Discovery consists of seeing what everybody has seen, and thinking what nobody has thought.
– Albert Szent-Gyorgi

http://frrl.wordpress.com

The most eclectic Amateur Radio site on the Internet

“…One of the essays, by Susan J. Douglas, looks at the excitement set off by Marconi’s introduction of radio – the “wireless telegraph” – to the American public in 1899.

“Wireless held a special place in the American imagination precisely because it married idealism and adventure with science,” she writes.

Popular Science Monthly observed: “The nerves of the whole world are, so to speak, being bound together, so that a touch in one country is transmitted instantly to a far-distant one.” Implicit in this organic metaphor was the belief that a world so physically connected would become a spiritual whole with common interests and goals….

The rise of wireless also set off a popular movement to democratize media, as hundreds of thousands of “amateur operators” took to the airwaves. It was the original blogosphere. “On every night after dinner,” wrote Francis Collins in the 1912 book Wireless Man, “the entire country becomes a vast whispering gallery.”

Abstracts of all the contents on this site below in the table.

Or, go to Quick Takes or  Information Mashups or the  reading room.

See all that you missed in mot reading this site regularly by looking at the Site History

If you would like to use content from this site as filler in your Amateur Radio newsletter, web site, blog, or for any other purpose read the Creative Commons license for http://frrl.wordpress.com

Check out our NEW Feature – Quick Takes (updated nearly daily)

2010 – Feb 07	New in Mashups - A STRATEGY FOR AMERICAN INNOVATION Read the Whitepaper.  Links in mashups
2010 - Feb 06	New in Mashups - Obama: Professor PresidentObama as an intellectual – From BBC World Service – 22 minutes Links in mashups
2010 Jan 27	New in Mashups - Google Xistence “Life is too short for social interaction” – Let Google live your life for you Check out the video in mashups on how it works
2010 Jan 25	New in Mashups – “You will be  assimilated” - Say good-bye to under utilized physical computers VMware vSphere Vs. Microsoft Hyper-V: A Technical Analysis
2010 Jan 24	New Posting - The Magic Bullet (Uh Packet) for Remote Computers- Wake Up on LAN
2010 Jan 23	New in Mashups – Video Steve Jobs (Apple CEO) – How to Live Before you Die.
2010 Jan 22	Note - More content added to … Making Whuffie in the Social Economy… See additional content including a link to the audio (downloadable MP3’s) of the Sci-Fi novel  “Down and Out in the Magic Kingdom” by Cory Doctorow. Very good reading.  5.4 hrs
2010 Jan 18	Note – Amateur Radio folks and Legal Eagles…Please see Keith C Baker’s (KB1SF/VA3KSF extended response to… Amateur Radios Fall from Grace:the discussion in QRZ on licensing and testing
2010 Jan 17	New Posting – Making Whuffie in the Social Economy Or, How to be a ravenous social capitalist
2010 Jan 16	New in Mashups – China cyber-attacks against US businesses.Google to reevaluate doing business in China Censorship in China. Take a read of the report to congress: US-China Economic and Security Review Comission Plus – get a link to Chinas “Internet Illegal Information Reporting Centre” to see how internet censorship works.
2010 Jan 09	New in Mashups – Does the FCC control the spectrum inside your home?Very interesting question.Can you put a mini-cell site in your house using frequencies that cell phone carriers have paid billions to license for exclusive use?  See what CEO Dan Borislow of MagicJack is up to and why cell phone carriers don’t like it.  Also, learn what a femtocell is and how it could save you money on phone calls.  All in Mashups.
2010 Jan 08	New in Mashups – Where’s my google serch, and g-mail, and all things google?Take a video tour of Googles Container Data Center
2010 Jan 07	New in Mashups Coast to Coast -”The Unslumberous Night”
2010 Jan 03	New in MashupsWhy you should fire yourself – before someone else does.
2010 Jan 02	New Posting -The Accidental Billionaires: The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal
2009 Dec 31	New in Mashups – Is your automotive battery ready for Winter? Straight from the Redneck Resort in Canada – Davids Farm.Learn all about automotive batteries from Canada’s favorite redneck.”Will a battery discharge faster if sitting on concrete rather than wood”? Can a battery self-detonate?  What’s the best way to store an automotive battery?  How does a battery commit suicide? What is a sediment tray?   And much more.  In Mashups
2009 Dec 29	New Posting- Are you using “UNCONVENTIONAL English?” The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional EnglishThirteen reasons why we use Slang. In defense of Slang. Radio Slang – add your own. And, what never to say to a Brit.
2009 Dec 27	New Posting ASavage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry’s Self-Destruction
2009 Dec 26	New in Mashups – Check out the video A 1952 Gates BC1F 1,000 Watt AM commercial broadcast transmitter converted for Ham use “Never operate any transmitter that isn’t heavy enough to kill you if it falls over” – W4BVT
2009 Dec 23	New in Mashups – Video tour of the Antique Wireless Association Museum Amateur Radio of the Teens and 20’s
2009 Dec 20	New in Mashups – From 1941 – Amateur Radio – How it started and the role of the ARRL From the 1941 Radio Amateur’s Handbook… Read the Amateurs Code of Ethics and… the Story of Amateur Radio – How it Started — and the role played by the ARRL
2009 Dec 19	New in Mashups -How to Make the Most of a Flying Saucer Experienceand other things you might need to know – in mashups
2009 Dec 17	New in Mashups – Practical Electronics Projects you can build Do you miss the Heathkit days?  Get your hands down and dirty; give your brain a workout in the process. Check out mashups for some radio related projects you can build over the weekend – and a link to an archive of plenty more.
2009 Dec 14	New in Mashups – Meet CAIDA – The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis The Cooperative Association for Internet Data Analysis (CAIDA) is a collaborative undertaking among organizations in the commercial, government, and research sectors aimed at promoting greater cooperation in the engineering and maintenance of a robust, scalable global Internet infrastructureRead some great papers on Internet engineering, research, and policy plus see some great visualizations of global internet activity
2009 Dec 13	New in Mashups – Weekend electronics project – Build a high powered laser from an old DVD burner Nothing to do this weekend?  Then why not build a high powered laser from the DVD burner headed for the trash.  Check out mashups for a handful of videos on how to salvage parts from your old DVD burner to build a laser far more powerful than a laser pointer.  Build at your own risk; use your own judgement.
2009 Dec 11	New in mashups – Remember the past -  Old Time Radio Programs Got lots of disk space?  Like Old Time Radio?  Want MP3’s for on-demand listening? Then the link in Mashups is for you.
2009 Dec 05	New in mashups – The balance of power between old and young Traditionalists, Boomer, Gen-X, Gen-Y, and Millennial. Yes Virginia, if you are 24 years old you might get snookered by an 18 yr old due to a testable attribute of your advanced age. Read the article and take a test.  Links in mashups
2009 Dec 04	New in mashups – Expert Village – How to use a Ham RadioTest you knowledge of Amatuer Radio by watching these videos and finding the misinformation.  The comments to these videos by Amateurs are priceless.  Links in mashups.
2009 Dec 03	New in mashups – What’s the FCC up to now?“..from the circuit switched PSTN system to an IP-based communications world.” First it was analog TV to Digital TV conversion.  That was nothing. How about an FCC-led conversion of your circuit-switched landline telephone to IP TelephonyCheck out mashups to see the documents
2009 Dec 02	New in mashups – Linux on Sony Playstation 3 for Dept of Defense Supercomputer cluster - The Department of Defense is smarter than you think.  What they know about razor blades and handles…  and what they know about how game console makers make money.. So that’s how you get DoD buying 2,000+ Playstations instead of IBM supercompters.Check out Mashups

Abstracts of Latest Postings:

The Magic Bullet (uh Packet) for Remote Computers- Wake Up on LAN

Problem/Challenge:
You have remote computers in you house, you don’t need to have them running all the time, but when you do need them you don’t want to have to go over to the remote location to turn them on.

How do you remotely turn-on a computer from power off state?

It’s easier than you might think – check out the article

Making Whuffie in the Social Economy
Or, How to be a ravenous social capitalist

A new world is emerging…

“The usual economic incentives have disappeared from the world. Whuffie has replaced money, providing a motivation for people to do useful and creative things.A person’s Whuffie is a general measurement of his or her overall reputation, and Whuffie is lost and gained according to a person’s favorable or unfavorable actions as judged by the community.

Whuffie recaptured the true essence of what used to be called money: in the old days, if you were broke but respected, you wouldn’t starve; contrariwise, if you were rich and hated, no sum could buy you security and peace. By measuring the thing that money really represented — your personal capital with your friends and neighbors — you more accurately gauged your success.”

Read the posting to find out about a potential new measure of wealth in the new economy.

The Accidental Billionaires:
The Founding of Facebook A Tale of Sex, Money, Genius and Betrayal

“The girls were both Asian, pretty, and a little overly made up for a lecture like this.  The tallest of the two had long sable hair pulled back in a high pony tail and was wearing a short skirt and a white shirt open one button too far down the front.  Eduardo could see wisps of her red lace bra wonderfully offset by her tan, smooth skin.  The other girl was in an equally short skirt, with a black leggings combo that showed off some impressively sculpted calves.

Both had bright red lipstick and too much eye shadow, but they were damn cute – and they were smiling and pointing right at him.

Well, at him and Mark.  The taller of the girls leaned forward over the empty seat and whispered in his ear.
“Your friend – isn’t that Mark Zuckerberg?”
Eduardo raised his eyebrows.
“You know Mark?”  There was a first time for everything.
“No, but didn’t he make Facebook?”

Eduardo felt a tingle of excitement move through him, as he felt the warmth of her breath against his ear, as he breathed in her perfume.

“Yeah. I mean, Facebook, it’s both of ours – mine and his.”
“Wow that’s really cool,” the girl said.  “My name is Kelly.  This is Alice.”

Other people in the girls’ row were looking now.  But they didn’t seem angry that the whispers were interrupting their enjoyment of Bill Gates.  Eduardo saw someone pointing, then another kid whisper something to a friend.  Then more pointing – but not at him, at Mark.”

Who is Mark Zuckerberg and what can you learn from the founding of Facebook?  Read the posting to find out.

The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

“Danger, Will Robinson”

Be careful what you say – it might not mean what you think it means.  For those in the United States that “conversate” with new found friends or business colleagues in the United Kingdom or Australia what you think you are saying might not mean what you think it does.  And what they say, in the UK or in Australia, to you, might  not be, at all, what they mean.  Even though they are using common English words.

The decorum of this web site prohibits me from revealing the  faux paux in interpretation made in a business conversation between myself and a colleague in the UK.

Lets just say that he told me that he was “going to wake up his wife”  in a British sort-of-way.  But “wake up my wife” were not the words he used. (See reference section to look up the phrase)

This encounter netted me a gift from the UK - The Concise New Partridge Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English

Check out the posting for thirteen reasons we use slang and a defense of slang.  In the spirit of “To be forewarned is to be forewarned”, you will also find a collection of phrases you might want to think twice about before saying to someone in the United Kingdom – and perhaps what they say to you might not be what they mean.

Finally, get a list of Radio slang from The Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English.  Know a radio idiom or slang that isn’t there – then add it in the comments.

A Savage Factory:
An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry’s Self-Destruction

Clouds of blue-gray mist, laced with millions of minute metal particles hung in the air and brought to mind the movie about poisonous gas attacks in World War I… The factory floor was made of rectangular wood blocks, about the size of street bricks, saturated with filthy black oil that gave the plant an odor of sour rot as if the entire Industrial Revolution had died and was decaying right here in Sharonville… They were hard, resentful faces; unhappy miserable faces; dulled, stunned faces.  Above all, hostile faces.  Out of the corner of my eye I saw a man glaring at me, and I could read his cursing lips.

Inside there were four dirty, dented gray metal desks.  Ed herded me to the desk occupied by a man who looked like a fully clothed skeleton.  His face was a mass of wrinkles, and his right eye was obviously false.  A yellowish liquid like Elmer’s Glue, or the snot under a three-year-old’s nose seeped from the fake eye, which was tuned to the right even though his good eye was looking to the left.

