Let go of my Lego!

So, how is your day going?

The cat got sick this morning.

While sitting on the pot I somehow managed to tinkle all over the floor.

I made coffee but forgot to turn on the machine.

When I got out of the shower I discovered I didn't have a towel.

And now for my next trick ...

Shadows and door.

Shadows and door. Experimental art with iPhone. Arvada, Colorado. November 29, 2022.

The old phone still works

I connected the old Western Electric 302 rotary dial telephone up to my land line using a pulse to tone converter box. I was able to verify that the old phone still works. I used it to call my cell phone, then used the cell phone to call the old rotary phone. It works great!

Mr. Big Mouth

My interpretation of Christopher Hart's Mr. Big Mouth. "Drawing Cartoons from Numbers," page 10 by Christopher Hart.

I will never forget

Matthew Shepard died 24 years ago today from injuries he suffered five days earlier in a brutal hate crime in Laramie Wyoming. I will NEVER forget !



 

Video interviews with my Mom & Dad (1991)

Video interviews with my Mom & Dad, Jos & Frances Hoadley. Recorded using a Radio Shack VHS camcorder in Story Wyoming in July 1991 by Clyde Hoadley.

My oldest brother passed away last week

Frank Ross Hoadley was born November 3, 1944 to Joseph and Frances Hoadley in Saint Louis Mo. where Doctor Joe was finishing his residency. The family would relocate to Gillette Wy after Doc Joe finished his service as an Army surgeon.

While growing up, Frank enjoyed hunting antelope, deer and rabbits on the family homestead ranch south of Gillette.

Frank was schooled in the Campbell County school system and completed his senior year of high school as a foreign exchange student to Australia.

Frank continued his education at the University of Wyoming receiving a Bachelor's Degree in English Literature. Frank would stay on at the University for a few more years while serving as a campus police officer before taking a position as a detective in the Laramie police department.

Frank was later hired by the city of Laramie to work as the City Manager where he served for several years.

Always looking for new opportunities Frank took a position with Boettcher and Associates in Denver, Colorado.

Frank left investment banking to take up the position of Capital Finance Director for the state of Wisconsin where he would serve under four different governors from 1988 until his retirement in 2013.

Frank was very highly regarded by his peers and considered a standard bearer of state debt management. As Capital Finance Director Frank introduced a number of innovations including the introduction of extendible municipal commercial paper. He was a champion of strong issuer disclosure and plain language in financial documents. His leadership and guidance in the Government Finance Officers Association was very influential. In 2008 Frank was given a lifetime achievement award by The Municipal Forum of New York.

Congresswoman Gwen Moore of Wisconsin is submitting a statement honoring Frank Hoadley into the United States Congressional Record.

Frank is preceded in death by his father Joseph, mother Frances, and his first wife Myrna Crout. He is survived by his sister Jeanette, brothers David and Clyde, his wife Elizabeth, and daughters Marci and Jessica.

Frank passed away August 4, 2022 while vacationing with his wife in Scotland.

Completion of a long project

This is an electronic weather station of sorts that I assembled from a variety of electronic parts and soldered together on a protoboard.

At the heart of the weather station is a HUZZAH 32 made by Adafruit in Manhattan New York. The HUZZAH 32 is an ESP32 microprocessor with WiFi hosted on an Adafruit Feather wing breakout board along with a USB connector, a battery connecter, a voltage regulator, and pinouts making the ESP32 microprocessor very easy to use. The ESP32 can be programmed using the Arduino IDE or Python.

I also added an Adafruit Ada Logger which is a Real Time Clock with battery backup and a micro SD card reader/writer. I am only using the SD card feature.

I connected a DHT22 digital temperature and humidity sensor. It is easy to use and works very well.

Then I connected a BMP388 pressure and temperature sensor. This did not work according to specifications but with some arithmetic I was able compensate for its error.

The really cool sensor is the PMSA003I air quality sensor that measures particulate mater in the air. It measures dust, smoke, pollen, etc. from 10 micrograms per cubic meter of air to as little as 0.03 micrograms per cubic meter of air.

Finally I wrote a program to pull it all together. The program does more than just read data from all the sensors, it also saves the reading to the micro SD memory card and makes the readings available via a web page accessible over WiFi.

It took much longer to develop the program than it did to wire and solder everything together -- which took several days.

I might eventually add a rain gauge and weather camera to it but for now I consider the project to be complete.

Hello 6502 world!

I've worked with computers for about 40 years. In the late 70's when I was in Tech school we learned how to write programs first on chalkboard then on paper coding forms. We submitted our programs on coding forms that were sent off-site and we would receive our results a few days later.

We also learned about truth tables, AND, OR, NOT, NAND, and NOR gates. In one of our labs we actually built an adder. We had to pool our breadboards together so we had enough space to build the circuits. We eventually got it to work.

I have a lot of fun playing with Arduino microcontrollers and Raspberry Pi microcomputers, but I've never built a functional computer from the bear-bones chip up. This changed after I discovered a YouTube channel run by a guy named Ben Eater.

His whole channel is devoted to building a computer from the wires up. After finishing his big project he is following up with a simpler project where he builds a computer from the chips up. I bought a 6502 kit from him and have been following along with the project.

Ben Eater's YouTube channel.

How to add a Zoom Q2n-4k to OBS as a Web Cam

I'm using a Mac but it should be the same on Windows.

Connect the Q2n-4K to the computer via the USB port and turn the Zoom on. The camera will usually detect that it's connected via USB to a computer and present you with the option to use it as a card reader, webcam (default), or a USB microphone. Select the center Webcam option and press the red button for OK. It will then ask you if you want to start the webcam - press the red button again.

I usually create a separate scene for the zoom webcam but that's not necessary, the webcam can be added to an existing scene. Create or select the Scene you want to add the webcam to.

In Sources click the plus sign and select Video Capture Device and give the new device a name (I use Q2n4k Video) and click OK.

On the Video Capture Device screen select "Q2n-4k Web Cam" in the Device dropdown box. Select the highest resolution available in the Preset dialog box. When used as a webcam the Q2n-4k maximum output is limited to 720. Click OK.

Video input devices and audio input devices must be added seperatley in OBS. Use the same scene from above and click the plus sign in the sources section. Select Audio Input Capture and give the new device a name (I use Q2n4k Audio) and click OK. On the Audio Input Capture screen select "Q2n-4k Web Cam" in the device dropdown box and click OK.

When using the Q2n-4K webcam you must have Auto Gain set to Concert, Solo, or Meeting. If Auto Gain is set to off then you must adjust the audio levels manually with the dial on the right side. You will also need to monitor the webcam audio in the Audio Mixer panel in OBS.

Truth matters

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Ham Radio Television

A tour and demo of my ham radio television station (Amateur Radio Fast Scan TV.)

The transmitter is an HV-320 produced by HiDes. It puts out about 1 watt of power. The receiver is an HV-122 also made by HiDes. The HiDes transmitter and receiver send and receive using DVB-T The power amplifier is a 23cm, 30/15/4.5 Watt, 49 dB Amplifier Model 23-11A by KH6HTV.COM.

While testing at home I'm transmitting and receiving on 1.243Ghz, but the HV-320 and HV-122 can transmit and receive on any Amateur Radio band between 100Mhz and 2.5Ghz. There is additional information about Amateur Radio Television at kh6htv.com/application-notes.

Never forget where lies and anger lead

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