by srhuston

Getting Better All The Time

I alluded before to a problem with my antenna tuner at home. To not tell the long story yet but get to today’s point, it’s on the way back to the manufacturer to be diagnosed and hopefully replaced. Meanwhile I took the old unun (which is a 4:1 transformer that connects the coax from the transmitter to the two points of the antenna, the radiating element above ground and the ground radials) and mounted it back on the antenna. Kept my homemade RF choke coming off the feedline, and connected the other end of it into the unun – probably overkill but so be it for now. Then managed to crimp two ring terminals onto a piece of 10ga wire I had laying around from an old UPS, and used that to connect the ground lug of the unun to the mounting bracket so it would ground things properly. Finally went to take the positive wire that mounts to the radiating element and put it on the positive lug, only to find the stud is too big for the ring terminal. Well fine, this is temporary anyway – so I literally sandwiched the ring terminal next to the stud and between two washers, then twisted the wing nut down nice and tight. Hey, it’ll work in a pinch right?

Right I was, when I hooked the tuner up in the shack and found I was able to get on the air quite easily. Even turned the power up to 100W with no problems either from the tuner freaking out or from RF coming back into the shack. Did I mention that since this is temporary I didn’t connect a ground line to the tuner either? Today I got a couple 90-degree PL-259 to SO-239 adapters so I can more easily mount the thick coax onto the tuner, and since I had to buy a four pack when I only needed three I used the third on the back of the radio too just to make that a little easier.

So things aren’t how they should be: I should replace that 10ga wire with a better crimped 12ga one (I failed to mention I didn’t have 10ga ring terminals so I spread the 12ga ones out a little), I should replace the other wire with one that has properly sized ring terminals as well, not to mention I should have my actual tuner sitting there instead of this hack, and maybe when that tuner returns I should put a better choke balun at the antenna feed point either in addition to the homemade one or to replace it. But all that aside… I have a working HF station that maybe even works a little better than it did at the previous house. I noticed during lunch today when I hooked everything up and tested quickly that the noise level on 20m was quite low between transmissions, something I don’t remember seeing here previously and may be better than the previous location as well but I can’t recall. So it’s all still not right, but it’s getting better. Just gotta remember that, it’s getting better.

Posted in Ham /
by srhuston

Microphone Switching for Fun and Profit

When I started in amateur radio, I did the simplest of things – used the hand mic plugged into the front of the rig. Over time, I drifted away from radio usage for a bit and then came back into it (that’s a story for another post.) When I did, I started to make my shack more complex and versatile, and even added new radios for more functionality. Now I had the problem of having different ways of talking into different radios, and I didn’t like that as much. So I designed a switch box that could take some inputs and mix up the outputs to make things more convenient for how I like to operate. I had someone on my radio club email list ask about a product that could do a similar thing, and I mentioned that I built one for not that much time or money. Since he was interested in more information, I wrote the whole thing up as a nice article. And now, I present it to you, my Home-Made Microphone Switch.

by srhuston

Reading Is Fundamental

Recently I’ve started reading for pleasure again – more than just technical manuals and white papers anyway. I asked around my friends about a good place for recommendations for books. Mostly what I wanted was a kind of “if you like those, you may like these” type of thing – rate a few books and get recommendations for things other people have rated similarly. Everyone said Goodreads was the answer to that, so I set up an account there. I don’t have many books in my “read list” yet, mostly ones that either I could see from my shelf at the time I created the account or some that were purchased after that and added in there like the Dan Brown series of books I got since the holidays (which was precipitated by watching the movies not that long ago and enjoying them). Some books from when I was younger, like a lot of Dean Koontz novels, have made the list too. Others I’ll add as time permits and I remember them.

Since Goodreads has its own built-in review pages and whatnot, I don’t know if I’m going to duplicate them here. It seems silly to post in both places, though they do have a nice feature that when you post a review you can get a HTML code block that includes the review and links back to the site and whatnot (which is included below for my latest finished book) so I’ll think about it. Meanwhile, at the very least, this post serves to link you to my Goodreads account, as well as an offhand way to mention I finished “The Lost Symbol” by Dan Brown last night and enjoyed it.

The Lost Symbol (Robert Langdon, #3)The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown
My rating: 4 of 5 stars

A lot of people seem to crap on Dan Brown for his writing style. I don’t understand the hatred myself – this is the third of his books I’ve read and I’ve enjoyed them all. Are there parts that maybe are a little predictable? Perhaps. But on the other hand there’s the benefit of having your brain draw a conclusion that in the end is found to be false. Maybe you saw it coming a mile away and that’s why you didn’t enjoy it. For me, I enjoyed this book, found a few twists I did not expect and enjoyed, and found it hard to put down more than once when I knew I should be going to bed. I look forward to the next one as well.

View all my reviews
by srhuston

Getting There, and What’s Up

I’m starting to get there with the site layout. Adjusted some things, I think I broke some things too, but it doesn’t look half bad. Except the black text in the top bar, I don’t think I like that. Maybe I’ll play with other themes and see if I find one I like soon. Meanwhile, back to the topic of “why are you reviving this”, some information on ideas I’ve got and whatnot. Strap in kids, it’s gonna get bumpy.

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by srhuston

So, Like… Why?

