Cop Car's Beat

More from Slashdot.org - a bonus from COVID-19

The following posting is from Slashdot.org.

Long-Lost US Military Satellite Found By Amateur Radio Operator (npr.org) 69

Posted by BeauHD on Friday April 24, 2020 @08:40PM from the lost-and-found dept.

Tilley, an amateur radio operator living in Canada, found a "zombie" military satellite that was supposed to shut down in 1972. NPR reports: Recently, Tilley got interested in a communications satellite he thought might still be alive -- or at least among the living dead. LES-5, built by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology's Lincoln Laboratory, was launched in 1967. Tilley was inspired by another amateur who in 2016 had found LES-1, an earlier satellite built by the same lab. What was intriguing to him about LES-5 was that if it was still working, it might be the oldest functioning satellite still in geostationary orbit. By scouring the Internet, he found a paper describing the radio frequency that LES-5, an experimental military UHF communications satellite, should be operating on -- if it was still alive. So he decided to have a look.

"This required the building of an antenna, erecting a new structure to support it. Pre-amps, filters, stuff that takes time to gather and put all together," he says. "When you have a family and a busy business, you don't really have a lot of time for that," he says. But then came the COVID-19 pandemic. British Columbia, where Tilley lives, was on lockdown. Like many of us, suddenly Tilley had time on his hands. He used it to look for LES-5, and on March 24, he hit the ham radio equivalent of pay dirt. While Tilley thinks it may be possible to send commands to the satellite, the MIT lab that built LES-5 didn't comment on the matter when NPR inquired.

 

For more information, go to NPR's posting and/or a Riddles in the Sky posting.

Cleaning out the Clutter

A few months ago, I took Hunky Husband into our workshop to see what he wanted done with piles of stuff that were sitting about, not having been moved since we moved into this house 20 years ago. He didn't see anything without which he couldn't live, so I started getting rid of the stuff - partly through placing it in recycle/hazardous waste/ecycle, partly by taking it to Goodwill or the Disabled American Veteran resale shops, and partly through trashing. I made great progress in the first couple of weeks, then my time got diverted to other projects - and I forgot all about it.

Thursday, I decided to replace a towel ring in my bathroom with an 18"-long towel bar. To do this, I retrieved level, steel tape, screw drivers, hex drivers etcetera from the workshop (plus my drill and bits from my sewing room - don't ask!) In the process, I realized that there was still much "stuff" to get out of the workshop. Today, I've focused on getting rid of a large box of stuff that was sitting on the floor and, somehow, stumbled across some vacuum tubes. Well...I've long (perhaps 65 years) had a soft heart for vacuum tubes. But...they gotta go! We have only one piece of equipment that uses vacuum tubes and it, too, is on the "get rid of" list.

Above is a photo of the tubes - and a handful of crystals (at the bottom of the photo) that would be used in fixed-frequency radio frequency oscillators. Woo-hoo. Some of the vacuum tubes are possibly from among a large box of tubes that I bought (at the price of a month's rent) as a freshman in college. That would have been 1955-56. I'm smart enough, now, to realize that the guy who sold them to me had probably stolen them from the US Army (Ft Leonard Wood - near our school); but, I was naïve in those days. And, no, I had no real use for the vacuum tubes at the time, but they were cute! HH has told me that, having imbibed too much one evening during the months in which we dated, I regaled him with my design for a transmitter that I would build to use some of those tubes.

How did the towel bar installation go? Well, the towel bar came with plastic inserts for use in hollow-wall construction. As it happened, one end of the towel bar was to be situated into an area that had something inside the hollow wall. Since I was unsure what was inside that part of the wall and didn't wish to injure the sewer pipe that might possibly run through that area, I came up with a work-around. I used heftier plastic sleeves than had been supplied, cut them off at the pointy end, installed them to act as bearings on the drywall, and used shorter (and larger diameter) screws than had been supplied.

Since I am rarely forethoughtful enough to take "before" photos, I'll give a photo of another towel ring that is in that bathroom. The ring in the photo normally holds a clean wash cloth. The "after" photo shows the installed towel bar. A hand towel gets bunched up in the towel ring, slowing down drying of the towel. (Since the wash cloth that is kept in the towel ring is always dry, being replaced, daily, drying time is not an issue.) The towel bar is long enough that the towel can be spread out, if required, or another wash cloth would fit in the available space.

