Welcome to my corner of the world. Who in the world am I? By day, I'm an RF (Radio Frequency) engineer, specializing in receivers and PLL Synthesizers, for what is arguably the greatest radio company in the history of radio - the Collins Radio Company, now known as Rockwell Collins, Inc. Formerly part of Rockwell International, an industrial powerhouse that is now gone, we were divested in July of 2001. My division produces avionics - radios, radars, automatic landing systems, and other electronic systems - for the world's airlines as well as smaller, general aviation aircraft. This is the most recent picture of me, from May of 2002, and is me in front of an SR-71 Blackbird at the Air Force Museum on Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton Ohio.
For those of you looking for this sort of stuff, I graduated from The Florida Institute of Technology, BS in 1988. Long before that, I attended Miami Carol City Senior High School ('72), in case someone's searching for that. In attempt to foil the email address harvesters, I won't use an email link, but you can decode my address: bob at amateurtelescopemaker dot com.
But that's just my job. A person is more defined by their interests,
and I have plenty. Here are some links that help define me as a person.
This is my wife, Pam, in 1986. Pam is in her 10th year as a breast cancer survivor. She was diagnosed with aggressive breast cancer, after a mammogram at the first of 1997. Treatment included surgeries, regular chemotherapy, high-dose chemotherapy, a bone marrow (peripheral stem cell) transplant, and radiation therapy. This picture is from long before any of these nightmares transpired, and is probably my favorite picture I ever took of her. Two days after returning from her bone marrow transplant (it rained the first day), she rode her bike 10 miles. Then, 14 months after her bone marrow transplant, she completed the local bike club's century ride - 100 miles - to say that she's back. We don't know of any other bone marrow transplant recipients that have done this, so if you know of someone, let us know!
As if that were not enough, in the last days of 1999 (December 30, to be exact), we were both hit by a pickup truck while cycling, landing her in the hospital for three weeks and leaving her with a pound of stainless steel in her back. And as if that were not enough, she developed hip arthritis serious enough to require hip replacement in 2003.
As we go through the 10th year, it reminds me to thank those who helped us through this terrible time. Dr. Joseph Gurri, her primary surgeon. If I ever need a hernia repair or other general surgeon stuff, I'm going looking for Dr. Gurri! Thanks also go to Dr. Craig Deligdish, Pam's oncologist who has helped with other problems. He was the doctor who arranged the super surgical team after we were hit by the truck. Dr. Karen K. Fields formerly chief of the Blood and Marrow Clinic at the H. Lee Moffit Cancer Center at the University of South Florida. We owe our lives to you. Somehow "thank you" isn't sufficient.
In December of '05, my son Mike married his long term sweetheart, Kim. They had been dating for several years. Mike graduated from Florida State University in Tallahassee, Florida, in May of 2003, with a BS in Biology. Kim was graduated in '05 with a BS in Chemistry. Their wedding was on the beach at Panama City Beach, FL, which they called home at the time. They currently live in Indianapolis.
On a weekly basis, I probably spend more time cycling than in any other hobby. I recently ran into an incredible buy on a titanium bike from a small company in Ohio called Airborne Bicycles. Within two months, they became Flyte Bicycles, after the corporate owners of Airborne decided to use that name in Europe only. The bike, called a Titanium Upright LX, was leftover from a lot they built for a company buying several bikes. While it was a touring bike, the geometry and riser handlebars with gripshifters made it look like a hybrid. I guess the market for titanium hybrids isn't very big, because I got the complete bike for the price of the cheapest titanium frame I know I can find, and the bike is loaded with great components like a carbon fiber fork, oversize bars and stem with carbon clamp, along with Shimano Deore LX componentry. After a few rides, I was convinced the riser bars and gripshifters had to go. On to eBay and shopping around for a drop bar and STI shifters. Everything was gathered, and I now have the only bike like this in the world. The only problem was that the "low normal" Deore LX rear derailleur operated backward on the STI shifters so I needed a new rear derailleur, too.
