Amateur radio Field Day

Some of you may have heard of Amateur radio (HAM radio) but never heard of field day. Maybe you're like me and have been into HAM radio and just heard about field day. Either way you should check it out. It may be too late to get to field day this year, but you can always go to the next one and you don't even need a license to participate!

 First, I should tell you a little about field day. Field day is an ARRL (American Radio Relay League) sponsored event when ARRL clubs around the nation set up their emergency equipment and test it out by making contacts with other clubs. All stations are divided into different regions and classes based on the equipment they are using and the types of contacts they make. Many of these emergency bases run anything from generators and batteries to solar and wind. In addition to the many different types of power supplies there are contacts made on all radio bands using different modes of communication from CW (Morse Code) to Phone on FM (Voice).

Here in Enid Oklahoma, the local club had generators and batteries. We had a solar panel but no-one really knew how much energy it put out and how much energy the radios required. Just by looking at it I would guess that about the only good it would have been this year would be charging some batteries on the hand held radios (HT's). Before Field day I had never used an HF (High Frequency) radio. Most of the time I had worked on VHF (Very High Frequency) and UHF (Ultra High Frequency). If you have ever used the radios that you can get from Walmart or Radio Shack you most likely used VHF. The only problem with VHF is that it doesn't reflect of the ionosphere so it can only be used for line of sight operations. On the other hand HF frequencies will bounce in the ionosphere and you can talk over great distances. The trade off is clarity.

HF is probably the coolest type of radio communication out there if you like to do more than punch in numbers and talk. It requires that you listen and tinker. You will play with the frequency, squelch and shift knobs, among others, to find someone talking on the radio and make contact. The Field Day was the first time that I was able to try this out and I can tell you that I am hooked! I like to tinker and I like a little bit of a challenge. With this I get to play with electronics, tinker and develop a skill that can be useful in emergencies. Plus, I don't know about you but, I think it is cool that I was able to contact someone in California without having to use a network of wires that some company built for phones. These capabilities also have great potential for service, which is another huge draw for me.

I love the opportunities to help out with events and emergencies. I have been able to help in large parades and have talked to people who have helped with everything from marathons and rodeos to search and rescue operations. Field Day is an opportunity for me to see a little more of the emergency side and what it would take to help in an emergency. I would encourage anyone who is a little curious about HAM radio to attend an event and talk to the HAMs.

HAM radio.... and oldie but a goodie!

I originally started this blog with the intent of writing a little about my adventures into the new hobbies of shaving with a straight razor and making soap. I am still doing those hobbies but the going is slow. I have yet to even remotely get the honing of an old blade down, I am finding it more of an art than simples steps, and I haven't made a lot of soap. Both hobbies can take a lot of time. So, recently I have looked back into an old hobby, amateur radio; frequently referred to as HAM radio.

It was almost 10 years ago that I got into HAM radio, and it was actually a friend who got me into it. I don't have permission from my friend to use his name, I just haven't asked, but I am sure he won't mind me using his callsign. KE7BFU, my friend who I will just call BFU, was drawn to HAM radio by W7SAR in his neighborhood and wanted to take the Technician test but didn't want to take it alone. He decided to talk to me and get me to study for it with him. So, we checked out some self study books from the county library and started reading. Shortly after getting our license, sometimes referred to as our "ticket", SAR gave us each a radio, ICOM IC-02AT's. I talked with BFU and even helped in some major parades in our area, but by the second year of helping in the parade my radio's tone for accessing repeaters didn't want to work. I had to borrow a radio for the parade and we were supposed to take a look at the radio. Unfortunately we never did get to look at the radio.Years went by and I never really did get to use the radio again, and basically I didn't participate as a HAM.

After 9 years of having my HAM radio license I tried to turn the radio on and just see if I could listen to some channels. By this time I had moved a few times after getting married, graduating college and becoming an officer in the military. Unfortunately now even the screen didn't work. About the only tool I have for diagnosing electronics is a digital multimeter. I had basically given into the fact that I couldn't use that radio and I had no idea how much a new one would cost but I knew it would be expensive, or so I thought. I got onto Amazon and looked for radios. To my great surprise I found an HT (Hand-held Transmitter) that was only about $40. At first I was very skeptical, but after doing some research I decided that I would like to give it a try. I didn't really have the money at first so I just checked out a book from the library and brushed up on some info that I had almost forgotten.

