This is an AI Generated Summary
Many of the blog posts I wrote when I was young are no longer available on this website.
However, AI was used to summarize the content of the original post into a single sentence
as described in my 2003 article,
Summarizing Blog Posts with AI.
Summary:
The blog post describes a sighting of an airplane that can be seen from Google Maps, with the pilot almost visible, and provides coordinates for others to try to spot it as well.
This summary was generated in 41.87 seconds
from an original post containing 134 words.
This is an AI Generated Summary
Many of the blog posts I wrote when I was young are no longer available on this website.
However, AI was used to summarize the content of the original post into a single sentence
as described in my 2003 article,
Summarizing Blog Posts with AI.
Summary:
The author of the blog post built a homemade 2m jpole antenna with no prior knowledge or expertise, but it still works surprisingly well despite not being properly tuned.
This summary was generated in 60.44 seconds
from an original post containing 158 words.
This is an AI Generated Summary
Many of the blog posts I wrote when I was young are no longer available on this website.
However, AI was used to summarize the content of the original post into a single sentence
as described in my 2003 article,
Summarizing Blog Posts with AI.
Summary:
The ARRL website provides free online study questions for the amateur radio technician license, which can be downloaded as a text file or printed on 11 pages (double-sided) using a python script.
This summary was generated in 58.47 seconds
from an original post containing 133 words.
After several years of persistent writing on this website I was forced (by my undergraduate university’s difficult course loads) to stop adding to this blog - something I consider to be one of the most significant projects I’ve ever worked on, with brain-to-text recordings of my thoughts spanning almost a decade of time. After a few years of suspended writing, Google went from loving me (sending me thousands of page views daily) to forgetting about me (nothing. silence. nada.). Now that my thesis requirements have been completed, I’m trying to re-energize my writing in an attempt to document the projects I work on which, without this website, would likely be forever forgotten even by me. It appears that the burst of new writing has regained Google’s attention. Google for terms such as “data smoothing in python” and it favors my site. Google is slowly, but surely, re-indexing my pages and assigning them values of relevance which are approaching (but still a tiny fraction of) what they were before my hiatus. Here’s a chart from google’s analytics demonstrating an estimation of IP visits per day (visitors) and their locations.
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Two hours after getting home from work I’m already basking in the newfound carefreeness thanks to the successful completion of my thesis defense (and graduation requirements). Yesterday I went to SkyCraft, early this morning I posted a schematic diagram of a basic circuit concept for a radio/microphone interface box with tone generating functions, and this afternoon I finished its assembly. It’s hacked together, I know, but it’s just a prototype. What does it do? It’s complicated. It’s basically just an exercise in microchip programming.
Future Scott reacts to this in August, 2019 (10 years later)
LOL! That's a pipette box! A chip socket was sunk into a plastic enclosure somehow! And that "regulated power supply" is an LM7805 on non-metallic perfboard screwed to two Jenga blocks!
Here’s the little setup with the main control unit and a DC to DC regulated power supply / serial microchip programmer I made.
Here’s the main control box. Notice the “2-way lighted switches” which I described in the previous entry. I found that proper grounding (floating pin prevention) was critical to their proper function. I’m still new to these chips, so I’m learning, but I’m making progress!
Getting a little artsy with my photographs now… this is the core of the device. It’s a picaxe 14m!
This is a 5v regulated power supply I built. The headphone adapter is for easy connection to the serial port. It has a power switch and a program/run switch (allowing use of pin 13, serial out) while still “connected” to the PC.
I’ve slightly improved the connection between my radio’s coax cable to the J-pole antenna I made.
I’m able to get pretty good signals from this antenna, but it’s probably not likely to do much to my assembly skills (and lack of tuning), and more likely due to the fact that I have an unobstructed view of middle/southern Orlando from the 3rd story of my apartment balcony. I could probably wire up a rubber duck on a stick and get good results with that location! I’ll miss my reception when I move.
