DSL in Kingston, MN.... Maybe

What a pain in the rear end.....

• 
  Embarq is the local telco in my area. They have NO plans to deliver DSL to my area
  as we are the extreme northern end of their exchange. So they said get a petition
  going with 40 signatures and they would consider getting DSL here.
  
  


• 
  Meltel is the other telco. I am within range of having them deliver a phone with a
  Kimball prefix + DSL. The area willing to deliver 1.5/512 DSL.
  

So your reading this going what is the problem. Well, I need to keep my two existing
Embarq numbers (home + home/office) and get a third line. The issue is trying to figure
out how to order an Adjacent Exchange connection.  Embarq says
they don't care... call Meltel. The really nice folks at Meltel are telling me to
talk to the Embarq folks.  Arrgghhh.

The folks at Meltel are really friendly so hopefully they can help me figure this
out on Monday.  I would love to be able to order conventional DSL and then get
rid of my Wireless Internet connection.

Canon XSi (Rebel 450D)

After searching around on the Internet for information I realized that all BestBuy
locations have received two Canon XSi kits for each location regardless of what the
BestBuy.com inventory is showing.



I called the BestBuy in St Cloud this morning. Sure enough they had it in stock. They
put it aside for me with my name on it.



My son and I drove up to St Cloud and picked up this morning. The battery is on the
charger right now.

I also purchased two 4gb SDHCx4 memory cards for it. I found some on sale for $27.
I know... I could have gotten larger cards... but then they would not fit on a DVD
when I create the two offline copies as part of my standard work flow. Until BlueRay
DVD writers are a reasonable price I will not use capture media in the field larger
than a standard DVD.



I will need to track down a spare battery online somewhere. I also need to test the
rest of my existing accessories to see if there are any other items that I need that
are not compatible with my existing gear.

I am excited to have the camera upgrade. Spring has arrived. That means springs flowers
and spring storms. Let the lightning begin... I am ready for the new photo season.

Hahnemühle Photo Rag

I am starting to look for Rag
type Photo/Inkjet paper. Here is one that I am
interested in seeing. I might need to place a small order to see how it looks and
run a couple of test prints.

Another
Source

Quality Time - Kids & Cookies

Jacob and I worked on a large batch of Peanut Butter / Chocolate Chip cookies this
afternoon. Time to eat a cookie and watch a Western on AMC.

Spring Chores

Today I put up the three bird houses that Jacob and Ben built at their grandfather's
house over spring break. The birds have been invading our yard as a sure sign that
spring is nearby.

When you look at the snow in yard you might not think that is almost the middle of
April 2008.

Buffalo Hamfest

My son Ben and I went to the MidWinter Madness Hamfest in Buffalo, MN yesterday. We
wondered around looking at the stuff on the tables and bumping into friends.

Ben bought a used Gameboy for $10.

I bought two old books for $5 each and last years ARRL Handbook for $15. I have been
looking at quite a few of the books at the recent hamfests. I would like to start
building a better RF & Electrical reference library here at the new house.

Look at the cover prices:

1948 - $2.00

1971 - $4.50

2007 - $44.00

There is a VERY nonlinear jump in the price of the books.

Fiberglass Mast ideas & notes

I am thinking about some antenna ideas for Field Day and camping with our trailer. I
am thinking about using a fiberglass push up mast to hold up a vertical wire for an
antenna.

KitesOnline - Anothe recommended source:

http://www.kitesonline.com/flags/tpole.html

Ebay Search for Fiberglass
masts:

Notes on the dk9sq mast:

http://www.io.com/~n5fc/dk9sq.html

dk9sq mast info:

http://www.kangaus.com/pdf%20files/vertical%20antenna.pdf

I am using this blog entry as a place to capture some notes as I search for info.
I am thinking of ordering the 32' HD from KitesOnline. That will get me in the ball
park for 40m and the higher bands. I will need to work out some sort of base fixture
and radial system. N0FP is suggesting an elevated system.



I think that I will need to order some parts and then setup an experiment out in my
driveway to test and tune this idea. I will need to design some sort of
simple feed point balun, step-up transformer, and simple match with a coil (for 40m)
and variable cap.



Additional notes: The dk9sq mast uses carbon fiber which absorbs RF.

PS: Reformatted and reposted on 3/30/2008. The original eBay link was messing
up the formatting of the rest of this page.

Making Bread (the kind that goes in the oven)

I can never seem to find my wife's bread recipe when I am ready to make bread in the
evening as the boys and I make dinner. I more or less seem to remember it and simply
dump the components into the bread maker.  It
seems to work out pretty well so far.

Tonight I am trying to make a raisin bread using the bread maker. My wife pulled out
her generic bread recipe so I thought that I would put it up on my blog so that I
can find it later when I need it.

1 cup water (maybe a touch more)

1 tablespoon extra virgin olive oil

2 teaspoon honey

1.5 cups un-bleached all purpose flour

1.5 cups whole wheat flour

1 teaspoon sea salt

2 teaspoons dry yeast

Bread maker option 1 (basic bread)

Rapid Option

1.5 lb option (instead of the default 2 lb)



It should take about 2:40 to make the bread with the machine.

If you manually bake it in the bread maker it is about 35 minutes bake time. I would
suspect that in the oven @ 450 degrees it would be about 20-30 minutes.

This is a pretty good generic recipe that you can modify to create your own variations.

Nice day for a walk

After spending a couple of hours working on drywall in the basement I decided to go
outside for a walk. A nice trip through and around the neighborhood and then past
the Kingston Community Center to the North Fork of the Crow River and then back home.

A nice end of winter beginning of spring Sunday afternoon.

Big Bertha - Construction

We have several rocket projects under construction. This morning I glued the fins
on the Estes kit called Big
Bertha.

This should be an interesting rocket. It is a pretty large rocket for an entry level
kit. I think that I finally came up with a method to attach the fins to the smaller
rockets with glue in such a way that it is not so painful during the tack
up process.

Spring in Minnesota is quickly approaching and we need to start working more
actively on the kits if we want to fly them this season. For the past several years
we have gotten too busy and then they end up in the closet or a box somewhere.

The link below is to someone else's video on YouTube with the same model:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V4619gcTt2s