Month: April 2023

1. Deposit checks
2. Call court house on Sunday evening.
3. Update bills on Estate Website
4. Wells Fargo Advisors
5. 1/4 drill bit LONG
6. Garbage Can for Cave
7. Recycling
8. Good Will
9. Hand truck
10. Buy 6 AWG bare wire for grounds
11. fertilize the lawn
12. Buy a hose
13. Repair radiator on Blue.
14. Program remote access backup routers for mom.
15. Drive to FL
    • Install remote access
    • Install MJ Phone
    • Repair VPN
    • Install Home Assistant
    • Bring back 55″ TV
    • Bring framed picture from Thanksgiving.
16. Repair the brakes on Blue.
17. Follow-up Appt with Lung Doc.
18. Check temperatures for Pahrump pump house every week.
19. Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
20. Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
21. Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
22. Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
23. Check Mom’s accounts
24. Fix mom’s printer working
25. File estate taxes.
26. Hire a lawyer for Arizona.
27. Run generators
28. Pull RG213 through attic to cave.

The van doesn’t get driven much, maybe two 5 mile trips on Sunday to church and back. I am getting worried about the battery not having enough time to recharge. I’ve connected my yard’s solar panels to a Solar Charge Controller to apply about 1/2 amp charge during the day.

The white wire on the bottom is to reduce the wear on the door seal and to have a break-away connection if I forget to disconnect it. (I had previously driven our cars with the wire attached and tore through the door seal.)

Cleaned up the weeds on the fence today.

Well, the new antenna is up. I really don’t like the SWR of 2 though. The base of the antenna is a MUCH better design with the cable connections protected under a hood of sorts. The receive sensitivity doesn’t seem to have improved much if any.

The antenna claims to be a 6/8 wave C-Load(2m) antenna, which I assume has a capacitor in series with the radiating element to make it appear as 50 ohms.

I had to add radials to reduce the SWR below 2:1. After cutting almost 3 inches off 1/2 inch at a time I ended up with 13″ radials and a SWR of 1.2:1. (200MW reflected) I don’t know yet why the SWR went up a little with the addition of 50′ of coax?

Now this looks a little better with the 2M radials. (Not much, but every little bit counts.)

1. Mow the back lawn
2. Buy tickets for Vegas.
3. Repair van window
4. Update bills on Estate Website
5. Wells Fargo Advisors
6. 1/4 drill bit LONG
7. Garbage Can for Cave
8. Recycling
9. Good Will
10. Hand truck
11. Buy 6 AWG bare wire for grounds
12. fertilize the lawn
13. Buy a hose
14. D Repair radiator on Blue.
15. Program remote access backup routers for mom.
16. Drive to FL
    • Install remote access
    • Install MJ Phone
    • Repair VPN
    • Install Home Assistant
    • Bring back 55″ TV
    • Bring framed picture from Thanksgiving.
17. D Repair the brakes on Blue.
18. Follow-up Appt with Lung Doc.
19. Check temperatures for Pahrump pump house every week.
20. Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
21. Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
22. Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
23. Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
24. Check Mom’s accounts
25. Fix mom’s printer working
26. File estate taxes.
27. Hire a lawyer for Arizona.
28. Run generators
29. Pull RG213 through attic to cave.

I had removed the lining of the door to facilitate closing the window after it failed. I know how badly moisture can ruin a vehicle from previous broken windows.

To remove this panel it required releasing the two handles holding the window AND supporting the window in a raised position until I could get this panel back in place.

This is the old hardware that I am about to replace.
There weren’t too many bolts, and it wasn’t terribly difficult.

The most difficult part of finishing the door was getting the window clips back into their holes under the window. I ended up using a pair of wire cutters as pliers to push the clips behind the glass.

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1. I measured the voltage between my house ground and the coax shield and it was 6VDC.
2. When I first mounted this antenna I did have a 6AWG wire running from the antenna to the house grounds.  I had to steal that ground wire to ground the antenna on the 25’ pole.  *Which is where I originally planned on returning it too.  I’ve been fighting with the poor design of the antenna base ever since I got this antenna.  The base (Without the ground plate) seems commonly used to mount whip antennas on vehicles.  I also had plans to ground the radio, but alas I have been using my time with moving / modifying this silly 5/8 wave antenna.
3. The ground was left off the antenna so that I could evaluate how much RF remained at the base of the antenna.  I had also put a loop in the coax and a ferrite toroid core around the coax at the base of the antenna to lessen/isolate any RF riding on the coax shield. (It seemed unlikely that I would get injured with 12W RF (25V @ 50 Ohms)  My ELMER does not use a ground plane OR a ground wire at his antenna.  (His antenna is sitting on a wooden painting stick LOL.)  I have looked at antenna analyzers on Amazon and they all look like China grey market crap.

