Higher Than The Fourth Of July

This past 4th Of July, 2023, at least one neighbor was having some fun, lighting off some safe-and-sane fireworks for his daughter. You'd think people would be OK with that.... But in 2022, someone apparently saw the neighbor doing this and dialed 9-1-1. SMH.

Yes, 'Higher Than The Fourth Of July'....It's the title of a great rock song by the 1970's UK glam/hard rock band The Sweet. 

The title itself doesn't exactly fit my mood, but that's OK. I don't really celebrate the 4th Of July anymore, especially as fireworks are expensive, and technically they are banned in my city. I can't even light a sparkler in my back yard without committing a crime. Isn't that awesome? 8 years ago the hills were lit up with skyrockets. Now it's more-or-less dead at night on the Fourth. 

I didn't put out my flag(s), as I usually do, after the second one was ripped off on Memorial Day weekend by some thieves, as I noted in a previous article here.

I went out on a couple bike rides during the evening this Fourth, as I always do, to take in whatever fireworks displays were occurring, either in the neighborhood (there was only one to speak of), or in and around the valley where I live. Periodically there were large, colorful starbursts over the nearby hills, and I also saw some that appeared over the river about a mile upstream, where a large nature park is located.

I was able to talk with a neighbor a couple blocks away, who was lighting off a few small fountains for his 10 year old daughter, along with some sparklers. He told me that he had done the same thing last year, and someone had called the cops on him for lighting fireworks for his little girl to enjoy.

Imagine the pettiness -- someone calling 911 because a neighbor's little girl is enjoying a couple of sparklers, and a fountain or two.

Such is the state of the world today, where killjoys don't want a 9 year-old girl to be able to enjoy holding a sparkler or watching a small fountain shoot some colorful sparks maybe four or five feet in the air, surrounded by bare pavement.

Overall, however, my neighborhood was quiet though this Fourth, with almost every house as dark as Halloween when people don't want trick-or-treaters coming near. :-(

But it's nice that the holiday's there, just the same. Very early on the 4th, in the morning, I went out on a fairly long bike ride just after sunrise. It was cool out -- about 50F / 10C. And quiet. I saw maybe 5 homeless people near the trail, going about their business. I said "Happy Fourth" to one couple. They said the same back, but I wasn't sure how "happy" one's Fourth could be if you are homeless.

At times like that, I always count my blessings. I have a roof, I have food to eat, I still have my health, and my cat is alive and getting better.

Then when I got home from the Fourth of July evening bike ride I worked on some fiction. Fed my cat.

 

Of course, there is always that old standby -- my radio hobby.

A pic I took when listening to a rare night time propagation opening to Oz and NZ on the 20 Meter ham band. My DX-398 is working normally again, after I cleared some oxidation from the positive battery terminal.

HAM RADIO IS DEAD.... OR JUST DYING

During the late afternoon on the 4th I tuned the SW ham bands. After all, it was a national holiday, and we're entering the "peak" period of Solar Cycle 25 (which solar scientists are saying will top off near the end of this year, rather than 2025 as they said previously). Being that it was early evening, and the 20 Meter Band is the most popular ham band, and late afternoon / early evening is the time when the 20 Meter Band is kicking in the most, I expected some decent ham activity. But basically, it was dead.

I heard a guy from Hungary, at low signal levels, but he was still readable. So, obviously, there were some conditions over the polar regions. The Hungarian guy had a couple guys from the Eastern US trying to talk to him. But otherwise, there just were a handful of QSO's / convos on the 20 Meter Band. A guy from New Zealand was calling "CQ". He got only one response and then he gave up after calling "CQ" a few more times afterwards. Overall, considering that it was a holiday here in the US, a country where most hams live, and that the Solar Cycle is on an upward swing, it surprised me just how dead the band was. Even the CW/ Morse Code section of the 20 Meter Band was sparse.

In 2012 or 2002 or 1991 it would have been slammed with signals. Certainly, in the 1980s 20 Meters would have been wall-to-wall.

Which begs the question: Why the change? 

First off, I do not agree with the Rah-Rah-Rah people that this Solar Cycle is great. I think it's a fizzle, and I think the solar radiation data compiled by the solar scientists at NASA -- and a couple other solar scientists' studies -- back my opinion up. Sure, the ionosphere is better on SW and MW than it was in 2018-2021 (when sometimes it seemed it was Nuclear Winter SW conditions), but still not up to the level of previous Solar Cycles (I am working on an independent article on this Solar Cycle, which I hope to post within a couple weeks). Although the Solar Cycle obviously is improving the SW and MW propagation, it is still nowhere near what I think it should be, compared to previous Solar Cycles.

