[ Club Chachapoya ] Meigs Or Bust

[PhrogPhlyer]

Lighter than air history is a story of great advances interspersed with epic tragedies.

After decades of casual LTA research and collecting, please allow me to suggest a few websites to get your interest going.

 

Luftschiffbau Zeppelin

https://www.zeppelin-lz.com/

 

Airship Heritage Trust

https://www.airshipsonline.com/airships/index.html

 

Lighter Than Air Society

https://www.blimpinfo.com/

 

Naval Airship Association

https://www.naval-airships.org/

 

Excellent series on current considerations and status of airships. 

https://lynceans.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/08/Part-1_Intro-text-and-tables_Rev-3_26Aug2021-converted-compressed_1.pdf

 

And of course YouTube and Archive.og.

[MAD1]

Thanks PhrogPhlyer for the links. I looked at a number of them the other night. Very interesting. On another note, as a space nut, and regular reader of NASA news, just watched a very good press conference with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Was a nice difference, it started with them arriving in their T38s and was outside on the tarmac. They were very informal, which was refreshing instead of just the 'suits' yakking away. Boeing Starliner first human test flight scheduled to go 6 May.

 

[ViperPilot2]

1 hour ago, MAD1 said:

Thanks PhrogPhlyer for the links. I looked at a number of them the other night. Very interesting. On another note, as a space nut, and regular reader of NASA news, just watched a very good press conference with Butch Wilmore and Suni Williams. Was a nice difference, it started with them arriving in their T38s and was outside on the tarmac. They were very informal, which was refreshing instead of just the 'suits' yakking away. Boeing Starliner first human test flight scheduled to go 6 May.

 

 

NASA TV has some great content. I also like watching what the other Space agencies are up to. If I had a favorite, I'd say Oleg Artemayev's Channel on YT. He's totally low key and shows stuff from the Russian side not usually seen.

You're a Space nut... I'm a SpaceFood nut!

 

[MAD1]

Hi VP2, the European Space Agency (ESA) is a good site https://www.esa.int I just had a look at YouTube and the handover ceremony featuring Oleg. I couldn't find an English version for his channel, is there one? This vid has English subtitles, which is good (I actually like to hear people speaking in their own language, including Russian) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ0vf0qfHfE

[Sirrus]

If you're interested in in space missions, you could join Kayamone Sutton's Virtual United States Space Program. The original VUSSP  had 150 members, conducted over 100 unmanned missions and over 20 manned missions. Highly recommended.

http://www.vussp.org

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

10 hours ago, MAD1 said:

as a space nut

I miss the days when schools would either let you stay home to watch a launch or they would project the TV in the auditorium for all to watch (yes TV, no computers or internet at that time). I watched every launch from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the early shuttles.

Unfortunately the Columbia incident, the over televised shots of the explosion and the shocked families at Canaveral, accelerated the already decreasing public support for these missions. That was seen by many as the same type of event as the Hindenburg and the Concord crashes. I hope that the the new budding interest in space continues to grow and people can share the joy and wonder I did during those early years.

[Rupert]

1 hour ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

I miss the days when schools would either let you stay home to watch a launch or they would project the TV in the auditorium for all to watch (yes TV, no computers or internet at that time). I watched every launch from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the early shuttles.

Unfortunately the Columbia incident, the over televised shots of the explosion and the shocked families at Canaveral, accelerated the already decreasing public support for these missions. That was seen by many as the same type of event as the Hindenburg and the Concord crashes. I hope that the the new budding interest in space continues to grow and people can share the joy and wonder I did during those early years.

 

Those broadcasts were also a wonderful recruiting tool for the armed forces and also for kids who were tempted to enter math and/or science fields.  

 

IMO anything we can do to wean kids and in fact most of their parents, from TIK TOK and other phone apps is a good thing!!  There are millions of interesting things going on in our world and in other worlds if people would just put their phones down and look around a few minutes every day! 

[jgf]

1 hour ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

I miss the days when schools would either let you stay home to watch a launch or they would project the TV in the auditorium for all to watch (yes TV, no computers or internet at that time). I watched every launch from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the early shuttles.

