Foundations of Amateur Radio #173 | Southgate Amateur Radio News

Foundations of Amateur Radio #173 | Southgate Amateur Radio News

The Scientific Benefits of Boredom

Assessing Philosophical Orientation with a 5-Dimensional Quiz September 29, 2018 by Dan Mitchell

It’s time to augment our collection of surveys that test political orientation. Here are the ones I’ve previously shared.

• The Political Compass test (I’m a “right libertarian”).
• The Definitive Political Orientation test (I’m a “right libertarian”).
• The Circle test (I’m a “minarchist”).
• The Libertarian Purity test (I’m a “hard-core libertarian”).
• The 8 Values test (I’m a “libertarian capitalist”).
• The world’s smallest political quiz (I’m a “100-percent libertarian”).

Today’s addition is a quiz called the “5-Dimensional Political Compass.”

It’s only 30 questions, covering everything from economic issues, international issues, and cultural issues. Your answers are limited to yes, no, and maybe, so there’s not much opportunity for nuance.

Even though I like the concept of a multi-dimensional test, I’m not completely thrilled with how I was graded.

I have no objection to being a “conservative” and “libertarian,” but I’m an avid proponent of free trade, so how can I be a “total-isolationist”?

It turns out that the quiz has nothing on trade and several questions related to international organizations and global governance. Given my views on such issues, that must explain how I’m classified.

I also don’t like being called a “nationalist,” but I’m guessing that’s because of my “yes” to the question about whether “my country is inherently better.”

It’s not that I think Americans are better, but I very much appreciate that I’m part of a nation founded on an ideal of freedom rather than shared nationality, race, or religion. In other words, I’m saying “my country’s organizational principles are inherently better.”

For what it’s worth, if I changed my answer to “maybe” on that question, the “nationalist” part would disappear and my results would change to “conservative libertarian total-isolationist traditionalist.”

Speaking of “traditionalist,” I’m mildly uncomfortable with that label. I think I got that outcome because I answered “yes” to the first question about the “decline of traditional families” being harmful and “maybe” to the second question about “moral decay of our society.”

I guess it all depends on what people think is implied by the questions. I answered “yes” to the first because I think it is unfortunate to have so many children from broken homes, whereas somebody else might answer “yes” because they are bothered by two men or two women getting married.

And when I think about “moral decay,” I’m focusing on the erosion of societal capital, not whether someone smokes pot or looks at a naked picture on the Internet.

SNIFF YOUR LOCAL LORA PACKETS by: Jenny List

As the LoRa low-bandwidth networking technology in license-free spectrum has gained traction on the wave of IoT frenzy, LoRa networks have started to appear in all sorts of unexpected places. Sometimes they are open networks such as The Things Network, other times they are commercially available networks, and then, of course, there are entirely private LoRa installations.

If you are interested in using LoRa on a particular site, it’s an interesting exercise to find out what LoRa traffic already exists, and to that end [Joe Broxson] has put together a useful little device. Hardware wise it’s an Adafruit Cortex M0 Feather with onboard LoRa module, paired with a TFT FeatherWing for display, and software wise it scans a set of available frequencies and posts any packets it finds to the scrolling display. It also has the neat feature of logging packets in detail to an SD card for later analysis. The whole is enclosed in a 3D printed case from an Adafruit design and makes for a very attractive self-contained unit.

We’ve featured quite a few LoRa projects here, including this one with a Raspberry Pi Compute module in a remote display. Of more relevance in a LoRa testing sense though is this look at LoRa range testing.

What Makes Someone Decide to Be a Conservative or Liberal, a Statist or Libertarian? September 23, 2018 by Dan Mitchell

Politically aware people generally understand the policy differences between conservative and liberals (as they are currently defined, not classical liberals).

For those who don’t follow politics, there’s an accurate – and amusing – guide from Playboy that explains the difference between Republicans and Democrats.

