Cooter, Help! Zambo gets Betty too hot

Swamp Donkey

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Cell tower in Lumpkin...

29126
What the actual fuchs is that supposed to be? A UHF TV antenna? They'd be better off splitting the coax and the wires inside.

Jeebus, this is a thing. Beer Can Antenna? - Overlook Amateur Radio Club (omarcclub.org)
I've seen people wind wire around a plastic bottle (usually 1/4 wave). Cant believe that works.
 
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Swamp Donkey

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RUSSIANS!!!! ;)
some electronic-ing mofos.

I remember talking to a dude who had pulled over a Russian and a Russian/Cuban. He had basically two bobby pins and a micro thumb drive. A couple pieces of wire and an assortment of micro connectors. The detective had no clue. the whole thing fit in a hand.

They were swiping credit card data at gas station pumps. Had a cheapo benzo soldering gun too back in the hotel room. That and a small Rasberry Pi computer (again, fits in your hand) were all they needed for their career.
 
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cover2

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What the actual fuchs is that supposed to be? A UHF TV antenna? They'd be better off splitting the coax and the wire inside.

Jeebus, this is a thing. Beer Can Antenna? - Overlook Amateur Radio Club (omarcclub.org)
I've seen people wind wire around a plastic bottle (usually 1/4 wave). Cant believe that works.
I think I googled either “redneck” or “hillbilly” antenna and this was one of the pics. As one spawned from a long line of rednecks, I take offense at your ridiculing that fine example of southern ingenuity. The inventor probably started by yelling “Got-damn, Thelma, I’m ‘bout sick of all this ‘snow’ on the screen while I’m tryin’ to watch ‘rasslin!’ I’m fixin’ to do somethin’ about it!” Necessity being the mother of invention and a six of Natty Lite later and voila, problem solved! Sit back in your red state condo in your suede warmup suit looking down your nose at us po’ folks if you want, but I bet you haven’t done anything similar to make this world a better place!

*For better understanding, go back and read some of Avatara’s musings on “Appalachia.” Different geographically but similar context.

:)
 

Detroitgator

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some electronic-ing mofos.

I remember talking to a dude who had pulled over a Russian and a Russian/Cuban. He had basically two bobby pins and a micro thumb drive. A couple pieces of wire and an assortment of micro connectors. The detective had no clue. the whole thing fit in a hand.

They were swiping credit card data at gas station pumps. Had a cheapo benzo soldering gun too back in the hotel room. That and a small Rasberry Pi computer (again, fits in your hand) were all they needed for their career.
 

CDGator

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I think I googled either “redneck” or “hillbilly” antenna and this was one of the pics. As one spawned from a long line of rednecks, I take offense at your ridiculing that fine example of southern ingenuity. The inventor probably started by yelling “Got-damn, Thelma, I’m ‘bout sick of all this ‘snow’ on the screen while I’m tryin’ to watch ‘rasslin!’ I’m fixin’ to do somethin’ about it!” Necessity being the mother of invention and a six of Natty Lite later and voila, problem solved! Sit back in your red state condo in your suede warmup suit looking down your nose at us po’ folks if you want, but I bet you haven’t done anything similar to make this world a better place!

*For better understanding, go back and read some of Avatara’s musings on “Appalachia.” Different geographically but similar context.

:)

That reminds me of when I was a kid and we had a tv console the size of a table. Occasionally it would go to all snow. One day the baby sitter was so angry at my brother and sister for chasing each other with a knife that she slammed her fist on top of the tv cabinet. It immediately switched from snow to the picture and everyone stopped fighting. From then on we knew that when the snow came on, one of us had to go slam our fist down on the cabinet.

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Concrete Helmet

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IMG_1141 (1).JPG :)I decided to re stucco my cottage after watching chunks of it fall off over the last 7 or 8 years.
The areas under the bay windows were completely rotted out because cracks in the stucco IMG_1141 (2).JPG were letting water get in. Or so I thought....turns out who ever did the stucco originally never put screen and paper over the block.....what a project... a lotta hard work went into this. IMG_1143 (1).JPG
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Swamp Donkey

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As for the smart ass who changed the thread title, in the 80s we didn't have satellites and iPhones in the military.

When deployed your only comms were HF nets. I wasn't one of radio guys, but if you had a decent team daddy you learned everybody's job, at least the basics. You soldered, cut coax and made inverted L antennas, you crimped blasting caps, started IVs and did needle chest decompressions or needle or surgical crikes. We ran patrolling drills and did land nav until.we could do it with our eyes closed.

