And I like to think I can be as vacant as anyone, once I've, er, put my mind to it.
Progress of this one, so far:
DVD/CD freestanding shelves for living room, about a third done (all shelves cut to size).
State Fair: Spent most of one day, would happily go back.
Ham antenna: relocated the front-yard end of the big one (G5RV) to a different tree, haven't checked it yet. It's a bit less straight-line than it was.
Removed a lot of dead branches from the new antenna-holding tree.
Dying tree in front yard: spoke to Local Tree Expert Jim, who was working around the corner, and he'll get back to me with an estimate. I'm sorry to have to give this one up; it split into two large branches about 10' up and we lost the longer (and most leafy one) in June of 2010. What remained was hanging but didn't fare well in last summer's drought. Ths year, it leafed out valiantly, but they started dropping several weeks ago and now nearly all the remaining one have turned brown. Poor tree! It did well but had trouble ever since the (former) other silver maple fell on it in 2010. And yes, this is the tree I moved my antenna from
AM ham transmitter: powered it up slowly with The Gadget last evening, had it running and was making good progress until I shut down to get my RF Wattmeter: turned it back on and the internal fuse blew! I may have short-cycled it, as I was using the switch on the power strip and some tube gear doesn't like that. Or there could be a component failure. Took a quick look under the chassis before I started and it appears all of the parts are original. (For hams who read this blog, it's a DX-60, so the "internal" fuse is in the power plug. How British. Except this is the American version, once commonly used for electric fence power supplies.)
Plenty left yet to do.
I wish I could say that I've hung my G5RV, but with the way my weekends have been going, it's going to be September before that happens.
ReplyDelete“It is impossible to enjoy idling thoroughly unless one has plenty of work to do." - Jerome K. Jerome
ReplyDeleteI envy you Roberta. Sounds like you are having a great vacation!
"...so the "internal" fuse is in the power plug. How British."
ReplyDeleteYe Gods and Little Fishes!! What WERE they thinking? Thirteen amps? Non-standard size too I'm thinking.
Does it say "Lucas" on it by any chance?
PLEASE tell me that at least the cover screw heads are on the wall side of the plug, forcing you to unplug the device before taking the cover off.
It's a wise choice to take it out now. Silver maples are despicable trees, good for little other than quick shade. Surely the scientific name for them is acer garbagum. I've never seen one that was mature that wasn't full of rot and dead branches. One of them, which I had thought was in good enough shape, thoroughly crushed my garage and minivan 3 years ago. The interior was totally rotted and the trunk broke about 3 feet up from the ground at a place where it was over 4 feet in diameter. To be fair, it was during the worst storm I've ever seen. They do make a decent syrup though.
ReplyDeleteRickn80r, the UK 13A (240V typ., 230V nom.) mains plug, aside from being a bit oversize-for-most/too small for really big appliances (3.12 kW!), is a well-engineered device. Modern ones cannot be opened while plugged in and the molded versions have a nifty fully-enclosed flip-out 5x20mm fuseholder on the prong side. Safety engineering of present-day versions is (IMO) a little better than typical Edison-type plugs in the U.S. and the entire system, with switched, "shuttered" receptacles (L and N are covered until the ground pin enters its socket) is quite good. --"Ring" circuits still give me the creeps, though. (Some Brits are critical of the actual contact area when engaged but they're not atypical of mains hardware anywhere.)
ReplyDeleteNope, I'd have to rate most Western mains plugs as pretty much equal, with the North American ones at or near the bottom of the pack for a couple of reasons it would take too much space to explain.
OTOH, I'd look very closely at mains plugs and sockets in a lot of the rest of the world. While nobody but nobody is still using the light-bulb-socket system found in the U. S. very early on (!!!), there's some interesting stuff out there that could trip up a traveler pretty badly.