Shortly after getting the book for Technicians "Now You're Talking", which was from the 1990's, I decided to study for my General license and get a book that was more up to date. I again turned to Amazon and found a used book for $10 with shipping. Less than a month later I have the Baofeng UV-R5 radio and tested for my General license and passed. This was certainly a big leap back into HAM radio, but it's totally worth it!

I have started doing research into the digital modes, and I can say that it is totally confusing. In particular I have been looking into APRS and even the "beginners" guides, that say they don't assume you know anything, seem overly confusing. I am not exactly technically illiterate, I built musical christmas lights that respond to live music, but I still felt like HUGE chunks of information was missing from some of these guides. Thankfully there is a guy here in the local radio club, KC5SII, that does APRS and is willing to teach me a few things. I think that I could piece it together in the long run but why reinvent the wheel when you don't have to? Eventually I think that I will do some posts on HAM radio, but no promises. Hopefully this will be something that I will take the time to blog about.

HARD Shaving soap.... Good or bad?

Recently I made a batch of soap in an attempt to make some soap that I can use with my straight razor. The previous batch I had made was REALLY soft and wasn't going to work so I decided to try and make a nice hard soap. It turns out that the lather made this recipe isn't very stable so I will have to make a new batch and try a different mixture. However, I also discovered that hard soap may not be the best, but I will point out a few pro's and con's that I discovered and it may help you make a decision.

Pro's. One of the biggest benefits of the hard soap is that it lasts a long time. This soap doesn't crumble or fall apart and even stays together pretty well when it gets wet. Because it holds up well when it's wet it doesn't clump into your shaving brush like a soft soap might. Sadly, this is about the only pro's I could find to simply a hard soap. At first I honestly thought this would be a big bonus so I wouldn't have to make a lot of it.

Con's. The biggest benefit might also be its biggest downfall. Because it is so hard it is difficult to lather. It is hard to dissolve enough soap to get it to lather and so it takes a long time. That wouldn't be so bad if the lather was good, but it just might be what makes it unable to produce a good lather. Also, being so hard also makes it hard to even use as a hand soap and can even be kind of painful.

So, there you have it. It is really short but I hope it helps. When you are making a soap keep in mind that a hard soap might last a while and hold up well when wet, which is good, but it may be impractical in the end. The one benefit is that I might be able to mix in more potassium hydroxide, typically used in liquid soap, and get a better lather without making mushy soap.

Potassium Hydroxide VS. Sodium Hydroxide in soap making

If you're fairly new to soap making, like me, you might be wondering if you could interchange potassium and sodium hydroxide. The answer is depends. It depends on what you are looking for in your soap and if you are prepared to deal with outcome.

First you need to know a little about soap making history to help you in your decision making processes. Back when soap making started there were probably as many opinions about how it should be made as there were families. One of the most common was to make soap was with ashes from a fire that were boiled. Boiling the ashes of a fire, particularly hardwood, would produce pot ash or potassium hydroxide. The potassium hydroxide was the active ingredient that would help saponify the oils and fats (saponify, or saponification, is a more recent term meaning to turn into soap.). A lot of these older recipes used different techniques to tell when you had reached saponification, but there was no numerical standard.

More recently scientist have continued to do what they do best, experiment, and have produced saponification tables for different oils and fats. These tables show how much lye, or sodium hydroxide, is needed to saponify the specified oils and fats. Some tables are in grams and some in ounces. To make this process even easier, so you don't have to do it by hand, some websites provide a "lye calculator" that adds up the amount of lye you need to saponify the oils you choose. It is truly much more simple today than it was in the days of the pioneers. Still, there are some questions that aren't easily answered.

 If you are like me and have some background in chemistry, but not in soap, you might think that this process is similar to polymerization and that the only part that really matters is the hydroxide. The truth is that saponification is dependent on the hydroxide but also acts as a salt. Therefore, you will get different results depending on which hydroxide you use. Typically you will get a harder soap from sodium hydroxide than from potassium hydroxide. Older recipes that used pot ash would typically have you add salt, sodium chloride, to harden the soap. One other difference is that you tend to get more lather from the potassium hydroxide than the sodium hydroxide.

