Ridiculous things you want to try and do...

[MindThreat]

Realize as of late I have a laundry list of somewhat ridiculous things I'd like to try. If you've seen some of my posts, I've already started making my way though some of them (Panoramas made using a QuickTake, modern manipulated Newton MessagePad Art, etc.) but one in particular I'd like to bring up is controlling a satellite somehow. No idea for what reason or possible purpose even, which is probably why I'm throwing it out there. Open to suggestions and ideas, but surely something exists. Maybe one of the big yard dishes (did they ever make smaller motorized consumer versions?) that you can move around with a few punches at the keyboard, on vintage hardware of course. Curious if anyone has used a PowerBook/Mac in general to control one of the dishes at some point of time in their life and if so, for what exactly. Would love to know!

Feel as though this is very "TinkerDifferent" appropriate and so, wanted to make a thread to hear what your most ridiculous ideas to date are, what others want to take on.

Let's hear'em!

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

Uhh, I would like to run a wire out my office window and from that an antenna camouflaged up my Russian Olive tree in the front yard for some ham fun. It would be cool to broadcast a radio station from it. I would also like to point a camera up at the stars and run that wirelessly to one of my computers just for photos and other general dicking around. Incredibly tame comparatively but yanno, I dont think neural handshake technology and building a Jaeger is going to happen, so I'll settle for a guerilla ham rig.

Hey it would be cool to cook some Aliens dinner. I'd be down with that.

 

[MindThreat]

I would also like to point a camera up at the stars and run that wirelessly to one of my computers just for photos and other general dicking around.

I can't justify trying to afford any of these setups (never mind not really having the time to dedicate to such) but it would be so cool to experiment with one of those computer controlled Celestrons someday! It's amazing the affordable and advanced amount of technology we have available to our fingertips, things we could have only dreamed of having access to in the 80s and 90s.

Ever since I saw that news clip about the 16-year old capturing the stunning shot of the moon using a few thousand dollars of equipment on his laptop, it was inspiring.

Ham radio is another thing I've never been introduced to, not sure how active it is these days but it must still be a thing.

 

[Certificate of Excellence]

My wife loves to star gaze. It was a hobby as a kid and became a passion of hers when she took some astronomy courses in college. kids and life has dulled that somewhat but she still gets a kick out of looking up. We are lucky to live where we do as during the summer we can drive back into the mountains at 10,000+ feet and get clear skies and zero light pollution. The moon looks F'ing amazing at that altitude and absence of light through simple binoculars. I have been looking at used telescopes that use gps to program and position their gaze through the year. I think she would really enjoy that and something the kids can grow up with no doubt dad connecting that to a computer is something they would gravitate to I think.

My Dad's side of the family are all HAMs going back to the early 20th century - growing up on coastal islands between Maine and Canadia, that was how they reliably communicated so that Mainiac ham culture stuck with me and is prevalent. My Dad is way more of a nerd about it than I am but I enjoy it none the less. I don't need no stinkin' internet.

 

[YMK]

My Dad's side of the family are all HAMs going back to the early 20th century - growing up on coastal islands between Maine and Canadia, that was how they reliably communicated so that Mainiac ham culture stuck with me and is prevalent. My Dad is way more of a nerd about it than I am but I enjoy it none the less. I don't need no stinkin' internet.

I just passed the technician and general exams. Now I have to get some hardware together.

 

[KnobsNSwitches]

Not ham-related, but ridiculous thing I want to do - use my Newton to find some geocaches. I have a newton-compatible GPS model, but i've never checked out what needs to be done to get maps loaded....and in my brief playing with it is is very, very slow, so a lot of free time will be needed.

 

[MindThreat]

Not ham-related, but ridiculous thing I want to do - use my Newton to find some geocaches. I have a newton-compatible GPS model, but i've never checked out what needs to be done to get maps loaded....and in my brief playing with it is is very, very slow, so a lot of free time will be needed.

That would be super cool actually! If you manage to get it working, I hope you share some photos/videos here of it. Which model Newton do you have?

 

[MindThreat]

I don't have a Sinclair nor do I have a TRS-80 Model 3 or 4 anymore (which is where I learned of this existing earlier today) but it would be really cool to connect some form of vintage up to a Speak and Spell to make it talk. Having the Atari 800 as a kid kind of ruined me though, since I could make it talk using SAM - Software Automatic Mouth. Atari ST had ST Talker and of course Macs have their built-in software to easily do text to speech in near optimal Stephen Hawking quality.

So why try and connect an ancient device to another vintage computer? I've never seen it before and as long as I've been in the hobby just was kind of surprised I hadn't ran across it in the past. Has anyone else hacked their Speak and Spell into whatever old computer to make it talk? We take for granted that everything talks to us now.... though I don't seem to recall the microwave stating assertively that my food is ready. They always tried to make it charming with their musical dings instead.

For the full article: https://archive.org/details/ComputersElectronics1983-02/mode/2up?ui=embed&wrapper=false

*regarding the talking microwaves, I stand corrected...

 

[davidg5678]

I can't justify trying to afford any of these setups (never mind not really having the time to dedicate to such) but it would be so cool to experiment with one of those computer controlled Celestrons someday! It's amazing the affordable and advanced amount of technology we have available to our fingertips, things we could have only dreamed of having access to in the 80s and 90s.

Ever since I saw that news clip about the 16-year old capturing the stunning shot of the moon using a few thousand dollars of equipment on his laptop, it was inspiring.

Ham radio is another thing I've never been introduced to, not sure how active it is these days but it must still be a thing.

It is possible to take some pretty cool-looking photos of space without thousands of dollars of equipment! Here are some pictures I took this year with my cell phone attached to a ~$300 6" Dobsonian telescope. I think it would be pretty cool to try out some fancier equipment, but I've been having fun trying to get the best pictures I can on a budget (I made a lot of DIY modifications to improve my equipment).

 

[MindThreat]

It is possible to take some pretty cool-looking photos of space without thousands of dollars of equipment! Here are some pictures I took this year with my cell phone attached to a ~$300 6" Dobsonian telescope. I think it would be pretty cool to try out some fancier equipment, but I've been having fun trying to get the best pictures I can on a budget (I made a lot of DIY modifications to improve my equipment).

That's incredible for the price of admission! I agree that the expensive computerized telescopes aren't really an option but this could be fun! I can't believe the shots you were able to get with it! Would love to see pics of your setup sometime if/when time permits.

 

[davidg5678]

Here's a picture of my telescope:

This is an Orion XT-6 that's about 20 years old. It's a Dobsonian style telescope, which means that it has a mirror at the bottom of the tube. This telescope style offers a lot of performance for the money, and is recommended for beginners. It's not really meant for astrophotography, as it's not motorized. I try my best to take pictures with it anyway, and while it's definitely possible, it's not optimal.

I've attached a setting circle to the bottom of the telescope, which allows me to rotate my telescope to specific angles (after initially aligning 0⁰ to North). I have a star map on my phone, so I can look up any object in the sky and find the coordinates to position the telescope. I stuck a digital angle gauge to the side of the tube for altitude coordinates.

From what I've read, the slightly larger Orion XT-8 is a great choice right now for a beginner telescope with good price to performance. I'm reading a book called "The Backyard Astronomer's Guide" which has been really helpful to learn what I'm doing. Astronomy has a steep learning curve, so this book has helped me improve considerably.

I hope this information is helpful --let me know if you have any questions!