Prev topicNext topicHelp

Topic 24 of 54: Nomadic Research Labs

Tue, Aug 25, 1998 (17:23) | Paul Terry Walhus (terry)
Steven K Roberts, the guy on Donohue with the million dollar recumbent
bike, is now setting sail . . .


93 responses total. 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 1 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Tue, Aug 25, 1998 (17:24) * 450 lines

From wordy@qualcomm.com Tue Aug 25 08:30:48 1998
X-Sender: wordy@lorien.qualcomm.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Mon, 24 Aug 1998 23:12:30 -0800
To: wordy@qualcomm.com
From: wordy@qualcomm.com (Steve Roberts)
Subject: Microship Status 8/24/98 (Issue #125)
X-UIDL: c92a666a5e4da80e86739f146ca5c184

Microship Status 8/24/98 (Issue #125)

by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs


IN THIS ISSUE:

THE BUILDING IS DONE!
NRL EXPANDING OPERATIONS ;-)
CROSS-COUNTRY TOUR REPORT
JAMMIN' ON THE DELTA
NEWS UPDATES

-------------------------------------


"Don't get mad; get nomadic!"
-- Dan Burdick


****************************************************************
This issue may also be found at http://www.microship.com --
click "Latest Update" for copy of this text with embedded links.
These postings, distributed via email to about 2,500 subscribers,
are archived there along with tech info and tales of earlier
projects (BEHEMOTH and Winnebiko).

Copyright (c) 1998 by Steven K. Roberts. All Rights Reserved.
Personal forwarding and free online reposting are encouraged.
Hardcopies by mail are $25 for a 10-issue subscription.
****************************************************************


THE BUILDING IS DONE!

I never believed we'd reach this point, actually. Eight months have passed
since we rumbled out of Silicon Valley with three trucks and two trailers,
bound for the mystical vision of an ideal Microship development lab near
water somewhere in the Pacific Northwest. Desperate to get back to the
project, we came frighteningly close to everything from a falling-down old
shipyard in Blaine to a musty barn with crashable loft and rentable
doublewide, but instead fell into a 6-acre slice of sociobotanical nirvana
on an island in the Olympic rainshadow. We moved into a well-insulated and
stylish little house and built a 3,000 square foot pole building back in
the woods, with a hushed 750-foot sylvan commute connecting the two. It
still seems dreamlike and surreal... like visiting the home of someone
whose lifestyle makes me ache with longing.

I've delayed writing this update (over 100 days since #124) because I
assume that most of you would tire of hearing about the endless details of
planning, building, roofing, pouring, wiring, lighting, dehumidifying,
schlepping, and unpacking... at least until it was all over. I've been
dragged deeply into things I know little about, written far too many checks
for lumber, and sweated over building and electrical inspections. I can
now stand around with neighboring homeowners, passin' the time o' day while
jawin' about soffit ventilation, pros and cons of concrete vapor barriers,
and what grade of gravel is best for a driveway. It's all been very
interesting, I suppose, but finally we are turning on computers, organizing
parts inventory, and thinking more about what will get the first Microship
on the water than how to get a recalcitrant hank of 12-2 Romex around the
overhead door.

Flattening hundreds of boxes for the recycling pile while distributing
their contents around the lab has a Christmas-like feel, but getting here
was a dance through the minefield of costly gotchas. Humidity, for
example, is not something I had to think about in California... but when
BEHEMOTH's handgrips started growing white mold and moving limp boxes
revealed damp patches on the slab below, I knew we had a problem. Not only
are we dealing with the mysterious concrete-curing process, but we are also
perched in deep northwest woods atop a shallow island aquifer... with no
gutters or French drains yet to divert rainwater from the 4" sponge that is
our floor. Those are coming, but the first Band-aid was a 50 pint/day
dehumidifier that's chugging away even as we speak, performing the
ultimately hopeless task of wringing water out of the air in a forest
clearing rich with mosses, ferns, nettles, and slugs.

Another grand adventure in the critical path was wiring. Like most things,
this follows my adage that there is an inverse relationship between the
number of words required to specify a task and the amount of time required
to complete it: "Wire the building" was one unassuming item on a 5-page
TO-DO list. I should have given it its own page...

We were fortunate to have consultation from a pro -- Bob Hansen, an
electrician on the island, was kind enough to spend some time keeping us
from doing anything that diverged too far from code. We added a new
breaker at the shed, splitting incoming 200A service into two 100A branches
(house and lab). 750 feet of buried cable later, power pops out of a PVC
pipe through the concrete slab and into the lab's service panel. Here, ten
20A breakers feed GFI-protected chains of 4-plex outlet boxes; various 15A
breakers handle some 20 fluorescent fixtures downstairs, local lighting in
the offices, and a couple of 3-way circuits covering stairs and entry
doors. All this is dead-simple in principle, but massive bundles of cable
now adorn glue-lams, rafters, purlins, and girts... all stapled at
code-specified intervals and painstakingly terminated via conduit below the
8' level into grounded boxes.

Huge thanks go to Charlie Faddis for spending a productive weekend
accelerating this process, shaking me out of my precise and aesthetically
anal wiring style with the observation that our goal is to build boats, not
line up all the cables perfectly. So we finished the outlets, installed IR
security lights outdoors, added the ridiculously copper-inefficient 3-way
circuits, passed the inspection with flying colors, and moved on.

Meanwhile, other subsystems were coming online. Fred Laun of American
Action Security Systems set us up with a Napco Gemini keypad in the lab,
along with motion, door, heat, and smoke sensors... linked by buried cable
to the system in the house. Now we sleep better, and on my TO-DO list is
tying the security system's serial port to a server and hacking out some
webbish front-end tools for graphic remote access.

In the hand-me-down karma department, we passed along our old phone system
to Fred (originally donated by our friends at Asepco)... and upgraded to a
very whizzy Inter-tel GLX system donated by Joe Tyner from his old
business. Now we have paging, NOAA weather as music-on-hold via a
dedicated Motorola marine VHF, conferencing, and the other myriad
communication features that present the illusion of brisk corporate
efficiency.

On the same cross-country jaunt that included the visit to Joe in St. Paul,
we swung through Columbus and picked up a woodstove, courtesy of my old pal
Frank Feczko. This unusually sunny summer has rendered us a bit complacent
about the weather, although neighbors do shake their heads and chuckle when
we casually mention that the stove is not yet installed and we haven't
quite started cutting firewood with the wicked new 20" McCullough. I
suspect there will be a mad scramble to do both, followed closely by all
the auxiliary heating systems that will let epoxy set and fingers type in
the extended chill of northwest winter.

We have taken one step in that direction, though -- a 6x12' woodshed
grafted onto the side of the building, using leftover roofing left on the
jobsite. Thanks go to Lonnie Gamble for designing this and doing most of
the framing during a productive and amusing visit that also included
building the second Microship workstand, tossing together a compost cage
(thanks, Syndi!), and doing most of the drywall in my office (thanks,
Barbara and Shariel!).

As you may recall, the building is a "monitor" style with a second,
narrower floor as wide as the space between the two inner rows of poles.
This gives us about 13x56' of office space separate from the gritty
realities of the lab below, with a stairway along the back wall emerging
first into the "gear room," for storage of packable goodies. A large
central area comprising three bays has become known as the media lab -- the
place for video production with our beloved Casablanca, publication and
production of monographs, sewing the boats' bimini covers, and general
office equipment. Lisa's world is in the middle of all this, so she's
adopted the media lab as her space and taken on all the drywalling,
painting, and floor sealing. Winding through this is the path to my little
sanctum sanctorum, a carpeted escape when I need a quiet place to write,
schmooze, or surf.

But the real thrill is the lab. I went on a bench-fabrication frenzy last
week, taking advantage of the 29" girt height to build 180 square feet of
workbenches along the walls in the Zone of Hackage... a giant reverse 'F'
shape in the southwest corner with an 8x6 projection providing a U-shaped
software development lab that abuts the hub-node and console fab area (easy
access to the *backs* of computers!). All this is adjacent to one of the
boat bays, allowing a long in-utero packaging phase without driving
everyone crazy with dangling umbilici. The other boat bay has roll-down
dust-control curtains and a roll-up door, with a fiberglass shop off to the
side as well as a wash-up area; remaining lab space is given over to
machine shop and the huge wrap-around Hall of Inventory that segues from
hundreds of small-parts drawers to a rank of shelving units and on into the
tool crib and stand-up racks for sheet stock. Our latest acquisition is
Big Red, a 1 HP floor-model 22-speed drill press to generate the obligatory
sea of chips that quietly bespeaks "machine shop."

All of this gave us the space to haul the goodies back from their
entombment in rented storage units -- four backbreaking trips to Bellingham
with truck and trailer. Lisa and I are indebted to Jerry Moa, Mike Nestor,
Doug Scoggins, Dewayne Hendricks, Mike Setzer, and Mary Davis for their
invaluable physical help during various phases of this seemingly endless
process.

And so, it's over. Other than occasional minor tweaks and additions,
you've just read my final commentary about the epic lab quest and building
adventure... we're now back into the Microship project full-time!


--> Links for this section:
Lab Photos: http://www.microship.com/Microship_Lab/index.html


NRL EXPANDING OPERATIONS ;-)

CAMANO ISLAND, WA (August 24, 1998) PR HOTLINE. Nomadic Research Labs
announced today that it has acquired first-round funding from an unnamed
offshore venture consortium to develop large-scale manufacturing capability
for the company's line of Internet-connected recumbent bicycles, kayaks,
and backpacks. Spurred by rising demand from the growing population of
RACONTEURS (Restless Affluent Corporate Oldtimers Now Taking Extended
Unpaid Recovery Sabbaticals), the market for technomadic systems and
accessories has more than tripled in the past year.

Steve Roberts, director of NRL's west coast R&D facility on Camano Island,
is characteristically effusive about this new development in his company's
operations. "We've set our sights on corporate America," he said. "After
observing obvious wistful longing in the audience during hundreds of
speaking engagements around the US, it dawned on me that we're sitting
on a
gold mine. Cubicle Denizens everywhere are crying out for release, and we
have exactly what they need -- a way to reach escape velocity."

Reflected in the company's slogan, "Don't get mad, get nomadic!" the
Nomadic Research Labs solution to the stresses of the torporate lifestyle
is deceptively simple: hit the road, but keep consulting. Few can afford
to take early retirement for a life of full-time vagabonding, but if
integrated computers and net connections are added to the hobo's toolkit,
then any information worker can become productively homeless. Until now,
NRL offered only "do it yourself" how-to guides for building BEHEMOTH and
Microship clones. As these manuals run into the thousands of pages and
require many years of well-funded dedicated effort, however, the number of
successfully completed projects has been understandably low.