Back in 2002, I was lucky enough to find a used 1998 Trek 5200 OCLV (graphite composite) road bike in near-new condition. Trek made the 5200 in some very beautiful colors in the late '90s, a shade of red reminiscent of the "Candy Apple Red" roadsters of the '60s, and the next year this blue - a royal blue coat over a metallic base - so that the bike almost glows. This is one of the most beautiful bikes I've ever seen, let alone owned, and the only bike that non-cyclists have complimented me on. While the hybrid is a comfortable, casual ride, like driving an SUV, this is like driving a sports car. Let's face it: speed is fun! Much to my surprise, the whole ride experience between this Trek 5200 and my previous Cannondale R500 is very different. I can't claim to understand all the factors that go into the perception of a ride's quality, but it feels like the carbon bike with a rigid frame is about as shock absorbing as a suspension seatpost I once had on my hybrid. It's a very sweet ride. The only problem is that it's a 30 mph bike, and I have a sub-20 mph body. The bike is fine, but the engine needs a lot of work.
As you ride more, your body seems to change, so that what you're looking for in a bike changes, too. For example, I found my 5200 more comfortable than my old hybrid, while most newbies would almost certainly prefer the more relaxed position of the hybrid. As another example, the topic of saddle (seat) selection has gathered miles of text columns. Years ago, I wanted a more padded saddle. Today I like a thinner, harder saddle, like the Selle Italia Flite.
Pam and I ride together almost all of the time. In September '04, I got her a Litespeed titanium bike to replace the Trek 2200 WSD she rode after the accident. Check out the Litespeed Bella. The 43 cm frame she requires limits the number of choices in bikes. This size is the smallest production road bike size regularly available in the US. Litespeed listed this as a size they built, but we literally searched the US to find one, finally ordering one from Bikesmart in San Francisco. Her bike may be the only 43 cm Bella they actually built that year!
Bicycles are legally vehicles in virtually every state in the US, but we often are treated exceptionally rudely by drivers. People in cars don't seem to respect any vehicle that weighs less than they do, and few regular riders don't have at least one story about having junk thrown at them, being flipped off, or even forced off the road by some immature driver. I have met cyclists who have been physically assaulted by drivers. Not accidents, I'm talking about passengers opening their doors (at 45 mph!) into cyclists. People have been killed this way! Bicycle Advocacy is a cause we should all devote some time to. But equal rights means equal responsibility, and I'm often appalled by the way some cyclists ride. I'm not just talking about the people who are forced to ride a bike after loosing their driver's license to a DUI conviction, either. Many "serious" cyclists don't think twice about doing things they'd never do in a car. Don't just blow off stop signs, and ignore red lights. Ride your bike the way you drive your car. No, better than that, ride your bike the way you should drive your car.
As you can tell from the section on cycling, I'm relatively health conscious. That still doesn't have much to do with most of what can happen to you as you age. Take arthritis, please. I have lost most of the use of my left hand to basilar arthritis of the thumb, and some other joints are starting to feel like they will go over the next 10 years or so, too. Doctors, of course, don't want to do arthritis repair surgery until you've taken so many anti-inflammatories that your kidneys are just about shot. Realistically, it's because they keep getting better and that means anything they do today will be re-done if you live long enough. The major impact of not having strength in my left hand is not being able to fix a bike flat one-handed, and having to switch to air-free tires on my bike. Nobody seems to make them for Pam's smaller 650c wheels, so her tubes have a few ounces of Stan's Tire Sealant in them. Go to their website and watch the videos. It puts the old green slime tire filler to shame.
Does it ever seem silly to you that primates know what to eat, dolphins know what to eat, even dust mites and the parasites between your eyelashes know what to eat, but we humans require book stores with hundreds of titles on what to eat? Should you be a vegetarian? Should you eat low fat/high carbohydrate, or low carbohydrate/ high protein? Should you care about fat content at all?
