Stillness in movement and movement in stillness

This year has begun with taking up a new interest.

I used to live with a wonderful woman called Josie who was a gem at things spiritual, creative and musical. We used to set up in the best sonic room of the house, the bathroom, with her playing the digjeridoo and me on the djembe recording our hearts away. She used to attend Tai Chi classes and I remember evenings where I was sat upon the bed listening and watching as she would move around the essence scented room telling me about different sequences, breathing rythmically with each stretch. I always thought it sounded wonderful but never really considered doing it myself. We used to cycle around together, we lived together, we went to the same University, that was enough for any friendship!

Since then some years have passed and from somewhere came the urge to now look for a class to attend. I discovered the Tai Chi Alliance who run classes locally and went along. Not much thought went into this process I now realise upon reflection, maybe it was more of a subconscious thing?

I am being taught Yang style Tai Chi which seems to be, out of the 5 styles in practice, a version of gentle and large movements. It stays at the same pace throughout and has a very relaxing effect. After some warm ups in the first session we went straight into the Tai Chi walk and I think this is my favourite part so far. See the movie for how it goes (I recommend switching off the music)

Construction project continues...

After far too long away from the radio club, I finally made it along last night. It was a great evening and we cracked on with John leading the construction project, the SNARC version of "Nicky's TRF receiver". We got to view some mods that folks had made and check out John using the signal generator to check frequencies and make some pretty amazing sounds!



I am still in the process of building my radio receiver so carried on with that. I managed to complete the Af amplifier and test it out. As you can see I have attached the loudspeaker, battery lead and the volume control to the circuit and ground plane.


Above, you can see the chip in place, LM386 and the volume controller wired up. I shall carry on with this project throughout the evening and see where I get to.

Raleigh Swift

All this hard shift-work is certainly paying off. Here is my latest purchase. My last bike became a bit of a death trap so this was desperately needed. Due to our change from land to water and reduction in living space I opted for a fold-up bike. It folds in half, the handles and one pedal folds in and the seat comes down.



The Raleigh Swift was the cheapest I could afford, on offer from Halfords it cost £159. Not bad for something that I use everyday. It is a great ride the for the price, the only problem is catching my heels on the paniers but that should just need tweeking. I plan to look after this one and it should see me through a while. Look sharp as I speed past on this beauty. Whizzz!!

Bassline Generator

So it feels like a very sad Saturday today. There is little that can be done. I want to continue with the completion of the Bassline Generator and let the day pass.

After all the top stuff was in place, then came the plastic jack to be fixed up. Notice where it is positioned, underneath the 100K trim pot so the ends of the pot needed a good trim.


On the underside of the PCB board you can see the send/recieve LED's (given the length to fit inside the wooden box) and the batery pack and jack plug.


Here we have the four plastic legs or stands fixed in place with nuts.


Oddly I realised that I had missed inserting the other chip socket so got this inplace and soldered. The instructions didn't mention about the 6-pin ISP header so this was sorted at this stage. I was unsure of the polarity so went with intuition.


After all points were checked the chips were inserted by bending the legs slightly in to allow for ease in pushing into the holders. The knobs were put on and here is the finished article!

Against the clock...

The count down is 15 minutes before I have to fly out the door to work the day and night away. The bassline generator has been completed, at least the construction side, just the modifying of the wooden box to do and it'll be ready to roll out in a gig or two of the MOLTEN GODS!

I had left last night at the point of fixing on the controls.


The buttons were in place so next up were the LED's.

The Red LED in the centre of the board can be used to trigger the photocell so this has heatshrink round the legs. Notice that one leg is longer than the other to indicate positive and negative, the positive being longer. This is generally indicated on the PCB by the silkscreen square symbol around the hole.


However on for this LED the symbols is slightly different. It is the actual symbol used for a Light Emitting Diode (LED) indicating anode (positive) and cathode (negative) with power or light emitting from the lamp. The current flows from positive to negative.






Ok, just realised the time and I have to clean my teeth. Leigh is playing with his new toy now. I has a good range of tone and he is coming up with some great melodies, sounds awesome through a delay!

To be continued...

The tunes start to form

I have been noodling with the guitar for some time, for the length of time, I dare not calculate. Of late I have been getting together some set tunes, adding beginnings and endings to the middles I have spent so long crafting and playing time and again.


The direction and inspiration for this medley of songs (I say songs as it is true, there are words which whisper themselves from my voice) comes from the river, it's source and flows to the mouth, metaphorically. I am still at an early stage where fear is hard to conquer, but with practice I hope to alleviate this nonsense and revel in the creative act.


With the end of the Christmas decs and the arrival of floral hues and patterns, I am guided by my love and am rest assured, things will be. One day I hope you will hear these pulsings.