A Weekend in the MUD

I'm back from Philly with Sam and Dave after an excellent “Microwave Update” (MUD) conference. We flew from Gatwick to Philly on the Thursday, arriving at 4pm US time, and picked up our hire car – appropriately, but not very green, a Jeep. After a missed turn and despite the GPS, Sam got us to the hotel and we settled in and registered for the conference.

Hospitality was excellent, with sponsored drinks and snacks from Down East Microwave. We were presented with our conference proceedings and a goody bag including CDs of Microwave design software, strips of MMIC amplifiers and (bizarrely) a sponsored back scratcher!

After a fitful jet-lagged night, the first day dawned and we were treated to a series of excellent speakers. Steve N2CEI from Down East Microwave took us on an amusing tour of the available high power surplus 13cm PAs becoming available nowadays, entertaining us with scary stories of almost flattening both his 60 Amp power supplies with a particular beast capable of half a kilowatt! The European “end” was kept up by Dave G4HUP’s versatile synthesiser design and Grant G8UBN who produced the highlight of the day during his talk on microwave SDR by explaining the difference between TCP/IP and UDP/IP by running up and down the stage pretending to be a data packet! I just hope someone captured this on video, as it was the stuff of future Amateur Radio club annual dinners!

Breaks throughout the day enabled us to partake of coffee and buns, cruise round the flea market, and drool over the array of Rohde and Schwarz test equipment that was available for anyone to use and test their kit. The afternoon break had an auction to support the organisers and the day really flew as we were entertained, educated, and slowly gathered more “microwave ballast” to fill our half empty suitcases!

One speaker told us that when explaining his passion for radio to his wife as “eccentric” got the ultimate put-down from her,

“You’re not eccentric, you’re just weird!”

Probably sums up a lot of us….

In the evening there was more free beer and another flea market, this time consisting of parts and equipment brought in by the conference delegates.

Day two was more of the same with topics ranging from the bands above 300GHz to “Rover operation” and the legendary Al Ward W5LUA talking about preamplifiers. Al has spent most of his professional life in the field, so no–one is more qualified to talk on this subject than him.

The conference closed with an evening banquet. The keynote speech was given by Nobel prize-winning Physicist Joe Taylor K1JT, of WSJT fame. Joe told us about his early life and his ground-breaking research at the giant Areceibo radio telescope in Puerto Rico, where apparently, when it is pointing at the moon, you can stand in the dish feed room at the focus with a 70cm handie radio and hear your own reflections!

Hand portable moonbounce, the next big challenge for amateurs?

Joe’s fascinating talk culminated in him handing round his Nobel medal to the auditorium for everyone to “touch and feel”

The final part of the evening was the raffle and in the tradition of MUD, everyone got a prize and went home happy with an invite to Minneapolis for next year’s event.

The conference over, on Sunday we spent a relaxing morning looking round Valley Forge Park, where, over the harsh winter of 1777 to 1778, George Washington moulded the Continental Army of the newly formed United States of America into a viable fighting force. No battle was fought here, but the army struggled against the elements and low morale to eventually be ready to overcome the British.

"Naked and starving as they are, we cannot enough admire the incomparable patience and fidelity of the soldiery." - George Washington at Valley Forge, February 16, 1778.

Lunch in a sidewalk café in downtown Philadelphia and a look at the famous Liberty Bell finished off a most enjoyable long weekend.

Thanks to the organisers the Packrats, to Sam for convincing me to spend the money to travel, and to Sam, Shirley and Dave for being such good travelling companions.

Icons and Punks, two days in Tampere.

From September 2000

To judge by the purple haired spotty youths lounging by the river and urinating under the trees there's obviously not much to do in Tampere on a Saturday evening. I mean, once you've done the Chain and Handcuffs exhibition, "The most extensive of its sort in Europe", The Coffee Cup Museum "more than 1200 cups made by the Arabia company", you just have to relieve yourself and save the "Finnish Refrigeration Museum” for the last day.

