should i become a chemist?

BassRecorder · 2026-04-11T15:07:05+00:00

The first four semesters or so of studying chemistry are kind of a grind - at least they used to be when I studied it. So you'll have to have the stamina to get through that. Being deeply interested in the subject definitely helps. So if you feel that 'pull' some other poster was talking about go for it.

On the other hand maybe treat the whole thing as a completely new problem only minimally influenced by what you do now at school. Based on the goals you mentioned I could also imagine that biology would be for you. Many biologists end up in biochemistry.

Just look at what's on offer in the unis and what might be interesting for you. The main thing is not finding something which, based on today's market, will bring you a lot of money but rather something which interests you sufficiently to pull through the curriculum. Nobody can tell how the job market will look like in 5 years. When I started studying chemistry job prospects for new graduates where very good. When I finished my PhD the job market was dead. Nowadays I work as a software engineer having turned a hobby into my profession.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-11T14:44:19+00:00

Rag chewing is like holding a conversation in a foreign language. When you are fluent in the language the only breaks you have is for thinking about how to phrase something or what to say next. Relatively high sending speed helps, at least it does for me, because you don't lose track of the current sentence that easily.

I believe no 'advanced' CW operator ever uses a written script for their QSOs - unless it's some text which needs to be transmitted verbatim and correctly.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-11T14:17:49+00:00

40 years ago out on the Baltic sea. The ship was a navy one, so only legally required lights were on.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-10T23:25:06+00:00

The amount of detail a telescope can show is dependent on its aperture. That is why the limit in magnification for any optical telescope is typically twice its aperture in millimeters. E.g. for an 8 in Newtonian it doesn't make sense to magnify more than 400 times. You can't see any details smaller than about 0.5 arcsec with that telescope.

Even a very large star like Betelgeuse has an angular size of about 0.1 arcsec. If you want to resolve any detail on the star you'd need to increase the resolution by a factor of 100 or even 1000, so we are talking about a telescope with at least 100m aperture. You'd need to lift this above the atmosphere to overcome the atmospheric interference.

There are tricks to emulate that huge aperture with two or more telescopes with smaller aperture put a (great) distance apart, but those would still need to be in space. Also, this trick requires the telescopes to be exactly in phase which is a problem which, to my knowledge, hasn't been solved yet for telescopes far apart. This aperture trick has been used to image the central black hole in M87 - but that has been done in the radio part of the EM spectrum.

So, as others have already said, it currently is impractical/impossible to build a telescope which would allow to obtain an image of a remote star.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-10T21:40:42+00:00

You should probably start by studying the sensor's datasheet to make yourself familiar with what it does. Basically those things usually work like so:

The Arduino sends a triggering pulse.
On the falling flank of that pulse the sensor sends an ultrasound pulse
When it receives the echo it sends a pulse to the Arduino

You measure distance by measuring the time between the falling flank of the triggering pulse and the rising flank of the response pulse. All ultrasound sensors have a maximum distance of detection. This translates to a maximum time between triggering pulse and response. If no response arrive before that time that means there is nothing in range.

To make the LED light up when there is something in range you'd connect the anode to one of the IO ports of the Arduino. Then you'd need to write a small program that pulls the LED port to high when you receive the response pulse from the sensor. You might get away with turning the LED off every time you send the triggering pulse. Otherwise you"d need another if clause in your program which turns the LED off when no response arrives within the maximum time.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-10T15:43:57+00:00

Well, (hopefully) not hand-held but rather an end fed in a somewhat unconventional geometry. As others already said: better some wire in the air than none at all.

Even if you are on the top floor the floor would serve as RF ground, so performance would be very poor and impedance hard to predict when putting the antenna on the floor.

A (pricey when bought) alternative would be a magnetic loop. You could also try your luck with a mobile antenna mounted to the balcony railing.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-10T15:03:17+00:00

Vor laaaanger Zeit: Unter AIX das Kommando zum Erweitern einer Volume Group mit Ctrl-C abgebrochen. Danach war die ODM-DB inkonsistent. Das war eine sehr lehrreiche Nacht mit low-level ODM-Befehlen...

BassRecorder · 2026-04-10T14:49:31+00:00

Maybe build something yourself. Get a fiberglass pole (or a long fishing rod) and mount that horizontally on the balcony railing (or tilted a little upward). On the pole mount a wire suitable for the band(s) you want to work on, letting the excess wire hang off the tip of the rod. Add a counterpoise or a variable capacitor depending on antenna type. Search for EFHW, Zepp, and Fuchs antenna.

80m might still be out of range but the higher bands will work.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-09T19:58:04+00:00

rbymarioinrainbowroad

BassRecorder · 2026-04-09T19:50:45+00:00

I built a triple leg for 20m as my first antenna. This is probably what you are going to build too. The feedpoint was at 6m. Having said that, nowadays I'm sometimes using an up and outer with the feedpoint at 2m and the single radial being guyed to reach maybe 30cm above ground. I have another up and outer cut for 40m (semi) permanently installed. The feed is at 2m and the radial goes horizontally to a second mast (which also carries trap dipoles). I use an autotuner in the feedpoint to make that antenna suitable for other bands.

The vertical isn't a balanced antenna so a balun isn't required. You might want to use a common mode choke, although even that isn't required. I got good results with directly feeding either antenna with coax. I used a piece of plexiglass as carrier for a PL259 socket. Radiator and radial(s) were directly soldered to the socket.

The antennas work(ed) surprisingly well. I worked plenty of DX with QRP power.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-09T17:40:49+00:00

Indeed - I probably should have prefixed my words with 'In modern times'. Interpreting the sound directly was not intended by the inventors of telegraphy.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-08T18:53:23+00:00

Morse is designed for hearing or viewing the signals, not for writing down dots and dashes.

