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Steve, K9ZW, has asked What’s the Worth of Twitter?

I’m slowing my Twitter “Tweets” and following of Twitter based on a difficult to use Signal/Noise Ratio.

…

One very active Twittering Ham has a goal of posting 10,000 Tweet posts during the year.

If everyone of those Tweets takes but a second or two out of my attention, that is asking me as a Twitter Follower to give up 5-6 hours of accumulated time.

It’s simply not going to happen.

This was followed up by N0HR’s Twitter Overload post:

Steve notes that one ham has a goal of “tweeting” 10,000 times in a year. Yikes. What possible value could that have to anyone? I could see some value in group using Twitter to meet at the Dayton Hamvention - when you’re all trying to meet you’d know that Frank’s at Denny’s having breakfast, Chuck’s in the flea market and Stan is lugging a boat anchor to the car. That’s about it though.

First off, let me state for the record that I am the said “active Twittering Ham”, but I do not have a “goal” of having 10000 tweets in a year. I did wonder if I’ll hit that number which is looking more and more likely now that I’m less then 50 shy of 9000, but I wouldn’t consider it a goal. Next off, I’m not pissed at Steve for unfollowing me at all. I did mention it in a tweet, but I am not saying that I am sad, angry, or disappointed in Steve.  I am very much in @mediaphyter’s corner regarding following:

…let me make a list of what Twitter is not:

1. A venue for a popularity contest
2. An obligatory mutual instant message system
3. A place where anyone has anything to prove

Exactly. Twitter is different things to different people. Suit your follow list to what you want to see. I’ll be the first to admit that I am a prolific tweeter. My sister never added me to her phone because it she was overwhelmed by texts. I tweet about Ham Radio, InfoSec, the MBTA not working, and any other completely random thing that floats into my head. A lot of my friends are the same. However, I know that this does not suit everyone. I have no problems with someone unfollowing me because I tweet so much, if you’re not going to follow a smaller group of people, I’m going to quickly overwhelm your “stream” on your page, likely providing more signal with noise. There are ways to sift through volumes of tweets, but a lot of people have neither the time or inclination to do so.  Don’t feel the need to follow anyone because “everyone else does it” or if they’re following you. Only follow the people that tweet topics that you’re interests and tweet at your pace. Also, look at the option of turning of

If you’re on Twitter, don’t think you’re going to hurt someones feeling by unfollowing them. I occasionally go through my lists and “purge” people that no longer interest me. If I no longer intrest you, unfollow me! Please! If I follow you, I’ll still reply when you say something I want to comment on and it will still show up in your stream.

Steve, I’m still following you, as you’re one of the Hams who’s tweets I always enjoy. I hope to see you around, and I look forward to you live-tweeting Dayton.

Jeff, KE9V linked this little… uhmmm… gem on Twitter a few days ago:

Wow. Just Wow. Sorry kids, if you got your license or upgraded after December 2006, you’re not worthy to be here. Might as well turn your ticket in to your local FCC office. I’ll be joining you. Does anyone want all my equipment?

What a load of tripe.

I know Morse code. I learned it after I upgraded to General last November. It’s a good skill to have. I have no problem with people extolling the virtues of CW operation. Operate it exclusively for all I care. I know more then a few Hams who love their CW and I have no problem with them. However, certain CW fans go a little over the top. Suggesting that I am dumbing down the hobby because I didn’t pass a Morse Code Test? Please.

Attitudes like these do nothing but hurt the hobby. YouTube videos, flames on forums, and rants on mailing lists have left many a newcomer to the hobby annoyed and insulted. What does this accomplish? It doesn’t advance the hobby, it certainly doesn’t advance CW’s reputation, and it turns off throngs of people from the hobby. But, it continues: We’re dumbing down the hobby; CW is the one true operating mode; FCC is allowing the riff raff in by lowering the bar; etc, etc, etc.

If you have opinions, add to the discussion. Don’t insult the other side wholesale.

UPDATE: Apparently rjkd732 has seen fit to remove the video, again. Thankfully, this time I mirrored it. I’ll repost it tommorow.

I’m often snarky in the morning before I take my LD50 of caffeine. This can lead to interesting exchanges:

LaRouche Supporter: “Sir, what would rather have, a sack full of cash or a clear conscience?”

Me: “I find sacks full of cash a very spiritual experience!”

Him: “Corporate Whore!”

Me: “You know it!”

Is it a bad sign that making a LaRouchie angry made me chuckle?

This floated across AMSAT-BB a few days ago:

From spaceweather.com:

The International Space Station (ISS) transited the Moon at 3:38 China Standard Time,” says Xin Li of the Beijing Planetarium. “We photographed the event using a Meade 8″ LX200 and a ToUCam video camera.” The flyby occurred not long after the space shuttle docked with the ISS, so there are actually two spacecraft in the picture.

ISS and Endeavour traversing the moon

Click for the article with a link to a larger photo.

