Lewis Electronics

01/22/2026

05/11/2024

05/11/2024

It's a ham radio thang

04/27/2024

I'm not that bad, and I got quite active during the lockdowns, but this is too funny not to share :)

03/27/2024

03/26/2024

I woke up this morning to my wife calling me to turn on the news, that a bridge in Maryland had just fallen into the Patapsco River after being hit by a container ship. A bridge that I had crossed numerous times when I was stationed at Fort Meade, Maryland, while in the U.S. Air Force.
I watched the video of the horrific collapse of the bridge into the river and it recalled the first project that I had when I took the Engineering 101 course at Arizona State University, back in 1978, at the beginning of my engineering degree coursework.
We had to make a small bridge using only materials like straws, string tape, toothpicks, and such. And then it would be tested to see how much material was used versus how strong the bridge was. And what kind of load it would take to understand all the forces and vectors and cost benefit.
One of the most important considerations in any engineering project of this type is structural integrity, not to allow a single point to failure that would allow an entire bridge to come down Because of a single point of failure. And this was very painfully obvious in this collapse.

Working as engineering teams, students design and create model beam bridges using plastic drinking straws and tape as their construction materials. Their goa...

12/15/2023

WOW!!!
I was on a waiting list to subscribe to chat GPT4 $20/ month plan and finally got it!!!
I have been playing with the images and asked it to make an image of a white male 6 foot 200 lb retired engineer with a short beard, grayish brown hair and glasses on his Ham Radio with WX7O Marty and "Lewis Electronics"
This is an amazing new tool to play with, and this is only my 2nd day with it!!!

07/21/2021

I got my ham radio license when I was 15 years old, WN8AAM, and Christmas of that year I got my first HF transmitter, and, made my first QSO, (Contact), in Morse code with a 'Jim', in Lexington Kentucky!!!
He sent me a QSL card that I still have, and I didn't know until years later when I was showing off my cards, my Aunt Joyce told me that I had talked to Jimmy Dean, W4TRO!!!
I love eating in his restaurants, when I'm back home in Ohio!!!
Sorry to hear that he died in 2010 :'(

01/31/2021

Where is Starman? Track Elon Musk's Tesla Roadster in Space!
On February 6, 2018, at 2045 UTC, the first Falcon Heavy was launched into space. It contained a very special payload- a Tesla Roadster with Starman.

Current location of Elon Musk's cherry red Tesla Roadster and Starman launched by SpaceX on the Falcon Heavy maiden flight

01/25/2021

Well, this is interesting :)
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Ham Radio’s SuitSat Returns in Short Horror Film
01/25/2021
SuitSat loses its innocence in a new video short sci-fi thriller Decommissioned. “Inspired by true events,” the video short resurrects the 2006 spacesuit/satellite that transmitted messages on 2 meters as it circled Earth. The original SuitSat-1 project, conceived by an Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) team, repurposed a decommissioned Russian Orlan spacesuit to function as a free-floating amateur radio transmit-only satellite.

“ARISS designed and built an antenna and radio gear that got approved for installation into the suit, and cosmonaut Valeri Tokarev and Commander Bill McArthur, KC5ACR, put SuitSat-1 into orbit at the start of a spacewalk,” ARISS-US Delegate for ARRL Rosalie White, K1STO, recounted. SuitSat-1 transmitted a voice message, “This is SuitSat-1 RS0RS!” in several languages, plus telemetry and a slow-scan TV image on an 8-minute cycle as it orbited Earth.

In the 6-minute film, a SuitSat returns in the future to haunt International Space Station commander “Diaz,” played by Joey Vieira. Diaz is seen taking photos from inside an observation dome on the ISS when he spies some distant space debris and radios Houston to express concern.

“If there was any cause for alarm, you know we’d see it too,” Houston assures.

As the object closes in, an increasingly anxious Diaz recognizes the “debris” as SuitSat. “This is SuitSat,” comes a voice on the ham radio.

“Houston, you’re not gonna believe this. We’re picking up transmissions on the ham radio that sound identical to the SuitSat experiment,” he tells a skeptical mission control. “It’s SuitSat! I’m seeing SuitSat!”

“SuitSat re-entered the atmosphere and burned up years ago,” mission control responds. “It’s impossible.”

Decommissioned was produced by Perception Pictures and directed by Australian filmmaker Josh Tanner. He toldGizmodo that he produced the video “using the Unreal Engine technology that The Mandalorian used, albeit old-school rear projection, as opposed to the fancy LED wall tech they used.”

SuitSat-1 — called Radioskaf or Radio Sputnik in Russian — was so successful that another unneeded Orlan spacesuit was subsequently refitted as SuitSat-2.

As an interesting sidebar with respect to the real SuitSat, White explained, “After the ARISS engineers calculated SuitSat-1’s orbit and spin characteristics, they knew the legs and arms would have to be filled with something, so they asked the crew to stuff dirty laundry inside.”

White said Decommissioned was a hit at a recent ARISS meeting. The original SuitSats were deorbited to burn up in Earth’s atmosphere after their useful lives ended.

ARRL is a partner in the ARISS program, which has kept amateur radio on the air from the International Space Station for 20 years. A hallmark of the ARISS program is the scheduled ham radio contacts made by astronaut crew members with schools and student groups around the world.
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An astronaut encounters a terrifying anomaly approaching the International Space Station. CREATED USING THE UNREAL ENGINE FOR EPIC GAMES’ UNREAL ENGINE SHORT…