As an engineer, I prefer hard science when it comes to questions like this. Back in 1998, I pooled together a large number of references from journals that I've found online, and wrote an article that looks at the evidence on exactly how we should be eating. I did a major update in the summer of 2002. Click here to read it. To take some conclusions out of that report: be a vegetarian if you care, but not for health effects; there is virtually no proof that going on either low fat/high carb or low carb/high protein diet will do anything to increase or decrease your health, assuming you're normal and healthy to start with, but low carb will probably help people loose weight better; and no, the best data has said percent calories from fat doesn't matter at all, and the data has said that for over 10 years.
My mom and brother both have type 2 diabetes, so avoiding diabetes is a big concern of mine. There are good studies that show restricting carbohydrates, and especially high glycemic index carbohydrates, is effective at preventing and treating type 2 diabetes. That's why I stay on a restricted carb diet today.
I feel somehow validated since mere weeks after my writing and posting the article in 1998, the American Heart Association presented an article in their flagship publication Circulation that states the evidence in favor of very lowfat diets is not strong enough to outweigh the questions about their safety. They conclude that very lowfat diets (less than 20% fat calories) - like many athletes, and others who are trying to do the right thing are eating - are not proven to be safe enough for the general population.
I've been a licensed ham radio operator since 1976, almost all of that
time licensed as WB4EHS. Over the summer of '97, I upgraded to a personal
"vanity" call, W4ATM for a couple of reasons. First, to link radio and
my telescope making hobbies. Second, to get the benefits of a shorter callsign.
I got started in radio, and along the path to being an engineer, by listening
to shortwave as a teenager. I still listen to shortwave, scanners, and
other types of receivers regularly. There are probably tens of thousands
of radio websites, but here are a few of my favorites.
The R-390A is a military surplus "boatanchor" (big, heavy radio) that many hams and monitors use. I bought my first one from WB4EJE, my then-neighbor and friend, in the late '70s. My current R-390A (on the right in this photo of our shack in '05) was the first radio I bought after my move to Melbourne in 1982. These are great receivers, and have been called, "the finest HF radio receiver ever built".
These days, I mostly tend to operate HF, chasing DX - at a fairly leisurely pace. I've never owned a linear, and only used one a couple of times as a guest operator at other stations (such as our club station at work, W4CRC). I have over 270 countries worked in mixed modes, with DXCC, and CW-DXCC certificates hanging on my wall. I go back and forth between the regular, high-powered stations and the QRP rig. Between the various radios, we are on the air from 1.8 MHz (160 meters) up through 1290 MHz (23 cm), except for the 220 MHz band.
I have two main areas of interest these days. First, is to complete my 5BDXCC. I have DXCC confirmed on 15 and 10, and worked on 20 and 40, with 80m as a new effort, only about 65 worked. Both 40 and 80 are winter bands here in Florida, where May through October brings the sound of nearby thunderstorms every evening. My second interest is 6m, and a VUCC. I'm relatively new to 6. A few years ago, as the sunspot peak was waning, I bought a Tennadyne T6 to replace my Cushcraft tribander and give me the WARC bands. Playing around one day, I found the tuner in my Icom746 would tune the T6 on 6 meters. A few weeks later, I heard my first really big opening on 6 - into Argentina and the rest of the tip of South America. I managed to work a few of them. I've since added a 6m log periodic, the KMA5054, which is a good performer, but fits in my station plan. It also works well on 2m SSB, allowing me to get out on that band, and even has netted me a few contacts on 432 SSB. I'm currently closing in on 100 grids worked on 6m. Some of them have surprised me. It can be a very interesting band.
Unlike a lot of QRPers, I tend to operate with the full-featured radios, instead of those small rigs in Altoids tins. Something about being a receiver and synthesizer designer makes me have a hard time with very simple receivers. Sure they're fun for a little while, but nothing beats a good receiver. I've played around a little with PSK31, an interesting teletype mode, plain ol' RTTY, SSTV and VHF SSB, but I keep coming back to HF, operating SSB and CW.
Pam is also licensed, KB4EWG, Extra as of April '02.
If you use Windows, you will prefer this version. I've completed a port of FilDes to Microsoft's Windows OS. This version was written in Delphi 2.0 and then updated in Delphi 4.0. If you want a copy, CLICK HERE. The zipped archive is around 600k.
