The Smell of Molten Projects in the Morning

Ed Nisley's Blog: Shop notes, electronics, firmware, machinery, 3D printing, laser cuttery, and curiosities. Contents: 100% human thinking, 0% AI slop.

Category: Recumbent Bicycling

Cruisin’ the streets

  • Baofeng UV-5R Squelch Settings

    The Baofeng UV-5R radios on our bikes seem absurdly sensitive to intermodulation interference, particularly on rides across the Walkway Over the Hudson, which has a glorious view of the repeaters and paging transmitters atop Illinois Mountain:

    Walkway Over The Hudson - Illinois Mountain Antennas
    Walkway Over The Hudson – Illinois Mountain Antennas

    A better view of the assortment on the right:

    Illinois Mountain - North Antennas
    Illinois Mountain – North Antennas

    And on the left:

    Illinois Mountain - South Antennas
    Illinois Mountain – South Antennas

    Not shown: the Sheriff’s Office transmitter behind us on the left and the Vassar Brothers Hospital / MidHudson pagers on either side at eye level. There’s plenty of RFI boresighted on the Walkway.

    Anyhow, none of the Baofeng squelch settings had any effect, which turned out to be a known problem. The default range VHF covered a whopping 6 dB and the UHF wasn’t much better at 18 dB, both at very low RF power levels.

    We use the radios in simplex mode, generally within line of sight, so I changed the Service Settings to get really aggressive squelch:

    Baofeng UV-5R - Improved Squelch Settings
    Baofeng UV-5R – Improved Squelch Settings

    I have no way to calibrate the new signal levels, but I’d previously cranked the squelch up to 9 (it doesn’t go any higher) and, left unchanged, the new level makes all the previous interference Go Away™. Another ride over the Walkway with the squelch set to 4 also passed in blissful silence.

    If the BF-F9 levels mean anything on a UV-5R, that’s about -100 dBm, 20 dB over the previous -120 dBm at squelch = 9.

    The new squelch levels may be too tight for any other use, which doesn’t matter for these radios. As of now, our rides are quiet.

    [Update: Setting the squelch to 5 may be necessary for the Walkway, as we both heard a few squawks and bleeps while riding eastbound on a Monday afternoon. ]

  • Pedestrian Hazard on the Hudson Valley Rail Trail

    I ride slowly and ding my bell when overtaking pedestrians on the Hudson Valley Rail Trail, but this group of walkers paid almost no attention as I rode toward New Paltz:

    HVRT New Paltz - Canada geese - Eastbound - 2019-07-16
    HVRT New Paltz – Canada geese – Eastbound – 2019-07-16

    I contented myself by practicing my slow-riding skills while they ambled along and, eventually, moved far to the left.

    A few hours later, they seemed to be having a picnic in the grass:

    HVRT New Paltz - Canada geese - Westbound - 2019-07-16
    HVRT New Paltz – Canada geese – Westbound – 2019-07-16

    We parted as friends, which is always pleasant.

  • Arlington Fire Department Practice Session

    The normal Vassar Farm exit was blocked by Arlington Fire District equipment, but the scene was calm and nobody objected when I asked to ride through:

    Fire Department Practice - Hose Engine
    Fire Department Practice – Hose Engine

    They were practicing hose deployment and structure entry in a soon-to-be-demolished building:

    Fire Department Practice - Theatrical Smoke
    Fire Department Practice – Theatrical Smoke

    That’s theatrical smoke, not a real fire; the folks off the right of the picture told me it’s impossible to burn down old structures for practice nowadays, what with all the environmental regulations.

    The Tower Truck obviously has more reach than they’ll need for the second floor:

    Fire Department Practice - Ladder Truck
    Fire Department Practice – Ladder Truck

    A few days later, we spotted Fairview Fire District folks scoping out the house.

    We think this might be Vassar’s way of contributing back to the various emergency departments, as the College is mostly tax-exempt.

  • Monthly Science: Weight

    Homeostasis is a thing:

    Weight Chart 2019-06 - Ed
    Weight Chart 2019-06 – Ed

    On the other paw, the eyeballometric trend line since mid-April slopes at -1 lb/month and arrives at just over 150 lb in December, so progress continues apace.

  • Walkway Over The Hudson: Privileged Parking

    Walkway West - Privileged Parking
    Walkway West – Privileged Parking

    Although different rules apply to the Park staff, so they can drive back & forth across a crowded Walkway with impunity, it’d be courteous if they didn’t block the bike rack with their vehicles. After we parked our bikes in the rack, the woman riding the third bike couldn’t get out and two other riders simply leaned their bikes against the Welcome Center.