And it includes libertarians and greens as well, which is a nice touch for those of us with unconventional views.

But what actually causes someone to pick an ideology?

In February, I shared a bunch of research that looked at how various personal characteristics are associated with – and may even cause – political differences.

This is interesting research. Though I suspect it irks many of us, regardless of our philosophical orientation, since it implies that our views aren’t necessarily the result of reason.

According to an article in Business Insider, this type of research even shows that differences extend beyond politics.

…what in the brains of conservative and liberal voters actually drive their belief systems? Scientists have been researching the psychological differences between people with different stances, and there are a few key ways that people on opposite ends of the political spectrum see the world. …Liberal and conservative tastes in music and art are different. …liberals enjoyed more cubist and abstract art. …conservative readers tended to say they’d rather visit Times Square than the Metropolitan Museum of Art. …conservative voters were found to be more likely to agree with statements like: “I often have tender, concerned feelings for my family members who are less fortunate than me.” But their responses suggested such feelings did not extend to people from other countries. Liberals, on the other hand, were more likely to feel that same level of compassion for people around the world, and even to non-human and imaginary subjects like animals and aliens. …A longitudinal study of more than 16,000 people in the UK found that… “Children who showed higher levels of conduct problems — that is, aggression, fighting, stealing from peers — were more likely to be economically left-leaning.”

What about libertarians?

In his Bloomberg column, Professor Tyler Cowen reveals that we are the most thoughtful group.

Libertarians measure as being the most analytical political group. That’s according to something called the cognitive reflection test, which is designed to measure whether an individual will override his or her immediate emotional responses and give a question further consideration. So if you aren’t a libertarian, maybe you ought to give that philosophy another look. It’s a relatively exclusive club, replete with people who are politically engaged, able to handle abstract arguments and capable of deeper reflection.

Trump voters and independents, by contrast, are less informed and more impulsive.

What else can we learn from this new study of political and analytical tendencies, conducted by Gordon Pennycook and David G. Rand of Yale University? …one group that measured as especially nonanalytical was Democrats who crossed party lines and voted for Donald Trump. There is a stereotype of a less well-educated voter, perhaps both white and male, who reacts negatively and emotionally to Hillary Clinton… For all the dangers of stereotyping, the study’s data are consistent with that picture. …independents do poorly on the analytic dimension. …that group measures as relatively impulsive and prone to less informed judgments.

And here’s some research on “free-marketeers” from the U.K.-based Times.

Clever children will probably grow up to have free-market economic views, according to new academic research. The direct link between intelligence and economic conservatism holds true even if the self-interest that high earners have in a lower-tax, free-market economy is taken into account. The authors of the research, Gary Lewis and Timothy Bates, psychologists at Royal Holloway, University of London and Edinburgh University respectively, state: “Intelligence assessed in childhood [ages 10-11] was predictive of adult [30-33] economic conservatism.” …The authors studied data from the 1970 British Cohort Study and the National Child Development Study of 1958, both of which measured the intelligence of more than 17,000 children before they were distorted by educational differences. The authors also adjusted for sex, parental social class and childhood conduct problems.

I like these results, for the obvious reason.

But also notice that the authors adjusted the data based on the assumption that a “lower-tax, free-market economy” generates greater wealth. Interesting (and accurate) admission.

Now let’s consider the statist side of the spectrum.

According to some revised research that was reported by the New York Post, our friends on the left have authoritarian tendencies.

A political-science journal that published an oft-cited study claiming conservatives were more likely to show traits associated with “psychoticism” now says it got it wrong. Very wrong. The American Journal of Political Science published a correction this year saying that the 2012 paper has “an error” — and that liberal political beliefs, not conservative ones, are actually linked to psychoticism. …“The descriptive analyses report that those higher in Eysenck’s psychoticism are more conservative, but they are actually more liberal; and where the original manuscript reports those higher in neuroticism and social desirability are more liberal, they are, in fact, more conservative.” In the paper, psychoticism is associated with traits such as tough-mindedness, risk-taking, sensation-seeking, impulsivity and authoritarianism.

