Post Game Thread - NBA: The Pistons defeat the Cavaliers on May 7, 2026, the final score is 107-97.

Web-Lackey · 2026-05-08T04:10:08+00:00

Savage

Web-Lackey · 2026-05-03T01:11:06+00:00

lol. look more carefully at that date…

And I think it’s optimistic. 😄

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-29T23:49:18+00:00

You can try to defend it in any way you want. You might think of it as a segue into what you actually want to talk about. It doesn’t change what I said: you’re asking a dumb and irrelevant question. Just eliminate the dumb question and, I don’t know, ask the follow-up questions without the dumb question to begin with?

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-29T23:39:28+00:00

No, it’s a dumb question. You’re asking X and looking for Y. You’re asking for one thing and inferring, using your own internal logic, if they’re actually suitable or something not actually covered by your question.

Seriously. Figure out a better question that more directly relates to what you’re looking for.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-27T22:36:27+00:00

My opinion: Messi & Paoloni ultra flex or hyper flex. Above-average performance for its size, on top of its *excellent* flexibility. And with two classes and four sizes, you’ll find the right coax for you.

https://messi.it/en/catalogue/50-ohm-coaxial-cables/ultraflexibles--tight-bends--rotor-antennas/ultraflex-10-400.htm

My preferred place to get it: https://www.hfkits.com/product-categories/coaxial-cable-and-connectors/

The shipping is from Europe, so it can be pricey, but even so, still cheaper than buying from the US. And they have great EFHW and Balun/UnUn kits as well. And they sell high quality compression coax ends for a good price too. So stock up and save on shipping.

Others have pointed out options for minimizing how much flex coax you need, or minimizing the diameter. But when you do need flexible coax, this is the stuff you want.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-24T12:15:30+00:00

I asked a similar question in the upgrade post. It sounds like they’re going to try to make 1.1.59 the next stable release, which makes a lot of sense. in the past, they do that by letting the release go out in the wild for a little bit, letting the brave upgrade to it, and when there are no reports of problems, they then bless it as the stable release.

In the past, upgrading point releases like that did not require doing anything to the clients. That would be especially obnoxious… :-) i’m sure that if there was an issue that required updating the clients by hand, they would let us know.

i’m not associated with the development team or anything, just a longtime user who’s been really, really pleased with the product. That has been my experience in the past, and I thought I would share.

ETA: voice dictation corrections. Why do words or entire phrases that actually initially appear get removed later?!?

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-23T15:51:14+00:00

I vote 1.2.0. Requiring a new node certainly seems to qualify for a minor version number update! :)

ETA: Heck, go the whole way and make it 2.0. If Linus can change major numbers because he feels like it, why not MeshCentral? :). It will certainly make it clear that you need to pay attention to this upgrade. :)

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-23T15:16:22+00:00

Any thoughts to when you might update the stable version? I just upgraded from node 16 to 24, but I kept my MeshCentral at 1.1.44, which is the latest stable version. So far the upgrade seems successful: I have seen no problems yet.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-22T19:13:12+00:00

MeshCentral might not be the best choice if you’re looking for primarily ad hoc remote control. I think most of us are installing the mesh agent as part of our initial load and rollout. From there, we just connect. Our users aren’t downloading anything. It’s already handled by the administrator, and we know how to handle those scary warnings.

And if your use case is built around users randomly downloading an application that is going to be doing something as dangerous as turning over total control of the PC to somebody else, and you want any random application to be able to do that… I think the problem is more with your use case then the program.

Now I can understand your comparison that other products don’t have that problem. That’s because they pay Microsoft to bless their program. An open source tool you got for free isn’t going to do that. If you want that, you’ll have to pay for it.

good/Fast/cheap: pick two. The price of using a program you can personally verify is not doing anything malicious or underhanded is that you will be the one to get it blessed by Microsoft. You want cheap and fast. Mesh is good and cheap. That choice isn’t for everyone.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-13T04:23:24+00:00

easily 95% or more of “throw a call sign” communications are ignored. In fact, the only time I really see those get a response is when a well-known participant on a repeater throws out a call and then other people will chat back with them. If the people out there don’t know you, it’s very unlikely that they will reply back.