Unfortunately the Columbia incident, the over televised shots of the explosion and the shocked families at Canaveral, accelerated the already decreasing public support for these missions. That was seen by many as the same type of event as the Hindenburg and the Concord crashes. I hope that the the new budding interest in space continues to grow and people can share the joy and wonder I did during those early years.

 

A weekday in May, 1961.  Miss Hill's second grade class in South Pittsburg TN.  We all come in to find one of those 23" B/W metal case TV sets on a 4ft tall roll-around AV stand in the corner  ....we're going to watch TV in school!    Didn't matter what, we were excited. 

 

Mid afternoon Miss Hill rolls the TV to the front of the room, pulls up the rabbit ears and, as the set warms up, tells us briefly of the space program.  And we watch Alan Shepard's sub-orbital flight, from preflight coverage to splashdown and recovery.  For most of the class it was an interesting diversion, but I was fascinated.  From then til I graduated high school nine years later I kept stacks of magazines and scrapbooks of everything I found about NASA;  built detailed models of all the launch vehicles and capsules;  could quote from memory all the missions from Mercury through Apollo, names of the astronauts, the vehicles, the dates, flight data, mission goals.  A major disappointment was finding I could never be an astronaut (because I wear glasses), so I became an engineer.

 

Public support decreased long before the Columbia incident.  Space flight had become mundane; initially there was the "us against them" challenge of getting to the moon before the Soviets, but once that was done most people lost interest.  The last three moon landings were canceled for budget reasons, subsequent flights were so highly technical and scientific that the average person wasn't interested.  And the original allure of the space program, and the vision of the future we had developed, never materialized.  The pushbutton world of the Jetsons never arrived;  the space station, rather than the majestic rotating wheel of science fiction (epitomized in the movie 2001), turned out to be an uninspiring tinkertoy contraption in low orbit.  The expected moon colony wasn't forthcoming, an expedition to Mars would not occur in our lifetime.  For the foreseeable future spaceflight was something reserved for a few dozen highly trained specialists, not for the common man.  There was no exploration involved, which would certainly have stirred interest;  and unlike the past, where any able-bodied man could go to a port city and sign on for an ocean voyage to see new parts of the world, we would never experience more than TV coverage of space walks to repair the Hubble.  For most people the entire space program after the moon landing (and even before for some) was a waste of tax money that could be better spent elsewhere (does no good to point out virtually every major technological advance in the past half century was a direct result of the space program). 

 

I find it a sad commentary that today we have individuals so wealthy they can afford their own private space programs.

[ViperPilot2]

10 hours ago, MAD1 said:

Hi VP2, the European Space Agency (ESA) is a good site https://www.esa.int I just had a look at YouTube and the handover ceremony featuring Oleg. I couldn't find an English version for his channel, is there one? This vid has English subtitles, which is good (I actually like to hear people speaking in their own language, including Russian) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iJ0vf0qfHfE

 

Nope... Oleg's content is all in Russian. My favorite Video of his (turn on Subtitles)...

 

 

[PhrogPhlyer]

4 hours ago, jgf said:

I find it a sad commentary that today we have individuals so wealthy they can afford their own private space programs.

There are two sides to this, yes one is that there are people that wealthy, but without their interest the space program would be DOA  in the US. I also believe that it took several other counties launching their own space initiatives to "almost" get the US program off of the coroners table.

[ViperPilot2]

13 hours ago, PhrogPhlyer said:

I miss the days when schools would either let you stay home to watch a launch or they would project the TV in the auditorium for all to watch (yes TV, no computers or internet at that time). I watched every launch from Mercury, Gemini, Apollo, and the early shuttles.

Unfortunately the Columbia incident, the over televised shots of the explosion and the shocked families at Canaveral, accelerated the already decreasing public support for these missions. That was seen by many as the same type of event as the Hindenburg and the Concord crashes. I hope that the the new budding interest in space continues to grow and people can share the joy and wonder I did during those early years.

 

In those days, the A/V gig was the one everyone wanted. You'd get good learning the workings of those Slide and 16mm Projectors, and making Transparencies for the Overhead viewer!

