So you and your three buddies are flying around Mexico in your Cessna 172 enjoying the scenery everything is good.  Then boom your propeller falls off!!  That will get your attention pretty fast and it’s not covered in the manual you’re going to have to improvise.

It all works out well in the end.  He lands safely on some highway, no injuries and it looks like very little damage from the whole ordeal.

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Made a couple changes over the last few days to the HAM station I’ve got set up here.  First I changed my HF antenna from a Comet CHA-250BX 24’ vertical to a Chameleon Antenna Hybrid with a 30’ end fed wire.

I mounted it much closer to where my radio and computer so I’ve got a lot of RFI, there are some more changes I need to make to get rid of that.  The Hybrid  is WAY NICE!  Much better receive than the Comet and transmit looks like it’s going to be great too once I get rid of the RFI.  I’m not stuck with one antenna with it either, many different types of antenna can be connected to it.  I can use it mounted to the house as a base like it is  now and can also quickly remove it and mount it for portable or mobile use.  One of the next things I’m going to do is change the 30’ end fed to the Chameleon Antenna V1 and see how that works out.

I changed the grounding to the radio to use a ground rod I installed for the Comet awhile back.  That seems...

After 44 years there is nothing happening on Christmas Eve at the Davis household this year.

Fights between family members and sick sisters looks like it killed it this year.  Oh Well Everything else is screwed up too so why not Christmas?

Looks like you can still go out and target shoot on federal public lands.  A bill that was being drafted to ban it has been stopped for now.  I do wish I knew where some federal public lands were around my house. I hate the indoor shooting ranges.  Feds bag Curbing target practice.

Now this is pretty cool.  Flights Overhead It uses your geoIP information and shows all the flights flying above you.  If you click on one of the flights you get all sorts of information about it. 

 

Sat, 22 Oct 2011 22:00:00 GMT

People keep talking about “the cloud” like it’s something supper great and all their stuff will be safe on / in it.  But what is “the cloud” really?

I think people have this idea that when they upload their stuff to the cloud that it’s kind of everywhere on the internet and since it’s everywhere that it’s somehow safer.  What really happens is that your stuff is uploaded to a big server farm in a single location controlled by someone else who may or may not be backing your stuff up to another site or using it as marketing data to sell you other services.  Your stuff may also be shared with other companies.  So make sure all that music you upload to “the cloud” is backed up with receipts or CDs in a box somewhere. 

An old Cherokee is teaching his grandson about life. "A fight is going on inside me," he said to the boy.

"It is a terrible fight and it is between two wolves. One is evil - he is anger, envy, sorrow, regret, greed, arrogance, self-pity, guilt, resentment, inferiority, lies, false pride, superiority, and ego."
He continued, "The other is good - he is joy, peace, love, hope, serenity, humility, kindness, benevolence, empathy, generosity, truth, compassion, and faith.
The same fight is going on inside you - and inside every other person, too."
The grandson thought about it for a minute and then asked his grandfather, "Which wolf will win?"
The old Cherokee simply replied, "The one you feed."

Just got finished talking to a guy my same age 3300 miles away in Venezuela!!  How cool is that?

So, I took the test for General Class operator on the 21st and passed with 100% somehow.  I think I lucked out and got all the easy questions.   

Today at last it showed up on the FCC database so I am at last a General Class HAM!!  Yea for me!!