Emerson 635 470501 RCA RP-168 45 record changer

if you have an Emerson 635 radio/record player the record player has part number 470501 this record player is also an RCA RP-168 45 record changer. Here is the service manual PDF for it.

increase font size in outlook 2016

it is not possible to do this in outlook 2016 (in the program itself).

most sites will tell you to do this in display settings and change the display ratio to 125%.

you could do that but it messes up a whole lot of formatting in windows and in other programs.

what works slightly better is to go in to settings - ease of access - make text bigger.

move the slider to the right in small increments until you get the size you like.

this may also mess up some other programs as well.

Longines Symphonette LTV-77 Schematic

 Longines Symphonette LTV-77 portable Black and White TV Schematic 3 versions very large files no compression. AKA Universum FK100R AKA CTV-14

also a link to a PDF of both. When it asks you to login or create an account click X in the upper right.
Then Click Download in the upper left corner.

I have no other info on this TV.
 

Posada Chimichanga steak and cheese burrito

 

I don't normally do reviews of food but I felt I had to in this case. this is a prime example of lies when it comes to truth in advertising.

We accidentally bought a bunch of these thinking they were something else. first lets describe a chimichanga. Chimichangas are a deep fried burrito (simple really). these are not deep fried or if they are it was for a millisecond as they sort of have an oily taste to the tortilla. The burritos claim to be 5 oz. I opened one up and all but around 1 once of that is tortilla. They claim to have "steak" in them. they often do have at least one chunk of utility grade "meat" in them, but I doubt it's anything I would call steak. tough and gristly. there is a small squirt of "cheese" and often the skin from a green chili. all in all these are a lie at best and nasty otherwise. they look nothing like the picture above.

T3 Time out no ranging response received Motorola SB6141 surfboard cable modem

 If you have a Motorola SB6141 surfboard cable modem and you are getting T3 Time out no ranging response received error messages a possible cause for this may be bad/swollen capacitors.

I've been having strange issues with my cable for a month now. had the cable company come out twice, the swapped out some splitters the first time, removed an un-needed MOCA filter, tested the lines and replaced one of the cable ends at the pedestal.

The strange part about this is that the problems occurred during the day starting about 7am (give or take 10 minutes) would be the worst till around 11am then be mildly annoying till 3pm where it would get bad again till about 8pm then be totally fine all night long.

I opened my cable modem and found this:

all the caps circled in red were swollen, I replaced them and all the other ones with the brand name of FOAI. so far as of 18 hours later my cable modem has been stable.

Not 100% sure what the cause was and maybe was multiple issues.

Firefox ignores disabled HTTPS only mode on local IP's

you have set firefox to Don’t enable HTTPS-Only Mode. you try to access a local IP http://192.168.0.22 and firefox changes it to https://192.168.0.22.

Firefox ignores disabled HTTPS only mode on local IP's specifically if the IP address does not respond firefox will change it to https://192.168.0.22

type about:config in the address bar. 

respond that you know what you are doing.

search for 

browser.fixup.fallback-to-https

double click will change it to false.

now firefox will leave the address as you typed it LIKE IT SHOULD HAVE ALWAYS DONE!

Collectible Teddy bears and why they are garbage

If you are reading this you probably were looking to find out how much those teddy bears you inherited from your deceased mother are worth.

They are worth less then she paid for them.

We inherited over 300 Raikes and Steiff teddy bears as well as many hand made one offs from random makers.

The above picture is just a tiny portion of what we inherited. The bears were originally priced at anywhere from $40 to $350 each.

We quickly learned that the market is flooded with them, and that nobody wants them. The people that do want them don't want to pay shipping for them.

we ended up selling some on facebook, giving many away and the rest went to an estate sale.

almost all the bears had warning tags that said they were not toys and not meant for children.

Never buy "collectibles" as an investment. If it says it's "collectible" it's not. Anything is "collectible" even dog shit if you are weird enough.

Sony BDP-S6700 fries HDMI

I have a Sony BDP-S6700 I bought in 2018 when my previous Blu-ray player was not able to play newer discs.

Starting soon after I got it I noticed popping and cracking noises when watching youtube from the youtube app on it. It did not seem to do it with discs, and it did not do it with all videos, so I though it was a quirk of certain videos. In December of 2021 the HDMI ports on my HDTV died. I ordered an HDMI to YPbPr+R/L Audio Converter, which seems to have died also due to the sony blu-ray player.

Unfortunately the circuit boards in the player and the converter are all SMD so not easy to diagnose or repair.