 

11 hours ago, jgf said:

 

A weekday in May, 1961.  Miss Hill's second grade class in South Pittsburg TN.  We all come in to find one of those 23" B/W metal case TV sets on a 4ft tall roll-around AV stand in the corner  ....we're going to watch TV in school!    Didn't matter what, we were excited. 

 

Mid afternoon Miss Hill rolls the TV to the front of the room, pulls up the rabbit ears and, as the set warms up, tells us briefly of the space program.  And we watch Alan Shepard's sub-orbital flight, from preflight coverage to splashdown and recovery.  For most of the class it was an interesting diversion, but I was fascinated.  From then til I graduated high school nine years later I kept stacks of magazines and scrapbooks of everything I found about NASA;  built detailed models of all the launch vehicles and capsules;  could quote from memory all the missions from Mercury through Apollo, names of the astronauts, the vehicles, the dates, flight data, mission goals.  A major disappointment was finding I could never be an astronaut (because I wear glasses), so I became an engineer.

 

Public support decreased long before the Columbia incident.  Space flight had become mundane; initially there was the "us against them" challenge of getting to the moon before the Soviets, but once that was done most people lost interest.  The last three moon landings were canceled for budget reasons, subsequent flights were so highly technical and scientific that the average person wasn't interested.  And the original allure of the space program, and the vision of the future we had developed, never materialized.  The pushbutton world of the Jetsons never arrived;  the space station, rather than the majestic rotating wheel of science fiction (epitomized in the movie 2001), turned out to be an uninspiring tinkertoy contraption in low orbit.  The expected moon colony wasn't forthcoming, an expedition to Mars would not occur in our lifetime.  For the foreseeable future spaceflight was something reserved for a few dozen highly trained specialists, not for the common man.  There was no exploration involved, which would certainly have stirred interest;  and unlike the past, where any able-bodied man could go to a port city and sign on for an ocean voyage to see new parts of the world, we would never experience more than TV coverage of space walks to repair the Hubble.  For most people the entire space program after the moon landing (and even before for some) was a waste of tax money that could be better spent elsewhere (does no good to point out virtually every major technological advance in the past half century was a direct result of the space program). 

 

I find it a sad commentary that today we have individuals so wealthy they can afford their own private space programs.

 

I think we're all aware of just how much spewing lava, stinky horse apples and absolute gunk is being put on YouTube these days. However, there are some great Documentaries to be had there, especially those posted by NASA, their Global partners or the Smithsonian NASM. Whether it's listening to an old video of Bob Hoover and Chuck Yeager telling tall tales, the Crew of Apollo 8 recalling their Mission forty years after the fact, or my man Oleg extolling the virtues of a hearty Breakfast before an EVA on the ISS ( vid in previous Post), there's some interesting, informative and educational stuff out there. Even those old Films they used to show (some) of us in School from the 50's - 70's!

[ViperPilot2]

On 4/26/2024 at 8:09 AM, jgf said:

 I find it a sad commentary that today we have individuals so wealthy they can afford their own private space programs.

 

Only one, and I have a real bad Take regarding "Mr. Elon", SpaceX and his penchant for running away when the Temperature starts to rise in la cocina. He is in a very unique position...

[Bossspecops]

On 4/20/2024 at 10:40 AM, MAD1 said:

Just watched Part 1 and 2 of this very good series 'The Flying Carriers' about the airship era e.g. Acron.

 

 

That's a GREAT link, thanks so much. I watched the whole series and learnt a lot more of the USN's airship programme than I knew before.

 

I SO wish I'd been born early enough to see one of the big airships, the British R100 being my fave of the period, mainly because Barnes Wallis was involved in its design. I've seen a couple of the Goodyear blimps over here, and I once saw the tiny, all British airship 'Bournemouth', cruising right over my parent's house at RAF Abingdon when I was about 10 or 11. 

[MAD1]

Clearly there's evolving two seperate event scenarios: helicopter, airship. Someday (not soon, I would like to participate but sim broken at the moment) we should organise (not me!) a helicopter-only event, and a separate airship-only event. Both would be fun.

