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Jeff Duntemann's Contrapositive Diary Rotating Header Image

The Not-So-Fondly Farenheit Tuner

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I’ve been slow to come up to speed on the radio front since we’ve moved here. Until March 2017 we were bouncing back and forth between Phoenix and Colorado Springs, furiously working on both houses, one to sell, and the other to live in. Given that I was trying to write a new novel during that time (and was now in my mid 60s) time was tight and personal energy scarce. But more to the point, I wanted to do it right. Most of the trouble I had with my station when we lived here in the 90s was a lousy ground system. A year or so ago I took the time and built a Bentonite ground with a water pipe down the full depth of the Bentonite to keep it wet, ideally with Epsom salts in solution. The ground rod is right next to the entry box through which all my cables go through the wall of the small garage where my station is.

With the ground in place, I strung 75′ of #16 solid copper between one of my two big palm trees and the mast on the roof of the garage, where the TV antenna used to be. On the mast I mounted my venerable Icom AH-3 autotuner. I had to make an extension cable for the control line, which was only 16 feet long, but the cable path was close to 30. The antenna was finished and in place, in fact, a few weeks prior to getting the entry box mounted. Once I got the coax, ground, and control cables into the garage, I took a break (it was a hot job up there on the roof in the actinic Arizona sunlight) and came back after supper. Fired it up and everything worked like a champ. Worked a guy in Colorado, called it victory, read for an hour, and collapsed into bed. Didn’t get back to the station until the next day.

So late morning I turned everything on, selected 20 meters, and pressed the Tuner button on the front panel of my IC-736.Tink! The rig’s meter needle slammed against the high peg. Whoa. Didn’t do that last night. I tightened all the cables, ran up the ladder to look at the mast setup, and tried again. NFG. I checked the cables for shorts, re-checked all the connections to the ground bus inside the garage, but no joy. I let it set and went back to my office to get some words in on Dreamhealer. That night after supper I went back out there and tried the tuner. Shazam! Everything worked! I didn’t hear much traffic, sunspots being what they weren’t, but the AH-3 tuned my longwire and the IC-736 was happy. I worked a couple of guys and heaved a sigh of relief.

The next day I bopped back into the shack after an hour or two writing, and scanned the bands to see what was live. Heard very little on 20m. Switched to 40. Hit the Tune button. Tink!

I was starting to see a pattern: Works at night. Craps out during the day. Hmm. I opened up the tuner and saw nothing obviously amiss. That said, I had bought the AH-3 in 1992, and it had spent the rest of the 1990s out in the sun, matching my 180′ longwire, lousy ground notwithstanding. It got plenty hot during the day, and I worked plenty of stations all day, irrespective of temperature. Alas, electronics don’t live forever.

I did try a few things. I modified a cardboard moving box into a sunshield and placed it over the tuner so that the bottom of the box faced south and the flaps taped open. The AH-3 was thus shaded entirely but still open to the air. On a whim I put the sensor unit for our wireless thermometer inside the box with the tuner. With the carboard box in place, it worked for a little while longer–maybe another hour–after full sun hit the box. I did a lot of testing and temp recording over the next day and a half. Results: It worked until the air temp hit ~90F. Then, Tink!

Hell, I’ve been a ham now for 46 years. I fix things. I used to fix things for a living, in fact. But at some point I realized that troubleshooting an intermittent 28-year-old tuner was becoming a bad use of my time. Icom had released a newer but compatible tuner ten or twelve years ago. I found a place online selling NOS AH-4s at a discount (Gigaparts in Las Vegas, if you’re interested) and ordered one.

The AH-4 is a little over half the size of the AH-3. I still had to make a custom control cable, but with that done it works like a champ, even in the noonday sun. Granted, it’s not summer here anymore. We’ll see how it performs next June. But in the meantime, I have 75 feet of wire working against a good ground. A guy can do a lot with that alone.

I do intend to get a vertical for the higher bands. The longwire will remain for 40, 80, and 160. (The AH-4 tunes the wire easily on 160. The AH-3 had trouble sometimes, even during the night.) My (not yet purchased) vertical will be ground-mounted close to the ground rod. If I need a few radials I’ll throw them in. At that point the antenna farm will be mostly complete. I have a VHF discone but I also want a 6-meter vertical somewhere, and there’s more thinking to be done about what goes where.

My other ham radio project is still incomplete: An uninterruptible 12V power supply system to run my IC-729 mobile HF rig and shack lighting. With AC power, the panel will draw on a 30A 12V supply I built back in the 1990s. If mains power drops, power will automatically switch to a battery supply of some sort. Near-term, probably gel cells trickle-charged off mains power. Ultimately I want to put a couple of panels up on the roof and buy a husky lithium-ion pack like those sold by Goal Zero. More on that as it happens. It’s the first time I’ve ever used Anderson PowerPole connectors, about which I have mixed feelings. But like everything else in electronics, the journey is the education, and the results are the reward. This time it’s been slow coming together, but better slow than never.

More as it happens.

I haven’t been darkening my own doorway here much over the last month. Part of it is an aversion to political posts. The left has made just about everything political in one dimension or another. Topics are not as common as they once were. It was also a quiet January with (thankfully) few crises to report. We spent a considerable amount of time getting ready for The Big Backyard Overhaul, which begins tomorrow. I’ll take some photos and vids of the demolition of our waterfall and our pool, which is having its deep end removed. The waterfall was nothing special: a jumble of mini-boulders in an aggregate of mortar. It looked like somebody dumped a few tons of granite in a pile and then just slopped mortar into the cracks. The boulder pile is there to prevent people from installing a diving board. At least for us, they needn’t have worried. I did all the diving I think I ever want to do in college swim class.

K7JPD is creeping back toward the air so slowly that I’d characterize it as being under the air rather than on the air. I’m still researching compact antennas. In the meantime, I’m going to run a 60-70′ longwire to one of our tall palms, and match it with my Icom AH-3 tuner. I have two very good Icom radios: an IC-729 purchased in 1991, and an IC-736, purchased in 1995. The IC-729 is an odd bird: It was designed to be a mobile HF rig, and it runs off 12VDC. Alas, although smaller than your typical HF rig, I couldn’t conveniently fit it into our minivan, so I built a 30 amp 12V supply and used it on my bench until I bought the 736. Since the 736 arrived, the 729 came out of the box only once a year, for Field Day. I assume it still works, and I’ll find out soon, if not as soon as I had hoped.

The AH-3 is a great tuner. I used it at our North Scottsdale location in the 90s, feeding a 180′ longwire out to the corner of our 2.5 acres. I had a crappy ground there and so the longwire didn’t do as well as other, shorter longwires I’ve had in the past. I really hope the AH-3 still works, because if it doesn’t, there’s a problem: The 729 and the 736 can’t connect to Icom’s newer autotuners. I have a solid manual tuner, but the way the AH3 sits there and clunks around for a few seconds assembling a match when you push the Tune button is borderline uncanny. I suppose I could get a newer radio, but newer radios are basically computers. I stare at computer screens all day. When I operate a radio, I want to handle actual dials, switches and knobs.

Switches, yes. There’s a parallel project to getting my radios back on the air here. I’m building a 12VDC system to power the IC-729, 12VDC LED light strips in the shack, and a few other things that work on 12V. The ultimate goal is to have something like a Goal Zero Yeti backup power unit, on trickle charge from the wall until I can put it on trickle charge from a couple of solar panels. In the meantime, the system will be powered by the 30 amp supply I built for the IC-729 in 1991.

The project involves a DC power control and distribution panel. I’m using PowerWerx fittings and Anderson Powerpole connectors. I’ve never used Powerpoles before. Nothing difficult about them, but it’s a new skill.

And then there’s the AH-3 tuner control cable problem. The tuner came with 16′ 4″ of control cable, and that’s not quite enough to get down off the roof of the shack and into the building far enough to reach the radios. So I have to work up an extension cable in Molex connectors and 4-conductor thermostat wire. I did a little bit of Molex work way back when I was a Xerox tech rep, but that was 40-odd years ago and I’m rusty. So I bought 15′ of 4-conductor thermostat wire at Ace, and ordered something I didn’t think was a thing: a kit of three pairs 4-pin Molex blocks and enough pins/sockets to fill them. I have a crimper, and when I get this posted I’m going out to the garage to make a 15′ extension cable.

A set of four glass dogbone insulators arrived a few days ago, and I have plenty of #18 copper wire. Nothing gets strung, however, until I see what sort of heavy equipment will be hacking up the backyard tomorrow and days following. There’s still plenty of room for things to go wrong, but with a little luck I should have the station back on the air by next weekend.

I get asked “How’s QBit doing?” a lot, and the answer is simply this: miraculously well. He was supposed to be dead five months ago, and yesterday he was still galloping around the backyard with the rest of the Pack while we played dog soccer. Carol has been keeping an eye on his lymph nodes, which seem to be back to their normal size. His appetite is certainly good, and while deaf, he’s otherwise in pretty decent shape for a dog who will be 14 this coming Friday. We don’t know how he beat cancer, if indeed he did beat it. We have our suspicions: Carol custom-makes dog food for all four of them out of ground beef or ground turkey, and vegetables. QBit likes it so much that I think he just told himself, “Like hell I’m going to die, if she’ll give me another bowl of this tomorrow morning!”

