Mostlymacros

I am an all around experimenter and amateur scientist. I have a 20+ year background in electronics and hold a Technician class radio license. I am a photographer (5yrs) and these days I attempt to combine science for photography and art. I have a huge backlog I will soon get on posting including lots more electronics info/pics! I also cover things/events here in Portland, OR. I try in my blog as best as I can to stay away from the political/controversial side of things and definitely keep my blog G-rated so that anyone can view my pictures. My blog is called Mostly Macros and has been up for years. I may construct another one for electronic projects alone--not sure yet. I have much work that needs to be done on it right now but there are about 500+ viewable photos. Many taken with home made macro setups and lenses.

I build/have-built lots of projects as well as designed my own circuits and devices from scratch. On purpose only using bipolar transistors even for logic gates in several RTL projects or using just 1930s tech to build a shortwave radio (4 tube regen. 1995). To teach myself each era and types of circuits. I am pretty well versed in solid-state electronics as well as vacuum tube circuits and am comfortable working in both worlds. I am largely self taught, owing much of my main body of electronics and engineering related knowledge to a fully collage educated ham radio operator/engineer named Jeff--who taught me back when I was a kid and early teen in the Explorer scouts program and continues to help me with problems today. I have an interest and or experimented in too many topics to list here from spiders (arachnology) and insect collecting to radiology! Most of all in the area of electronics, such as building receivers, transmitters, power supplies, HV power supplies, and countless other devices. I built many devices successfully by the age of 15 without any help other then ideas from limited books on each circuit individually which I combined to build larger things. I have made kits, but I enjoy working out the details of putting together something myself from as basic as it gets sometimes! And I did--way before I had any online access in my 20s. I can read/write full schematic diagrams to advanced levels. I figured out how to use TTL ALU (number crunching binary chips--precursor to the microprocessor) and then MOS/CMOS computer chips completely on my own while living in Hawaii in 1992. Previously only knowing about simple stuff like the basics of 2 input Nand gates in a 7400! I bought some surplus chips and tested them for months. Finally cracking how they talk and talk to each-other. Learning how to link the two kinds of chips and program them in binary with dozens of dip switches! Making stable outputs and fixing inversion problems to get the ALUs to make sense! After which I built my own 64k 'calculator/computer control device' (my idea) with 2 of the TTL 74181 ALU chips and a 6264-LP static RAM chip at the age of just 12years. With no people, books, kits or other such things to help me) Effectively building a microcomputer/calculator nearly from scratch. This is probably my most impressive achievement as it was done entirely by testing trail and error long before the internet and without access to anything but the most basic Jimco (or something like that) a datasheet with 100s of pin-outs on it. Luckily for me those old chips were easy to come by at the time at a local surplus store! Moving back to Oregon again in 1992, I was quickly accepted into a Science and Tech magnet school in 1993. But for me and school, this was too late--I had been forced to change schools/areas every year of most of my life because of moving parents and seriously suffered socially for the constant moving. I was tired of every aspect of school. Honestly I did not like school at all and for several reasons often kept most of my knowledge and experience a secret from my teachers. Angry being a 'science geek' and treated baddy as such for years.

Science was my escape from school, my personal thing. It was a bad choice, but I was a kid. So I dropped out in the 10th grade to get my GED and be done with school by 16. And that is exactly what I did. I regret having not finished now, and having not gone right on to collage. I dropped out due to somewhat trivial reasons as teens so often do. However, not long after I was struck with a painful and dangerous physical illness (a rare pancreas problem) which made serious collage a distant dream for much of the time since. A NOTE HERE: I don't usually brag about my achievements and don't want to sound wrong. I am trying to express my level of knowledge attained without a formal education. I have been told what level I am at by some experts but saying I hold a 'virtual degree' or 'I should have a degree' sounds kinda lame to me. Someday I hope to hold at least one. Some areas I am better in then others and I admit to having some serious gaps in important areas I very much wish to learn in my education all around. However, I have done a lot and often still study on my own or with my wife to refresh on basic stuff.

