Bills Posts

My initial thought was to do a quite heavy crop on this picture, but then when I really looked at it, I saw what appears to be almost a feeling of motion toward the centre of the frame. How about this one;

Here’s the Normandie coming in through the Portsmouth Harbour entrance. I think the lighting is quite pleasant and it is a moderately interesting subject. Worthy of a picture. And here is another one;

This is the view across the water of Portsmouth Harbour to the Spinnaker, middle-centre left is HMS Warrior, and middle-far left you can just make out the tops of the half masts of HMS Victory, I believe the main part of her masts are being refurbished.

Now, what Io have done with these three photos is shown you what I have always treated as the main subjects for photographing on my morning walks. When it comes to night photography I’m very aware that I have been very self-limiting in my subjects. Even now, you will still see many more pictures of these three subjects – the weather will never be the same as it was when these were taken (ok, it might be similar).

I want to be a little bit more adventurous than I have been so hopefully you might see more pictures of different subjects. Now I’m not promising that these pictures will be any good. But as you well know, sometimes you take a picture not expecting much and they turn out to be not bad. Well, that’s my hope anyway.

A problem I have is my lack of artistic (Hah!) originality, so this is going to be an interesting experiment, just bear with me.

I’m sat in my comfy chair, waiting for the next episode of Spooks to start, when Elayne drops some chocolate coins into my lap. The left over of a Women’s Institute Christmas preparation. “Don’t eat them all in one go” she says, Hah!

There’s this thing about chocolate that makes it completely addictive. As long as there is chocolate within reach it has to be eaten. Now, all of the coins have go. Did I eat them all in one go, you bet I did! That’s the thing about chocolate any effort to control its consumption is I am sad to say doomed to failure. That’s why we try not to have it in the house. Just occasionally the system fails.

I mentioned on a previous post that during our holiday in Pagham we paid a visit to Littlehampton, along the riverfront,there was a very nice promenade, at the end of which, near the lifeboat station was a very nice cafe.

I’m saying this because Gosport also has a very nice promenade, and it also has a very nice waterfront cafe. Unfortunately, the two are not together.

Now, it’;s not often that I say something political, but;There are plans to redevelope the bus station, it’s a 1960s carbuncle that has served its purpose and really needs to be pulled down and redeveloped into something much more attractive and useful. Now the big question is does the Gosport Borough Council have the gumption to do what is right?

Well, that’s the question isn’t it.

This is looking to the west at about 0645. There’s something about the light that appeals to me.

I haven’t spoken about the books that I’m reading at the moment, I have two on the go; the book about village life I tend to read at breakfast, the book about portsmouth, and the book by Danny Sullivan about Ley Lines. Now, I’m tempted to say don’t worry, I’m not falling in to some mystical weirdness, I just think it’s a nice idea and is fascinating to read about. Now, the book is branching out a bit to talk about UFO’s but I’ll stick with it. I can’t explain my interest in the whole ley line thing. Partly it’s because of things like Stone Henge, or the Avebury Ring and the apparently obvious (geographical?) relationship between them.

The book about Portsmouth is fascinating, at the moment it is talking about life in the 18th century, which was pretty rough, especially in an over-populated coastal town with poor sanitation, disease rife, and the possibility of being picked off by a press gang ever present.

I’m never really sure why I have two books (and some times I’ve had three I think) on the go. Usually, it’s because I can’t make up my mind which one to read first. Sometimes it develops into I’m finding this one the most interesting, so that becomes the focus, other times, like this one – I remain on both books.

Yesterday, we spent most of the day in the garden getting it ready for winter. We haven’t finished, and will probably give it another good going next weekend. Still even though I did a quick walk in to town to get lunch from Greggs (yes, we were a bit naughty) which is only about a mile and a half. Even so, I managed to clock up over 22,500 steps, and only about 4,000 of those were the trip in to town. It goes to show just how much exercise is involved in a bit of gardening.

