Author: robert

a long time.

Provincher was before my time … all that hardware,  NEL_2018_09_10_17_37_31, was still there for me to excess …

The group had a complaint that I heard for years: Skolnik had said that there was no future in phased array antennas … all of NEL’s work was cut … only to see the AN/SPY-1 to be ‘championed’ by him …

Was great to have 12 years of groundwork to sort through and learn …

I was asked if I ever mentored anyone. Coming from the source I thought it a bit naive seeing how their entire business plan was to make sure that funds wouldn’t be available to and the work could no longer be be done by those of us who were in R&D as GS-0855’s. Without funds, no projects, and no one to mentor.

As part of their approach was to have projects that once were limited to operational requirements to now include fun stuff to spend money on. Some of us always thought operational requirements were that fun stuff.

Imagine being told as Engineers and Scientists working for the Government our purpose was to print money while tweaked failed designs were presented as successes only to be repeated over and over based on a “because we have the money” rationale.

Our experience served an essential purpose, we represented the interests of the Government, and thus the People, when it came to oversite of, on a kind day, those whom we referred to as contractors.

Places like DARPA became a revolving door – because industry experience was the only relevant experience.

Buzz words, jargon, ex-military with ‘Hollywood Upstairs Medical School’ degrees, various cons artists, academic technology pimps, and pseudo science.  Bootleg PowerPoint presentations of your work was presented where black was white and white was purple. If you were giving money to the contractors, high school degrees weren’t even required.

that they wasted their youth building power supplies in order to start coding.

Realizing the importance of good supplies, dove right into power supply circuit design. Radio Shack had a 5V 3A kit based on a LM723 …

Found this little gem still in bubble pack at Metrix Create: Space during a March 2013 visit and returned in May 2014 to buy it.

And last time I was up there was subjected to a car prowl, played pool with daughter at street level bar.  Some woman came in and played pool next to us … complained about life and wasn’t drinking … rental car window smashed while parked in the nearby parking garage … of everything lost, miss a 50 year old mirror … lost phone and parking patrol tried to call 9-1-1 for me, but dispatch said I had to call ….

 

Have these nice Mettler scales but understand little use for them in my environment. After opening them up, saw that there was something that would help in another project.

All those small, front surfaced mirrors.

Read that a very accurate way to measure dew point is by observing the reflection of light off the surface of a mirror while the mirror is being chilled past the dew point.

Couldn’t rent a magnetometer in Tucson.  $500+ to purchase one online.

So I built one out of my standard Arduino Uno brass board.

Two HMC5883L sensors were already on the board.  Seeed I2C shield for multiple I2C sensors.  So I placed the second one at the end of this CPVC pipe in an ABS cap and plug.

builtIT director asked me how I bent the Al support. ‘Wide metal chisel on a vice.’ Scrounged around lab until I thought I had a workable handle.

First trial out I thought I was lucky.

Turned out to be a buried coin cell battery!

Next goal is calibration and a decent user interface.

I would watch him run his metal lathe. Exposed me to metal work.  Inspired me at the age of 11 to what is possible with good tools, a steady hand, and appropriate ‘feeds and speeds’.