I wondered myself. Why do I feel the need to come back here and write again? I used to write on Facebook, though it was always shorter things. And then when Google Plus opened I wrote there quite a bit, and pretty much abandoned my website because the same content on G+ drew a lot more traffic. So why come back to here again? Well, even though I don’t pick up the microphone on the radios that often, I do like to talk. Especially when it’s things I’m passionate about. Tinkering, electronics, these are things that I enjoy a lot. And when I think of a new thing to explore, I like to talk about it to people. Sometimes when I talk about stuff it’s because I need to think it through, and having someone else to listen and especially ask questions is helpful for me to hash out the idea myself or gain a greater understanding. Other times it’s because I want to share my excitement with someone and maybe they’ll want to join in the fun. And sometimes it’s just to make a connection – I find a lot of geeky types are eager to share their geekiness in hopes of finding another geek who likes it, if only to have someone to work with and come up with new ideas. Unfortunately, and especially when the audience doesn’t share in the excitement, that kind of gushing about a new thing can be boring at best, or off-putting at the worst. So rather than subject my family to it all the time, I thought maybe writing about it would help me to still have that moment I feel like I need where I talk about something that has sparked in my head, without forcing others in the house to look for a way out of hearing range 😀 But first, I still need to do some housekeeping around here. The cobwebs are a bit thick, and there’s definitely a layer of dust everywhere. Only I have a couple things I’m working on that have prevented me from working here, so we’ll see how it goes. Maybe I’ll start writing those things as drafts to share later, so I still get it down to publish without making it seem like I’m ignoring the mess everywhere…

by srhuston

Coming Soon…

About five months shy of ten years since my last post on this site. Why? Well, for a while I was writing more long-form stuff on teh Plus of Goog, but they eventually went away. Then I caught some flak for posting things that some people felt I shouldn’t be posting, so I retreated into my own little world of not saying much of anything, certainly nothing controversial or even vaguely pearl-clutching. But I keep finding things I want to write up or talk about, and teh Book of Face isn’t the right audience more often than not. Sure I could go with Medium or something like that, but… I have this domain with WordPress installed, why not use it? So I think I will. Soon. Gonna fix up the place a bit first, and clean out some cobwebs.

by srhuston

Hey, Where’d He Go?

My site’s been a bit stale lately. Like, for nine months or so. I keep meaning to post stuff here, but just don’t find the motivation when it feels like I’ve got an audience of practically nothing. But, with Google+ gaining in the popular opinion polls – and the fact that its format lends itself to the short Twitter-like posts, the long website-like posts, and the medium Facebook-like posts – I find I post a lot more there. Like, a *lot* more. So, if you’d like to see what’s basically the next version of my website, it’s not a far trip: https://srhuston.net/+ will get you to my profile, and hitting the “Posts” tab will show you what I’ve been up to.  If you want an invite, let me know there too – I’ve got plenty to give out still :>

by srhuston

Hulu Plus Open To All

Today Hulu announced their Hulu Plus service is open to all, with a slightly lower price of $7.99/month too.  Stephanie and I have been quite happy with the service, and look forward to some more content deals that bring the remainder of our favorite shows to the offerings available to stream directly to the PS3.

Oh, and while they now offer a one week free trial, if you sign up through this link you get two weeks free instead.  I also get two free weeks, so it would be appreciated :>

by srhuston

Hulu… Plus?

A couple months ago I wrote about changing how we watch TV and near the end of the month I did get a Hulu Plus invite.  It’s been a while, and we just cancelled our DirecTV subscription (though they tried to give us some good deals on lower prices, they all still required a two year contract – no thanks).  We have used both Netflix and Hulu on the PS3 to fill the “void” from a live subscription TV service.  I think the kids have used our Netflix subscription more than we have so far – we’ve watched and returned three DVDs (the third just went back in today’s mail), but viewed considerable hours on the streaming service – and they have a new-found appreciation for the “Land Before Time” series of movies.  I’ve used the streaming service from work during my lunch breaks, and fell in love with the show Firefly (Serenity is in the queue as well though I’ve also got hooked on Doctor Who and Torchwood).  We’ve all enjoyed previous episodes of “Wallace & Gromit” (even some that I have on DVD currently) and were introduced to “Shaun the Sheep” as well as a new Wallace & Gromit episode we hadn’t yet seen (“A Matter of Loaf and Death”).  So, how is Hulu treating us?  Well.. it looks pretty, and it works great on the computer.  It works great on the PS3 too, but we haven’t watched much on it.  Unfortunately that can be blamed on the TV studios, but Hulu is taking the brunt of the complaints.

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by srhuston

TV You Want To Watch

TV subscriptions have always felt like a “necessary evil” to me.  Over-the-air TV signals used to leave a lot to be desired (my first 20 years were spent with them, we didn’t have a subscription of any kind until my parents moved to an RF dead zone), though I admit to not looking since the digital transition.  Cable always seemed overpriced, and the local cable conglomerate never left me with warm fuzzies, especially when they’d just about double rates and say it’s because your promotion expired, but now that you called to complain they’ll be happy to sell you some other promotion with channels you don’t care about just to bring your bill back down to something you only scream a little when you have to pay.  About two years ago, we moved to DirecTV and have been very happy with it ever since – by far, they have been the best TV subscription we’ve had.  The hardware worked flawlessly, the software was easy to use, and the quality was better than anything we’d been served previously.  But when looking at the bills and seeing that we’re paying around $75/mo for television, Stephanie and I both separately started wondering about other options.  Last week we came to each other with some ideas, found that we were both thinking along similar lines, and decided to do something about it.  Read on for more.

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