In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

Mike Coslo wrote in message
...
N2EY wrote:

Leo: And you, of course - cheerleading for Mike, as usual.......

You said "two folks who have a fair amount of knowledge and experience".
I
would make three - except I claim no experience in high altitude
ballooning at all.

I'll have lots of experience before too long! ;^)

You better! After this ruckus if you don't come through and pull
together a squad which flies an instrumented ballooon to FL 100 you'll
*never* live it down in this twisted village.

I've always found it hard to believe that a few square inches of brake
lining can stop a bog car. Seems impossible!

"It seems impossible" sorts of comments like this are at the core of
why this ruckus came into being. Friction brakes work based on the
ancient F=µN relationship taught in every eleventh grade
pre-engineering/science physics course provided in modern times. So
what's up with your bog car brake mystery? You cut that class or what?
Or maybe you weren't on that track in the first place?

The trick here is finding a way to accomplish the task within physical
law. In engineering, this requires a rigorous analysis of all facets
of the problem at hand - a list of problems impeding the design goal
is developed, and solutions are proposed for each until all have been
satisfactorily resolved.

Engineering 101, freshman years stuff. on

What courses, exactly James, did you have in your freshman year in
E-school which taught/preached how to do a "rigorous analysis of all
facets of the problem at hand . . . a list of problems impeding the
design goal is developed, and solutions are proposed for each until
all have been . . " and come out of it with working pile of
hardware?

Ya missed the point.

Boilerplate verbiage like:

"In engineering, this requires a rigorous analysis of all facets of the problem
at hand - a list of problems impeding the design goal is developed, and
solutions are proposed for each until all have been satisfactorily resolved"

is the ES 101 stuff. Actually doing it is very different. For example - just
what *are* all the facets of a given problem?.

. . . as if . . maybe two-three years outta E-school you were allowed
to take a poke at an assignment like that.

More like a year.

Jim, can you honestly say that as an engineer that you have solved all
the problems on any project satisfactorily? Or have you accepted the
results and wanted to do better?

By the above definition, engineering tasks would probably never get done.

THAT I agree with!

Right!

Now I'm not saying that the physics of ballooning isn't well understood!
I'm
just saying that since it has been done already, some of the commentary
against Mike's idea rings very hollow.

Has me stumped!

Lemmee explain it for you: There's a collection of grouchy old farts
including myself with long histories in the real-life engineering
world who also hang out around here and learned a long time ago how to
approach and execute projects like you're now committed to pulling
off. Because that's what we get paid to do. Perhaps wrongly, more
likely not, we don't have a helluva lotta time for approaching
projects like ballooning to 100,000 feet with science fair project
mentalities. Interpret as you will.

The trick is that the volunteer folks don't have the paycheck incentive. Just
the reverse - such a project costs them money! So the motivation has to be
elsewhere.

I don't recall Mike ever saying the first ballon would reach 100,000, nor that
he'd use latex weather ballons, or even helium, or whatever.

My main job in this whole project has been to SELL people on the
concept of something that is not particularly new, but has been made
more interesting by a fusion of Ham radio, GPS, Packet radio, and
Schools, or perhaps more accurately, youth in general.

I **TODJA** to stick to being the cheerleader and delegate the tech
stuff to the technoids dammit but NO, you got all ****y huffy about it
instead!

****y huffy is par for the course here, isn't it?

Leo is VE, a VE6 if I'm not mistaken.

How does anyone know for sure? He's been anonymous since day one here.

Not that there's anyhting wrong with that!

He could just as easily be another of Len's online personalities.

73 de Jim, N2EY

N2EY wrote:

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

snippage

Lemmee explain it for you: There's a collection of grouchy old farts
including myself with long histories in the real-life engineering
world who also hang out around here and learned a long time ago how to
approach and execute projects like you're now committed to pulling
off. Because that's what we get paid to do. Perhaps wrongly, more
likely not, we don't have a helluva lotta time for approaching
projects like ballooning to 100,000 feet with science fair project
mentalities. Interpret as you will.


The trick is that the volunteer folks don't have the paycheck incentive. Just
the reverse - such a project costs them money! So the motivation has to be
elsewhere.

Then again, I'm not looking for grouchy old farts. If a person is "too
(something)" for the project, then they certainly don't have to help.
There are enough people out there apparently like myself that are too
dumb to know that what we are trying to do can't be done.

It is also a big mistake to take my sales pitch and extrapolate that I
have a science fair mentality. A fair number of engineers have the
"grouchy old fart" problem. That's why they don't do a good job outside
of their respective fields. Ever have a crack engineer explain his
project at a sales pitch?


I don't recall Mike ever saying the first ballon would reach 100,000, nor that
he'd use latex weather ballons, or even helium, or whatever.

