Here we are at the end of year that has proven tumultuous for myself as well as for a lot of other people, if you take into account the play that was on the world stage. As for what's gone on in that side of things; I've commented on it enough over the course of the past year, and will instead in this posting take a look back at what happened for me, and where it looks like I'm going.
One year ago today I was still employed by that private spaceflight firm in North Las Vegas. The future for the enterprise looked promising as that it had been less than two weeks earlier that we were going to expand. Sixteen new hires were reporting for work on the 4th of January, that first Monday back from Christmas vacation. This was mainly to staff up a newly created department that our Test team was going to help out. I had re-established a friendship with the Propulsion Manager who was one of the first friends I had made down here in Arizona in early 1999. As much as I hated living in Las Vegas, there was something to look forward to, even if at that time I was planning on finding work in Arizona so that I could return home.
Well, things turned out differently. Fourteen or fifteen out of those sixteen were laid off one hour after reporting for work. The owner decided not to expand the Propulsion department, and the buzz going around was that things were going to get worse. The next day at 4:30, forty of us were rounded up and laid off since "not enough money was coming into the company", which no one bought since the owner was financing it out of money he made from another business. Ron and I later on went out to the Fiesta Station to talk about this over iced tea at the food court that they had. We were not happy about it, but the upshot that he was going home to his wife in Florida and I was going home to Sheila. There was the matter of setting up unemployment from the State of Nevada, which both of us qualified for the full benefit since we had worked there for one year.
Before I even had a chance to digest all of this, I received a call from a medical device firm here in Tucson who needed a test engineer. The phone interview went well and I was brought in for one afternoon. I felt I had done well, and one of the managers, as she was walking me out, told me "by the way, don't wear that suit on your first day here. We wear jeans." That told me that her panel vote was going to be in favor of making an offer, and that must have been the way the rest of them felt as that I got the phone call the very next day.
That meant for one last trip up to Nevada to get my things, which was at that time the nicest problem that I could have, and Sheila and I drove up for that last one. The apartment was emptied out, and we stayed that last night at Fiesta Station, after which the next morning we had the final walk-through by the apartment management. Not one nickel was withheld from my security deposit. It was given back to them in the same state that it had been given to me. It was then the drive home, and the frantic process of getting an Arizona license plate back on my truck.
The work at the medical device firm went well. I didn't think about what I had gotten myself into and if I was in over my head or not. I dove right into it, took over a project in its infancy, and went from there. Things fell into place as I discovered some innovations as I was developing my process for how I was going to help get this one over the goal line. When it came time to test, we were ahead of schedule. Yes, I padded the test time somewhat, but by 20% so that we had margin in case of equipment failure or issues, which did arise.
After that I was done, and I started my sabbatical, thinking that I would be back early next year when they had another round of upgrades. I was told in a phone call that budgets have been frozen, and that they weren't bringing in contractors next year. This forced me to look more seriously. I mean, I was looking just in case, but I amped that up some after that phone call.
Well, I can now report that I accepted an offer of employment earlier this month. This is a test position very similar to what I was doing with medical devices, but this time around it's with radio transmitters running the spectrum from HF (high frequency) to satellite uplinks. It's a great job for a ham radio licensee with a degree in electrical engineering, and it's going to pay me well too. The past few weeks have been spent filling out paperwork to get this set up. A background check has been started on me. It's unclear if it will take a few weeks or a few months.
In that event, the nature of the offer does allow me to pursue contract work while I'm waiting. I don't know if that will happen. Through some other sources, there is reliable information that this should be done by the end of next month. And at that time I'll be ready. I've already got some ideas on how to streamline things.
On the personal front, I have been extremely grateful these past few weeks to have been home.....meaning that I'm extremely grateful that I'm not waking up in an apartment in North Las Vegas......that I'm instead waking up in my own bed, next to Sheila. I've told some friends recently and I'll tell you this here........I will never again take being or living at home for granted. My exile lasted over a year. Of all the blessings that the good Lord has allowed me to enjoy, the blessing of home, family and marriage is the one that I've been appreciating the most lately.
Saturday, December 31, 2016
Sunday, December 11, 2016
Electronic Kitbuilding and Experimentation
Years ago when I was living in California I was active in a ham radio club. We met monthly, and after the club business was taken care of there was a guest speaker. (I was a guest speaker one month, but that's not what this entry will be about). One guest speaker was a YL, ham radio slang for "young lady", and most ham radio operations who are OMs (OM means "old man", regardless of your age) will tell you that the hobby needs more YLs. (XYL is "ex-young lady", which means "wife").
Well that speaker was technically an XYL, but we'll regard her as a YL in this post. Her talk was on QRP, which means "low power (operation)", and about how she built her own transmitters and experimented with QRP, and her experiences with using it.
QRP is one of those niche interests, among several, that can be found in ham radio. A longtime friend of mine was into it, and me, for all those years I was active I would run with an input power of 100 watts, which is definitely not QRP. I remember talking to one ham who was only using one watt of power, and his signal was surprisingly good. It wasn't pegging my meter or anything like that, but I had 100% copy of him on the 40 meter band. He was in the L.A. area and I was in San Jose, and he was hearing me as good as I was hearing him.