The new manufacturing facility located in the sprawling woods near the
company's research facility on Camano Island is expected to employ upwards
of 150 technology workers, with product rollout commencing in second
quarter, 1999. First off the line is a mass-market version of the
CyberFanny, a small wearable system integrating basic technomadic tools in
a handsome mauve cordura shell with fold-out solar panel and "rib tickler"
antennas. By early 2000, NRL is predicting beta testing of a sealed
modular console system suited for integration into recumbent bicycles,
kayaks, snowmobiles, hang-gliders, and ultralight aircraft (the Supreme
Court decision on the landmark "Chord Keyboard Killings" case prohibits
attention-diverting technomadic systems in licensed on-road vehicles or
General Aviation aircraft).

Projections by the Gartner Group extrapolate current Corporate Refugee
trends into a $100 million industry by the turn of the century, and Nomadic
Research Labs is positioning itself to capture an estimated 85% market
share. As noted yuppie hobo spokesman "Veep" Hawkins observed last year
during a boxcar press conference in the Kansas City yards, "pretty soon
everybody's going to be out here, and if I had a dime for every burned out
engineer sticking out his thumb I'd turn in my stock options."

Nomadic Research Labs (Nasdaq NRL) was founded in 1983, and is dedicated to
providing technomadic solutions and support systems. It can be found on
the Internet at .


CROSS-COUNTRY TOUR REPORT

Ahem. Anyway...

We've done another Mothership jaunt since the last update -- a 7,500-mile
cross-country drive to Virginia and back. The key event was a speaking gig
for the Cabletron Government Users Conference in Williamsburg, with
mostly-social stops enroute and lots of camping and hiking in the company
of the latest addition to our family -- the Maine Coonish kitten known as
Dr. Java C. Furberger.

The diesel truck threw me an interesting curve... after a full week of hard
driving including a night of careening through Appalachian Mountain back
roads, we were on the home stretch... four hours until showtime, watching
the street numbers counting down to the conference hotel. Suddenly the
truck started pulling to the left, and when a quick peek at a stop light
showed no impending flat tire I pressed on with the intent of dealing with
it later.

A block later we reached our objective and turned into the parking lot...
whereupon the brake pedal, in a masterstroke of good timing, went smoothly
to the floor and smoke poured out of the left front wheel. Ehhh? Turned
out that the caliper pistons, made of PLASTIC, of all things, had
overheated and initiated a catastrophic positive-feedback event in which
the brakes dragged, heating even more, at last seizing up, boiling the
brake fluid and destroying the whole assembly. The heroic mobile repair
service guy handled it the next morning for a most reasonable cost, but I
remain shocked that Ford would use plastic pistons in this critical area
(but hey, what do *I* know about automotive engineering?).

Actually, Biggus Truckus has been a wonderfully reliable workhorse,
handling dozens of cross-country towing jobs with nary a belch. We had
some apparent altitude problems in Colorado, belching and guttering,
smoking and wheezing... but it turned out to be only the demise of my
well-amortized fuel filter. Monarch Pass passed without incident.

One of the highlights of this whirlwind tour (a bit rushed because what we
REALLY wanted was to get back and finish the building) was a quick stop at
the headwaters of the Missouri River near Three Forks, Montana -- a recon
mission to the projected launch point for the Microships' Coastal/Inland
Tour. Remote and wild, it seems a fitting site for a sendoff party... and
all along, every time we crossed or paralleled the Missouri, Mississippi,
or Ohio, we would crane our necks like gawking tourons, visualizing
solar-encrusted microtrimarans, bristling with antennae, scudding briskly
downriver. One o' these days...

Like all road trips, it was rife with surprise moments and oddities:
camping across from the Museum of Flywheels in Kansas, exposing the kitten
to the huge world of other critters and Big Places, watching divers work a
car wreck in a small pond beside an arrow-straight North Dakota freeway,
camping at Hot Lake in Oregon, doing the campground laptop email dance at
KOA's various, clambering in the Rockies and Arches National Park, and
visiting lots of friends as well as some of our interesting present and
future sponsors (Solarex, Qualcomm, Xybernaut). As always by motorcar, it
was way too fast... missing more than we saw, regretting the visits not
made, vowing to return by human-scale Microship as I did, long ago, on a
machine so ponderously slow that every tactile and olfactory detail of the
land could be observed, pondered, recorded, and later recounted.


--> Links for this section:
Lisa and Java: http://www.microship.com/Latest_Update/java.jpg

JAMMIN' ON THE DELTA

With that in mind, and with the building fading into the background, we're
hard at it again. Bob Stuart has returned to weave his fiberglass magic
and help with key fabrication projects, and we're on a mission: to sail
around south Whidbey to Port Townsend, arriving in time for me to speak at
the Sea Kayak Symposium on Sept 18-19. This is, of course, insane, given
the number of basic components yet to be built and tested, but what the
hell -- nothing like a deadline to kick things into high gear. The general
plan is to take two boats, the second being a Fulmar-19 on loan from Cy
Hernandez (the same tri that Faun used on our gonzo symposium mission
exactly four years earlier, launched again today for a crossing of Saratoga
Passage and circumnavigation of Baby Island -- our first time on water
since arriving on the island).

Getting from here to Port Townsend involves a huge number of projects,
large and small. We have to bolt on the akas, mount the recumbent seat in
a way that allows adjustability and retraction for sleeping, temporarily
hang the rudder to allow fine-tuning of helm balance before attaching it
permanently, fabricate rev-1 pedals and mount the deployable drive unit,
acquire and install the full suite of mainsheet rigging components, paint
or gelcoat the deck to protect the epoxy from UV, add basic deck fixtures,
hack a temporary power system for VHF and lighting, install steering
controls with hydraulic linkage or something temporary, finish the basics
like hatch tie-downs and daggerboard handling, and so on. It would also be
nice to get the landing gear working, so Bob has been doing suspension
analysis and specifying parts for that as well. Madness, delicious
madness.

Meanwhile, I'm reassembling the control system (hub, crossbars, nodes,
turret, and such) with the intent of starting the new on-board server
project -- an embedded linux box that supports connections from various
browsers for boat control and monitoring. This will allow a consistent
front end from Delta and Wye local consoles, wireless backpack palmtops,
and remote secure net connection. All this, of course, involves YALC (Yet
Another Learning Curve), so we took an old AT&T 386 box donated by Joe
Tyner, parked at Bdale Garbee's house in Colorado Springs for an evening,
and installed the latest release of Debian linux. When the time comes to
choose a tiny server for the boat, we'll drop in a teensy board with loads
of flash memory... but for now, we have a desktop development system with
connectors chunky enough to solder.

This is probably a good time to mention that we could use help with this...
there are a number of projects that would benefit from a distributed team
of linux, PC, Mac, and Pilot programmers (as well as web designers and
database gurus). Also, don't forget our ongoing "Geek's Vacation"
program... now that we have a place, we're welcoming experienced volunteers
who want to immerse themselves in some part of the project. Tim Nolan is
arriving next week from Wisconsin to work on fabrication and thruster
control... if you're interested in booking a slot, speak up!


--> Links for this section:
Sea Kayak Symposium: http://www.gopaddle.org/
Fulmar Adventure:
http://www.microship.com/Adventures/Nomadness/nomadness-26


NEWS UPDATES

We have, as usual, a number of random news bits...

First, mea culpa on leaving out "http://" in the links in issue #124... and
thanks to messrs. Feldman, Vodall, and Purcell for pointing out that
web-savvy mail readers need that to display them as clickable links.


We've had a few media appearances since the last update -- one page
articles in Outside and Outpost, a piece in the Italian Forbes-like
magazine Capital, and an interview with the wonderful Recumbent UK magazine
(yes, recumbents are coming of age!). We also did an interview with the
wandering Quest-4 guys, who are exploring the various meanings of success
while making a grand loop around the US -- a sort of self-referential
odyssey of exploration.

Lisa and I are working on a few publishing projects, and just for kicks
have started a cartoon series. Since I tend to spew unforgivable puns and
she's an artist (see her Microship drawing referenced below), it's a
natural alliance. We just made our first sale, to Multihulls Magazine: a
picture of a trimaran whose center hull is a giant beer barrel with a
tap... labeled "Shoal Draft."

I'm also writing the long-overdue Microship technical overview to replace
the ancient version that we recently deleted from the website... it should
be up Real Soon Now. And we have about 75 planned monograph titles that
should keep me busy during those spare moments that pop up once every few
weeks.

Upcoming events include a keynote at the TAPR Digital Communications
Conference in Chicago (9/25) and, presumably, delivery of the bike to the
Tech Museum of Innovation in San Jose sometime in October *IF* we can put
together a Silicon Valley speaking tour in the short time remaining. I'd
like to drive down in early October, make the rounds of high-tech companies
to do on-site BEHEMOTH presentations, then leave it with the museum. If
you work for a company in the Bay Area and want to make this happen, or
want to put it all together for a piece of the action, please let me know
ASAP...

Finally, now that we're actually getting back to work, the obtainium quest
is again in full swing... time to start assembling comm/nav systems and
other key tools! Thanks go to our first new technology sponsor in quite a
while: Rocky Mountain Antennas has donated a couple of beautifully crafted
dual-band J-pole antennas that can handle the marine environment... all
stainless, anodized aluminum, and Delrin.

Damn, it feels good to be working on something that doesn't involve a
Skilsaw...


--> Links for this section:

Lisa's Microship drawing: http://www.microship.com/Microship/index.html
Outside story:
http://outside.starwave.com:80/magazine/0698/9806displife.html
Quest-4 Interview transcript: http://www.quest-4.com/insight/roberts.html
Recumbent UK: http://www.btinternet.com/~recumbentuk
Outpost Magazine: http://www.outpostmagazine.com/
The Tech Museum of Innovation: http://www.thetech.org
Rocky Mountain Antennas: 1-888-277-4643


Back to it!

Cheers,
Steve


-------------------------------------------------------------
Steven K. Roberts, N4RVE Nomadic Research Labs
wordy@qualcomm.com http://www.microship.com
Current physical location: Camano Island, WA

Email wordy@qualcomm.com for list admin assistance
(or your local list manager if you receive these indirectly)
-------------------------------------------------------------


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 2 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sun, Nov 22, 1998 (09:05) * 424 lines

From wordy@qualcomm.com Fri Nov 20 06:43:34 1998
X-Sender: wordy@lorien.qualcomm.com
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"
Date: Thu, 19 Nov 1998 21:26:00 -0800
To: wordy@qualcomm.com
From: wordy@qualcomm.com (Steven K. Roberts)
Subject: Microship Status 11/19/98 (Issue #127)
X-UIDL: 3022a12a5ec81c51a1577a75d9805142

Microship Status 11/19/98 (Issue #127)

by Steven K. Roberts
Nomadic Research Labs


IN THIS ISSUE:
POWER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM
CONSOLE MOCKUP
LANDING GEAR AND RUDDER UPDATE
MIMSY AND THE LINUX BOX
RANDOM NEWS AND AN INVITATION

-------------------------------------


"It takes a village to build a boat."
-- Tim Nolan, referring to the ever-growing
volunteer population on the Microship project.