The skeleton was aware that Ed and I were standing in front of his desk yet ignored us.  Ed acted as if being ignored was normal etiquette at Ford Motor Company, and risked a long shot at the corner waste can.  The tobacco juice fell short and ran down the side of the trash can over ageless stains of previous near misses.

What is a former Procter and Gamble Manager doing at the Ford Transmission Plant at Sharonville.  And,what  did he see that made him write A Savage Factory: An Eyewitness Account of the Auto Industry’s Self-Destruction? Read the posting to find out.

A survey of 2,500 Human Resources and Training Executives…
Or, getting HR to hit mark on talent management

What happens when you bump 25 years of research on leadership against what is actually being taught in organization talent management programs?  You get some surprising results.Read the posting to find out more.  What’s the problem – and what is the remedy?

Jack Welch – On Differentiation:
Or, making winners out of everyone

On Differentiation by Jack Welch

“If there is one of my values that pushes buttons, it is differentiation.

Some people love the idea; they swear by it, run their companies with it,and will tell you it is at the very root of their success. Other people hate it. They call it mean, harsh, impractical, demotivating, political,unfair—or all of the above.

Obviously, I am a huge fan of differentiation. I have seen it transform companies from mediocre to outstanding, and it is as morally sound as a management system can be. It works.

Companies win when their managers make a clear and meaningful distinction between top- and bottom-performing businesses and people, when they cultivate the strong and cull the weak.

Companies suffer when every business and person is treated equally and bets are sprinkled all around like rain on the ocean.”

Read the rest from General Electric former CEO Jack Welch…

Wrapping your mind around SWR – the perfect match

“One last example shows how this works. You have just installed a full wave HF dipole. To feed it, you use 300 feet of 450 Ω ladder line with a loss of 0.5 dB at 30 MHz. You’ve modeled your antenna for 10 meters and you just happen to know that the impedance is 4500 Ω. That corresponds to a SWR of 4500/450 or 10:1 on your ladder line. Pretty bad, right? Not so fast. Consulting Figure 1 and knowing your matched loss is 0.5 dB shows an additional loss of 0.9 dB at an SWR of 10:1. The total loss of this antenna system is 1.4 dB. Not bad. Toss in a balanced line tuner and you’re ready to go!

Your smart aleck buddy decides to install the same antenna but he springs for the best and most expensive coax figuring his antenna is only 40 feet away from his radio and he doesn’t like the look of ladder line. He boasts that his coax loss is specified at 0.25 dB, which is half that of your ladder line. He figures he can also use a tuner to take care of the mismatch. You quietly smile at him because you know that the 4500 Ω of the antenna will present an SWR of 90:1 on his 50 Ω cable resulting in a mismatch loss of 12 dB beyond the 0.25 dB cable loss. Sure he can tune his SWR to 1:1 with the tuner at his radio, but guess who will be working the DX?”

Read the posting for more info and links to articles on Transmission lines, losses – and all things SWR

Jack Welch on Candor –
It just unnerves people… the biggest change for the better

“Given the advantages of candor, you have to wonder, why don’t we have more of it?

Well, the problem starts young.

The facts are, we are socialized from childhood to soften bad news or to make nice about awkward subjects. That is true in every culture and in every country and in every social class.

It doesn’t make any difference if you are in Iceland or Portugal, you don’t insult your mother’s cooking or call your best friend fat or tell an elderly aunt that you hated her wedding gift. You just don’t.

What happened at a suburban cocktail party we attended recently is classic. Over white wine and sushi rolls, one woman standing in a cluster of five others started lamenting the horrible stress being endured by the local elementary school’s music teacher. Other guests chimed in, all agreeing that fourth-graders were enough to send you to the insane asylum.

Fortunately, just before the music teacher was canonized,another guest entered the conversation, saying, “Are you guys crazy? That teacher gets fifteen weeks off a year!” She pointed to the doctor standing in the circle, who had been nodding away in agreement.“Robert,” she said, “you make life-and-death decisions everyday. Surely you don’t buy this sad story, do you?”  We are socialized from awkward subjects. Talk about killing polite chitchat. The new guest sent everyone scattering, mostly toward the bar.”

Read the posting and get the full scoop on Candor from one of the most successful CEO’s of the 20′th century.

Managing Your Career – IQ and Expertise are not enough:
Or, why you need Emotional Intelligence to get ahead

“In recent years, we have analyzed data from close to 500 competence models from global companies (including the likes of IBM, Lucent, PepsiCo, British Airways, and Credit Suisse First Boston), as well as from healthcare organizations, academic institutions, government agencies, and even a religious order.

To determine which personal capabilities drove outstanding performance within these organizations, we grouped capabilities into three categories: purely technical skills such as accounting or business planning; cognitive abilities such as analytic reasoning; and traits showing emotional intelligence, such as self-awareness and relationship skill.

To create some of the competency models, psychologists typically asked senior managers at the companies to identify the competencies that distinguished the organization’s most outstanding leaders, seeking consensus from an “expert panel.”

Others used a more rigorous method in which analysts asked senior managers to use objective criteria, such as a division’s profitability, to distinguish the star performers at senior levels within their organizations from the average ones. Those individuals were then extensively interviewed and tested, and their competencies were methodically compared to identify those that distinguished star performers.”

So, based on empirical research,  what are the differentiators of star performers?  And, what behaviors will derail your career?  Read the posting to find out.

Entrepreneurial Recalibration: How to find happiness in Corporate America
Or, Advice to Prospective Entrepreneurs

“…Out of such dreary statistics comes a new class of self-starter, the accidental entrepreneur–someone who never considered owning a business until there was no other option. These entrepreneurs are making tough choices for themselves and their families, living in reduced circumstances, doing without the corporate comforts and resources they once took for granted, sometimes succeeding, very often failing, invariably struggling. But at least they’re not waiting for the phone to ring.”
-Fortune Magazine

I wonder if it’s bad advice and a bad judgment to recommend to someone to start their own business.  There are a couple of scenarios.

Scenario one, you are long-term unemployed and you make the judgment to start you own business.

Scenario two, you leave your current  job due to your “Entrepreneurial Spirit” which can’t be satisfied at your current company and start your own business.  What could the future hold?  Read the posting and find out.

Accidental Entrepreneurs:
YouTube pays David $14K for a months fun at the Redneck Resort

Revenue sharing

So you thought that all the content that people put up on YouTube was a waste of time?  Not so.  Google  has a Partner program and revenue sharing model.

If you have good content, lots of subscribers, and lots of hits, you can apply to be part of the Google Partner Program.

I must have been asleep on this event.

And, I was amazed on just how much money people are making on this.

The top channels on YouTube are making six figures a year in revenue sharing with Google based on click throughs to ads that appear on the video page.
Accidental…

Well, all I can say, is that all the work that YouTube content providers made to develop creative content for YouTube (at no compensation to them) finally has paid off – unexpectedly.

Check out our posting and see for yourself.  Another Accidental Entrepreneur was created at Davids Farm – The Redneck Resort.  Watch the video in the posting and see David show off his July check from Google for $14 thousand dollars.  Not bad for having fun making videos and posting them to YouTube.

EVERNOTE – Save your ideas, things you see, and things you like:
Comprehending the Business Model of FREE

The Challenge: Remember anything – make is searchable and available from just about any network connected device.

There are applications that come and go.  You download an interesting application, try it out a few times, and then, there it sits, idle on your computer, unused, just taking up space.

These unused applications will stay on your computer until you refresh the operating system.  They won’t be back.  You didn’t use it and you won’t install it again with the new operating system.

Many apps have not make it past these refresh points on my computers or Apple iPod Touch – except a few.

And one in particular that you should know about.

Check out our posting on EVERNOTE.

Plus, for you Entrepreneurs out there, find out about the business model of FREE from the the CEO of the privately held start-up providing EVERNOTE as reported in a recent article in the New York Times.

Emergency Preparedness: 30 ft fiberglass mast and base for $40

The Antenna Mast Guy

If you travel to hamfests in the Midwest maybe you have seen the “mast guy” or the “pole guy”.  This guy has been traveling around to hamfests (according to him) for the past five years selling this stuff.

He says he always has good sales.  He has the right product at the right price in the right market with customers lined up to buy.

I am not sure what the original use of these were, or where he got these from – but he always seems to have a trailer load full of them.  He will mix and match whatever you want – masts, base, stakes, rope, etc.

Check out our posting and see what you can get in a 30ft fiberglass emergency antenna mast and base for $40 – perhaps at a hamfest near you.

Accidental Entrepreneurs: the evolution of a small business

Are you an accidental Entrepreneur?

“Categorizing the problems and growth patterns of small businesses in a systematic way that is useful to entrepreneurs seems at first glance a hopeless task.  Small businesses vary widely in size and capacity for growth. They are characterized by independence of action, differing organizational structures, and varied management styles.

Yet on closer scrutiny, it becomes apparent that they experience common problems arising at similar stages in their development.

These points of similarity can be organized into a framework that increases our understanding of the nature, characteristics, and problems of businesses ranging from a  dry cleaning establishment with two or three minimum- wage employees to a $20-million-a-year computer software company experiencing a 40% annual rate of growth.”

Starting your own business?  Check out a summary of a Harvard Business Review article on the Five Stages of Small Business Growth.  If you are just starting out, seeing this evolutionary framework may be useful.  If you already have a small business then use the framework to see where you are on the evolutionary ladder from Existence through growth to maturity.

Lastly, find out how the individual business owners ability to adapt to fundamental changes across the evolutionary transitions of the business will limit or encourage business success.  In the resources section you will find a number or articles on small business and a few case studies of well known businesses, their challenges, and why they did not survive.

Small Business – The Entrepreneur, The Manager, and The Technician

“With roughly 6.7 million jobs lost since the start of the recession, it’s tempting – and often a great idea – to launch your own business. That way, of course, you can take matters into your own hands. No more rolling your eyes at the boss; it’s your show.”

Of course, reading something like the above is going to encourage some segment of the 6.7 million to rush out an start their own business.  “No more rolling your eyes at the boss; its your show”.

The great thing about small business is that there is nothing to stop you.  Now that could be a good thing or a bad thing.  You are free to succeed or fail. ”It’s you show.”  No one to blame but yourself.

Another posting on Michael Gerber’s E-Myth.  Do you have what it takes to start your own business and be successful? Check out our posting and see if you have the right balance of Entrepreneur, Manager, and Technician to pull it off.

Plus, we have three professional studies on why small businesses succeed or fail.  Take a read.

The University of Phoenix – Business model mystery solved

This take on the University of Phoenix (UoP) is complements of Michael Gerber. Gerber has written a number of books targeted for small business owners.

Gerber is probably most famous for this concept of the E-myth with a book of the same name.  The E-Myth: Why Most small Businesses Don’t Work and What to Do About It.

The e-myth is stated as below- It is the “fatal assumption” and why many small businesses fail.

“E-Myth stands for the “entrepreneurial myth,” the end product of which is most often a business and life disaster.  The E-Myth says that technicians suffering from an entrepreneurial seizure believe that because they understand how to do the work of the business they intend to start, they are automatically gifted with an understanding about how to build and grow a business that does that work.”

But enough of that – if you want to read Gerbers E-Myth books – have at it.

I mention the E-myth in the larger context of Gerber’s analysis of what makes a business successful.

What does University of Phoenix manufacture?  What’s business is it in?  Education?  No, think again.  Read the posting and find out author Michael Gerber’s take on the University of Phoenix.

Sixteen Questions for an Enlightened Citizenry – Economic Beliefs

“An enlightened citizenry is indispensable for the proper functioning of a republic. Self-government is not possible unless the citizens are educated sufficiently to enable them to exercise oversight. It is therefore imperative that the nation see to it that a suitable education be provided for all its citizens. It should be noted, that when Jefferson speaks of “science,” he is often referring to knowledge or learning in general.”

The really great thing about the Obama administration is that it’s getting people out of apathy and getting them involved in deciding the direction of their own future.

Who can read a 1,000 page health care bill?  Well, you can.  The alternative is to have your destiny decided for you.  In fact, that is the outcome that some people would like for you.