He’s just stubborn that way. Wonder who he learned that from.

Lazy LED Bulbs

Some months after moving into this house at the end of 2015, we went on a sweep and replaced nearly all of the incandescent bulbs with 2700K LED units. The drop in power usage was obvious from our monthly bills. However, I’ve had a whole lot of bulb failures within those three years. Some bulbs, in fact, didn’t even last out their first year. So much for 25,000 hours of service.

I’ve done teardowns on four or five dead bulbs, and found both dead power supplies and dead LED wafers. One of the power supplies was intermittent: Tap on it with the plastic handle of a screwdriver, and it will suddenly light its wafer again. Tap on it some more, and eventually the light will go out. The solder joints looked fine under my digital microscope. I even reflowed a few of them, but the unit’s behavior did not change.

However, the oddest failure mode we’ve experienced is this: bulbs that take longer and longer to illuminate after you flip the switch.

We have four ceiling can fixtures in our kitchen. During our LED sweep, we replaced the 75W incandescent floods with 75WEQ LED floods. A few months ago, I noticed that one of the bulbs took five or ten minutes to come on after flipping the wall switch. Once lit, the tardy bulb shone at identical light levels as the immediate bulbs did. Before it lit, it remained completely dark. (I.e., it spent no time at partial brightness.)

Well, as the months rolled on, the tardy bulb grew tardier and tardier. When it was up to about half an hour delay, a second bulb in the group of four started coming on late. A month or two after that, a third bulb in the group began delayed illumination. By that time, the first bulb would take almost two hours to light up. However, in every single case, all four bulbs eventually came up to full illumination from full dark.

I admit that once the second bulb started acting up, I put off replacing them to see what would happen. Yesterday I got tired of it, and replaced all four (even the one that still lit up immediately) with identical EcoSmart 75WEQ floods from Home Depot. The new floods produce five more lumens than the old ones but only draw 11.5 watts. (The originals drew 15 watts.)

I’m trying to figure out what sort of electrical failure would cause this. When time allows, I’m going to remove the plastic envelope from the original malefactor and take a close look. All of the bulbs I’ve cut open have used switching power supplies built into their bases. There is another kind of LED power supply: a capacitive voltage drop/rectifier system. (Wiki article here. More discussion here.) If the bulb uses a capacitive dropper, the capacitor is probably electrolytic. Electrolytics dry out over time (though it generally takes more than three years) and I’m wondering if poor-quality capacitors are at the heart of the problem. (Bad caps have caused trouble before. And again.) It’s not a time-constant thing, and in truth I don’t know what it might be, but doing a little probing will be fun.

And if any of my EE regulars know or have other (less wild-ass) guesses, I’d sure love to hear them.

How to Build a Bentonite Ground System

Back when Carol and I lived here in the ’90s and early oughts, I had a large lot and a 200-foot wire antenna for the low bands. The antenna didn’t work well…because what I didn’t have was a good ground. Now that we’re back in Arizona, I decided to begin with the ground system, and work up from there toward the antennas.

The problem with Arizona is that it’s dry. No surprise there; in Spanish, Arizona means “dry zone.” At our house on the far north end of the Phoenix metro area, I simply drove an 8′ ground rod into the soil next to my workshop/shack, and clamped a length of #8 solid copper wire to the rod. I figured it would work. It didn’t. The problem (surprise!) was the dry soil, which left the ground rod practically insulated. It was better than nothing, but it certainly couldn’t touch the grounds I’ve had out east, especially the ground I had in Rochester NY. The difference is that I had a swamp at the back of our lot in Rochester, and a climate that delivered rain probably a third of the year. My ground rod was set in soil so wet it was actually mud most of the time that it wasn’t frozen. Tricky to grow vegetables in (our strawberries did well) but man, my Hy-Gain 18 AVT took me around the world.

This time, I did some detailed reading on ground systems, and enlisted the help of Joe Flamini W4BXG, who is a EE and has been licensed longer than I have. I ran the plan past Joe, who approved. This past Saturday, I finished it.

So. The basic idea is to increase the conductive area of a ground rod, so that it connects to a greater area than the area of a 5/8″ diameter rod. From a height, you do this:

  • Dig a round hole.
  • Drive the ground rod down into the soil at the center of the bottom of the hole.
  • Put a length of PVC pipe in which you’ve drilled a large number of holes into the hole beside the ground rod.
  • Fill the hole with sodium bentonite clay, moistened with an ionic solution like Epsom salts.
  • Keep the bentonite and the soil around it a little damp. (This is what the hole-y pipe is for.)

Now let’s go through what I did in detail.

I had our landscape company bring out an earth auger. I expected something a little smaller, having looked around at tool rental firms. This one had a 12″ auger 48″ long. It took just 15 minutes, and I was glad I didn’t have to control the monster myself.

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Earth augers are not tidy things. In fact, the hardest single part of the project was using an improvised scoop on a long handle to get the last of the loose dirt out of the bottom of the hole. Nor was the hole completely straight. Still, it was straight enough.

Next, I took the ground rod and used my bench grinder to sharpen its point:

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I then used steel wool to brighten the copper the full length of the rod. This makes it more conductive, which is the whole idea. Having brought it to a nice bright polish, I took out my five-pound sledge and drove the rod into the center of the hole. I had previously bought a 4′ length of threaded 1/2″ schedule 80 PVC pipe, and drilled holes every inch down the full length of the pipe. Each drill pass cut two holes, giving me two rows of holes on opposite sides of the pipe. I put PVC caps on both ends, and positioned the pipe in the hole with an artfully bent coat hanger.

Moistener Pipe - 300 Wide.jpgI had done the math on the volume of the hole and the density of bentonite clay, and calculated that I would need four 50-pound bags of bentonite powder. I bought it from a drilling supplies firm on the west side, for $8 a bag. (Bentonite has many uses, and one common use is borehole mud.) Some people mix a bentonite slurry in a wheelbarrow and then tip the slurry into the hole, but I didn’t have a wheelbarrow. What I did is fill the hole by pouring in a layer (3″ or so) of bentonite powder, and then wetting it with water in which I had dissolved ten pounds of Epsom salts. I stirred the goop a little with a metal rod to make sure all the powder got wet.

I repeated this layering process until the hole was full. Miraculously, my 200 pounds of bentonite clay powder filled the hole to within 2″ of the rim. Enough, and none left over. (Math works!) Once I filled the hole and wet the top layer down, I forced water into the moistener pipe with a pressure nozzle, taking advantage of Phoenix’s relatively high water pressure. The idea is to make sure that all of the powder becomes mud.

A few notes on bentonite powder: It’s as fine as talcum powder, and blew around in Saturday’s unfortunate wind while I poured it. I wore a mask to keep from inhaling it. When wet, it becomes a slippery, slimy-feeling mess that clings to everything it touches. I was very glad I didn’t try to mix a slurry outside the hole. Bentonite gloms onto water, and over time, the clay in the hole will become uniformly damp. I’ll sprinkle the hole with the garden hose periodically, and pour some additional Epsom salts solution into the moistener pipe.

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I’ve been soaking it each day, not only the bentonite but also the soil around it. Bentonite expands slightly when wet, and will force itself into all the tiny voids in the interface between the soil and the bentonite fill. In my neighborhood we have the advantage (for ground systems at least) of a septic system, which distributes a different sort of ion solution into the soil. I’m expecting far better soil conductivity here than we ever had in our ’90s house.

That’s pretty much it. I have no antennas mounted yet, so I can’t test it for the time being. No problem; once I have my feed-throughs in place, I’ll run a length of wire up to one of the palm trees, and see how well my IC-736 loads. Jim Strickland suggested building a simple crystal radio using a germanium diode, of which I have many in the drawer. Crystal sets are very dependent on a good ground, as I discovered in my distant youth. If I can bring in local AM stations well, I’ll consider the ground a success. The ultimate goal is to get a ground-mounted trap vertical, like the 18-AVT or similar. In the meantime, I know how to get a lot out of 75′ of copper wire worked against a good ground.

And now, for the first time in a fair number of years, I have a good ground!

Odd Lots

LED Strips for Workshop Lighting

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We replaced nearly all of the incadescent bulbs in the house with LED bulbs shortly after we bought it in late summer 2015. That came to 27 60W bulbs and ten or twelve 75W floods for ceiling can lights. You can’t get incandescent bulbs in the commoner sizes anymore, and the power savings is considerable. LED bulbs have come a long way in the last few years, and the “softer” light quality levels (3000K and below, most of which were 2700K for us) approximate incandescent light close enough for what we do.

There are a couple of issues with LED bulbs. We bought Feit bulbs in bulk when we re-bulbed all the ceiling fan lights. Two years on, and the Feit bulbs are dropping like flies. I have nine dead but intact Feit 60-watters on my workbench, and two more that I dismantled to see what’s in them. What’s in them isn’t much: A voltage doubler/rectifier board that converts 117VAC to 236 VDC. There’s a disk holding nine LEDs, with two wires down to the power supply. The photo above shows what it looks like when you hacksaw the plastic globe off a Feit 60W equivalent LED bulb. It’s unclear to me whether the nine LEDs are single diodes or blocks of several fabricated together. It seems like a stretch to put 26 volts on a single LED and not see it emit plastic instead of light.

