Snow and some deer

We have had a few snows this past season. Fortunately none of them have been all that large with the most about five inches. I woke this morning to see more white on top of the three to four inches we had earlier in the week.

Can you notice the deer in the center of the photo.

Here she is through the zoom.

It must be cold and miserable but then they are built to survive it all. 

My snow estimate is based on how much builds up on the railing. We are supposed to get about an inch today.

The radar map from WBAL. Our house is at the southern tip of the peninsula that sticks down into the top of the bay. Since the snow is moving from south west to north east, I suspect we might get another inch.

By the way, if you use Windows and need to capture an image of what is on your computer screen, try using the Snipping Tool that Microsoft now supplies. It is much easier than the old 'print screen' method of screen capture.

I mentioned that we already had three to four inches and so the snow is now filling where Marianne and I had already shoveled. Oh joy, we get to do it again.

Finally, I have rehoused one of my old amplifiers in a new box designed to keep Catty-Watty away from the dangerous bits which are hidden under the red wire basket from Dollar Tree. The light bulbs act as resistors. Yes they carry high voltage but she can't touch it.

Of course she had to get up to investigate.

She likes the heat. By the way they are 25 watt 240 volt light bulbs from Australia but are only producing about 10 watts each. Each bulb is the equivalent of a 2300 ohm resistor. Those of you who studied physics should be able to work it out for yourself.

A summer where I am not a complete bludger

Marianne has been receiving comments about the dearth of blogs since we arrived back in the USA. You will be pleased to know that I have not been completely idle. Of course, Marianne has been quite industrious downstairs working on her scrap-booking. Packages have been arriving virtually every day and the postman actually asked me to thank her for keeping him in business.

I too have a hobby which is to build tube (valve) amplifiers. I have been doing this for about fifteen years and it gives me something to plan and think about when I am not planning trips. My hand motor skills are not as good as Marianne's, but I enjoy the physical aspect of soldering and bolting components together.

For most of the fifteen years I have been running a small group of DIY amp builders in the Mid Atlantic area called the Bottlenecks. We held a meet earlier this year and decided to hold another competition. We specify what kind of amplifier is to be built and also the type of container. For our first competition, the container had to come from Ikea. The next competition required a container from Target.

This year, the amp has to have a push-pull architecture and the container has to be some piece of electrical gear that is no longer being used. The other theme is that the bulk of the parts have to be recycled. Many of us have projects that either failed, did not turn out too well, or we are just not interested in anymore.

Since I am retired and have plenty of time on my hands, I am building two entries with the hope that one actually works.

Just a jumble of parts to be positioned and hooked up.

The first uses an old receiver that originally belonged to my brother in law. It stopped working when we were visiting and he bought a new one. I took the old one back home and got it working by replacing a relay. I was using it for a while about a year ago but the cat was sitting on top of it, vomited, and managed to short out the power supply.

The cat was not electrocuted but it has made me wary of using tube amps because of the high voltages involved. We had an interesting discussion on one of the forums I subscribe to about animal / child proofing our stuff.

The power supply was too far gone to fix so I've stripped out the innards and am installing some of my old components. Yes, those are tin cans (from Aldi) holding it up. There was not enough room inside for the large power transformer and choke. When the amp is finished it should have 10 4P1L tubes and four Australian 50 watt light bulbs poking out the top.

By the way, I use a glue called Goop that I get from Lowes that does an amazing job of holding metal objects together. The bond is quite strong but not strong enough that you cannot separate the objects if you need to.

The other amplifier mostly uses items that were given to me over ten years ago such as the case, the grey transformer and the red transformers. The bloke who gave me the red transformers was famous for using old organ amps and converting them into very good sounding amps. He used duct tape to cover up the holes and that is what I will do with this amp. Unfortunately he died soon after giving me the transformers. I hope this amp turns out well so that I can keep it in his memory.

You can see a photo of one of his amps here.

Perhaps in late October after the competition, I will do another blog to let you know how they turned out.