****************************************************************
This issue may also be found at --
click "Latest Update" to see this text with embedded links; see
the "Microship" section for a new overview of the entire project.
These postings, distributed via email to about 2,500 subscribers,
are archived there along with tech info and tales of earlier
projects (BEHEMOTH and Winnebiko).

Copyright (c) 1998 by Steven K. Roberts. All Rights Reserved.
Personal forwarding and free online reposting are encouraged.
****************************************************************


Hello from the Microship lab! Lots of progress on many fronts... with two
test sails now behind us, there is a unfamiliar sense of reality that is
speeding the project forward as never before. I look at the boatlet
perched on her workstand amidst the fiberglass dust and strewn tools, and
see something graceful and alive, poised for launch.

Miss Piggy crackles heartily as she gobbles firelogs; the stereo pumps
ancient familiar road tunes into this hastily-erected structure in the
Camano Island woods. Pools of project detritus abound wherever you look:
the zone of linux hackage in the corner, the FORTH hub and its nodes
blinking away, the power management system sitting amidst bench clutter and
a lineup of Fluke meters, Bob's desk awash in landing gear drawings and
mechanical gizmology specsheets, a half-finished console frame model
perched in the boatlab, Glass 'n Goo World a mess of 10-ounce scraps and
encrusted epoxy cups, metal bits a-glitter in the machine shop, the latest
fill curing in the Region of Dust, bins overflowing with parts in the Hall
of Inventory, and paper scraps all over the floor of the Media Lab from a
recent publication project. My office is a mess; my desk, just like every
time before, has entropically degenerated into a loosely coupled 3-D
information space of overlapping piles despite my constant vows to get
organized. Oh well.

The anal-retentive in me sees it all as a mess to be cleaned up; the
adventurer shivers with anticipation...


POWER MANAGEMENT SYSTEM

In our last report, Tim Nolan (from Madison) had just spent a week building
the controller that will spend its life surveying the on-board power scene
to determine how much free solar energy is available for the thruster at
any moment (assuming no emergency override). He returned last week, fresh
from the Embedded Systems Conference, and dove back in...

As before, he made astounding progress, nearly finishing the whole
Microship power management system (Node P). Five power-cycled Microswitch
Hall-effect sensors allow current measurement of both halves of the solar
array (about 16 amps each), the battery, the thruster, and the console-full
of system loads. In addition, it measures array voltage on the input side
of the battery and thruster controllers, allowing a simple peak-power
tracking algorithm to continuously "twiddle the knob" to maximize the
product of voltage and current. All this system data is inhaled through a
12-bit A-D converter on the New Micros 68HC11 board... which actively
babysits the battery via an interrupt-driven PWM algorithm, rations
thruster power via a hack to the Minn-Kota controller, and reports all the
gory details to our front-end server.

After whipping all this out and getting it working, Tim had a couple of
spare days... so he took on the next project: H-bridge control of the
Minn-Kota steering motor. The thruster is deployed via this pivoting black
box, into which indexes the heavy fiberglass tube that supports the motor
itself and carries its power cables. The goal here was to allow manual or
automatic control of thruster angle, calling, of course, for position
feedback. Tim solved this neatly by gluing a couple of magnets into the
nylon gear train of the steering assembly, using Hall-effect sensors to let
the processor keep track of position and re-center the thrust angle if a
crash ever knocks them out of synch.

We're now shipping all the power components to him in Wisconsin for final
refinement, transfer of circuits from proto-boards to perfboard, and
algorithm-tweakage... whereupon it will all be ready to nail down in the
console to establish the critical power infrastructure of the Microship.

--> Minn-Kota thrusters:

--> Hall-effect sensors:



CONSOLE MOCKUP

Yes, the console is getting close. Bob finished the cowling -- a
remarkably complex foam-core fiberglass part that is gasketed onto the
boat's gunwales, carries a Nicro powered vent and a slew of small antennas
including GPS, loosely hinges for console access, provides a tiny nonskid
step platform for going forward while underway, passes furling control and
mainsheet lines, and withstands body weight at any point. Given real
dimensional data, we were finally able to extract maximum console profile,
then made a 2-D template by horizontally projecting shin and toe
interference points while pedaling.

Then came the fun part. On a full-size masonite substrate, I began
precisely hot-gluing dozens of 3/4" masonite strips into a network of
intersecting struts. Every frame member is the moral equivalent of
aluminum angle, but not necessarily at 90 degrees... since all surfaces,
inside and out, form gasketable frames for flat hinged panels. The
dominant feature is a large opening, 29" wide and 8.5" tall, for the Lexan
window that covers all the LCDs: linux server, Macintosh, nav PC, hub
status LCD, the LED matrix, and a few tiny displays extracted from
dedicated hardware.

The display panel is tilted slightly back to optimize visibility and height
without allowing low-angle sun reflection into my eyes. On either side of
the pedaling envelope, steeply-angled subconsoles carry standalone
instruments, power and thruster controls, an unhacked GPS (do *you* trust a
multilayered network of computers for basic navigation?), a compass (for
that matter, do you even trust power?), and so on.

Mechanically, this is something of a nightmare, and we're still trying to
decide whether the final unit will be TIG-welded aluminum bar stock
slathered with low-viscosity epoxy to fill the cracks, or built entirely of
fiberglass and goo. It has to hold pressure, conform to a nastily complex
shape, hinge around the leading edge to maximize access past the gunwale
bellies, carry a massive sealed connector subpanel, allow EMI suppression,
and be roomy enough inside to allow access to all mounted hardware. Should
be amusing...


LANDING GEAR AND RUDDER UPDATE

Speaking of amusing, Bob Stuart has been working on another underestimated
project: the landing gear. Some time ago, we accepted the fact that
full-time adventure on canoe-scale trimarans absolutely requires
self-trailering capability -- without a chase vehicle lumbering around the
US, we'd be limited to dragging our 650-pound boats only partially up a
beach like frustrated coelacanths or leaving them in the water at all times
while trundling off to camp. None of those are particularly appealing,
which explains the dearth of options between the portagable world of
canoes/kayaks and the marina-centric world of yachts. In between, you find
daysailers, which, by definition, depend on a trailer waiting in a parking
lot next to the launch ramp... hardly suited to open-ended wandering.

Seitech Launching Dollies got us started in the right direction with the
perfect wheels: readily replaceable tires on plastic hubs with Delrin
needle bearings... the whole affair light and impervious to saltwater
corrosion. But turning those into deployable landing gear is a HUGE
project.

Bob has spent over a month engineering this -- analyzing endless variations
in suspension design, tuckaway retractability under the solar panels,
deployed footprint, steering geometry, transient impact loads, bearings,
materials choices, and uphaul/downhaul methods. He's played with bungees,
gas springs, and stacks of elastomer doughnuts; titanium, aluminum, and
stainless struts; and countless variations in angular positioning to beat
the wicked trade-offs of waterline interference, strength, suspension
range, lateral stability, and nestling into the mothership for major
cross-country jaunts. We sit and brainstorm methods of extending and
retracting the damn things, ranging from hydraulic cylinders to a complex
system of eight lines threaded through countless blocks and cleats...
lately diverging into capstans and gearmotors with worm drive to
automatically set up a triangulated tension-compression structure for each
wheel upon demand. It's all quite mad, but it will happen somehow. Stay
tuned for the final details; in the meantime, we continue our quest for the
unbeatable lightness of bearings...

The temporary rudder lashup used for the Port Townsend sail has been
discarded and replaced by another of Bob's works of art -- a rudderhead
that pivots on integrated pintles, supports uphaul and downhaul of the
sleek carbon-fiber blade from Moore Sailboats, and allows control via two
amazingly light hydraulic cylinders, each a closed loop to a sliding
control grip in the cockpit that will ride on a Ronstan traveler car.

A lot went into this. The Fulmar-19 has simple and effective pivoting
steering levers for each hand connected via the rudder and a cable looped
around the forward bulkhead, but an even more natural motion is linear...
which also gives us the chance to improve resolution by giving each hand a
6-inch travel. The use of two closed hydraulic systems, with the hands
linked via the rudderhead, gives the system built-in redundancy and
eliminates messy taut wire runs with rattling turnbuckles. We'll put the
traveler track and hydraulics under the deck with a stiff linkage to the
grip itself, keeping the deck free for arm clearance and allowing lots of
space for chord keyboard, pointing controls, system target buttons,
push-to-talk, and possibly the throttle pot and direction/override
switches.

Clippard Instrument Laboratory graciously donated the cylinders -- actually
designed as corrosion-resistant pneumatic units (stainless steel bodies and
rods, with Delrin end caps). They added special seals for us, and we'll
use a light mineral oil as the working fluid.

We did a second test sail recently, with much less fanfare than the first
one. This gave us a chance to test the new rudder (no hydraulics yet -- I
controlled it with a sort of homemade tiller extension, still a major
improvement over the kluge bridle!). We launched at Camano Island State
Park along with Cy's Fulmar-19, with Lisa and Bob in the latter to tag
along and snap some photos...

The 93 square foot WindRider sail -- battened, roachy, and pulled taut with
a boom -- coupled with the slippery Wenonah canoe hull form that leaves
almost no wake, blew the socks off the other boat! Lisa kept shouting for
me to slow down so she could get some pictures, but I couldn't seem to find
the brake lever . We also did a quick pedal-only race, and
the Microship pulled ahead easily. We'll have to do a performance
comparison under balanced load and pilot conditions next time to be sure...
but it was most encouraging to see this machine work so well!

By the way, in the photos you might notice she's a bit down at the stern --
this is before mounting the battery at the forward bulkhead and bolting on
an electronics-laden console. We're reasonably confident of good balance,
and are using a custom weight-study database in FileMaker Pro to keep track
of longitudinal and lateral centers of gravity (I'm trying to get it
together to market this as a boatbuilder's and cruising provisioner's tool:
anybody wanna get in the software-peddling loop? I'm useless at this sort
of thing...)

--> Seitech Launching Dollies & Wheels:
--> Clippard Instrument Laboratory:
--> Test sail photos:


MIMSY AND THE LINUX BOX

In parallel with all this, some exciting things are happening in the
front-end design. As you may know, we've gone through a couple of major
revisions already -- first writing our graphic tools in HyperCard, then
undertaking a huge project to build a server on the resident Mac with user
control panels implemented as NewtonScript views. When Apple pulled the
plug on Newton, we moaned in despair... but buried in there was a strong
lesson in platform independence and the value of a large developer
population.

It was but a short hop from that realization to the new system: a
dedicated linux box atop the FORTH control network, serving pages to any
browser that chooses to connect through the on-board ethernet (including
remote connections via the Internet). Suddenly, but for a few details,
things get very simple... most of the hard work is already done and
available off the shelf as continuously-upgraded web servers, browsers,
PERL, Java, and other whizzy tools.

