[Today’s run: 5 miles, Monday: 5 miles]
I was supposed to run eight miles today but I got a phone call from work and cut it short. I may go back out later to finish that up.
I’ve been working on a few things recently.
After getting that CB radio to work I also fooled around with my collection of garage sale CB antennas for a bit. All of that was looking pretty good. But I took the CB over to my neighbor’s house and tried it in his truck. It decided not to work in his truck like it had at home. We changed out some bad fuses but it still wouldn’t work. I think I’m going to let him get a new CB and have it installed at the local CB shop.
On a related front, I’ve been studying for my CDL learner’s permit. I’m not 100% sure why I am doing this. It looks like there may be opportunity to do a little bit of dirt hauling for the neighbor on weekends. But I can’t do anything with that opportunity unless I have a CDL. The study book was $2. Taking the test will cost a small amount. We shall see what develops, maybe nothing.
Also, I heard that the FCC is going to open up an application window for Low Power FM Broadcast licenses in about mid-October. So I have been contemplating whether I want to apply and what that would mean. I’m on the fence about it. Pondering. Low Power FM is for non-profit organizations. The licenses are kind of hard to get. The only kinds of broadcasting I can think of that I could contribute to would be 1) an outlet for recorded preaching/sermons or 2) readings from classic books from the librivox.org collection. I guess the question is whether anyone would be inclined to listen to either of those. It would take $50 to start a Mississippi non-profit corporation. The FCC application is free. If we didn’t get a license it might take another $50 to close down the non-profit. So $100 to try out the idea and fail. More than that if we did get the license.
On other projects, my SCAF breadboard seems to work ok. I need to eventually get it into a real box. I have purchased a couple of things from surplus auctions recently, a signal generator and a spectrum analyzer. Those should start arriving yet this week. I may have some repairs to do to get them running.
And we are on track with our running schedule to do the Mt Desert Island marathon in October. I’m going to take 10 days of vacation and we will do a little bit of relaxing in the Northeast. I wonder if there will be snow?
We still have connections in Colorado and have been watching the news with the floods along the Front Range area. What a mess. I expect the main roads will be repaired/replaced fairly quickly once they can get in to them. But the complete recovery is going to take awhile. And they are still pulling people out of cabins and houses up in the hills which are now inaccessible.
2 replies on “Sundry projects and stuff”
There was a low power station, NPR, in SF for a time: “_Neighborhood_ Public Radio,” that used the same logo as the “real” NPR. I think it died on the vine after a few years, not really sure. With Internet and podcasts, I do not see anyone tuning in. Of course, radio is still free and freely available when mobile, if not too far from the source.
If you are looking for things to do in Maine while there (after the event), I was in Eastport a couple of summers ago… Of course the race is at a tourism mecca. But Belfast is not far and is quaint. There is a bridge tower just north of there with a view – and with fall colors that may be something to do. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Penobscot_Narrows_Bridge_and_Observatory.
If you drive further inland there is a roadside sign for Paris, Mexico, Peru, etc. that is not spectacular but fun to see. http://www.vivaboo.com/come-to-maine-where-you-can-see-the-world/
I think you are right about nobody tuning in.
That’s the rub I guess. Is it just vanity that would
prompt me to apply for a license to have a radio station
to which nobody is listening? If that’s the case
then I probably shouldn’t do it.
I can imagine some benefit:
It would give me another outlet for technical exploration.
It would be interesting.
It would look good on a resume and may lead to larger things.
Maybe someone would listen to it: more people hearing Shakespeare, Dickens
and Austen is a good thing.
The people at LibriVox might feel gratified.
If a license is actually secured it might be transferable
to some church or non-profit in the future.
Expense to run the thing would be tax deductable.
Minimum cost to take a first step is $50 (probably more like $100) and
I have not decided whether or not to do it.
I guess the prompting to do it also is similar to some of my
surplus auction activity in that I show some small interest
and then drop out if others are more dedicated to that
endeavor. In the auctions I bid low on lots of stuff which I never
win. If I knew that other people in this area were
going to apply for Low Power FM licenses then I would probably just
not do anything. But if it is an unallocated resource I can think
of a couple of things I would do with it.