Describe a phase in life that was difficult to say goodbye to.
I had always been a fit and active individual, taking in part in any challenge that came my way. I used to set myself physical challenges that I’d always throw myself into without any fear or concern for injury. However come the mid fifties of my life and aspects of my health changed immensely. I began feeling pains and symptoms I’d never felt before and have had to accept since then that my mind is issuing cheques that my body can no longer cash.
Yes my mind is active but age has meant I am now having to say good bye to the health I once enjoyed.
It’s like being asked to leave a party when you are just starting to enjoy it…
Stay young if you can, enjoy life. Peace to you all.
I live with my wife and dog. I do not wish to objectify or itemise them as they do not deserve that, they deserve an immense amount of love and respect, I’m just putting it out there that they are all I need in my life and have been for many years.
However as I dutifully have to make a choice or three here we go.
Medication 💊 without the two that I currently take (I won’t go in to detail) I guess it would be game over so to be honest this is probably the most relevant
Books 📕 my constant thirst for knowledge and learning means that this object slots comfortably into second place. As I’m a child of the sixties it’s books over Internet all day long, as the internet didn’t exist then, fast forward 3 decades and my choice if I’d been born in a different era might be slightly different.
Camera 📷 what better way to remember all those wonderful places, people and memories you have created along the way. Whether using the old film cameras of my generation or the new fandango units and phones of today, how else are you going to peek into time gone by and put a smile back on your face.
Yep, I’m happy with that, had to think a bit but these are the three items I could not live without.
What experiences in life helped you grow the most?
My father was a demon. Consumed with jealousy towards my mother she couldn’t speak to anyone without being questioned about her motives. Most of my formative years were spent as a youngster protecting her and my younger sister from his rage. Going to bed at night as a young teenager with a metal bar under the covers to be ready to go at him should he fly into another of his rage’s leaves a scar on my memory to this day, almost 40 years later.
I always stated that I would never be like him, and all these years later I think I’ve done ok. My life is better than his, I have achieved more than him and I have never raised my hand to anyone especially a female in my entire life, so in theory I think I have won.
He still haunts me in my dreams though and it is as if I am still being challenged by him even though he is no longer here.
I’ve grown from this experience, no child should ever have to suffer this amount of emotional abuse, no female should ever have to live through that constant fear of an abusive partner. No man should ever be capable of such coercion.
But it happens.
Just not in my life anymore… I’ve grown.
Stay smiling, you are a beautiful person who deserves happiness.
I believe you shape your destiny and fate. Nothing too complex, don’t read too much into it, if you are nice and polite to people, you will get the same in return. Opportunities will surface due to your attitude so take what is presented to you as a result.
The radio has been received see here: Not just Dead….Fully dead and if I can’t get it going, I have at least brought a very tidy storage box.
What surprised me when first opening up this radio was the immense amount of boards and circuitry inside, I must admit I took a gulp at this and questioned my reasoning for purchasing the item. However it’s all a learning curve and I have to start somewhere, gone are the days of simple circuits on traditional radios (with big components).
Roberts blutune circuitry Roberts blutune power boardRoberts blutune circuitry
I arrived home from work and sat myself down in the conservatory surrounded by test devices for about 4 hrs until I totally overloaded my self with information, creating more questions than answers, i decided to give up for the day and further research the potential faults for this unit via other sources.
To me the power board seems fine, power is going where it should, there appears to be no short circuits or component damage however in places there does seem to be some signs of leakage so I may have some components that need replacing or maybe it’s just remnants of flux and stuff left behind after initial construction.
Blutune board under microscope Blutune board under microscope
None of this can be seen by the naked eye but it becomes apparent after being placed under my new toy an Andonstar microscope viewer. It’s at the entry end of the range but it is already becoming a game changer for me, due to my failing eyesight.
Andonstar AD106S
Copyright Andonstar
Further investigation appears to highlight an inherent issue with this range of radios when they just seem to stop working (probably why Roberts ceased production).
Generally the power board isn’t an issue, it all focuses around the display board where a controller to the screen has failed or the amplifier chip has failed, hooray I say! And then I find out both components are about the size of a grain of rice… Boo I say.
I have no experience at all in components this minuscule in size, but if I can’t get to the root cause and eliminate all other possibilities I will give it a go. In the meantime fault finding will go on between other jobs and this will continue to be a job in progress that will be revisited and updated as time goes by.
The plan short term is that I’m going to borrow a thermal camera and check if there are any hotspots under electrical load. You never know I might just find something.
I shall comeback to this project at a later date.
Thanks for passing by. Stay safe, be superb. You’re a star 🌟
I have just brought this inoperative Roberts Dab Blutune T2 digital radio off of EBay for £8 (GBP). I managed to barter the price down a bit from £12 and I was quite pleased with myself for doing that.
Roberts Blutune T2Roberts Blutune T2
So today I have received the package. A lovely little item cosmetically in good condition with the only external damage being that the speaker cover has a tiny tear in it , and the very tip of the aerial is broken along with the plastic stop that secures it when in the down position….no real issue, all easily dealt with.
The concern is the label on the top of the unit. Fully Dead!
Roberts Blutune T2
So what’s that then? Is there an in between? Some sort of purgatory for audio systems, or is it a way of saying that someone has ensured it will never work again?
Well, I’ll get the back off tomorrow and have a rummage to see what’s in store for me. Maybe my bartering of the price has meant the seller has removed all internal contents so that I now have a nice “Empty box”.
I just love some of these descriptions sellers use, makes me giggle and wonder what was going through their minds when they decided to sell an item that is fully dead.