A check of the Tampere guidebook will tell you that none of the above is a flight of literary or humorous fantasy. These are some of the suggested activities from the guidebook. The refrigeration museum boasts "an extensive collection of refrigeration machinery" and a cafe and guided tours. I'll resist the temptation to say that its a cool experience (OK so I couldn't) but if your idea of fun is finding out how the Carnot cycle contributed to the culture of a country who's average winter temperature is well below zero, its for you.

This small Finnish city with such fascinating distractions is about 200 km North of Helsinki. It is dominated by a beautiful Finnish Orthodox Church, a mini St Basil’s, with domes and spires that look as if they should overlook Red Square. It dominates the town, standing, as it does, on a low hill overlooking the centre. Inside, the green and gold - robed priest was uttering the incantations and genuflecting, while the choir sang in beautiful Orthodox style. Down the left hand side stand the women, a mix of the modern and ancient, some in casuals and Nikes, and others in head scarves, praying intently like something out of a novel by Pasternak.

I confess to little or no knowledge of the Finns and their culture, my only contact being via a very unrepresentative and well travelled salesman, and the music of Sibelius. Jouni, the salesman was loud brash and humorous. He took great pleasure in greeting you with an enthusiastic "MOI!" and shaking you firmly by the hand. Moi by the way means "Hi" in his native (and by the way completely incomprehensible) tongue and was always carefully mispronounced to amuse other Scandinavians especially the Danes, to whom it means "Shit". I am reliably informed that Finnish shares absolutely no connection with any other World language apart from five words in common with Hungarian.

I digress, the separation of the genders in Tampere cathedral, women to the left and men to the right came as a bit of a surprise. I'm not sure its compulsory like in the Synagogue, as no one gave me a second look when I gravitated to the wrong side, but clearly that segregation said something about how ancient this religion is. The Finnish Orthodox Church lacks the heavy incense and beards of their Greek and Russian cousins. They are more akin to the Roman school, but the choral work has the same spine-tingling Eastern feel with the deep profound, almost inhuman, bass lines that are heard in St Petersburg or Thessaloniki.

The Mass seemed over-long, each section embellished and extended, as if to prepare the congregation for the experience to come. I watched a tiny child, a miniature version of her mother, in a red dress and the same head scarf being taken round, candle snuffer in hand, carefully extinguishing candles, while the calming music washed over the whole event like fog on a Baltic morning. My mind wandered from the mass as I thought what she must have made of all this, a child raised in a country with the largest penetration of mobile phones in the world, a country of early adopters of technology, and home to Nokia, the former pulp mill that now leads the high-tech, wireless connected world. What did she think to this quiet almost mediaeval ritual of bell, book and candle? Were these same people, at Mass on this Sunday morning, during the week pushing the frontiers of Information Technology, and if so how do they reconcile the two? Was I just seeing before the altar, those who preferred not to know the how, but just used the technology to talk, meet and carry out their Christian witness? Or were these the members of the "Information poor", those members of the emerging "underclass" to whom its just too much, and have opted for a simpler life where the faith that Jesus died for them is all the information they need.

My mind snapped back to the Mass, as the congregation rose again for the highlight, and moved forward, this time without segregation, to take the communion. Being a Protestant (can you be a lapsed Protestant?) I stayed back and watched, wondering if these people really believed in the literal transubstantiation or whether they crossed their fingers surreptitiously and went for the symbolic way out we Protestants (lapsed and otherwise) practice.

I felt strangely spiritually uplifted when I finally left the Mass, maybe it was God, or maybe it was just the fact that I passed an hour in beautiful peaceful surroundings and had spent it thinking about something other than work. I wonder if I'd chosen the Refrigeration Museum or Chain and Handcuffs exhibition that I would have been similarly uplifted? I very much doubt it.

Oh the Power and the Glory!

Just when you're getting the taste for it, they're bringing out the hammers and the boards and the nails.... (Joni Mitchell)

I listened to these song lyrics for what must have been the thousandth time and got to thinking about arrogance and power.