[MAD1]

Rupert said "There are millions of interesting things going on in our world and in other worlds if people would just put their phones down and look around a few minutes every day!". Yes indeed, I fired up my old 1970s ham radio rig the other night (it went through the flood, haven't cleaned it out yet, but very dry, now 2 years later, receive on 3.5 and 7 Mhz works fine, but the LSB USB CW switch is dodgy, no USB), and wow, conditions were good, on 7 Mhz (40 meter band), lots of local Aussies, one had a CQ contact to NZ. So, inspired me to get to the 'rig' and get it working properly. I thought amateur radio had died a lot, even though there are active clubs including in my local area, but the Internet put paid to it. Not so, still very active groups, mostly old guys, but shock horror, now I'm an old guy! (My callsign was VK2MDO, back in the 1990s I had a number of good contacts around the world, including into Japan, and USA. I did spend 5 months I think it was living in Japan in 93 and was one of the few Westerners to obtain a Japanese callsign. Ah, the memories, I keep forgetting about all my exploits.

[MAD1]

July 20 1969 (USA time), afternoon, all the high school went to the auditorium, on stage, a single, small screen CRT black and white TV. I was 14, my class was two-thirds back from the front, so not a great view. But I DID see Neil come down the ladder and step off. (By the way, that tv feed came from the Moon via the Parkes radio telescope, with I think it was Honeysuckle Creek, near Canberra as the NASA groundstation (USA stations were on other side of Earth, as Neil (as the commander, it was his call) elected to not sleep but 'go early' with the EVA (they were too hyped up to sleep, he and Buzz just wanted to get out there, which annoyed the US tv networks, as it was all planned for their prime time). The movie, 'The Dish' is about that event, whilst a slightly comedic happy story movie, the main events are correct, including the wind storm that had winds near the dish's operational limits. A lovely movie starring Sam Niell (who is a Kiwi, NZ). (The 'lost the spacecraft' part wasn't true.)  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Dish

 

[Nels_Anderson]

6 hours ago, MAD1 said:

 I fired up my old 1970s ham radio rig the other night...

 

I don't know if you've noticed yet, but there is a very high cross-over between people interested in aviation and amateur radio. So much so, that at my local pilot's group meetings the topic of discussion is often radio, and at my weekly ham radio lunches we're often talking about flying. It's fun to combine the hobbies, i.e. operate a radio while flying. I got my first airplane ride because of that, many years ago.

[lnuss]

8 hours ago, MAD1 said:

I thought amateur radio had died a lot, even though there are active clubs including in my local area, but the Internet put paid to it. Not so, still very active groups, mostly old guys, but shock horror, now I'm an old guy! (My callsign was VK2MDO, back in the 1990s

 

On many weekends the contests get so bad that 40M is too crowded to find a QSO, and even during the week QRM sometimes is a problem. Of course the upper bands (6 10, 15, etc) need condition to be right to get very many openings. So no, it's far from dead. In fact, amateur TV (including High Def) is still going strong in some areas (obviously not DX though).

 

1 hour ago, Nels_Anderson said:

 

I don't know if you've noticed yet, but there is a very high cross-over between people interested in aviation and amateur radio. So much so, that at my local pilot's group meetings the topic of discussion is often radio, and at my weekly ham radio lunches we're often talking about flying. It's fun to combine the hobbies, i.e. operate a radio while flying. I got my first airplane ride because of that, many years ago.

Yes, my first realization about that was in the '70s when I was in Albuquerque.  A flying friend periodically flew his C-170 to the Denver area for hamfests, at least 2-3 times a year, in addition to other places. There are other overlaps, too- motorcyclists are quite common among pilots, as are musicians (I've had a few jams here and there).

 

One member of our daily morning 40M net is a corporate pilot, flying a Falcon 7, and literally travels all over the world. Once in a while we chat with him airborne, and he checks in occasionally (listening only) via SDRs (Software Defined Radios), basically a way to listen over the internet. He was in the Maldives a few days ago, then Rome, etc.

 

At least four others on the net are pilots, some currently inactive, and they range from Florida to Oklahoma and Texas, and one builds and flies RC models.

[Rupert]

12 hours ago, Nels_Anderson said:

 

I don't know if you've noticed yet, but there is a very high cross-over between people interested in aviation and amateur radio. So much so, that at my local pilot's group meetings the topic of discussion is often radio, and at my weekly ham radio lunches we're often talking about flying. It's fun to combine the hobbies, i.e. operate a radio while flying. I got my first airplane ride because of that, many years ago.