I’ve been taking bulbs apart to try and see why the Feit bulbs die so young. I’ve pulled two apart: One had a bad power supply. The other had a bad wafer. The wafer, however, was intermittent: Tap it with a screwdriver and it flickers, and sometimes comes up to full brightness. The dead power supply was just dead, without any indication of why. It stayed dead when tapped, unlike the intermittent wafer. Cheap crappy manufacturing, I’d guess. This is one Feit I will gladly walk away from.

LED lighting is problematic in ham radio work because of the broadband noise generated by the bulb power supplies. Fluorescent tubes have the same general problem. My notion is to create a separate lighting system in my workshop/ham station using LED lamps run straight-on at 12VDC. I had hoped that the wafers ran at 12VDC or 24VDC, so that I could harvest them from bulbs with failed power supplies. Not an option.

So I started sniffing around to see what sort of lamps are available for 12VDC. I bought a couple at a hamfest to play around with, and talked to the techs at a lighting store up in Kierland. They had an interesting display: Assemble-it-yourself LED strip lights. These consist of an anodized aluminum U-channel, with a self-adhesive strip of LEDs stuck to the bottom of the channel, with a linear plastic lens that snaps into the U-channel. The LED strips take 12VDC, and use 2.88W per foot.

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The LED tape strips come on a reel, with 16.4 feet on the reel and 3 LEDs per inch. The reel isn’t cheap; I paid $235 for it, and that’s about what they go for on Amazon. What I did was buy an 8′ section of channel/lens and put down just under 8′ of LED strip. The strips have clearly marked points every inch where you can cut them with an ordinary scissors, leaving solder pads on each side of the cut.

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The strip comes with a .215″ female barrel connector on the end of 6′ of 2-conductor cord. But again, there are solder pads every inch, so you can wire them to a power source any way you want to. What I did (at least for testing) is dig around in my Big Box o’ Wall Warts and found a Dell APAC-1 power supply, which came with a Dell matrix printer someone gave me ten or twelve years ago. It’s labeled for 12VDC @ 2A, and the strip draws 1.92A, so the supply is working pretty hard. (It squeals, way up there where Carol can hear it and I can’t.)

What I did with the strip is mount the four clips that came with the U-channel under the front edge of the first shelf above my workbench, and then clipped the U-channel to the shelf. The lower surface of the shelf is 11″ above the bench, so I’d have to do some bending and stooping to actually see the LEDs. And the intensity of the light is marvelous, shining down right where I do the sort of close work that electronics requires, which these days is real damned close.

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Because the light comes from a strip of 288 LEDs, there are basically no shadows anywhere under the strip, unless you completely block the light. This means that you can work in good light without worrying as much about your hands casting shadows on what you’re doing. It’s almost like the project photos in old QSTs, where all parts of a complicated hand-wired chassis are completely illuminated. The photo below is of a high-voltage power supply placed on the bench beneath the LED strip, and is literally what you’d see were you sitting at the bench poking at the supply.

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This was only a first step. The strip won’t be powered by the APAC-1 long-term. I have a 30A 12VDC supply that I built out of an old minicomputer power supply somebody gave me. That will be the power source for all the lighting in my workshop/shack once the whole system is complete. I’m looking into overhead lighting now, and may simply use the remaining 8′ of LED strip on the reel with a white diffuser lens, clipped to the drywall ceiling.

Ultimately I want to work up a solar panel system on the roof of the garage, charging a 12V battery of some sort to supply lights and radios. The landscapers are going to auger a hole next to the shack for an engineered ground system tomorrow morning, so I have other work to do before I get on the air. It was a fun project, and will make working on projects a great deal easier. Good light is not optional!

Rant: Long Weeks and Short Ribs

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It’s good to keep on learning new things, no matter how old you are. I learned something new over the recent holidays: You can break a rib coughing. The good news is that although I did run the experiment, the results were inconclusive.

It may have been a near thing; my cousin Dolores told me she “popped a rib” years ago while fighting bronchitis, and it was nasty. Another online friend said basically the same thing. And my workout friend Joe told me that a dump truck T-boned his convertible back in 2001 and broke four ribs before driving several glass fragments into his skull. The glass was no big deal. The ribs…very big deal.

This, as they say, has been a bad season. Carol has had the sniffles or worse since Thanksgiving. I’ve done better, but I think both of us came down with the endlessly popular flu between mid-month and Christmas. We had our shots, even, for all the good they did us. I bounced back, for the most part. She had a terrible time climbing out of it. And then, just after New Year’s Day, we both ended up with some bacterial bronchitis. Cough isn’t my typical symptom for colds and flu. Chest congestion and especially sinus congestion, but cough? Rarely.

This time I coughed so hard I thought I’d broken a rib. My right side was horribly painful for most of a week. And that’s when nothing else was going on. When I coughed, it hurt hideously. When I sneezed–and I rarely sneeze only once–it may have been the worst pain I’ve felt since my kidney stone twenty years ago. It may, in fact, have been worse than my kidney stone. I do not ever recall coughing that hard, ever, nor hurting that bad while coughing. My sister was the one who generally had croup. Me, I threw up. She was the Phlegm Queen. I was the Barf King. 1959 was the Year of Body Fluid Eruptions. It’s been better since then.

Until New Year’s Day. Then, as Leeloo would say, Bada-boom!

Urgent care gave me antibiotics, a steroid nose spray, and advice to get a chest X-ray if things didn’t quiet down in a few days. Things didn’t. So I got the X-ray. And even after a 10-day course of Augmentin, my head was still draining and my ribs still hurt like hell. The only good news was that my ribs remained intact, despite two weeks of abuse.

So, why all the TMI? I’ve been away for several weeks, and that’s why. Even after I felt better, Stuff Was Piling Up. I gave us a Ring Video Doorbell for Christmas. I discovered after the fact that it was not compatible with the 1995-era NuTone intercom/door chime that came with the house. When I pulled the NuTone unit off the kitchen wall, I saw what you see in the photo above. Loads of wires, none marked, some just hanging loose out of a hole in the wallboard. It took three days to work up the intestinal fortitude to pull out my VOM and start the necessary detective work. I eventually identified the wires:

  • Two were 18VAC from the doorbell transformer. Good; need that.
  • Two were 18 VAC going…somewhere. They were intended to trigger the gate unlock solenoid, as I discovered when I pressed the gate unlock button with the meter on the wires. Alas, we do not have a gate unlock solenoid. I was sending 18VAC somewhere out into the Vasty Deep. I still don’t know where the other ends of those wires are, though I have some hunches.
  • There were two old-style four-conductor phone cables running out to the gate doorbell button and the front door doorbell button. Two conductors in each cable were hanging loose in the air. Call me fussy; I don’t like wires just hanging loose in the air. Electricity could start leaking all over the house. Thurber’s mother didn’t care for that. Neither do I.
  • We actually have two, count ’em, two front doorbell switches. I thought one was dead. It’s not. We have two doorbell chimes. God knows why, and I may ask Him one day.

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I was still not a well man, and it took me days to get this far. I found a list of Ring-compatible door chimes and picked one up at Home Depot. It was smaller than the NuTone, which meant that I had to drag in the paint from the shed and repaint the dead space around the wire hole. Before I could do that I had to scrape away the silicone caulk that ran all the way around the NuTone, and then spackle everything level again, given that the caulk had not gone gently into any night, good, bad, or indifferent. It took three coats of paint to get full coverage. By then I would ordinarily have begun throwing things, but I didn’t have the energy to throw things.

The door chime I bought can play a lot of tunes. It can play “Happy Birthday to You.” It can play “The Star-Spangled Banner.” It can play “We Wish You a Merry Christmas.” As I punched my way through the tune stash, I began to despair of it ever playing ding-dong! like any proper doorbell should. Ding-dong! was there. It was the very last tune in the chime’s repertoire. Guys, if I want jazz I’ll go to New Orleans. If I want classical I’ll turn on KBAQ. If I want shitty MIDI compositions of no special quality, well, I know where they live. You have one job: Play ding-dong! Just do it.

Ok, by then I was grumpy. If your ribs felt like my ribs did, you’d have been grumpy too.

I dissected the NuTone circuit board. It has a number of ICs on it:

  • A 4N33 optocoupler.
  • An MC14585BCP hex Schmitt trigger.
  • A 555 timer.
  • An SA800 doorbell chime generator.
  • A TC4066BP quad bilateral switch.
  • A ULN3718M audio amp.

I had several of all of these in my parts stash but the door chime generator and the audio amp, which (being a dedicated LM386 guy) I wouldn’t use anyway. So the damned thing could offer me no useful parts for my trouble. Worthless crap, you are. Feed the trash, you did.

With all that done and out of the way, let me say that the Ring doorbell works beautifully. When somebody pushes the button, the Ring app pops up on your smartphone, wherever you are, and shows you a video of who’s at the door. You can then talk to them through the speaker on the Ring device. They can’t tell if you’re home or not. The damned thing even has night vision. I had to practically pay a rib to get it installed, but trust me: It’s worth the trouble.

I mentioned here that our waterbed sprang a leak a week or so before Christmas. We bought the bed at a Going Out of Business sale, which means that the retailer had gone out of business, and the manufacturer didn’t seem especially healthy itself. So we ordered a new waterbed mattress from a place that makes them up custom. It showed up a little less than a week ago. I finally got it installed and filled this afternoon. With a little luck we’ll sleep on it tonight.