This is not to say that it's trivial. Brian Willoughby has been working on
the Microship daemon (with the characteristically unpronounceable unixish
name, "ushipd"), whose job is to handle multiple threads of yakking between
the FORTH system and whatever telnet session or web server happens to have
business with it. So far, it's just doing basic serial communications via
a 4-port serial card donated by Joe Tyner -- letting us Telnet from the Mac
in my office to a New Micros FORTH 68HC11 board (which is pretty perverse,
now that I think about it). But coming up Real Soon Now is added
intelligence in the daemon that will maintain an image of all current
system variables, keep an eye on watchdogs, restart crashed nodes, hand off
telemetry snapshots to a scheduled mailer and database update daemon, and
so on.

On top of that is Mimsy -- the Microship Information Management SYstem.
I'm having a ball with this: it's the Microship's on-board home page, the
thing I'll see from any local or wireless browser when I surf to the
server's IP address. (I suppose we'll be doing a lot of pier-to-pier
networking, and maybe even making a few slip connections.)

Anyway, Mimsy's welcome screen is just a basic tool selection, which, in
the current incarnation, looks like this:

o Interactive Microship Control
o Documentation
o Project Management
o Databases
o www.microship.com clone
o Linux filesystem
o Net gateway
o Video monitors
o Navigation tools
o Toys

The first one is the most exciting, consisting of a layered set of windows
into Microship operation. Power, for example, will appear as a "live"
block diagram of the system, with active display of current parameters
along with clickable switches and other controls, pop-up solar history
windows, battery fuel gauge, and so on. Raw turret control, as with Chris
Burmester's inspired Newton design, will be a top view of the boat with a
circle around it; click anywhere to aim the camera in that direction. And
so on for macros, security setup, remote control, sideband control panel,
raw crossbar setups, and the countless other widgets that map human desires
onto a textual interface.

Most of my work on Mimsy so far has been in the Documentation section,
which breaks down into the two domains of Microship details and general
reference material. FORTH listings, schematics, text narratives, frequency
lists, crossbar channel assignments, drill sizes, NAVTEX beacons, galvanic
series... hundreds of individual files appear here in an easily browsable
hierarchy.

And so on with the rest... a front-end to a database of time-stamped
telemetry records, browsable mirrors of my personal databases, a complete
copy of our public website including archives of stories, a symlink to the
linux root filesystem, and even a passel of javascript calculators snagged
off the Net... the whole point is to bring the vast bulk of my information
and control needs into a single familiar window.

In the present design the linux box (maybe a hacked Libretto... or
something from the embedded world such as ZF Micros' teensy machine... or
perhaps the amazing Xybernaut Mobile Assistant wearable we saw a few months
ago) will have its own local small LCD, even though it could technically
run headless. My preferred personal workspace is the Macintosh, where I'll
run Mimsy, write, do email, and so on. And I'm being dragged kicking and
screaming into the Windows world for the third machine... read the
excellent Captn Jack's catalog of nautical software products (almost all
for PCs), and you'll find that the best central display for a ship full of
integrated electronics is not an LCD radar with chartplotter option, but a
PC laptop. In addition to a wide range of charting and navigation
software, there is a radar display interface, the stunning PC/View scanning
sonar from Interphase , a TV receiver, weatherfax from various
manufacturers, Icom's stunning PCR1000 receiver, live satellite weather
image receivers, tide/current displays, and much more.

So we're up to three high-level systems, each optimized for one major
applications area, all networked via ethernet and usable simultaneously via
the BAT chord keyboard and Interlink pointing device on the rudder control
(with the aid of "target" buttons to specify which machine is being
controlled). It's not just a canoe anymore... and canoe's not unix!

One final note... we're seeking a hand-me-down Pentium desktop PC with a
gig or so of disk and a CDROM drive to serve as our linux development
system... anyone have yesteryear's slow machine to donate or loan to the
project? We also need a router... at the moment, we have to reconfigure
the TCP/IP settings to switch between PPP connections via local modems and
the lab ethernet by which we talk to the linux box. Seems all that should
be integrated somehow...

But hey, look at all these motivating toys...

--> Captn Jack's Software Source:
--> Interphase Sonar:
--> Nogatech Notebook TV:
--> Icom PCR1000 receiver:
--> Ocens SeaStation 98 weathersat receiver:
--> Coretex weather fax:
--> ZF Micros embedded 486:
--> Datalux high-brightness LCDs:
--> Linux on Libretto:
--> Xybernaut Mobile Assistant:
--> New Micros FORTH boards:


RANDOM NEWS AND AN INVITATION

Well, as you can see, a lot has been going on! In other news...

If you're in the Puget Sound area, are a confirmed technogeek, happen to be
free this weekend (Nov 21-22), and haven't already heard from me, please
email me immediately! There's a Northwest Geekfest and labwarming afoot...

Many thanks go to a few volunteers: Rich Muttkowski has been a true hero
here, dropping by most weekends to work on various building projects. Paul
Elkins, who has built a number of amusing tiny boats of his own and knows a
lot about bending tubing, has given us a hand with sanding and chainsaw
sharpening. And a technomad named Casey, passing through on a recumbent,
stayed a few days and did a bit of abrasives engineering himself.

Bill Vodall WA7NWP, whose name appears frequently in these updates, got the
lab APRS station running (Thanks to Bob Bruninga WB4APR for the APRSdos
program, and to Keith Sproul WU2Z for MacAPRS). We dedicated my HP
Omnibook 430 along with a Yaesu 290 and a PacComm Micropower-2 TNC to the
DOS version, and it's sitting over there now displaying a vector map of the
Seattle area with a couple hundred ham stations overlaid on the screen.
Interesting stuff...

In the media department, we just did a local interview with the
Stanwood/Camano News, and I found an online video clip (as well as story
with pictures) of our New Media News interview. See it at:

--> New Media News:


And finally, believe it or not, we actually have current information about
the Microship project on our website! Lisa worked hard on this (once I
finally delivered some text) and did some lovely graphics, though she's
still shy about putting her own cute mug online. Nevertheless, if you want
a cogent summary of the whole project, complete with a map of the projected
route, sexy graphic timeline, work-in-progress photos, an annotated drawing
of the boat by my sweetie, and a block diagram of the control network, get
thee to:

--> Microship Project:

I'm off to work on a Dr. Dobbs Journal story about the crossbar networks...
then back to hot-gluing masonite!

Cheers from the lab,
Steve


-------------------------------------------------------------
Steven K. Roberts, N4RVE Nomadic Research Labs
wordy@qualcomm.com http://www.microship.com
Current physical location: Camano Island, WA

Email wordy@qualcomm.com for list admin assistance
(or your local list manager if you receive these indirectly)
-------------------------------------------------------------


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 3 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Tue, Mar  2, 1999 (22:08) * 27 lines
Greetings All

Well, thought Id post to this topic and see if I can stir
up some activity....

Any Spring folk who have been thinking about going nomadic?
Or, perhaps, just adapting some mobile tech to their life
styles - i.e. wearables, back pack portable OSCAR stations,
high speed spread spectrum FHSS linking, etc....

Although not quite to the point going for autonomous mobile
computing with on demand net access, I have been toying with
some ideas for portable communications (possibly packet or
satellite via the digital birds but I have to get the modems
and a lap top for this...). Other crazy ideas include a
suitcase dat with mixing board and two diskmans - mix my
own radio shows while in transit or even do a rave thingy
should the right environ and crowd converge at the proper
moment. (Of course, that calls for a not-very-suitcase-
portable PA system....)

So any other experimenters out there trying this stuff out?

Mike aka Cosmo
AA9IL
Riff Raff #39 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 4 of 93: wer  (KitchenManager) * Tue, Mar  2, 1999 (22:35) * 3 lines
not at the moment, no

as for the future, who knows...

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 5 of 93: Ray Lopez (ratthing) * Tue, Mar  2, 1999 (23:37) * 5 lines

i just got a cool 2-way pager that does email. terry, OTOH, is a majorly
wired geek. he has two cell phones, one of which allows for some
fairly impressive internet connectivity.


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 6 of 93: Stacey Vura  (stacey) * Wed, Mar  3, 1999 (11:08) * 7 lines
Paul let me play with his email cell phone once...
ooh la la!
I am happily pagerless, cellphoneless, tvless...
We do however have a cordless phone now (a friend lent it to us and I've taken quite the liking) --- makes me kinda mobile.

I'm really to hep to the technological pissing contest...
I like being "out of range" most of the time

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 7 of 93: wer  (KitchenManager) * Wed, Mar  3, 1999 (17:53) * 1 lines
huh-huh...I got to watch her play with it, too...huh-huh

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 8 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Wed, Mar  3, 1999 (20:15) * 40 lines
Yow!
Techno-voyeurism! ;-)

Now, thats one of the minor debates I wage with myself
regarding the whole connectivity bit. At one time, I
had to wear a pager for work and I just it.
There are times when I dont want anyone to be in touch
with me, or be able to find me, or suss me out. Thats
what 'off' buttons are for. OTOH, when Im in Austin
on holiday, I usually carry 2 to 3 levels of ham gear
with me to stay in touch with the local repeater.
1) A really cool little pico-walkie talkie (Icom Q7) for
close in work.
2) A bit hefty-er 440 HT for those repeater fringe areas.
3) A portable Yaesu all mode 430/440 rig for mobile use - this
is also my platform for satellite work once the satellite
antennas get built....

As far as the wired geek thing goes... I would love to get
a PCS phone with email and other net capability. That would
be cool. I guess the uber-hack would be to have a wearable
system with wireless connect and some kind of conformal micro
keyboard or better yet a speech to text conversion routine
to dictate mail. Throw in a digital camera to do those frame
grabs during lunch at Shady Grove (burger and a 'Shady Thing')
and zip off a few 'wish you were here' emails to fellow wage
slaves stuck up in the frozen north and I would be set.

Of course, once I have achieved true geek out status, then I have
to do something 'nomadic'. Traipsing anound the northern IL burbs
is not quite up there in the adventure category. The cool thing
would be to go down to the Baja or look for the mysterious Marfa
lights or do an expose at Burning Man. As stated B4, there will
be times where I will want to be connected and other times I
will not so all the above listed gear will include the 'off' button.

Mike
aka
cosmo 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 9 of 93: wer  (KitchenManager) * Thu, Mar  4, 1999 (01:22) * 1 lines
amen

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 10 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar  4, 1999 (07:37) * 28 lines
I guess the intermediate toy in all this is the new 2.4 gig cordless phone
which supposedly has about a mile range. One of my ham friends, Bob Nagy,
likes to mod these things with increased power and a better antenna. With
a rooftop antenna attached to the base up about 50', you could have almost
cellular capability with one of these new phones.

Stacey was talking about my AT&T PocketNet phone, which, for $30 a month
flat rate is very cool. You can surf info sites and get phone numbers and
stock quotes and more, and you can send and receive any size email.