In some cases, it’s about asking the right questions – and to have the courage to ask the questions.

Alot of people say they don’t want to talk about politics, religion, or get into any economic discussions.  Isn’t this exactly what Thomas Jefferson warned us about – the lack of an “informed citizenry”?

“The information of the people at large can alone make them the safe as they are the sole depositary of our political and religious freedom.” –Thomas Jefferson to William Duane, 1810. ME 12:417

Check out our posting and find sixteen questions you should ask yourself (and your friends) on your views on Economics and moral beliefs.  These questions are the work of  Bill Frezza.  Bill Frezza is a partner at Adams Capital Management, an early-stage venture capital firm.

Fun with FreeNAS – iSCSI – When a local disk is not local

“iSCSI uses TCP/IP (typically TCP ports 860 and 3260). In essence, iSCSI simply allows two hosts to negotiate and then exchange SCSI commands using IP networks.

By doing this iSCSI takes a popular high-performance local storage bus and emulates it over wide-area networks, creating a storage area network (SAN). Unlike some SAN protocols, iSCSI requires no dedicated cabling; it can be run over existing switching and IP infrastructure.

As a result, iSCSI is often seen as a low-cost alternative to Fibre Channel, which requires dedicated infrastructure.”

The Further Adventures….

Further adventures with FreeNAS running on a PC Clunker tucked away in the basement…

I decided to try to get iSCSI to work in FreeNAS.  Both Windows Vista and Windows 7 has built-in support for iSCSI.

What is iSCSI?  In a few words, iSCSI is the SCSI protocol over an IP network.  And what is SCSI?  SCSI is a protocol that a computer can use to talk to peripherals of all kinds.  The Apple Mac used SCSI a long time ago while PC people were fumbling with IRQ’s and DMA settings to get their peripherials to work.  SCSI is easy and Apple CEO Steve Jobs made a good choice to use SCSI attached peripherals for the Mac back in 1984.

What can iSCSI and Storage Area Networks do for your home network?  Read the posting and find out how you can use SAN on your home network with FreeNAS and a Clunker.

NAS for Clunkers:How to turn that old PC into a high tech Network Storage, Web Server, and Torrent Server

Life for your old PC

What to do with that old PC.  What to do – what to do – what to do?  How about using it for a NAS device?

NAS is “Network Attached Storage”.  Better to use that PC for NAS than throwing it in the trash.  NAS requires only the most minimal PC resources to serve up Terabytes of storage and provide a huge number of other services.

And what could be better than “free”?

FreeNAS

The goal of this posting is simply to get you to look at some free software.  The software is called FreeNAS and it can do some amazing things – for Free.

Bottom line on NAS is that it’s storage on the network.  It’s storage on the network that can be made available in a multiplicity of ways to just about any operating system (Mac, Windows, UNIX)

Check out our posting and find out our experience with FreeNAS and everything you need to set up FreeNAS on a PC Clunker headed for the trash.

Second Date:Review of the Degen DE1123 DSP AM/FM/SW Pocket Radio with 1GB MP3 Player & Recorder

This a follow-up to my experience with the Degen DE1123 “do it all” AM/FM/SW radio, recorder, and MP3 player.

Now that I have had this “device” for a few weeks, here are some further thoughts and observations.Overall, this is a very cheaply made device.

The slide switch on the left hand side is probably the weakest of the controls.  It is hard to move and position at the right setting.

The plastic case is thin and does not have a good feel.

The device packs a great deal of capability.  It can “do it all” for $79.
Read the posting and find out how a cheap date can be better than “Insanely Great”

How to NOT derail your corporate or organizational career

“Poor leadership in good times can be hidden, but poor leadership in bad times is a recipe for disaster.

To find out why leaders fail, we scrutinized results from two studies:

In one, we collected 360-degree feedback data on more than 450 Fortune 500 executives and then teased out the common characteristics of the 31 who were fired over the next three years.

In the second, we analyzed 360-degree feedback data from more than 11,000 leaders and identified the 10% who were considered least effective. We then compared the ineffective leaders with the fired leaders to come up with the 10 most common leadership shortcomings.”

This is the lead-in from an article in the July 2009 Harvard Business Review on the Ten Fatal Flaws of Leadership that can derail your career.  Whether you are an Individual Contributor, Manager, or a Leader you should know about these leadership flaws.

Take a read of our posting on the 10 Fatal Flaws and see if you can find them within your own organization within leadership positions.  If you are on the road to the executive suites in corporate America then use these as proactive advice to avoid landmines to the corner office.

Review of the Degen DE1123 DSP AM/FM/SW Pocket Radio with 1GB MP3 Player & Recorder

Providing a valuable service

From the “We wasted our money on this so you don’t have to” department… “

So who needs another portable AM/FM/SW radio – certainly not me.  Or do I?

Innovation

There is really only one reason I bought this radio – it has one innovative feature that is really valuable to me – the ability to directly record to its built-in 1 GB memory.  When listening to any station on AM/FM/SW hit the record button and you can both listen and record up to 70 hrs of audio.

The radio goes for $79 at Amazon.com.  I purchased the radio from Amazon.com, no tax, and free shipping.  The radio arrived in about 5 days.

So, what did we find?  Check out the posting.

Throwing Sheep in the Boardroom:How Online Social Networking Will Transform Your Life, Work and World

“…It won’t be long before Generation V kids (V as in Virtual) – born since the Internet explosion in the early 1990s – begin pushing out of schools into corporations and up the management ranks. [18] Gen V youths rate music, rate movies, rate friends, rate celebrities, rate teachers, rate everything. They’re going to rate their bosses too. They will rate and rank whether social networking sites are banned or not. And one day, they just might be your boss – throwing sheep in the boardroom.

Make no mistake, the power of social media, despite organizational resistance, is turning old models on their heads. In the Web 2.0 world, fans become celebrities, students become teachers, customers become producers, employees become bosses, citizens become politicians, Davids become Goliaths.

Social media are here to stay. They are transforming your life, your work and your world. There can be no looking back. Except, of course, back to the Middle Ages.”

Check out our book recommendation along with Chapter summaries.

Amateur Radios Fall from Grace:the discussion in QRZ on licensing and testing

There is a really nice discussion going on in QRZ on Amateur Radio Licensing and Testing.  As of the date of this writing, there are over 600 responses in 61 pages.

What should Amateurs really know about the technology surrounding thier hobby and service?  Are the defined classes of Technician, General, and Extra some sort of elitism or snobbery?

We picked two responses from the 600+ and wrote a bit of commentary.

One the one hand there is the opinion of Keith C Baker, KB1SF.  Keith is a past president of AMSAT and a business owner.  Pursuing a different path is James Stanicek, AG3Y.  James is former chief engineer of a broadcast station and R&D Prototyper.

Read our posting and get some insight on two perspectives within the QRZ discussion on Amateur Radio Licensing and Testing.

SWAY: The irresistible pull of irrational behavior

The is a follow-up the the Twenty Dollar Auction

This is no parlor game…

“But in just a few years later LBJ was already deep into the third stage of the auction.  With more than 500,000 troops on the ground in 1968 and tens of thousands dead, LBJ was long past the $20 mark.  He lamented, “Light at the end of the tunnel, hell, we don’t even have a tunnel; we don’t know where the tunnel is.”… the president was getting beat but could not bring himself to change course.

In the end, Johnson lost more than Vietnam.  The war cost him the full realization of the Great Society, his approval ratings, and ultimately – when he decided not to run for another presidential term – his political career.”

Check out our posting for an analysis of the Twenty Dollar Auction.

From ordinary individuals, to United States Presidents, to organizations some folks get pulled into a convergence of commitment and loss aversion to the point of irrational behavior.  Understanding how this happens could save you some money in the Twenty Dollar Auction; or your career and reputation when the stakes get bigger.

How much oversight does the ARRL exercise over its ARRL Sections?

How much oversight does the national ARRL exercise over its ARRL sections?

What happens when an ARRL Section advocates an amateur radio practice that is outside its guidelines and goals?

There is an old saying – “Lead, follow, or get out of the way”.

At what point is “getting out of the way” not an option?

And, if  “get out of the way” is the preferred option – then what are the consequences?

Read our posting and see what going on with the Arizona ARRL Section.

For the national ARRL, will it be “hands off”?

How to Auction off an Ordinary Twenty Dollar Billfor Fun and Profit

It’s June 2009 and in the Midwest of the United States where this blog is being written it’s time for patio parties, picnic’s, pool parties, barbecues, and a lot of other outdoor activities.

If you have a nice friendly neighborhood party on the deck or patio with a fire pit going, you might want to try this… well… sort of… party game

It’s really not a game at all – it’s some serious business as you will discover.   You could make some money, get entertained, and learn something about human behavior all at the same time.  What a deal.

Read our posting for the details on how to set up this auction for an ordinary $20 bill.

Small Transmitting Loop Tuners from MFJ

This is from the “I’m not paying attention department”.  When I wrote the article on the AES IsoLoop I didn’t know that MFJ Enterprises has a wide selection of small transmitting loop antenna tuners.

The biggest challenge in building the small transmitting loop is not the wire loop – it’s getting the tuning capacitor.  The images I posted in the AEA Isoloop article showing homebrew loops showed that most of the capacitors used in those homebrew loops were “ham fest specials” or from the junk box.

MFJ Enterprises solves the problem of getting the capacitor for your loop antenna.  They have an number of loop tuners from $160 to $260.

Check out our article.  We’ve embedded RF exposure charts, loop sizes per band, and another pitch for you guys to home brew a small transmitting loop antenna.

The Fifth Pillar of Amateur Radio: hiding in plain sight

“On Saturday, May 17 at the Dayton Hamvention, ARRL President Joel Harrison, W5ZN, plans to announce that the League will expand its identity program to include greater emphasis on technology. Harrison explained that “Ham radio operators, and particularly ARRL members, closely identify with current and emerging radio technology.

Today, we are naming ‘technology’ as ARRL’s new fifth pillar.” ARRL’s other four pillars, the underpinnings of the organization, are Public Service, Advocacy, Education and Membership.

“For hams, expanding the four pillars to include technology will reinforce one of the organization’s guiding principles — that ham radio is state-of-the-art, innovative and relevant,” he said.”– The ARRL Letter Vol. 27, No. 19 May 16, 2008

Why does the ARRL perceive Amateur Radio as irrelevant?  What was the reaction of the http://eham.com community to this statement?  Will a renewed focus on “radio technology” save amateur radio from irrelevancy?

Maybe the Fifth Pillar of Amateur Radio isn’t radio technology at all.  Maybe the Fifth Pillar of Amateur Radio is hiding in plain sight.  Check out our posting for an alternative for the “Fifth Pillar” of Amateur Radio.  Seventy-two million people will make a compelling case.

The Future of Satellite Radio:What Satellite Radio can learn from Motorola Iridium

I am on sort of a tear regarding terrestrial radio and internet radio and what might be the future for both.  Looking over some past issues of Fortune magazine there was an article in the March issue on Satellite Radio.

So it begs the question – What is the positioning of satellite radio in the context of conventional terrestrial radio and Internet Radio (Streaming media).  How does Satellite Radio fit into the picture?  What can Satellite radio learn from the past?

Take a read.  Get some good insights into executive decision-making, and the roles of boards and partners in business success and failure from a case study of Motorola Iridium.  How much is XM Sirius Satellite Radio  following the same trajectory as Iridium?

Global Internet Distribution of Cultural Media:How Internet Radio was oh so 5 minutes ago

Aluratek USB Internet Radio Jukebox

While at the localFrys’s Electronics I saw a bunch of Internet radios from Aluratek. Most of the models were in the $100 price range which is typical of appliance design internet radios.

However, there was one device available for $29.  This was advertised as a USB Internet Radio Jukebox.  A recent issue of Monitoring Times had a review of this device.  The reviewer in Monitoring Times was not too impressed with the USB Internet Radio.  My guess from the review was that what you really got in the Aluratek USB Internet Radio Jukebox was a standard USB memory stick with software.  So, I passed it by.