Through all this, I got half a chapter of Dreamhealer written, and no Contra entries. I am still tired, still blowing my nose twice as often as is my habit, and still coughing occasionally. You don’t need to feel sorry for me; it’s been in the 70s and 80s here while most of my friends are freezing their cans up north. The dogs are clean and I cooked us a helluva good steak this evening.

Oh, crap. I forgot: The pool backwash valve is leaking. The pool guy says the pool equipment is now 25-odd years old, and could fail badly at any time. I got one quote. I need another. And then I will have a much thinner checkbook.

Hey, Happy New Year!

More or less.

I guess.

[coughs fitfully]

The Other Fry’s

Sure, you’ve got Amazon Prime. (I do too.) But I have something that (most of) you don’t have: Fry’s Electronics. It’s a 12-mile drive from here, so I can’t just dash over anytime I want, like I can to Artie’s Ace Hardware. However, I realized after stopping in after a 15-year hiatus the other day that I need to go there more often.

Fry’s is hard to describe. It’s a double-big box store, done up in Aztec decor to look something like a pyramidal temple. It’s the ultimate nerd supply house, and has everything you might expect: motherboards, memory sticks, power supplies, cases, monitors, hard drives, Flash drives, software, and so on. Want to build your own desktop? It’s all there. However, Fry’s is remarkable for going even deeper into the wild country of the word “electronics,” right down to resistors and capacitors, soldering stations, shrink tubing and wire in any color you could name, and aluminum chassis. Good lord, they even have panel meters. Tools, wow: multitesters of every sort, needle-nose pliers, dykes (sorry; I still call them that), Dremels, Internet cable connector crimpers, and on for page upon page.

It gets a little nuts after that: toys, kites, CDs, DVDs, candy, all kinds of snacks, light bulbs, night lights, swamp coolers, refrigerators, camping gear, CB radios (!!), and fifteen varieties of fidget spinner. There was a display of something I truly don’t understand: body shapers (which is I think the generic term for things like Spanx) printed to look like bluejeans. Yes, I know, there are plenty of women nerds…but underwear in a resistor shop?

Crazy world.

Why was I there? I’ve noticed over the past year that the Mozilla codebase has grown ever more memory-hungry. Waterfox has taken to gagging with just six or seven tabs open. I’ve been meaning to add more RAM to my quadcore for some time, on general principles. It started out as an XP machine, and so had a scant 4 GB since I bought it. Now I had an excuse. Windows 7 Pro 64-bit can manage 192 GB of RAM, so throwing 16 GB at it is no big deal. But since I dropped those sticks into the quad, I haven’t heard the least little feep out of Waterfox.

Excellent prices, overwhelming selection, and people in the aisles who know what they’re talking about. Still another expression of the boggling richness of Phoenix’s retail sector. Fry’s Electronics is legally unrelated to Fry’s supermarkets, but was created by the sons of the man who founded the supermarket chain. If you’re ever in town for some reason, make sure you go over there. If you do, call me and I’ll come along.

Buy some hot pink shrink tubing. Dare ya!

Odd Lots

LED Bulbs, RF Noise, and a Crazy Idea

Carol and I were in Costco last week, stocking up on consumables (everything from toilet paper to Hoody’s Peanuts) when we spotted something that made me do a double-take: a package of four Feit LED dimmable 60W equivalent light bulbs for $10. I’ve never seen them for less than twice that. We grabbed a pack to try at home, because our new house here contains a lot of 60W bulbs.

How much of a lot? There are nine Hampton Bay ceiling fan/lamp fixtures, each holding three 60W bulbs. (We found later that the fixture over the dining room table had three 75s in it.) That’s 27 bulbs right there, plus another twelve or fifteen in bathrooms and outside light fixtures. Figuring 40 60W bulbs, that’s 2,400 watts. Granted, not all of them are on at once, and several fixtures (like the one in the guest room and the two outside on the patio) are rarely on at all. However, there are another eighteen 65W ceiling floods, so I’m guessing our typical evening use is about 2,500 watts overall. It adds up. If bulbs are now as cheap as Costco was offering them, I was ready to jump.

A sidenote: There was some sort of utility company instant rebate, so the register price was about 1/3 less than the package price. Outside the Phoenix area, your prices may (and almost certainly will) vary.

This being Arizona, there was a thick layer of brown dust (over and above the dead bugs) on the lamp globes and on the existing bulbs themselves. We ran three loads of lamp globes through the dishwasher because their spatter finish tears threads off the ScotchBrite pad by the sink. I put three bulbs in the fixture in Carol’s office, then stood back to gauge the quality of the light.

Marvelous! Three $2.50 LED bulbs gave brighter and slightly whiter light for a total power draw of 28.5 watts. We went back to Costco and bought 24 more, plus a test pack of 65W equivalent LED ceiling floods. I spent a day on a ladder swapping out bulbs, and although the ceiling floods aren’t all done yet, we’re looking to cut our lighting power draw to 1/6 of what it would be on incandescents.

This isn’t all about money. It gets hot in Phoenix in the summer (duhh!) and the heat that you pay for when you light your bulbs you then have to pay to pump out of your house with the AC. Ok, so maybe it is all about money. In some respects, LED bulbs are a twofer.

Now, there’s a downside. Both CFL and LED bulbs require power at entirely different voltages than incandescent lamps. Every bulb has a little power supply in it, and to keep the power supply circuitry small, the supply uses a technology that generates a lot of RF noise. If the whole house is running LED bulbs, I’m guessing that my IC736 will deliver audio that sounds like the center of a raging thunderstorm, only 24/7. I don’t have my shack wired up yet, but it’ll be interesting to see what happens when I run a temporary longwire out to the pool shed later this year.

Now, it won’t happen this year and perhaps not next year, but the 5-year plan includes a new building in the NW corner of our 5/8 acre lot to house my workshop and radio shack. (I’m using the small garage for now, and although I was clever and got everything in, it’s…cramped.) I’m sure I’ll hear our LED bulb symphony (and perhaps the neighbors’) but if I don’t use LEDs or CFLs in the shack, things may be a lot better.

So…what are the chances of opening up the bulbs, pulling out or bypassing the power supplies, and running them at the LEDs’ native voltage? This isn’t an idea original with me, and in fact one chap has a very nice article up on Instructables. The 40W bulb he dissected delivers 30VDC to its LED array, and he had to do some major surgery to rewire the array to take 12VDC instead. My approach would be to figure out what DC voltage a given type of bulb generates for its LEDs, and then build a high-current passive (i.e., non-switching) power supply to deliver exactly that voltage to all the modded bulbs in the building. (Note that there’s nothing magical or standard about his 30V figure. That’s just what the maufacturer happened to use in that particular model of bulb.) This would require running a separate 30VDC (or whatever) power network inside the workshop building, but since it’s going to be a custom building, I can do that.

We’re not nearly done with the house and landscaping here yet, and I won’t have a great deal of loose time until the summer. (We still have work to do on our Colorado house before we sell it.) I’ll start a research binder on LED bulbs in the meantime, and maybe allow myself a few hours at some point to pull a cheap bulb apart to see what its LEDs are eating. If any of you have played around with LED bulb internals, (or have come across any pertinent links) by all means share in the comments. I have a hunch that a lot of very clever guys are pondering this problem right now, and I’m looking forward to hacking the hardware myself. I haven’t done much building in the last couple of years for various reasons, and damn, I miss it!


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How a Freight Company Makes Global Moves with a CRM
Customer stories

How a Freight Company Makes Global Moves with a CRM

How a Freight Company Makes Global Moves with a CRM

Ever wonder how those big moving containers get shipped all around the world? Often, it’s thanks to logistics companies like Epic Freight.

We chatted with Yohanse Manzanarez, Epic Freight’s EVP of Sales, to find out more about how his team uses a CRM to acquire customers and make successful global moves happen.

It all starts with relationships.

Epic Freight is a B2B company whose clients range from trade-show companies to booth manufacturers to high-end electronics businesses. Basically, any organizations that have time-sensitive, high-visibility moves (both air and ground freight) will turn to Epic Freight.

Once the Epic Freight team understands the requirements necessary to make that move, it then goes through its network to partner with companies that it trusts to fulfill that move. It’s a beginning-to-end responsibility with multiple moving parts.

There’s a good reason why Epic Freight is in the business of relationships: they often do multiple shipments for each client. “If we only do one shipment, we lose,” says Yohanse. “We're a trusted vendor within our clients’ organizations, which is why we’re tasked with handling these high-visibility, time-sensitive moves. All of our clients are multiple-time shippers—some multiple times a day, others a couple of times a week.”

It’s not just as simple as moving giant containers from point A to point B either; typically, these organizations require some type of service component too, whether it's meeting a work crew, coordinating multiple trucks, or having to be at unique locations.

Life before Copper…

Before Copper, Epic Freight had made a few stabs at CRMs, none of which panned out. The main difficulty was in finding tools that integrated seamlessly with Gmail. “We're pretty Gmail-focused and we’re almost always in our inboxes,” Yohanse describes. “We needed a fully Gmail-integrated solution that not only has a Chrome extension that captures information but also lets us document all the emails sent to and received from clients.”

A CRM is for more than selling.

