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We Need More Power!

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So, we had a unique power source for field day.  A hydrogen fuel cell.

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There’s a bank of lead acid deep cycle batteries under the fuel cell.  The cell basically acts as a battery tender charging the batteries and supporting the load while it is on and then turning back off when the batteries are full.

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We ran a 48V DC bus (see the extension cord coming out on the left) ran that back into the communications trailer.  This decreased the I2R losses (see also here for info) from the longer cable run.  Within the trailer was a DC to DC converter that put out 13.8V for all of our communications equipment and we also had adapters to run our laptops and other equipment.

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It actually was quite effective and we started with an “empty” tank and still ran for over 8 hours on it.  The calculations are we could run for over 48 hours on a single tank of hydrogen.  The cell its self has a rating of 1KW and we actually did get it up that high, however I didn’t get a picture of it.  The fuel cell was running like mad because we left it off after out thunderstorm to let things dry out.

In the mean time we kicked back into operational mode meaning 2 radios fired back up plus their associated computers and associated equipment for digital operation.  All just running off the batteries without the Fuel Cell maintaining them when necessary.

Our clue to go turn the cell back on was when the low battery alarm went off in the trailer indicating the 48V supply was starting to drop.  We did also have a 12V batter on the other side of the 48V to 12V converter in the trailer.  This was to add extra isolation for surging loads (radios).

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The fuel cell worked great and was always fun when someone would brag about running off of solar.  Yeah, well we’ve harnessed the power of molecular bonds!

For those who don’t know how fuel cells work, the basic premise is that the electron from hydrogen is forced through the circuit as the proton mates with the oxygen to form water.

Now some would call this a wonderfully green technology, however that hydrogen has to come from somewhere, and most often than not it’s through electrolysis.

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*Also as an aside since the wife and I were just talking about it.  If you’re a ham, do not use the term kilo-watt for phonetics.  The word you’re looking for is kilo.  Kilo-watt is very confusing because it is a compound word.  Are you saying K or KW?  Other’s do use the term watt for W, which while incorrect can further add to confusion.  Seriously, the IACO/NATO/ITU phonetic alphabet was developed specifically to limit confusion.  If your word choices were so great, why haven’t they adopted them?

You may think it’s neat and cute, but at least in the case of the wife and I, we slow way down to deal with your choice of phonetics.  I am reasonably sure that I am not the only one who has been confused by this usage.  It’s hard enough to dig phone messages out of the weeds, why add a bit of extra confusion to the conversation.  But that’s just my two cents, take it for what its worth.

We Interrupt Your Regularly Scheduled Program…

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So we had a minor hiccup with field day.  Our station is currently off-line and we are sitting in the trailer chit chatting.

Now why would we all move inside?  Well this doesn’t fully show what’s wrong but probably gives you a solid idea of what’s wrong.

It was making loud noises and flashing through the sky.  It just recently stopped hailing.  We disconnected everything and lowered the stepper antenna for safety.  We’re just now slowly starting the system back up.

So this interruption was brought to you by mother nature and we are now returning back to our regularly scheduled program.

CQ Field Day

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I’m spending the day doing field day with the local ham radio club.  We actually have a hydrogen fuel cell that we’re running all our radios off of.  We spent a chunk of the morning hooking and setting up antennas including a nice Stepper IR that was donated for use during field day.

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It took us a lot longer than expected to set that bad boy up.  We were having SWR problems and we’ve been trying to debug the issue.  First up was checking all the connections and we discovered this in one of the connections.

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That however wasn’t the problem.  The SWR was still way above 3.  What else could be the problem.  Well we bypassed the 80m tuning coil and bang, SWR dropped to 1.  I think we found the problem.  At that point it was time to grab some lunch and now I’m working on logging while my compatriot runs the radio.

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I’ll be busy until late tonight.  If you’re a fellow ham and you hear KD7PH, feel free to send a shout out. We’re going to start running some of the digital modes here in a bit but were running phone now.

It is nice being able to run that Stepper IR thought anywhere between 40m and 10m.  We haven’t tried running 80m since we pulled the coil but so far if we can hear them we can work them.  All running just measly 100 watts.