On the way home I was wondering what Internet source was feeding the Aluratek radios.  I knew about Reciva as a major site that feeds some Internet radios.  But what about the Aluratek?  Did Reciva feed Aluratek?

“Quickly as you can, snatch the pebble from my hand.” The young Caine tries and fails. “When you can take the pebble from my hand, it will be time for you to leave. -Master Kan

Obviously, like Caine, I had much to learn.  Read the posting and get a link  to a portal for the global distribution of cultural media.

Terrestrial Broadcast Radio: The end of an era?

“Imagine listening to more than 5,000 radio stations from all over the world in a radio in your home, office or hotel.

Internet radio stations offer an endless audio entertainment. Some of it is a simultaneous broadcast from NPR, ESPN, the BBC and so on. Others are Internet-only stations that serve both mainstream and niche tastes. The variety is staggering, all of it is free, and it is largely uncluttered by ads.”

The question is simple.  Is Internet radio disruptive to Terrestrial Broadcast Radio?  Does it signal the end of an era of local and shortwave broadcasting?

Before you spend $150+ on an Internet Radio read our posting.  You may find that the Apple iPod Touch has all the capabilities that you need to listen to live radio streams on the Internet.

If you don’t have a Apple iPod Touch but you do have a PC or Mac desktop or laptop then all is not lost.

We will give you a link where you can listen to16,747 stations (and 21242 on-demand streams) in 280 locations and 67 genres – right from your PC/Mac desktop in digital crystal clarity.

Review of the Apple iPod Touch – Redux: Our iLife

Progress Report

I bought the Apple iPod Touch about a week ago at a local Best Buy.  I asked the blue-shirted-one what was the return policy?  He said “30 days”.  “No questions asked?”, I replied.  “Don’t worry”, he said, “You won’t return it”.  He was right!

After a week of use I can say that the Apple iPod Touch has changed the way I interact with the Internet for some subset of common activities.  For example, tiny things like checking my e-mail, checking the weather forecast, checking breaking news, finding out what’s happening in the financial markets, checking who was on-line on Skype – all these things took me to a painful trip to my laptop.

No more trips to the laptop

Now that has fundamentally changed.  With a home wireless network and the Apple iPod Touch all of these capabilities – and more – is now in my shirt pocket or a short reach away on the table.  Even if the iPod Touch is powered off it only takes 15 seconds to boot.

How did our second and following dates go with the Apple iPod Touch?  Read the posting and find out.

Creative Commons license for frrl.wordpress.com

Were you thinking of snatching a complete article off of this web site or another web site and publishing it as filler in your Amateur Radio club newsletter or web site?

New media – new rules.  Read the license granted to you to take content from this site – and, as collateral damage – learn about Creative Commons licensing for the new media at the same time.

Review of the Apple iPod Touch: First Date

If you are a traditional user of mp3 players you should know that Apple has fundamentally changed the game with the Apple iPod Touch.

The game-changer in the iPod Touch is the presence of WiFi/Internet connectivity that is seamlessly integrated into the device.

This positions the Apple iPod Touch someplace between a traditional mp3 player and the iPhone.  Steve Jobs has called the iPod Touch “training wheels for the iPhone”.  Yes!

We took the Apple iPod Touch on a First Date.

Read our posting on the Apple iPod Touch and see what we found out.

Limited Space Antennas – The Small Transmitting Loop AntennaHow to build your own.  Or, using OPL – the AEA Isoloop

My basement has a collection of limited space antennas.  They don’t work well in the basement.  Oh yes, I forgot, they are there in the basement in storage.  All these antennas have a story to tell.  They were used, at one time or another, in one of my limited-space or stealth-operating living locations.

The AEA IsoLoop HF Antenna was an antenna I used off the balcony in a Chicago high-rise.  The IsoLoopwas a little more stealthy than my Texas Bug Catcher with its 10ft length at about a 45 degree angle hanging over the edge of the balcony within sight of my neighbors.

The AEA IsoLoop is a small loop transmitting antenna that covers 14 Mhz to 30 Mhz continuously tunable…

Check out our posting on small transmitting loop antennas.  We’ll show you the AEA IsoLoop and show you what in inside this antenna and how it works.

You can easily build your own loop antenna with parts from your local home improvement store.  We have links to more than 50 sites on loop antennas including formulas and an excel worksheet that you can use to design  your own loop for your favorite frequencies.

The Tarheel Screwdriver Antenna:one up on the Texas Bug Catcher

I am not sure how it got it’s name, but if you have a Texas Bug Catcher antenna mounted mobile you are bound to pick up a few – bugs that is.  If you have an air coil then cleaning those bugs out of there could be a chore.

Much safer is to mount the Bug Catcher in a stationary location.  Yes, it is possible and I have gotten good results.  Perhaps it’s overlooked, but a Texas Bug Catcher makes a good portable antenna, limited-space antenna, and a good stealth antenna for those  communities where antennas are considered an eyesore.

I been using a Bug catcher for more than a decade.  I first used it on a balcony bolted to a steel railing in a Chicago high rise on the 40′th floor – 400 ft up.  When I moved to a location on the ground I used it in the backyard and on camping trips.

After experiencing the pain points of finding and changing the tap points on the Texas Bug Catcher – I had enough.  Time for a new way.  The new way is the Tarheel screwdriver antenna.

Don’t know about the Texas Bug Catcher?  Then check out our posting and find out about the Bug Catcher, the Tarheel screw driver antenna, and get some ideas for using mobile verticle antennas in fixed and portable locations.

Play for Free – The Baygen Freeplay Plus AM/FM/SW Radioyes Virginia, there is a free lunch

Sometimes you just need to buy stuff just for fun. When the Baygen Freeplay Plus radio came on sale from C-Crane Radio ( http://www.ccrane.com ) for $89 including shipping and no tax we could not resist.

The Baygen plus has to be the best eccentric para military, gloom and doom radio you could possibly possess. It seems that the Baygen would add to the ambiance of listing to Coast to Coast AM on broadcast AM. Brother Stair on shortwave, and also Dr. Gene Scott on shortwave. It should be noted that Dr. Gene Scott passed away a few years ago but can still be heard on radio preaching and asking for money.

The Baygen is the optimum listening device for information on flying saucers, alien implants, shadow people, rods, trans-dimensional beings, time-travelers, magnetic therapy, end-time prophecy, and the odd mix of Dr Gene Scotts lectures of biblical theology and flying saucers – all of which makes up much of the Shortwave bands. You will probably find a melted Baygen in the ruins of the David Koresh compound at Waco Texas.

One local ham near Chicago keeps warning on the local repeaters that, given the state of the economy in 2009, “We will soon be fighting for scraps”.  So the Baygen Freeplayradio would fit right in with your survival pack next to your MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) and your collection of seeds for a 1 acre survival garden.

Check out our article on the mostly-for-fun Baygen Freeplay AM/FM/SW radio.

A FM Radio for one-dollar – How is this possible?

We love Walmart

On the way out of the Walmart store – right where you check out - the place where smart merchandising people place items for those people who are impulse buyers and those who are unable to delay gratification – I saw a FM Radio for the price of one dollar.  For the exchange of one dollar in United States fiat currency I could have in my possession a FM radio.  Wow.

The radio runs on 2xAAAbatteries, came with earbuds, tunes the whole FM broadcast band, and has a light.  Wow.

The prize was mine.

If you are one those people who, as a kid, liked to take things apart to see what’s inside and how they work then you know what is going to happen next.  Check out our posting to see what we found inside a FM Radio priced at one-dollar.

Outing Scott Adams – the creator of the Dilbert Comic Strip

The usual corporate scenario

In the northwest suburbs of Chicago is the corporate headquarters of a particular global company.  This company occupies two towers of about 20 floors each.  In each tower is a bank of elevators.  At the opposite side of each elevator bank is an area where there is a coffee maker, refrigerator, microwave oven, dishes, utensils, and cabinets – everything that makes life livable in the workplace.  There is also a bulletin board in these areas.

The Ritual

There is sort of a ritual at this company.  It happens once every month or so.  The ritual is performed by the Human Resource Department.  At the appointed time, a human resources staff member makes a “sweep”.  The “sweep” is to go to each floor in each tower – that’s 20 floors in 2 towers in 2 areas – to check and pull down any Dilbert cartoons that the employees post on the bulletin boards.  That’s 20×2×2, or 80 bulletin board that need to be swept of Dilbert comic strips.

So who is Dilbert?  Why is he so popular?  And who is the man behind the Green Curtain – Scott Adams?  Who is Scott Adams, really?  Read our posting and find out.

Dematerialize your Linux System:Or, why buy the Taxi when all you need is a ride?

It’s the great chain of related content.  First we suggested that you use Clonezilla to do disaster recovery on your Linux System.  Then we suggested  that you don’t need that – that you should go Virtual instead.  Would you ever trust us or are we just giving you the run around on what do to about your pesky Linux system?

Regarding Linux disaster recovery what problem are we trying to solve?  We are trying to solve a problem that, really, needs to be solved because we may have made an error in judgment.  Or, simply, that we don’t understand things clearly.  What have we not understood – what is the essence of the question that will inform our judgment?

Lets think about this.  We have confused value with hardware.  You need to ask yourself a critical question.  Is Linux about Linux or is Linux about creating value?  Answer this question and you may see things is a new way.

The ultimate solution is in The Cloud.  Read our posting and find out why.

Going Virtual-How to Virtualize your Linux/PC Environment

There is a term/concept you might hear related to PC’s and operating system.  The term you might hear is “bare metal”.  Bare metal as in installing an operating system on ‘bare metal”.  What does this mean?

This term, bare metal, is only possible because of another term – virtualization.  You might hear the term  “guest operating system”.  A guest operating system runs on a platform that supports virtualization.

So what is virtualization?

In simple terms it means that you have some software that is capable of emulating the hardware of a PC to the point that you can install an operating system on it and have it run as if it was on bare metal.

Here is a more concise definition:  “Virtualization is an abstraction layer that decouples the physical hardware from the operation system to deliver greater IT resource utilization & flexibility. ”

The good news is that – yes, you too can benefit from virtualization.  This article is  a follow-on to our posting on backing up your Linux system with Clonezilla.  In this posting we’ll show you how you can make the challenge of Linux disaster recovery backups nearly go away.  Plus, we’ll suggest how you can make better use of your PC in ways that you may not have considered.  Read our article and get virtualized – the software is free!

Let the Republic of China Backup your Linux and Windows PC

If you find yourself, for whatever reason, using a Linux system at home you will be faced with an issue – How do I back this thing up?  Not just how do I backup my files – that’s easy – how to I backup this whole system?

This posting addresses a specific scenario.  Backup up a Linux system for disaster recovery to get to a known system in case of hard drive failure, massive changes to the operating system that renders it unusable, or simply to have a reference copy of an operating system in a known state or configuration for future use.  Sometimes you want to move an operating system off to another media so you can use the PC resources for something else.  All these applications of backup is to backup a complete system – an image backup of a hard drive – not a file-level backup.

There is a huge difference between a file level backup and an operating system backup.  A file level backup will generally be insufficient to restore a Linux system to usable state in the case of a file system corruption or other disaster.

The Republic of China National Center for High-Performance Computing has a very powerful and flexible solution for backing up your Linux (and Windows) systems.  Best of all –  it’s free

Check out our posting and find out what we found out about using Clonezilla.  Plus see a screenshot demo of how to image backup your Linux system to a network file share.

A Great Epic Corporate Battle -Shareholders vs Chicago Sun-Times Board of Directors and CEO

“The struggling publisher of the Chicago Sun-Times has suffered a series of financial setbacks, and its shares now trade for pennies; as of Thursday evening, Sun-Times Media shares closed at 4 cents, a price that values the company at $3.3 million.

Despite the company’s travails, shareholder Davidson Kempner Capital Management LLChas launched a “consent solicitation” in which it is asking company stockholders to back its plan to remove all but one member of Sun-Times’ board.