General Pinochet, the Marcoses, Mussolini and countless others all stand as 20th century testament to the transience of arrogance. Fame and Glory are short -lived in the big scheme of things, passing in a short lifetime, while the rocks and the trees go on. Some of us leave a lasting legacy like poetry or music or just memories of themselves; timeless and destined to give pleasure to generations to come, while others, often the most successfully arrogant ones, warrant little more than a footnote to the century.

Remember this, even those that appealed to the ultimate baseness of human nature, greed and bigotry lasted barely a decade, leaving in their wake the 6 million striped-shirted, hollow-eyed, lost souls.

Going to Phily with Sam and Dave

Only three days to go to "Microwave Update 2007" in Philadelphia, and yes I AM going with Sam and Dave, but not the ones you might imagine from the Stax label in the '70s. This is no convention for lazy chefs, nor kitchen appliance salesmen, but my first experience of a North American Amateur Radio convention and a first trip to Philly. My Aussie mate described it today as "three days with a bunch of guys with big antennas"....rather unfair, but from a man who refers to Americans as "Seppoes" (Septic tanks, Yanks, geddit?) hardly surprising.

Not my first trip to the USA, having been there 3 times this year already on business, but my first as a tourist since 1990. Hopefully it will not confirm my worst fears about American culture ("Land of snap decisions, Land of short attention spans") and I will be pleasantly surprised. I was not encouraged when I read the reviews of the hotel, but it really can't be as bad as some reviewers wrote can it? The US is supposed to be the homeland of customer service so if it is bad, I intend to act very non-British and actually complain, in the hope that I might get something done about it!

Readers of this and the last blog entry might now be getting some hint as to the blog's strange title. I never intend to actually cook any of my my three moggies, but I suppose I should introduce them. Maxwell the blind ginger tom you have already met, overfed and undersighted, the "grumpy old man" of the cat world. Faraday is a black lap-cat, and Florence (his sister) comes home every now and again when we can extract her from the local sailing club which she seems to prefer to our house. Florence is basically a psycopath. She is the "loveable little black cat" to the children at the sailing club, but actually survives by raiding rabbit warrens in a blood lust.

I fear she might get her come-uppance she stays away throughout the winter.

Like a Virgin, hey! - blogs for the very first time!

I suppose in the early part of the 21st Century, such a tech guru like me should have had a Blog since when Maxwell was a boy. Well I didn't, Maxwell is a very old and blind ginger tomcat now, and this is my first time, so be gentle with me. Putting ideas and thoughts down on the web seems all too public, but if I'm going to be famous, I guess it's time to start. My week has been a mixture of highs and lows, prototyping an electronic application that no one's ever done before has got to be a high. (I'm sorry I'd have to kill you if I told you what it was, but it did involve wireless, like most of my life does.) The low consisted zapping a piece of expensive electronics and adding to my list of test equipment repairs that I've not got round to.

As a sample of what's to come, and creative in a totally non-wireless related way, here's a little taster of my creative ramblings from my time in Canada.

