Reality Me

Author: Doug McCaughan

  • The rules are simple

    You must be perfect all the time. Anything less is unacceptable.

  • Radio heads…help me work the SO-50 satellite

    Contacting the ISS and working satellites is a personal goal. I read SO-50 is a good satellite to try first. I’m a little confused. “operating on 145.850 MHz uplink and 436.795 MHz downlink. The repeater is available to amateurs worldwide as power permits, using a 67.0 Hertz PL tone on the uplink, for on-demand activation. SO-50 also has a 10 minute timer that must be armed before use. Transmit a 2 second carrier with a PL tone of 74.4 to arm the timer.” Do I need to program my radio with 7 memories? 1. 145.850 with PL tone 74.4 for activation

    2. 145.850 with PL tone 67 for transmitting

    3. 435.785 (for doplar shift)

    4. 435.790 (for doplar shift)

    5. 436.795 for receive

    6. 436.800 (for doplar shift)

    7. 436.805 (for doplar shift) I’m using a Yaesu FTM-500DR. Is there another way to send the 2 second carrier? I have RT-Systems programmer and it shows Tone Mode options as None, Tone, T Sql, DCS, Rev CTCSS, User CTCSS, Pager, D Code, T DCS, and D Tone. I’m reading manuals but still don’t know what half these tones mean. Is my 1-7 correct? Or am I completely misunderstanding how to work sats? Thank you!

  • Premature hearing loss

    I slept with earplugs in last night. Woke several times thinking I’d lost my hearing.

  • Celsius makes sense now

    I looked at my watch this morning to see the temperature was 17°. I’m thrilled to say I didn’t even think about Fahrenheit. Without a conversion, no math, no thinking about the other temperature, I just knew what 17°C means for my comfort. Also without math I instinctively knew it to be 65°F…but I didn’t need to think about it that way because Celsius now has meaning to me like learning a new language eventually just becomes natural.

  • A little cleaning does a world of good

    I cleaned my desk last night and not only do I feel more focused, I feel more relaxed.

  • Ask a ninja has returned!

    Ask a ninja is back!

  • Basement archeology

    We interrupt this day to see if I can find a desk under all the stuff that has been accumulating upon it

  • Achievement unlocked!

    Celsius to Fahrenheit conversion in head without math 92% accuracy

  • Do what you can

    In the chaos that is the collapse of the United States, we feel the pressure to prepare for the coming recession. We are limited in time, and money, and space. I want to be growing food but don’t have a greenhouse. I want to be ready to taken in people into my home but we are out of space. I want to be able to have potable water on hand, and generate my own power, and have plenty of food in storage but I don’t have the means.

    I will do what I can with what little I have. I will be calculating in my planning. We will survive.

  • Private equity claimed huge tracks of land

    So apparently Hooters is going tits up

  • Vacations for work

    When I was a child, I never understood why my father took vacations to work. Now, as an adult, I want nothing more than to take a vacation just to catch up.

  • Quote

    “It’s said that ‘power corrupts,’ but actually it’s more true that power attracts the corruptible. The sane are usually attracted by other things than power. When they do act, they think of it as service, which has limits. The tyrant, though, seeks mastery, for which he is insatiable, implacable.”
    ? David Brin, The Postman

  • Cleansing and discovery

    Sometimes cleaning is simply about rediscovering what you own. Remember to clean your mind as you would your house.

  • Into the black

    It was so easy to let go

  • Yin Yang

    All I’ve ever tried to do is bring goodness into the world. Must I be punished for that?