Now that’s freaking awesome.

I take the magnificent MBTA Commuter Rail twice a day to get to and from my job in Boston. I pay $250/month for this privilege, plus, the MBTA makes me pay $2 a day to park in order to take the train. Recently the MBTA decided, partially because it can’t balance a checkbook, to up the parking rate to $4 a day, a 100% increase. You know, because people are swimming in money right now. Anyway, since I have no choice, myself and other riders have ince resigned myself to this fate, and just have thought of doing evil things to the giant banners that appeared at the parking lots at the start of November.

Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw this sign posted above the collection box this morning:

$3! I was in shock! I had heard nothing about this! Had the T had come to its senses and made a more reasonable increase? I was pleased, but my hopes were quickly dashed when I looked 3 feet to the right and saw this sign:

Uhhhh… What? How much will it be MBTA? You have conflicting signs not even 3 feet apart at this station. Which one is correct? I did some research, and after looking at the MBTA Parking Increase FAQ I see no mention of a $3 rate at commuter rail spots.

What say you, MBTA?

UPDATE (11/13): As of this morning, the “$3.00/day” sign is gone, proving that the MBTA was just playing a cruel joke on half-awake morning commuters. (I keed! I keed)

Least week I had the pleasure of volunteering at the 51st Scouting Jamboree on the Air at Camp Carpenter in Manchester, NH. JOTA is an annual event in which both Boy and Girl Scouts all over the world speak to each other by means of amateur radio. I was first exposed to JOTA in the early 1990s when I was an avid Shortwave Listener (SWL). I would tune around the bands with my rather ancient Hallicrafters SX-110 searching for the voices of other JOTA stations. I wasn’t a Ham yet and didn’t know any JOTA events in my area so I never actually talked to anyone, but I was glued to the radio for the weekend listening to far flung stations across the world.

Fast forward to two weeks ago when I got an e-mail from Barry Baines, WD4ASW. Barry is an AMSAT officer and was looking for someone to volunteer at Daniel Webster Council’s JOTA event. Apparently all the other area AMSAT officers were busy and since I helped at the AMSAT booth at Boxboro, they recognize a sucker when the see one know that I love to help out. Despite it being quite a hike and an all day event, I jumped at the chance. Partly to give back to Scouting, partly to gab about satellites, but mostly a an excuse to play radio all day. I was somewhat nervous, as I had little to no idea what was going to happen, what I needed to do, and what was going to be available too me. Still, I forged ahead and aimed to do really really well, or at least shovel enough BS to make myself sounding convincing.

An interesting side story is that after I linked up with Paul, KG7HF, the organizer of the event, I recorded the ISS. As I’m listening, one of the two stations that made contact with Garriott was none other then Paul himself. This is an incredible feat. The first thing I thought was “What the heck does he need me for?”

Saturday came and I loaded up my car with my (still not 100%) satellite yagi, my K5OE Handi-Tenna as a backup, my FT-60, my laptop, and some various satellite reference materials. I arrived, met Paul, and he showed me to my station. Paul graciously provided his TS-2000 and his laptop with his rig control software. Needless to say, I was pleased as this is like driving a Ferrari as compared to my setup, which is more like a Pinto. Paul had a 2M Eggbeater antenna and we kludged up a 70cm setup with his Dual Band mobile antenna as his 70cm eggbeater was not working. The Scouts started to trickle in, and we tried to have our first ISS pass. No voice contact, but the few Scouts that were around were amazed by the SSTV pictures. The next ISS pass was more crowded, and we were rewarded with hearing Garriott doing voice. While we were unsuccessful in contacting him, they Scouts were rapt in listening to the radio. There were a few Scouts who walked over halfway through the pass not knowing exactly what they were listening to, leading to a humorous exchange afterward:

Them: “So where was that guy?”
Me: “On the International Space Station.”
Them: “But where was he?”
Me: *confused* “Uhm. In space.”
Them: *not sure if I’m pulling their leg* “Like an astronaut?”
Me: “Yes. He’s up there for a week. He’s on board using their radio. His name is Richard Garriott. He’s a space tourist.”
Them: *eyes start to widen* “Wow!”

With our limited 70cm setup and my inexperience of tuning transponder based satellites, we were not as lucky on the other satellites. We were able to hear a few stations, but were unable to make a contact. However, all the ISS passes were big hits and at least had everyone talking about the contacts. I also worked out a script for the sSouts to handle the contacts to the ISS (with myself as the control operator). My research showed that ISS was not a foreign entity as long as Garriott was using NA1SS calsign (third party traffic agreements, what a crock!), so I let the Scouts take the wheel and just cued them as to what to say. I hope a few of them got bit by “the bug.”

It was a great day. I think the scouts had a great time, and I did as well. I’ve already told Paul to contact me for next year’s event. I met a couple of nice younger hams Devin, KB1OSI and Brittany, KB1OGL, and hopefully inspired a few more. I also have come to a conclusion that I need to get a better setup for satellites. I’ve barely scratched the surface in my setup and it would be fun to expand my satellite use into transponder based ones as well.