Our only comms were usually a certain window of time. And of course the scenario sometimes involved the training officers coming up and tapping out the commo guys and making us do it on our own. Plus it made the team members practice teaching, also a critical skill in certain jobs.

So yeah, I know antenna basics. It is what we did. Or if you were in the big army you polished ****, pmcs'ed and marched around.

While the rest lf you shttbags smoked pot and snorted coke.
 
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AlexDaGator

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That reminds me of when I was a kid and we had a tv console the size of a table. Occasionally it would go to all snow. One day the baby sitter was so angry at my brother and sister for chasing each other with a knife that she slammed her fist on top of the tv cabinet. It immediately switched from snow to the picture and everyone stopped fighting. From then on we knew that when the snow came on, one of us had to go slam our fist down on the cabinet.

29144

We had that TV.

It broke.

So we put a smaller TV on top of it.


Alex.
 

crosscreekcooter

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As for the smart ass who changed the thread title, in the 80s we didn't have satellites and iPhones in the military.

When deployed your only comms were HF nets. I wasn't one of radio guys, but if you had a decent team daddy you learned everybody's job, at least the basics. You soldered, cut coax and made inverted L antennas, you crimped blasting caps, started IVs and did needle chest decompressions or needle or surgical crikes. We ran patrolling drills and did land nav until.we could do it with our eyes closed.

Our only comms were usually a certain window of time. And of course the scenario sometimes involved the training officers coming up and tapping out the commo guys and making us do it on our own. Plus it made the team members practice teaching, also a critical skill in certain jobs.

So yeah, I know antenna basics. It is what we did. Or if you were in the big army you polished ****, pmcs'ed and marched around.

While the rest lf you shttbags smoked pot and snorted coke.

Drinking again huh?
 

Detroitgator

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As for the smart ass who changed the thread title, in the 80s we didn't have satellites and iPhones in the military.

When deployed your only comms were HF nets. I wasn't one of radio guys, but if you had a decent team daddy you learned everybody's job, at least the basics. You soldered, cut coax and made inverted L antennas, you crimped blasting caps, started IVs and did needle chest decompressions or needle or surgical crikes. We ran patrolling drills and did land nav until.we could do it with our eyes closed.

Our only comms were usually a certain window of time. And of course the scenario sometimes involved the training officers coming up and tapping out the commo guys and making us do it on our own. Plus it made the team members practice teaching, also a critical skill in certain jobs.

So yeah, I know antenna basics. It is what we did. Or if you were in the big army you polished ****, pmcs'ed and marched around.

While the rest lf you shttbags smoked pot and snorted coke.
Ahhhh yes, the good old days.... where we strung schit up in trees, stood next to microwave vans, and waited for ice to form, or a bird to land, on the AM transmitter antennae so you could key the mike and watch them vaporize! Stupid MBITRs! ;)
 

Swamp Donkey

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Ahhhh yes, the good old days.... where we strung schit up in trees, stood next to microwave vans, and waited for ice to form, or a bird to land, on the AM transmitter antennae so you could key the mike and watch them vaporize! Stupid MBITRs! ;)
:lmao2:
 

cover2

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As for the smart ass who changed the thread title, in the 80s we didn't have satellites and iPhones in the military.

When deployed your only comms were HF nets. I wasn't one of radio guys, but if you had a decent team daddy you learned everybody's job, at least the basics. You soldered, cut coax and made inverted L antennas, you crimped blasting caps, started IVs and did needle chest decompressions or needle or surgical crikes. We ran patrolling drills and did land nav until.we could do it with our eyes closed.

Our only comms were usually a certain window of time. And of course the scenario sometimes involved the training officers coming up and tapping out the commo guys and making us do it on our own. Plus it made the team members practice teaching, also a critical skill in certain jobs.

So yeah, I know antenna basics. It is what we did. Or if you were in the big army you polished ****, pmcs'ed and marched around.

While the rest lf you shttbags smoked pot and snorted coke.
That was some good, useful training. I never went in the military, but got some good practical knowledge about radio / tv reception first hand and working after school at Mac’s TV’s. First experience with tv antennas came while visiting an uncle in Alabama. Uncle Pat had a VHF antenna mounted on a 40’ pole next to the house. I don’t know whether he didn’t know about the rotor that would turn the antenna remotely from a dial on top of the tv or whether he was too cheap to buy one, but he had a pipe wrench fitted on the pole and would send either his son or one of the nephews out side to “tune” it in.