I haven't "worn" a computer yet like the geeks at MIT, but that day can't
be too far off and I'm kind of an early adopter.

I geek toy of the year has to be the PalmPilot, I have a coupla dozen
computers that I use 50% of the time and I have this Pilot that I use
the other 50% of the time. I can't wait for the Palm VII even though I
understand it will have lame Internet access and it will be limited.
Someone needs to provide unlimited wireless access to the PalmPilot! Or a
PalmPilot Cellphone/Pager/GPS!

One of these days, we'll fire up http://www.cooltoys.net and start
ecommercing some of the coolest toys we know about.

By the way, Bob and I are co-hosting capzeyez on channel 10 in austin at
midnight on Saturday Night. Right after Saturday Night Live, take in this
Austin version of Wayne's World. He's Garth, I'm Wayne, ex cellllent,
excelllent, shweeee . . .


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 11 of 93: Stacey Vura  (stacey) * Thu, Mar  4, 1999 (10:37) * 3 lines
2.4 gig PHONE?!?!??!
damn, my computer isn't that loaded... 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 12 of 93: wer  (KitchenManager) * Thu, Mar  4, 1999 (17:09) * 1 lines
mine either...*sniff*

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 13 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Fri, Mar  5, 1999 (20:55) * 16 lines
Thats funny that most computers are running at a higher
frequency than my uhf ham gear. Ah, I pine for the good ol daze
where memory ended at 64K, programs were loaded from
teletype tape or cassette tape (after you loaded the
bootloader from the front panel switches) and BASIC
was TINY. .... NOT.....

Anyway, there are also some TV wireless thingies that are
up in the 2.4ghz range. These can be modded to yield
nifty amateur ATV transmitters and receivers.

Speaking of microwave, I cant wait for TAPR to finish up
those microwave spread spectrum FHSS sets.

mike_aka_cosmo 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 14 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Sun, Mar  7, 1999 (12:25) * 6 lines
Those 2.4 gigahertz units are *too* directional. I had hoped to hook one
up to a video cam for relay to the webcam but they're not really suitable
for this because they have little directional dish antennas.

Hey, did you catch us on on Capzeyez last night?


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 15 of 93: Stacey Vura (stacey) * Mon, Mar  8, 1999 (15:58) * 2 lines
i did not (sorry)
how'd it go???

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 16 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Tue, Mar  9, 1999 (09:08) * 1 lines
It was funny. We'll be rerunning on the webcam this week. Check it out. 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 17 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Tue, Mar  9, 1999 (21:52) * 40 lines
Hey Terry

Regarding 2.4ghz antennas and beamwidth, one solution is
to use an omni-directional 2.4ghz antenna - radiates equally
poor in all directions ;-)

I should research what the FHSS 2.4ghz link in San Francisco
was using for an antenna. When I visited Steve at Nomadic
Research Labs near San Jose, he demo'ed web access using
the link. Now, I would suspect that there had to be an omni
on a mountain top and all the subscribers were using gain
dishes.

On to another topic - there was mention of a future Palm Pilot
that would include a built in wireless modem and a capability
to do text (?) web access via RF. Now, that would be pretty
cool. I still would like to have something like the 'Private
Eye' for my video - or even better, use the LCD view screen
like the ones used in video cameras. This would at least allow
graphics. One thing I need to do is hit the MIT web site for
wearables and see what some of the current designs look like.

I guess the biggest thing will be the RF coverage. To go
back to a previous post, there would have to be extensive
coverage even to places that are not highly populated - this
might not seem too economical to the companies providing access.
i.e. I should have perfect coverage around any big city and
populated areas but Im not too sure what the coverage would
be in, say, Black Rock desert or the southern tip of the Baja.
(It would be interesting to see how folks at Burning Man
stay in touch). For the really remote areas, it will have to
be Inmarsat or Iridium to provide coverage.

Anyway, blah blah blah.....

mike
aka
cosmo 



 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 18 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Wed, Mar 10, 1999 (11:14) * 5 lines
Our Spring partners, DDC and Mel Riser, have done an impressive wireless
T-1 for the Dripping Springs area. And I'm looking to do something
similar out in Bastrop. We need to kick this effort in to gear. Main
stumbling block: the (necessary) day job!


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 19 of 93: Ray Lopez (ratthing) * Wed, Mar 10, 1999 (22:24) * 5 lines

same here. do you know that i am now working in corpus christi, TX??

YUK!!!


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 20 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Wed, Mar 10, 1999 (22:58) * 22 lines
Sounds like a good plan to add the wireless T1 link's to the surrounding
areas. Speaking of which, I picked up at a recent ham fest some
Digital Microwave Corporation 23ghz tranceivers and their associated
modems (T1). I have had thoughts of building up a 10ghz head to mate
to the modems since the 23ghz components fall out of the ham bands.
The modem IF is 70mhz. Most likely, there are way more modern
components to build up a T1 link. I will probably gut the 23ghz
components for 24ghz work and use the modem cases to house transverters.

I am curious to see what will come of the FHSS project TAPR is working
on. This would be a really big boost for high speed packet and
net access. Up here near the Wisconsin border, I can see the Hancock
building from 45 miles away at the lakefront. Line of sight is one
of the basic requirements for microwave so you can imagine what kind
of coverage that would be possible from the top of that building...

Oh, yea, the day job is a necessary evil but it does pay the bills
and finances my real engineering research. :)

Mike
aka
Cosmo

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 21 of 93: wer  (KitchenManager) * Thu, Mar 11, 1999 (00:15) * 1 lines
...day job...

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 22 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Thu, Mar 11, 1999 (08:42) * 1 lines
What's the FHSS project?

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 23 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Wed, Mar 17, 1999 (23:29) * 22 lines
FHSS = Frequency Hopping Spread Spectrum (at least thats what I
think it means....)

Have not been too geeky as of late. Probably due to work burnout.
What I have been doing is reading up on the micropower radio
movement - picked up 'Seizing The Airwaves' when I was at Fringeware.

Probably one of the better social studies on micropower radio. The
next would be RadioText(e) put out by the Semiotext(e) folks (Autonomedia).
Also, getting way overboard by reading 'Gone to Croatan' which appears
to be this mega discussion of all the early nomadic tribes/groups in
North America. And, if thats not enuf, also re-reading 'The Dharma
Bums' which i find to be a nice Beat-Slacker kinda book.

Its nice to do the total techno geekout with all the techie talk but
its also nice to read up on the social side as well. (Perhaps someday
to put to practice....)

Have a groovy SXSW weekend

mike_aka_cosmo 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 24 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sun, Mar 21, 1999 (16:14) * 8 lines
FYI

The most recent Wired has an article about palm computers with
a photo spread of all the latest geek toyz.

Party On!

-M-

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 25 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Mon, Mar 22, 1999 (09:30) * 6 lines
I met a woman at Bruce Sterling's party who is putting up a micropower
radio station in East Austin. Any suggestions to her as far as equipment.
She plans on doing it legal, with the new regs going in to effect soon.
If she does it, maybe I'll do one for my neighborhood in N Austin. I
notice that the high school already has one that covers a few blocks.
Lanier High.

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 26 of 93: Ray Lopez (ratthing) * Thu, Mar 25, 1999 (09:13) * 10 lines

i used to run a low power pirate station (FM), terry, and i really
just wired my equipment from scratch. i am guessing that if there is
still a heathkit or edmund scientific still around then you could just
buy a transmitter there. i would then go to radio shack for a mixer,
mike, cassette player, and CD player.

keep us posted here. i would like to get back into that game and maybe
set up a low power station myself. legal this time!


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 27 of 93: wer  (KitchenManager) * Thu, Mar 25, 1999 (17:37) * 3 lines
Look-out for

The Spring's World Domination Tour!!!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 28 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Fri, Mar 26, 1999 (19:11) * 9 lines
Check out the Free Radio Berkley page (gonna have to do a search
since I dont have the URL...). Also search for key words like
LPFM and micropower. There was a magazine out called Hobby
Broadcasting which was dedicated to LPFM. That should
be a good place to start. As far as gear goes, FRB sells
kits as well as Panaxis and Ramsey. Go for it!

Radio_Free_Cosmo 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 29 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sat, Apr  3, 1999 (23:50) * 28 lines
Well, this thread has been tooo quiet.

Anyway, hope the microbroadcasting effort worked out. If it did,
have to listen next time Im in Austin.

BTW, interesting flame war on the technomads list as to just what
constitutes a 'technomad'. Seems that homeless folks are getting
wired and are accessing Yahoo and other services from libraries
to keep up on email and such.

Does anyone remember the SS Homer that was parked in town lake
across from the Hyatt back in the late 80's? I guess the techno
update to that story would be the same raft but with full net
access on board....

Finally, just read the most recent 'Wallpaper*' rag which is published
in the UK and caters to the jet setting trust fund weenies and
other beautiful people. Anyway, good ol' Austin was covered in this
with a short expose about where to hang and be hip. Of course,
the warehouse district made the list as well as the Continental
Club. I was pleased to see the GM Steak House and Ruby's as well
but no mention of FringeWare. They missed The Crown and Anchor Pub
as well. Oh well....

mike
aka
cosmo 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 30 of 93: wer  (KitchenManager) * Sat, Apr  3, 1999 (23:55) * 1 lines
ack!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 31 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Jan 14, 2000 (16:17) * 5 lines
I gave away my Dad's boat anchors to dedicated old time Hams who would know how to maintain them and would be inspired by the smell of burning Bakelite, the orange glow of the tubes, the hum of the rectifier, the charm of a butterfly condenser which had (for the smallest of them - the AVR) 110 turns from peg to peg...*sigh* My own Drake was stolen and replaced by nothing because the other person besetting me most sorely took the money and ran.

When does the Spring World Domination Tour leave? His relatives arrive this afternoon. Is there time for me to get on board?! Pleeeeeeeease!!! 



 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 32 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Tue, Feb 15, 2000 (17:56) * 27 lines
StenSat Released But Possibly Malfunctioning
Little to nothing has been heard from the StenSat Amateur Radio
picosat, raising fears that the tiny picosat has malfunctioned.
Stensat was released February 10 by the OPAL ''mother ship,''
according to James Cutler of Stanford University.
StenSat was one of two picosats released by OPAL--Stanford
University's Orbiting Picosat Automatic Launcher. The other was the
JAK payload.
Since the deployment, stations monitoring StenSat's 436.625 MHz
downlink have heard only very weak signals, or nothing at all.
According to StenSat coordinator Hank Heidt, N4AFL, StenSat may be
operating in an ''abnormal mode.'' The picosat was supposed to
transmit a CW identifier and packet telemetry after deployment, but
neither have been heard. Heidt speculated that it might be operating
in FM transponder mode.
Clifford Buttschardt, K7RR, reported hearing his transmissions
repeated through StenSat on February 12 and 13, but signals were
weak and the audio distorted. Weak StenSat signals also were
reported by Johann Lochner, ZR1CBC, at the SunSat ground station in
South Africa.
The StenSat group asks amateurs to monitor the downlink and send
reports to hheidt@erols.com.
StenSat has a crossband repeater aboard that is designed to operate
much like the popular AO-27 satellite. Hank Heidt, N4AFL, of the
StenSat team has more information on the StenSat Web site at
http://users.erols.com/hheidt/. 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 33 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sun, Mar 19, 2000 (21:42) * 20 lines
Well, has anyone did anything nomadic lately?