They also gave me a patch! I haven’t got a Boy Scout patch in YEARS! How cool is that?

DarkSun over at UniversalHub posted a nice complete Green Line map featuring all the stops that are above ground. Adam, UH’s webmaster, colored it all up nice and green in one of the comments for all the confused tourists. Being a MBTA geek, and having a lunch break in which I was bored stiff, I decided to raise the ante a bit and make it follow semi-official MBTA coloring:

Click for bigger
Booyah! In your face Adam!

So, the information embargo has been officially lifted as of this weekend when we let our extended families know, so I am pleased to announce…

I’m going to be a father.

We’ve known since July, but we decided to wait until we got out of the first trimester before telling anyone outside of our close family. The due date is mid/late March, the gender is unknown (and unimportant), and Mom is doing well.

Jeff Atwood, who also recently announced that he’s going to be a father turned me on to this quote from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius which sums up my thoughts exactly:

His brain is my laboratory, my depository. Into it I can stuff the books I choose, the television shows, the movies, my opinion about elected officials, historical events, neighbors, passersby. He is my twenty-four-hour classroom, my captive audience, forced to ingest everything I deem worthwhile. He is a lucky, lucky boy! And no one can stop me. He is mine, and you cannot stop me, cannot stop us. Try to stop us, you pu**y! You can’t stop us from singing, and you can’t stop us from making fart sounds, from putting our hands out the window to test the aerodynamics of different hand formations, from wiping the contents of our noses under the front of our seats.

We cannot be stopped from looking with pity upon all the world’s sorry inhabitants, they unblessed by our charms, unchallenged by our trials, unscarred and thus weak, gelatinous. You cannot stop me from telling Toph to make comments about and faces at the people in the next lane.

It’s unfair. The matchups, Us. v. Them (or you) are unfair. We are dangerous. We are daring and immortal. Fog whips up from under the cliffs and billows over the highway. Blue breaks from beyond the fog and sun suddenly screams from the blue.

My wife says we may be doing the headphones-on-the-stomach thing. If so, I’m starting on the above early and totally playing PSW, SolderSmoke, and tuning around 20 Meters. BWHAHAHAHA…

I make an effort to regularly check out the National Hurricane Center daily to make sure I know where the storms are going. This is what greeted me this morning:

Click for larger

*sigh*

Looks like I’ll have to make sure everything is charged up Saturday… C’mon cone of uncertainty, shift right!

I have always been a fan of the The Flea at MIT. A Cambridge institution, I can remember being introduced to it my Freshman year at college with the promise of cheap computer equipment. It did not disappoint and it instantly turned me into a die-hard flea market rat. I would arrive an hour before the gates open to get up in the front of the line. My arrival time, while inconvenient, would almost always pay off, by the time the gates open the lines would stretch down around the block. I would sometimes be starting my second loop around and still see people waiting in line to get in. I reveled in the smell of musty electronic equipment; haggling with vendors, rummaging through boxes, and lugging home backpacks full of electronic junk that would deck out my dorm room. It was a six story parking garage of nerdvana.

After moving down to New Bedford, the logistics of getting up to Cambridge became more complicated. That, coupled with the fact that I now had to store all my tech into a much smaller room, I only started to occasionally go to the flea. Yesterday, I drove up with Steve, KB1MEH, to my first flea of the year, and I was blown away at how small the flea had become. While the outside was filled with the usual vendors, and there were quite a few deals there, what was once a nearly-filled to capacity parking garage didn’t even have a complete floor filled. Steve informed me that it was a similar scene the month before when he went.

On the ride home, I thought to myself about the proclamations of “Ham Radio is dying!” and the subset of that “Hamfests are dying!“, and wondering how the applied to the Flea. While the Flea can be classified as a “Hamfest” and you can often find radios for sale, the amount of computer gear outnumbered the amount of radio gear easily 4:1. What did this mean?

After some thought I came to a conclusion: What we are seeing is the mainstreaming of computer gear that occured in the early 2000s. Computers are now a consumer technology and the vast majority of consumers are likely to toss them out at the end of life. Since older technology has a very limited life-span, the glut “vintage” technology for sale in the late-1990s and early-2000s are now completely worthless and are likely to join their older counterparts in the recycling center or dump. What doesn’t will likely make their way to eBay or Craigslist rather then flea market as it is a lot easier to post an ad online rather then set up shop at a flea market that smells of BO and musty electronics.

I think we may be seeing the same thing on the Hamfest side. With the more non-user-serviceable nature of new radios, when they break, it can be often cheaper to replace them rather then fix them. Since this is leading to a shorter life-span of radios and the conveience factor of online marketplaces, we will likely see flea markets, tech or otherwise, continue to shrink.

I am very happy that I nabbed some cheap ceramic insulators and some more connectors for my budding projects, though.