touching the light

This was taken at Round Island, near the Browns Ferry Nuclear Plant on Wheeler Lake of the Tennessee River during a Venture Crew scout camp-out. NO, the sky glow is from the beautiful sunrise – and has nothing to do with the power plant. I’ll be back with more pics eventually.
Thanks  /;^)

Inappropriate use of a UHF log-periodic antenna.

This is a cute little log-periodic antenna, given to me by a co-worker about 3 or 4 years ago – surely it can do more than hold a hat now and then. I don’t think I’ve ever connected any feedline  – surely must feel neglected.

These shouldn't have to hide

I started looking around, knowing that more examples were available – like these long boom VHF yagis, hiding their shame in amongst the ladders. When you find antennas behaving badly – its not usually their fault.

This mag-mount antenna doubles as a clothesline

A garage door opener can be a handy place to store mag-mount antennas, and I did use this one recently at the field clinic during our tornado response… It also works for hanging stuff in the garage to dry out. Sadly, this old Heathkit 5/8 wavelength 2m antenna is probably better than the one in use on my car.

Like a third hand, or a fourth even

Looking around in the garage, we can also see that I used to develop 70cm antenna designs using PVC pipe and simple copper wire. I guess I haven’t done any of that in a while either. Gotta have places to hang stuff tho while waiting ….

I usually don't let it get this bad

I guess that this is not a problem unique to me, as I’m sure others have plenty of tower sections laying in the yard that just can’t seem to get planted. Antenna farming gets more difficult every year it seems. The growing seasons are shorter, it is either too hot or too cold – not enough rain, or tornados… And then – who can afford the crop insurance premiums these days. I do have a few active antennas, and some are even coming out (of the attic) to be seen in public.

Meantime, we get by as best we can. Plenty of stuff to keep busy with. Dreams of antennas and towers, someday, somewhere, somehow . . . For now I just need to keep the weeds under control, and out of sight I guess.
/;^)

Multi-band composite QSO map example

This really is a lot of information on one map ..!.. Looking at each band individually helps understand what frequencies are working and to where. I also found real-time MUF maps that show Sporadic E-skip ‘hot-spots’. WoW !
Go check out the North America 6m map on http://www.vhfdx.info – I registered with the site so that I can submit contacts and contribute to the data collection. Makes another good example of crowd-sourced science. I’ll be using this more . . .
Try it, you might like it …

Thanks Gabriel (EA6VQ) – this is a wonderful site. Well done sir .!.
/;^)

Wireless Networking - FabFi reflectors

Here is a link to the new & improved Wiki on the FabFi Project.
http://code.google.com/p/fabfi/wiki/WikiHome?tm=6

Running the 'Blink' Demo

I’ll be back later to explore this further. For now tho, I feel I’m not as far behind as I have been in the past. I can power this little board with a wall wart (instead of the laptop USB) and that LED blinks all by itself. . . . Tomorrow the universe.
Thanks Scott !!  /;^)

Looking south east towards Huntsville

You can click these images for a larger one. Typically this view is mostly illuminated haze from all the lights to the east towards Huntsville. This is a time-exposure, with the shutter held open for about 30 seconds.

Shoot, in the summer – we often don’t even get a dozen stars bright enough to make it thru the humidity and the haze of humanity. This was a treat. I usually have to go to North Carolina, up on the Blue Ridge Parkway to see this many stars, especially with such clarity.

For a day or so after the tornadoes, the humidity was very low – and with no power to flood the sky with lights – we had a magnificent view of the heavens.

Looking south west towards the airport

The airport has generator power and was open. This glow was from those lights about five miles away. After a few days tho, the neighbors were also running generators and aside from the lights, the noise was enough to keep me inside when I was home at night. I’m glad I caught these pics when I did, as it wasn’t long before the humidity shot back up, and the lights and noise took over again.

Sure was nice while it lasted.

I tried to get some pictures that didn’t reflect only the damage and destruction. I’ll try to get those posted here as well; as even in the chaos, there is always beauty in nature – if you seek it out and preserve it. Photos are great for that. These are two such photos, barely 48 hr after such a disaster ..

Thanks to everyone who has offered support and solstice in my wrestle with the flooding emotions that seemed to haunt me in the weeks after these storms. Also thanks to everyone who has helped and continues to support the on-going recovery effort for our neighbors here and across the US. I was really surprised that this has affected me so deeply. I do understand that talking & writing like this is helpful in my recovery, and I am mostly beyond the challenging parts.
I let myself get very close to this. That is not always a good thing.
I will never be the same, as I still feel that some of the most significant work I have ever done, was in this response. Anything else I do here on out is just the icing on that cake.
Hope I never need to, but I’d gladly do it all over again.

But – it is not about me. Continue to do the good work, and go the extra miles for your friends and neighbors. Your reward is in the pride and joy of helping….
Trust me – it is well worth the effort. Try it – you will like it ..!..

Thanks  /;^)

Photo locations inside and around tornado paths

This map from the NWS storm survey, showing purple dots where I have taken photos – some were linked in previous blog posts. The smaller inset locates this map in a larger view of the tornado scar across Limestone and Madison Counties.

http://www.dropbox.com/gallery/1931686/1/MadisonCountyTornado_20110522?h=3b2552
This batch of photos starts in the south-west corner of the map, near the Limestone County Prison where many of the TVA transmission towers were destroyed. You can see that this re-construction is well under way. The fields are so broad and open – the tornado was about a half mile wide here. There is a large field just north of there that is receiving a steady stream of dump trucks bringing tree debris and the remains of houses, several acres have already piled up.
The photo path winds north and east – back and forth across the chaos; Love Branch Rd, Orville Smith Rd, Smith-Vasser Rd, Lockhart Rd, Yarbrough Rd, Wall-Triana Hwy, Stovall Rd, Ford Chapel Rd. . . Thunderbird Rd brings us into the south side of Anderson Hills; Maverick Dr, and Taurus Dr. From the crest of the hill you can barely see the remains of the top of the Piggly-Wiggly grocery store on Hwy 53, under the power lines. I was working at the NAMRC field clinic,  setup in the cafeteria at Sparkman School, about a half mile south of there. (I’ve also updated http://w4hmc.wordpress.com this week) . . .

Swept completely off the foundation . . .

This one was apparently swept clean off the foundation – you can see the bricks on the left, the entire first floor reduced to nothing more than toothpicks, rubble and dust. I see not only the houses that have been smashed, but the people that can’t live there anymore, and don’t have anywhere to put what little they might have left.
I can’t imagine the horror of being inside some of these homes I’ve seen,
hiding from this tornado – while the roof & the walls are being sucked away…..

Some of these folks had not much to start with, and what little they had may now be completely gone. And they are thankful to be alive, and wanting to help their neighbors first. They are all so grateful for our help.   Please do !!
They know first-hand the value of life.

I’m sure I’ll get beyond all this someday, but I will never be the same.
I’ve heard this referred to as survivor’s guilt…
I was not threatened like this,    I had no fear,    I lost nothing,
but I feel their pain and suffering …………… it is very real.
It’s actually related to post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).

I have nothing but respect and praise for all the emergency personnel;
volunteer firefighters, deputies and first-responders…
that do the hardest part in these disasters – search and rescue, and the inevitable recovery of the friends and neighbors that lost their lives. I’m sure that in that line of work, they have training, and experience that helps them to prepare themselves for these hard parts, and hopefully the joy in helping save others helps balance out that pain. It can’t be easy . . .
God Bless Them All. . .

Thanks for reading. The writing helps…  /;^)