After another start of cleaning up large quantities of
magazines and electronic junk (none of which is very
portable...), thoughts of travel pop back up again.

Still have not decided on what kind of travel - maybe
just a bunch of short, intense, bike rides or maybe
a jaunt up and down Lake Michigan - weather has to get
a bit warmer for that tho...

Regarding satellites, still waiting for P3D to go up
which will then give me the chance to build up some
neat portable uplink/downlink ham equipment to take
on these proposed trips.

Anything else going on out there?

Mike aka _cosmo_ 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 34 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Mon, Mar 20, 2000 (13:15) * 2 lines
Mike, go out onto an island and you will be busier than the proverbial one-armed
paperhanger. That's what they do in the Pacific and they are swamped every time they go. Check the DX information topic for the latest from AARL. I post it every week. The uplink/downlink equipment is to die for. Let us know how you are progressing while we salivate at the very notion!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 35 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Mon, Mar 20, 2000 (21:47) * 17 lines
I know that there is a group called IOTA (Islands on the Air) which
activates islands for DXing. No real islands where Im at although
it would be interesting to set up a station on one of the water
intake stations in Lake Michigan near Chicago. The closest islands
that would probably draw attention would be way up north near the
Canadian/US border in the Great Lakes.

Need to get back into DXing on the 'low bands' - most of my interest
are up above 1GHz where working into the next grid square would be
one step closer to VUCC (hence all the interest in a microwave P3D
setup...) I do think it would be neat to visit some island and
activate as part of a DXpedition. Guess I'll have to fire up the
old HF station again.....

73 de Mike
aka cosmo 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 36 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Mon, Mar 20, 2000 (22:02) * 1 lines
If it has an IOTA number, you'll have them stacked so thick you cannot hear yourself respond. Out here (Hawaii) everything above sea-level has a separate IOTA number, and the annual field day for the local Hams involves setting up a remote on a little island in Hilo Bay. They are up all night and it is fun to keep track of the calls coming in. I think they works all bands except the EME ones. Looking at the freqs you work, you are into exotic areas. Fascinating! Good to see you posting, Mike!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 37 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Tue, Jun 27, 2000 (20:43) * 25 lines
Well, back again....

While taking a long lunch and goofing around downtown Chicago,
I picked up a couple of 'zines that covered some aspect of
nomadic travel - the first was the latest Utne reader which
had a collection of articles dealing with the concept of how
mobile/nomadic society has become. The other was 'blue' which
was geared more towards the backpack/hostel/traveller/adventure
bunch. Kinda did another quarterly evaluations (ugh - sounds
like a blarmy performance appraisal...) of existance (mine)
in regards to change in location. Well, the address is still
the same so I guess I dont move around too much....
Anyway, back to the travel bit - started thinking about the
concept of travel and where would I go under the circumstances.
Senegal would probably be interesting - also the Seychelles
in the Indian ocean. Figure Australia as well since that
seems to be the direction at the moment. What to take?
Ham rig, of course, bike, guess the laptop, nothing that
resembles work, and whatever else fits in the Alice Pack.
Ok, much better now....

Mike
aka
cosmo 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 38 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Thu, Jun 29, 2000 (01:14) * 1 lines
Sounds fascinating, Mike. What an adventure. The Pacific is awash with little island ripe for IOTA pileups. Be aware that there are pirates in some waters, others just murder yachties (knew the Grahams who were murdered on Palmyra Island) and leave their bodies behind. I would suggest you either arrange for some sort of weapon to be at your disposal upon arrival, or stay in populated and friendly areas. Homework ahead of time can mean survival in the vast Pacific.

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 39 of 93: netspring (sprin5) * Thu, Jun 29, 2000 (05:13) * 1 lines
The Grahams, was that the novel called "The Sea Will Tell" or something, I read that a few years ago. And it was a tv movie as well. Is this stuff pretty common out on these little islands, I mean piracy?

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 40 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Thu, Jun 29, 2000 (11:38) * 1 lines
Yes, Mac and Muff Graham were the subject of both the book and the tv movie you mention. The guy and girl who did it are doing double life sentences somewhere on the mainland. It is not all that common. I listen to the Yachtie's net every evening on 14.313 MHz from 6pm till all yachts check in. Things happen. In the Indian Ocean it is even more prevalent and less reported than the Pacific. That the unthinkable happened even once is too many times. Several people have disappeared overboard. All of the situations went unprosecuted because in each case it was considered accidental. Who can tell about these thing. The piracy is very real and very active around Indonesia and west of there. I would recommend staying well away from there. 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 41 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Thu, Jun 29, 2000 (15:02) * 21 lines
Not sure where to pu this:

Special Bulletin 10 - June 29, 2000
Antenna Designer Louis Varney, G5RV, SK

Louis Varney, G5RV, who invented the world-famous G5RV antenna, died
June 28. He was 89.

The G5RV multiband wire antenna for HF is among the most popular of
all antenna designs. Varney first described the G5RV in the November
1966 issue of the RSGB Bulletin. He employed a full-size and a
double-size G5RV, both fed with open-wire feeders, at his own
station.

Varney remained an active radio amateur until very recently and kept
regular on-the-air schedules. He was an RSGB member for 74 years and
served as life president of the Mid-Sussex Amateur Radio Society.

His wife Nelida is among his survivors. Services are set for July 4
in Brighton, England. 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 42 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Wed, Jul  5, 2000 (22:37) * 18 lines
No plans yet for the Pacific - have to make it through the
Great Lakes first. Might have to look out for Wisconsin
beer pirates tho....

I did hear the maritime mobile net on 20 meters this weekend.
14.313 seems to have a rep for a bunch of idiots that get on
and cause QRM for the rest of the good boat folk. When I
listened though, the net ran well. You would think that an
important traffic frequency would be respected but there are
some goofs out there. If I was out in the middle of the ocean,
I would sure want to be able to check into the net without
having to slog through past the cretins. Hope the net keeps
going strong - its for a good cause.

ok, off the soap box

de AA9IL 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 43 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Sat, Jul  8, 2000 (18:18) * 1 lines
That Maritime frequence is the target of more and more disruption. However, the closer to the Pacific you are, the better it is. People make contacts and move up or down 5 to talk. It is a good system and works splendidly most of the time. I am really sorry to hear of the intereference from clods and louts on the air. Years ago one guy was so obnoxions he had his radios and licence confiscated and put out of business...which probably did not deter him for long. He just found another net to harrass. It is the only net I know of which has actually saved lives. It is most important that it continue! Staying on the soapbox - it is a worthy enterprise!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 44 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Sat, Jul  8, 2000 (18:20) * 1 lines
Wisconsin Beer Pirates??! Your boat or your beer??? The mind reels with possibilities...

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 45 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Mon, Jul 10, 2000 (00:06) * 3 lines
Actually, the Wisconsin Beer Pirates would be a good name for
a sailing group. Have to figure how to work that in.... 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 46 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Mon, Jul 10, 2000 (01:23) * 1 lines
Yup!! Used to crew on racing dinghys in Hilo Bay, then ran the races to let some others win. Great name for a fun way to spend Sunday afternoon!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 47 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Wed, Aug  2, 2000 (18:51) * 0 lines 
 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 48 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Aug  4, 2000 (13:47) * 0 lines 
 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 49 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Aug  4, 2000 (13:49) * 9 lines
There are more lurkers out there than I knew. and I am delighted to correct anything I amy have posted incorrectly.Here is correction to the Graham saga:

Concerning your coments about the Grahams.......who were murdered at Palmyra
Atoll.........the "guy".....Buck Walker......was found guilty of murder and
is serving a life sentence. The "girl"......Jennifer Jenkins......was found
not guilty and is serving a life sentence nowhere. Just a
correction........:o)

Thanks Kaysman64

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 50 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Aug  4, 2000 (13:51) * 10 lines
This email comment superceded the one above. I am grateful to Nickie for her tact and interest in making all of the facts known in this sordid chapter of Yachting in the Pacific:

I noted in your "Nomadic Research Labs" correspondence (Response 40 of
46, dated June 29, 2000), that you believe Buck Walker and Stephanie
Terns are both serving life sentences for the murder of Muff Graham (re:
Palmyra Atol). In fact, Stephanie Terns was, through the efforts of her
attorney, Vincent Bugliosi, absolved of any criminal collusion in Buck
Walker's actions.

Thanks, Nickie

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 51 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Mon, Aug 21, 2000 (15:50) * 15 lines
Ham Radios in Space

NASA Science News for August 21, 2000

Ham radio operators are notorious for their love
of long-distance radio chats. Now, thanks to
NASA's SAREX program, hams and students on Earth
can enjoy the ultimate long-distance radio
experience by contacting astronauts in orbit.

FULL STORY at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast21aug_1.htm?list 



 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 52 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sat, Sep  9, 2000 (14:32) * 6 lines
Although not very nomadic as of late, I want to mention
that I did get to drive on a couple of sections of
the old 'Route 66' last week. Didnt see any weird sculptures
or eating places tho. Just lots of corn fields....

_cosmo_

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 53 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Sep 29, 2000 (00:14) * 1 lines
Not even any exterrestrials?? The only place I have been on Rt 66 was between Flagstaff, AZ and Meteor Crater. The Crater was amazing. Rt 66 was just another back top road. I guess the romance is gone, moved it elsewhere or only lives in fantasies. I missed out on the 'scuptures' too!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 54 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Thu, Oct 26, 2000 (23:13) * 7 lines
Im pretty sure I mentioned this in another thread but one of the
places most likely to run into ET's or other strange things
was in the West Texas desert near Marfa. (didnt get to see
the Marfa Lights tho...)

de Mike
radio cosmo international 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 55 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Thu, Oct 26, 2000 (23:36) * 3 lines
Interesting. I wonder why they don't hover over tehCapitol building in Washington DC... or is it that they are looking for intelligent life in the universe.?!

Any geologic anomolies in the Marfa area? Curious! Have you seen anything you could not explain away that you would care to share? I must be too stupid or boring, Nuthin hovers over me except mosquitoes!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 56 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Fri, Nov  3, 2000 (22:59) * 17 lines
I have read that the Marfa lights could be caused by plasma
formed from rocks fracturing under high stress.

