Other Hobbies?
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fishguy1978
Legendary Member
Near Goldendale, Dry Creek Ranch area that borders the res.
John58Ford
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Out for a long weekend, hint is freshwater. Anyone recognize this spot?
Nice! I don't recognize the location, but I do recognize at least two Cobalt's in the background. Where is it? From the terrain I'm thinking eastern WA?
Most Cobalts are lake boats, but my 1993 Cobalt was moored in freshwater only from 1992-1993, when I lived on Mercer Island. Since then, she has been a year-round salt-water boat, moored first at Elliott Bay Marina and then at the Poulsbo Yacht Club. She's even taken me up into Canada.
Most Cobalts are lake boats, but my 1993 Cobalt was moored in freshwater only from 1992-1993, when I lived on Mercer Island. Since then, she has been a year-round salt-water boat, moored first at Elliott Bay Marina and then at the Poulsbo Yacht Club. She's even taken me up into Canada.
John58Ford
Well-Known Member
There are 4 cobalts in the marina, a handful of hewes craft and a Lund. I have the only Bell Boy we've seen out here so far so I'm guessing the local antique boat guys are in the garages right now getting ready for the 4th weekend. Most of the cobalts are 20' open bow models, with one 24' that's been tied to the courtesy dock since last night.
Our goal out here though, is find all the Kokanee in lake Chelan and have a fine dinner, should be a beautiful troll.
Our goal out here though, is find all the Kokanee in lake Chelan and have a fine dinner, should be a beautiful troll.
Chelan?
A new hobby! We took them out to the south sound ( think lake bay / home area ) between Anderson and McNeil islands. I was surprised that I got them up to 60mph when the water was glass, but once boat traffic picked up a little bit, 35-45 is far more comfortable.
I’m leaving the boat shelved for the summer as our friends have a new boat so the 2 sea doo and their boat is plenty of water fun.
I’m leaving the boat shelved for the summer as our friends have a new boat so the 2 sea doo and their boat is plenty of water fun.
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John58Ford
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Most of you know I have changed the fish room into a not just a fish room, it's to accommodate a re-kindled hobby of mine that was brought on by my children's interest in music. Both of them have taken up trombone the last few years, so last January, while begging a retired band teacher to repair a horn for us he asked me to come sit in with a couple groups he plays in, I hadn't played in 18 years. One of those groups is directed by a bandmate of mine from my brief time at EWU, I ended up back in in a big way. A monster was born and now we have a mostly completed brass studio and will be running a trombone choir and limited lessons out of my living room by Christmas (already soft booked for a set).
John58Ford
Well-Known Member
Had to take a stab at the winter crab season on the canal last weekend. It was a questionable forecast with a dense fog adv on Saturday and a small craft advisory Sunday but I just didn't agree with the SCA. I let my inner coastie take over and we went for it.
Oh boy was the fog legitimate. We shot out on gps waypoints and just about wore out the horn but the water was eerie calm so I was able to make decent speed and spot the deadheads, no contact. Got pots deployed and ran 18 miles round trip, never saw anything but a bridge leg, and the pilings at the ramp.
The small craft advisory was as silly (overly cautious) as I thought it would be, and I'm pretty sure now that there's a crab under every rainbow.
Oh boy was the fog legitimate. We shot out on gps waypoints and just about wore out the horn but the water was eerie calm so I was able to make decent speed and spot the deadheads, no contact. Got pots deployed and ran 18 miles round trip, never saw anything but a bridge leg, and the pilings at the ramp.
The small craft advisory was as silly (overly cautious) as I thought it would be, and I'm pretty sure now that there's a crab under every rainbow.
What type of boat do you have? I have a little 18’ tiderunner that I use for crabbing when we launch out of Tacoma / Ruston and head across to Vashon island.
But we haven’t been out in a few years with the lack of crabbing offered in that area.
John58Ford
Well-Known Member
This one is a 1970 20' BellBoy, freshwater cooled
140 hp franken 4 cylinder. It's the same boat from post #63 above. It's a deep heavy hull and does great for salmon/trout trolling and crabbing. It's more work than the little engine likes to do to come up on plane yanking tubes in the summer but it does it begrudgingly anyways. I wrench and enjoy diving antique vehicles so it fits us pretty well, almost matches my 69 f250. I wouldn't recommend everyone run a boat this age as much as we do though it needs the wrench weekly, we do about 25 hours weekly in the summer and probably 25 monthly during the school year. We try to remember to take one of the jon boats out for panfish duty to keep the hours down and the engine budget down to 1 per year, spun a bearing showing off that weekend in Chelan but had a "new"(I hone and rebuild them, have 2 in the garage currently) engine in the next weekend.
Home Theater and listening to music is a hobby for me and with the changes to video formats going to 4K its been a challenge with my surround sound receiver since I could not pass the signal through it. Thankfully my blu-ray player allowed me to seperate the picture from the audio so I have been able to make do for a little bit now.
With the new year I decided its time to upgrade the AV receiver. A little bit of downgrade in the sound department going from a Marantz (SR8002) to a lower powered Denon (AVR-x3800H) but the surround and video features should make it worthwhile. Looking forward to the new receiver coming in toward the end of the month and getting to experience the newer DTS:X format. With the change in electronics I also have the option of adding additional surround speakers, going from a 7.1 to the option of a 9.4. So tempting to add more speakers!