Today was a bit different, a bit more relaxed. By the time we’d been to the garden centre for lunch, and I had been to B&Q to see if I could get the wood for the baseboard on my model railway (I couldn’t, but it’s OK I can wait), I had only managed to clock up a few thousand steps, I do try to aim for 10,000 but unless I went for a walk I wasn’t going to do that. Anyhow, come 5PM I decided that I needed to take a quick walk, so headed off to the promenade via the cockleponds. A very pleasant 2.5 miles and enough to take me over the 10,000.

Looks like the weather is going to be dry in the mornings for the week ahead, so provided I wake up in time, it should be a week of morning & lunchtime walks – good for the mileage.

I think this brings to a close a rather pleasant weekend. I must admit that by the end of the day in the garden I was flagging, and it was nice to stop. I sat down with a cup of tea and nearly fell asleep, but after a nice refreshing shower, I felt as right as rain, and went on to have a lovely zoom with some old friends. So, both days appear to be ending well. Bit frustrated about the wood, but on a scale of L>H, 1-10, I’m at L2, so not a disaster by any means. One thing I will need to do though, is get to grips with a Dremel. Not been massively successful so far, but I can learn.

I know that the title is a bit strange, I’ll explain;

In 2016 I became a licensed radio ham. If you are licensed, you’ll know how to look me up, my callsign was M6BBB, it’s still registered to me, I’m now an intermediate. This is important, because being a radio ham has introduced me to a whole new language.

If you hear a radio ham refer to the station manager, they are almost invariably referring to their spouse or partner whom they live with. The Station manager needs to be patient and understanding if not, they can make the life of the amateur unbearable. I am incredibly lucky. My station manager is incredibly understanding and patient. But, woe betide me if I let my shack get untidy, or if my antennas get in the way in the garden.

What about the 73’s? Well, that comes from something called the Phillips Code, developed in 1879 by the American Journalist Walter P. Phillips called a brevity code, it shortened they way of saying things to make messages easier and quicker to send.

The numerical values of the Phillips code are a later extension to the original code, and there are two which are still heavily used by radio amateurs these are; “88” (said as Eight Eight, not Eighty Eight) Which means “Hugs and Kisses” and “73” (similarly, always said as “Seven Three’s”, very rarely as “Seventy Three.” This means “Best Wishes” or “Best Regards.”

Now, the problem that. Both the terms Station Manager and 73 have a habit with me of creeping in to everyday life. I have actually typed 73’s at the end of a works email, luckily I’ve realised what I’ve done and managed to catch it before sending. I’ve also referred to Elayne as the Station Manager in a normal conversation raising questions of “Who?” I could see this becoming a bit embarrassing, but fun!

I think the Cockle ponds were the smoothest I’d seen them for a long while.

There have been a couple of times over the last week or so, when the time has come to write and I really couldn’t think of anything. That’s why you’ve ended up with either a shorter than normal or something more than a bit waffly.

I’ve had quite a reasonable spread of articles; model railways, photographic equipment and a bit of astronomy. There was one day when I didn’t go for a walk, it was absolutely tipping it down. Now I have gone out deliberately when it is raining, and I did get wet, but not that Monday.

We will be doing some time in the garden tomorrow, but I am hoping to get the opportunity to get to either Homebase or B&Q, I am determined to get the baseboard material for the model railway. Unfortunately, if they don’t work, I am back to the online. Even if I can only get the supporting timber – that would certainly help.

That leads on to something else. When the railway is up and running I want to photograph it, I’ve been watching some videos of people who take pictures of toys, but making them look realistic. I suppose it partly goes back to the TV adverts that showed children’s toys in action sequences. I’d quite like to have a go.

Do you watch the tides? Water goes up, water goes down and that’s it right? Of course it’s never that simple is it?

Sometimes, I can be incredibly dumb. I never found out until not too long ago that spring tides have nothing at all to do with spring, and that they occur every month, as the earth rotates, and the moon revolves around the earth, it’s a dance much more sophisticated than the tango, and much more delightful to watch. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NqDEaFjIXPw

I must admit, I never know what state the tide is going to be in when I arrive at the waterfront. Perhaps I should – it does after all follow a very, very predictable, so I should be able to know day to day.