It’s a slow-motion tussle, in which Davidson Kempner mails letters to stockholders asking their consent; by ignoring the letter stockholders are effectively voting against Davidson’s plan. Sun-Times is asking holders to withhold their consent, and it has sent a “consent revocation” card that will allow shareholders to withdraw their consent if they granted it but have changed their minds.

On Thursday, Sun-Times Media said the proxy-advisory firm Glass Lewis & Co. recommended in a report to institutional clients that investors revoke all consents granted to Davidson Kempner. In its report, according to the Sun-Times, Glass Lewis criticized Davidson Kempner’s failure to provide an operating plan for shareholders to consider.

“We believe that shareholders should demand a detailed business strategy from any party seeking to take control of its board of directors,” Glass Lewis said, according to Sun-Times.

In a letter to Sun-Times stockholders Thursday, Davidson Kempner reiterated that “new direction is needed – now” at Sun-Times, because “failed leadership at the very top has contributed to Sun-Times’ disappointing performance.”

So how did this epic battle between the shareholders and the Chicago Sun-Times Board of Directors turn out?  Read our article to find out and also the lesson to learn to apply to any organization – profit or non-profit.

Plus, we have provided a link so you can look up the compensation of executive officers of the top 100 companies.

Information Mashups

New Feature – Information Mashups.

In the endless fabric of the Internet there is always something interesting.  Check out our new feature – Information Mashups.  Interesting tidbits from the internet, completely unrelated, worthy of interest but not a full posting on this site.  Our Information mashup page is updated in internet time.

Product Review: Lights of America LED Light Bulb

Great new technology or wasted money?

Is this posting from the “We wasted our money on this – so you don’t have to” or the “New Technology you should know about department”?  You decide.

About a year ago LED light bulbs were priced at $35 and above.  You can look at the C.Crane VIVID light bulb here – http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/cc-vivid-led-light-bulb.aspx.  These are priced at $19.95 at the time of this writing.  And there are other versions here – http://www.ccrane.com/lights/led-light-bulbs/cc-vivid/

A $5 LED Light Bulb?

Now, at least one manufacturer has a standard edison base 40-watt incandescent equivelent LED bulb priced at $5.  How does a $5 LED light bulb stack up against a traditional  incandescent light bulb?

Read our posting and find out.

My Stroke of Insight: a brain scientists personal journey

The Experience

“My entire self-concept shifted as I no longer perceived myself as a single, a solid, an entity with boundaries that separated me from entities around me… Everything in my visual world blended together… I could not perceive three-dimensionally.  Nothing stood out as closer or farther away.  If there was a person standing in the doorway, I could not distinguish their presence until they moved… In addition, color did not register in my brain as color.  I simply could not distinguish it.  But in this shifted perception, it was impossible for me to perceive either physical or emotional loss…”

So what is this?  A religious experience?  The effect of a hallucinogen?  No.  It is the experience of Dr. Jill Bolte Taylor, a Harvard-trained neuroanatomist, as she experienced a stroke and lived to write about it.

“I pleaded, Remember, please remember everything you are experiencing!  Let this be my stroke of insight into the disintegration of my own cognitive mind.”

And this is what you will find in Dr. Taylor’s book:   My Stroke of Insight: A Brain Scientist’s Personal Journey

Take a read of our posting and find out what we found in this book.

On Being Crushed: The Value of Adversity.Or, taking advantage of defining moments

A  story from the Associated Press is getting a lot of attention.

At issue is a girls basketball game where the ending score was 100 points to nothing.

The losing team, Dallas Academy,  was “crushed”, “trounced”, “hammered”, “clobbered”, “obliterated”, “thrashed”, “wasted”, “pommeled”, ”flogged”, and “driven into the ground” – not just defeated.

And now the team that scored the 100 points to zero victory, Covenant School,  has “winners remorse”.

Why should this be?

Is the new ideology “Apology for Success”?  Read our article and see how this plays out.

Long Live The All American Five.Or, Recovering a Piece of Radio History

“Watching” the Radio

Right now, in 2009, radio and “wireless communication” is ubiquitous and part of the landscape.  As such, no one really notices it.  It is a taken for granted reality of everyday life.

It’s hard for modern people to put themselves in the position of people in the early 1900’s when radio was a new invention.  Imagine, hearing voices and music from across the country, or across the world – without wires.  Instant communications.  You don’t have to wait for the newspaper to find out what was going on. Entertainment?  Sure.  Turn on the radio and hear Burns and Allen, Jack Benny, The Great Gildersleeve, The Inner Sanctum, Sam Spade, The Shadow,  GI Journal, and hundreds more.

It’s always interesting see pictures from the 1930’s and 1940’s of a family sitting in the living room “watching” the radio.  Watching the radio as if someone was talking directly to them – from hundreds or thousands of miles away.  And that was what it was.

I can only imagine that some folks who collect old broadcast radios have some sort of appreciation for this era.  When you get that radio from the 1920’s to 1940’s one can imagine how many families sat in front of that radio listing to music, news, or entertainment.  Perhaps, in 2009, that family has passed away.  But the radio, which you have in your hands right now, just may remember.  On that radio from the 1940’s perhaps they heard the call to buy war bonds.  Or, that was the radio on which they heard the start of the D-Day invasion, or the end of the war.

So, that “junk” tube broadcast radio that you see at the flea market or hamfest may havea story to tell.  Why not give it some life?  If it’s ailing, perhaps all it needs is some TLC (Tender Loving Care)

Take a read of our posting and we’ll give you some suggestions on how you might approach diagnosing, troubleshooting, repairing, and restoring these vintage broadcast receivers.  The path we suggest is by building an AM radio from a kit to learn the theory and design of the standard AA5 (All American Five) radio receiver design that goes back to the 1930’s

The real win is a link in this posting to a free 200+ page book “The Vacuum Tube Shortwave Radio: Understanding and Troubleshooting”by Richard McWhorter

Hands-off Electronics: A little bit of Monica.  A little bit of Erica

A little bit of Monica.  A little bit of Erica.

That’s the way you do it.  A little bit of this and a little bit of that.  A little bit of theory and a little bit of practice.  Each reinforce each other. “And if it looks like this. Then you are doing it right”

So how can you provide the required stimulus to the faltering United States Economy and learn something about radio and electronics at the same time?

You dig out that box of old CB radios and buy Lou Franklins ( K6NH )books: The Screwdriver Experts Guide and Understanding & Repairing CB Radios.

Poking around these old radios with the help of Lou ( K6NH ) will keep you out of trouble for a good long time – and you might learn something about radio and electronics in the process.

Take a read of our posting and find out what is inside these books.

Take a Break.  Play the Bailout Game and save the United States

http://thebailoutgame.us/

Diagnostic Tool for Teams: What type of team do you have?

As a team leader or a team member it’s always good to have some models in your back pocket either as a diagnostic tool or as a prescriptive advice.

Way back in 1993 a book was published that served as sort of a primer on building high performance teams.  It is still in print and the advice is still good 16 years later.

Everyone works on a team at one time or another.  If you are a team leader or a team member it’s always good to make a self-assessment of where your team stands on the performance and effectiveness curve

All Teams are not what they seem.  Some teams that call themselves teams may be Working Groups, or Pseudo Teams, or Potential Teams – but not Teams in the true sense where they, according to the authors,  are able to deliver  high performance and high effectiveness to the organization in which they are embedded.

Jon Katzenbachand Douglas Smith, after a couple of decades of on-the-ground and in-the-trenches consulting experience put together a taxonomy of 5 types of groups working together -  from Working Group to High Performance Team.  They plotted each of these type of “assemblies” of people onto a grid of Performance Impact and Team effectiveness.

Take a read of our posting and keep the Katzenbach/Smithteam assessment checklist in your back pocket to see if your team makes hits the upper right quadrant of the chart above.

Poetry Slam or News Conference:The Political Theater of Rod Blagojevich

“Throughout its uproarious history, The Green Mill Jazz Club has played host to a number of famous – and often infamous – celebrities.

As the twenties roared, The Green Mill became mobster territory when Al Capone’s henchman, “Machinegun” Jack McGurn, gained a 25% ownership of the club. Manager Danny Cohen had given McGurn the 25% stake to “persuade” comedian/singer Joe E. Lewis from moving his act south to the New Rendezvous Café at Clark and Diversey.

McGurnmanaged to convince Lewis by slitting his throat and cutting off his tongue. Miraculously, Lewis recovered, but his songs never regained their lush sound. The incident was later immortalized in the movie The Joker is Wild, with Frank Sinatra as Joe E. Lewis and a Hollywood soundstage as The Green Mill. Of course, his interest piqued, Sinatra had to visit the club.

Throughout the 1930s, ’40s, and 50s, The Green Mill continued to pack ‘em in with a heady mix of swing, dance and jazz music. Uptown crowds from the AragonBallroom or Uptown and Riviera Theaters would “stop in for one” before or after shows. Business began to slip in the mid-seventies, and in 1986, present owner Dave Jemilo bought The Green Mill and restored it to its prohibition-era, speakeasy décor.”

What does the Green Mill Jazz Club, the Uptown Poety Slam, and the post impeachment vote speech of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich have in common?  Read our posting and find out.

From Loading Dock to CEO in 6 painful steps.Or, Navigating the Leadership Pipeline

How do companies deal with the war for talent requiring ever increasing compensation packages which are now sky high for talented people?

Why do companies recruit leadership talent from outside rather than promote from within? Is hiring gifted people from outside the organization good as a tactic or long term strategy?

Is it better to buy leaders or build them? If you can build leadership then how is this accmplished?

The theme of this posting is building leaders from inside of an organization, which companies do it, and how they do it.  Get a cup of coffeee and take a read.

Organizational Behavior:The Myth of Accountability and the Parent-Child Relationship

“More than one hundred years of organizational history have worked to reinforce the myth that others have an ability and responsibility for enforcing accountability.

Since the Industrial Revolution, we have built organizations with a prevailing philosophy that adults won’t choose accountability on their own and so they must be bribed or coerced.

Organizations have spent enormous energy and resources hammering home the message that someone else will be responsible for your accountability, the sub-text being that you are absolved from that obligation.

Taylor espoused the idea that the “first class man”—he who was better and more efficient at performing a task—should be appointed to watch other workers. These “first class men” were given the responsibility to design and organize the work and to make sure plans were followed. This established a hierarchy where one person does the work and another is responsible for making sure the work gets done. Even today, a key role of management responsibility is to “make sure” and hold people accountable.

That kind of thinking and the organizational systems constructed around it have contributed heavily to today’s parent– child culture in the workplace…  Work-place conversations have an abundance of parent–child messages that say “we don’t think you can choose to be accountable, so we are going to make sure you are.” We have built cultures of compliance believing that was enough, and for nearly a century, we have achieved success.”

Got someone on your team or organization that is not accountable?  Can’t solve the problem with fancy management consulting advice?  Then read our posting and try this new view of the problem of accountability from the framework of the Parent-Child Relationship and check out the book : Authentic Conversations: Moving from Manipulation to Truth and Commitment (Paperback)

Can you be embarrassed? – What to learn from Rod BlagojevichOr, “nothing but sunshine hanging over me.”

The case of Illinois Governor Rod Blagojevich is a real gift to psychology and organizational behavior.

It is from these extreme cases of human behavior where one can learn the most.  To be “in the mainstream of behavior” makes one almost invisible.

But not Rod Blagojevhich.  On December 9,2008 Gov. Rod Blagojevich and his chief of staff, John Harris, were arrested by FBI agents for what U.S. Atty. Patrick Fitzgerald called a “staggering” level of corruption involving pay-to-play politics in Illinois’ top office.

In a press conference Rob Blagojevich said:

“I’m here to tell you right off the bat that I am not guilty of any criminal wrongdoing. I intend to stay on the job and I intend to fight this thing every step of the way…I have done nothing wrong.  …  I will fight fight fight until I take my last breath.”

So what is the psychology behind folks like Blagojevich – those who have a very different self image than how the rest of the world sees them.  What is it about peple who can’t be embarrassed by their actions?

Read our article to see some opinions from psychologists and a CEO about these folks.  Is it self-delusion?  It is a lack of ethics?  Are these folks having a brush with Sociopathy?  How is this relevant to organizations for which you work, or to organizations to which you belong?