Anyway, what the YL said was that some hams didn't want to waste their time talking to her. A lot of hams are into DX, that is, "distance", which means that you want to hams who are very far away, and yes, working DX is quite the thrill. But the seed that she planted in my mind then, was to get into experimenting with electronics, and a few days after her talk I was at one of the surplus electronic parts stores in Silicon Valley (All-Tronics? Haltek?) getting integrated circuits to experiment with on a breadboard. I also realized that I would need a power supply, so I visited a Radio Shack, bought a book on how to build power supplies, and I spent a week or so in the garage building one of my own.
I'm going to backtrack a little bit here as that I wasn't new to building things. I built my first radio in 1974, a very simple crystal set that could only receive one station. I built a second one later on that year, as part of a class in high school. It was finished in January 1975, and to my amazement it worked, and using the instructions I was able to align the IF (intermediate frequency) cans to where it worked fine. I still have it, it's in the garage, and probably what I ought to do sometime is build another one that's similar to it.
But let's get back to the later years. I built that power supply, and used it for experimenting with some simple computer circuits, and that went on until some life changing events that visited me during the last few months of 1998. The power supply moved with me to Arizona in early 1999, and it is still with me as that I figured that it would be useful in some future endeavor. Earlier this evening, I went out to the garage to look at it, after finding a notebook that I started to document my projects and experiments.
So why is this now happening?
I've been thinking a lot about getting back into shortwave listening these past few weeks, and I'm also thinking of resuming my ham radio hobby. Right now the house is a little on the crowded side, but eventually one of the stepdaughters is going to move out, and that will give me a chance to reclaim one of the bedrooms as my "radio room". Until then, I might be able to operate out of the master bedroom, which although is a little cramped, I think I can set up a table and get one of my transceivers back into commission.
And, I'm now thinking, maybe it's time I build a QRP transmitter, and see what I can do with it.
I've been spending the past few days visiting websites about transmitter design. Eventually I would like to homebrew my own transmitter, but existing QRP kits can be had for $40 or so, and I'm thinking that I should purchase one of these kits and have some fun with it. Of course, my intention is to build one of my own, and to see what I can do with that.
Next month, I might be in San Jose again, and if that happens I plan on visiting my favorite surplus stores with a list of parts to look for. In the meantime, I'll be combing thru some boxes of parts that I already have, to see if I can jury rig a small transmitter, just for the fun of it.
Well that speaker was technically an XYL, but we'll regard her as a YL in this post. Her talk was on QRP, which means "low power (operation)", and about how she built her own transmitters and experimented with QRP, and her experiences with using it.
QRP is one of those niche interests, among several, that can be found in ham radio. A longtime friend of mine was into it, and me, for all those years I was active I would run with an input power of 100 watts, which is definitely not QRP. I remember talking to one ham who was only using one watt of power, and his signal was surprisingly good. It wasn't pegging my meter or anything like that, but I had 100% copy of him on the 40 meter band. He was in the L.A. area and I was in San Jose, and he was hearing me as good as I was hearing him.
Anyway, what the YL said was that some hams didn't want to waste their time talking to her. A lot of hams are into DX, that is, "distance", which means that you want to hams who are very far away, and yes, working DX is quite the thrill. But the seed that she planted in my mind then, was to get into experimenting with electronics, and a few days after her talk I was at one of the surplus electronic parts stores in Silicon Valley (All-Tronics? Haltek?) getting integrated circuits to experiment with on a breadboard. I also realized that I would need a power supply, so I visited a Radio Shack, bought a book on how to build power supplies, and I spent a week or so in the garage building one of my own.
I'm going to backtrack a little bit here as that I wasn't new to building things. I built my first radio in 1974, a very simple crystal set that could only receive one station. I built a second one later on that year, as part of a class in high school. It was finished in January 1975, and to my amazement it worked, and using the instructions I was able to align the IF (intermediate frequency) cans to where it worked fine. I still have it, it's in the garage, and probably what I ought to do sometime is build another one that's similar to it.
But let's get back to the later years. I built that power supply, and used it for experimenting with some simple computer circuits, and that went on until some life changing events that visited me during the last few months of 1998. The power supply moved with me to Arizona in early 1999, and it is still with me as that I figured that it would be useful in some future endeavor. Earlier this evening, I went out to the garage to look at it, after finding a notebook that I started to document my projects and experiments.
So why is this now happening?
I've been thinking a lot about getting back into shortwave listening these past few weeks, and I'm also thinking of resuming my ham radio hobby. Right now the house is a little on the crowded side, but eventually one of the stepdaughters is going to move out, and that will give me a chance to reclaim one of the bedrooms as my "radio room". Until then, I might be able to operate out of the master bedroom, which although is a little cramped, I think I can set up a table and get one of my transceivers back into commission.
And, I'm now thinking, maybe it's time I build a QRP transmitter, and see what I can do with it.
I've been spending the past few days visiting websites about transmitter design. Eventually I would like to homebrew my own transmitter, but existing QRP kits can be had for $40 or so, and I'm thinking that I should purchase one of these kits and have some fun with it. Of course, my intention is to build one of my own, and to see what I can do with that.
Next month, I might be in San Jose again, and if that happens I plan on visiting my favorite surplus stores with a list of parts to look for. In the meantime, I'll be combing thru some boxes of parts that I already have, to see if I can jury rig a small transmitter, just for the fun of it.
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