We just bumped to 15 meters to see how things will run for now.  I have to say I would like to get one of those for my house, the thought of the cost though doesn’t have me running to buy one

It is nice being able to do all this in an air-conditioned trailer.  Even though storms rolled in, the heat’s still pretty high and the humidity has gone up.  It’s going to be a fun day.

SSCC #354 – DEA

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The Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals ruled last week that the DEA’s use of force against the 11-year-old and 14-year-old daughters of Thomas and Rosalie Avina–which included putting a gun to the youngest girl’s head–was “excessive,” “unreasonable,” and constituted “intentional infliction of emotional distress.”

Given the court ruled that it was excessive, why would I list this as a Sponsored Criminal?   Quite simple really.

Attorneys for the Obama administration defended the raid, and Reason has obtained the brief the DOJ filed to the Ninth Circuit. In it, the Obama administration argues that “the DEA agents’ conduct was plainly reasonable under the circumstances.”

To put the icing on the cake, this also was a wrong door raid.  They attacked law-abiding citizens, violating their rights and committed assault with a deadly weapon.  This is non-negotiable.  I don’t care if the officers claim they thought they were acting in good faith, every officer is responsible for his own actions.

The courts however have stated that you can be shot, threatened, and your rights trampled by officers of the state as long as it wasn’t with malice a forethought.

I find that the odds of me being killed by a law enforcement officer considerably higher than by “illegal” drugs or someone on drugs.  This is a prime example of the cure being worse than the “disease”.  Yet here our government is saying it isn’t worse and that we should all live in terror to continue treating the “disease”.

Doesn’t that just make you feel all warm and fuzzy inside.

State Sponsored Criminal #354: The DEA

Because a girl sleeping in her own bed means you need to totally fear for your life, including putting a loaded weapon to her head and hand cuffing her.  It’s a totally reasonable action that requires the threat and use of lethal force.*  Eric Holder’s office says so!

*If you point a gun at something that means you’re willing to shoot it.  Period.

Fast and Furious, With Regards to the Cause

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So if you didn’t read it, a couple of months ago I wrote a root cause analysis on the causes and reasons behind Operation Fast and Furious, also known as Operation Gun Walker.

Today Uncle posted a link to an article from CBS that stated the following:

ATF officials didn’t intend to publicly disclose their own role in letting Mexican cartels obtain the weapons, but emails show they discussed using the sales, including sales encouraged by ATF, to justify a new gun regulation called “Demand Letter 3”. That would require some U.S. gun shops to report the sale of multiple rifles or “long guns.” Demand Letter 3 was so named because it would be the third ATF program demanding gun dealers report tracing information.

Think about that long and hard. These individuals broke the law willfully with an intent to create “necessity” for their new violations of the law.  Their new violation of the law was the gun control they wished to implement itself as it is a blatant violation of the Firearm Owners Protection Act.

Many have attempted to vilify the gun shops in this case saying they should have just not sold the weapons.  What these people are refusing to acknowledge is the ATF, through their regulatory power, forced these shops to sell to people the would have otherwise not sold weapons to.

Seriously, go read the CBS article, it’s is yet further evidence that validates my conclusions in the root cause analysis.

To add the icing to the cake though, I am reasonably sure the White House was aware of this program given Obama is now exercising “Executive Privilege” over the material.  I have no doubt this was his “under the radar” efforts at gun control.  As Jennifer said, “no one died when Nixon lied.“

SSCC #353 – ATF

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Rochester police and federal agents made a mistake in Charlotte this week that has one woman baffled and frightened. She wants to know how they could mistake her house for one they were supposed to raid in a drug bust.

Simple really, they don’t hire the best and brightest.  Tyrannical bureaucrats don’t want enforcers who can think, much less read and tell the difference between the address on the warrant and the house they just arrived at.

How close was this almost a fatal screw up for the ATF as well as the home owner?

“My son had heard me arguing with this man and it was not a voice he’d recognize. My son is a hunter, he put a bullet in the chamber of his gun. They heard that, they yelled down long gun, at that point there he told another ATF agent that was with me, handcuff her and take her out,” Dominicos said.

