as drawn by the armball

Finding that retro motorsport look

Classic motorcycle racing came to Phillip Island again in January. Being a sucker for old aircooled four stroke noise I had to be there. I thought if the racers were game to race on period machines then I should record some of the day with period camera equipment. Yes I took a Pentax K1000 with me and some print film and snapped away. the processing costs of C41 film is getting out of hand but to obtain that retro look in photos it can't be beaten. This image of Levi Day on the ex Bill Horsman Honda CB72/77 special was scanned as a greyscale from a colour negative. The image wasn't super sharp, being panned and a shutter speed of 1/60th of a second, but the blurry areas take on that old grainy look. The only thing spoiling the retro look was the modern helmet and leathers. I have seen other photographers on flickr trying to get that retro black and white look but they have started with a digital camera and done a bit of Photoshop to rough it up, but it still looks sharp and gleaming. If you look at old published photos of motor racing they contain a lot of grain and look rough. I think I only got halfway there. Now I have plenty of slides from prior classic motor race meetings so maybe I'll try the same technique with those.

The Island Classic is still one of my favourite days out, wide open spaces, sea breezes, and thunderous gonad rumbling machine noise.

Next month it is the cars' turn to revive yesteryear at the island, and I will be there. Perhaps I should dress in period as well this year.

Radio tinkering with Jupiter in mind

In 2008 I wrote about my attempts to record radio outbursts from Jupiter but was plagued by severe background noise around 20-22Mhz.
This year I've cut dipoles to test 24 and 28Mhz looking for a quiet region of the spectrum. 28MHz proved the quietest.
The Moxon antenna (http://www.moxonantennaproject.com/) for 10 metres was my choice. 28.5 MHz had been quiet at night during the winter so was chosen as the band. A beam antenna for this frequency is not to large and unwieldy, and I have a very quiet background. However, the Jupiter storm signals are even weaker up at this band, so there is still a challenge ahead.
Once the antenna was built I was committed for the season. Come spring the sunspot levels had increased and the ionosphere activated to allow long distance DX transmission by ameteur radio operators on the band I was using. The band was now often  crowded in the evenings.  This narrowed the time window of operations but didn't prevent it.
Using predictions from the Kochi National College of tech http://www.kochi-ct.ac.jp/cgi-bin/jupiter/jup.cgi website to choose when to listen, I recorded the speaker sound from the (1984 vintage) Sony ICF7600D radio with the voice recording function on my Mp3 player. This allowed up to 8 hours recording in a file about 130MB in size. Once the file was transferred to the computer it could be played back at the predicted time segment for analysis. Various surges and swishes in the hiss can always be heard but only once (for Dec 4) have I heard ker-ash type sounds expected. I still have another month of available time windows before Jupiter is too low in the evenings.
Is the Moxon any good? I've heard good amateur DX from the Netherlands, Germany, UK, USA, and Taiwan. While on a signal if I turn the antenna about 180 degrees there is a definite decrease in signal strength. So it functions as  a true beam antenna with front to back ratio!
For Jupiter, so far I'm not convinced that it has worked. I am now planning  wire Yagi beams for lower bands, maybe around 19Mhz where the jupiter storm signal should be stronger. If I can find a spot near there that is quiet enough.

Visualising great literature

Having recently read Bram Stoker's Dracula I was impressed by some of the images created by his great descriptions of scenes. One in particular was of Dracula descending his castle wall, 'Once more I have seen the Count go out in his lizard fashion.' So I was inspired to sketch the scene. Creepy.

I 've also been listening  to the HP Podcasts having read a bit of Lovecraft lately and they mentioned I.N. Hubbard's illustrated version of 'At the Mountains of Madness.' It could never be as engaging as the original text, but a worthy attempt to bring it to life.

If you are a dabbler in cartooning or scribbling then classic literature serves as a great inspiration. Give it  a go and sharpen your skills.

Classic motor racing and T-Rex goes bang

I went to the Phillip Island Classic races on Saturday to see old style motorcycle racing and listen to 4-stroke noises from the V-twin and singles classic era.
It was an action packed day with riders crashing on the high speed pit straight.....twice. Rex Wolfenden of T-Rex Racing (pictured) blew his motor right in front of us going into turn one. ( a short and expensive weekend for the Melbourne engine builder.) Immediately after that there was a big crash at turn one where a bike flipped in the air after dropping the rider. The rider got up, kicked his bike, lifted and inspected the bike, dropped the bike and kicked it again. It was great to see that there are other workmen prepared to blame their tools.
In the international challenge for forgotten era machines It was basically a two way fight between Steve Martin and Britain's Jeremy McWilliams. Although in heat 2 Martin went missing late in the race and McWilliams must have backed off and was pipped on the line. A much needed win for the UK went begging there. Since the UK guys have been easily beaten in prior years I decided to reflect my English heritage and lend some support by draping a St George's Cross over my car.
On Sunday I followed some of the results live at computime.com.au.
Final points were, Aus 1154.6, UK 807.7, Others 706.3
McWilliams topped the rider points over 4 races due to the Martin DNF.
Old timer, the ever reliable, Robbie Phillis was 5th in the points due to consistency despite not being at the front in each race. I remember watching him on TV racing in the Castrol 6 hour when I was a kid. He may be older but hasn't got slower.