I have ordered a new player and converter.

Archer 61-2780A power strip light flashing

The Archer Six outlet power strip with spike protector and broadband noise filter has a light on it that states

"Light indicates spike protector is functioning. If light is out unit must be replaced or repaired."

First this is bullshit. The light is just a power indicator. Second the light is blinking because it is a neon light and they wear out over time. So in all actuality you can ignore it However! if you wish to repair it here is how:

Acquire a neon bulb of similar size I used an NE2 and a proper 100k resistor for said bulb. Remove power from the unit (unplug it)! You will need to remove 2 screws on each end that are on the bottom of the bracket. You may have to remove 4 screws from one side. They have a square head socket and take a special bit. it is not a normal square head, and may not be a Robertson bit.I used a smallish philips and applied a lot of pressure while turning them. Then remove the bottom plate. Once opened you will see something like this:

There will be 2 screws holding the circuit board down and some spade connectors. remove the 2 screws and the spade connectors (noting where they were connected). Next  Located the neon bulb and it's resistor mine are in the picture below circled in green.

on the opposite side of the circuit board de-solder the bulb (red oval) and resistor (Green circles), if your bulb uses the same resistor leave the old one.

Install new bulb and resistor (if needed) and solder them in place, do not push the neon bulb all the way through the hole. Make sure the neon bulb wires are not touching each other and install the circuit board back in the plug strip.

Carefully push the neon bulb through the hole as far as it will go. double check your wires are not touching, and re-attach the spade connectors to the switch and board. If the spade connectors are loose use a pair of pliers to lightly squash the female connector before installing them.

close everything up. I replaced the proprietary screws with regular screws of a similar size. Apply power. When switched on the bulb should glow and no longer flicker. If it still flickers or does not glow you messed up somewhere, your replacement bulb maybe bad, and I cannot help you.

Earth Fissures in Queen Creek

While looking up information on geological formations of Arizona I stumbled on a map overlay for google earth that shows the location of known surface fissures in Arizona.

 

The nearest fissure to me that would be easy to get to is at  33.207964°,-111.728298°

But as you can see the top 90% of the area has been bulldozed flat recently for houses.

So we went to a different location located at:  33.200071°,-111.618853°

here is the google earth view with the overlay:

Those black areas that look like holes in the ground...

Are indeed holes in the ground, approximately 10 to 15 foot deep. It's hard to tell because we did not want to get too close to the edge lest the sides cave in.

What causes them? one theory is excessive pumping of ground water.

More information can be found here,  the map overlay can be got here.

Dataframe XP 30 Power Supply won't start

I have an old Supermac dataframe xp 30 external scsi hard drive case. I wanted to use the power supply to power hard drives without having to plug them in to a case power supply.

I pulled the switching power supply out of its case and went to test it. The PS would not start and would just pulse, causing the fan to twitch and pulse on and off. I had not powered the device on in 10 plus years.

To make this very short after much testing I found that the power supply MUST have a considerable load on it, or it will not start. The fan and LED are not enough. Connecting a hard drive to it and it powered up fine.

Also the following items can be replaced with other components as listed:

2SK538 N channel Mosfet can be replaced with an FQP9N90C.

UA431 Adjustable Precision Shunt Regulator can be replaced with a TL431 or KA431.

The Blue POT VR1 adjusts the 12 volt power supply.

I do not know the ratings of the power supply but the hard drive in it was rated at 1 amp on the 5 volt supply and .68 amps on the 12 volt. I suspect it may be able to handle 2 amps on both but have not tested it.

Regency R1090 Scanner Owners manual

Regency R1090 Scanner Owners manual PDF

https://www.dropbox.com/s/9v4da7qt45ec4u5/Regency%20R1090%20Scanner.pdf?dl=0

When it asks you to login or create an account click X in the upper right.
Then Click Download in the upper right corner next to sign up.

Windows task bar is on top of full screen video or games

Windows 10 task bar is on top of full screen video or games.

This happened to me recently. I could not figure it out for a while, there are all sorts of "fixes" on the internet about it.

I got a clue that reminded me that I had changed the resolution of one of my monitors to something other than normal, and back again. restarting explorer did not fix the issue. I logged off and back on again and now it is back to normal.

Hum in class D Sure Amplifier

I have a Sure 2 X 100Watt Dual Channel Class D HiFi Power Audio Amplifier Board - AA-AB32971 that I built as an amplifier for my computer.

I was having trouble with hum especially when the LED lights in my laundry room were turned on, or the wife ran a vacuum cleaner in the back room.