Intelligent life in Washington DC? Yea, but they were only
visitng.... :)

No strange objects I could not explain - have seen the aurora,
iridium flares, a comet, satellites, and even heard the sonic
boom from the shuttle flying over head during re-entry. I
wish I could see something unidentified but no luck as of
yet. I should have driven out to Area 51 when I had the chance
during a Vegas visit....

Mike

radio cosmo international 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 57 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Nov  3, 2000 (23:33) * 7 lines
*laugh* yup about Washington DC... just could not resist. If Iwere them I'd handgout over Cheyenne Mountain. Colorado Springs is very pretty now...

I understand Area 51 is now vacated and relocated elsewhere.

I've seen zodiacal light and Gegenshein and loads of green flashes and one turquoise flash along with abut 20 comets and innumerable satellites. Sonic booms but not from the Shuttle. Have seen the shuttle fly over and watched the first burnout ofEarth's orbit on the first moon trip. The last was just after having had dinner with astronauts on either side of me and across the table. Fascinating guys!!!
Sunset rays are also frequent here.
Oh, and the southern cross. The magellanic clouds are visible from here but just a little while per year.

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 58 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Nov  3, 2000 (23:35) * 1 lines
Piezo-electric rocks??? What is squeezing them???

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 59 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Nov  3, 2000 (23:53) * 1 lines
or is it like the wintergreen candy my father used to snap in half for me in a dark closet and we would would see the spark made thereby. Inever figured out what caused it and I am sure he never told me. Anyone know??? (I had forgotten about it till just now!) Of course, I have seen earthquake lights caused by the earth fracturing. That is more than I need to see again...! It took a 7.2 magintude one in the middle of a very dark night to cause that!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 60 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus  (terry) * Sat, Nov  4, 2000 (13:17) * 3 lines
Interesting stuff, Marci.

Speaking of Nomadic Research Labs type stuff, Jay Leno is going to have the "battlebots" on his show next week, they're really awesome, I saw a preview last night. 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 61 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Sat, Nov  4, 2000 (14:27) * 1 lines
Oooh, also seen noctilucent clouds, and was reminded of the eclipses lunar which I have also seen. Alas, I missed the total solar eclipse HERE and the annular eclipse in California while I was there. Heavy clouds obsured even the darkening of the skies at totality in both cases. Do not come near me if you want to see things eclipse solar. The gods to not want me to see that. I did see the 3/4 eslipse many years ago in West Virginia and it was spectacular. Also another partial here for which I put up a pinhole porjector for public inspection in front of the college library. It worked splendidly. How do eclipses affect transmissions? I imagine solar totality could make for a lot of trouble on EME transmissions. Is that so?

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 62 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sat, Nov  4, 2000 (22:01) * 46 lines
Hi Marcia and gang

Marcia - I have heard about the green flashes that occur when the sun
goes down on the horizion - at what time did you exactly see it?
That is sooo cool.
Re Eclipse, Im sure there is some affect but not exactly what. I
have witnessed several partials and there was a full eclipse many
years ago but was too young to remember. During the partials,
I would play 'Dark Side of the Moon' rather loudly on the tape deck
and watch the eclipse though a SRONG IR filter combined with a
welding goggle lens. I can still see so I guess it was sufficient
but now I sort of know better.... I have hit my eyes with reflected
HeNe laser beams and that really gets my attention - the ol' eyes
survived that one too....
The one thing I do remember about the eclipse was that the light
passing through the gaps between leaves in a tree caused many
'pinhole camera' images of the occulted sun to appear on the ground.
The temperature dropped, birds stopped chriping, and the sky became
magnificent blue. No wonder the ancient people freaked when eclipses
happened.

Regarding the flashes with rocks fracturing - I would suspect that
the intense pressure when the fracture takes place would generate
enough energy to cause plasma to form - especially if quartz is
present - this is kinda getting out of my field so grasping at
straws here - best to bring up on GEO.

Terry - have to find out when the battle bots are on. Is that
the robot battles that take place in the UK. I have a big
interest in robotics and autonoma with several good publications
on the subject from MIT but I can not pick up a new hobby
or else I will never finish the microwave stuff. Its tempting
tho....

Anyway, Marcia, have to describe your sightings regarding the
flashes - plus seeing the Southern Cross is pretty cool. There
was an old Crosby Stills and Nash song about the Southern Cross
that I really liked. Its getting cold up north and the sky is
clear now. Time for good stargazing.

73 de Mike
radio cosmo international

p.s.
a nomadic journey to Austin is in the works and am I looking forward
to that!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 63 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus  (terry) * Sun, Nov  5, 2000 (08:44) * 7 lines
When are you coming to Austin?

The battlebots will be on Leno next week. I'm not sure which night though. I'll let you know if I find out. There are three battlebots going against one they had custom built for leno, with a big image of his face and chin being used as kind of a front end scoop. There was one that looked very destructive.

I also have heard about the green light, Marci. Is it more common out where you live and since you have those ocean sunsets? 



 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 64 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus  (terry) * Sun, Nov  5, 2000 (09:13) * 3 lines
I just reread this topic for the past year and it is one of the most interesting on the Spring! Everything from pirates to eclipses to battlebots!

Maybe we should start a topic pirates of the South Pacific? Battlebots? 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 65 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Sun, Nov  5, 2000 (14:44) * 4 lines
I just domup those things for which I have no other topic in to Geo 1... all things Earth. Found an interesting website about plasma last night recommended to be by one of 4 new conversats I met yesterday. I love a fascinating life online!!!
http://members.nbci.com/hameltech/ scroll down for the discussion of plasma. Tlak about nomad..!!!

Yes, you need a flat unobstructed horizon for the green flash and no obsucing dust particles in the air to aborb those blue and green wavelenghts. It is not an every day occurrance here but on the Kona side, fairly frequent.

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 66 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sun, Nov  5, 2000 (18:07) * 23 lines
Checked out the hameltech page - now thats interesting stuff
- kind of the thing you would see in the old Tesla Journals
when they were being published.

Re the battlebots - might have to stay up long enough to watch
them in action. Kind of like Survival Research Laboratories
with out the explosives.

Next time Im near the gulf, have to watch for the green flashes.
I have seen where the sun's rays hit mountain tops many miles
away and cause a unique sunset.

In the UFO news, I did see a high speed jet today at an incredible
altitude - I saw the reflection against the sky. Moving fast
and no vapor trail.

And lastly, bolted the traveling wave tube power supply to the
19 inch rack in the basement - get this thing running and I'll
have 10 watts at 10ghz - no birds better fly in front of the
dish antenna during key down.

73 de Mike
radio cosmo international

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 67 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Sun, Nov  5, 2000 (19:39) * 5 lines
Yup, that Hameltech site is something else. I just joined a message board of people who had the oddest ideas. I will pass the best of them on to you here. I have a fresh lava flow to sell those guys. Get it while it's hot!!!

Got seagulls??? If you do, one will manage to get in the way one time or another - hopefully not during keydown!

Have seen plenty of intercontinental jets so far up there that not enough humidity exists to make contrails!!! The overfly Hilo regularly! Truly UFO's, but most assuredly airplanes

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 68 of 93: netspring (sprin5) * Mon, Nov  6, 2000 (08:45) * 1 lines
What's a traveling wave tube power supply? 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 69 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Mon, Nov  6, 2000 (13:12) * 1 lines
Yeah, Mike... What IS a traveling wave tube power supply?! I thought I was the only clueless one here.

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 70 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Wed, Nov  8, 2000 (23:54) * 26 lines
Hi Yall

A TWT (called 'twit"...) is a type of microwave amplifier.
Electrons pass as a beam through a coil (helix) under
vacuum and at very high voltages. These amps have tremendous
gain (1mw in and 10 - 15 watts out) At microwave frequencies,
thats alot of gain. TWTA's comprise of the tube and a power
supply which make up a travelling wave tube amplifier. The
amp I have is telco surplus and was used for point to point
stations working in the 10.7 ghz range.

The plan is to use this amp for serious tropo scatter contacts
at 10ghz but also, 10-15 watts is the lower limit for EME
given a good sized dish.

In other exciting news, one of the recent IEEE Spectrum magazines
had a cover story on wearable computers - it is now possible to
have a heads up display and a pentium class computer that can be
worn on a belt.

Only one more class in the semester then Im freeeeeeeeee!
(until next semester.....)

73 de Mike
radio cosmo international 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 71 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Thu, Nov  9, 2000 (03:45) * 4 lines
Impressive! Thanks for the education. I wish I understood half what I know about these things... Anyway, it will not be wher I can eavesdrop on you if it is EME unless the prop is amazing when I do hear you. Have only been able to catch local guys once in a while, and that was with my Drake and an antenna switch for the unusual freqs. Notch filters help too, and alas, none inhouse have them. Next life all are on antenna switches and all have notch filters!
Let us know how you fare.

Ace those finals!!!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 72 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Thu, Nov  9, 2000 (17:29) * 14 lines
I posted this in Geo 35 for you, Mike, but there are some hams (one of who =m shall remain anonymons) who avoids Geo every chance he gets (*grin*)


Leonid Meteor Balloon Rises Again

NASA Science News for November 9, 2000

A team of NASA scientists and ham radio amateurs will loft a weather balloon toward the stratosphere on Nov. 18th to record the
sights and sounds of the 2000 Leonid meteor shower. Readers can follow the balloon flight thanks to a live webcast at
LeonidsLive.com.


FULL STORY at
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast09nov_1.htm?list89800

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 73 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sat, Nov 11, 2000 (20:15) * 23 lines
Nomadic TV

Just finished watching a goofy show on access TV tonite which made
me think about nomadic radio but since I rant about radio all the
time, thought I'd blab TV for a bit.
I would suspect that the closest I could figure to ideal pirate
TV would be fashioned after the TV crew on the old Max Headroom
series. Underground and punk - existing in a video autonomous
zone (read TAZ - The Temporary Autonomous Zone by Hakim Bey for
the full scoop on that subject).
What would it be? Found video, optical collage, subliminal mind
control? Not quite sure....
Although pirate radio stories abound, I have not heard too much
about pirate video springing up. The closest would be some
of the stuff on access which leads back to my original opening
comment. I guess webcams come kind of close but then again
both originators and viewers must be on the net. Until all this
does come about, I will be somewhat content to surf access to
see what interesting video thoughts are zipping about.

73 de cosmo
radio cosmo international 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 74 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Sat, Nov 11, 2000 (22:34) * 1 lines
Can you get skip on TV under the right conditions? You have one huge ground plane in Lake Michigan!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 75 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sun, Nov 12, 2000 (00:23) * 25 lines
I have received across the lake transmissions on VHF radio
frequencies - cant say for TV since I have cable :)

Now, I have received TV channels from across the Gulf of Mexico
during a band opening - a Spanish speaking TV station on chan 3.
Channel 2 was completely wiped out which is a good indicator
of low VHF activity. (6 meters in the ham bands) - BTW, this
happened when I lived near the Gulf many years ago in South Tx.

