It rained all day yesterday, at least all the light hours of the day so my time was primarily spent inside the house. The couple of tasks I took care of out side were both for the antennas. The first one on my truck is the smaller cb antenna, I purchased the magnetic based Midland antenna and when I went and stuck it to the roof of my truck I found it was a pretty weak magnet. Plus getting the wire from it run into the cab seemed like a serious problem. My solution was to hard fix to the truck.
I have this little flat area on the front left quarter panel where the hood hinge rotates below. There was just enough room for me to drill a slightly larger than 3/8" hole. After taking the magnetic base of the antenna apart I used the innards to cobble together the attachment point. The white plastic is the bushing that holds the bolt away from touching metal as it is the antenna signal line and can't be grounded. The wire runs into the cab through the door and under the seal. I installed a ground wire on the cable that runs to the battery ground point on the frame.
It came out pretty damned slick. It is attached nice and firm and the wire is run nicely so it is not visible. The antenna is vertical where the radio antenna has a slight rearward lean but that is not a big concern to me. It is solid and it works. I plugged the Midland 75-822 cb into it and the local NOAA weather channel was totally full signal.
I got to test it out when picking R up from preschool and it works perfectly.
A couple weeks ago I sent my SASE to get the sticker pack for this year's #NaNoWriMo from our local ML and yesterday it came. The black sticker is attached to the side of my monitor right in my face and the white one is tacked right above my monitor. Constant reminder to get my writing done. Even these little things can have an impact on the mind and the drive.
Among the cb gear I have recently picked up is the 4 foot ProStick antenna that I am going to use for the house mast. Since it is tuned to the 10 meter band, the 26.000 to 29.500 MHz range, I won't end up using it for Ham radio since I won't be on 10 meter for a while. The ProStick has a 1/4-20 thread on it and needs an SO-239 stud mount to convert from the 1/4-20 threads to a coaxial cable.
I had been searching for a bracket around the sheds and finally happened upon this perfect piece of aluminum that fits the stud. I drilled a hole then wallowed it out to fit the plastic bushing that holds the stud away from the surrounding metal.
The antenna will screw into the top and the wire to the bottom male threads. The bracket will mount like I am holding it to the mast near the top. The mast will then be grounded so I am not running a separate ground for each of the antennas that I am going to be putting up.
We got our current bag of bread flour from the Azure and so I made a loaf of bread mixing some of the coarser bread flour from locally with the unifine bread flour from Azure Standard. The loaf came out so much better than the tries at using only the coarser. It actually rose and baked correctly. It helps having the right flour to make bread with.
I was only able to get a meager 300 words down for #NaNoWriMo but I am still just ahead of schedule so as long as I can get a couple thousand today it will keep me a step ahead. These past few days I haven't gotten much written and need to keep my ass working on it to ensure I get my 50K before the end of the month.
Got to watch the astronauts reach the ISS which was absolutely amazing to watch the live stream of. The docking happened almost right overhead of the farm. They were just a bit south east of us over Idaho when the docking happened. It was cloudy here so we couldn't see them pass unfortunately.
Today it is not going to rain till this evening so I am going to be on the roof trying to get the mast base slotted into the chimney, taking R to preschool again, more cleaning, more writing, and likely a handful of other urgent tasks.
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Fleming Family Farm
FLEMING FAMILY FARM, LLC
Sustainable & Organic Methods | Heirloom Produce
All images are original works of Fleming Family Farm unless otherwise notated and credited.
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I hope to try the NaNoWriMo next year. I need to pay attention when November rolls around again!
I saw a tweet or something mid September which got me thinking, I came up with an idea, then decided to do it. I have it in my calendar now for Oct 1st to come up with my NaNo project each year. Gives me a month to do an outline and be ready.