Secondly, amateur radio operators today simply don't get on the air when compared to previous decades. It's like the Shortwave Broadcast bands: even if you have improved conditions, if there are less stations on the air, you're going to hear less.

With both the HF ham bands and Shortwave Broadcast bands, we radio aficionados are being hit by a 'double whammy' -- the Solar conditions are still a bit mediocre for peak ionospheric conditions, and there are less SWBC stations on the air, and there are less hams using the HF ham bands than in the past.

So, even though it was a holiday, and often during the holidays the ham bands historically packed with hams on CW and Sideband, this Fourth it was about as dead as a burnt out Bottle Rocket or a spent Piccolo Pete (a whistling firework that used to be quite popular).

The experience only reinforces my motto to other DXers, be they MW DXers or SWL's: you've got to tune each channel, and listen. You have to pay extra attention to the weaker signals. If you're using an SDR, pay attention to the weaker looking indicators on your SDR's waterfall. 

And 'get 'em while you can'. There are stations to hear, you just have to work at it more than even 10-12 years ago.

A small fountain a neighbor lit off in the street for his little girl to see. Call the cops! :-)

The night of the Fourth was at least mildly eventful. There were a lot of boom sounds from the valley and the surrounding hills, but nothing like the late 2000s, or the 1990s when the center of my neighborhood would have a big fireworks party, complete with buckets of water, hoses ready, and sand. And the neighbors also had brooms, to clean it up.

I remember one Fourth in the mid-1990s, when I went over a few blocks on my bike, and I watched the gala. They were all having fun -- parents and kids, and neighbors who didn't have kids but just wanted to celebrate the holiday. They were all taking turns lighting off Mortars, fountains, strings of firecrackers, little black 'snakes', Ground Bloom Flowers, and some bottle rockets, too. All to the soundtrack of a neighbor playing Nirvana's In Utero CD really loud on his truck's stereo!

That, of course, all went the way of the dodo. Neighbors moved away, other people -- who weren't into fireworks and celebrating -- moved into those houses; some neighbors were retiring, a lot of newcomers at the time had no kids, and the 2008 Recession and City laws to ban the fireworks all stomped on that sort of 4th Of July celebration like a boot on an ant. All of it, of course, is gone. No neighborhood gala, no fireworks, and no one plays Nirvana on their car stereo. 

My trusty Realistic DX-370, still working.... and bringing in KBRE 1660, Merced's Rock station.

MY DX-370 STILL WORKS AFTER 3-4 YEARS ON THE COUNTER, GATHERING DUST

Speaking of radio, I cleaned off the dust from my Realistic DX-370 and fired it up. Surprisingly, it still works perfectly. I had it sitting on a shelf near my guitar gadgetry, and it had built up a pretty decent amount of dust. I basically had overlooked the fact it was there, and had forgotten about it. A bit sad, ain't it.... But it's the truth. The batteries inside the DX-370 were dead, dead, dead -- but there was no corrosion anywhere. I popped in some fresh AA's and DXed with it that night. Works great, sounds great on my new Sony $25 headphones.

The LCD readout still is a little funky, but it's still readable, and the rest of the radio works well.

My Panasonic RF-B45 in happier days -- the BFO worked better. But the radio still works otherwise, and is one of the best MW DX portables made, and the last Panasonic SW radio that was made in Japan.

My trusty Panasonic RF-B45, however, has been acting a little funky lately -- not on MW, where it's an excellent DX radio, but on the SW ham bands, where I switch on the BFO. A few weeks back, it started to drift when I'd switch on the BFO to hear Sideband and CW. That was a bit disconcerting, because I wasn't sure I had the capability of fixing the drifting. I figured there was a component on the PCB in the sideband decoder that's acting up. At first, cleaning the clarifier control didn't really change it much. Neither did new batteries. But the RF-B45 still worked perfectly otherwise -- for MW, SW broadcast, and FM, so I decided to just live with the issue. I have three other radios with sideband / CW or BFO capability if I want to tune in the ham bands.

 

Tuner Cleaner To The Rescue!

I didn't give up on it, though. I sprayed the contact cleaner down both sides of the knob, hoping more of the cleaner would get to the twin controls (one potentiometer adjusts the frequency, the other potentiometer adjusts the Local Oscillator apparently). I'm not sure if both potentiometers need to be in absolute sync or not, but if either one is oxidised, I can see how it would mess up the BFO tuning.

To be sure some of the DeOxit got into the controls, I sprayed it down both sides of the knob a second time. I could have taken the back off the radio and sprayed it that way, but I really don't like taking radios apart unless it's absolutely necessary.