Also sometimes for no apparent reason I would just get hum at anything above low volume settings.

I tried line conditioners, filters, different outlets, ups's, audio isolation transformers, different connectors, and ferrite loops. Nothing would stop or reduce the hum. The audio isolation transformer would inject a local AM station directly in to the amp.

The power supply was a switching supply taken from an old laptop.

what fixed it was installing a 3 prong to 2 prong adapter on the plug. The lack of ground on the plug caused the problem to stop.

How to make your own Vanish or SaniFlush crystals

Sometime around 2009 the government banned Vanish and Sani-flush because it contained Sodium Bisulfate. 

The crap it has been replaced with is terrible at cleaning toilets and removing hard water stains. 

It also had the effect of helping to keep older toilets flushing because it dissolved calcium buildup in the jet hole.

use this information at your own risk.

You can't get real Vanish or Sani-flush but you can get the main ingredient that they used.

Just go to a pool supply store and buy Ph- but make sure it says on it sodium bisulfate or sodium hydrogen sulphate.

keep in mind this is pool acid and don't handle the crystals.

place 1/2 cup sodium bisulfate in the toilet bowl let it sit a few minutes and stir it with the bowl brush. wait 15 minutes or longer then scrub as normal. Sodium bisulfate does not fizz or bubble like the original vanish or sani flush because the bubble were for show they did nothing other than neutralize some of the acid made when the crystals dissolved in water.

The remainder of the ingredients was a surfactant (sodium lauryl sulfate), blue dye, and wintergreen scent. Only the sodium bisulfate did anything.

I use it all the time now.

Autocad 2000 not installed properly

You start autocad 2000 that was copied over from an older computer to a windows 10 64 bit computer. You get it working fine, then some time later (probably after a windows update) you get a variation of "this version of autocad was not installed properly".

Issue is that you cannot run the autocad 2000 installer on windows 10 64 bit. 

If you have access to a copy of autocad 2002 even a preview copy run that installer, install it, and it may fix the autocad 2000 install.

Disney Star Wars is dead to me

The only Star Wars that is canon is Episodes 1 through 6.

Though I liked Rogue one, I do not count it as canon. 

I deleted my copies of the DVD for 7 and 8 from my media server. I will be getting rid of the blu-rays.

You have ruined it Disney.

abrams... ALL your movies are garbage.

Arizona Covid-19 running tally

This is my running tally of the Covid-19/china flu/kung flu infections in Arizona. I will update it as often as I can with the number of confirmed cases, and deaths. I will continue to do this till the pandemic is over, I get sick and/or die, or get bored.My sources: azdhs.gov and Wikipedia.

    

Spanish flu of 1918 average number of deaths

 Arizona Average number of deaths per day (so far) notice the similarities?

3 waves in the spanish flu, and we are on wave 2.

First wave 3-13-2020 to 10-4-2020

  Second wave 10-1-2020 to 3-13-2021

1 year of the rona.

Number of new cases with 7 day moving average.
11.43% of total population infected (Arizona)
1.52% of the worlds population (known infections) 

Arizona Terminal Percentage 1.99%.

Global Terminal Percentage 2.21%.

increase in cases from 10 days ago (Arizona) 1.32% 

Arizona 1 day increase .03%
Average number of new infections per day since 10-01-2020 to 3-13-2021 3741 at present rate of infection it will take 18 years to infect all of AZ (this is a constantly moving estimate).
average number of covid deaths per day since 10-1-2020 to 3-13-2021 66. Average number of deaths per day in all of Arizona for all reasons(based on 2018 numbers) 102

updated 03-13-2021

03-13-2021 one year since I started this, I think this is long enough. Final numbers for the year. Average number of deaths per day 45 average number of infections per day 2273 Mortality rate 1.99%. Average mortality rate for the year 2.47%. (Arizona only)

 

03-07-2021 Second to last post, I will be wrapping this up on the 1 year anniversary of when I first posted. Levels are now down to 10-2020 numbers and I am bored with this.

 

02-17-2021 11% of AZ population infected.

 

02-07-2021 Definitely a downward trend in new infections. Highest number of one day reported infection was 17234 on 1-3-2021 and highest number of reported deaths of 335 on 1-12-2021

 

01-31-2021 We appear to be over the hump for wave 2.

 

01-25-2021 10% of Arizona Population infected.

 

01-15-2021 9% of Arizona population infected.

 

01-12-2021 All time high number of deaths 335.