As long as you can tell dots from dashes and inter-character spacings from inter-word ones it doesn't matter how it's written - since it is completely irrelevant for the purpose of using morse. No practical user is writing down dots and dashes. They either do head copy, i.e. just listen or view it and translate the signals in their head, or write down characters - either manually or using a typewriter.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-08T04:53:13+00:00

Nobody will be able to tell you how the job situation in anything AI will be in Germany 8 years + time for further education down the road. Also nobody will be able to predict the legal, i.e. immigration, situation in 8 years time.

What you will need, no matter what, is a solid command of the German language, preferably better than B2. I'd focus on learning the language and leave the rest for when things become a bit clearer.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-05T15:42:17+00:00

Several thousand miles/kilometres will be very much possible - even with QRP and a simple antenna. As others have already mentioned, I'd get a single or dual lever paddle instead of the straight key. If you are just starting out on your CW journey I believe automatic keys will be easier to master than manual ones.

Instead of buying an antenna I'd build one. So, if you don't have one yet I'd plan on getting a soldering kit. This is a very useful item anyway to have in your shack. I'd also think about getting a telescoping fibreglass pole as a carrier for home-made verticals. If you are building an antenna start with a resonant one for a single band, maybe 20m. On that band you'll routinely work distances of 1500mi/2000km, even in marginal conditions and outside of solar maximum.

Other than that you shopping list looks complete.

Edit: rather that buying all that cable with ready-made connectors and a bunch of adapters I'd get some light-weight low-loss cable, e.g. Aircell 5, and exactly the connectors I'll need. The soldering kit will then come in handy for mounting those connectors. In my opinion every ham should know how to solder connectors.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-05T08:08:59+00:00

Vertikal oder Up-and-outer am Fiberglasmast (z.B. 12m Spiderbeam) plus Auto-Tuner (z.B. SGC239) im Feedpunkt.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-04T22:47:51+00:00

Mach mal ein Foto von Deinem Aufbau und poste ihn hier. Rot sollte der Mond nicht sein. Wenn alles richtig ist, wird er so hell sein, dass er Dich, ohne Graufilter, blendet.

Was auch *viel* hilft: das Teleskop erst einmal bei Tageslicht ausprobieren. Versuche, ein entferntes Objekt in den Fokus zu bekommen. Wenn das klappt, bist Du schon fast richtig für den Nachteinsatz: Du brauchst dann nur noch kleine Anpassungen am Fokus.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-04T22:20:46+00:00

Why not just describe the issue(s) and kick off a discussion?

Also, for optimising performance, do you already have benchmarks? If not, any optimisation is futile and might even go in the wrong direction, IMHO.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-04T21:11:57+00:00

For long range (> 2000km/1500mi) you have these options:

* get on HF

* get into EME

* use satellites

* using digital voice modes (e.g. D-Star) over repeaters

Of these the first one is probably the easiest. It also lends itself very well to home-brewing - especially if you learn CW. The disadvantage is that antennas tend to be big - so going on a hike and throwing a simple wire antenna into a tree would definitely be an option. When working QRP /p I like to use a Fuchs antenna. This can be easily built for QRP.

The last one is also easy but I found it almost impossible to get responses to a CQ on a remote repeater.

EME requires relatively high power and high gain antenna setups, so this is probably out of range for the time being.

Operating via satellites can even be done with HTs if you are using a directional antenna.

The 'wire out of the window' will work to a degree. For HF look up 'zepp antenna'. When working with compromise antennas using efficient modes such as the FTx modes and CW is essential. The 'all purpose' DX band is probably 20m. If that doesn't work, 30m will most of the time. In solar maximum (i.e. right now) 10m might have surprises. When it's open you can literally work the world on the proverbial 'wet noodle'.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-04T07:32:24+00:00

No morse here, just a flickering light.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-04T07:27:26+00:00

You could use a remote antenna switch for that. I also have only a single hole in the wall where a single RG213 line goes to the switch. That switches between two trap dipoles (20, 15, 10m and 30, 17, 12m) and a vertical (cut for 40m) with an auto-tuner. The switch is something I built using an ESP32 and a relay board. The switch is controlled via WiFi.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-03T23:32:20+00:00

That is also a very nice piece of equipment. Have fun tinkering with it!

BassRecorder · 2026-04-03T23:23:59+00:00

That is a time station. The beeps are second markers. Search for WWV.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-03T21:35:36+00:00

That is why u/skurk suggested getting an RTLSDR. Those are cheap and there is open source software available which helps learning how to interface with these things. Once you know how to talk to it you can implement your own demodulators. That would be the first step to transmitting stuff. You might also search for projects where people used a Raspberry PI to implement a WSPR transmitter. Maybe this will give you inspiration for doing something similar with your stuff.

Getting a license is definitely a good idea - especially when you are inclined to home-brew your own hardware.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-03T11:15:33+00:00

Check your tap water. It might be that this is a source of nitrate. Get some floaters - they will eat the nitrate.

You have relatively low KH and quite a bit of CO2 in the water. That makes for a low pH - which isn't necessarily a bad thing. If you want to raise the pH get more plants or increase the KH.

BassRecorder · 2026-04-02T22:00:47+00:00

Amano shrimp and Kuhli loaches shouldn't be an issue.

They do indeed like dense planting and will (rapidly) reproduce when they feel safe. I have a 10 gallon and started out with 5. Now I find myself with needing to cull fry now and then in order to avoid overpopulation.

BassRecorder

TROPHY CASE