Since we’re on the topic of authoritarianism, let’s close by looking at some new research, reported by PsyPost, that doesn’t reflect well on the right or left.

New research provides evidence that left-wing authoritarian attitudes exist in the United States. The preliminary findings, published in the scientific journal Political Psychology, suggest liberals could be just as likely to be authoritarians as conservatives. …Conway and his colleagues developed a measure of left-wing authoritarianism, which was adapted from the right-wing authoritarianism scale developed by psychologist Bob Altemeyer. …The new LWA scale, on the other hand, asks questions such as: “It’s always better to trust the judgment of the proper authorities in science with respect to issues like global warming and evolution than to listen to the noisy rabble-rousers in our society who are trying to create doubts in people’s minds” and “Our country desperately needs a mighty leader who will do what has to be done to destroy the radical new ways and sinfulness that are ruining us.” …The researchers found that left-wing authoritarianism was associated with liberal views, dogmatism, and prejudice.

In other words, partisans on both sides are tempted to use the coercive power of government to impose their beliefs.

Which underscores why government shouldn’t have much power in the first place!

The good news is that we still have lots of freedom. At least compared to the rest of the world.

The bad news is that we have less freedom than we used to have.

P.S. You could say we’re becoming less like Liberland and more like Senator Murphy’s dystopia.

What We Can Learn From The Jeep Fire Video By Chris Cordes

On September 16th, an overland youtube channel called Coyote Works published a video titled “Jeep Wrangler Catches Fire & Burns – Overland Car Camping Trip Ends in Disaster.” As you can imagine, it generated a bit of a stir. The video begins innocently enough with the owner, Casey Kaiser, on a jaunt through the Oregon desert while describing the area around him. Later in the day he stops to open a gate, at which time smoke begins to pour out from under the Jeep’s hood. Unfortunately, there is no video of the next few moments, but Casey claims that he used both the fire extinguisher and several jugs of water attempting to put out the flames. Whatever he did, the efforts were unsuccessful, and the flames returned strong as ever. The remainder of the video is somewhere between odd and depressing, as you watch his JK burn to the ground while he calmly talks through the situation like it’s a training video.

Although many people have been quick to criticize him, or even claim insurance fraud, we aren’t here to speculate. Instead, we want to take a moment to look at what he did right, what he could have done better, and what we can all learn from the situation. Feel free to watch the video below first, or just skip down to the list of the lessons learned.

1. Stay Calm – The quickest way for an emergency situation to go sideways is panic. Taking a deep breath and a few seconds to think can be the difference between a good decision and a potentially life threatening one, so don’t be rash. Consider the entire situation based on the time you have and then act, much like Casey did in this video.
2. Carry a Fire Extinguisher and Medical Kit– Accidents happen, and it’s vital to keep a fire-extinguisher appropriate to the size of the vehicle and fuel load, and medical kit close by in an easy to access spot. Additionally, use an automotive model extinguisher when possible, as they are designed to deal with the chemicals and fluids used in vehicles. Casey did a great job of having a fire extinguisher on hand when he needed it most, although we aren’t sure if it was intended specifically for vehicles, a factor that could have played a role in his Jeep’s demise.
3. Keep Your Own Safety Top of Mind – It’s easy to become overly focused on solving the emergency itself, but you need to be continuously re-evaluating the situation with your own safety in mind. When Casey failed to put out the fire for a second time, he had the forethought to change tactics from saving the vehicle to saving himself. Instead of dumping his remaining water on the flames, he saved it for drinking while pulling out other gear and food necessary for survival. Should he have been forced to remain there, he could have had supplies for several days.
4. Have a Bug-out Bag – At the risk of sounding like preppers, we highly recommend keeping a bug out bag in your vehicle. This would contain water, food, medical supplies, shelter, insulative clothing layers, and several forms of emergency communications (Satellite and HAM). Casey had all the supplies he needed in the Jeep, but if he had only been granted moments to grab something instead of minutes, he could have been in big trouble.
5. Carry Emergency Comms – We always encourage people to carry an emergency satellite phone and/or messaging device with them. If Casey hadn’t been lucky enough to find cellular signal, a SPOT device or inReach would have allowed him to send a distress message to first responders, or would have been able to simply message his loved ones to tell them he needed a ride.
6. Pay Attention to Your Environment – Emergency situations are always changing. A threat may dissipate allowing you to take a less risky course of action, or it may worsen forcing you to abandon your efforts or change your strategy. Although his Jeep was burning, and he still had no idea how he would get home, Casey had the presence of mind to watch the flames spreading to surrounding brush. He was able to create a fire line before it became a forest fire that would not only threaten the land, but his life.
7. Always Tell Someone Where You Are Going and When You Will Return – This is one of the oldest rules in the book when it comes to remote travel. If no one knows where you are, or when you’ll be back, you likely won’t be missed until it is too late. Make sure someone is waiting to hear from you, and they know where to start looking should you not return.