A good demonstrator of the change of the tides is the Gosport Ferry Ramp, which when the tide is high, is pretty much level, and when low there is quite a steep slope to it.

It all feeds in to what makes my morning walk interesting.

Best viewed full screen.

Our front door just about faces due south. That means this time of the year when I leave the house for my morning walk, if the sky is clear, I get a quite spectacular view of the sky, especially Orion.

That constellation was especially prominent as I stepped out this morning. It’s always lovely to see it. Now, for whatever reason I can’t think of I didn’t stop to take a picture at that point.

This picture was taken about 15 minutes later, when I was in the centre of town. What surprised me was given the huge amount of light pollution was just how visible the constellation appears. If you look at the belt and seeing the sword, towards the bottom of which is a blurry object, which I think could be Messier 42, The Orion Nebula. Now, if it is, I am astounded and delighted,

The thing that really disappointed me though, is the lack of other stars caused by light pollution. Can you imagine what the sky would be like if we could take away all the artificial lighting? I think nothing less than spectacular. I’d really love to see that.

Here’s the K&F Concept Tripod; https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=K%26F+concept+tripod&client=safari&hl=en-gb&source=lnms&tbm=isch&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwiQqc_K77PzAhVN8OAKHTcJC6IQ_AUoA3oECAEQBQ&biw=1366&bih=891&dpr=2#imgrc=bZxaRD-1llqfNM

My assumption was that the centre column of any tripod I would be interested in would form the monopod. But, thinking about it that wouldn’t work, what ever mechanism is used to secure leg segment would get in the way. The visit to the London Camera Exchange on Saturday was an eye opener. This is where I found out that a leg would do the job. I must admit I was a bit disconcerted at that.

Now there is a fiddly bit in the transition from monopod to tripod, but it’s less fiddly, and much more robust than the Manfroto product that I had a go with. it has a very good, smooth ball and socket head and also came with a crossbar mount ring. I misread the description thinking that it didn’t come with one so I ordered one. Luckily the Amazon Returns process is probably about as smooth as they can take. The refund is already back on the card.

I took my new acquisition out for a trip this morning. I had the body of the tripod slung across my back with the new strap. It was very lite (being a leg short as well) I barely noticed it was there. I have to say it was much better than carrying the old tripod in its bag. The monopod needs a little bit of getting used to, but I will. Because I slept a bit later than usual, and left the house about 15 minutes later than I usually did, I really had to rush to get to the waterfront to do my weather report to the #Breakfastclub, arriving just in time. I didn’t go through the conversion, so I still have to practices that under “operational” conditions. I’m sure it will all work out fine

Talking very briefly about the old tripod and especially the old monopod, they have both given excellent service in their time. I’m sorry to see the monopod go to charity, but there really is no point in keeping it.

The Musketier outbound fromPortsmouth, not sure where it was going, but nice seeing it go out.

I’ve looked on a couple of websites that cut wood. Who’d have thought that a basic piece of plywood (9mm 1.25mx0.5m, plus enough 1×1 (25x25mm) wood to edge and provide 4 lateral batons could both be so difficult and expensive to find. Now, I must admit, I’m not really sure what I’m buying, and I haven’t looked locally. Surely, places like Homebase and B&Q are worth looking at – I wonder if there are any other places that I could look.

I can see a trip to local wood emporiums coming on sometime in the near future. I’m not going to spend that much, unless I absolutely have to.

You now know then, how big this, my first layout is going to be. This is because, this layout is going to be a proof of concept. The laying of track, setting points, cabling the track, installing point motors, practicing with Digital Command & Control (DCC). There are many skills that I need to develop, and the whole point of this layout is that I learn from my mistakes.

The baseboard is the starting point. Let’s see how it goes from here.