Wednesday, April 30, 2008

Antenna Expert L. B. Cebik, W4RNL (SK)

L. B. Cebik, W4RNL, ARRL Technical Adviser and antenna authority, passed away last week. He was 68.

I never knew L.B. personally, nor did I ever have the opportunity to correspond with him directly, but I "knew" him much the same way Internet Geeks "knew" Jon Postel. L.B. authored countless articles on antenna engineering and construction and was a recognized expert in the field, if not THE expert.

I've always had a fascination of sorts with antennas, and it seems every Google search I did on a particular topic always seemed to lead back to W4RNL. He was a participant on the rec.radio.amateur.antenna newsgroup as well as maintaining the site www.cebik.com.

antennaX, an online magazine dedicated to amateur radio antennas, has agreed to maintain W4RNL's site going forward however they now require registration because of the overwhelming load from people in a panic trying to "mirror" the site in fear it would disappear.

As Mac N8TT on rec.radio.amateur.antenna said it: "We are diminished."

'73 OM de ka2pbt

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 7:00 AM

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Sunday, April 20, 2008

Old School ....


I just thought this was funny .... how many of you remember taking notes in lecture halls .... some may have used tape recorders .. I never did .. transcribing notes later seemed like double work. I wonder though .. in this day and age ... I can't imagine the roar of 100+ taping keyboards.

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 6:20 AM

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Saturday, April 12, 2008

Fresh and Clean .....

In case you haven't noticed .... or just happen to be viewing this in your RSS reader ... I'm trying out a new look for the blog .... The original template was provided by blogger.com to which I hacked over the years .... adding here ... deleting there .... I finally picked up a book about CSS at the library and had it next to me while I rewrote the entire template and style sheet from scratch. I was going for a more clean look ... I'm also showing comments on the main page now. Let me know what you think!!

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 5:53 PM

Comments:

Nice work; I like it

# posted by Blogger Mike @ 11:39 PM 

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Friday, April 11, 2008

Patents gone wild!!!

Some time ago ... 1997-98 to be exact .... AsiaSat-3 failed to attain geosynchronous orbit due to a failure of one of it's booster motors. The satellite was declared a TOTAL LOSS by the insurance company. Boeing took over the satellite and using the satellites housekeeping thrusters used a lunar flyby to get the satellite into an a proper geosynchronous orbit.

Well, SES Americom had a similar failure and wanted to try the same trick ... however ... it appears Boeing PATENTED THE PROCESS of using a lunar flyby to correct a satellites orbit.

Now it looks as though AMC-14 will become another piece of space junk .... or more than likely once the insurance claim is paid Boeing will call the insurance company and play "Let's Make a Deal!"

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 7:15 AM

Comments:

WTF? That would be like me discovering a new shortcut on the way to work, then suing someone if I saw them following me.

# posted by Blogger Mike @ 12:22 PM 

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Twenty-Two Biodiesel Myths Dispelled

Excellent resource for fact and fiction about biodiesel ... and to a lesser extent ethanol.

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 5:29 AM

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Thursday, April 10, 2008

Not in my backyard .....

Another one of those banging my head on the desk moments .... the township committee of Blairstown, NJ in Warren County is considering an ordinance that would require all solar panels to placed in back yards and be partially hidden.

WTF???? They're worried about lowering property values?? Like that's going to make a difference when the value of their houses drop because no one will be able to afford the energy costs to light, heat and cool them.

While we should be encouraging early adopters of alternative energy sources ... these boneheads are throwing up roadblocks.

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 9:04 PM

Comments:

Blairstown Boneheads

# posted by Blogger Mike @ 11:16 PM 

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Sunday, April 06, 2008

Comcast HSI out most of Saturday (4/5/08)

A Vice President at work once told me: "When we make mistakes, they end up in the newspaper."

Apparently Comcast knows all about that.

Woke Saturday morning to find the "tubes were clogged" .... strange thing Google and YAHOO still worked .... nothing mush else did. It wasn't a DNS problem, best I could tell DNS was resolving correctly. Routing looked a bit weird .... I don't have enough info to even speculate what happened ... but it just smells of maintenance that went bad ... It would make sense .. early Saturday and Sunday morning would be the perfect times for maintenance windows.

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 5:45 AM

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Friday, April 04, 2008

What more in the name of Love??

Early morning, April 4
Shot rings out in the Memphis sky
Free at last, they took your life
They could not take your pride

In the name of love!
What more in the name of love?

--U2 - Pride (In The Name Of Love)

Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was assassinated in Memphis, Tennessee 40 Years ago today.

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 12:12 PM

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Why won't John McCain support our troops??

Senators Jim Webb and Chuck Hagel proposed a new GI Bill which would bring back WWII-style standards of providing vets with full tuition, room and board. In a nutshell, the new GI-Bill would cover ALL expenses (tuition, room-board, books, lab fees, etc) to attend a state university. The existing college benefit for vets is outdated and doesn't keep up with inflation.

Why won't John McCain co sponsor this bill??? Senators Clinton and Obama already have.

Faced with unprecedented filibusters, the only way to ensure Senate passage of the GI Bill is to get 60 co-sponsors. So far, John McCain has refused. The same McCain who insists he supports our troops. The same McCain who is voting lockstep with the Bush administration (who have also resisted this bill). We need to get John McCain to lead — to sign now and signal to other Republican leaders that we should be strongly behind our vets.




More entertaining videos at therealmccain.com

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 5:43 AM

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Wednesday, April 02, 2008

Printer ink costs $3700 a Gallon!!

I heard this before ... but I never did the math myself .... do you realize how we're being gouged for printer ink .... you think the oil companies are sleazy .... get a load of this:

Gas costs about $3 a gallon
Milk costs $3.85
Dom Perignon costs $555 a gallon
Johnnie Walker BLUE only costs $906 a gallon

What the hell is in printer ink!!!

And then!!! Then they have the audacity to include a postage paid envelope to mail back the empty cartridge!!!

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 3:21 PM

Comments:

Go laser... less than $100 for a printer, and 1 to 1.5 cents per page - including the cost of the paper.

When you want a color print, send it electronically to your local drug store for 12 cents on real photo paper.

# posted by Blogger Mace @ 4:15 PM 

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Tuesday, April 01, 2008

Magenta Rocks!!!

Another one from the "you can't make this stuff up" file ... Deutsche Telekom hand-delivered a letter to the offices of Engadget direct from DT's German legal department requesting the prompt discontinuation of the use of the color magenta on Engadget Mobile.


DT says it could lead to "confusion in the market place" ....

Wow. What's next? Microsoft trade marking "Blue screen" Blue ???

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 2:44 PM

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The perils of living with a geek on April Fools Day ...

Before I left for work I setup the upside-down-ternet on Lisa's computer ... basically running squid on the server in the basement with a redirect script that would take all of the JPGs and GIFs and flip them 180 degrees .... all I needed to do was point the browser to the proxy ... now every page she sees the graphics are upside down.

I'll let you know if I find all of my things on the front lawn when I get home.

#posted by Rob Roschewsk @ 11:04 AM

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