My thanks to all the amateur radio operators over the decades! 

 

In the 60's while a pilot in combat in Vietnam my mother contacted me at about 02:00 Vietnam time to tell my stepfather, who first taught me so much had died.  She didn't have any understanding of radio conversation so every time she'd stop speaking her local operator would have to tell her to say "Over."  Despite that, I got the news and could honor Frank and go on with my life.

 

A decade or so later I got my license and spent many an enjoyable hour communicating with or hearing others communicating with people who lived all over the world. 

 

The internet and cell phones may be great toys.  But IMO when the power goes out or the cell towers go down It's wonderful to still have amateur operators all over the world to keep is in touch and remind us that regardless of who is in power in whatever country that day, we are still caring and sharing human beings!!

[ViperPilot2]

3 hours ago, Rupert said:

The internet and cell phones may be great toys.  But IMO when the power goes out or the cell towers go down It's wonderful to still have amateur operators all over the world to keep is in touch and remind us that regardless of who is in power in whatever country that day, we are still caring and sharing human beings!!

 

And locally, there's always CB Radio to fall back on. I think I still have that old rig laying around somewhere...

 

I have a little Grundig G5 shortwave radio, but have never been able to pick anything up other than AM/FM. I wouldn't know where to tune anyway; it's in Meter Bands instead of MHz or KHz. Had much more experience jabbering away on Ch. 7 in my youth (that was our preferred CB Channel).

[MAD1]

During our catastrophic flood here in Feb 2022, all the modern comms went down: electricity failed (or was turned off for safety reasons), the cell phone towers' batteries eventually went flat (nobody could get to them for days or over a week or even longer), so mobile (cell) phones went dead, which is what most people use nowadays (we still have a fixed copper wire network but few people are on it nowadays, and the company that owns it is encouraging everyone to go to cell).

 

Since then, our community has started up our own Emergency Community Radio Network, using mainly UHF CB. Little communities in the valleys have formed up local chapters. This has all been coordinated by local hams. (I've been involved a bit with helping set up our local community chapter of that CB network.)

Of course, none of this is likely to work in the next 'big one', but the community awareness is better than nothing, than ignorance. Now, the authorities and private comms companies have upgraded things and given assurances that they're better prepared', but there is much evidence that nothing much has changed in the two years since the catastrophe. So there is a lot of community mistrust in governments and private businesses when they say 'don't worry, we have all the most modern infrastructure', as all that modern infrastructure went down in 2022!

[Nels_Anderson]

7 hours ago, ViperPilot2 said:

I have a little Grundig G5 shortwave radio, but have never been able to pick anything up other than AM/FM. I wouldn't know where to tune anyway; it's in Meter Bands instead of MHz or KHz.

 

The "bands" are in wavelength, but they are all segments of the radio spectrum, just like the CB band, AM band, FM band, etc. and you can tune to individual stations within that band.

 

You should be able to choose a frequency just by punching in the numbers on the keypad and pressing "enter" or something similar.

 

If possible, add an external antenna...just a piece of wire will do, the more the better in general. The so-called "shortwave" bands are not in any way "short" by modern standards!

 

If you can figure this out, try tuning to 7.490 MHz, which is a quite strong station located in Maine. If that works you can then try looking for other stations.

[lnuss]

7 hours ago, ViperPilot2 said:

it's in Meter Bands instead of MHz or KHz.

As Nels said, it's in wavelengths. So the 40M band has a wavelength in the area of 40 meters, and the allocated ham freqs there are from 7.000 MHz to 7.300 MHz. 6M is around just over 50 MHz, 2M is around 146 MHz, etc.

 

But something else helps a LOT, and that is to add (as Nels said) an external antenna. Keeping in mind that antennas are usually ½ or ¼ wavelength, so a 40M antenna would be 10 or 20 meters (times 3) and you're getting around 30 to 60 feet for a proper antenna. But just a 10 foot length of wire for receiving can make a big difference. Note that a ¼ wave 2M antenna would be around 19 inches, or so.

 

Hope this helps a bit.