"Mountains come out of the sky and they stand there"
I don't know if Jon Anderson of the '70s rock band "Yes" had visited BC when he wrote the above words 30 years ago for the song "Roundabout". But they seemed particularly appropriate on a sunny Sunday in April 2000. I nearly drove off the road, the "sea to sky highway" when Blackcomb mountain loomed out of the mid morning sky. It hovered above the clouds with no visible means of support like one of Roger Dean's fantasy floating islands in the sky from the 1970's Yes album covers. I'd just revisited Porteau cove on Howe sound on the Pacific North West Coast of British Columbia, and was heading North for the ski resort of Whistler.
Nothing really prepared me for the grandeur of the mountain; me used to the wide open skies of East Anglia, or the rolling hills and dales of my native Yorkshire. In fact the mountain was my second buzz of the day having just watched an eagle soaring over Porteau cove, again not a sight I was accustomed to.
Squamish is a small town along the "sea to sky". It's dominated by a huge rock, The Squamish Chief, the size of a respectable Cumbrian Fell, and the distant Blackcomb Mountain. This Sunday it was quiet, and late- season skiers, looking cool and fit frequented the Starbucks, if slightly grubby as they discussed snowmobiles, ski techniques and climbing. This peculiarly 80s/90s phenomenon of well-educated 30-somethings with disposable incomes and no kids, seem attracted to the ski life. Not the European, wealthy ski life of the 50's and 60's, these guys (and girls) are more hard- edged thrill- seekers than poseurs wanting to be seen with royalty and wearing the right gear for the ski season. They're sporty, adrenaline junkies looking to find thrills to replace the spiritual and make their secular lives worth living. By day, they work in the high - tech salt mines of Vancouver and Seattle. Web -aware Software Engineers and Marketing Executives, the engine-room of the Internet Economy. Hunched over their computers and lattes mid week, at the weekend they hit the slopes to party all day.
Whistler Resort is ski, ski and ski. Modern Hotels jostle for real estate with huge "housing estates" of ski chalets. No peace or quiet or time for reflection upon the beauty of nature here, only on the runs do you find the solace. There you can escape from rock music, bars and coffee shops. True, at 7000ft, you can buy Pizza, pasta, fish and chips and designer coffees, but then you can appreciate why Isaac Newton got so excited as you as you hurtle down powered only by the Great Man's gravity and braked only by the strength in your thighs.
All shapes, sizes and ages seem to ski, from tiny tots barely able to toddle on dry land through to large Americans, soon to be retired baby- boomers and long since retired 60-somethings. Only one thing is common, an unusual urge to wear baggy Michelin man clothes in colours they wouldn't be seen dead in at home, and to hobble about in tight rigid boots that make them walk like Robby the Robot... "Warning... Aliens approaching!"
This cynicism is undoubtedly rooted in jealousy, because as a non- skier I can't join in. My only experience of skiing was 12 months earlier at Cypress Bowl, a 20 minute drive from Downtown Vancouver, where, dressed like Captain Birdseye in borrowed waterproofs in bright yellow, and too big for me, I spent an adrenalin-pumping, nerve jangling afternoon hanging on to the rope tow with the kiddies and dithering down the nursery slopes in the few blissful moments I wasn't sitting on my ass in the snow.
Who needs skis anyway? This time I went up to the top of Whistler without them. I plucked up the courage to beat a probably-imagined phobia of ski lifts, eat the Fish and Chips at 7000ft, smiled at the Michelin men, got sunburned, and just marvelled at the views over the mountains and the Whistler Glacier.
These weekends in "Beautiful BC" make the nine and a half-hour flight from Heathrow worthwhile. I can work a "normal" week from our Canadian office, in demand and unable to escape, and then for two days, be a tourist and see some of the West Pacific coast for free. Of course when I return I talk about the busy stressful time had, working long hours at the office, business lunches and evenings with colleagues, but the time I spend at the weekends is mine, my fragmented "holiday" spent with my mind a million miles away from work.

It can be tough travelling. Long hours sitting staring at the back of an economy class seat, next to a retired Hairdresser from Portsmouth, struggling to hear the soundtrack of a movie with a soundtrack that sounds like it's been strained through a sock and passed through a Jimi Hendrix fuzz box. When you manage to attune your ears, you find that "to protect the children", Gene Hackman the tough New York cop is using words like "Jings" and phrases like "Go Fool Yourself", and Bruce Willis regularly says " Shut the Funk Up".
The Hairdresser usually ends up starting to tell you her life story, just when the distortion on the sound abates enough for you to pick up the plot again, so you give in, stow the headphones and listen. Feigning interest in the advances in colouring technology, the advantages of “fraudulin” and pro-vitamin henna implants at 35,000 feet with your Sinuses screaming surrender and your body telling you its 3am is not easy. The technique is a combination of the "Management Stare" so favoured by Dilbert's pointy-haired boss, and the nodding of a Hasidic Jew at the Wailing Wall. The nodding must be vigorous, as it keeps the blood moving in your head, and stops the somnolent nodding that always precedes sleep.
….. and they say travel broadens the mind!