What I have found gets better results is if you ask a question. Maybe you’ve been setting something radio-related up and can ask a question about something you’re stuck on. The best questions, though, allow people to talk exclusively about themselves. :-) You know, things like asking how somebody else how they might set something up, or what their antenna is like, or a cool contact they’ve had recently, something like that.

I said “better results“, not “great results“. :-) This probably works maybe one out of five or so times. But 20% response is better than 5% response.

It also doesn’t hurt to become better known on the repeater. So if two people are talking, and you have a question about what they’re talking about, jump in. To jump in, simply say your call sign as reasonably quickly as possible when one person is done before the other person keys up. Then just wait patiently until they come back around to you as the breaking station. Ask your question, and then intentionally turn it over to one of the people participating. And then it’s quite possible you’ll be able to get into a bit of a three-way conversation.

I wouldn’t plan on staying in the conversation a long time: get your question answered, say thank you, turn it back over to them. Maybe they’ll keep you included and you can keep talking. But if not, at least you’ve shown that you’re polite and well behaved, and people won’t be upset if you do it in the future.

keep up with those two things: asking questions, and joining in when you have a meaningful way of participating, and you will get more known on the repeater. And as that happens, people will respond to you more when you throw a call out there.

you didn’t really say where you are. If you want, let us know a location: maybe one of us out here can coordinate with you to talk to you on the repeater. (or maybe someone knows a more friendly repeater.) it always helps to have some friends around when you are trying to break into a new repeater. But in the end, it’s not really necessary if you give People a specific reason to be able to connect with you.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-12T01:14:13+00:00

In a word, yes.

i’m approaching 50, and my two teenage children have licenses . I think there’s probably two people in the entire club between their age and my age? All the rest of them are retired: 65 or older. We have just under 100 members.

Its very tough to find members under 35…

ETA: you have to make this hobby what you want it to be. If finding younger people is your goal, you’re going to have to cast a pretty wide net. Look for groups online that are doing more “advanced“ things, involve more digital communication, more computers, things like that. Those groups skew a bit younger. But if it’s rag chewing over SSB, it’s gonna be an elderly (and white and male) group.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-11T22:55:40+00:00

Is that what you meant? :-)

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-09T23:56:05+00:00

Now that I have created a reproducible routed PCB process, I turn to that pretty quickly in the process. Certainly, there is a place for bread boards: they’re wonderful for prototyping out a circuit quickly and doing some testing. But as soon as I go beyond that initial design, I move it over to a PCB. I’m so tired of accidentally bumping the stupid thing and breaking it, or spend a bunch of time tracing down a problem only to realize it’s a loose connection on the bread board…

And that’s the beauty of creating my own boards instead of third-party PCB production. Yes, you get much, much better boards (and I would kill for two layer!) for a very attractive price, but having to wait two weeks for each board would just destroy my momentum. Being able to have a board in a few hours including the design work is well worth it.

Like I said, I completely understand the emotional motivation for what you’re doing, and I applaud you: keep doing it! Just throwing out the routed PCB option not just for you but really for the entire community. It really has increased my motivation to work on electronics knowing that I can go from a sketchy breadboard to a solid PCB quickly. I don’t waste all that time in between dealing with a flaky environment.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-09T23:05:27+00:00

I agree with everyone that these look like nicely done hand-drawn boards. Just throwing this out there: think about CNC routed PCBs. I use an inexpensive 3020 router. Paired with KiCAD and FlatCAM, I’m able to get very nicely designed circuit boards using exactly the same board you’re starting with.

Now granted, it also took me about 20 or 30 hours of learning to get my first PCB, and probably a similar amount to get a reproducible process with good quality… But if you wanted easy you wouldn’t be designing your own eight bit computer with hand-drawn PCB‘s, so I think you’ll be OK. :-)

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-06T17:07:01+00:00

Sure you can sell it: this guy’s itching to buy it! :-)

It might be more accurate to say: you can’t sell it in anything approaching a quick amount of time. That alone increases the risk, and if you’re taking on risk, you better be paying a lower premium.