 

 
 

Bogie's Quilt - Semifinal

While cutting out the first three blocks' worth of medallions for Bogie's quilt, I realized that, as the medallions are laid out on the fabric, all of the medallions cannot be used. Yes, I had previously mentioned that there was less room between pairs of medallions in one direction of the fabric than in the other; but, I found that the room between medallions is not constant - especially from one "hunk" of fabric to another. After cutting out eight blocks' worth of medallions (photo, below) and determining that only 2/3 of the medallions in the fabric could be cut to the measurements I wanted, I decided it was time to do a complete trial layout - rather than the four-block layout that I showed at the bottom of a previous posting.

Using Paint, I laid out blocks in what I considered to be a pleasing arrangement, observing a couple of "guidelines" that Bogie had given me to work with. Then, before having Bogie look at the rosette layout, I played with the sashing layout a little. At the end, I had three sashing options (photos, below) to present to Bogie for her consideration. (I used a "dummy" set of borders - borders can be chosen much later in the process.)

Bogie chose the first option, above, so I could have saved myself the effort of doing the other two; but, the design phase is the most fun for me, so I did not mind at all. More importantly, Bogie approved the rosette layout, as is; so, I shall be able to continue cutting pieces from medallions!

Bogie's Quilt - small progress

As previously mentioned, Bogie and I have been working (long distance) on getting the design for her quilt more-or-less "set". We are making progress. Similarly to the way I proceeded with Dudette's quilt, I have started to experiment with trial blocks. Below is the first trial block. It is very probably not what Bogie's blocks will look like, but it is a start toward her being able to make required decisions.

Through the magic of the Paint app, below is how four of the above blocks assembled together would look.

Not only does the one block's look differ from the way Bogie's final design will probably look, the assembly of four blocks is misleading, at least in regards to where I think Bogie wants to go. Not all of her rosettes will be made from the same medallion. Her rosettes won't follow the assembly used by the designer, but there will be at least three or four different medallions used in her rosettes - unless Bogie changes her mind, that is. Always her option.

As a reminder, here is how the designer's version of the quilt would look.

Addition of 11/18/2018 Noon

Bogie and I have a breakthrough. She has made a final choice on fabrics and layout, leaving only the borders up for grabs. Borders, I leave until the quilt top is nearly completely pieced together. Somehow, the looks can change too much to consider making those decisions too early.

 

 

Starting on Bogie's quilt

Bogie and I have been exchanging emails, getting to the point where we know (in general) how she wants her quilt to look. The graphic, below, gives a general idea of where we are going with it.

Each of the colorful "rosettes" is "fussy cut" from a large medallion in the two medallion fabrics shown in the photo, below. (The two fabrics are aligned such that they abut at the center - distinguishable by the slight gap that shows, vertically, in the photo. The fabrics differ only in colors used.) Bogie likes one version (two instances) of the large medallions in the fabric on the left, but prefers the rest of the medallions to be those from the fabric on the right. The top, left fabric is what will be used to frame each rosette. I ordered the top, right fabric thinking it would work in a border; but, the color is off to my eye.

Addition of 10/25/2018 - Genesis of Bogie's quilt design

Below is the computer graphic image of a quilt kit that Bogie had found, online, at Southwest Decoratives. The design is Fortune Quilt using fussy cut Kismet fabrics by Paula Nadelstern for Benartex. The design is by Linda Leathrsich and Stephanie Sheridan of Stitched Together Studios.

Like Joared, Bogie prefers blues, so we fiddled with the design to make it her own.

 

What's happening in my world?

Health

I'm about 98% over my cold. Went for a walk, this morning. It felt good (40 degrees), but the smog was so thick it burned my throat and lungs. That's what happens near cities when it gets foggy! I could smell wood burning, but could not track its source.

Weather

Although it seemed we would have flooding of the far back part of our lot the other day, it quit raining a couple of hours after I posted the photo of the creek. The creek stayed high for several hours, but did not invade us. It rained some more, yesterday, but not enough to cause a problem. Hunky Husband said that we had received over seven inches of rain in October.

Hurricane Michael

I've been following the news from the Florida panhandle's being hit by Hurricane Michael. In the early 1980s, I lived in Callaway FL - just east of Panama City - and worked at (and flew an aero club airplane out of) Tyndall AFB. Hurricane Michael made landfall at "high" Category IV strength just 15 miles east of Tyndall.  Late in the video you'll see what appears to be salt all over the ground. That is sand. I didn't care for the weather in Florida, but the white sands were gorgeous!