The first balloons won't even be free flying. My analysis of other
groups and the problems they have had at times indicates that payload
integration was and is a real problem. The device needs tested properly,
and not just on a bench.

rest snipped

- Mike KB3EIA -

Mike Coslo wrote in message ...
N2EY wrote:

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

snippage

Lemmee explain it for you: There's a collection of grouchy old farts
including myself with long histories in the real-life engineering
world who also hang out around here and learned a long time ago how to
approach and execute projects like you're now committed to pulling
off. Because that's what we get paid to do. Perhaps wrongly, more
likely not, we don't have a helluva lotta time for approaching
projects like ballooning to 100,000 feet with science fair project
mentalities. Interpret as you will.


The trick is that the volunteer folks don't have the paycheck incentive. Just
the reverse - such a project costs them money! So the motivation has to be
elsewhere.

Then again, I'm not looking for grouchy old farts. If a person is "too
(something)" for the project, then they certainly don't have to help.

Yup.

There are enough people out there apparently like myself that are too
dumb to know that what we are trying to do can't be done.

Certainly it can be done. It's HOW you do the planning to get from
here to 100K feet which is the source of the grousing from us
technoids.

It is also a big mistake to take my sales pitch and extrapolate that I
have a science fair mentality. A fair number of engineers have the
"grouchy old fart" problem. That's why they don't do a good job outside
of their respective fields. Ever have a crack engineer explain his
project at a sales pitch?

You jest!

Wannna hear about how this grouchy old fart pitched his radical design
concept for a big piece of machiney to Boeing about ten years ago?
Thought so.

Net result was that 8 months later and against eight much bigger gun
bidders we had it running in the Boeing facility and they shipped the
check for $1.5 million bucks. About a year later they didn't bother
with the bidding process when they bought the second one based on the
success of it's predecessor.

One of my brothers was a hot-shot engineer with DuPont early in his
career and went on to retire as CEO and President of an
industry-leading mechanical technology firm which he built from 550
employees and $55m in sales to 1,600 employees and $250m in sales in
nine years. The engine behind the growth was the engineering
department. Former CEOs didn't think engineers mattered much. When he
took over the company he had *four* engineers. So he went out and
hired several hundred more. Bingo. Jim has met that brudder, he knows
.. . .

Then comes my father's cranky old buddy John Glass who had both ME and
EE degrees from MIT. John started his company on one end of my one of
my father's shop benches. He was marketing and sales manager's worst
nightmare but his company is now a division of Northrop-Grumman. John
left a $55m estate.

But you're right about locking some engineers in the back shop under
some conditiona and I've had to do that. The worst of the worst though
are the unplugged engineers who stay in school all their lives and
become "academics". I'll spare ya that rant, enough is enough.


I don't recall Mike ever saying the first ballon would reach 100,000, nor that
he'd use latex weather ballons, or even helium, or whatever.

The first balloons won't even be free flying. My analysis of other
groups and the problems they have had at times indicates that payload
integration was and is a real problem. The device needs tested properly,
and not just on a bench.

Screw your web-based "analyses" nonsense, that's not a solution,
that's a big piece of your problem. Get out from behind your nice
comfy keyboard, pack the toolbox, gas up the car and link up with one
of the experienced groups which is working on a high-altitude shot.
Get yer hands dirty for a couple weekends and learn what's really up
before you go at it yourself. That's close to the *first* move I'd
make if I was into an effort like this.

rest snipped

- Mike KB3EIA -

w3rv

In article , Mike Coslo
writes:

The first balloons won't even be free flying. My analysis of other
groups and the problems they have had at times indicates that payload
integration was and is a real problem. The device needs tested properly,
and not just on a bench.

In ballooning, the atmosphere IS your "bench."

On 20 Nov 2004 13:30:15 GMT, PAMNO (N2EY) wrote:

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

Mike Coslo wrote in message
...
N2EY wrote:
snip

He could just as easily be another of Len's online personalities.

That's an odd comment indeed.....a bit of paranoia perhaps, OM?


73 de Jim, N2EY


134, Leo

Leo wrote in message . ..
On 20 Nov 2004 13:30:15 GMT, PAMNO (N2EY) wrote:

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

Mike Coslo wrote in message
...
N2EY wrote:
snip

He could just as easily be another of Len's online personalities.

That's an odd comment indeed.....a bit of paranoia perhaps, OM?


73 de Jim, N2EY


134, Leo

88s?! SHEESH!

On 21 Nov 2004 18:42:08 -0800, (Brian Kelly) wrote:

Leo wrote in message . ..
On 20 Nov 2004 13:30:15 GMT, PAMNO (N2EY) wrote:

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

Mike Coslo wrote in message
...
N2EY wrote:
snip

He could just as easily be another of Len's online personalities.

That's an odd comment indeed.....a bit of paranoia perhaps, OM?


73 de Jim, N2EY


134, Leo

88s?! SHEESH!


Not quite 88s.