Aussie Ashes Cricket Crushed

An innings defeat at Adelaide, and England look invincible. Well the Aussies have an uphill battle in the remaining Test Matches if they are to reclaim the Ashes. I say they when I actually mean we. I feel personally resposible, it hurts me so. I was there that day 24 years ago at the MCG when Mike Gatting's men won the Test and the Series and took the Ashes home. I was trying to play top level cricket in Victoria at the time and felt that the system (that involved me) just wasn't up to it. For the next 18 years I kept up my involvement as a player and administrator, doing my bit to help prop up Aussie cricket from the bottom. When I retired from it all we suddenly lost the Ashes in 2005, lost a series at home to South Africa, lost the Ashes again in 2009. It is as if it is all unravelling. Are we really going to return to the bad days of the mid 1980s where Australia was at the bottom of the Test ladder. It took years of rebuilding to reach Number 1. To get out of this predicament it is not just who to select in the next Test, but how to invigorate the grass roots and rebuild all over again.

I am involved again assisting with juniors, so again I feel personally responsible when our cricketing reputation takes a downturn. C'mon kids you are propping up our cricket future, give it all you've got.

Cricket's battle for the 'taches

I've just watches some of the opening session of the first Ashes Test in Brisbane. It appears to be a battle of the moustaches. Many of the Aussues are sporting half finished facial hair as part of the Movember charity. That is understandable, but what is Pietersen's excuse. He looks like a 1920s policeman with that thin scribble across his upper lip and the short back and sides haircut. I can't stop thinking of the Blackadder goes forth line about the 'slug balancer.' And does Pietersen actively maintain the 'tache so as to look like scribble or is he just an inaccurate shaver. Whatever the reason I'm sure that the ribbing he'll get from the Aussie crowd will inspire him to great feats with the bat, and give us an exiting series. Last season at this time I was lamenting the distant memory of great past Test series, but this year I have just a glimmer of optimism for big crowds and real drama in good old fashioned Test Cricket.

The Lazarus Party

The Liberal Party in Victoria have done it  again. Last time their Senate Preferences elected the Family First candidate, this time their preferences have elected another loony party, The Democratic Labor Party. A long forgotten bunch of wowsers, the DLP have risen from the grave and snatched a senate seat. I'm still struggling to come to terms with this. Even the fringe Shooters and Fishers Party would have rested better with me, but the DLP? I'll have to leave the state. We are an embarrassment to the nation for allowing this to happen. Still it could have been worse, One Nation could have got in. The last time they had a Senator in Queensland, he couldn't work out what page they were on in Senate proceedings. The President was forever telling him what to do. Hopefully the DLP senator will be able to read.

In my cartoon, Antony Green and Kerry O'Brien of the ABC make the grim discovery.

 

The coach was wearing a cardigan!

JogiLoew

Has football gone mad? In Germany's World Cup clash with Serbia, their coach Jogi Loew, and his assistant were dressed in cardigan's. Yes, matching knitted, button up cardigans. What idiot designer told them that would be a good look? Is it an attempt to return us to the 70s, again? I don't know if the cardigan sapped more of his credibility, or the team's loss to Serbia. And if that wasn't bad enough, he was spotted by the cameras watching Ghana, wearing a duffel coat and possibly a roll necked pullover.
Anyway that's enough about the German's.
Down in Durban the Japanese Keeper was beaten by a ball that appeared to swing. Now some may blame the new ball, but if they asked the cricketers of Durban, they're convinced it has more to do with the tide being in. Cricketers may be superstitious but at least there coaches dress sensibly.

In football image is everything

MaradonaSuit

An image transformation may have seen Argentina's fortune change in the World Cup. Their coach Diego Maradona has changed from a trainers tracksuit to a fine suit. He now looks the part and they won their first match! The beard he sports also lends an air of knowledgeable sophistication.
The best hair that I've seen this tournement so far goes to Cameroon defender Assou Ekotto with what look like bundled up dreadlocks. I suspect looking at his many bald teammates that not all of the hair is his. 

England Keeper's Howler

EngKeeper

England's first match in the FIFA World Cup provided great amusement as they drew with the USA. Their Keeper, Green, glumly acknowledged his mistake during the match after letting through the equaliser. Hopefully for the next match the selectors pick a keeper who does not have a large hole in his middle.