After I posted the previous message I remember reading about pirate
TV taking place in the old 'Eastern Bloc' - both in Russia and
and East Germany. These were instances where individuals hooked
up video recorders to master TV cable systems or regular transmitters.
Now, Im sure there is some pirate activity in this country but only
in the big cities. Now, Im sure there is some interesting programming
(?) taking place in some of the remote parts of the country - Alaska
and possibly the far north of Canada and the U.S. Also, there is probably
some neat stuff that comes on after 2am aside from reruns of Happy Days
and Three's Company. Thats one of the things about the alterna programming
is that like any other unique programming is that one has to sift through
the mundane to find those nuggets.

mike
radio cosmo international 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 76 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Thu, Dec  7, 2000 (21:45) * 11 lines
Oy
Another goofy weekend ahead so the projects again screech to a halt.
There has been some postings on the technomads list recently about
nautical doo-hickies for nomadic boat folk. And, once again,
thoughts turn back to linked wearables, techie boats and the like.
Good time to grab the notebook and start defining a specification
rather than just obscure thoughts and ramblings.

de Mike
somewhat radio cosmo international 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 77 of 93: netspring (sprin5) * Thu, Dec  7, 2000 (22:16) * 5 lines
DDo you have some url's for us on these cool nomadic boat sites.

And wearables? What's hot in wearables, cosmo?

Any news on your next Austin sojourn?

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 78 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Fri, Dec  8, 2000 (01:40) * 1 lines
Share the goodies with us! We promise not to tell a soul =)

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 79 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sat, Dec  9, 2000 (23:07) * 29 lines
Hey Kids

Ok, cool links for all
Wearables - www.wearables.org, mevard.www.media.mit.edu/projects/wearables
and wearables.stanford.edu.
Better yet, use ye olde google and do a search on wearables which will
yield mucho pages. One thing that has caught my eye is the new PC's
that have a wearable class foot print.
Regarding boat goodies - go to the source www.microship.com - there
will be plenty of links to other interesting pages as well as project
info.
Once I get these microwave transverter projects finished to a point,
Im going to jump back into building up the GPS interface for APRS
applications. Made significant headway on my 5.7ghz transverter today.
Nothing like soldering surface mount capacitors and resistors by
hand... I should have it complete enough to test out the system
tomorrow. Finally - a completed project! Just have to cross my
fingers and hope the HP 8551 spectrum analyzer/boat anchor fires
up so I can tune up the easy way.

73 de Mike
Radio Cosmo International

P.S. Was in Austin over the Thanksgiving weekend. Only heard/talked
to George and Mickey on the repeater. Did catch the 'Hot Club of
Cowtown' at the Cactus Cafe which was just plain foot stomping fun.
Also caught the Popes at La Zona Rosa with a bunch of other punkers
for some loud beer slinging anarchy. Yow! 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 80 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Sun, Dec 10, 2000 (21:36) * 3 lines
Mike?! You are another Punker?? Not how I imagined you, somehow... *sigh* But, that's ok. I still love ya. Keep those fingers apart and not attached to your work. It is difficult to find a good soldering iron anymore - especially for very fine work which is hot enough to do the job...

Off to seach for interesting wearables for the next Spring Ball...

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 81 of 93: netspring (sprin5) * Mon, Dec 11, 2000 (09:00) * 3 lines
I just revisited that nomadicresearch site, I wish he some better photos of his bikes. And there are a lot of pages "under construction"; I guess it's hard to build web pages while you bicycling down the road. It would be interesting if he had a gps tracker that showed his position on the globe on his website.

Too bad, missed you Thanksgiving, maybe next trip to Austin I'll catch you.

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 82 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Mon, Dec 11, 2000 (16:43) * 25 lines
Maybe he can catch this:

Listen to the Geminids

Space Weather News for Dec. 11, 2000
http://www.spaceweather.com


GEMINID METEOR SHOWER: Scientists at the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center
have established a radio meteor detection system to monitor this week's
Geminid meteor shower. Although the shower doesn't peak until December
13th, plenty of Geminid meteoroids are already streaking through Earth's
atmosphere. You can listen to their eerie-sounding radio echoes in
realtime at http://www.spaceweather.com.


SUBMIT YOUR PHOTOS: The glare from this week's nearly-full Moon will
substantially reduce the number of visible Geminid meteors. Nevertheless,
sky watchers in rural areas will likely spot 20 or more shooting stars per
hour -- a fairly pleasing shower. We invite photographers who capture
images of Geminid meteors to submit their photos for display on
spaceweather.com. Simply send your files as email attachments to
webmaster@spaceweather.com. 



 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 83 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sun, Jan  7, 2001 (20:09) * 26 lines
Hey Marcia, Netspring and all other wander-folk

There was some new updates to the microship web page which include
an object linked graph describing the major components of the
boat - click on the object and you go to a more detailed description.

Also, I have been finding more pages of folks who are doing the
remote connectivity thing. Bikes, boats, converted school buses
tricked out vans, etc...

Im still doing mucho slacker pondering over remote connectivity
to work but I think my efforts will be more directed to remote
connectivity to phun stuff. One distinct possibility would be
a kayak style Lake Michigan tour - gotta get a kayak first...

On the radio front, I finally had a chance to see one of the
new Yaesu almode portable radio - HF, 6 meters, 2 meters, and
432mhz in an over the shoulder portable set. Now, this is getting
closer to an ideal radio for travel - digital mode ready as well
so it is not a problem hooking up the radio to a TNC for APRS.
Too many toys to choose from....

73 de AA9IL
Mike
radio cosmo international 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 84 of 93: Marcia  (MarciaH) * Mon, Jan  8, 2001 (00:51) * 1 lines
Sounds great - will search them out and post what I discover, urls too!

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 85 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Sun, Jul  8, 2001 (23:25) * 42 lines
Howdy gang and welcome to another random post in the Nomadics List

Actually, there is a reason for this post - drove way up far north
to north central Wisconsin (not that far from the start of the MI
border) basically to see some sites and get away from the madness.
This area was remote - the cabin we stayed in was on the shores
of a lake in the woods - no phone, no TV. Kinda primitive - which
is a good thing. My PCS sell phone was on roam with one square
on the signal strength meter lit. I did keep in touch somewhat
by listening to shortwave on my 'Freeplay' crank up radio. This involved
getting up every 15 minutes to wind the bloody thing back up.
I could not hit the nearest repeater on 2m. All I did hear were
some weak APRS packet signals on 144.39.
So, what does this have to do with nomadics? Well, plenty....
First of all, the ability to stay in contact with the rest of
civilisation was dramatically impared - imagine if this was a
trip to the real far north (the U. P. of Michigan, or International
Falls, etc.) How would I stay in contact? What were the restraints
on travel? I was glad I had 4 wheel drive even though I spent 98%
of my time on paved roads, but there were a couple of visits
to a remote lake where I was glad I could climb up a dirt road
to get on the washboard gravel road. It was a nice get a way
and I felt no overwhelming need for net access although you can
sure bet I downloaded email the minute I got home. I think this
was more of a sampler of remoteness where communication would be
a bit more difficult - especially net access which gave me food
for thought about what is necessary to stay connected and that
I didnt need all the crap I was hauling around. Otherwise, the
trip was delightful. Good conversation, plenty of wildlife (bats
loons, deer, hummingbirds (?!), eagles...), and nice peaceful
beauty of Nature. Oh, yes, millions of mosquitos and other flying
bitting critters. The public radio station played wonderful
music and it was nice to not be deluged with reports on the
Fed Reserve, Wall Street, politics, etc that seem to fill most
of the gaps of the Chicago station. Plus, it was nice to listen
to shortwave and get some arm exercise at the same time. All in
all, very fun and thought provoking at the same time.

73 de AA9IL/M
Mike
radio cosmo international from the north woods 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 86 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Mon, Jul  9, 2001 (09:09) * 2 lines
I'm having a similar experience right now, I'm about 100 miles from Vanvouver out in the Canadian countryside, but the folks I'm staying with just happen to have and At Home network that I can plug a Sony Viao in to for the web and telnet, etc. I'm taking lots of digital pictures, the cell phone won't work here, nor will the Palm Pilot 7.


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 87 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Tue, Jul 10, 2001 (23:48) * 16 lines
Howdy howdy

Oh man, talk about some nice country! What is the AtHome network?
Is that a sat link or....? One of those interesting feelings when
you fire up the cell and see no service. I figure that the best
link would be the starband or similar sat system for the up north
areas - wonder if they would use larger dishes since the sats
are geostationary over the equator. Curious as to what very remote
sites use for net access (i.e. Alaska and South Pole) I know
Inmarsat is one primary link but what other systems are available.
Anyway - post those pics!

73 de AA9IL
Mike
r-c-i 


 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 88 of 93: Paul Terry Walhus (terry) * Wed, Jul 11, 2001 (01:40) * 3 lines
I will when I get back. @home is the cable modem that folks use up here.

I'm on a very slow modem connection tonight. Waiting for ntcrt331.exe to download from http:///www.vandyke.com so I can telnet in with a more decent program that the one Windows provides.

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 89 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Thu, Dec  6, 2001 (23:16) * 37 lines
Howdy howdy
Time for another random nomadics post since I have not been
here for a while....
Work took me down to the wonderful dust pit of El Paso for
a week of testing/hacking telco stuff. After several days
of this foolishness, I got to the point that I had to get
the f#@& out of Dodge or else I was going to mentally implode.
Finally, the day came when I had several hours before going
back on shift so I packed a few sundries and hit I10 to
New Mexico. My goal was Las Cruces - a town that I passed
thru maybe 15 years ago during a wild assed college road
trip to San Diego but that is another story. Of course,
the desert was the usual dry/flat with rock croppings, hills,
mountains, and other geographical instances along the way.
The most surreal thing was to pass a farm with hundreds of
dairy cows behind the fences - something more fitting in WI.
I had a Doug Sahm hoot night cd that I picked up in Austin
the day before which added the most appropriate sound track
to this film. It was a short drive and I just headed straight
to New Mexico State University. I got out of the car and
wandered aimlessly (sort of...) around the campus. I noticed
the sky was a bit more blue-er and you could tell that there
was vastness in the distance.
To paraphrase a description I once saw or heard was that the
openness of the desert was so vast that it violated the laws
of physics or gravity and caused space to curve leading to
my loss of depth perception when looking towards the horizon.
I wandered to the student union and looked around for a bit
then left and walked around a bit more. The air was hyper
dry and cold yet heated by UV from the sun that intensified
due to the previously mentioned physical/gravitational anomoly.
In the short time of my visit, I accomplished nothing and yet
learned much - feeling fulfilled, I went back to the car and
started my drive back to the Texas border.

73 de Mike
radio cosmo international 

 Topic 24 of 54 [radio]: Nomadic Research Labs
 Response 90 of 93: _cosmo_  (aa9il) * Fri, Dec 14, 2001 (12:19