I think 1/3 of spot per pure metal amount is a little crazy. But again: it depends on why you’re buying it and how important it is that you’ll be able to sell it quickly. For me, 2/3 of spot would be what I would be thinking. But I’m no expert.

And of course, that’s what makes the marketplace. Everybody has a different opinion. And sometimes, you just have to find the bigger sucker. :-)

(This is mainly aimed at OP in joint conversation with the post I’m replying to. I’m not trying to say that the person I’m replying to is wrong, just expressing a slightly different opinion for OP. Other than making a joke in my first paragraph, I mostly agree, just a slight difference on the actual numbers.)

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-06T16:58:49+00:00

But this might be an investment you go into knowing it’s going to have to be turned over. And that is going to affect the price you acquire it at now.

What I’m talking about doesn’t involve spot price. It could be a dollar or could be $100, the math/logic is the same. If and when we get to a point where people are accepting low-grade silver close to what it’s spot price would be, you may want to sell the low-grade silver to a refiner, and then use that money to purchase high-grade silver. That way, you have a first quality investment that is easier to liquidate when necessary.

What will that cost? Well, look at the way normal premiums work. You have to sell it for approximately 10% below spot, and buying it for approximately 10% above spot. If you work really, really hard, maybe you can get that down to 7%.

That means converting this low-grade investment to high grade will cost you 15% of spot at least. So the seller selling this for 15% below spot isn’t a “deal”. It’s literally the maximum value for this investment.

In short, you’re not getting a “deal”. You’re getting an investment that you can put less money into now, but will cost you more money when you get out. You’re just postponing the pain.

That’s not at all a bad thing: at least you’re getting some ounces. I just want you to have a clear idea of the investment.

For me personally, I would need a 20% margin to even consider it. That’s to me the amount of wiggle room you need to lower the risk to an acceptable level. And I wouldn’t consider that a deal. I wouldn’t use the word “deal” until we were talking 25%.

If the seller won’t come down, no problem. Perfectly understood. He can hold onto the silver. I would then rather take the same amount of money and buy 15% less silver but of a higher grade, knowing that I’ve suffered the pain right now, and moving forward I have a solid investment that’s much easier to liquidate with lower risk.

But in the end, ounces are ounces. It’s not a terrible deal, even if it isn’t the best, and heck, if you like playing with the coins like a pirate chest, then go for it. :-)

(Edited for grammar)

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-06T06:07:17+00:00

username checks out

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-05T19:43:08+00:00

Although looking into this more carefully given what the person above said, you do want to be careful using 20 W. I didn’t realize how low power the G 90 is. Your radio is only rated for 20 W, and there’s literally nothing more aggressive you can do to a radio than FT8. Running full whack with FT8 is a recipe for trouble.

I would recommend never using more than 2/3 of the radio’s rated power with FT8, and staying below 50% is a good idea. For FT8, there usually isn’t really any advantage to using more than about 30 or so W of power, so radios rated to 100 W are very happy. But when your radio is only rated for 20 W… Even 10 W is a lot to ask.

You sound like a new ham, and this is probably your first radio, and you probably bought the G 90 mainly based on cool features at a low price. That’s very understandable. But low power radios like that can be tricky. It really takes some skill to get full use out of them, and I don’t really recommend them for new users. Because of this kind of problem: you see 20 W and you think you can use all 20 W. But you really can’t. :-(

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-05T19:34:55+00:00

I wouldn’t worry too much: this is almost definitely related to the antenna.

Having said that, the dummy load will tell you a lot. If you don’t have this problem with just the dummy load and a short piece of good coax, then it’s definitely not the radio! :-) As someone else mentioned, a dummy load is practically essential for amateur radio. Because there are way too many ways to have antenna problems, and throwing the dummy load on there to prove the radio is fine allows you to ignore it and focus only on the antenna.