With the new year I decided its time to upgrade the AV receiver. A little bit of downgrade in the sound department going from a Marantz (SR8002) to a lower powered Denon (AVR-x3800H) but the surround and video features should make it worthwhile. Looking forward to the new receiver coming in toward the end of the month and getting to experience the newer DTS:X format. With the change in electronics I also have the option of adding additional surround speakers, going from a 7.1 to the option of a 9.4. So tempting to add more speakers!
John58Ford
Well-Known Member
I'm not the enthusiast you are but am fond of a good spacial recreation, I ended up having to rely on fiber optic audio options for my 7.1 and a video delay but it's just too cumbersome to set the receiver up for various sources that way regularly, additionally the new Xbox the kids received can spit dts or atmos out through HDMI, and the TV can actually pass it through(but couldn't for the PlayStation or blue ray that ended up using fiber), but can't actually read any of it so it's an all or nothing set up with layers of menus to put it on the small speakers. Mom and dad don't always want to listen to rocket league in 7.1...
9.1 would be amazing, I'm going to have to refloor again so I can hide a few more wires in the baseboards lol. I ran the wires for the living system room into the wall jacks, down and all around the baseboards to keep the mess down but it makes upgrading harder.
I think one of the most difficult things about the audio/video hobby is recognizing when you've reached the point of diminishing returns. I am very old-school about my audio setup- you don't need all the latest bells and whistles to run a turntable through a quality amp and some kick-a** speakers- and I've heard systems that cost 5-6x more than mine with no significant difference in sound quality, at least in a home audio setting. Perhaps if those systems were pushing out sound in an auditorium there would be a difference, but it's somewhat similar to having a 900hp Ferrari, which you can never use to its potential in the real world.
John58Ford
Well-Known Member
Can't agree more on the diminishing returns in the field emissions (true audio quality) game, especially with room gain considered. I went down a quest to score a 99 on FE (now "sq") in usaci (automotive) back in the early 2000's and grew out of that phase of life quickly. It's true that with decent "reference series" gear, 2.1, you can achieve a nice flat curve in a or c weighting as long as you can control room gain and stay within q. This is a great starting (and ending) point for listening to music meant to sound as if the stage is in front of you and honestly to most ears sounds better while listening to music than 99.999 percent of home theater systems will. I don't listen to music on my theater system speakers, I have a basic pair of older JBL floor speakers that do the trick without any special decoding. They aren't a flat curve, they just sound "right", up until the room echoes back.
As far as home theater, low spl spacial reconstruction has been a sticking thing for me since I was little and my father taught me how to decode quadraphonics on diy equipment. There's a track I use for reference that features a single person walking around a hot room playing a guiro. If sitting in the center of the array, you should hear the instrumentalist moving around you as if you were in the middle of his actual room. This would make for a very boring concert, but if applied right and balanced with the right low frequency effect engine (not a musical sounding subwoofer, LFE is too boomy for even the most enthusiastic metalhead) it makes for a great addition to an immersive movie scene, or in the case of modern video games can get you significantly deeper into a driving or flight simulation type game.
When we moved in and I remodeled the first floor of the house I wired it for 5.1, my room isn't perfect for a screen to be centered due to a door, so I have a hinge system that moves the TV when I want such an experience. It was easy to move to 5.2 but I didn't find it to change the stage enough to justify the space, so I traded the second LFE sub to someone for a very near match to my Forward L and R channel full range speakers, moved my couch back and dropped a set of wires in the back of the room to move the smaller rear channels further back. Having speakers that can run below 120hz (my small rears recommend a steep crossover above 120) as the new wide right and wide left really opened up the ability to hear larger things around me, not just localization of voices. The really "loud" scenes with wideband noise like jet engines circling aren't much better, but a car engine idling next to you is much more believable. As far as the gentleman with the guiro, it wasn't recorded for 7.1 so I cannot report a success worth cutting my walls open or popping baseboards(return effectively diminished, and I probably won't be going to 9.1, but still would go watch and listen at a friend's house lol).
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If it were just an audio point of view I really dont have a need to "upgrade". I love the sound of the music that comes out of my Revels powered by my Marantz with a Lexicon RT20 (dvd player) as my CD player. But I do a lot of movie watching and it has really been an issue with the video and surround sound formats. My Marantz could use a firmware update that might help with some of the sound issues but the reality is that it is time to get a new receiver.
With my room the main challenges Im facing is that we remodeled the room as an open concept design so the kitchen, dining area, living room and entry are all big and spacious. This makes it a bit tough to get that all encompassing sound I want. I went from high quality reflective wall mount surrounds to in ceiling speakers to be able to get some of the coverage I was looking for. Also the 300 gallon sits behind me in the living area so i get reflections of sound and light that are a bit unwanted. Was thinking to make a curtain to go across the front of the tank to block out the reflections of the glass that show up on the tv screen. I use a HSU sub in a near-field placement behind the sofa and it is amazing. It is essentially in the middle of the room and not corner loaded but works perfectly. The new receiver allows for 4 independent subs but I just dont have space for that, but Im sure that would be amazing.
