Monday, October 31, 2011

Lights Out!!

The storm that brought us snow on Saturday morning knock our power out around 4:00PM and word from the power company is Wednesday for my area. I hope they are wrong and it is sooner than later.

My neighbor has a generator and I have a line hooked up for a few heaters and last night had the TV going. (The tube helps pass the time and lightens up the room.) He turns it off the at 11:00PM so the mornings are chilly, good think it's not winter yet.

At one point 500,000 homes in NJ were without power, as of this morning 169,000+ are out. The sun is shinning today so I am hoping it warms up and heats up my house a bit.

The funny thing is I keep turning on the light switches at night, just a habit!





Thursday, October 20, 2011

Resistor Calculator


Here is an easy online tool for calculating resistor values. It almost feels like cheating.

By spinning the wheel and matching up the colors your right on the money with the correct values.

Of course it might be a good idea to recheck the resistor with your meter to learn and get use to its general operation.
Another way to remember the colors on a resistor is the old saying "Bad Boys" etc. well you might know the rest but its not nice to talk about Violet that way.
Lets keep in clean.

Thursday, October 13, 2011

Suspended Jacuzzi

Check out these photos of the suspended Jacuzzi 130 feet below a bridge.

Just looking at the photos gets my hands sweaty. I do not know about you but I prefer my Jacuzzi action to be at ground level.

Great Photos!

Friday, October 7, 2011

New Velleman USA Site

One of my favorite kit sources is Velleman, Inc.

The just came out with a new website that is easier to get around. Velleman is also one of the few manufacturers that is always coming out with new kits and products in general. I have built a number of their kits and they are first class and so far worked for me without any troubleshooting or missing components. That is a hassle when you sit down to start a new build and find you were shorted an item or two.

Here is the Velleman link:

Monday, October 3, 2011

Comic Book Ad Classic

The best thing about reading comic books many many years ago were all those cool ads.

Here is an All Time Classic: The Sea Monkeys.



It is still fun looking at them!

10 Meters

The 10 Meter band is one of my favorites spots for worldwide DX excitement but over the past years it has been quiet except for a few local contacts.

So after reading the band has been wide open I decided to gave it a go during my lunch break. With only 1 hour to play radio and getting a late start did not help one bit. Heard some nice DX stations across the band but in the 20 minutes or so with the Buddipole just could not break any pile ups.

I will give it another go this weekend without the rush to get back to work.