Hands-on Electronics – Signal tracing a simple transmitter

Or, How not to be an appliance operator

Is ham radio still about electronics?  If you think so, then this posting is for you.

You may want to read our nearly related article on the Heathkit radios (Collecting Heathkit Models SB-101,102 & HW 100,101).  That posting contains a high level conceptual explanation of how  the transmit section of those radios work.  We think that the Heathkit folks missed an opportunity in the education market.

Heathkit had a great platform in the SB and HWseries of transceivers to serve as a course in electronics – learn as you build.  But that was not to be.  Perhaps an objection is that there were high voltages in the Heathkits – 800 volts on the plates of the tubes. So, sticking fingers in the wrong place in a Heathkit is going to get you zapped.   So maybe that would undermine your joy of learning.

So, here’s the pitch.  Get yourself a simple working radio, match it with theory and design models, and have at it.  That is, get your fingers in there and see what’s going on.  Read the theory, see how this is applied to a design in practice in a real radio, and then inspect a working example.  From there you should be able to use what you have learned in troubleshooting a non-working (simple non-working) radio and see if you can apply what you know to get it working.  And from there, use what you know to make changes to existing circuits to fit your needs.  And from there you are on your way to designing from scratch or modifying an existing design.

In this posting we’ll grab a simple radio, provide a brief conceptual overview, and show you how to get your fingers  in there to inspect/validate the functional components in the transmit section and do some basic troubleshooting.

Building Teams: Prescriptive Advice for Building Great Teams

Beyond Collins on Teams and Team Dynamics

Collins book is at a high corporate level.  He does not drill down into the more specific questions about how to find the right people or what the characteristics are of those individuals on great teams.  It really does beg the next set of questions.

How do successful teams function?  What are the signs of dysfunction on teams?   If you do find dysfunctions on a team then what are the mitigation strategies and tactics that you can put in place to remedy these dysfunctions?  In building a new team, can you some up with a prescriptive set of guidelines – ground rules – calibrations – on how the team will function given the common pitfalls that a team may encounter?

How can one benefit from what one can learn by studying cases from the success and failure of real teams?  There is no benefit in repeating the mistakes of others.  It’s all in the name of continuous improvement learned from past experience – yours and from other organizations.   “We don’t have time to make other peoples mistakes.”

The above questions are the theme of this posting.  Get a cup of coffee and take a read

Good to Great Part III: Building the Team

“When we began the research project, we expected to find that the first step in taking a company from good to great would be to set a new direction, a new vision and strategy for the company, and then to get people committed an aligned behind that new direction.

We found something quite the opposite.

The executives who ignited the transformation from good to great did not first figure out where to drive the bus and then get people to take it there.  No, they first got the right people on the bus ( and the wrong people off the bus) and then figured out where to drive it.  They said in essence “Look, I don’t really know where we should take this bus.  But I know this much: if we get the right people on the bus, the right people in the right seats, and the wrong people off the bus, then we’ll figure out how to take it someplace great.”

Jim Collins – Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t

Can we challenge Jim Collins on his underlying and taken-for-granted assumption that anyone wants to be great?  This is an assumption that he does not question in his books.  Why should our school children (and the parents) try to achive a grade of an A if a C is good enough?  Why work hard if you can get by by doing the minimum?  Why be great if good is an option.  Why be even be good if mediocracy is acceptable?

Read our posting and find out what Collins has to say about building great teams.

Uncle Eddy:  the black sheep of the family that Amateur Radio does not talk about

It’s all in the Family

If you have seen the movies National Lampoon Vacation or National Lampoon Christmas Vacation then you know who the character Clark Griswold played by Chevy Chase and Uncle Eddy played by Randy Quaid.

If you know who these two characters are then you get an idea of the relationship of Amateur Radio to CB radio.

Clark Griswold is to Uncle Eddy as Amateur Radio is to CB radio.  Or so that is what it would seem from the perspective of Clark Griswold.  How uncle Eddy feels about this – we don’ t know.  But if CB radio was to echangeChristmas gifts with Amateur Radio, Amateur Radio would be in possession of some fine white shoes.

CB radio is as much a part of radio (wireless) communication as is any other part of radio – Broadcasting, Pirate Radio, special uses of radio as in the military, and Amateur Radio – to name a few.  To not recognize that CB was a part of the american culture in the 1970’s is to miss out on some rich American phenomenon.

Check out our posting and get some links to a slice of radio history that Amateur Radio folks would call the Black Sheep of the Family.

Excuse Me.  Your Class is Showing

“When I asked students in my relationship seminars, “Who is your ideal partner?” or “What type of superior person are you seeking?” the answer that shot out of their mouths most often was, “A higher class of person” or “Someone with class”.

Now herein lies a problem. We live in a country that pretends class doesn’t exist. A sociologist Paul Blumberg wrote in The Predatory Society, class structure is “America’s forbidden thought.” In fact most of us think it’s classless to even admit that classes in our democratic country exist. (The irony of it is that those at the rock bottom and those at the tip top of the class ladder openly and shamelessly proclaim, “Of course class exists!”

But here’s where it gets interesting. Each class defines it differently. Ask someone at the bottom of the social ladder what class is, and here she will ruefully say, “It’s the haves, the big shots who are rolling in it, the fat cats who live on Easy street.” In short, they think class is simply how much money you have.

Ask someone in the middle, and the word so horrifies them that they stutter and stammer. After an abject denial that class exists in our democracy, and that of course they are not in the least bit conscious of it, they reveal (in hushed tones lest someone over hear them) that they think money has something to do with it. But they suspect that education and profession are also involved.

Now, at the top of the heap, like at the bottom, the upper class says unabasahly, “Surely class exists.” The difference is that the uppers define it in terms of values, taste, style, behavior and ideas. Naturally, they admit it,it helps to have money in education to be included in the designation “high class”. But it’s hardly a crucial element.”  — Leil Lowndes

Why are there 16 million residents in Linden Labs Second Life?  What happended to their First Life that they need a Second Life?  Why do individuals seek partners of a higher “class”.  Why would someone write a book called “Updating: How to date out of your league”?  Do we want to be someone we are not?  Do we want to be with someone who we are not?  What is the disparity between what we are and what we want to be and why does that disparity exist?

Read our posting and find out about why people seek relationships “out of their league”.  Plus, take a test to determine your social class.  We also have a link to an interesting interactive tool at the New York Times website where you can explore the components of social class.

Things not going too good? Maybe you need a Second Life

Under the Pixel Sun

by Kris Dibou

In the virtual life you’ve led

You’re neither living, nor are dead

You’ve met them all but met no one

Drifting under the pixel sun.

And as you tire of this place

The sun that doesn’t burn your face

The water that won’t make you wet

The death that never will be met

The wind that cannot touch our faces

Wand’ring through virtual places

What then is there in here for you?

Or should I ask you, perhaps, who?

Second Life is an immersiveworld of creation and destruction, fantasy, social networking, commerce, and more…  If you don’t know what Second Life is, then you should, and we will help you out with that.

What happens when human beings become embedded in Second Life?  And what does this ability of human beings to embed themselves in a virtual reality tell us about social systems and religion?

We’ll link up with Professor Richard Dawkins to look at the philosphical aspects of Second Life…

I suppose you could imagine some science fiction scenario in the distant future when people live in SL so much that they hardly even know there is an outside world and it becomes a matter of theological speculation of what goes on in the outside world.”  Interestingly, many of the ideas Dawkinscasually throws out here are very much aligned with Philip Linden’s ultimate vision of Second Life.

Are the creators of virtual worlds like Second Life playing God?

Anyone can give you a tour of Second Life.  Read our posting to find out about the philosophical and social implications of Linden Labs Second Life

Good To Great Part II: The Gift of Governor Rod Blagojevich

Jim Collins writes:

“… I see my work as being about discovering what creates enduring great organizations of any type.  I’m curious to understand the fundamental differences between good and great, between excellence and mediocre.  I just happen to use corporations as a means of getting inside the black box.  I do this because of publicly traded corporations, unlike other types of organizations, have two huge advantages: a widely agreed upon definition of results and a plethora of easily accessible data.

That good is the enemy of great is not just a business problem, It is a human problem.  If we have cracked the code on good on the question of good to great we should have something of value to any type of organization.  Good schools might become great schools. Good newspapers might become great newspapers.  Good churches might become great churches.  Good government agencies might be great agencies.  And good companies might become great companies.”

Jim Collins – Good to Great: Why Some Companies Make the Leap… and Others Don’t

What did Jim Collins find out about leaders at the  top of companies that made the sustained transition from good to great and what does this haveto do with Rod Blagojevich?  Does Blagojevich fit the model of a great leader as Jim Collins discovered these attributes through his empirical research on corporate performance?  Do any of the 2,000 ARRL affiliated Amateur Radio Clubs have great leadership?  If so, then how so?  If not, then why not?  How  are the Chicago area Amateur Radio clubs doing – Good to Great; Good to Gone; Lost in Mediocrity.  Read our posting to see where we are on our journey.

Video Battle: Twitter vs APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System)

“APRS is not a vehicle tracking system. It is a two-way tactical real-time digital communications system between all assets in a network sharing information about everything going on in the local area.

On ham radio, this means if something is happening now, or there is information that could be valuable to you, then it should show up on your APRS radio in your mobile. APRS also supports global callsign-to-callsign messaging, bulletins, objects email and Voice because every local area is seen by the Internet System (APRS-IS)! APRS should enable local and global amateur radio operator contact at anytime-anywhere and using any device. — http://www.aprs.org/“

Twit; Twitter me; Follow me, Add me, Friend me; Stalk me; Love me;

“Twitter is a service for friends, family, and co–workers to communicate and stay connected through the exchange of quick, frequent answers to one simple question: What are you doing?

Where did the idea for Twitter come from? Jack Dorsey had grown interested in the simple idea of being able to know what his friends were doing. Specifically, Jack wondered if there might be an opportunity to build something compelling around this simple status concept. When he brought the idea up to his colleagues, it was decided that a prototype should be built.

Twitter was funded initially by Obvious, a creative environment in San Francisco, CA. The first prototype was built in two weeks in March 2006 and launched publicly in August of 2006. The service grew popular very quickly and it soon made sense for Twitter to move outside of Obvious. In May 2007, Twitter Incorporated was founded..”  http://twitter.com

Read our posting to watch the video battle.  And, get a link to map real time twitter traffic across the globe.

Amateur Radio Clubs: Good to Great; Good to Gone; Lost in Mediocracy

“Good is the enemey of Great.

And that is one of the key reasons why we have so little that becomes great.  We don’t have great schools, principally because we have good schools.  We don’t have great government, principally becase we have good government.   Few people attain great lives, in large part because it is just so easy to settle for a good life.  The vast majority of companies never become great, percisely because the vast majority become quite good – and the is their main problem.

Can a good company become a great company and, if so, how?  Or is the disease of “just being good” incurable?” — Jim Collins

What does this haveto do with Amatuer Radio and the mission of this web site?  Read our posting and find out.

Save your Life: Review of Maxtor 4 Plus Safety Drill Software

Save your Life.  That is the tagline on Maxtors OneTouch drives.  If you get the PLUS version of these drives you get something new – its called Safety Drill.  Maxtor Safety Drill sofrware, unlike file-based backup systems can “image” your hard drive.

Don’t know what “imaging a hard drive” means.  Well, its the ultimate “Plan B” after your operating system gets cracked, smacked, trojan’ed, or otherwise hacked by malware.  Of course “Plan A” is to avoid this in the first place via proactive means of defense and safe practices.

Read our posting on our experience with Maxtor Safety Drill.  You will pay a premium for a Maxtor PLUS drive that includes Safety Drill.  Is it worth it?  Read our posting and decide for yourself.

Software Defined Radio:Burt Fishers (K1OIK) Review of FlexRadio 5000

Folks reading reviews QSTshould be aware that their business model depends heavily on revenue from advertising.  Theoretically, it would not be to their benefit to write less then positivereviews of products – even if it was the truth of the matter.  For example, QST gets advertising dollars from FlexRadio.  If QST wrote a less than favorable review of the Flex Radio products then Flex may pull advertising revenue.

