Mounting the Battery Holders in the KX-1

Building up my second KX-1 (this one for KG6SPV) I came (again) across the little screws holding the battery holders to the aluminum case back, instantly stripping out, no matter how carefully I tried to put them in. First, I tried longer screws (2-56x3/16")and small-pattern nuts, with some blue threadlocker on the nuts outside the case, but it wasn't really elegant, as befits an Elecraft build. [Photo hpim1441, hpim1442]

Toroid Clip from a Clothespin

I've used this handy little holder for hanging onto a small toroid core, while looping the wire through it.

Essentially, start with an ordinary spring clothespin (about a buck a package at the 99c store, or even most supermarkets). Use a fresh one that hasn't lain out in the yard and started to rot; those fall apart.

I take a little X-Acto mini-miter saw and cut the angle opposite what the stock clothespin uses. I don't want to slip over a shirt on the clothesline, I want to have finger room around the tip of the jaws, with the flat holding the little core. I sand down the sawn edges with sandpaper or an emery board (away from the work area) to remove any splinters.

Now grab your core and put it into the jaws, so the center hole is mostly clear, and start counting turns, pulling each one just snug as you go. Remember, one time through the doughnut hole is one turn.

Gift Card for/from GIs idea-- (part of the truth and reconciliation)

Image: Windshield view of a busy Baghdad street (or any of several exotic spots).

Willy: D'ja see the eyes on that little kid as we bounced over his parents? Thought I'd s*** myself!

Joe: Yeah! We shoulda gone back and got the little f***er. Another five, six years, he'll be wirin'-up bombs!

[In response to a post 10-12-09 at Scam.com, in Political Chat, on Health Insurance]

Other countries; thanks, Spector567, for the NationMaster links. We need to start with facts, as good and to as many decimal places as we can get them. (Reminds me of the Heinlein quote.)

I'm told PBS' Frontline recently did a special called IIRC "Sick Around The World" [http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/sickaroundtheworld/countries/models.html], noting that among others, Taiwan has a 'Medicare-for-All' system that sounds like a good model.

It's abundantly clear that the profit motive is a lousy way to take care of our health. When HMOs first arose, there was hope that costs would be reduced by preventive care; screenings, early treatment, nutrition counseling and education and so on. Didn't happen. Denial and cancellation was much easier to do, insulated from the rage of the sick customer's survivors.

As far as immigrants, I would much rather they were all (yes, like the GB-NHS, _every_ resident) treated out of our overall tax-supported system (in a _huge_ group, spreading the costs) than not treated at all, or waiting for a crisis at the ER, where the cost is the most, and likely finding that some disease epidemic has spread because of that lack of early treatment. This is called 'enlightened self-interest'. BTW, that immigrant is paying into the tax system also, even if not into his own account (perhaps with someone else's SS#), and certainly with the most regressive of taxes, sales taxes.

Invective ("liars, filth, vermin") and obscenity (well, you know which ones) that Power-One likes to use are not the path to a reasoned discussion toward problem-solving, just the usual bully tactics the Faux Noise crowd uses to shout down a conversation. Not interested, Bully-Bait.

Medicare Now

What part of 30% vs. 5% do some of you not understand?

That’s the difference in insurance vs. Medicare overhead, the 25% part that results in denied care and dropped policies, disastrous bankrupcies when there’s a medical emergency.

And all for a US system that WHO rates number 37 in the world.

Solution: Medicare eligibility age drops a year every year, and the cap is raised to cover it. Or just drop it to zero now, and get it over with. Pull the band-aid off all at once.

"Learning" from History

"Those who cannot learn from history are doomed to repeat it." –George Santayana

Those who never learned anything of the history get to repeat it flat-footed.

Someday the classified reports from the ’80s will be available, about how we (the US CIA and our ‘off-the-shelf enterprises’) created the Mujahadeen (sp?) by emptying MidEast jails, to play against the Russians.

But then, I also like “That men do not learn very much from the lessons of history is the most important of all the lessons of history.” –Aldous Huxley

A commenter at John Sherffius' editorial 'toon (Greetings from Los Angeles, postcard on fire) at GoComics.com, noted "Doesn't this place [LA] burn every year?"

My reply:

Usually small areas, and not all at once. Fire Season is here whenever it’s hot, dry, and there’s been a lot of fuel grown. Recently, climate change is bringing Mexico’s hurricanes to help (but not quite in time this week.)

Some of these canyons have been quietly growing for several years, and they are so steep, there’s no way for a ground crew of intrepid firefighters to get in there. Unless there’s homes or human artifacts like the Mt. Wilson observatory and broadcast complex in the path, letting them burn out is the way now.

For most of the past century, there had been vigorous suppression of any burn, until the big Yosemite fire showed that it was often nigh impossible to do anything. When whites first came to that spectacular country, you could “ride at a gallop through the forest and not knock your hat off”, because annually, undergrowth was burned off by lightning in smoky smoldering burns, and then quenched by associated rains. Since that big burn, prescribed burns are posted (at least in the Valley) during safer parts of the year, to avoid such a buildup of fuel.

Here in Altadena, we’ve watched night after night as the burn front creeps and leaps across our lovely foothills, and our friends and neighbors a few blocks uphill have (in some cases against all sense) ignored or obeyed evacuation orders.

The moonrise the past few nights, and sunrise, have been quite orange, and the days tinged orange, a strong smell of smoke and ash deposits on everything.

Now if we can just get the Forest Service to get together some native seeds for re-seeding these areas, instead of the fast-growing imports (read fuel) they have been using to avoid erosion and mudslides once the rains come… It helps, but keeps the cycle going; Sigh (cough, cough).