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Dietrich Bonhoeffer on the "Stupidity" That Led to Hitler’s Third Reich by Annie Holmquist

As both major US political parties continue to centralize power, Americans today might do well to heed Bonhoeffer’s warning.

Although he was in power for only a handful of years, Hitler and his Nazi government slaughtered millions. One of the more well-known victims of that slaughter was Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who was executed on April 8th, 1945, a few short weeks before Hitler’s own death.

Unlike many of Hitler’s victims, Bonhoeffer was not a Jew, but a Lutheran minister, scholar, and theologian who boldly spoke against Hitler’s policies. Bonhoeffer landed a position in the German government during WWII and subsequently used that position as cover for assassination attempts against Hitler.

While awaiting execution, Bonhoeffer recorded a number of his thoughts in a work we now know as Letters and Papers from Prison. One of these essays, entitled On Stupidity, records some of the problems which Bonhoeffer likely saw at work in Hitler’s rise to power:

“Upon closer observation, it becomes apparent that every strong upsurge of power in the public sphere, be it of a political or a religious nature, infects a large part of humankind with stupidity. … The power of the one needs the stupidity of the other. The process at work here is not that particular human capacities, for instance, the intellect, suddenly atrophy or fail. Instead, it seems that under the overwhelming impact of rising power, humans are deprived of their inner independence and, more or less consciously, give up establishing an autonomous position toward the emerging circumstances. The fact that the stupid person is often stubborn must not blind us to the fact that he is not independent. In conversation with him, one virtually feels that one is dealing not at all with him as a person, but with slogans, catchwords, and the like that have taken possession of him. He is under a spell, blinded, misused, and abused in his very being. Having thus become a mindless tool, the stupid person will also be capable of any evil and at the same time incapable of seeing that it is evil. This is where the danger of diabolical misuse lurks, for it is this that can once and for all destroy human beings.”

As both major US political parties continue to centralize power, Americans today might do well to heed Bonhoeffer’s warning.

Nitro Gear’s Adventure RV by Chris Cordes

For most people, an RV is not an all-terrain vehicle. It’s a bus, a home on wheels, and a reason to own tiki lights and pink flamingoes. If anything, they encourage their owners to stick closer to the pavement, not venture further from it—unless, of course, you’re Carl Montoya of Just Differentials. When he needed an RV, he sought out something with four-wheel drive and embarked on a journey of modifications that would land his motorhome a world away from your grandpa’s Winnebago. Follow along as we watch Just Differentials and Nitro Gear & Axle turn this camper into an off-road dream machine.