However the real take away is the following:

“I’m still terrified. It’s almost like a P.T.S.D. experience, you keep hearing things. You think oh my God I hear a door slam, I hear someone pulling into my driveway. I see a light it’s like oh my God are they back?”

That’s the point.  Law enforcement and the government want us to live in fear.  Their actions exercise the very definition of the word terrorism.    The best part of the story though is the discrepancy between the home owners story, which is considerably more believable, and the statement released by police.

“Upon encountering an elderly resident, the team realized that they were at the wrong location at that time and left the premises.”

No you did not, you put her in cuffs and took her outside until someone bothered to read the house number and street name and noticed it didn’t match the warrant.

Considering this can happen to anyone, anytime, and quite easily can have dire consequences, why is this considered acceptable?  Especially since unsurprisingly the bad guys pretend to be cops.  At this point it’s better to just let the bullets file and sort it out afterwards.  Maybe if cops would knock first and be civil about it this wouldn’t be a problem.  If you think the screw ups are rare:


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Don’t give me the line about how serving a warrant is dangerous because the majority of warrants served are for non-violent offenses.  When the criminal is actually dangerous, they negotiate him to come out to reduce collateral damage.  There is the argument about the destruction of evidence, well if we weren’t serving warrants over victimless crimes involving nouns that wouldn’t be a problem now would it?

Even better though, with the consistently increasing use of SWAT teams in unnecessary circumstances, the number of people caught in the middle who are innocent continues to increase.  You can not use the service more and expect it to also become more accurate about it’s use, if anything it will become less accurate.

No knocks, like the TSA, need to be done away with.  They have both grown since September 11th and it’s eroding and destroying the last semblances of freedom and liberty.  The police state is here and we need to put an end to it.

State Sponsored Criminals 353: The ATF

Because it’s not the job of the swat team to read the warrant or make sure they’re at the right house.  If there’s collateral damage, the law-abiding citizen should have just behaved, he had no reason to defend himself.

via Uncle.

Buwahahaha!!! Awesome!

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I just discovered this in Jetpack while waiting for my code to compile.

[latex size=”4″]e^{\j \theta}=\cos{\theta}+\j \sin{\theta}[/latex]

But wait, there’s more!

[latex size=”4″][\vec{\nabla} \cdot \vec{\mathbf{E}} = \frac{1}{\epsilon_0}\,\rho ][/latex]

Man, that is freaking awesome.  I can write formulas on the fly now and not have to resort to weird things to get the images to post.  Now I just need to get back to doing those posts on the power system.

Well, that’s neat

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During my lunch I did some browsing around and I found a really nice proof reader that has a plugin for WordPress tied into Jetpack.  Not only does it exist for WordPress though but someone created a plugin for Live Writer.

I know more often than not my writing leaves something to be desired.  This I attribute to the fact that my brain will mentally fill in words that are missing when I wrote it.  It usually takes at least 24 hours before my brain will actually catch missing material.  That’s a bit of a problem with how fast some information flows within the blogosphere.  I don’t exactly have an editor to proof my work before I hit the submit button.  Hopefully this will help with some of those deficiencies.

My brain is actually really good at filling in other people’s mistakes.  I have to seriously slow down my reading to catch mistakes.

In other news a couple of weeks ago I finally ditched the big beard since summer was finally showing up.  Normally I go bald specifically because I’m already bald on the top of the head anyway so I might as well just embrace it.

This limits my ability to have the big fat beard, which I do enjoy though it does make soup a serious pain. It just looks weird being bald and having a big bushy beard.  Also it’s really hot during summers out here and it’s just not necessary.

Now normally I go with what some would call the JayG look, bald and goatee, but that’s relatively common and frankly I just like being different.  So instead I’ve gone with the below.

With the hat on:

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With the hat off.

imageYou can’t see it, but I’m flipping someone off in this picture.  He said something about a blinding light coming off my head.  I told him to just stop staring into the sun.

I still have the beard, doesn’t look scroungy, and still allows me to be intimidating if necessary.

So what say you?  Should I just go back to the goatee, or keep the trimmed line running back?