An earth stake for the shack

I seem to have problems with RF feedback in the shack when using any kind of end fed antennas. Dipoles do better for me. I'd commented on this a few times and today local amateur, Robert, VK2ZNZ very kindly arranged for a beautiful copper coated steel stake to be hammered in to the ground.

Robert has been mysteriously absent from the Sunday morning 80m callback in recent weeks but it turns out the reason was that he's had a hip replacement so he availed himself of my shack's comfy chair:

Thanks very much for your kindness Robert!

Home brew and mini Maker faire day

A very busy Sunday this weekend. Mal, VK2BMS, and I headed off first to Dural for the ARNSW Home Brew group where I hoped to learn how to use my pan brake folder to make metal boxes. That wasn't to be but a little YouTube searching has filled that void.

Peter Jensen showed some of his excellent portable valve radio gear including this terrific suitcase setup:

John, VK2ASU, is making good progress on a new transceiver for 40m, here's the interim receiver which works very well:

Next we headed off to Ultimo to visit the mini Maker Faire at the Powerhouse museum. As expected there were lots of 3D printers, which I'd love to have a reason to need one, and some slightly disturbing robots:

My local club, the Manly Warringah Radio Society had a very interesting display in the outside courtyard:

The Powerhouse is a great museum and I look forward to visiting again with more time to take it all in.

Blog comment spam examples

In recent months, comment submitted to this blog have increasingly been spam basically intended to slip in a link to another site.

Often the comments are rather complimentary in an attempt to schmooze a blogger into accepting the comment without thought. Here's a small collection for your amusement (without the links).

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--

Thanks for the advice!

There are many more. I always mark them as spam but Google Blogger doesn't seem to be doing any filtering based on this as far as I can tell.

At least these people haven't stolen my text and videos and re-published with their own ads - I've seen that too.

The Arts Party

ANNOUNCING THE CREATION OF A NEW VOICE
IN AUSTRALIAN POLITICS 

For too many years the political landscape of Australia has lacked a clear voice for the
artists, the lovers of art & culture and the creative industries within Australia. We need to
reprioritise Australian creativity as a fundamental asset of this country.

On Monday 21st October 2013 we are launching The Australian Arts Party to do exactly that.

Driving a broad social and economic platform, the Arts Party aims to transform the political
conversation within the state and federal parliaments of this country, by repositioning
creativity, cultural appreciation and arts in all its many and various forms, as central to the
future of Australian development and wealth creation. We believe the future of Australia
depends on the quality of our ideas even more than the size of our mines.

But to give Australians that voice, we urgently need members. Founding member registration
will occur at bit.ly/joinartsparty, commencing at 6am Monday 21st October 2013. We are
using crowdfunding to launch - an Australian and possibly world first for a political party.

For the next 4 weeks, any Australian can claim a three year founding membership of the Arts
Party for only $20 - a small personal investment to support a richer future for us all.

A quote from PJ Collins, the founding political officer of the Arts Party:
“For too long, I have felt a real lack of recognition and respect for the value Australian
creativity brings to our great country. The last federal election left me, and many of my
friends, more disaffected than ever before with Australian politics. Motoring enthusiasts and
miners now holding the balance of power in our senate - enough is enough! It’s time for
Australians, who believe art and creativity matters, to take a step forward and become
founding members of the Australian Arts Party.”

The Arts Party is a pro-industry, pro-education and pro-training platform. A platform that will
work for every Australian, to encourage and promote our amazing creativity. Art brings us
together. It should be a living part of all our lives.

For more information:
• Website: theartsparty.org
• Join: bit.ly/joinartsparty (from 21/10/13)
• Contact: PJ Collins - 0404 116 310
• f: TheArtsParty t: @TheArtsParty #artsparty

I think this is a great idea. Please support it!

ARNSW Home Brew 40m antenna day

A beautiful day to be out doors in Sydney's Dural on Sunday. The theme was 40m antennas and there was lots of great talk, show and practical setting up of different antennas. A slinky antenna looks like a good idea but this one was too tangled to put up.

Stephen, VK2BLQ, had a big collection which began with the Ozi-pole short dipole for 40,20,10 and 6m.

Then a broadband end fed long wire the Ozi-Wire:

Peter Parker's end fed trap for 40 & 20m:

Outside antennas were put up using a variety of means, including a bow and arrow:

A telescopic flag pole (very patriotic):

There was a shortened vertical by Peter VK2EMU, here inspected by Mal, VK2BMS:

An impressive 40m quarter wave vertical seemed to perform well:

The stand-out for me was Owen's marvellous end fed half wave tuners, this one with a variometer, here being tuned by John VK2ASU:

An interesting comment was made about following detailed antenna instructions from Europe and the U.S. in that antennas perform differently here in Australia because our earth is much less conductive.

Ironically, antennas in Australia perform better when put up and night, when it's raining. There's a thought..

Tune in to popular Downloadthisshow Sunday at 9pm

Downloadthisshow, a weekly panel and interview show by Marc Fennel, now has more than 300,000 subscribers on SoundCloud. Add that to subscribers on the iTunes podcast and of course radio listeners on ABC Radio National, some local stations and Radio Australia, and it's an amazing audience built by one talented and hard working producer, presenter and editor, Marc Fennell:

Maybe people are just following the oh, so subtle, command embedded in the program title?

This week, with co-panelist Karalee Evans, we chat about ads on Instagram, buying emerging art from Artsicle, and we play with the hand tracking Leap Motion.

While space wars might seem like a fun application for the Leap motion:

In the show you'll hear that I have a much more down to earth idea for the technology. RN, Sunday at 9pm.

Hornsby Ku-ring-gai fire control centre

Saturday was open day at the state of the art Hornsby Ku-ring-gai Fire Control Centre used by the Rural Fire Service to support local volunteer fire crews. It's an impressive communications and incident management setup.

The tour I had was hosted by Peter, VK2GPH and Leah, VK2FREE (great call sign!).

Originally the plan was to have a barbecue but ironically it was a "TFB" day and I had to bring cheese sandwiches instead.

Low cost vertical laptop stand from wood desk easel

Retina MacBook Pro screens are so sharp it's crazy not to use them as the primary screen when working at a desk.

Presumably Apple will introduce a range of retina desktop screens sometime soon (October anyone?), but until then I had a great idea for how to prop up my office laptop in a near vertical position while still being quite stable.

The trick is to use a little wooden desktop easel available for under $30 from art shops. At left is the one I bought and below is how my desk now look at the office. It's adjustable and has a nice pine wood smell and all. I've seen other stands at stationery stores and they are expensive and cheap plastic construction.

Here's how my desk looks now. (I do have an external screen on the right for running the iOS simulator and viewing documentation).