This is the perennial collision of ethics and business.  Consume Reports maintains objectivity of product reviews by simply making the potential conflict of and advertising dollars vs objective reviews go away by accepting no advertising.  When was the last time you read in any QST review that any produt was not a wise purchase compared to other products on the market in the same category?  When did they recommend a better product than what was reviewed?

This is all to say, product review from real hams with no revenue at stake makes them more objective.  This is not to say they do a high quality or comprehensive review – its just to say that they don’t have a devil over one shoulder wispering revenue impact when they are doing product reviews.

In any case, this posting has a link to Burts video review of the FlexRadio 5000 and our suggestion to subscribe to his YouTube channel.  To get the follow up installments on the Flex Radio 5000 from K1OIK is up to you.  Subscribing to his YouTube channel will keep you informed of these forthcoming reviews.

On being Burt Fisher K1OIK:polishing the image of Amateur Radio

Burt Fisher K1OIK is a long time Amateur Radio guy and retired high school teacher.  Burt seems now to have plenty of time to make videos on YouTube.  Good for him!

As a long time Amateur Radio guy, Burt had made some observations about Ham radio over the years.  Sometimes, when you are “in the system” (or “embedded in the culture”) of Ham Radio its a challenge to take an objective (”outsiders”) perspective on some of the activities and behaviors of Amateur Radio operators.  From certain perspectives some of the things that hams do are just “crazy”.

In keeping with the mission of this site to make observations on the public image of Amateur Radio we think Burt K1OIK is someone you should know.  Check out his video and see if he makes any sense.

Direct Conversion Receiver: making friends with the SA602 IC

Did you every make friends with an ICchip?  If you are into minimalistic radio receiver design then you might want to make friends with the Signetics SA602 double balanced mixer and oscillator.  The SA602 can form the heart of a Direct Conversion receiver.  Add a rough tuned front end, varactor tuned tank circuit, and an amp and you have a working receiver for CW, SSB, and AM.

The least frustrating way to mess with the SA602 is to buy the Ramsey HR QRP receiver kit for $39.  This kit is not only good for adults that want a low frustration way to learn about basic electronics but also for kids whose interest in electronics and radio could be triggered by this simple kit.  You can can get “instant gratification” in about an hour, have a working radio, and – if you are not careful – learn something about receiver design and electronics in the process.

On being Bob Sullivan W0YVA:amateur radio at the margins of society

What is the image of Amateur Radio in the popular media?

Is TIME magazine representative of the popular culture and how does at least one writer, and the editors that approved the copy understand Amateur Radio?

What are the Amateur Radio stereotypes?  There is a little truth in a lie and a little lie in the truth.  Stereotypes only work when the attributes of the group portrayed can be validated by ordinary observation by ordinary people.

Are televisonprograms representative of the popular cultures preception of Amatuer Radio?  How does television portray Amateur Radio?

We are nominating Bob Sullivan W0YVA as the new image of Amteur Radio.  We stumbled acorss his web site – see what we saw and why we think Bob is a “weapon of mass destruction” against the common image of Amatuer Radio in the popular media.

Mass Media Effects on the Fourth Estate

What is the Fourth Estate?  In historical context the Fourth Estate generally refers to the media – the media as the ‘guardians of the public sphere’.

That understanding of the Fourth Estate is more than 100 years old. What are the effects of mass communication on the Fourth Estate in the age of the mass communications of radio, television, and the Internet?  If the FourthEstate of the media no longer serves a benevolent function as guardians then what function does it serve?

Rather than the media being the voice of the people has the media become manipulators of public opinion?  In the age of advertising, is the purpose of the media to deliver “consumption units to the corporate world”?  If the dominant class creates the dominant ideology then would the media play a major role in transmitting this ideology as if it were “common sense”?

We snagged an interesting article on the Internet that lays out some interesting alternative views of what the media has become in the age of mass media and communications.  Check it out.  If you read the article and the attached links maybe when you consume the mass media you will see it in a new light.

The pain of Analog Video Capture to digital

Our further adventures with the Pinnacle PCTV HD Ultimate Stick.

Digital video capture from an analog video source – sure it can do that – or can it?

Read our article on the “The Stick” vs “The Appliance” and see who wins.

Turning those Analog video tapes into DVD’s can be easy or hard depending on your strategy.

Learn from our mistakes (uh, experience)

Shortwave on the Internet – Medium vs Message

Medium and message.  What happens when the message is liberated from the medium?

Does “Listening to Shortwave Radio”, “Watching Television”, and “Talking on the Telephone” make any sense in a world of converged devices?

What is a converged device anyway?

Read our article and get the link to the site that powers WiFi Radio and listen to more than 15,000 broadcasts on-line.

Redefining Social Reality – The Age of YouTube Celebrity

The Internet is a disruptive technology that changes everything.  Has it redefined social reality?

Who are the new Underground of social relationships and are they maladjusted to the new Reality?  What defines the bounds of social Reality?

YouTube plays a unique role in the visual streaming of social relationships.  Read our posting to appreciate the unique position that the celebrity citizen plays in the new Reality of social global social relationships.

Review: Pinnacle PCTV HD Ultimate Stick

No, its not an article about Dakota Fanning.

It’s an article about how to see Dakota Fanning on the Tonight Show with Jay Leno… on your PC or laptop using a magical device – the Pinnacle PCTV HD Ultimate Stick.

This black box wonder of post modern technology can do it all – Analog TV, Digital TV High Def, Cable TV ClearQAM, and internet radio.  Its your personal PVR (Personal Video Recorder).

Double benefit – it can also digitize almost any analog input source.  So if you have a legacy analog camcorder or a VHS deck then here is your chance to get those old video tapes onto modern media.

Does it get better than that?  Sure, you get the starter version of Pinnacle Studio 10 movie editing software.  Similar to Microsoft Movie Maker, this entry level program can import all your media and stitch this into music videos, family videos constructed from legacy analog devices (Camcorder, VHS decks), create video blogs, or where ever your imagination can take you.

Plus, you will get our usual commentary on the effect of these devices on society and culture.  Learn about “The Billion”.  We want you to become the one percent.  Man as aliented from the means of production – fooey.  Give it a read and put about $100 into the economy.

The Pixie Experiment – Going Diskless with Linux

Suppose you want a super safe web browsing environment.  Suppose you want a Linux “on demand” – that is, you want to boot Linux without using a CD or having Linux installed on your PC’shard drive.  Is that possible?

Maybe you have a PC lying around with no hard drive or CD-ROM drive.  Can you really run Linux on a PC with no hard drive?  Sure you can.

Read our posting and see how you can perform this experiment in your own home.  Unlike Cold Fusion, this experiment which we will demonstrate, will work at your place too.

Learning about Linix the easy way - the Knoppix Live-CD

We posted an article a while back – DSL Linux 50 MB of Penguin Power.  If DSL was 50 MB of Penguin Power then the next size up is KNOPPIX – this is 700 MB of Penguin Power.  This Penguin will boot from a Live-CD and run in your PC’s memory.  No installation required!

So what can this 700 MB Penguin do?  It has the Apache Web server built in and ready to use.  It has the MySQLdatabase server built in and ready to go.  It can give you instant access to Microsoft Shares on a Microsoft network and to NFS file systems on a UNIX network.

It can be used as a X-Server to provide a GUI to any other Linux server on a network.  You can almost instantly configure it as a Router or bridge.  It can become a DHCP server.  It has Samba built-in and NFS built-in so you can instantly turn almost any PC that Knoppix boots on into a file server for Windows systems and for UNIX systems.

Knoppix has NetShark built-in which will allow you to inspect and analyze network traffic.  It can clone and wipe hard drives.  It can act as a server to boot other (diskless) PC’s into Knoppix over the network using PXE (Pre-eXecution Environment) – that is useful for kiosks or public compute clusters offering anonymous and safe web browsing.  And, if you know what Wardriving is – it can do that as well.

How about a replacement or substitute for Microsoft Office?  Knoppix has Open Office builtin and ready to go.  It has multi-media applications, games, editors, software development, and plenty more.  Read our posting and get Knoppix up and running on your PC off a Live-CD.  No installation required !!

The Riddle of Kit Building – Why do they do it?

It really is a simple question. Why do Amateur Radio folks build kits.  In fact, the real question is why companies like Heath, TenTec, Ramsey, and Elecraftmake kits in the first place?  We give some insight on the latter question but the former questions about why Amateurs build kits is a riddle.  And perhaps hidden in the riddle is a deeper issue of self-deception on the part of kit builders.  Take a look at our article and see if you can solve the riddle.

Inside the Black Box of Shortwave Radio

Many people today spin the dials and twist the knobs on a radio without really knowing what is going on inside that black box.

You can be a person who likes to listen to radio and that is the real deal of why broadcast radio exists.

Growing in popularity are cable shows such as “How its made”,  ”Batteries not included” and other shows that tell you how things work and how things are made.

As a kid you may have been one of those folks who liked to take things apart to see how they worked.  Parents sometimes did not like this.  One of our friends who has son of about 10 years old asked “What’s inside Diamond?”.  Diamond was the family dog.

But now we are all adults and can take apart anything we want – but maybe not Diamond.

So what is inside the black box of shortwave radio?  Check out our posting and get the free ebook.

Life on HF – The MFJ-1796 6-Band HF Antenna for Limited Space

Do you have a limited space constraint for working HF?  Maybe you have a “decorum” constraint – that is, you don’t wan to create an “eyesore” on your property by erecting an HF antenna.  Of course, as a Amateur radio operator concerned with the image of Amateur Radio, you would not want to make an eyesore and disturb the decorum of the neighborhood.

If you have such constraints then the MFJ-1796 may be a good choice for you.  This antenna works 5 HF bands (40m/20m/15m/10m/6m) and one VHF band (2m).  It needs only 12-14 feet of linear space.

As distributed by MFJthis is intended to be mounted vertically.  We made a simple mod to this antenna to mount this antenna horizontally in an attic.  If you can find only 14 feet of linear space in an attic you can leverage this space with the MFJ-1796 antenna to work 5 HF bands.

We have used this antenna in its horizontal configuration and made thousands of HF contacts.  Read our article and make your own decision if this antenna is a good fit for you.  We havepictures of the modified antenna in its attic location along with actual SWR measurements on 40m/20m/15m/10m.

How the RELAY got into the ARRL

If you don’t know how the word “RELAY” got into the American Radio RELAY League (ARRL) then read this article to find out.

But the real story of this article is about vision and people with vision that can make a difference.  Relevant to the history of Amateur Radio is Hiram Percy Maxim (HPM).

HPMwasa man withVision that made a difference to Amateur Radio in the early 1900’s when Amateur Radio had little positive image and no national organization.

If you are an ARRL member then you should know that it was HPM that made it all happen in 1915 when he created the ARRLasa national organization.  But still, how did the RELAY get into the name?  It has to do with HPM’sdesire to get a Audion Tube – the primitive predecessor of the Triode invented by Lee DeForest - and the idea that that experience of trying to obtain the device put into his head.

Relevant to the mission of this site – we ask if Amateur Radio clubs today carry on this mission and values of the ARRL in those early days.  Read the article and learn something about the history of Amateur Radio, the ARRL, and how this is all relevant to this mission and research project of this site.

Life on HF – DX Clusters using Spot Collector and DX View

Listening to HF?  Instead of spinning that VFO knob to no where why not try a DX Cluster?  DX Clusters have been around for a long time.  Now they have easy to use graphical interfaces and are readily available over the Internet.

DX Lab is a suite of integrated programs that will help you locate international Amateur Radio activity on the HF bands.  We will take a look at two components of DX Lab – Spot Collector and DX View.  Spot Collector is a DX Cluster aggregator with a very nice graphical user interface.  DX View is the mapping component that runs along side Spot Collector.  Clicking on a station in Spot Collector will map the Amateur station on a series of global and country maps.

A compelling feature of DXViewis that it integrates with Google maps.  The end result is that you can see Amateur stations plotted on satellite images provided by Google.

