Changing out antique or suspect capacitors seems a bit of a mystery until you learn why the old ones fail and what are replacement recommendations.
This article by Phil Nelson at Antique Radio largely has about everything ones needs to know in a short easy to read form:
https://antiqueradio.org/recap.htm
73
Steve
K9ZW
Less than 3 weeks away is the 45th anniversary of when the first public facing BBS (Bulletin Board System) went active.
The very first BBS
A wide group of BBS sysops and users are marking the anniversary – details at the BBS Day website: https://bbsday.org/
The Great Blizzard of 1978 was one of the worst storms in Illinois’ history. One-hundred-mile-an-hour winds whipped up snow drifts as high as 12 feet. Wind chills were so low they caused railroad tracks to buckle and break. Northern Illinois, especially Chicago, ground to a halt. And a couple of snowed-in computer nerds created a major technological achievement. It was Feb. 16, 1978, just after the great blizzard, when two Chicagoans, Ward Christensen and Randy Suess, launched the world’s first computerized bulletin board system (BBS).
Link to the transcript: https://www.northernpublicradio.org/education/2021-02-15/this-week-in-illinois-history-worlds-first-bbs-goes-live-feb-16-1978
There was an online documentary made about the event: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dddbe9OuJLU
The whole thing was pretty simple – two 8″ floppy disks a Altair 8800 clone “Vector 1” connected by an S-100 board, and a 300bps modem.
https://pcmuseum.tripod.com/bbs.htm explains how the BBS was here before there was a world wide web!
I didn’t join into the BBS game until about 1984, where I started to operate as a “point” and then started a USA based full time BBS in 1988.
My present itineration of SPOT BBS (SPOT= S.P.O.T. = Someone Playing On Transistors) is at spotbbs.k9zw.com ssh port 1122, telnet port 1123, and when the html part works html port 8888.
SPOT BBS is the same 1:154/154 FidoNet Node Number as when I mothballed the original 30 years ago, though today it runs MysticBBS as the original OPUS CBBS software is long obsolete..
73
Steve
K9ZW
It had become pretty obvious that our computer “ownership” is far from “true ownership” in that outside parties affect many aspects of our usage. In many cases they can change how we do our work or blur the line on what we own.
Microsoft recently decided that it was unilaterally changing the location, format, and content of my work desktop Outlook GUI. To hell with my established workflow, and since I was a mere end-user they felt no notification was even needed.
Some discussion:
Microsoft has absolutely no science presented – no ergonomics studies, no survey results, no study of the screen types users actually use, nada…
Basically they somehow feel they “own” our work computers.
—
Now not to throw mud at just Microsoft, Apple has decided that they “own” any hardware purchased from them and feel they are entitled to run scans of local files, reporting back to Apple what they find.
Some background:
SPOT BBS Returns!
SPOT BBS, the K9ZW old school BBS project is back online.
Seems a CNAME issue with the DNS setup was something I had missed.
spotbss.k9zw.com ssh port 1122 , telnet port 1123 and html port 8888
Also browser clickable at http://spotbbs.k9zw.com:8888/
73
Steve
K9ZW
K9ZW Home QTH Station is back up for my remote operations. SPOT BBS project is close, but not up yet.
The Fond du Lac Amateur Radio Club is about an hour from Manitowoc, and is a really nice club. Somehow they thought kindly enough to make me an honorary life member over some minor technical assistance I sorted out for them.
From Joe K9VY – Fond du Lac Amateur Radio Club PR guy:
“Mike from CBS in Milwaukee just emailed me with a link to the Sunday show. That’s right, the Sunday Show! If you want to see one of the most perfect interpretations of what Ham Radio is, watch this link.
https://www.cbs58.com/news/ham-radio-operators-keep-classic-communication-style-alive
Many times, the media puts things together like this and they never get it right. Not this time! Mike hit the hammer on the nail, took his time, did his research, and put together one of the best media pieces about Ham Radio that I have ever seen. And that’s coming from a retired radio guy who has been in the media doing interviews for 8 years! the pace, the editing, the professionalism, the camera work, all top notch.”
Again the link:
https://www.cbs58.com/news/ham-radio-operators-keep-classic-communication-style-alive
And the link to club (great newsletters!!): https://www.fdlhams.com/
73
Steve
K9ZW
With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings 