consider becoming a ham radio dork

Posted on March 25, 2018 by powshredder tagged.

Let me just tear this baind-aid off: amatuer/ham radio in the United States is almost entirely comprised of old nerdy (generally white) men.

You will never see a cool Hollywood action guy who has amatuer/ham radio as a hobby and while I’m sure this will offend some people it can be pretty insular too. Like any group, there are normal people but the hardcore folks are the loudest and most active therefore setting the tone.

From a practical perspective, even a lot of homeless people have cheap smart phones and hooked up to a public wifi they can talk to someone in 4K video chat on the other side of the world for free. To do so with an amatuer/ham radio requires a couple grand worth of gear, passing two tests with a fair amount of studying, and doing a better-than-laymen-level job of electrical routing and antenna construction.

Back when people traveled by hot air balloon and used radios the size of refrigerators to talk to someone in another country (who also had a radio the size of a refrigerator).

On any T-chart of plusses and minuses, what kind of terrible math would have you arrive at the idea that an amatuer radio license and all the hassle associated with it would be worth your time? Let me give you my answer.

It started on December 27, 2017. Our phone system went offline here in Mammoth. Data via the Internet, cellular voice and 3G/4G: all offline. The only way information was coming in was via FM broadcast radio and hilariously enough the town broadcasting was Bishop which I assume couldn’t get a message that we had lost communications up here.

In our hyperconnected lives, everything was offline. 911, that important conference call you had to be on, checking on an Amazon package you needed, getting an Amber Alert: all gone. So to was the nature of the outage. While surely just some glitch in some technical box somewhere or a backhoe that pierced a fiber line, there’s always that lingering question:

Is something big going on that I don’t know about?

Here in my office, armed with my ham license, I have the iconic $30 Baofeng UV-5R. The antenna is also $30, a magnetic mount that’s supposed to be on a car but instead it’s sitting on a 5 pound can of artichokes. My wife mistakenly bought them, I needed something steel to put the antenna on, and bam: it works.

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The #PleasantFire, burned near Bishop, CA in February of 2018.

Here in my office I listen to 92.5 Sierra Wave on that little $30 radio, which really has a pretty sweet music list. But the radio also cuts over automatically whenever there’s someone on the repeater network that connects all the ham radio dorks (of which I proudly am one) between Lone Pine and Carson City: the entirety of the Eastern Sierra, essentially.

One day while working in my office the radio sparked up and said “Hey, any of you guys see that fire over there by the campground?” Before Twitter, before Facebook, before the 911 call even went out, I knew about it. As the fire started growing I was able to contact other amatuer/ham folk who on a whole take public safety quite seriously, and get up-to-the-second news on road closures, evacuations, and the fire’s path.

Texting my friends down in Bishop, he was getting bombarded by bogus Twitter updates from random sources and gossip from neighbors.

In our hyper-connected world what you may notice is that while much more information is flying around the majority of that information suffers from terrible qualify. The ham radio dorks, however, risk losing their licenses and certainly their reputation if they pass on incorrect information about something important.

Amatuer literally translates to “for the love of”, and amatuer radio is no different. For some it’s heavy on the technology of radio, for others (like myself) it’s more so the civil preparedness model. At the same time that I get to be more valuable to my community, I also get more benefit for my family, my friends, and myself.

If you want to talk to some guy on the other side of the planet (99% chance it will indeed be a male), you’ll need to drop a few grand in equipment and really get into this stuff. But if you want to have a cheap, reliable, and effective way of communicating in your area and a bit beyond, it’s $70 and a pretty simple test.

Step 1: Find an exam near you. You’ll be taking the technician exam.

Step 2: Buy a little handheld radio, the programming cable, and a magnet mount antenna. You can stick it on top of your car, or on top of a file cabinet in your house. My 5lb can of artichokes works.

Step 3: Study for your test. You can buy a book, use a free app, and/or take free sample tests. I did all three because I’m a nerd at heart and liked learning some things.

Step 4: Download chirp, find the repeaters in your area, and load them in. These are the ones in the Eastern Sierra, as an example.

Step 5: Go get a pocket protector, fellow radio dork! We can sit around and make fun of the jocks now.

We all use and rely on technology that we don’t understand. You don’t really know how your car’s computer works and if you do then you don’t also really know the chemical structure of medications you take. We tend to get a working knowledge of things in our lives and call it good, specializing deeper in areas that require it, that we make money from, or that we have an interest in.

I think there’s a valuable argument to be made that medium range communication with other civic-minded folks, and not entirely relying on the rather delicate nature of cell phones and the Internet is worth a few hours and few dollars.

doing the generator install

Posted on December 12, 2017 by powshredder tagged.

In total our power was out for about three days last year. A squirrel chewed through a line (or so it was reported), a truck backed into a power pole, and the last one I never heard the scoop on but it lasted a while.

These are just generally inconvenient but mid-winter it can be a different bag of potatoes. We could keep from dying I suppose by hopping in one of the cars: even if we couldn’t drive due to snow conditions we could keep the vents and exhaust shoveled out and just sit there in a nice warm cab. But that sounds absolutely horrible so I set out to get something more baller.

The noisy and heavy part: the generator.

I opted for the Champion 3800, which is really more like 3500 watts at our altitude. It was $500, has an awesome reputation, and burns either gasoline or propane with the flip of a switch.

Propane is more expensive and harder to come by, but it never goes bad. The tank can get cold, and it produces less power than gasoline, but it starts up easier and it’s pretty hard to spill propane on your hands. The exhaust doesn’t stink that much. We have a 30LB tank hanging around.

Gasoline is cheaper, puts out more power, and is easier to come by. We have about 20 gallons, with fuel stabilizer mixed in. Come summer time the gas goes into the cars, and a new batch is put in the tanks with stabilizer again.

So ignore the unpatched drywall and focus on the spanking new electronics.

The previous owners had run multiple circuits to single breakers and installed a sub panel (huge hole there) because they ran out of space on the 1975 original panel that came with the house. There were all kinds of blank marker arrows and drawings, the thing was a mess and it drove me nuts. As would be said on the waterfront, it was chickenshit work.

I got a badass QO panel with space to grow, got a whole-house surge protector (white labeled box with little green light there), and wired the generator in with a generator transfer switch.

You could, if you’re a horrible person who likes killing others and setting your own house on fire, plug your generator directly into the outlet where your clothes dryer plugs in. The problem here is you are sending current out into your house and back into the power lines. Chances are if you’re running a generator it’s because the power is out and guess what electrical crews need to work with? That’s right, the electricity you’re sending out even though they think they turned all the power off.

A lineman for SoCal Edison was electrocuted last year by this very thing.

The generator plugs in here, so no need to have a cable snaking through a door or window.

So instead we use an awesome generator transfer switch. Beyond the safety, it’s wired directly into your main circuit breakers so you pick (in advance) what you want powered. For us it’s the pellet stove (heat), the fridge (food), the hot water heater, the lights in the kitchen and living room, and the television/PS4. Even our broadband gear will work if the outage isn’t impacting some other part of the network.

It was fun to walk around and read the current requirements from the various things we wanted to run at the same time. Interestingly enough, you need to balance the load between the two phases of electricity or some such. I’m not sure of the details but basically (on my unit) you want A+B == E+F, more or less. It shouldn’t be totally lopsided.

The super awesome generator transfer switch.

We tested it, and everything works great. Normally the circuits we care about are in “line” mode, so they’re powered by the regular power lines. If we flip them to “gen”, the generator will handle them. They can’t be in both, so no worries about sending current back out or having mismatched sine waves (for those super geeks reading this).

Plus, the circuits you’re not running on the generator are just sitting there waiting for normal line power so when the lights come on down the hall you know everything’s up again.

Cheap and can be used for any 12v battery.

The only other item you may want to consider is a battery charger. I picked up a small unit for $20 and every few months that the generator hasn’t run I toss it onto the generator’s small 12v motorcycle-ish battery. There’s a pull cord to start but those are no fun.

So the next time the power’s out in Mammoth swing on by. We’ll have hot showers, cold drinks, warm air, and Call of Duty multiplayer.

my super cool coat rack

Posted on August 28, 2017 by powshredder tagged.

We’re living up the lazy days of summer right now in Mammoth Lakes. Temperatures hit 80 during mid day: a regular Mammoth heat wave. But #WinterIsComing so it’s time to button up all the outdoor and winter-esque projects. Even taking a whizz outside becomes a challenge, what with the gloves and snow pants. Imagine trying to do some finish carpentry.

A big thing I wanted to do was put in a new coat rack. Something stout, woodsy, and with tons of hooks. Something I would see every time I walked in or out of my house, and something I would use multiple times a day. Something like this:

My finished product.

To start with, we had a piece of crap that came with the house. It had four pegs (one that broke), a mirror, and a sort-of shelf. It was also small. A family of four could make it work, but when friends came over it was a zoo.

The old coat rack. Hat and shades to show scale.

I started my project nearly a year ago over at Drake Wood Milling. In the “forest products” area of Mammoth’s industrial area, I left a couple of unanswered voicemails and eventually just hung around like a poltergeist in the typical uncomfortable and socially awkward setting that is industrial work areas.

Any sailors know what it’s like to walk around in a boat yard. Sure, it might be your boat on the straps and your money paying the invoice but basically you’re a nuisance and everyone wants you to leave.

Once I met Bob Drake though he couldn’t have been any more helpful or fair. We picked out a slab of wood with “living edges” and chopped it to size.

Bob Drake doing his thing on my future coat rack.

The slab I got was roughly 70″ long and 30″ wide, although the width fluctuates due to the natural variability of the trunk. I wanted the bark edges because they look dope as hell but had to figure out a way to treat them.

I opted for Ace’s spray-on clear polyurethane to hit the bark on the sides and Minwax’s Polycrylic for the exposed wood. It doesn’t really have to deal with UV, but it does have to deal with abrasion. I wanted something physically durable, shows the natural wood, that can be easily touched up, cleaned with water, and if I re-apply in the house won’t gas off xylene.

My template (and drill) on the wall.

The damn thing weighed over 100 pounds and could easily have another 50 with stuff hanging off so it needed to be ridiculously secure. I took a cardboard box, split it down the middle, and used it for my template. Pilot holes went into the studs which were the conventional 16″ spacing.

Moving a piece of cardboard around is much easier than moving a 100lb slab of wood.

The real pro-tip I’d have for anyone doing this is to consider the fasteners. I opted for bolt-head 3/8″ lag screws with 1″ OD washers, counter-sunk using a 1″ spade paddle bit. Reverse the paddle bit for the first centimeter or so to keep chunking to a minimum, then advance slowly with minimal pressure, doing maybe a single revolution in forward then back to reverse.

But start those holes with a small (~1/4″) bit (the same one you used on the studs). The spade bits need that small hole to act as a pilot. Until the countersunk 1″ holes are in, the pilot holes exit the back of the wood, and the small pilot holes are in the studs, don’t reach for your big bit that will actually accommodate the real screws.

1″ OD washers not pictured. These bad boys aren’t going anywhere, and while pulling it off to repaint the wall won’t be fun it’s certainly designed to do so. 3/8″ x 5″

Once on the wall, I had massive 1″ holes staring at me where the bolts and washers were exposed. I grabbed the fasteners and finish products from the local Ace, but the Do-It-Center had the 1″ plugs that I was lucky enough to be able to pound in. A few coats of finish on them, start them in the holes, a piece of sacrificial wood over them flat, and then pound. To remove and re-access the fasteners rock a < 1″ spade bit after you put a small pilot hole, then break them apart.

On the bottom left there, sort of in the middle of the shot you can see one of the eight 1″ holes countersunk in.

For hooks and exposed hardware I wanted to stick with the rustic thing and fell in love with bent railroad ties. They’re recycled from old railroad lines and hand-bent by small craftsmen. We eventually settled on some local-ish hand forged iron deer figures for our shades and keys.

It’s amazing how much work can go into making something look like no work was put into it at all.

Our shoe organizers are mounted underneath the coat rack (not pictured), so my next project might be to mount some small fans in the top which will circulate air up to the coats and hats hanging around. Something dripping with caked snow still belongs over by the heater but some air circulation blowing on the coat rack should help things considerably. The same low noise muffin fan I used for my boot-glove-stuff dryer will probably get enlisted.

So hopefully that gives you some ideas if you’re looking to build a coat rack of your own, especially if a massive assortment of winter gear is par for the course.

the art of getting high centered in snow

Posted on April 30, 2017 by powshredder tagged.

In sailing, a joke exists that there are three types of sailors. Those who’ve grounded, those who are lying, and those who will soon. Much the same exists for driving offroad and getting stuck.

My friend here is not having a lot of fundra. Me in the background, my FJ80 Land Cruiser behind with the lights on, the tiny car way back is discussed below.

If you drive graded dirt all the time or limit yourself to mall crawling, “recovery” can seem like a worst case scenario. But at least for me in the 16/17 winter up here in the Sierras I’ve pulled three vehicles free, shoveled out half a dozen, and high centered myself thrice (counting today). I have a winch, strong attachment points, big ass shackles, a real no-shit shovel, two recovery straps, some chains, and traction pads. None of that keeps you from getting stuck but it will give you a fighting chance to get out of it.

Things get snow-stuck in all kinds of ways, but usually the most pain-in-the-ass is the high center. Simply put, you compact so much snow underneath the bottom of the vehicle that you create (via the pressure of your axles/difs/undercarriage/etc) a solid block of ice that is supporting all the vehicle’s weight.

This of course is a problem because if the cool new made-of-compacted-snow jack stands under your truck are holding you up guess what isn’t? That’s right, your tires. So your tires sit there spinning happily in the air, laughing at you and all your locking differential technology. In fact, the more the tires spin, the deeper they make their little holes, compressing the snow further and further under the vehicle. It sucks.

After getting through a rather horrible patch. Note the streaks in the middle. That’s the differential and axles dragging across compressed snow.

When high centered, your options are limited. You can attempt to shovel out the snow which is fully caked under your vehicle, but remember it is highly compressed to the point that you are nearly going at ice blocks. Plus, you’re coming at it from the sides and will have a hell of a time getting an angle. I’ve only seen this work when one axle is stuck. If both are, which means the entire undercarriage is, read on.

You can use a winch or a buddy’s truck with a strap, but basically you’ll need to drag the vehicle where it’s got to go. As a bonus you can toss some traction pads under the tires (the orange things strapped to my spare tire in the picture above). An upshot with snow is that for the most part it’s fairly slick so once you get out of the augered holes that your tires have made, you should be able to move.

Mid winter, I got a chance to yank the UPS guy out of a snow bank.

The third mechanism falls into road-building albeit no dynamite required. If you have a hi-lift jack (and bumpers/sliders you can attach to) then you can lift the vehicle up and off it’s high centered mess, jamming rocks/dirt under the tires to make a solid track for the wheels to travel on. Likewise, you can shovel out the part in the middle (ahead of the vehicle) where you would get high centered again. This is grueling multi-hour work to even make it 100′, depending on the snow conditions.

If you’re dangerous, stupid, and lucky, you could always try using a blow torch to melt the snow. Make sure you film this so if you ignite the gas tank the video can go on youtube and make a lot of money for your family.

Obviously the easiest thing is simply to avoid the problem in the first place. If the snow is more than a foot thick (or taller than the bottom of your axles), don’t go into it. Remember that snow cats exist for a reason; wheeled vehicles can only do so much in snow.

Additionally, be careful about driving around early morning. The snow is harder then so you’ll float a little better. The same route when tried a few hours later could prove impassible. In the first picture above, way in the background there’s a subaru; it’s not going anywhere for weeks. I’m assuming it got out there on a cold icy night, and is now surrounded by soft spring snow.

For more information, feel free to read up from folks who’ve done this much more often than I have: it’s not like there’s one way to get stuck or unstuck. Open your mind, brother.

mechanical lessons i’ve learned the hard way

Posted on March 30, 2017 by powshredder tagged.

I’m not a great mechanic: I know people who are way better than me and that’s not even touching professionals who do it for a living. I didn’t grow up doing mechanical work and the most “handsy” thing I do at work is touch a keyboard and pen. I’ve got a long row to hoe for improving my skills, but I try. And here’s some things that might help you too.

1) Research what you’re about to do, primarily on youtube and aficionado websites.

I pulled my inner axle and knuckle joint out, replacing various components. To do this, I had my iPad constantly looping through a youtube tutorial, made several posts and viewed nearly all of the 400+ comments on the IH8MUD forums on knuckle rebuilds for my make/model. I knew that I’d need a rebuild kit, saw the tools that people used, and prepared accordingly.

There’s a strong case to be made for owning cars/trucks/boats/planes that people frequently modify and maintain. As where I doubt there’s a lot of folks modding mid 90’s Chevy Cavaliers, there is an enormous amount of information for modding mid 90’s Toyota Land Cruisers, as an example.

2) Speaking of tools: buy once, cry once.

Buy good tools. You may not need “shop quality” all the time but you may indeed need the best in certain situations. Having the right tools can make the difference between a job taking 1 minute or 1 day. It can also be the difference between you hurting yourself or nearby components vs having everything be clean and easy.

Good tools aren’t cheap, take a look at a small sample of mine:

Impact gun: $250
Full set of 10mm-24mm wrenches: $80
Full set of 8mm-25mm impact sockets: $130
10mm-19mm swivel impact sockets: $150

And that’s hardly the entirety of what you need. But even that $650 worth of tools is less than the cost of the labor for having a professional shop do the axle/knuckle job that I did myself. In fact when I added up my tools and materials, I was still under the cost of having a shop do it. And of course in the end I own my own high quality tools, so things really start paying for themselves the more work you do.

3) Wear protection, son.

A nice box of nitrile gloves can be the difference between your hands being eternally filthy or not, and bathed in toxic carcinogens or not. Plus, they offer a smidge of abrasion resistance: drag your hand past a little metal pokey thing and the glove will catch hopefully before your skin will.

I also wear hearing protection sometimes, and not just for super loud power tools. If you have to smash something to death with a hammer, it will be ear-splitting noise. That kind of combined damage is bad for your ears long term. And honestly I find that I’m more likely to really beat the crap out of something with a hammer if I can’t hear it as much.

If you’re laying under a car and messing with things above you, there’s a 100% chance shit will fall in your eyes. If you use a grinder, even just a Dremel, things fly everywhere. For $2 you can have some goggles that will keep your eyes safe and if they get scratched/broken you won’t care.

4) Specialty tools.

In addition to a nice set of core tools, you will acquire various specialty tools. If you do not acquire these and try to use your existing stuff as a “make-shift-good-enough” you can expect lots of swearing, lots of damage to you and what you’re working on, and much more time spent.

Sometimes these tools are cheap: a 4 foot section of PVC pipe can release a birfield joint from an axle in most cases. Other times they can be quite costly like a professional ball joint remover. You can also rent these tools in many instances, if you live in a town with resources for something like that.

You can evaluate your need of specialty tools by researching your project beforehand.

5) Take your time.

If you need to drive somewhere tomorrow, don’t change our your brakes today unless you’re a better mechanic than I am. Being in a hurry makes you rush and you’ll stress out when things go sideways. Not “if” things go sideways, but “when” things go sideways: things always go pear shaped especially when you’re in a hurry.

You’ll also be more inclined to make bad judgement calls and rush.

6) You’ll spend most of your time on stuck bolts, stripped threads, and things you can’t get a good grip on: don’t think this is out of the ordinary.

If you have an object in front of you on a workbench with lots of space and tools about, pretty much anyone can be effective. On your back staring up though a mess of mysterious hoses and brackets, all coated in road grime that keeps falling on your face, things get tricky.

This goes back to good tools, taking your time, and specialty tools: wobble sockets exist because good angles are hard to come by and impact guns exist because rust never sleeps and the last asshole over torqued the shit out of everything.

You may need to cut things off with a Dremel. You may need to use a propane torch. You definitely will use penetrating oils like AeroKroil. You may need to take things apart just to get access to something else (like the power steering fluid reservoir to get to the oil filter, in my truck). You definitely will get stuck halfway through a project and need to drive/bike/walk to a store or have something shipped to you. Again, this can be reduced by (a) researching in advance (b) acquiring the proper tools and (c) taking your time.

7) Keep a journal; I like Google Spreadsheets.

Whether you keep or one day sell the thing you’re working on, it will be helpful years from now to know when you last performed whatever maintenance. Also, you can keep track of the model numbers for things like oil filters and bearings.

8) Have the actual service manual.

The guides you can pick up at autozone for your car are a lot better than nothing and they are actually a solid starting point. But for real work and answers to nearly every question about your vehicle you want the no-kidding service manual. Often you can find the PDF online for free (as in, like, illegal), or you can buy the phone-book sized version on ebay for ~$100. If you’re really hard pressed you can get it from the dealership in most cases.

9) Use OEM parts unless you have a really good reason not to.

That service manual referenced above assumes you’re using components built to the exact factory specifications. The further you wander from factory stuff, the less you can rely on service manuals and the collective wisdom of all others that have worked on your problem before.

Some things clearly should be replaced: tires have gotten a lot better and if you’re using a 20 year old stereo with 20 year old speakers, it’s a good time to upgrade. But even things that seem to make sense, like oil filters, you might really be better off sticking with OEM. Expect OEM parts to generally be more expensive and harder to pick up. You’ll need to get them shipped or from a dealer, usually with some shipping time as well.

10) Remember, it’s a journey.

If you look at sailing like simply a means of getting from A to B, it’s clearly a terrible approach compared to driving, flying, or even just riding a bicycle. But that obfuscates the point, which is the journey and all the things you learn along the way are what make it such an awesome experience worth doing.

Looking at it another way, just because something is easier doesn’t inherently mean it’s better for you. Things that are a total pain in the ass represent a challenge and some challenges are very much worth accomplishing.

Having a firm grasp of mechanical principles and the ability to function with them is hard to understate given the nature of our world.

And really, buy an impact gun.

my diy boot-glove-stuff dryer

Posted on November 16, 2016 by powshredder tagged.

Sure, it looks like a crazy science experiment gone wrong. But this thing kicks ass at drying lots of gear so the next day you’ve got warm and dry gear to put on.

Pellet stove on right, hideous hose beast dryer on left.

I started with a prototype made of cardboard. I’d really recommend that to anyone as you probably have plenty of it laying around and with some tape you can make a design and see how well it will work. In a pinch, you can even get by with a cardboard model for quite some time.

Believe it or not, this piece of crap worked great for a week as I theorized my final design.

There are two core concepts with a snowsports dryer:

Have everything spaced out so they can dry. This is pretty easy to achieve as you can just hang things up, no big deal.
Blow warm and dry air inside of things like gloves, mitts, and boots. This is the tricky part and why you can’t just leave wet gloves out on a table and expect them to be dry anytime soon.

For $19 I got a 120mm muffin fan that pushes 51CFM. There are more powerful ones, but I wanted something relatively quiet and honestly even with almost a dozen wet items to deal with this fan has been doing the trick.

How cool: a box with a fan in it.

The fan sucks air into the airtight box, and then you’re faced with the challenge of getting it to your boots/gloves/whatevers. I decided to go a little hardcore and use 1/2″ hose barbs, screwed onto fittings between a piece of particle board. That the whole box was done with 3/4″ ply and particle board was no accident. The hoses are tough and pull on the box. The fan needs to be mounted firmly. You can expect the box to get kicked, bumped, and treated with neglect. I opted to make it beefy.

What’s cool about using barbs like this is that you can get creative with the types of hoses you use after the fact without really doing anything to the dryer itself. I even installed some T fittings on the ends.

The top, before it went on. 1/2″ hose barbs screwed to PVC fittings on the underside.

Before I put the top on (with all the fittings) I used some foam crack filler to seal up the interior as much as possible. The whole thing is screwed together in the hopes that it can handle a lot of abuse. The fan is rated at 67,000 hours, which at 100/days of service per year running for 5 hours at a clip I should be able to snowboard 134 seasons before I need to replace the fan.

Top attached, playing with the hoses, getting closer.

For the hose I found 25′ of 1/2″ conduit for $10. It’s pretty stout stuff and maintains its curve fairly well which is a blessing if you want it and a curse if you don’t. I slashed the bottoms that fit over the barbs so they can come off easier, and put little holes near the ends in the sidewalls that go into the boots/gloves.

I can dry 10 items at a time, and the whole thing breaks down relatively easily. I place it (safely) near the pellet stove so there’s plenty of warm air about and no need to add a separate heating element. It’s sort of obvious: after a day of snowsports you want to be warm and dry too so the heater will most definitely be on.

If I had to do another, my shopping list would look like this:

10 pipe fittings, cost around $15.
3/4 ply or particle board, maybe $5-$20.
Fan, $20.
Hose, $10.

Done cheaply you’ll be in for around $50 and have something that absolutely clowns on the piece of garbage plastic jobbers out there, nevermind you’ll have 5x the capacity and a much longer product life. The only downside is that you’ll have an octopus of death dryer in your living room.