The Cosmos-Monitor II

Possible changes

Sun, 17 Feb 2013 14:42:12 -0500

With the impending demise of Posterous, I’m having to rethink the platforms I’ve been using and how I’ve been using them. I’ve mostly used Tumblr as a place to replicate posts from Posterous. I might be able to make more use of Tumblr if I did things differently. Stay tuned!

Autoposts seem to be dead

Sun, 16 Dec 2012 19:06:47 -0500

I usually create my posts in Posterous, which then publishes them to other sites, including Tumblr. However, autoposting seems to be failing. I will need to investigate, though I’m not sure how much I will be able to do about it if this is a feature that Tumblr no longer supports. In the meantime, for new posts, check out markrobt.posterous.com or markrobt.blogspot.com.

More from Missouri 110

Wed, 29 Aug 2012 00:47:00 -0400

Missouri 110, the additive (and, some would argue, unnecessary) designation for the Chicago-Kansas City Corridor, was first signed in the Kansas City area. Then the signs crept up Interstate 35 to Cameron and eastward from there all the way over to Hannibal, where the corridor enters Illinois. Thanks to Matt Roberds, we see evidence of the eastward march of Route 110 along US 36. This is one of a few photos I’ve just posted to the Missouri Road Signs and Sights site (http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/mo) that Matt took at the US 36-US 65 interchange in Chillicothe.

A quick look: Roberts Sports 925

Sat, 04 Aug 2012 21:06:04 -0400

The name is a happy coincidence, but the real reason I bought this radio was for longwave coverage during trips to Europe. While the Tecsun DSP series of radios cover the longwave band (153 to 279 kHz, not used in the Western Hemisphere for broadcasting), they don’t receive those signals well. I was looking for the Roberts R9924, which had a very good reputation for longwave and mediumwave reception, but it’s been discontinued. I was able to get the Sports 925 from an online merchant in England via eBay.

It’s a nice package. It’s strictly analog, so tuning can involve some guesswork. The radio is clearly aimed at AM listening in the United Kingdom, as you can see from the indications of various national-coverage frequencies on the dial. There is FM reception, including a nice rigid telescoping antenna. While FM reception is moderately sensitive, front-end overload is a real problem and, at best, I can rate this radio as fair for FM reception.

For longwave and mediumwave reception, though, it’s another story. A longwave station that should be receivable throughout western Europe is Radio France-Inter at 162 kHz. The Tecsuns could barely get it even in France. This radio could get it, with some noise, in Leiden, in the Netherlands. In France itself, France-Inter was almost like a local in most spots. Also easily receivable in France were RMC at 216 kHz and RTL from Luxembourg on 234 kHz. In Leiden, English-language programming was readily available from BBC Radio 4 on 198 kHz. Unfortunately, the BBC has (thanks to incredibly stupid right-wing budget-cutting) discontinued broadcasting the World Service to Western Europe on 648 kHz. But, had it still been broadcasting, I’m sure this radio could have received it well.

Reportedly, the Roberts line of radios are made by Sangean, and this radio has many of the characteristics one comes to expect from a Sangean radio of this size: good audio quality from the speaker, good resistance to interference, and good sensitivity on AM, though mediocre on FM. It runs on two AA batteries. The analog tuning can be fussy at times, and the audio bandwidth is a little bit narrower than it should be for comfortable listening during long periods of time.

But, overall, it’s a good travel companion if you need or want coverage of both longwave and mediumwave broadcasting in parts of the world where that’s useful.

A letter to the Alameda County Community Food Bank

Fri, 03 Aug 2012 22:56:17 -0400

I will mail the following letter tomorrow to the Alameda County Community Food Bank.

Dear Food Bank:

With this week’s controversy about Chick-Fil-A, with some making a big show of eating at that restaurant to demonstrate support of their own superior moral values, I felt it was more useful and pertinent to demonstrate support of my own values by making a $250 donation to ACCFB. The donation is enclosed. I’m sure you’ll make good use of it.

(End of letter.)

Road Signs and Sights updates for California, Missouri, and more

Thu, 31 May 2012 00:27:25 -0400

Over the past few days, I’ve updated my highways sites for California (http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/ca/) and Missouri (http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/mo/) as well as the US Highways Signs and Sights Site (http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/us). The California and US HIghways updates included small collections of recent photos. The US Highways photos were contributed by David Backlin. The Missouri update was for Missouri Route 269, which is about to be decommissioned, if it hasn’t been already, enabling Kansas City to reconstruct the route as the Chouteau Parkway. Missouri 269 was a very short route, less than 4 miles, mostly within Kansas City with its southern terminus at the Chouteau Bridge.