I am not entirely without university experience--I took a course on ham-radio and electronics at 14yrs old (PSU) And I even have done some stuff at the University of Guam and Bishop Museum in Hawaii both cases related to my interests in exploration and science. I also wrote a hand-drawn book on spiders when I was 12-13 and made a documentary video on them at 15 with my first VHS cam that was good enough quality for public access channel. (I eliminated static-cuts and other non-pro looking errors and did multiple sound and video takes with very limited gear) Today I only have the book, as the VHS was lost (along with my schematics/notes and reference library and many other irreplaceable things in our house fire in 2009). I am also a serious world traveler (from US to Australia to all over Asia and up to Europe) since my mom has been an international flight attendant. As for me I guess I am a bit of an eccentric 'mad scientist' type but careful when experimenting as I want to live long enough to experiment! I also have an awesome wife does not mind me doing my experiments and having the large amount of gear/junk required to do so without complaints. For this I am very grateful. I am not always very outgoing and consider only a very few really to be friends. I am not into all the efforts of social networking and having 100s of 'friends'--too me that is way more complex then quantum physics! (and it always has been)!! My blog has clearly suffered for this lack of social networking but at 1 hour per picture (average time spent on line)--I don't have the time to try to do all that too! I also do try to be humble and will only give answers if I know the subject. I don't insult people and can't stand rude people who turn to insulting people over nothing. I am a very detailed person so I tend to write long emails and give lectures in posts!--sorry for that--but science is inherently detailed and often complex so it is important to be clear on details.

I only check my email about 2X a week or so at the most unless I have a photographic deal going. I don't keep up with the constant tech changes and trends with cellphones-- I don't like the wasteful pace at which society is moving or the idea of buying a new cellphone every 6mo! I am a Buddhist with great respect for Christianity and all religions. I strongly believe in personal rights and freedoms of the constitution, such as the rights to practice free speech and own firearms. I can't stand laws that try to take rights away to protect adults from themselves, pri into our privacy to make us 'safe' from everything --after a certain point of reason these laws become a jail of paranoia and give the government the right to get away with anything. I know this stuff is off topic, but if you want to know about me you should also know how strongly I feel about some issues. I believe in the rights of the disabled and that social programs for the poor and disabled are VERY important to a functional society. Critical programs such as HUD, some medical benefits and SSI as well as more such programs that should exist--no mater what--not for free loading fakers but the real people who really need it--my family fears the presidential candidates who see these programs as expendable to help the economy. Do your research on this issue before you vote! Taking from the poor would be a nightmare and totally irresponsible! TENS OF MILLIONS more people would be homeless overnight and lose every little bit of whatever they have--for what? Being disabled ? This could literally kill thousands of people outright in one way or another by just cutting one program! In the end this would lead to desperate crime and even more money then is spent on these programs would have to go to building yet more prisons. Is that what we want? Personally I have several close relatives who need these programs to survive. Social programs are required and should be funded by taxes from on a sliding scale that is fair to all social classes. And this includes the most wealthy as part of living in our country, who should--due to massive wealth, pay the most taxes. Is it such an expense for people who have more money then my entire family will make in their lifetimes all put together X1000+? I am NOT a socialist but I think taxes should be based on your wealth and will gladly pay my share knowing it is going to a good cause, the disabled, veterans and other such people who already have a hard enough time! (I hope I can write this here)--No worries--I won't be posting any political comments or questions on this site! My reason for signing up here is purely to answer questions and ask them, especially in electronics. If I can help you that's awesome--if you can help me that's awesome.

ANYWAY: They asked about contact info--I probubly won't check this site often for email in it so use the email on my blog "Mostly macros"--just Google that and I am the first site up of any kind. My wife and I use free and legal 900Mhz ISM texting and 2way radios to communicate when needed which is outside the cell system and thus are immune to many disasters that would render a cellphone useless. This is totally private so do not attempt to contact me via a cellphone system, we don't use them much. In the Portland area I often monitor SSB 2&10m bands 144.2Mhz USB and 28.4Mhz USB. Only attempt to call if you have a license! And you can call for "mostly macros" then use your call" if you like. I do not want to give my real station call-sign here due to privacy reasons--same as email. So I guess that was more then a few details but as I say, I tend to be thorough. --Gabe Beasley (Mostly Macros photography)

Listed above, science, electronics 'mad scientist'