Yohanse’s team is responsible for not only client acquisition, but also maintenance and problem resolution for clients. There are multiple steps required in each customer relationship: quoting the shipment, routing it, following up with the shipment, managing the expectations if something goes wrong, and more. “It's very much a relationship business,” says Yohanse, “That’s why we use Copper in several ways, from storing our leads to managing opportunities, to tracking our daily and weekly activities.”

Once contacts have been identified as prospects, the team makes sure they’re stored in Copper. Any meetings with these prospects are recorded with Copper’s activity tracking. “We have a distinct sales cycle that we follow using Copper,” says Yohanse. “Identifying the product, recording the first meeting, the second meeting, and other interactions... Copper helps us keep track of the probability of closing each deal.”

A quick example of what the stages of their pipeline look like:

To manage specific activities, Epic Freight also logs each touchpoint with clients in Copper. This includes phone calls, text messages, emails, and in-person meetings like lunches. As part of their weekly sales meeting, they go through Copper to understand each rep’s activities and find ways to collaborate more effectively.

“The most important quality of a CRM is…”

"Ease of use, first and foremost. And the Google Chrome extension is invaluable—that's the tool I use to document almost everything. We also love the mobile app. Copper’s a clean, simple, intuitive tool, which goes a long way in terms of making sure the implementation is smooth.”

This ease of use extends into reporting and forecasting too. Because Epic Freight uses Copper to manage new prospects, new opportunities, and upcoming projects, this means the team is already recording all the key components in a forecast. (For example, the probability of closing, the expected date of closing, and the associated revenue value.)

By Yohanse’s estimates, it took him less than a week to understand how to use Copper. After he extended invites to the entire sales team, he created a short instructional video for them, and perhaps most importantly, kept his team accountable for the first two weeks by checking if activity was being recorded in Copper.

“Copper was embraced very quickly by the team. CRMs are often viewed as extra work or “why do I have to do this” type of thing—but with Copper, it was easy to understand how we could manage information, document activities, eliminate any crossover, and validate ownership of these leads.”

CRM: also good for efficient handoffs and minimizing crossover.

Another key challenge that growing organizations often face is crossover, a.k.a. when multiple reps stumble across the same opportunity.

“Copper’s really helped us hand off information efficiently,” says Yohanse. “Instead of just saying, ‘Hey we're working this client,’ the team can now identify what ‘working’ really means. it eliminates guesswork and validates specific activities. Plus I can easily reference past conversations with clients because Copper provides a tremendous amount of transparency for everybody involved in the process.”

At Epic Freight, Copper serves as a form of ownership: if a rep finds an opportunity, they can quickly search Copper to find out if it's in there already. If it is, they can look at the sales notes and activities to see where the other sales rep is—and possibly stake a claim, but only after making a successful business case first.

“This prevents situations from arising where both reps walk into a meeting with the potential client. That would make us look silly. Copper's helped tremendously in defining those boundaries for us,” says Yohanse.

Every opportunity is a relationship. Or is it the other way around?

Epic Freight does one thing very differently—and it shows that businesses are truly in the Relationship Era: when they close an opportunity, they aren’t just closing a shipment. They’re closing a relationship that will include daily, weekly, or monthly shipments, and the client pays for that entire series.

This means that being able to maintain relationships is crucial, especially when there are opportunities to upsell and cross-sell. For example, if Epic Freight is handling a client’s domestic freight, but there is a possibility to handle international shipments as well, “international shipments” might be listed as an opportunity within that client on Copper.

“Copper helps us understand that we're contacting the right person internally and documents everything so that both Sales and Accounting have visibility and quantifiable statistics on how many times we've interacted with these people. We log phone calls, texts, meetings, and of course Copper automatically logs email exchanges. So it's very easy to see all our conversations at a glance—with not only current customers, but also prospects.”

Define, align, grow. Rinse and repeat.

As a growing company, Epic Freight’s needs are changing almost every day. It’s something that Yohanse acknowledges as being a significant challenge: what gets you to this stage as a company isn't necessarily going to get you to the next one.

“We felt a lot of pain from not being able to see or understand our customers. So that really drove us to a CRM—but it was Copper’s ease of use and implementation, and the Chrome extension that made us decide to build the business on this platform. Copper has played a big role in us growing our business and brought us tremendous organization and simplicity.”

With the results that Epic Freight is seeing so far, we can’t wait to see what big moves they’re going to make next.


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Dive Rite Nomad Dual Bladder

RM 3,390.00 RM 3,990.00

The next evolution in Nomad Sidemount has come with the introduction of the Nomad LS Sidemount System.

The Nomad LS builds on its "L" series predecessors to be the most streamline and capable system in the family. The extremely durable exterior SuperFabric™ material is resistant to the elements of diving, whether diving on a quiet reef, pushing deep into a cave system, or scooting through a deck opening on a wreck dive. With the inflator and exhaust valves placed at the front/inside of the wing and not on the exterior, the valves are safe and free from exposure.

With 35 lbs (15.8 kg) of lift and a low profile design, the Nomad LS performs in all levels of sidemount diving. With additional lift typically needed toward the lower back when sidemounting, the combination of its diamond shape and contour of the bladder create this lift achieving the optimum trim. A unique zero lift baffle at the top of the wing allows for air travel to the top dump, but prevents an air bubble from forming.

A deluxe-style webbing harness using pivot rings on the shoulders provides a comfortable and customizable fit for nearly any size diver. The SuperFabric™ shoulder strap pads provide added durability from abrasions along with a channel on the left shoulder strap for the exhaust valve’s pull dump cord allowing for easy access. The cross-chest strap and a 2-inch (5 cm) padded crotch strap holds the harness securely in place, preventing unwanted shifting or movement of the harness no matter what type of diving you’re doing. The harness on the LS is removable if it needs to be replaced in the future.

With the valves on the front/inside of the wing, the corrugated inflator hose routes from the bottom/right of the wing up the diver’s side and secures to the chest, shoulder strap D-ring with a bungee loop for easy access. A second dump valve is located at the bottom, left corner of the wing. With the versatility of the Nomad LS and the ability to customize to your preference, the corrugated inflator hose and left-side dump valve can be used on either side of the wing by simply unscrewing each valve and swapping positions. With a third dump valve located at the top/inside of the wing with a pull cord routed down the left shoulder strap, there are multiple, easy access points to vent air from the wing with either hand. An optional 10 lbs. (4.5 kg) lift-capacity bailout bladder is available for divers needing a redundant source of buoyancy (model BC4575-DUAL).

The Nomad LS includes Dive Rite's Adjustable Bungee System, which allows for easy length adjustment to fit any diver without needing to tie knots. The Adjustable Bungee System also allows a diver to use any bungee configuration they desire, including: ring bungee, loop bungee with snap, and loop bungee. A set of chokers are included for divers using Dive Rite's ring bungee and choker method. The butt plate, made of reinforced nylon to provide the proper amount of rigidity to hold tanks in position and eliminate sag along with two stainless steel rails, provides the lower attachment point for cylinders.

  • Outer shell: SuperFabric™ material with double ply 600 denier fabric
  • Inner bladder: Heavy duty 420 denier nylon laminated
  • Lift capacity: 35 lbs. (15.9 kg)
  • Bailout bladder (optional) lift capacity: 10 lbs. (4.5 kg)
  • Hose: 16-inch (30.4 cm) corrugated with inflate/deflate valve
  • Exhaust valves: One pull-dump at top, center and one at bottom/left corner of wing; configurable with corrugated hose on left or right side of wing
  • Cylinder attachment:
    • Adjustable Bungee System – 30″ of bungee for each side adjustment along with a 2″ Stainless Ring, medium quick link, and medium snap. Chokers include for use with Dive Rite’s Ring Bungee and Choker method.
    • Butt plate: Reinforced nylon to provide the proper amount of rigidity to hold tanks in position and eliminate sag and two stainless steel rails for tank attachment
  • Crotch strap: 2 in. (5 cm) padded strap with scooter ring
  • Hardware: Marine grade stainless steel throughout
  • D-rings: Custom low profile angled D-rings on chest, 2 on waist, and 2 each on shoulders straps
  • Sizing: One size fits all (comes sized as large and can be adjusted as needed to resize)
  • Weight: 5.7 lbs. (2.59 kg)

now get installment plan frm 6 to 12 months with your credit card Maybank and Public bank  with min order RM 500 . please whatsapp to +60192867180 or email to

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Coral Gables Hospital recently renovated endoscopy suites

These suites allow physicians in the hospital the capability to perform procedures in three rooms simultaneously.

Prior to the renovation, the hospital featured two endoscopy suites. The addition of a third endoscopy room means less wait time for those waiting to have procedures.

The endoscopy suites, are used for both inpatient and outpatient procedures including colonoscopy, a highly effective test used to screen patients for colon cancer, and gastroscopy. Procedures in the Endoscopy Suites are performed by board certified gastroenterologists and nurses certified in procedural sedation. The new suites were designed with maximum privacy in mind.

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Fish House is our bright and cold white with a beautiful Grey undertone, which gives great character. Fish House was inspired by the Fish Houses settled around our Cornish coast in St Ives, Cornwall.

''Our colours represented on our colour chart above has been rendered digitally and may not be identical in colour when applied to a surface. The actual colours of the applied paint will vary based on a number of factors, including lighting, surface type and any previous undercoats. We recommend that you test our paint on a test area before painting in order to see what the end results will be''.