The photo above, showing an odd mixture of fonts — the middle line uses a standard highway font, but the other lines use Univers 75, which isn’t a font typically found on road signs! The photo was taken in April on the University of California campus in Berkeley.

The end of a highway, in more ways than one

Mon, 28 May 2012 01:06:17 -0400

This scene, photographed in September 2008, may already be a thing of the past. It was the northern terminus of Missouri Route 269 in Kansas City. Missouri 269 was once a more extensive route, stretching from US 69, across the Missouri River on the Chouteau Bridge, and reaching all the way to Interstate 70. In recent years, the route had been shortened considerably. The north end of Missouri 269, pictured here, was at NE 41st Street and Winn Road, nearly two and a half miles south of US 69 (Vivion Road) and about a mile south of Interstate 35. The south end was at the Chouteau Bridge, giving the route a total length of around 3 2/3 miles, crossing only one other state route, Missouri 210. It made one wonder why the state and city even bother with the designation because it’s so short.

Apparently I wasn’t the only one. According to a May 20 report in the Kansas City Star, as part of the Chouteau Parkway project, designed to relieve the traffic bottleneck that this two-lane highway often caused, Missouri is relinquishing control of the route to Kansas City. The change of control makes it likely that Route 269 will be decommissioned.

Design changes

Sun, 27 May 2012 23:30:26 -0400

If you’re reading this post from the Posterous site, or from Blogger, you’ll notice a change in design. For Posterous users, the most notable change is that the title of each post also is a link to the individual post (a/k/a “permalink”). This is the way links should work, but the template I had been using before put the permalink in the entry for the posting time.

Also: I have connected Blogger to my Google+ account. This post also serves as a test of that feature.

Not the best headline

Fri, 25 May 2012 23:02:00 -0400

A headline in today’s neighborhood weekly was either trying too hard to be clever or no one gave it enough thought (in my opinion).

(This is the second attempt at posting this photo. The first one, which was direct from my mobile phone, posted upside-down.)

Near the eclipse and on the radio

Sun, 20 May 2012 23:16:25 -0400

In Oakland, we weren’t in the path of total darkness for this afternoon’s annular eclipse, but we were close enough for there to be a noticeable effect. The path of total darkness passed to the north and east of us, going right through Eureka and Redding and Colfax. The sun dimmed, as if someone had pulled a shade, but we were outside. The temperature dropped 8 degrees and the westerly sea breeze died down. Here’s what it looked like at 6:32, just about the maximum.

We had set up binoculars on a tripod, focusing the sun on a piece of paper. One of us held the paper, the other shadowed it and took a photo. A smaller image, but one that seemed a little sharper, from just 12 minutes before the 6:32 photo:

And, once totality had passed, the crescent started moving around. Here it was at 6:42:

The effects on AM radio were noticeable, as observed on a GE Superadio II, one of the best AM receivers that I have. Admittedly, the effects were hard to disambiguate from the usual late-afternoon effects, particularly on the upper reaches of the AM band. Even so, focusing on the lower part of the AM band, where “critical hours” don’t usually have so much of an effect, I was picking up stations that I usually pick up weakly, if at all: 540 and 630 from Monterey, 830 from Grass Valley, and 880 from Gonzalez.

Sacramento-area stations showed similar effects: 1320 and 1380, not received well here if at all, were coming in. KFIV (1360) from Modesto also made it in. The more powerful stations at 650 and 710 were like locals.

I might have expected more from up north, say Chico or Redding, but no such luck. Of course, one challenge I have in Oakland is that there are so many strong local stations, including a couple running digital sidebands, which splatter interference.

Even so, I reconfirmed observations I made during the 1994 partial eclipse, when I was living in Kansas City. The effects of a solar eclipse aren’t dramatic, but reception does seem to be enhanced and you might get some stations you normally wouldn’t get. This time, I didn’t expect (and didn’t get) Los Angeles, but regional reception certainly seemed to get a boost.

Fewer roads and radios - a brief metapost

Sun, 06 May 2012 15:04:02 -0400

You may have noticed fewer posts about roads lately, and even fewer about radios. Some of it is demands on my time. I have some older road photos I’d like to post, but first, I’d need to re-scan them. That can be a bit time-consuming. Regarding radios, I decided earlier this year to stop buying vintage radios, at least for a while. I have too many as it is. It’s fun collecting them. It’s not so fun trying to figure out where to put them all.

None of this should be construed as a complaint, by the way. I just have a lot going on right now.

You’re seeing lots of short posts with photos because Posterous has a mobile client that makes it easy to post such things.