• As bad as the following antenna looks, I am only getting a little over a watt back from the antenna at 25W forward power.  It was a LOT easier to work with 18AWG wire radials which is also the gauge of the magnet wire that the antenna radiating element is made of.  (Which I read is a way of increasing the “Q” of the radials.)   The reason for the high number of radials was to vary the length slightly so that several of them would be resonant at any given frequency. (According to “Google Foo”, if the “Q” is high, then resonance of the radials would be a narrow spike.)  I did realize that the radiation pattern would change as the radials that are resonant changed.  (But then I have 9 of them.)

• I hadn’t counted on the “L” bracket from Dish network being approximately ¼ wavelength long.  I’ll have to insulate the antenna from the mast to find out how much that affected my setup.

1. Mow the lawn
2. Buy tickets for Vegas.
3. Call Kelli if she doesn’t answer my E-Mail.
4. Repair van window
5. Update bills on Estate Website
6. Wells Fargo Advisors
7. 1/4 drill bit LONG
8. Garbage Can for Cave
9. Recycling
10. Good Will
11. Hand truck
12. Buy 6 AWG bare wire for grounds
13. fertilize the lawn
14. Buy a hose
15. D Repair radiator on Blue.
16. Program remote access backup routers for mom.
17. Drive to FL
    • Install remote access
    • Install MJ Phone
    • Repair VPN
    • Install Home Assistant
    • Bring back 55″ TV
    • Bring framed picture from Thanksgiving.
18. D Repair the brakes on Blue.
19. Follow-up Appt with Doctor.
20. Check temperatures for Pahrump pump house every week.
21. Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
22. Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
23. Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
24. Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
25. Nancy’s Will, i don’t have a copy but she’s working on it.
26. Check Mom’s accounts
27. Fix mom’s printer working
28. Hire an accountant for the estate taxes.
29. Hire a lawyer for Arizona.
30. Run generators
31. Pull down 2M antenna from 25′ mast.
32. Install 2M antenna on Dish Network post.
33. Tune 2M antenna and measure VSWR.
34. Test some repeaters to see if they are better.
35. Replace insulated grocery bags.
36. Pull RG213 through attic to cave.

1. Repair van window
2. Update bills on Estate Website
3. Charge WetCell Batteries
4. Wells Fargo Advisors
5. 1/4 drill bit LONG
6. Garbage Can for Cave
7. Recycling
8. Good Will
9. Charge New Batteries
10. Hand truck
11. Buy 6 AWG bare wire for grounds
12. fertilize the lawn
13. Buy a hose
14. D Repair radiator on Blue.
15. Program remote access backup routers for mom.
16. Drive to FL
    • Install remote access
    • Install MJ Phone
    • Repair VPN
    • Install Home Assistant
    • Bring back 55″ TV
    • Bring framed picture from Thanksgiving.
17. D Repair the brakes on Blue.
18. My appt for CatScan.
    Follow-up Appt with Doctor.
19. Check temperatures for Pahrump pump house every week.
20. Two 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from Newark Electronics.
21. Two more 8GB Raspberry Pi’s are ordered from DigiKey
22. Floss, banana, Meds and toes.
23. Register with IRS as an administrator of an estate.
24. Nancy’s Will, i don’t have a copy but she’s working on it.
25. Check Mom’s accounts
26. Fix mom’s printer working
27. Hire an accountant for the estate taxes.
28. Hire a lawyer for Arizona.
29. Run generators

Unplugging a refrigerator

We accidentally kicked out the power cord to our portable refrigerator this week.

I actually had a moisture sensor warning for the rug, but no alarm was connected.
(I have one now that checks the temp AND the moisture from the drain hole.)

Not a huge deal, we lost one package of hamburger.
We washed the insides down with soap and water and plugged it back in.

The large delta temperature when the compressor runs makes it difficult to determine the actual temperature of our food.

I put the temp sensor in wine glass with a bit of rice to add some mass.

The glass was supported away from the walls of the refrigerator to reduce the influence. I was still unhappy with the delta Temp (Blue line) still confusing the desired temperature reading. I had to add more mass inside the glass OR add insulation to lessen the delta temperature.

The next thing I tried was a Yeti mug (Good insulation) with the rice and temp sensor in the bottom with a sock on the top to keep the air from circulating.

The temperature was changing so slowly that I removed the sock. I inserted a spoon into the rice to increase the conductivity into the rice and lowered the set point temperature of the fridge.

Now that the average temperature of the rice is closer to the desired temperature, I need to raise the setpoint to something more reasonable for a refrigerator. (Not a freezer.) Milk freezes at 30-31.5 degrees, so the ideal temperature should be really close to 32 degrees. (Coldest temperature before freezing, down from 38 degrees recommended fridge temp.)