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Newborn baby John Cattran was rushed to hospital in an air ambulance after suffering a heart attack. His mother has told how his life was saved by the Cornwall Air Ambulance charity after he collapsed.

John's mum, Jemma Cattran, said: "John was two days old and wasn't really feeding. I phoned my midwife and they came out to help. She was helping me and whilst I was trying to feed him, he collapsed.

"We called 999 and a first responder from the fire service turned up. John was really, really poorly and the responder didn't feel John would make the 45-minute journey to (Royal Cornwall Hospital at) Treliske so they called the air ambulance."

"The hospital originally thought his blood sugars were just low. He was then quickly taken from me in A&E and we were rushed out. It felt like ages in the waiting room where we were finally told that he had suffered a heart attack. He was stabilised and transferred to the Bristol Royal Infirmary."

John with his parents, Jemma and Gareth, and big sister Jessica on the helicopter that the Cornwall Air Ambulance is fundraising to buy.

The 29-year-old added: "He had multiple key hole surgery's at Bristol. The first was early in the morning and we found out his aortic valve was completely shut. We were in hospital for two weeks and once we got home he collapsed again. He then had another operation at just six weeks old.

"We spent five to six weeks total at Bristol Royal Infirmary, they tried to correct the valve and each surgery wasn't successful because when they were trying to take him off the equipment he kept collapsing.

"They tried to keep him stable but he was just so little.

"They eventually then fitted a pig valve which he still has now. He will need further surgery at some point which they predicted would be sometime before he started school but to look at him now, hes just a healthy little boy.

"We had a cardiac appointment in December 2018 and the doctor said that his heart is looking the best it has ever looked, so we know the surgery is coming but we don't know when."

John Cattran, four, and his mum Jemma, in front of the helicopter the Cornwall Air Ambulance is fundraising to buy. When he was two days old he suffered a dramatic heart attack. The air ambulance saved his life.
John Cattran, five, and his mum Jemma, in front of a Cornwall Air Ambulance helicopter last year.

Now, five years later, John is a perfectly healthy child and his mother says she has Cornwall Air Ambulance to thank.

His family have always wanted to give something back to the organisation that saved their son's life and have raised money for the Newquay-based charity to go towards its Heli Appeal which aims to raise £2.5million for a brand new helicopter.

Cornwall Air Ambulance has put aside £5million already towards the new technology-filled A&E department in the sky, but needs the people of Cornwall and the visitors our tourism and leisure sectors depend so much on to put a hand in their pocket and raise cash towards the appeal.

Jemma, who also has a daughter, Jessica, now aged seven, recalls how she knew that something was wrong with John from the beginning. She said: "I can't describe it, it's just a sense, your motherly instinct kicks in and I just knew something wasn't right.

Later, on a separate occasion, after returning from Bristol Royal Infirmary, Jemma said she had the same feeling again. She said: "We were home for a little bit, the ambulance was called out and they didn't want to take him. I said, 'no, something is wrong. He might look fine but I know something is wrong'. I made them take me, and I was right."

Jemma, a horse riding instructor from Marazion told us how John is a "typical boy", saying: "He loves playing football, going swimming and he is absolutely farming mad. He wants to be a farmer when hes older. It's silage season at the moment and after school he runs off with daddy to get straight in the tractor. At school they have a mud kitchen and he came home recently with a brown shirt.

John posing with a tractor. He wants to be a farmer when he grows up.

"Looking at him, people wouldn't know he is any different, hes a normal little boy apart from the huge scar down his chest."

Jemma says the air ambulance had saved John's life, adding: "You can have the best surgeon in the world, but patients can't get to them they won't be able to do their job. That's what the air ambulance did for us."

On Thursday (May 30), Cornwall Air Ambulance will be coming to see John, who is now in his first year at primary school, in Porthleven at a charity shop managed by his grandmother to receive a donation which John himself will present to them.

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How Ultherapy Achieves Maximum Beauty Impact

Non-Surgical Procedures Reno, NVIn recent years, a number of skin-tightening technologies have been developed. New devices have enabled patients who want to boost their youthful appearance to postpone facelift surgery or, in some cases, rule it out altogether. One of the benefits of non-surgical skin tightening is that controlled modalities provide more people with the control they want over their aging process. One of the downsides to so much innovation is that it can be difficult to determine which method of skin-tightening is right for you. Here, we discuss what Ultherapy does and how it does it.

What is Ultherapy?

The Ultherapy device is based on ultrasound technology. This differs from other treatments, such as ThermiTight (which we offer) in the use of ultrasound instead of radiofrequency. Ultrasound is used both as a guide and as the method for achieving beautiful results.

How Ultherapy Works

Ultherapy uses visual ultrasound to observe what lies beneath the skin’s surface. This is a step that sets Ultherapy apart because it facilitates the delivery of heat to the exact point at which tissue remodeling begins. Then, the device uses focused ultrasound to send two precise soundwaves through superficial tissue to the predetermined depth where friction will be most effective. The friction of soundwaves in the dermis is what stimulates heat, which subsequently increases collagen production. Collagen is the protein that heals and firms the skin so it appears tighter, more lifted, and younger.

Ultherapy targets multiple layers of tissue for maximum impact on appearance. The deepest layer of tissue that can be targeted is the sub-muscular aponeurotic system, or SMAS. This is the layer of tissue that is manipulated during a surgical facelift. Above that, Ultherapy targets the low dermis and, above that, the top dermis. The deeper layers are strengthened by ultrasound so they provide better support to the top layer, in which fine lines, wrinkles, and looseness have an aging effect on appearance.

Is Ultherapy Right for You?

There is no denying the efficacy of a surgical facelift when compared to any non-surgical lifting treatment. However, for individuals with mild to moderate tissue laxity, crepey skin, and wrinkles who wish to address their concerns without surgery, Ultherapy is an outstanding option. Patience is a necessary attribute for those who choose Ultherapy because the full results of treatment occur over time. Depending on the severity of tissue laxity, a second treatment may be recommended six months after the first.

Discover the magic of Ultherapy for a younger looking you. Contact our Reno office at (775) 826-4477.

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Cosy Angel offers a free e-book on Children`s sleep. Please fill up the form below and we will send you the free e-book

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• New Vice President of Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital Honored With 40 Under 40 Award

Published on October 01, 2014

New Vice President of Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital Honored With 40 Under 40 Award

GOLETA – Arie Dejong, the new vice president of Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital, has received the “40 Under 40” award from the Pacific Coast Business Times. The award recognizes 40 up-and-coming business leaders under the age of 40 in the tri-county area.

Arie joined Cottage Health System in 2013 to manage the completion of the new, $126 million Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital, which is scheduled to open in the first quarter of 2015.

The new hospital will include 152,000 square feet, and will feature life-saving Emergency Care (expanding from 8 beds to 20), the Cottage Center for Orthopedics, the award-winning Center for Wound Management (doubling the number of Hyperbaric Oxygen Chambers from two to four chambers), expanded physical therapy services, and 44 private patient rooms and eight intensive care unit rooms.

Arie manages current hospital operations, the rebuilding of the new hospital, the building of a new medical office building and lease commitments from physicians, and the hospital move preparations for more than 300 employees.

He comes to Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital from the Seton Healthcare Family, Austin, Texas, where he was vice president and chief operating officer. At Seton he oversaw the financial and quality performance of the hospital and nine primary care and specialty clinics, home health and hospice with a combined $150 million in gross revenues.

“Arie’s leadership style is one that encourages a high level of accountability, professionalism and vision,” said Ron Werft, president and CEO of Cottage Health System. “He has shown in his brief time with Cottage that he represents the core values of excellence, integrity, and compassion. Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital is fortunate to have someone of his caliber at the helm.”

About Cottage Health System

The not-for-profit Cottage Health System -- the parent organization of Santa Barbara Cottage Hospital and its associated Cottage Children’s Hospital and Cottage Rehabilitation Hospital, Santa Ynez Valley Cottage Hospital, and Goleta Valley Cottage Hospital -- is guided by a volunteer board of directors from the greater Santa Barbara community. Last year, the Cottage hospitals provided inpatient care for 20,000 people, treated 69,000 patients through their 24-hour emergency departments and helped deliver 2,300 newborns.

Cottage Health E-Living SignupCottage Health E-Living Newsletter

Sign up for Cottage Health’s FREE Health E-Living newsletter. This digital resource is full of events, healthy tips and nutritional information to help you on your wellness journey.

Media and Public Relations Contact

Maria Zate, Manager of Public Relations

Phone: 805-879-8986


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King celebration today
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The citizens of Newton County will celebrate the 79th birthday and 23rd national observance honoring the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. in an ecumenical service to be held at 3 p.m. today in the Porter Auditorium, Newton County High School.

The keynote speaker will be Georgia Labor Commissioner Michael Thurmond - attorney, author, lecturer, public servant and creator of the Workfirst Program. Under his direction, the State of Georgia Labor Department has changed to address and accommodate the needs and skills of Georgia's unemployed.

He is a graduate of Paine College and University and the University of South Carolina School of Law. He also completed the Political Executive Program at the John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University.

Thurmond has authored several books and was awarded the Historical Society's Lilla Hawes Award for his latest book, "Freedom: Georgia's Antislavery Heritage, 1733-1865."

The Georgia Center lists this book as one of the 25 books all Georgians should read.