 

I lived just five or six miles west of Tyndall and my house sat at an elevation of six inches above sea level. I suspect that my old neighborhood is devastated by pine trees having toppled onto all of the houses; but, the videos only show businesses rather than neighborhoods. There are miles and miles of pine trees that were snapped off and made into kindling.

 

Yard Work

 

The other day I posted about Old dead tree and it is raining. I wasn't feeling great with the dregs of my cold, but I started sawing up the large branch that had fallen into the lawn. The force of the fall drove many of the smaller twigs and branches into the mud. I had to extract them by pulling along the axis of the thrust into the mud made by each. I could only work for 20-30 minutes at a time, but I got most of the smaller stuff off of the main branch and raked the small pieces that had broken off in the fall - before it started raining Friday night. Next week I'll give the saws more of a workout.

 

Downed tree photo added - Last Cut 10/19/2018

I'll leave the rest for Jo-Jac's to wrestle.

 

 

 

Dudette's quilt - still progressing

All 54 blocks have been set. Next to come are the three borders. Amazingly enough, when I measured (three places) the length and width there was only about 1/8" variation in the measurements - better than I expected. It is slightly smaller than it should be; but, close enough for fabric work. At this point it should measure 36.5" wide by 54.5" long. It is actually about 36" x 54.2". And to think: I used to specify to the 0.005" (or was it 0.0005" ?) on some aircraft parts. My excuse: metal isn't as squirmy as cotton fabric. (The real reason: Talented men and women were doing the metal work.)

Dudette's quilt - progressing

At least 2/3 of the blocks of the top to Dudette's quilt have been set. When she sees it this weekend, I'll ask how many more rows she wants. The plan calls for two more rows; but, I think it will be better with three more.

 

Assembling blocks on Dudette's quilt

Prior to doing the stitching/cutting on the 33 additional quilt blocks, I decided to actually assemble 9 of the 10 completed quilt blocks. As you can see, below, even after some ripping out and re-stitching, the assembly is not perfect. I'm counting on Dudette's continuing in her role as loving daughter by not demanding perfection.

I'm glad that I did the assembly. It reinforced the knowledge of how crucial it is to sew/cut precisely.

Update 7/20/2018

Update 8/14/2018

Dudette's quilt has been started

In early April, I posted Small progress in quilting in which I wrote: "Some years ago (2006 or 2007?) I took Dudette and Bogie to the quilting supplies store that was about one mile from our house (it closed several years ago). There, they were to pick out fabrics and block designs for quilts that I promised to make them. Have I actually made the two quilts? Silly question. Of course I have not - yet!"

Further, I posted a computer-generated graphic (repeated, below) of the design that Dudette had chosen, and lamented about the tedious nature of the work it would take to make the blocks for the quilt top.

 
At that time, I had been experimenting with making the blocks larger, in order to lessen the amount of tedium; however, in the end, I decided that the quilt would be more pleasing to Dudette using 6" square blocks as had been used in the sample quilt that had been on display at the quilting supply store.

Drum roll: I have started. As found in the photo, below, about 10 blocks have been completed (small stack on the right) with 66 more blocks' worth of pieces' being ready for the final stitching/cutting (the two stacks in the middle - a rectangle of fuchsia fabric plus an intermediate part of a block makes two completed blocks). Somehow, I ended up with a single preliminary part of a block (on the left).

Fortunately, in quilting class (back in 2006 or 2007?), I learned not to cut each piece out separately in forming the preliminary parts of a block such as is on the left. Instead, I cut strips of each of the fabrics, sew the strips together along the length of the strips, and then cut the two as a unit to form the preliminary parts of a block. That still leaves a lot of tedious work, but lessens it to a degree.

The photo, below, shows a completed block. Stu's SWMBO will recognize the block as Mary's Triangle Block (at least that's what it's called in the States). For anyone who cares to know how one gets from an intermediate part of a block + fuchsia rectangle to two completed blocks, I'll upload the instructions for making Mary's Triangle Block.

Another thing that lessens the tedium is that nifty triangle in the left foreground of the above photo. I happened across it in a quilt store a couple of months ago while seeking something else. It makes drawing 45-degree angle lines on the backs of the intermediate parts of blocks, as described in the instructions, easier. Those stitching lines must pass through the corner of the blue block, precisely, and be correctly oriented for the completed block to look/be right.

Download Mary's Triangle Block