    Privilege is one thing, flaunting it seems entirely unnecessary.

    I’ve yet to understand why the staff must drive over the Walkway at any time, not just park on the pedestrian plaza, as there’s a perfectly serviceable bridge designed specifically for motor vehicles barely half a mile to the south. Heck, on a clear day, you can even see it from the Walkway. [grin]

    Our bikes get us from one end to the other in under ten minutes, about as fast as the Park staff can drive, so using a car doesn’t provide any speed advantage. I can carry a week’s worth of groceries in my bike trailer and rarely see the staff carrying anything bigger in the car, so a “we must haul stuff” excuse seems self-serving.

    Every “unintended acceleration” mass-casualty incident involves a vehicle, a bunch of pedestrians, and a driver who never thought it could happen. Proactively eliminating vehicle traffic from the Walkway seems much easier than explaining why you didn’t.

    Parking vehicles in appropriate places doesn’t require any explanation.

    Thanks …

    Email to Walkway Over the Hudson

    I should have sent it to the sprawling NYS Office of Parks, Recreation, and Historic Preservation, but I hoped the Walkway staff could forward it to the right person. Haven’t heard anything back; I should have saved the electrons.

  • Baofeng Big Battery Capacity

    I bought a pair of third-party 3800 mA·h batteries for the Baofeng UV-5RE Plus (whatever that means) radios on our bikes. Oddly, the packs carry the same “Model BL-5” identification as 1800 mA·h batteries shipped with the radio:

    Baofeng BL-5 Batteries - 1.8 and 3.8 Ah
    Baofeng BL-5 Batteries – 1.8 and 3.8 Ah

    The obviously mislabeled “Baofeng” battery eliminator also sported a 3800 mA·h label:

    Baofeng Battery Eliminator - overview
    Baofeng Battery Eliminator – overview

    I conjured a “test fixture” from a clamp, copper sheet, and copper tape snippets:

    Baofeng battery - test setup
    Baofeng battery – test setup

    Which produced interesting results:

    Baofeng BL-5 3800 mAh packs - Ah - 2019-05
    Baofeng BL-5 3800 mAh packs – Ah – 2019-05

    The 250 mA load = 15 hour rate seemed reasonable to simulate radios spending most of their time in power-save mode, but the packs still delivered only 2.8 A·h.

    The packs also claim an unnaturally precise 28.12 W·h, but they’re still underperformers at 20 W·h:

    Baofeng BL-5 3800 mAh packs - 2019-05
    Baofeng BL-5 3800 mAh packs – 2019-05

    Anyhow, I can run the radios for a week without (worrying about) running out of juice during a ride.

  • M20 Camera Operation

    A reader asked how the M20 camera mount on my bike works with respect to the camera’s clock; this description explains a few things missing from the original writeup.

    SJCAM M20 Mount - Tour Easy side view
    SJCAM M20 Mount – Tour Easy side view

    Do you have to set the time & date at start of every ride?

    The internal clock shuts down about ten seconds after you pull the battery. If-and-only-if you swap batteries fast enough, it’ll keep time forever. Screw up once and it snaps back to Epoch Zero.

    “Car mode” automagically begins recording when USB power goes on, but the manual advises:

    TIP: When using your camera as a dashcam, use a car charger cable and remove the internal battery to make sure it does not die out while you travel.

    That’s because the M20 continues to run from its internal battery when USB power drops. After recording an hour of a parking lot or your garage wall, the battery dies and so does the clock.

    Of course, without the internal battery, the clock dies ten seconds after you turn off the car.

    The internal battery has many days of capacity with the camera turned off (whew!), so I conjured the case & PowerCore battery tray to handle our normal rides. The internal battery keeps the clock alive overnight and during the rain we’ve had for the last week, the PowerCore supplies juice during the ride, and I recharge the PowerCore every few weeks.

    The M20 doesn’t draw charging current when I turn it on, but poking the PowerCore’s status button also turns on its outputs, whereupon the M20 decides it should begin charging and, bonus, draw power from the PowerCore during the entire ride. The M20 finishes charging while we ride, but the PowerCore continues supplying power and, when I turn the M20 off, the PowerCore sees no current draw and shuts itself off.

    Only a geek could love a lashup like that, but it works around the M20’s broken clock and removes its battery maintenance hassle.