Thursday, January 23, 2025

January 23, 2025. Yet another Fire in the LA Area.

Breaking news.

Power outage and the Laguna Fire is 6 miles west of my house. Car is packed with only 1 Radio. If my home gets smoked then it's the end of my boat anchor collection.

An inconvenience but not the end of the world.

There was a popular song many moons ago by Johnny Cash called Ring of Fire. Well, there is a Ring of Fire around the Los Angeles Area. The latest is the Hughes Fire near Lake Castaic about 40 Miles NE from me. As usual a raft of PSPS texts, emails and even phone calls to expect my power to go down for the 4th time in two months. 


Hughes Fire ~ About 9000 Acres

This fire situation is great political fodder for what's his name, but the reality is that I keep nothing in the refrigerator, and I have my go stuff at the front door. But the Hughes Fire is different -- I can smell it, whereas the other fires in the ring were not smelly at this QTH. At 9000 acres burnt that comes to about 14 Square Miles. [9000*43560 / (5280^2) = 14.1 sq miles]

My battery is charged so I have Cell Phone and Laptop charging capabilities. In many respects having the XYL in a Board and Care facility is a plus as her location has had less PSPS shutdowns and there is staff there 24/7 and they have back up Oxygen systems. It would be impossible to care for her here at home with the power off for three or four days. Bright spot: Rain is expected this weekend.

I have simulated a J310 JFET general purpose amp stage using LT Spice. Indeed, the results looking promising and so a bit more work toward a low power consumption emergency rig. Too bad I keep having to delay things because of the PSPS situation.
 
 
 
This simulation is just a starting place as the simulation of the 500 Ohm filter is just a plug circuit to see if this could work. More simulation time is needed to accurately represent the actual 9 MHz filter and then see the gain across the module.
 
Them that know can make it go.

73's
Pete N6QW

3000 sailors and 6 single women. Chapter 7

[ Just spotted a new ham radio term for the 1% of us hams who can actually totally build all of the gear in their station. I am now shifting...