Maybe there is just different grades of death that I was just not aware of.
Following on from yesterdays post regarding fogging on negatives. If you remember I’ve lost the mask for my scanner so I’m currently unable to utilise this service.
The Negatives waiting to be scanned
However I had some time and took to the internet to find out if there was a way to view in the short term until I found the mask for the scanner. It appears the phone you have in your hand can more than likely do the deed without having to down load any apps.
Now I have an iPhone, however the same is also available on Android but I’ll stick to the iPhone route. It’s all about inverting colours
Firstly venture to settings, Accessibility, Accessibility shortcut and then choose classic invert. A tick will appear by your choice and then just come back out to the Home Screen. Now every time you triple click on the side home button the screen colours will invert.
StandardInverted
Now if off you triple click again the colours go back to standard. Well I’ve tried this on the same negatives above from yesterday and it gives you a good idea of what you are going to get. These pictures are direct inverts of the negatives at the top of this post with no cropping or adjustments, I just wanted you to see the possibilities you have available to you in your hand. If you use a light box and some glass I’m sure you’d get quite acceptable results.
Negatives all inverted
Great little tool for those old negatives you have laying around that you were thinking of getting printed but weren’t quite sure.
Hey hey, I’m back. Well, after my previous rant I thought it best to get back to normal or as normal as can be achieved so here we go.
If you remember a few posts back I took on an old Halina A1 Reflex cheapo camera from the 60s. It was in a bit of a state and had seen better days. It had a full refurbishment with lens fungus removed, shutter mechanism repaired and a new leatherette finish put in place to tart it up. It looked quite nice and I was quite pleased with the outcome.
Halina A1 Reflex and exposed 120 film
However that is all well if you want to use it as display piece or a bookend, but I wanted to see it work.
Over the last few weeks I’ve had a roll of 120 B/W film (Rollei 100 RPX) sitting in it using it once in a while whenever the weather was right, and light conditions sufficed. Seeing that I’d replaced the light seals I wanted to check whether there were any issues there and as a result of todays development of the roll this could be an issue.
Paterson tank
When exposing I’ve forgotten to wind on a couple of times, but in general i seem to have got it right. The wind on is ok and the displays in the window are visible. Barring some double exposures the settings on the lens seem to have done their job, I seem to have set both lenses up correctly so I’m happy with that.
The film has an over all visible darkness that points to fogging. I think I might be responsible for this to be honest, I was a bit too impatient to get the roll loaded into the Paterson tank, I had a duvet over my head but the strong summer light was evident for the first time in ages in the East Midlands, and I shouldn’t be able to see the developer spiral….but I did briefly. Not good.
You can see the background fog
That being a problem I really do need to run another film through the camera to 100% check the light seals and then develop in the appropriate conditions.
I was silly here but another lesson learned. Be patient, don’t rush things and just do things properly.
I’m pleased the camera works, I’ll be able to get some pictures off the negatives and what I can see through a Lupe looks promising.
My 120 mask on my scanner has gone missing, so the pictures might be a little while before they make an appearance. I have another roll of film though so I’ll get that in the camera this week and get busy, and when it’s dark I’ll develop the film….properly
Have a wonderful day everyone thank you for passing by, stay safe and smile it uses less muscles than a frown 😂
The Bilora Radix 56 camera circa 1950 has arrived today and the condition is for once very close to the original description that I read on line prior to purchase. Makes a pleasant change to be honest. No big surprises this time.
I’ve broken the whole camera down to its smallest parts, I love to do this as it gives a good insight into how the camera was originally put together. It’s lovely to see some good old mechanics instead of a plethora of electronic components. Only one piece of wire on this camera and that’s to the flash synch on the side of the body.
I’m going to clean the winding mechanism, get rid of the old oil deposits and re lubricate. I’ll also do this with the workings on the base of the camera that allow only one of two available exposure settings. That’s a “B” exposure or an auto exposure of 1/50-1/60 of a second. Not much use with the faster films that are available today. Focal length of the lens is 38mm 5.6 – 16.
The shutter works fine, I’ll probably maintain that with some graphite when I’m in there, the lens seems free of fungus but I will dismantle this anyway to clean the optics within.
Radix 56 base workingsRadix 56 lens removal Radix 56 lens faceplateRadix 56 broken down in a sweet box
There is rust on the backplate, and this will need removing, I’m planning on sanding this down priming and repainting and a new skin will be put on the body. There are only 4 small pieces on this camera so this shouldn’t be an issue. Some lubrication, spotting and a good Polish will then hopefully complete this refurbishment.
I’m considering purchasing a second Karat cassette so I can sell this on as a complete camera. I may even try it out myself someday with a small length of black and white film.
Pop on back to see a post for each stage of the refurbishment.
Thanks for visiting, you know it is much appreciated. Thank you.
In my search for the unusual have come across this fine specimen that I have purchased for less than the price of a fish and chip dinner.
Remember the battle between manufacturers back in the days of Betamax and VHS? Well this is the film makers battle between Agfa and Kodak, with Kodaks 35mm winning out. The Agfa cassette (known as Karat) was 35mm without the spool and you needed two cassettes to use these cameras. I have one here and hope to be able to use it at sometime.
I like this example as the metal is not too pitted. There is rust but I can work on this, the covers are damaged but this can be replaced. I might go for a totally over the top refurbishment or may keep it as close to original as possible. I’ll make that decision once I can check the optics and shutter.
You can find out more about these cameras at the following link: Camera wiki .org
Foxes Den 
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