He and his wife Zola are parents of a daughter Mikaya and are members of the Ebenezer Baptist Church West of Athens.

Each year, since the inception of the celebration, a citizen of Newton County is given the I Have a Dream award. The recipient is one who has displayed the philosophy and discipleship of Dr. King through acts of benevolence and generosity.

An academic scholarship is awarded to a Newton County graduate to attend Oxford College of Emory University. Seniors who are interested in applying for the King Scholarship should contact a counselor at their school.


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Foreign Feuds (InsideCounsel)

Thu, Jan 3, 2008

By: Mary Swanton

When your company has a contract issue overseas, you’re in a whole different ballgame. And you’d better be ready to step up to the plate. Because for resolving cross-border contract disputes, international arbitration is really the only game in town—whether that town is Shanghai, Stockholm, Mexico City or Mumbai—and the rules of the game are different from those of both U.S. courts and arbitral panels.

“International arbitration is not a perfect process,” says A. Stephens Clay, partner in Kilpatrick Stockton. “You have to work around its shortcomings. But there isn’t any substitute that is satisfactory, and it’s a waste of time to try to find another way.”

Arbitration trumps litigation for overseas contract claims for two reasons. First, your dispute will be heard in a neutral forum, instead of in the other party’s home court where you may start with an insurmountable disadvantage and face a corrupt judiciary or a backlog that stymies resolution of the matter for a decade.

Second, with arbitration you have an excellent shot at getting an award enforced—not the case when a contract dispute goes to court in many countries around the world. Consider,too, that you will need to enforce the award in the country where the other party has assets, not necessarily the country where the dispute occurs. Under the 1958 Convention on the Recognition and Enforcement of Foreign Arbitral Awards, known as the New York Convention, 142 countries agree to enforce international arbitration awards. No comparable treaty governs foreign court judgments.

“The key thing is that you want to have the opportunity to collect a judgment against the other party,” says Mark Katz, general counsel of Singapore-based First Oriental Holdings Corp. “We go to arbitration because it’s better than the local courts, and awards can be enforced anywhere in the world.”

Crafting Clauses
A successful conclusion to the arbitration game requires the general counsel’s attention long before any dispute arises. GCs need to ensure that every international contract contains a carefully drafted arbitration clause. The major arbitral organizations offer standard clauses, but arbitration experts advise customizing the provisions to fit your business objectives and accommodate the unique circumstances of your agreement.

“There is no such thing as a one-size-fits-all arbitration clause,” says Christopher Tahbaz,partner in Debevoise & Plimpton. “A well-drafted clause requires some attention, but it is well worth the effort.”

Among the variables you should define: the venue for the arbitration; the arbitration institution, if any, that will administer it; the law that governs the contract; the language in which the proceedings will be conducted; and the number of arbitrators who will decide the matter.

Problems arise when general counsel aren’t involved early enough to understand the parties involved and the cultural and legal issues that might surface. Too often the parties add arbitration clauses at the conclusion of negotiations, when, in the euphoria surrounding the contract completion, everyone is oblivious to the land mines that might lie ahead. As a result they overlook details that come back to haunt the company.

“Almost no one pays sufficient attention at the front end, when everyone is a friend,” says Mark Baker, head of the international arbitration practice at Fulbright & Jaworski. “But if you get it wrong in your arbitration agreement, you are on a very expensive odyssey.”

Most likely, getting it right will mean consulting outside counsel experienced in international arbitration in the part of the world where you are operating. That’s because designating a venue is one of the most challenging parts of drafting an arbitration clause—but also one of the most important. Not only do you want to ensure the country chosen is a signatory to the New York Convention, but you also want a country whose legal system is supportive of arbitration. In some countries local courts will vacate an - arbitration award or interfere with the arbitration process.

Even a country with a strong legal system may not suit your situation. John Gardiner, partner in Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & Flom, recalls a case where a U.S. company and its foreign partner had agreed to conduct an arbitration in London. The arbitration clause called for the parties to bear their own legal fees and split the cost of the arbitral tribunal. However, British law renders void any agreement about arbitration costs.

“The English Arbitration Act has a lot of provisions that are a trap for the unwary,” Gardiner says. “By venuing their arbitration in London, the parties unwittingly ended up with a clause that was not enforceable.”

Unearthing Arbitrators Once a dispute arises and the arbitration clause is invoked, your next challenge is selecting the best possible person or panel to decide the matter. Arbitration clauses usually specify either one arbitrator or a panel of three. With arbitrator fees of up to $1,000 per hour, using one arbitrator reduces costs substantially and usually expedites the proceedings because it’s not as difficult to schedule hearings.

But a panel of three arbitrators—each side picks one, and those two pick the third—offers more comfort of a balanced result. Katz suggests using one arbitrator for smaller disputes but three for matters over $1 million. Regardless, finding the right arbitrator can be a challenge.

“The first condition of being satisfied with international arbitration is that you get high quality and experienced arbitrators,” Clay says. “The process will only be as good as the arbitrators, but the inventory of qualified people is hard to come by.”

No one maintains a central worldwide registry of arbitrators, though some arbitral institutions have their own lists. International arbitration counsel agree there are 50 to 100 big name arbitrators—mostly males over age 60 in London, Paris, New York and Washington—who constantly surface in word-of-mouth recommendations. But those people are among both the most expensive and the most difficult to book. Some overschedule themselves, leading to unexpected delays.

Counsel selecting arbitrators often overlook a younger crop—men and women who have substantial arbitration experience but aren’t on the list shared among the old boys’ network.

“There are qualified people in the 45 to 60 age group in Toronto, Dublin, Chicago and other places around the world who are very able and cost less money,” Clay says. “The challenge is to find them.”

He recommends attending conferences where arbitration is the principal topic to develop a list of possible arbitrators. In addition the International Institute for Conflict Prevention and Resolution (CPR) provides lists of qualified arbitrators to members, and the American Arbitration Association’s International Centre for Dispute Resolution (ICDR) provides lists as part of its arbitration administration service. Regional arbitration organizations, such as the Singapore International Arbitration Centre (SIAC), maintain their own lists.

Among the important qualities to seek in arbitrators, according to CPR’s senior vice president Helena Tavares Erickson: their ability to bridge cultures and legal systems, reputation for impartiality, commitment to availability and willingness to enforce decisions that will move the process along. Arbitrators on CPR’s list average $600 to $700 per hour, compared to $1,000 an hour for the top names.

“People tend to routinely go back to a few dozen well-known, well-established arbitrators, but there is a much greater number of qualified international arbitrators, especially younger arbitrators who have spent their entire career in arbitration,” she says.

Ditching Discovery
Once the arbitrators are chosen, it’s time to prepare for the proceedings. That means throwing away most of what you’ve learned about litigation—and even some of what you know about domestic arbitration. For example, dispositive motions aren’t commonly a part of international arbitration, although the right to seek a preliminary injunction or summary judgment can be written into the arbitration clause. But generally the parties meet with the arbitrators and explain what the case is about. Often the next face-to-face contact will be an evidenciary hearing, but that may be a year later.

“Sometimes people are not aware that it is not common to have motion practice [in international arbitration],” Erickson says. “If the issue is ripe for summary judgment, they may have to go through the entire arbitration to get that issued.”

Clay points out that because attorneys aren’t appearing before the arbitration panel to argue motions, they don’t get a read on what the arbitrators are thinking. Requesting a couple of conferences with the panel prior to the final hearing, preferably by videoconference to reduce travel costs, can spur a settlement.

“There can be a long period of time when no one is changing positions because they are not getting feedback from the [arbitration] panel,” Clay says. “In litigation, we usually know which side the judge is more likely to sympathize with, and that has a big effect on getting settlements.”

Don’t expect the kind of deposition and discovery process you find in the U.S. courts either. A decade ago international arbitrators never allowed discovery, and they still may exclude it. Even when they allow it, they expect specific requests and a strong argument for why discovery is necessary. For example they probably will not grant a request for emails exchanged among several individuals unless it is limited to e-mails on a narrow topic.

“The arbitration bar feels that if you don’t have enough evidence [without discovery], you should not have brought the case,” Clay says. “In the U.S. we are so dependent on discovery that we’ve forgotten how to investigate the facts.”

While it is possible to write a discovery provision into the arbitration clause, Richard Naimark, senior vice president of ICDR, doesn’t think discovery is worth the substantial cost it adds to the process.

“The reality is that basic document exchange usually works well,” he says. In lieu of depositions and extensive oral testimony, arbitrators expect witnesses to submit written testimony. Written documents—including expert testimony and the briefs submitted by the parties—carry more weight than what is said at the hearing.

“Appreciate that just because the ways are different, they are not inferior,” Tahbaz says. “For example, to U.S.-based general counsel, testimony through written statements may be a very foreign concept, but there is no diminishment in the quality of the outcome and it is much more efficient. Being open to these kinds of differences is important.”

Culture Clashes
In addition to adjusting to unfamiliar legal procedures, U.S. lawyers embarking on international arbitration need to adapt their style to accommodate cultural differences. Americans, trained to be aggressive and freewheeling, stumble before arbitrators accustomed to a more restrained style. What the American might think is a dramatic closing argument may strike the arbitrator as unnecessary hyperbole.