 

As it was, whenever I used the RF-B45's BFO without touching the control, it was stable as a rock! I could listen to CW and sideband for an hour without any drift. So the issue wasn't in the BFO circuitry, obviously. It had to be in the control somewhere. Lately the control has been acting normal, so maybe the cleaner I sprayed down the sides of the knob finally worked its way into the controls where it was needed. I suppose to keep it working well it probably needs a few more shots of DeOxit. :-) 

 

UPDATE: Later, of course, in the first week of October, I took the back off to make sure I got some DeOxit into the control a lot better -- and the control is very small. 

 

This is my Panasonic RF-B45's clarifier / BFO control up close (circled in yellow), after I took the back of the radio off. As you can see, the actual control is very small, maybe 5-10mm or so in size (I neglected to actually measure it with a ruler). The pic is a bit blurry because of the lighting. You can just fit the nozzle of a can of tuner cleaner in between the PCB and the open side of the control. Spraying some down the side of the thumbwheel (just barely visible below the control, in this pic) will help in a pinch.
 

A pic of my Panasonic RF-B45 with the front off. The buttons are discrete buttons, and the general build quality is excellent, as the RF-B45 was the last Panasonic SW radio portable made in Japan. Later Panasonic radios were made in China.

 

SOMETIMES THE FIXES ARE VERY SIMPLE

One thing I've found recently is that a lot of times the issues you get with radios are quite simple: a bad solder joint on the battery terminal (DX-398); oxidation on a battery terminal (DX-398) or on the batteries themselves (Radio Shack 200629); radio needing a re-set now and then to clear any bugs in the firmware (Sangean PR-D5, PR-D14, and PR-D18); whip antenna needing to be hard wired to the antenna pad on the main PCB because the spring / fork / thing doesn't contact it enough (DX-440, DX-390, Radio Shack 200629); INT/EXT antenna switch needs exercising or a shot of tuner cleaner (DX-440); tuner mechanism needs a shot of cleaner down the side of the shaft so it will again tune in both directions, not just downwards (DX-394); radio needing full battery recharge and a re-set to regain memories and proper operation (Grundig G2); exercising the bandswitch to bring a 'dead' SW band back to life (DX-160); and spraying the tuner capacitors with canned air (Yaesu FRG-7).

I could go on. A lot of the fixes can be due to simple faults that are easily remedied.

So if your radio develops and issue, look for the simple potential issues first. Then consider digging in to troubleshoot, or otherwise getting it repaired.

SPARE BL-5Cs AND A NEW CHARGER

I also got a couple spare BL-5C batteries for my Grundig G2, and a charger. The charger charges a battery in about 4-5 hours. Not bad. Being that I get 1-2 months off a charge, if I have three batteries, the two extra batteries will give me another 4 months between charges.

I always like to talk about emergency radios on the blog here, and if you have a radio that uses rechargeable batteries, spares are probably a must, being that if there is an extended power outage you'll be hard pressed to recharge your batteries. That's why a charger and a few spares will help get you through things like outages, earthquakes, grid failures, and the like.

And, of course, if you're using headphones, you extend battery life as well.

The spare batteries and charger cost me around $25 online, and I also got two more spare batteries for a little less than $10. The expense was worth it, being that my G2's original battery is dated 2012 and seems to be getting a little finicky when the radio hits one bar of battery.

And being that I use my G2 on a daily, or nearly daily basis, the spare batteries will definitely help keep it running. :-)

 

My cat Squeakers, at the vet's office in mid to late September. After the 4th, she started eating more, and she is doing OK now. The vet, a real nice woman named Danielle, was surprised.

It always feels better when your little pal is doing well again.

Last but not least, over the Fourth, my cat wasn't eating as much as I'd like her to. The pet food company changed the formula of the food she liked the best. Why they did is a good question. Maybe they couldn't get certain ingredients anymore. And it's hard to get her to eat the other brands of food. I have five different brands of dry pet food and she only wants to eat one of them, and they changed the formula. She also is picky about her canned food. I'll have to take her back to the vet again anyway, as they wanted to re-check her vitals. 

Until then, I've been trying to get her to eat as much as she can, and I supplement it with kitten formula, which is also good for older and ailing cats. Today, the evening of the 5th, my cat is acting normal again, and wanting to eat.

 

(Later, in mid-September, I took my cat to the vet and she had gained weight. From 6.5 to 8.4 pounds! -- C.C.)

There is something about holidays.... They are fun times, but they are also a time to keep your eye open on your family and pets.

HARD HITTING GLAM WITH AN ES335 AND H&H AMPS

Well, it's time to close. Being that I titled this article with the name of a great rock song by The Sweet (4th Of July) I suppose a video is appropriate. The song is off The Sweet's 1976 opus, Give Us A Wink. The album should have broke them into the US Rock market, but the band was unable to tour enough to support the album, and too few US FM Rock stations wanted to take a chance on a known pop/glam/hard rock band. 

