Car Speakers, Good Weather and Model Airplanes . . .

Car speakers, good weather and model airplanes, not necessarily in that order.  Good weather first.

We have had a couple of rare fair weather days her in the middle of January.  Temperatures huddling around 60 to 70 degrees in the last three or four days.  That is above normal for us.  And Sunday the wind god kept the flow of air down to a reasonable rate and down the runway.  So it was a great day to fly.

Speakers next  With the advent of hearing aids I detected a left rear door speak as being noisy.  It had a voice coil squeak that was driving me crazy.  So I shopped around for new speakers.  I figure good old Radio Shack was the place - not.  They used to have a nice selection of speakers but not no more.  At least nothing like I wanted anyway.

So then I went to Best Buy and they had a ton of them for a big price.  Found a reasonable set but not in stock.  Par for the course.  All the other speakers required considerable more power than my vehicle could generate.  I just want to get rid of squeak not provide sound for the neighborhood.

Next stop was Walmart and I found a reasonable set for $30 (plus tax of course).  I had to later go to a Walmart and pick up a little kit of connectors.  I am guessing low end speakers like purchased do not come with bells and whistles, that you gotta furnish yourself. 

Well I had ton of speaker wire and made up a little harness.  And then I went to the Internet and checked out a couple of how to videos.  They were mostly correct in getting the door panel off and access the old speakers.  Enough info so I could do the job with a tad bit of guess work.  The panel is held on by five screws, four large ones around the door handles and one at the bottom.  I remove the screws as per the videos but the use of "Panel Removal Tool" was not necessary or required.  I gave the panel a nice up ward thump and it came loose.  Turns out there are six hooks that hold it in place on the door, the screws are to keep it in place.

So I had access and removed the old speakers and installed the new speakers.  They are not quite as efficient as the factory specification speakers but close enough.  No more squeaks and no I can use the back speakers again (a little more pleasant that way).  The new speakers are three way meaning they have small high frequency speakers in the center of one large speaker.  And the new speaker cones are plastic, a little more rigid (ergo more power required) but do a better job of covering all ranges.

Model airplane last  Model airplane I flew is the Stik I bought used.  I had to do several things to it.  It came with servos but no main landing gear.  I had plenty of landing gears from previous Stiks so that was easily solved.  I installed the same kind of engine that the owner had so it balanced real well.  But I had to modify the throttle servo position.  That mean making a new mount and gluing it in and using some of the old screw holes.  So when I installed the servo, the rear mounts when though the old mount shelf as well as the new mounting box.  I had to cut a notch in a cross piece and reinforce that too.  Later I had to add a bit of control rod tubing, that keeps the control rod from bending.   Finally I had to install a receiver and set up the transmitter.

I flew it twice Sunday.  Not to much trim problems and made a nice landing the second flight.  It is in the tricycle configuration, that is the model has a nose wheel.  I generally convert them to tail wheel configuration but elected to stay with the current configuration (no weight changes and tail wheel installations).

That's good weather for you.  You get outside and get a few things done.  Turned the sprinklers and had a humongous water leak at the well.  It was the same "Carl Causey" glue.  He got it for me and every joint that was glued with that stuff came apart.  Most of them are under ground and press fit so they will be okay but one shows here and there.  I got that glued back together.  Turn on the water again and found a faucet broken, frozen I guess.  I had to go get a pipe, elbow and new faucet.  Got that installed and now the system is up and running again.

Judie filled the bird baths and ran the sprinklers last night.  We will do it again and then stand by for ram, another Northern blast is on its way.  I will turn the system off Thursday.

Not Spring yet!