Build Basics

Behind every great build is a purpose, and Nitro Gear’s behemoth is no exception. Carl needed an RV to tow vehicles to shows, serve as a base camp at events, and expand their family’s camping season well into the winter months for skiing and snowboarding. After looking at options of every shape and size, he eventually found what he was searching for: a rather rare coach called the Xplorer Xcurison. This 2004 model is based on a Ford F-450 chassis and powered by the infamous 6.0-liter power-stroke motor. It packs factory four-wheel drive, a Dana 60 up front, Dana S110 in the rear, and three 20-gallon diesel tanks for a 600-mile range. Living appointments include a rear bedroom with queen bed, a queen cabover, a slide-out with kitchenette, a generator, TV, stove, fridge, dual 6V battery setup, and a whopping 100 gallons of freshwater. All of this is tucked inside a one-piece fiberglass shell equipped for true four season camping. For many people, that sounds like an ideal build already, but for Carl, it was simply the beginning. It needed more clearance, more traction, more armor, and more durable components to tackle northern snow storms and reach remote camps.

Suspension Wheels and Tires

The first order of business was lifting this belly dragger off the ground, a task that started with a more modern coil-sprung front end from an F550. Swapping to this axle provided more room for larger tires, improved track width, provided better handling, and gave the truck a shockingly good turning radius. Next, they needed to upgrade the suspension for additional clearance and weight capacity. This was a delicate balancing act, as they wanted to run 40-inch tires, but didn’t want a ridiculous lift that made the truck so top heavy it was unusable. To solve this, they contacted National Springs and swapped their stock rear packs, which were underrated at 8,750 pounds, to a more suitable 12,000-pound pair. They then added a custom 1-inch spacer block to these new rear leaf springs and used a standard leveling kit on the front coils, which altogether netted around 2.5 inches of total lift. Finally, custom-valved, Radflo 2.5-inch remote reservoir shocks were installed with Hellwig 1.5-inch sway bars and helper airbags to minimize body roll and improve towing performance.

Now you might be thinking that 2.5 inches aren’t a whole lot of lift for such a large vehicle, but Nitro Gear had another trick up their sleeves. By trimming the front fenders 5 inches and installing Bushwacker flares, they were able to fit a massive set of 41-inch tires without rubbing, giving them the maximum tire size with the minimum lift combo they were looking for. At the same time, they changed out the factory Alcoa wheels for Buckstop heavy-duty super singles. This not only made the tires more stable, but transitioned the rear duals to a single, negating the problem of wedged rocks and debris between the tires while improving traction and flotation in snow, sand, and mud.

These changes introduced a new problem though. As anyone who has made a massive jump in tire size can tell you, steering was challenging to say the least, so they installed a 05+ F350 power steering box with an F-550 pitman arm, an Icon Armored truck spec pan hard rod, and a PSC 10-inch hydraulic assist ram. The combination can actually turn the massive tires while the truck is stationary without the slightest whine—truly impressive.

This still left two issues caused by the massive tires though. The first was ingress and egress to the vehicle. For anyone who isn’t 7 feet tall, it could be a real challenge, so AMP research steps were installed to make it a breeze. The second problem was that the truck struggled to accelerate or even cruise down the highway now that the tires and gear ratio were so mismatched. Luckily, Carl knew exactly how to fix that.

Gears, Lockers, and Driveline

One of the biggest mistakes people make when building an overland truck is failing to re-gear. A simple swap can improve fuel economy, return your power, and keep your transmission running longer, all of which help the gears pay for themselves. Of course, given that this was Just Differentials’ truck, they conveniently had a few sets laying around. That made it easy for them to ditch the standard 4.30’s for a set of 5.38:1 Nitro Gears. To give the truck ridiculous traction, they then added a front Eaton E-locker, and a Truetrac limited slip in the rear. Why not, right? Finally, they finished it all up by sealing them in with a Nitro Xtreme diff cover and Schaeffer’s gear oil for longevity and improved performance. The new gears restored the truck to a nearly stock ratio and gave them a few RPM’s lower on the highway than they had with 4.30’s on factory 31’s.