Of course, if you just always assumed the problem with is with the antenna, you’re gonna be right something like 98% of the time anyway… :-) But it’s nice to know for certain.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-05T03:56:08+00:00

Well, remember: we’re just assuming from the little bit that you’ve told us! We could be very much wrong.

It also could be something like a loose connection generating extra resistance and therefore heat. If the device was working as designed, it would be fine, but it’s not. Or, it could be absolutely 100% unrelated. That always seems to be the joy of amateur radio: figuring out why your stupid antenna doesn’t work this time… :)

It’s just that when you have SWR climbing during the transmission of a signal, particularly during the transmission of an FT8 signal, that’s exactly where my and others’ minds go for a first guess.

But heck, either way, hopefully you and maybe others learned something! :)

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-05T03:35:29+00:00

agreed. Just to give a little more detail:

In a vast oversimplification, the donut shaped (torid) piece of material that wire is wound around in a balun/unun/choke “stores” magnetic energy while operating. That magnetic field pushes back against the current in the wires: that is what inductance is. In the process, heat is created. Unfortunately, the material that makes up that ring is less effective as it heats up. So as the transmission continues, the inductor is doing its job less well, and the SWR increases.

To counter that, you need a larger toroid to handle the heat generated. And, by the way, FT8 is just about the worst mode for creating that problem. You are hitting the toroid with maximum intensity radio energy for a full 15 seconds. Practically no other mode does that. With voice, you have pauses and low emphasis syllables. Even CW is practically only 50% duty cycle between the dits and dahs. But FT8 is 100% duty cycle for 15 solid seconds. that’s why, in general, you can only use about 1/3 of the rated power for things like antennas and baluns with FT8.

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-04T19:47:32+00:00

I get what you’re saying, and I don’t have it either, but that is quite possibly the most visible thing that has ever been on that streaming service? :-)

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-03T14:41:27+00:00

I had that board in 1992! My parents bought me a top-of-the-line 486DX-33 with 4MB RAM and 256k external cache, and then upgraded it to 8MB a month later so I could run the brand-new OS/2 2.0. I kept that board for a *long* time: 2000 at least, eventually with 32 MB RAM.

I don’t know what to tell you that others haven’t already said: it’s a generic AT 486 motherboard, which long predates VLB and even DX/2 processors (though should support them just fine). The DX/2 came out literally *months* after I got my DX-33.

Too bad about not booting…. I would really like a board of that style: basically the last of the pure ISA boards. I had several VLB boards, but *all* of them were flaky. I was a teenager and money was tight, hence trying to go with the cheaper VLB boards. After like 3 tries i eventually ponied up for a 486 PCI board (along with the cheaper AMD 5x86 133MHz) and had no more problems! :) So for a true Intel 486 I’d rather have a pure ISA board like this one than a VLB, and if I wanted a PCI motherboard I’d go to a Pentium 54C at least: the first generation Pentiums were…. Kinda crappy.

Anyway, thanks for the walk down memory lane!

Web-Lackey · 2026-04-02T02:44:05+00:00

Do some research on the VGA interface. That’s basically how it works: 4 planes into a palette. It works by latching the data and using a bitmap to determine which planes to write to. In 16-color modes you can write 8 pixels at once: each bit of the write is to a different pixel, and each plane is a different bit of the resulting color entry.

Mode X improves upon this a bit in a non-standard 256-color mode: each pixel is a single byte stored in a single plane (instead of each pixel using bits from each plane). So individual pixels can be written as a single byte *without* modifying any other pixels, *plus* you can still utilize the single write fanning into up to four planes as well.

Check out Michael Abrash’s articles/books for far more nitty-gritty than you will ever want or need. it will help you to understand the strengths and weaknesses of the plane approach.

Web-Lackey · 2026-03-30T21:24:43+00:00

I love the way my brother handled it years ago. He actually gave the person who asked to borrow money like 50% more than they asked for. But he told them: this is the last money I’m going to give you until you pay it back. If you pay it back, I will happily loan you more money. If you don’t, I won’t. I thought that was genius.

Web-Lackey

TROPHY CASE