I first wrote FilDes for the RF Design magazine annual design contest. It won an honorable mention (which I refer to as "Miss Congeniality"). When I first wrote it, I decided it probably wasn't worthwhile to try and sell it. Since then, I've seen a bunch of filter design programs hit the market; some don't seem to do as much as mine, and others don't seem to be all that different from FilDes. If you feel you have to pay for your filter design software, help yourself. If you don't mind getting your software for free, then get FilDes.
FilDes is the descendent of a program that I had published in Ham Radio in 1986. This was the cover article in the March 1986 issue. It was a program that only designed top-C coupled resonator filters, in only a few options for filter type. This program was written in BASIC and ran on the good ol' Commodore 64. The relevant section of FilDes does much more than the version in Ham Radio ever did.
And, by the way, I had several articles published in the old Ham Radio magazine, including a short "Weekender" project (a dual wattmeter for up to 500 MHz that used Mini-Circuits Directional Couplers), a major project (a really nice two meter sideband transverter) and tutorials. I've only submitted one article to 73, on the "Ground Rules of Building", which was published. I even wrote a fishing article published in "Florida Fishing News".
I started writing simple applications for myself in BASIC over 25 years ago. After a required college course in Pascal, I switched over to that language. Nowadays, Pascal is my native tongue. In the early 1990s, I updated to Borland's Delphi, a product that would be more descriptively known as "Visual Turbo Pascal for Windows". As I mentioned above, I've ported FilDes to Delphi, as well as several of the other DOS Pascal programs I've written over the years.
Delphi is a really neat language. If you want more info, here are a few links to the Delphi world.
Of course, writing the code is not all there is to writing an application. There's also the documentation and online help file. I learned how to do this mostly by using a help decompiler, a plain ASCII editor and the Microsoft help tools. I recently actually bought a commercial tool, HelpScribble . HelpScribble is an excellent shareware tool, although the price tag is a bit steep for an individual (that is, not a business). If you write one or two applications for fun, learn to use the freebie tools. If you plan to make money at what you write, or are really pressed for time, go to HelpScribble. I have bought HelpScribble - it was worth it for me - but look around before you buy anything.
In early 2007, I had been facing some limitations of my Sherline that had me thinking of replacing pieces of it. Whenever I thought of doing that, I was struck that a lot of the things I'd like to do for telescopes would not fit on that mill. After much debate with myself and discussions with Pam and others, I settled on upgrading the X/Y table to longer axes and precision lead screws from A2Z CNC. This gives me the ability to make larger parts even if I need to machine very slowly because the machine is less rigid than a full-sized Bridgeport mill. While it's early to say for sure, everything seems to be working according to hopes.
For those of you who have never heard of CNC machining, it's using your computer to control the machine and produce parts to high accuracy with your hands off the equipment. Once you're capable of moving the mill in 3 axes, though, it's a form of motion control that's usable in millions of applications. The computer goes from being a box on your desk (or on your network) that does number crunching to being an active controller of physical things.
This picture shows my mill cutting a pair of inter-woven sine waves into a small piece of aluminum bar. The machine needs 3 moving axes for this - the rotation around its axis is done with a rotary table, controlled by the same techniques used to control the other (X, Y and Z) axes. My inspiration for this was really Dan Statman who makes these wonderful rings out of Titanium. He was using Sherline for quite some time, but ended up making his own mills for his specialized use. I have made myself a ring like this sample piece in my picture out of 6/4 Titanium, just to say I have. I do not intend to compete with Dan, but heartily recommend you buy one from him if you like the look.
My main intent for this setup is to help carve waxes for lost wax casting. To do this, there are many steps that need to be done. In January of '06, I wrote an introduction to the topic that is online in a couple of places. The easiest to get to is The Tabletop Machine Shop Wiki since you don't need to be a registered member to read it. Here's a quick summary of the things you need to do to make things with CNC.
I can probably sum it up best by saying I just like to do things with my hands....
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