The house I grew up in had an old B&W with a set of “rabbit ears” that allowed us to get CBS out of Tallahassee, NBC and ABC out of Panama City (unless the weather was bad), and once in a blue moon we’d get Channel 4 out of Dothan, which was important because they carried ‘rasslin’ from the Farm Center late Saturday afternoon. The best thing that ever happened to us, before cable, was learning that tin foil on the rabbit ears improved our reception. Of course no antenna mattered when the horizontal hold went out and the picture would roll continuously.

There was a point I’d have loved to have one of those beer can contraptions to help with reception. Seems like a lot of evenings were a crap shoot and you were as likely as not to have to miss Gunsmoke when the Zenith was on the fritz. If it wasn’t for my stack of DC comics that I accumulated over a couple of years picking up pecans or redeeming Coke bottles, I’d have probably lost my mind. The tv was about all the entertainment we had and in truth was a temporary escape while growing up hard in the panhandle in the ‘60’s.
 

crosscreekcooter

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View attachment 29155 :)I decided to re stucco my cottage after watching chunks of it fall off over the last 7 or 8 years.
The areas under the bay windows were completely rotted out because cracks in the stucco View attachment 29154 were letting water get in. Or so I thought....turns out who ever did the stucco originally never put screen and paper over the block.....what a project... a lotta hard work went into this. View attachment 29150
View attachment 29152 View attachment 29151 View attachment 29150

My two cents. Unlike wood framing the 2012 ICC IRC does not require expanded metal lathe and vapor barrier when stucco is applied directly to concrete block. Usually a dash coat or bonding agent is applied to the block if necessary. I'm gonna bet the water came in around the windows and it looks like it might still be a problem, but won't show up for a few years Did you install window flashing and cut new construction joints? You might also think about relocating the irrigation risers under the bay windows.

Did @Zambo wire that bay roof?
 

Concrete Helmet

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My two cents. Unlike wood framing the 2012 ICC IRC does not require expanded metal lathe and vapor barrier when stucco is applied directly to concrete block. Usually a dash coat or bonding agent is applied to the block if necessary. I'm gonna bet the water came in around the windows and it looks like it might still be a problem, but won't show up for a few years Did you install window flashing and cut new construction joints? You might also think about relocating the irrigation risers under the bay windows.

Did @Zambo wire that bay roof?
All done and that section of irrigation is a dormant(prior)system...also 10-4 on the windows being redone.....Ernesto and his friends did a quality job....oh....you didn't really think I did all that work did you :lol:. Pretty good deal for $5,800 including paint and replacing rotten wood, huh?
 

CDGator

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Day 2 and it’s under roof as rain is coming this weekend. Guess we will have a chance to see where the leaks are before siding goes on. Very pleased with the added space. It really opens the room up.


BEFORE: (not sure why the photo is sideways)

27936


AFTER:
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Wish I didn’t do the grills between the glass and had it clear for the view but that matched the rest of the house. The sun will rise in these windows.

27938


27939

I’ve got some paint touch ups to do and Seedy has one more board casing to put over a door but Seedy’s new office is complete!

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Zambo

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Been a long time since I did any work on RV Betty, but how that I have the garage spruced up and the weather is cool and I'm not getting ready for Baja it was time to dive back in. Really hope to get it running soon, its been I think 4 years since its moved under its own power.

Mostly what I've been doing is wiring. I pulled the entire electrical harness out of the vehicle because it was just too much of a rats nest, too many bad connections, and no way to sort it out. I bought a universal wiring harness from Painless Performance. Its not race car quality but it will certainly do the job for a project like this. It comes with a fuse block and bundles of wire that are all pre-labeled and sorted into groups. One group goes to the rear of the car for the brake lights etc. One group goes to the dash for gauges and controls. One group goes to the engine compartment, etc.
iu

It was pretty easy to run the wire groupings where they need to go. You have to work through a manual which is really very good at telling you how to modify the harness to fit your needs. For one example, if the switch that turns on your reverse lights is located on the transmission you leave that wire in the bundle that goes to the rear and tie into the trans on the way back, but if the switch is on a shifter in the cab then you pull that wire out of the tail bundle and route it up into the cab along with the other bundle. I had about half a dozen of these type wires to re-route. Other than that it was pretty simple to get all the wires where they needed to go and keep it fairly neat.

Probably the biggest headache was deciphering the wiring coming out of the steering column for the turn signals and the horn. The column I have is in decent shape but it is so old that figuring out which wire controlled what function took a bit of troubleshooting. And the hazard is a separate switch so I had to pull that wire out of the column bundle and route it up to the dash. But eventually I got all connections figured out and terminated into the proper plugs.
IMG_6358.JPG IMG_6359.JPG
 

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