At this point, Carl and the team felt like they were almost done mechanically, but the Ford 6.0 had other plans. As they used the truck on various trips, engine problems continued to crop up, and the expense was quickly building. After the second failed head gasket, they pulled the plug. It was time for something new.

Carl turned to the team at Diesel Conversion Specialists in Kalispell, Montana, for a full Cummins 6.7L swap with new head studs and a banks intercooler. They chose an SCT programmer for additional power, edge gauges for monitoring, and dual Odyssey batteries for cranking. Supporting this new motor is an ATS built 5R110 Torq-Shift automatic transmission with an ATS high-capacity aluminum transmission pan and five star torque converter. While purists may cringe at the mating of a Ford and Cummins, the Nitro team had excellent luck with the change and found it solved all of the engine issues that plagued the Xcursion before. They did want to add just a little extra something though, and Dynomite Diesel Performance had just the thing: twin turbos. Carl states that this was largely done for reliability, quick throttle response, and cooler EGT’s, and that makes good sense to us. We’ll just chock the 1,110 pound feet of torque up to being a happy accident.

Armor and Accessories

With such a sizable investment now under the hood, it made sense to add additional protection, so Carl installed a modular ASFIR bumper. This replaced the original Herd Alloy unit that came with the truck, which made sense since it wouldn’t match the new fender line or hold a winch anyway. Inside the ASFIR, a 15,000-pound Milemarker winch stands ready to haul this beast of a truck out of sticky situations, and a Masterpull synthetic line with Factor 55 ProLink is there to help.

For inflating the Ford’s 41-inch tires, Nitro Gear runs an ARB Portable Twin Compressor with built-in air tank. This can not only make relatively quick work of their inflation times but also run air tools should they be needed on the trail.

 Interior and Living Accommodations

The Xplorer Xcursion came well equipped for life on the road straight from the factory. It was an RV after all, so the changes that needed to be made would be minimum, and largely confined to improving the truck’s ability to camp remotely in cold weather conditions. One of the biggest improvements was swapping the standard waste system for a Nature’s Head composting toilet. This has no odor and doesn’t require an RV dump station to be discarded regularly. Best of all, it doesn’t freeze in winter. Trust us, you really don’t want a cracked black water tank to deal with.

This didn’t protect the freshwater tank, of course, so Carl added additional insulation and heat ducting for those sub-zero nights. An interior heater can maintain a toasty temperature in the cabin, and dual commercial deep cycle batteries with hard-mounted solar panels will keep the lights on. If power ever does run low, a 5K LPG Onan generator is there for backup duty. So, whether they’re parked at the base of the slopes, or hunkered down in a snowstorm somewhere in the interior of British Columbia, their family can kick back and relax with a hot cup of cocoa, a warm blanket, and good conversation until the storm passes. Then when they’re ready, the world is right outside their doorway.

Final Thoughts

After driving the Xplorer Xcursion around, I can tell you two things. First, it’s impossible to drive without smiling. Just sitting in the cab and directing the lumbering Ford down the road feels like an occasion. It doesn’t matter if your destination is a remote mountain camp somewhere in Alaska or just the supermarket down the road; in this Ford, it feels like an adventure. Second, it’s not going to fit down most trails. It’s surprisingly nimble for its size, and could easily tackle desert tracks and even some mountain passes, but its capability still can’t compensate for its size on narrow tracks. Fortunately, that doesn’t matter. The beauty of this truck isn’t in its ability to traverse rock gardens, but to take you to the source of the real adventure, and serve as a home once you’re there. Whether it’s rock-climbing, surfing, snowboarding, or hunting, Nitro Gear’s RV can deliver its passengers to the most remote and secluded site available, so you can be surrounded by nature and not neighbors.

To learn more about Just Differentials or Nitro Gears, visit the Just Differentials website here.

To read the full build thread of this RV, check it out on our forum here.