I should say upfront that this site is fun for me because I get to keep my tech chops up while waxing on whatever I want, and I'm fitting in the illustrations where I can. Hence the title lettering on these that I've been doing by hand.¹

I digress. I've been developing a project on HAM radio, which has involved brushing up on certain kinds of science or learning them for the first time. See, radio involves a lot of awesome things. Like space, and like science. And in radio, you'll hear about "propogation," which means the atmospheric conditions ehich suit broadcasting, and how to optimize them, which involves our planet's geomagnetism, which consequently means that I've been learning about all sorts of crazy crap that affects the Maximum Usable Frequency or, ahem, the MUF. Things like solar flares, coronal mass ejections, and something called the K index. All related to the sun and the radiation it releases. Because all radio waves, and all visible light, are actually radiation from the sun.

No small part of what allures me about learning it all is that it's super DIY and open-source. In my life I've learned immeasurably more outside of formal education than I ever did within it, being curious about not only the humanities but also STEM,² and it's not even close. With radio you end up standing on the shoulders of giants, by which I mean old-timer hobbyist dudes who've been deep in the rabbit hole for decades. Exhibit A is Dave here, who can explain geomagnetism better than I could ever hope to:

If you watched that and saw Dave's lovely drawings, you saw the geomagnetic field which makes sort of a jellyfish-looking shape around the earth.³ The jellyfish is plasma. Space goo!

This is the kinda stuff that allows radio signals to bounce all around the Earth. In truth, I admit, it's not really "goo." Imagine spread-out swaths of highly-conductive ionized particles which interact with and sustain magnetic fields. For the record, NASA prefer the term "subatomic soup." But all the same, I cannot resist automatically thinking of Odo from Star Trek: Deep Space Nine. The Constable, that lodestar (hehe) of the goo people (hehehe) from the Alpha Quadrant. The orphan of The Founders aka The Shapeshifters aka The Changelings.

Deep Space Nine totally rules. And Odo is one of my very favorite Trek characters.⁴ Albeit basically being a cop, he's a cool, no-nonsense, centering figure on the station, and his resistance against the Dominion's imperialism is totally praiseworthy. (They were eugenic fascist pigs) And I think Rene Auberjonois's weirdly-gravelly voice complements Odo's blank smooth featureless face in a strange but really compelling way.

You might well be wondering: what the fuck is your point? Well, I am glad you asked. If you're reading this at all, and especially this far, then you probably know me in real life and just might bear the cross of knowing my father.⁵ Jaybus, Big Jay, El Queso Grande, he goes by many names. Truly one both Apollonian and Dionysian, Curly and Groucho, he is a man of boundless, stupefying contradictions. The man is a composite of trivial know-how, and he speaks, literally speaks, in morse code. To me, my whole life. Dah-dit-dit dit-dit-dah dah-dah dah-dit-dit-dit.

To the best of my knowledge, he learned analog broadcasting when he was in his 20s. Basic circuitry and shortwave radio, that sort of thing. Like Dave above, he keeps it hammy, and there was always a bunch of radio equipment scattered through our house when my brother and I were kids.

These days, as a retired guy, he still enjoys digging up the trunkfuls of wire, antennae, etc. and piling it all into the backseat of his car so he can go around the odd state park, find a picnic table to lay it all out on, and make a day out of hobnobbin with other licensed HAM Radio operators. I recently learned that they call this "ragchewing." (I don't know why they call it ragchewing.)

Anyway, the thing I've been building with Raspberry Pi is a radio bandwidth indicator application, so Big Jay can easily see which upcoming days will be best-suited for him to go galavanting with his radio gear. Dashboards like this exist already, sure, but this one is specific to his setup and his location in Minnesota. And I designed it to fit within the LCARS design system that Trek uses, which is fun for me.

And finally, to bring space-weather, Trek, and HAM Radio all together, what I'll have you know is that Picard wasn't the only captain assimilated by the Borg.⁶ Confirming a lifetime's worth of suspicions, I now have evidence that my father was indeed taken by the aliens.

So take comfort, dear reader, because you haven't been the only captive audience here. Jaybus has a life sentence. He and my brother are my forever henchmen. Resistance is futile.

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