From the "Western Union 92 Code" - 134 means "Who is at the key?".
Pretty much the question that Jim seems to be pondering - I'm just
restating it telegraphicallyfor him.......

http://scard.buffnet.net/pages/tele/...66/92code.html

73, Leo

In article , Leo
writes:

On 21 Nov 2004 18:42:08 -0800, (Brian Kelly) wrote:

Leo wrote in message
...
On 20 Nov 2004 13:30:15 GMT, PAMNO (N2EY) wrote:

In article ,

(Brian Kelly) writes:

Mike Coslo wrote in message
...
N2EY wrote:
snip

He could just as easily be another of Len's online personalities.

That's an odd comment indeed.....a bit of paranoia perhaps, OM?


73 de Jim, N2EY


134, Leo

88s?! SHEESH!


Not quite 88s.

From the "Western Union 92 Code" - 134 means "Who is at the key?".
Pretty much the question that Jim seems to be pondering - I'm just
restating it telegraphicallyfor him.......

Updated to "who is at the keyboard?"....;-)


http://scard.buffnet.net/pages/tele/...66/92code.html


See also:

http://www.signalharbor.com/73.html

http://www.qsl.net/w5www/73.html

http://groups.google.com/groups?selm...864%40ladder03.
news.aol.com&output=gplain


73 de Jim, N2EY

Leo wrote in message . ..
On 21 Nov 2004 18:42:08 -0800, (Brian Kelly) wrote:

Leo wrote in message . ..
On 20 Nov 2004 13:30:15 GMT, PAMNO (N2EY) wrote:

In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

Mike Coslo wrote in message
...
N2EY wrote:
snip

He could just as easily be another of Len's online personalities.

That's an odd comment indeed.....a bit of paranoia perhaps, OM?


73 de Jim, N2EY


134, Leo

88s?! SHEESH!


Not quite 88s.

From the "Western Union 92 Code" - 134 means "Who is at the key?".
Pretty much the question that Jim seems to be pondering - I'm just
restating it telegraphicallyfor him.......

http://scard.buffnet.net/pages/tele/...66/92code.html

73, Leo

Looks like our Morse Experts aren't so expert.

PAMNO (N2EY) wrote in message ...
In article ,
(Brian Kelly) writes:

What courses, exactly James, did you have in your freshman year in
E-school which taught/preached how to do a "rigorous analysis of all
facets of the problem at hand . . . a list of problems impeding the
design goal is developed, and solutions are proposed for each until
all have been . . " and come out of it with working pile of
hardware?

Ya missed the point.

Unless you can cite your soup-to-nuts "engineered" pile of freshman
hardware I didn't miss the point.

Boilerplate verbiage like:

"In engineering, this requires a rigorous analysis of all facets of the problem
at hand - a list of problems impeding the design goal is developed, and
solutions are proposed for each until all have been satisfactorily resolved"

is the ES 101 stuff. Actually doing it is very different. For example - just
what *are* all the facets of a given problem?.

I have no idea what "ES 101" is or was.


. . . as if . . maybe two-three years outta E-school you were allowed
to take a poke at an assignment like that.

More like a year.

Sometimes right out of the chute, sometimes never and perhaps with a
glaring exception or two never in a freshman year out in commercial
reality.

. . Because that's what we get paid to do. Perhaps wrongly, more
likely not, we don't have a helluva lotta time for approaching
projects like ballooning to 100,000 feet with science fair project
mentalities. Interpret as you will.

The trick is that the volunteer folks don't have the paycheck incentive. Just
the reverse - such a project costs them money! So the motivation has to be
elsewhere.

You're taking it off onto a couple irrelevent tangents. The topic is
how various folk who come from different educational, training and
employment backgrounds approach the technical aspects of pulling off
non-commercial stunts like sending homebrewed electronics packages to
100,000 feet with a balloon. Seasoned technical types degreed and
otherwise learn out in the college of hard knocks how to plan and
execute projects in highly systematic manners because when money is
involved the project better be pulled off properly or yer outta work.
That's the incentive. Beyond that we is what we is and we don't change
our stripes when we get involved in the planning of off-hours
volunteer efforts or our hobbies. Wherein come the clashes with the
non-technical types we get involved with on joint efforts. Pick any
mid-to-large scale Field Day planning session around here for a
perfect example.


My main job in this whole project has been to SELL people on the
concept of something that is not particularly new, but has been made
more interesting by a fusion of Ham radio, GPS, Packet radio, and
Schools, or perhaps more accurately, youth in general.

I **TODJA** to stick to being the cheerleader and delegate the tech
stuff to the technoids dammit but NO, you got all ****y huffy about it
instead!

****y huffy is par for the course here, isn't it?

.. . . yeah . . . which of course is the whole bottom bottom line . .

sigh


Leo is VE, a VE6 if I'm not mistaken.

How does anyone know for sure? He's been anonymous since day one here.

He let his cat out of the bag at some point in past but it got past
you. He's a VE but I had him in the wrong province.

Not that there's anyhting wrong with that!

He could just as easily be another of Len's online personalities.

No way, changing writing styles like changing fingerprints, can't be
done. Leo absolutely is not Sweetums. Or vice versa.

73 de Jim, N2EY

w3rv