I want to make a shaving soap and do it all myself. I have read several different articles and a lot of them seem to mention that there is potassium in shaving soap because it helps give a better lather, but none of them seem to mention the softer soap. I tried using just olive oil and used 100% sodium hydroxide, 50% sodium hydroxide 50% potassium hydroxide, and 100% potassium hydroxide in three different batches. The first batch was a little soft but hardened up after some time curing, while the second batch was like mush and the third just stayed a liquid. It turns out that olive oil produces a soft low lather soap anyway, which made it less than ideal for my test, so it was hard to get it to lather. However, even with the low amount of lather I noticed that the 50/50 mixture produced a better lather than the 100% sodium hydroxide.

So if you want a bar of soap you should probably stick to sodium hydroxide, but if you want a liquid soap us potassium hydroxide. However, if you are looking for lathering characteristics look first at the properties of the oils, because that will make your biggest difference, and then pick your hydroxide. I personally will be experimenting more with a blend of the two and trying different oils to produce the best lather for shaving. I hoped this helps.

Raw and unrefined..... Shea butter that is.

Have you noticed that the world is going "natural", "unrefined" and "organic"? Chances are you have come across at least a few of these products. My first major exposure to these crazes was in the produce section. I once worked as a "produce boy" and had to be able to explain the products to customers. Thankfully most people that were looking for organic food knew enough that the only questions I got was where to find it. I knew enough to know that it is a rip-off!
For those of you that have only been exposed to the mainstream fads surrounding "natural", "unrefined" and "organic" products you probably think that they are somehow "better" or are for those that are concerned with nature. If this is your idea of these products I would encourage you to do some digging, because that is not always the case. I was skeptical myself when I first came across raw Shea butter so I did some digging. I was convinced enough to buy some to try.
If you search "benefits of raw shea butter" you will get a lot of pages. I have read about Shea butter evening skin tone, reducing redness from sun burn, absorbing in skin quickly, accelerating healing of cuts, moisturizing the scalp and eliminating dandruff, anti-inflammatory properties and the lists goes on and on. While I don't know if all of these claims are true from personal experience I do know that Shea butter is popular among lotions and creams and can be spendy! If you are a girl you are probably familiar with this, or if you are around girls a lot. One claim that I could relate to was that refinement of Shea butter got rid of many of its useful qualities.
Having done organic chemistry I know that natural compounds are often very complex, take a long time to make and don't take much to destroy. Generally there are two levels of refinement. The first involves melting the Shea butter and filtering it through clay. This will remove most of the natural yellow color, which varies in every batch, making it more white and also removes much of the smell. That right there tells me there is a possibility some of the benefits are gone. The organic compounds that give the raw butter its color and smell probably provide some of its benefits as well. Further refining can be done to totally remove the smell and make the Shea butter white and odorless. This is done by filtering it with hexane, which is an organic solvent, and further removes organic compounds.
So I decided try the raw Shea butter for myself. The smell of it cannot be described adequately with words; you just have to smell it for yourself. My personal experience with it reminds me of vegetable oil and some kind of nut, perhaps peanuts, it is an earthy smell. So far I have used it on my skin by itself, and a little goes a LONG ways, and I have made a whipped body butter with it. I personally like it and look forward to what I can create with it. I would say that it is a good product worth trying if your getting into making your own personal care products.

It's just that simple.... NOT!

Have you ever looked at a tutorial online or at something homemade that looked pretty simple until you tried it? Well, that's how I feel about some of my recent exploits with shaving.

I have been exploring some different ideas with shaving supplies, like aftershave, and it seemed like it might not be too hard. Well, it's not quite as easy as I had thought and I think that the problem is in my approach rather than the materials.

For the first go round I tried a recipe from the internet and added a few essential oils that I had researched. I knew that chances were it wouldn't suspend very well and I would have to continue experimenting. Next I tested it on my face and it didn't seem too bad, so it was on to figuring out how to make it stay mixed.

I did a little research and found that beeswax, along with some borax, can be used as an emulsifier. The problem was that the few things I found about it didn't explain very well that this was to suspend small amounts of water in oil and mine was a water base. I should have researched that more! After that I decided I would have to buy an emulsifier.

