep them separate.  This plays an additional problem with reception as marginal stations usually are even worse at night.  Ironically, some stations can be found from long distances at night due to signal bounce.  I have heard stations from San Francisco and Calgary Canada at night.

Simple interference itself, is a subject that has lots of gotchas.  The best way I would describe it as a Gaussian Field (take a look at that math).  Ignoring most of the technical information, wires carrying electricity, fluorescent ballasts, LED transformers and all other powered devices emit interference in a bell shaped pattern.  Non-shielded cables (like antennas) are subject high degradation when the lights are on.  It is not a lot of fun to sit in the dark listening to the radio, especially when the benefit of radio is that ability to do things concurrently.  Grounding itself is not as simple as attaching another wire to ground as it can create a loop causing additional interference.

My CCrane radio is marketed at least as the best AM reception available in a radio.  I do admit it is pretty good, it is still subject to the electromagnetic interference from power usage.  I can get stations on that radio that I cant get anywhere else. Testing this new antenna on a lessor quality device is probably worth doing.  I did try it on the receiver loop as well without effect.  So, my tests will be ongoing before I declare this thing done.

End Your Programming Routine:  The truth is, I got better reception by splitting the signal from the dipole antenna (for FM).  That may have to do with the coax cable being outside and shielded rather than the shape of things.   There is more to come on this subject as I haven’t finished my testing yet.  There are other designs that use more expensive electrical components, or maybe the loop isn’t big enough or maybe I just don’t know how to use it?  I am not sure yet but the quest goes on.

December 16, 2021 – ‘Tacticool’ Thursday

December 16, 2021 /

One of the few things I don’t mind too much is Christmas shopping for the sportsman on the list. I did a lot of looking around last weekend not because I needed to but because I wanted to. I thought that I would give a summary of my observations today.  Between the run on firearms and ammunition to the supply chain issues I got a general sense of how things are fairing.

I wrote about the gun show earlier this week.  This particular one happens twice a year and happens to be my geographically closest, perennial show.  It also happens to be regarded as one of the best in the state, so I usually make a point to go even though I never buy anything.

The truth was I was looking for a few items.  I was looking for shotgun slugs for my next range trip. I am waiting for some on order but I also wanted a different style as well.  The way things are going these days between availability and quantity limits, it is very difficult to find all of what you want in one transaction.    I was also looking for reloading components, specifically powder.  

Here is what I saw

  • Firearms – Some of the same players were there.  The Old West Colt dealer was there.  He had his $3000 Peacemakers and his selection looked as healthy as ever.  The big, show dealers were absent.  Typically, these are regional dealers that take 3-6 tables and have that many new firearms.  The single table, 7-8 hunting rifles for sale seemed to also be missing.  The side racks usually hold the ‘value’ purchases.  Most of what I saw there were surplus bolt actions, the Mosin-Nagants, Mousers, 1903 Springfields and the prices weren’t bad.  Overall, I would estimate 50% less firearms than normal.
  • Ammunition- Typically there are several vendors that are selling ammunition only.  Sometimes they are reloads, sometimes they are just a selection of factory new.  There were no vendors of this description.  Ammunition in general was pretty scarce.  What was there was no deal, I would say above even market rate which is probably why it was still available.  Components faired worse.  I saw almost no powder, or bullets or primers.  I saw 1000 primers for $144.  That is 4x what I paid two years ago.
  • Knick-Knacks – I wouldn’t say that there any more dealers there than normal.  I would describe the most prevalent tables as dealers that had 5-20 firearms and 75% of the table space was other sporting goods.  I would describe it as a sort of a flea market or bizarre of related goods.  It is kind of fun to see once in a while but largely more of a time waster.  There was one dealer that had several tables of cheap knives, that was new.  There were several dealers of knives only which is unusual.

Because I failed at finding slugs at the gun show, I checked several other places.  Sportsman’s Warehouse had no slugs and no reloading components other than bullets (which selection does seem to be improving slightly). It seems like 9mm is available now, albeit the price is three times what it was and you are limited to two boxes per purchase.  As I said before, I don’t own a 9mm but it is the bellwether being probably the most common and cheapest centerfire caliber.  They even had some 22LR, the price was $50 for a 500 bulk pack which I last bought for $15 two years ago.

I next checked a regional chain called Coastal Farm and they did have slugs with a limit of two boxes.  A box is five slugs and I want five boxes (25) for my sight in test and to have a box or two in reserve.  This chain has several stores in our region so I went to another nearby town.  They also had slugs, but they restricted me to one box.  So, technically I have enough to do my test and that is it.  I suppose the good news is that I paid $8 a box which seems to be the best price I have seen.

In between the two, I went to a local pawn shop that I have had good luck.  They did have a couple boxes of slugs for $10 a box.  I wish I would have bought them based on how the rest of the day went.  They were busy with other transactions and no one was behind the gun counter, so I left. 

I will say it again, but when checking ballistics, having one lot (and brand) of ammunition is important for consistency purposes.  Now that I have surveyed the state of affairs, it will be really difficult to achieve this in this in the current times.

End Your Programming Routine: I am hearing on the national radio shows that the shortage is getting better.  The ammo/component makers are saying that they are making more than ever, yet the shelves still seem to be bare. The reason any ammunition is on the shelves, it is two – four times what it was. My analysis says that it might be infinitesimally better.   You might be able to buy something, be prepared to pay significantly more and don’t expect a lot of choice in load and bullet.

I saw slugs available in September right before hunting season but the way these things go, that will be the last time I see them on the shelves until next hunting season.  I think that we have a long way to go.  I wouldn’t be surprised to see it still a problem in 2023.