I delivered the San Bernardino Microwave Society (SBMS) 3456MHz transverter board by Chris N9RIN et al to Kerry Banke N6IZW for testing on 20 January 2009 at the San Diego Microwave Group meeting.

The meeting was great, as usual, and there was some discussion about picking the right IF, and questions about using a transverter in the first place. While not intended to be a final design, the reason we're investigating a transverter such as the SBMS project is to get up off the ground and on the air. It may not work out due to the fact that the 2m IF may not support the 10MHz bandwidth that we're aiming for. Even if it can support that wide of a bandwidth, the phase noise needs to be pretty good. I'm interested in seeing the results. The test plan and results are updated here. 

Photographically, I made my first attempt to create something along the lines of Jessica McClung's work that I saw at photo LA. Here it is:

I am in the process of recovering from the adventure to Corona then Santa Monica, then back to San Diego.

The SBMS meeting was wonderful (as usual), and several really good conversations about MEP occurred.

Photo LA was exhausting in a good way. It took 5.25 hours to walk through the entire place, and it bordered on overwhelming.

Initial impressions of the Photo LA are as follows. There was exactly one science oriented photo - an earth-moon-earth telemetry bounce done by the signal corps from 1946. Several galleries had the same photos that they had two years ago. I recognized an exhibit from San Diego Museum of Photographic Arts that I really liked, and still like. I found a new artist doing something sort of like a collage, but not really, and I pored over her entire collection. I am inspired to try and incorporate this style and produce at least two works. Her name is Patricia McClung. I was able to meet the photographer, and had a short and very enjoyable conversation with her. There was no obvious high-dynamic-range work (we suspect that the hoity toity photo set has rejected obvious HDR as a fad), there was no macro work, there was a lot of purposely blurry photos that we didn't like, there was much less overtly lurid and sexy work than two years ago, and there was a whole lot of Ansel Adams prints for sale. The number of mixed media works was down from two years ago. It seemed about as big and the prices about as high as two years ago. A photo I loved from two years ago - of the interior of an amazing Chinese sock factory - was back, and still out of my price range. Lovely awesome photo of sewing and weaving and cutting apparatus, with a single human face lost in the center somewhere, peering between the white and silver and gleaming machinery.

We had an excellent meal at Jinky's Cafe in Santa Monica - highly recommended.