 

01-07-2021 8% Arizona Population infected.

 

01-03-2021 All time high number of infections in one day 17234.

 

12-30-2020 7% Arizona Population infected.

 

12-27-2020 Achievement unlocked  1.03% world population infected.

 

12-20-2020 we could be over the hump for wave 2 but I bet Christmas morons will fix that.

 

12-16-2020 6% AZ population infected. Vaccinations started.

 

12-08-2020 new all time high 12314 new cases in one day.

 

12-06-2020 achievement unlocked 5% AZ population infected.

 

12-01-2020 And there it is! All the people who HAD to have thanksgiving together! 10322 new cases today.

 

11-29-2020 oh boy lets see how many morons get infected because they had to have big thanksgivings. We are at a higher rate (on average) than in the first wave.

 

11-20-2020 4% AZ population infected 3 years to infect everyone at this rate. 

11-18-2020 Governor has a press conference reiterates current health policies, but does not implement any new lock down, or changes in health policies.

 

11-15-2020 we are at the same level of infection as we were on 06-20-2020 I predict a peak just after Christmas.

 

10-29-2020 Second wave appears to be starting. We have had a steady rise for the last month. The governor had a press conference but did not announce closures. I expect that to happen after the election.

 

10-18-2020 reset average new infections and average deaths per day it was 1072 and 30.

 

10-11-2020 Stats from first wave:

                    5-16-2020 Highest death rate percentage 4.98%

                    7-1-2020   Highest number of reported infections in one day 4877

                    7-30-2020   Highest reported deaths in one day 172

 

9-30-2020 Achievement unlocked 3% of Arizona Infected. 194 months (16.16 years to infect all of AZ)

 

8-9-2020 we are over the hump of the second First wave.

7-26-2020 Added Monthly closeup graphs below.

7-22-2020 we hit 2% of AZ population infected.

7-19-2020 we appear to be over a hump at this time, however when schools reopen in August it will get worse.

7-18-2020 actual numbers are 141265 and 2742.

7-8-2020 new prediction there will be 140112 infections, and 2143 deaths on 7-18-2020.

6-28-2020 1% of the AZ population is now infected.

5-31-2020 Testing Blitz in AZ is reason for more infections being found in the last week.

5-13-2020 my prediction was exceeded on 5-13-2020 with 12176 cases so my calculations are pretty close.

5-4-2020 Prediction 12003 cases by 5-14-2020.

3-30-2020
Although this data is pulled from websites that are up to date, it may reflect information that is 1 to 3 weeks behind the actual number of infections.

Stop the spread Stay home!

Remember we are all dying because some fucking moron in another country has to eat an exotic animal, and they haven't stopped because of the pandemic.

For the first time in recorded history, all you have to do to help save the world is stay home and do nothing. You'd think we'd be able to not screw that up.

March 2020

 April 2020

 May 2020

June 2020

July 2020

August 2020

September 2020

October 2020

November 2020

 

December 2020 

January 2021

February 2021

Totals

Death percentage

Zenith Service Manuals

 Zenith Service Manuals in PDF format Volumes 1, 2, and 3.

When it asks you to login or create an account click X in the upper right.
Then Click Download in the upper right corner next to sign up. 

sorry for the poor scan quality, not my scans.

Home Depot's website and stores suck

 Home depots website is one of the worst, if not THE worst website for online browsing and searching.

Recently I was searching for a ballast for a 34.5 inch long 2 bulb T5 flourescent lamp. I have one that I bought from them several years ago. The ballast is bad.

I cannot find a replacement ballast on their website for it.

I could not find the fixture on their website, until I used the manufacturers part number. turns out they have the wrong dimensions for it.

searching their website is a nightmare. Basically you have to know what they call something or what they list it under.

if it doesn't come up when you start typing you most likely won't find it. it constantly returns results that have nothing to do with what you are looking for.

It constalty shows you things that aren't in the store, or you can't even order. if it's not in the store AND I can't order it, don't show it on your fucking worthless website.

I hate using their website, but it's not much better going there in person. They don't carry many things that a hardware store should.

I usually have to got to Ace Hardware or harbor freight to find many things I need. A huge store like Home Depot and they can't even stock common things. Their welding supplies are a shit selection. They don't carry band saw blades for common tools. They have no stock of replacement hammer handles except for specific brands.

I usually order stuff from ebay because of their lack of stock.

Their prices are often ridiculously high.

They don't carry many common types of 220 outlets or outside ouutlet boxes.

They are a piss poor excuse for a hardware store.