“Almost all the things U.S. litigators want to do are wrong in arbitration,” Baker says. “If you take the Perry Mason approach of trying to show that someone is a lying son-of-agun, the arbitrators will hate that and sympathize with the witness.”

Americans also may come off as arrogant, disrespectful of differences in legal traditions, insistent on doing things the way they’re done at home and “offended when the tribunal doesn’t agree to that,” says Larry Schaner, partner in Jenner & Block. The direct, takeno- prisoners American style also may impede negotiations with a party from a culture where people are indirect in their responses and take a slow, studied approach to business dealings. Americans may think they are getting the runaround, while their counterparts simply need time to get comfortable with the situation.

“We move like bulls in a china shop,” Katz says. “Frequently Americans intimidate people from other cultures. We get so carried away that we don’t listen, and so we don’t understand the other side.”

Language issues also can cause misunderstandings. Naimark cites a dispute between companies from Texas and France where the Texans were up in arms because their French counterparts kept making “demands.” The Texans didn’t realize that “Je demande” is French for “I request.”

Misunderstandings can even develop between English-speaking parties. Michael Pillow, director of energy service contracts for Orlando, Fla.-based Siemens Power Generation, recalls an arbitration in India involving arbitrators from Scotland and India and attorneys from India and the U.S.

“In terms of what people were saying, it was not clear we were speaking the same language,” he says. These misunderstandings can be costly, particularly when they cause the parties to miss opportunities to settle the dispute. One of the biggest mistakes you can make is getting locked into arbitration when the matter could be settled at a great cost savings.

“Every dispute has a series of opportunity points under which it can be resolved,” Baker says. “But the cross-cultural clash can be so extreme and the Americans so tone deaf that they don’t see the opportunities that are presented. So all kinds of opportunities for business resolution are missed because it’s ships passing in the night.”

Costly process
Settlement often makes sense because international arbitration is expensive—on par with the cost of litigation. Couple the high fees charged by arbitrators with the fees of outside counsel, arbitration administration fees and travel costs, and the sum can be staggering.

Naimark notes a recent trend of companies specifying a tiered dispute resolution process, attempting to first resolve the issue through negotiation and mediation before invoking arbitration. “It can work and save a lot of money,” he notes.

But if you can’t settle the dispute without a formal process, you’ll be glad you have that arbitration clause. You will already have selected a venue where you know a judgment against the other party can be enforced, you’ll have chosen the rules that govern the proceeding and you’ll have a voice in who will decide the dispute. In addition to improving the prospects for collecting on a contract gone bad, an arbitration clause offers you some comfort if your counterpart takes action against you.

“You have to look at the alternative,” Gardiner says. “[Without an arbitration clause], you leave yourself open to defending yourself in a far-flung land with a court system you are completely unfamiliar with.” The consequences can be serious. In India, for instance, it can take a decade to bring a lawsuit to trial. In some emerging countries, the rule of law Americans take for granted does not apply. So while it may be a close call between arbitration or litigation in domestic contract disputes, for international contracts arbitration is the clear-cut choice.

“In the international context, arbitration wins hands down over litigation,” Schaner says. “The case for international arbitration is very strong.”

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  1. Gary

    Clubs now available

    A new feature has arrived on the forum; Clubs! Clubs enable you to create social groups within Cracking The OFM Code. With a wealth of options, they're ideal for user-to-user collaboration and especially useful for getting your crew mates together right here on the forum. Clubs have various permissions allowing the creator to have theirs viewable to the public eye or to keep it private with only those accepted into the club. Leaders can customise their club with a photo and banner image, plus add additional data based on admin-defined customer fields - great for filtering clubs by interest or by giving prospective members an idea of whether the club interests them. Club leaders are also in control of the content areas within their club. They can add new forums, calendars, download areas and image galleries, without needing admin assistance. This will bring back the old school method of crew forums once found on OFM which I'm sure will be a hit to crew bosses. Start your own club now by visiting this link. All clubs must be approved by a staff member before you will have access to them and only crew bosses can open clubs in their respective crews. This is to prevent duplicate clubs being created and to ensure it follows obvious etiquette. Please comment below for any questions, concerns or how to start up your very own club.
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Two Weeks With Thomas

Crawford Thomas Recruiting Testimonials Leave a Comment

During my career I have had the opportunity of working with many recruiting firms. My experience with Crawford Thomas has been exceptional. My recruiter was available for me anytime I had a question or concern. I received and accepted an offer in less than two weeks from initial contact with Crawford Thomas. I would recommend  Crawford Thomas for employees and employers alike.

Crawford Thomas RecruitingTwo Weeks With Thomas

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The trauma of the battlefield brought to life in new Combat Stress ad

Combat Stress campaign by 4creative offshoot captures the mental health effects faced by military veterans

Combat Stress campaign

The last few years have seen the armed forces pump more money and effort into recruitment, and seen the emergence of unconventional and often controversial approaches to attract new sign-ups. However, despite growing focus on getting recruits into the army, few campaigns seem to focus on what happens when veterans come out the other side.

A handful of leading members from 4creative collaborated with Combat Stress – a charity aimed at helping war veterans recover from PTSD, depression and anxiety – on a new campaign film designed to highlight the complexity of post-service life for many veterans.

The film centres on an elderly war veteran reliving his moments in battle, giving a powerful, stirring performance as he finds himself back on the battleground surrounded by panic, fear and loss. The campaign follows a recent study showing there has been an increase in ex-military members reporting mental health issues over the last ten years, during which time the number of referrals to Combat Stress has doubled.

Director: Barry Dyer

Creatives: Jack Croft, Stacey Bird
Business Director:  Jane English
Senior Producer: Liz Arnott
Film Production: Opus 2

Milton Keynes


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SCARY MONSTERS #113 - Magazine

In this issue: Hammer Girls, Dee Wallace, PSYCHO's Marli Renfro, Scream Queens-Horror Heroines and Femme Fatales! Super thick issue packed with monsters, short stories and the CREATURE OF DESTRUCTION on the beach. Lots of scare for you from publishers Don and Vicki Smeraldi!
SCARY MONSTERS #113 - Magazine
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  • Manufacturer: Scary Monsters
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Price $9.95
Sale Price $8.99


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Lamb of God

lamb god jesus passover 2nd second Sunday Ordinary Time A Lent Holy Week john baptist blood sacrifice fb
Jesus, Lamb of God?

John the Baptist pointed out Jesus as the spotless Lamb of God who takes away the sins of the world. This title, so prominent in the Mass, illumines the meaning of Christ's passion, recalling the first Passover remembered every year during Holy Week and...

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Lamb that was Slain – Melito

Melito of Sardis, a 2nd century Father of the Church, shows how the Passover Lamb and many Old Testament realities, prefigure Christ and his suffering. This marvelous Holy Week reading is a great example of the spiritual sense of Scripture....


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Artificial Intelligence

The artificial intelligence area of computer science deals, in general, with algorithms and techniques that allow computers to behave more like humans. Areas in artificial intelligence include expert systems, natural language processing, neural networks, data mining and robotics. At MSU, faculty and graduate students work in applying these techniques to areas such as reasoning under uncertainty, bioinformatics and human-machine interactions.


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Ikan V-Mount Portable Pro Power System

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Valene L. Smith Museum of Anthropology

William Nitzky

Museum Co-Director, Assistant Professor

Dr. Nitzky was hired to teach courses in the Certificate in Museum Studies and in the Museum Studies Graduate Program, along with courses in cultural anthropology. His focus areas include cultural anthropology, ethnicity, heritage, museum studies, anthropology of tourism, identity politics, rural livelihoods and development, ethnography of the state and China and East Asia.


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New Albums

Vicente Feliú

Vicente Feliú

Vicente Feliú was born in Havana province, Cuba, in November, 1947.

He began working as a composer in 1964, in an intuitive way, when he was a high school student. At that time, other youngsters all around the Island were simultaneously discovering the links between social experiences and the song and several years later, in 1972, they would create the so-called New Trova Movement.

Vicente Feliú, one of the most representative artists of this movement (together with Pablo Milanés, Silvio Rodríguez, Noel Nicola, Lázaro García and Augusto Blanca) worked in the organization of this movement for 15 years, holding different responsibilities, specially as head of said movement.

Feliu has performed in more than 20 countries of America, Europe and África, sharing the stage with a great number of singers such as Silvio Rodríguez and Pablo Milanés (Cuba), Luis Eduardo Aute and Juan Carlos Senante (Sp ain), Isabel Parra and Inti Illimani (Chile), León Gieco and Mercedes Sosa (Argentina), Jackson Browne, Pete Seeger, Holly Near and Little Stevens (the United States), Daniel Viglietti and Alfredo Zitarrosa (Uruguay), and Luis Enrique and Carlos Mejía-Godoy (Nicaragua).

His vast work as songwriter, where his anthological song "Créeme" should be highlighted, also includes music for plays, television and shows. Likewise, Feliú has collaborated in cultural programs as direction assistant and musical director. Moreover, he worked as musical adviser for Cuban radio and television programs, script writer, announcer and radio director.

He has recorded several phonograms, and his compositions, sung by both he himself as well as by other singers, are included in several albums of the New Trova Movement and of the Cuban music in general.

Vicente Feliú is one of the greatest promoters of the new Cuban song, and he usually collaborates with young troubadours who are giving continuity to the movement that he contributed to create and develop.