Beyond that, I feel “social media” can too often substitute for more personal forms of interaction, especially with friends and acquaintances.

Irises

Sun, 06 May 2012 14:42:54 -0400

Some beautiful purple irises blooming this morning in Oakland.

Springtime

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 21:20:09 -0400

Second try: one more from the mobile phone. The irises are now blooming in the warmer parts of the yard. Photo taken yesterday.

The Campanile at the University of California

Sun, 29 Apr 2012 14:27:35 -0400

This photo was taken in Berkeley a couple of weeks ago after a late-season cold front came through, hence the clouds. I’m also using this post to try out the Posterous mobile client.

A streetcar ride

Wed, 18 Apr 2012 21:28:24 -0400

Sunday, I went on a commemorative ride in a PCC streetcar in San Francisco. Car 1040, built in 1952, was the last PCC streetcar made in North America, and it went to San Francisco. Two years ago, the car was taken out of service for a complete overhaul and renovation. To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the San Francisco Municipal Railway, the Market Street Railway, an organization of volunteers (http://www.streetcar.org) chartered 1040 for the day.

The car can’t travel in the underground Market Street subway, but it can run on most surface lines. Our tour started at the Ferry Building and then went onto the J line on Church Street. We stopped at 20th & Church.

This is at the southwest corner of Dolores Park. At that corner, the downtown skyline opens before you as if on a stage.

Then it was on to Noe Valley and then through the car barn at Balboa Park. We couldn’t stop due to safety regulations, but we did see some PCCs that might enter service at some point in the future, including a car painted in the colors of the El Paso system, with US and Mexican flags on the front to show that the line went into Ciudad Juárez, too. Those were simpler times, without pointless hysteria about immigration like there can be now.

Westward to the M line, where we stopped to let revenue traffic clear on Ocean Avenue.

Our tour guide was retired Muni motorman Art Curtis.

Here’s the historic Muni logo, just ahead of the streetcar’s front door.

After Balboa Park, we took the M over to the junction at West Portal, and slid over to the L line. We took it out to its very end on Taraval, just a couple of blocks from the beach. The terminal loop is also close to the San Francisco Zoo. It goes down 47th Avenue onto Wawona and then back on 46th Avenue to Taraval. We stopped at the loop on Wawona.

Notice that the running sign was changed to reflect the line we were on at the time.

We also weren’t far from Sloat Avenue and the Roberts Motel, which otherwise has nothing to do with me.

Then it was back on the L to West Portal. I managed to get this window shot of a typical Muni traffic signal.

From there, we took the shorter loop through Ingleside on the K, joining the J back at Balboa Park, running down the J to the F-Market and thence back to the Ferry Building.

There was a short loop up to Pier 39 and back, and that was it for the four-hour tour. You get to see parts of San Francisco that you don’t see very often, and that most tourists never see. I enjoyed it tremendously. Thanks to the Market Street Railway for putting this event together!

Just preparing

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 21:20:29 -0400

Last week, markers for a tsunami evacuation route began appearing along the Embarcadero southbound in San Francisco. That said, along much of its length, the route is very close to the San Francisco Bay.

Photographed today at the Embarcadero and Mission Street.

Missouri 110 and Interstate 49 in pictures

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 23:46:04 -0400

(Photo courtesy of Matt Roberds)

I’ve updated the Missouri Road Signs & Sights site (http://www.cosmos-monitor.com/mo/) with new photos from contributors Matt Roberds, David Backlin, Gene Van Dusseldorp, and Scott Manness. Included are photos of the new Missouri 110 designation for the Chicago-Kansas City Corridor: Interstate 35 between Cameron and Kansas City and US 36 between Cameron and Hannibal. Matt found that MoDOT is replacing Interstate 35 reassurance markers with Missouri 110 markers. MoDOT told Matt that, for the main I-35 designation, MoDOT will instead rely on 0.2-mile markers along the route, which show the Interstate 35 symbol. Other photos show 0.2-mile markers on US 71 for the soon-to-be-designated Interstate 49 between Kansas City and the Arkansas state line. It’s not I-49 yet, so take a look to see how MoDOT is handling that in-between state.

Mad March

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 19:28:39 -0400

In a big turnabout from the rest of the winter, March was a cold, wet month. Earlier this week, there were storm clouds over the Ferry Building, but not much rain until today. What a strange winter it’s been for weather in Northern California.

Gasoline prices

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 20:05:03 -0400

Gas prices today in Oakland. Notice the “5”.

Spelling is not a requirement

Mon, 26 Mar 2012 17:36:00 -0400

On the Embarcadero in San Francisco.