{"id":818,"date":"2020-07-08T08:03:03","date_gmt":"2020-07-08T13:03:03","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/?p=818"},"modified":"2020-07-08T08:03:03","modified_gmt":"2020-07-08T13:03:03","slug":"staying-sane","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/?p=818","title":{"rendered":"Staying Sane"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<div class=\"wp-block-image\"><figure class=\"aligncenter size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"500\" height=\"375\" src=\"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Phaser.png\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-819\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Phaser.png 500w, https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/07\/Phaser-300x225.png 300w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 500px) 100vw, 500px\" \/><figcaption>Label for Phaser 20 meter Digital Mode Transceiver Kit<\/figcaption><\/figure><\/div>\n\n\n\n<p>Here we are, in the After Times. The Strange Days. As a resident of Gen X, I was promised that the apocalypse would be swift and that there would be an immediate free fall into chaos. As it turns out, the apocalypse we got is more of a slow settling to the bottom of the ocean. Thoughts like these are prompting me to look for ways to fill the hours. Reading is always a good use of time (see also: books I cleared off of the pile last week) but it still brings thoughts with it that might not be the best for the times. What&#8217;s a body to do?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If I were so inclined, I&#8217;d be working on handicrafts. I&#8217;m not very good at that. I&#8217;ve done some tree pruning. I&#8217;ve installed a bird feeder. I&#8217;m poking around at the things in the house that need doing, but that&#8217;s not very recreational now, is it? It doesn&#8217;t feel like it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There was a time when I would solder something together at least once a year. Synthesizer kits. Effects pedals. Winding my own pickups for guitars that were never finished. Right now seems to be a renaissance of kits for radio amateurs. Yes, the original &#8220;Social Distancers&#8221; have a lot to choose from these days. So I threw in and picked up this kit. It only does FT8 and one other mode (I&#8217;m going to try JS8 for this one). It only works on 20m. And it looks like it&#8217;s fairly simple to assemble, test, and get on the air.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A little time spent staring at tiny parts with a soldering iron in my hand will hopefully bring some much needed mental quiet. That&#8217;s the name of the game.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>There will be more on this as I build it on <a href=\"https:\/\/kc3jxq.com\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">The Other Blog That I Don&#8217;t Update Much<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Here we are, in the After Times. The Strange Days. As a resident of Gen X, I was promised that the apocalypse would be swift and that there would be an immediate free fall into chaos. As it turns out, &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"><a href=\"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/?p=818\">Read more &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[42,40],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=818"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":820,"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/818\/revisions\/820"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=818"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=818"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.othertime.com\/musicblog\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=818"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}