 

Even so, Give Us A Wink is full of hard rocking songs. 4th Of July has some cool soloing on Fender Rhodes piano in the middle of the track, by studio musician Trevor Griffin (who co-wrote their later hit Love Is Like Oxygen). This song was released in Australia as a single, but unfortunately didn't chart.

Here's one of the rockers off the album, a fast paced opus called Keep It In. It highlights Mick Tucker's awesome drumming. Mick Tucker was one of the most underrated rock drummers of the 1970s. And yes, I know, nearly every YouTube comment section refers to this muso or that one as "underrated", and that term gets tiring -- but in this case, the word applies. No one seems to mention Mick Tucker in drumming circles -- but he should be.

And here is The Sweet, circa 1972, when they were still turning out light pop singles (like "Co Co" and "Little Willy"), but the B-sides to the 45 r.p.m. records showed a truer side of the band: Done Me Wrong Alright. Andy Scott turns out a terrific guitar solo on the neck pickup of his red Gibson ES-335 -- played through H&H Amps!:

With that, my online friends, I hope all of my fellow Americans had a safe and sane, and fun Fourth, and my Canadian readers enjoyed Canada Day on July 1st -- their national holiday -- and everyone else is doing well.

I have been experiencing some internet outages recently, so although I'm still working on some new blog articles the ability to write, edit, add photos, etc., has been somewhat limited. The problem appears to be a wiring issue out near the street and the repair company is apparently backlogged. 

I have some new articles in the works nonetheless. :-)

 

 My little cat Fluffy in better days.

 IN OTHER LIFE….

I wrote most of this article on my computer while I was internet-free for more than two weeks. The experience of being internet-free was interesting, to say the least. It was like being forced back into 1991, without the cool grunge and alt rock music on the FM radio. 

 

And hearing some online customer service determining that the problem is in your home wiring, while you’re 99.9% certain that the wiring problem is on THEIR end, in THEIR pedestal -- it's frustrating.

Mount Rainier from the Columbia Tower, looking south from downtown Seattle, April 2023.

On the other hand, being internet free makes you realise very quickly just how important the internet is to day-to-day life. No looking up something on Bing, DuckDuckGo or Google… No double checking news items you hear on the radio… No research on submarines you’ve been reading about in Naval history books… No checking out YouTube music vids. Most of my reading was in paper books, instead of internet articles. And I was unable to communicate with a few overseas friends I have. The cellphone’s OS Update eating up all my cell internet data definitely did not help, as I was counting on that to access the internet to keep track of friends.

I ended up getting a data plan card, which helped. But I still have to watch the data usage.
 

LIVING LIKE IT’S 1991

The experience has been like living back in the 1990’s – minus all the great stuff to hear on Shortwave. 😊 I didn’t use my cell phone much, either, as I don’t really text or call people a lot. Most of my day-to-day communication – unless it’s work-related – is via social media. So I was forced to live life differently, and it was very much like a pre-internet, pre-cellphone existence. I did a lot of work around the house and yard (which was stacking up on me over the past year or so due to my long recuperation from the year-and-a-half with basically no sleep whatsoever when my mother was ill and staying with me 24/7).
 
I’m not certain I’d suggest that everyone try to live like it’s 1991, but it’s not the end of the world. You don’t have instant access to information. So you find other things to do. Along with the housework and yardwork, I did a lot of writing, petted my cat a lot, and played a lot of guitar.
 
The weather here has been moderate and warm. The days get up into the 80’s F. Nights are around 50F. I am not looking forwards to freezing weather in Winter and Autumn, but I am attempting to prepare for it ahead of time.

 

Anyway, I had planned to post this article in late July, but -- as I've previously mentioned here on my blog, the local telco connection developed issues, especially inside their pedestal, where the wiring had issues (one of the twisted pair serving my residence had rusted apart). Hence an article about the 4th of July being posted closer to the 4th of September, and then delayed to the 10th of October. :-) 

Circumstances beyond one's control..... Stuff happens.

Stay safe, people.

Peace.

C.C. July 5th, 2023, August 12th, 2023, September 7th, 2023 and October 10th, 2023.

I finally have finished this, added some necessary pics, and posted it, in October, three months after I started it. Obviously, it took a long time for me to finish this article. I was slammed at work, and kept putting off loading the pics onto my computer. But here it is. I hope to get some more articles posted before the end of October. C.C.

PS, I have no idea why some of the last few paragraphs are scrunched looking, but it is what it is. I tried to fix it more than once, but no-go.... Oh well. :-)