After some more in depth research I decided to buy some polysorbate-80, which seemed simple enough to use. The day it arrived I was super excited and just tossed all of the stuff together that I used in the previous aftershave mix and dumped some polysorbate-80 in it to see if it worked. It kind of worked, but I wasn't very careful about it and probably wasted the stuff I used to make the second batch.

So, I finally decided to get a little more scientific with it. I mixed the same things together, but this time I divided them into groups. All of the water soluble things that make up the majority of the aftershave I mixed as a base. Then I mixed all of the oils together and poured an equal amount of polysorbate into it, like much of my research suggested. Then after mixing each batch well I placed some of the base in a second container and slowly added the oil mixture to it. This is a better way.

While I am not finished making my aftershave, maybe now that I have the basics down, it might really be just that easy. Just remember that even though it might not be something you can throw together it can be fun!

Polysorbate Debate

Have you ever looked at the ingredients of a product and wondered what all of the things were? Well today you will get to know a little more about one of those ingredients, polysorbate-20, 40, 60 or 80.

In my quest to make an aftershave I had to find an emulsifier to use. For those of you that don't know what an emulsifier is, simply put it is a compound that allows for oil and water to mix, somewhat. If you look at soap making websites you will find all sorts of different emulsifiers to use in your products.

I wanted to find an emulsifier that I could make at home or already had around. I had some beeswax and had seen beeswax as an emulsifier, but it also needed Borax. So I tried that and it didn't work so well. What I was missing was the fact that this was normally used with an oil base and mine was water based. So I had to look at other options that I would have to buy.

I noticed that a lot of the products that I use everyday have some sort of polysorbate in them and polysorbate was also on a lot of websites for soap making. So I decided to do a little investigating.

First was to figure out which one of the polysorbates that I needed to use. As I looked around it seemed that the more complex the oils the larger the number you wanted. For example, olive oil would probably require polysorbate-80 where some lighter essential oils would only need polysorbate-20. I had already tried the beeswax, which would be more complex, and I had added olive oil. So I decided to use polysorbate-80.

As I did my research I came across a forum where someone had posted a concern about polysorbates and the byproducts of their production. Further comments showed that the concern had come from a book that was at least 17 years old, but I decided to investigate a little more. As I looked I found a study performed by the Japanese government.

http://www.fsc.go.jp/english/evaluationreports/foodadditive/polysorbate_report.pdf

Doing some reading I also found that a lot of food products even use different polysorbates. The fact that the document showed no health hazards in food, aside from the small amount of people that might be a little sensitive to it, was enough to convince me that it would be okay on the skin. Now I just have to wait and figure out what works best in my aftershave.

Sewing... It's a GIRL thing... or is it?

Most guys don't sew. Ever!

If you have ever heard of the "Man Card" you probably know why. Most guys just don't want to be called a sissy or gay, which has reached a new level of sensitivity in recent years. But there are many things that could be useful that have to be sewn or purchased. 

Aside from the stabs at ones manhood, cost could be a problem. Few people want to sew things with just a thread and needle, or even know how. So if you don't want to sew by hand you need a sewing machine and those get expensive! So, guys usually end up buying what they need or going without.

Fortunately for me my wife likes sewing and we have had the opportunity to get her a few nice machines. This has given me the opportunity to sew a few things, although my wife is better at it and still does most of the sewing.

Recently I made a little bag from an old shirt and paracord to hold some cedar shavings. It was easy to do and was an inexpensive way to fix a simple problem, musty smelling cabinets. The cabinets where we store our towels don't smell really bad but don't smell great either. So I decided to take some cedar chips left from another project and put them in a cloth pouch to make it smell better. Within half an hour I had a completely free way to make my cabinets and towels smell better. 

To all the guys out there afraid to sew, give it a try! My manhood isn't harmed and who knows what else guys can come up with that only a guy could love! 

Shaving.... It's serious!

If you haven't ever given much thought to shaving you should!

Most people don't know that there is a lot more to taking care of your face than washing and shaving. Washing your face makes sense to most people and they will discover what works best for their skin. Some people just shower and call it good. Others have to use certain products for their skin to not freak out, but most guys don't know that shaving makes a huge difference.