A compelling feature of Spot Collector is voice alerts.  That is, Spot Collector talks to you and calls out the spots as they are received from DX Clusters.  Looking for activity from a particular country or band?  Then you can set filter criteria according to your choosing.

This means that you can leaveSpotCollector running in the background, do something else, and Spot Collector will call out the spots to you with voice announcements when DX Clusters discover interesting Hf activity as defined by you via filters.  Excellent set of programs.  Read our posting to find out more.

Life on HF – The Age of Power

If you watched the popular TV Series “Tool Time” you know that the central character “Tim” always wanted more power.  Most of these episodes where Tim got what he wanted—more power—ended in disaster.

In our posting “Living Life on HF” – The Age of Power”  we’ll show you how to get more power.  The more power is the Ameritron AL811H 800W Linear Amp.

We’ll show you a real example of how to team this up with our MFJDifferential T Tuner along with all the connections to the exciter (transciever) to key the amp and limit the power with the ALC.

Of course nothing is free.  And more power cost more money.  We’ll show you the math of 800W out versus 100W and what difference it makes as measured by an S-Meter at the receiving end and what difference it makes in you wallet.

Review of the LDG PRO-200 Autotuner

The LDGPro-200  is the Revolution and the Evolution of manual and tradition motor driven antenna tuning and impedance matching.

Using the new generation of computer controlled tuners with tens of thousands of memories and lumped capacitance and inductances makes tuning transparent and effortless.

There is no more separate tune cycle.  Simply hook one of these new generation tuners up and start talking.  The LDG tunes as you talk and remembers the frequency and LC  settings for next time.

Check our review of the LDG Pro-200 Auto tuner.  It may sound like marbles down a garbage disposal when it tunes.  But we love it anyway.

What’s the (Black) Magic in the Jack.  Voice over IP

You have probably heard all this hype before. Perpetual Motion machines; the carburetor that can make a car get 80 miles per gallon; and the various gadgets and devices that are primarily designed to separate people from their money.

So now we have a new entry into the cornucopia of hyped products—the Magicjack.  This magical device claims to make Voice over IP phone calls to traditional telephony systems for about 18 times LESS than any other player in the VoIP market—as of this writing.  Vonage is about $30 a month—that’s $360/year.  Magicjack claims they can provide VoIP for $20 per year.  Too good to be true?

So from the “we wasted our money on this—so you don’t have to” department we purchased this product and service.  Read our posting to find out what we discovered.

Commentary: Amateur Radio Beginnings – why kids today are not Hams

This article provides some history of the beginnings of Amateur Radio in the Early 1900’s.  From Maxwell, Hertz, and Marconi to Admiral “Fighting Bob” Evans – really a couple of Amateurs playing games with the Navy.  We’ll tell you about the “game over” for Amateurs when legislation was passed to restrict Amateurs to 200 meters and below and 1 Kilowatt of power.

We’ll add some commentary and suggest why kids today are not attracted to Amateur Radio.  We have a historical letter from Bill Gates when he was a kid wishing that he had the money to hire 10 programmers to flood the market with good software.  Microsoft is a case where reality far exceeded the vision of the founder – your assessment of Microsoft software quality aside.

General Electric Research in RF circa. 1934

Another historical artifact.  In 1934 researchers at General Electric found an interesting phenomenon.  The phenomenon is that if you shoot HF at a couple of Kilowatts of power at a human body there is a heating affect. Imagine that!

So, a vision of the future would be to heat the body with RF rather than a tradition furnace.  Our posting has original articles on this phenomenon and the vision of the future circa 1934.

Product Review: Yaesu FT-7800R

The YaesuFT-7800R has been around a while and is still available.  With one thousand memories and wide band recieve this radio is good for traditional amateur use as well as listening to conventional VHF/UHF public safety and business communications.

And for you Wal-Mart shoppers, we’ll tell you how you can skip the purchase of the expensive remote head connector from Yaesu and use a few simple parts from the telephone asile at Wal-Mart.

The Wave Bubble – Protecting you personal space from RF intrustion.

The new generation of electrical engineers coming out of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) who are also affiliated with the MIT Media Lab and the MIT Computing Culture Group are asking some new questions when it comes to envisioning new products.

Who are these folks at  the MIT Culture Computing Group…

“We are an art and technology group, based on the premise that artists often invent new media out of necessity. Our research will result in specific works of art, but will also help further an understanding of the relationships between art, technology, and cultural production. Some of the strategies we practice include interventions in contemporary consumer electronics, creating special events for public situations, and applying technical development to cultural agendas that wouldn’t normally receive it. Our central interest is in physically embodied (rather than screen-based) work.”

Check out the thesis of one engineer at MIT and learn about the Wave Bubble—a short range wearable device designed to protect ones personal space from  intrusive wireless technologies.   The thesis is provided in its complete form including schematics to build a prototype of the Wave Bubble.  Since this device creates a localized wireless ‘Cold Spot” be sure to keep in mind the FCC’s rules for such devices.

Collecting Heathkit Models SB-101,102 & HW 100,101

You probably bought a new radio that was “new”.  How about buying a new radio that is old – old as in “Vintage”.  Check out our article “Going Vintage with Heathkit” to see our collection of Heathkits.

We’ll show you four popular Heathkit models that were available from the 1960’s through the 1980’s.  You will see what is inside the “black box” (or green box in these Heathkits) of technology.

And, we will make an attempt to explain, at a conceptual level, how the transmitter section of these radios develop an SSB signal.

So, yes Virginia, you can understand how these radios work, you can look inside the black box of technology, and you can work on these radios yourself.   Schematics included!  And they do glow in the dark.

Where did we buy these radios?  We bought them all on ebay.  So we will also tell you about our ebay buying experience and why you may want to purchase some vintage radios on ebay rather than a local hamfest.

We’ll post a follow up article on the history of the Heath/Zenith company and suggest how the Heath company may have missed an opportunity in the educational market.

Speaking of ebay, another future article will address fundraising and how Ham radio clubs may want to look to expand their portfolio of fundraising  activities beyond the traditional hamfest.

Blast from the past – Our Kenwood Hybrid Collection

There are no memories, no Menus, no CPU, and no digital signal processor.  But they do glow in the dark – if you look inside – and they can kill you with 800 volts on the plates of the glowing tubes.

What are they?  They are the Kenwood Hybrids.

The Kenwood models made from the mid to late 1970s to the early 1980s and designated TS-520, TS-530, TS-820, and TS-830 were know as Hybrids They were Hybrids because they were a combination of semiconductors and tubes. The division between what was semiconductor (transistor) and what was tubes was very clear.

The Hybrids were mostly semiconductor with only the driver and final unit being tubes. All hybrids used the same basic tube lineup – a 12BY7 for the driver and two 6146s for the finals. Output of these radios was about 100 watts. The 6146 tubes were very popular in ham radios.  Alll the kenwood hybrids used them as did the Heathkit SB-101, SB-102, HW-100 and HW101.  We’veprovided a very extensive article on the very popular 6146s in the resource section at the end of this article.

Check out our article on the Kenwood Hybrids to see the transition fom tubes (valves) and point-to-point wiring (Drakes) to solid state and modular circuit board design.

Product Review – The Ultra 1000VA/600 Watt Time Machine

“You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.” — Abraham Lincoln, (attributed) 16th president of US (1809 – 1865)

We call ‘em like we see ‘em and we got slickered.  We were made fools of—we put our trust in the untrustworthy.  We demonstrated that a Marketing MBA really is worth $150K /yr when it generates sales due to slick marketing and questionable integrity.

We thought we were buying a UPS.  But what we got instead was a time machine.   This time machine is capable of compressing  60 minutes down to about 15 minutes.

“Fool me once shame on you.  Fool me twice shame on me” – Anonymous

So YOU don’t get fooled check out our review of the Ultra 1000VA 600 Watt UPS and find out what we discovered in actual tests of this UPS.

50 MB of Penguin Power – PC Emulator with Embedded Linux

By now everyone has heard about Linux.  Linux has made it into corporate data centers as a low cost alternativeto more expensive licensed operating system software from Sun Microsystems, HP, IBM, and other vendors.

Linux was originally written by  Linus Torvalds in 1991 using much from the GNU operating system announced in 1983 by Richard Stallman.

In many cases, the best way to learn about a new technology is to actually use it — hands-on.

Most LINUX distributions are large, require you to create a new partition on your hard disk, and change the way your PC boots.

Is there a way you can learn about LINUX hands-on on your current PC without disturbing the partitioning and boot sequence?  Sure there is.

In our article DSL LINUX: 50 MB of Penguin Power we will show you how to get LINUX up and running on your current PC in about 5 minutes running as an application under Windows.  No changes in the hard disk partitioning, no changes in the boot sequences, and when you are done playing and learning you can thow DSL Linux into the Windows recycler just like any regualar file.  No harm – no foul.

Product Review – The MFJ-209 Antenna Analyzer

Do you really need an antenna analyzer?  Take a look at our review of the MFJ-209 Antenna analyzer.

The MFJ-209 is a low end, inexpensive antenna analyzer that can help you sweep the HF and VHF spectrum and find out the resonance characteristics of an antenna – or really, the resonance characteristics of anything that you might want to use as an antenna.

If you haveanindoor attic antenna then this might save you a few trips up the laddar to the attic.  Check out our articles on the MFJ 209.

History of Reciever Design – 1912 Regeneration and Building the TenTec 1253

If you are new to kit building you may want to check out our posting “History of Receive Design—1912 Regeneration and building the TenTec1253 9-Band Regenerative Receiver.

Selecting this kit as a build project serves three purposes.  First you can build a kit that is actually useful for listening to 9 bands of HF in AM, CW, and SSB modes.

Second, you can learn something about a radio receiver design called Regeneration.  Regeneration was popular in the early 1900’s but was later eclipsed by another technique called Superheterodyne.

Third, the TenTec 1253 is old school reviver design in new school clothes.  We’ll show you how traditional hard-core physical mechanical devices such as wafer switches used to switch connections havebeen replaced by  inexpensive IC’s such at the CD74HC4017 decade counter.  Air dielectric capacitors have been replaced by varactor diodes.  This is just two examples used in this kit.  All this goes to the realization of the end goal of  reliability and reduction of costs for mass produced radios.

Remembering that radio in all generations has a historical, business, and legal context we have a link to a document “History of Regeneration: Invention to Patent Litigation” by Professor Hong.  For straight-on technical folks we have a Vintage document: Regeneration and Reflex Receivers.

If you’re a kit builder and Regeneration is not your cup of tea then check out our related article “The Age of Superheterodyne—Building the Ramsey SR2 Kit”.  This more traditional kit is easy to build and covers 4Mhz to 19.5Mhz

The Age of SuperHeterodyne – Building the Ramsey SR2 Kit

“In 1918 Armstrong developed the Superhetrodyne receiver that incorporated the first local oscillator and intermediate frequency modules. The “superhet” as it is sometimes called qualifies a receiver able to function over a range or band of frequencies. The word “heterodyne” means “beating”, a technique producing a beating or heterodyne frequency by mixing two or more signals in a nonlinear device such as a vacuum tube, a transistor, or a diode mixer. The incoming frequency is converted to a fixed intermediate frequency (I.F.) where amplification and filtering are provided.

In addition, in 1922 Armstrong created the super regenerative receiver, a simplified Superhetrodyne that improved the gain while simplifying the adjustment of the receiver. The “Regen” as it was called was qualified as a receiver “unsurpassed in comparable simplicity, weak signal reception, inherent noise limiting and AGC action and, freedom from overloading and spurious responses”, nothing less. The “Regen” radios took the most of very few components. However, as parts became easier to obtain, the “superhet” replaced it in all radioactivities.”

If you are looking for a simple kit to build that demonstrates the basic radio design of Superheterodyne recieversthen the Ramsey SR2 Shortwave radio kit is a good choice.  It will only take a few hours to build this kit and you can actually learn something about what is needed to recieve, tune, demodulate, and amplify a AM signal.  This may be a good choice for a hobby project for kids.