The majority of the shaving products that the common beginning shaver is exposed to is the disposable razor or electric razor. Both products pull the hair as it cuts and tend to irritate the skin. Manufacturers even recognize this and advertise that their product is smoother than their competitor's product and the best out there. Some electric shavers even advertise the pulling action as an advantage saying that it provides a closer shave. I have tried both options and was left wanting. Honestly I dreaded shaving!

My wife and I were at bath and body works for their after season sale looking at the soaps and candles when I looked at the more men oriented section. While looking I found a menthol smelling lotion and I liked the smell and wanted to see if their shaving cream was similar. The shaving cream wasn't menthol scented but seemed like it might smell good. I thought I would give it a try because I wasn't the biggest fan of the mass produced canned creams, gels and foams that I had tried. This opened my eyes to a whole new world!

I had to figure out how to use this new shaving cream and stumbled upon the world of straight razors and straight razor shaving. Now I actually enjoy shaving and I take my time instead of rushing through it. I am just starting to get into the world of straight shaving and have much to learn.

Currently I am using a Dovo Shavette Straight Razor with the disposable replacement blades. While this option has some ongoing expenses it is a relatively inexpensive way to get into straight shaving and see if I like it. I know that there are some avid shavers out there that would say it's not the same thing, and I am sure they are right, but it works for me. Besides, if I use two blades a week I still have enough blades to last almost two years and they cost me less than 10$. Four blades for my other razor, which might last 3-4 months at best, cost about 20-25$. Can you say RIP OFF! Not only did they cost more but they also irritated my skin more.

So for the cost of maybe 6-8 replacement blades I bought a new razor and blades that will last me as long as 24 blades would with my old expensive razor would. This means that for a quarter of the cost I get a better shave and supplies that will last longer. This has also lead me to look into making some shaving products myself, like aftershave, but that's another post.

Self Exploration

All of my life I have loved to tinker!

When I was 14-15 I used money I made painting houses with my uncles to build my own computer. I spent a few years tinkering with that until I left on an LDS mission. While on my mission I got the opportunity to learn to take my bike apart and maintaining it.

After I got home I soon bought a car and was able to learn more about how to take care of it. I had always wanted to learn more about them but in high school I drove a vehicle that was technically my parents. The most I did with it was replace the timing belt and tensioner that broke while I had it. Some people might think that is quite the undertaking but I wanted to learn more. However, before I got to work much on the car it was totaled when I was rear-ended sitting at a red light. Honestly it turned out to be a blessing but I haven't stopped tinkering with my car, my wife can attest to that.

While doing Air Force ROTC, college, and a 30-40 hour a week job I was getting burnt out and needed a hobby that I could use to unwind. I decided to get into leather working. That was interesting but short lived because it can get expensive really fast! I think that this is a hobby that I may come back to one day.

A new hobby came along due to changes at work. I was working at a call center and had just returned from a 6 week study abroad in China and I was not liking being on the phones so I applied for a job in the quality department. I had always done fairly well in my quality scores and so I got the job. As I learned the new job my mind naturally looked at things I could do to help and improve whatever I was doing. This gave me a creative outlet. Soon I was working more and more with Excel and analytics. I wound up in a position that would unknowingly set me up to keep on learning. I got to be the sole person creating reports and data collection systems to help pass on quality information to managers. This was part of the companies growing phases that would wind up making my position obsolete as the company grew and changed.

I was so interwoven into the system that in order to make the transition management needed to learn what functions I had been performing and assess what they wanted to keep and what to get rid of. During this process much of my daily tasks were halted, can you say boring! I began to look for ways that I could help in the company and got to meet some of the coolest people I have had the opportunity to know, work force management. The small team that was work force management was a tight knit team of smart people that had a lot to learn from.

I got to meet them a little and interacted with them more and more as I learned Access and helped out with tasks they were doing. Soon I was making tools to link different departments  using Access and learning VBA and Visual Basic. Which sparked my most recent interest, electronics.

I have had the opportunity to take apart some old electronics and tinker with different things  to make random projects. The most interesting has probably been my musical Christmas lights. I even did an Instructable on it.

My wife has been doing a bit of blogging for a while and it has got me interested in html, CSS, and javascript. So I decided that I would start a blog. The name of my blog is based upon some ideas thrown around for an aftershave that I have decided to make for myself, which I might sell. I have decided to use this site for my family mostly at first, but with the option to expand.