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-13 Februari 2012. Really good progress these days. The last sections are now being put together. Because material was found for three new sections and two previous ones were joined we are now have reached a total of 214, nearing 450 pages. I am still awaiting material from abroad for one section.
-10 Januari 2012. During the last weeks I added another couple of sections which makes it a total of 212, covering about 441 pages with 1050 illustrations. This is, as expected, much more than initially calculated. There is now just one section to go, and awaiting material for another one. In the mean time I am working on the front cover, index, foreword and acknowledgements pages.
- 3 December 2011. Working my way through the contents of a long forgotten box with Larkspur Era documentation and handwritten notes, I found material for several additional sections: Radio Station E21/R241, Amplifier RF No. 9 and 10, Transmitter Radio type 214 and selective jammer Station Radio D16/17. This leaves me 9 sections to complete.
- 17 November 2011. A few weeks ago I decided to add the Larkspur Era Wireless Control Harness 'A' and 'B', based on an earlier written article but with some additions and better quality drawings. Presently I am working on wireless equipment used by the South African Union Defence Force (UDF) which is a time taking process as it was rather difficult to gather detailed information. Current state is 8 sections to go, which include Station Radio C42, C45 and C11/R210. There is some delay in the progress of the reprint project....
- 10 October 2011. Again making good progress in the Larkspur Era chapter, with the counter now at 14 sections to go. The last weeks I have been distracted by the preparation of an article for the Christmas Issue of Radio Bygones entitled: Mobile and portable operation of amateur radio equipment in the 1960's. In addition we are currently rather busy with a facsimile reprint of a rare and historically most interesting book. Keep an eye to these pages as I shall reveal more details shortly when some of the last obstacles are settled.
- 29 August 2011. Engaged in other (domestic) projects such as repairing the pavement around our house, the ever continuing garden work and the usual repairs, not very much progress was made the last weeks. Larkspur Era radio relay sets C41, C50, C70 are finished. Still 22 sections to go....
- 1 August 2011. Completing the Larkspur Era C12, C70 and D70/71. 27 sections to go!
- 15 July 2011. We are now making good progress, another 35 items/sets/systems to go. A major drawback was the failure of the USB/Centronics adaptor which allows me to keep my 15 year old printer running. Modern PC mother boards have no longer a parallel port and buying a new printer is out of the question, basically because my HP Laser Jet 5P is perfect, and cartridges cheap in comparison to those for a new printer with similar features. A new adaptor was priced at about 10 Euro, including postage
- 23 June 2011. By finishing the Wireless Set B40 section, previously known as Wireless Set No. 49B, about 80% of the manuscript is completed with another 46 items/sets/systems to go.
- 20 May 2011. Another distraction to the work on Compendium 2: a month ago I wanted to purchase an ebook reader.
This was stimulated by the fact that a friend had surprised me with a digital shelf full of interesting books, mostly novels and adventure books.
Although I am convinced that not just any book can be read with ease on such a reader, and it definitely cannot replace the smell and feeling
of a real printed book, this trend cannot be reversed and ignored.
Although ebooks are around for a considerable time, and I always avoided this newfangled technology with some suspicion, I thought
that the time was ripe to get myself informed about the possibilities of ebooks.
Looking around for an ebook reader I came quickly to the conclusion that: I wanted definitely the possibility of reading ePub (open format) books
(which barred the Amazon Kindle), an USB port, optional 4 or 8Gb cards, and, of course, the latest e-ink Pearl technology.
Then I stumbled upon the rather expensive Sony 650 ebook reader which was sold out for some reason, and at the time of writing still difficult to obtain.
As an alternative I purchased an Archos 70b eReader a couple of weeks ago, which has no e-ink screen, but other nice features, and very cheap...
Still, when the Sony 650 is available (and dropped in price..) I may want to buy it eventually.
In the mean time I studied the possibilities of creating my own ebooks (of course in the open ePub format) and purchased an ePub compiler program.
As this program has some elements of my favorite web building program (HomeSite 5) and the knowledge of XHTML is a bonus, it did not took me long to produce
my first ePub book entitled 'The Goldstone Paper'. Shortly I may put it in the 'download' page of this website.
A week ago I started in earnest with the Larkspur Era range of sets for Compendium 2. The Station Radio A40 and CPRC-26 sections are now completed.
Currently I am busy with the preparation of the Station Radio A41 and A42 sections, interesting sets which took a long time to materialize.
Still 56 items/sets/systems to go!
- 31 March 2011. Unexpected progress was made this week. Showers of heavy rain (welcomed by the local farmers after weeks of drought) kept me in the house. This morning I made the final changes to the rotating loop DF section and completed most of the Station Radio BCC 156 part. I discovered that this set (purchased as interim for Station Radio A13) was actually a further development of the two channel BCC 15. The latter was used on a very small scale with the Sierra Leone Forces in about 1958/59. 62 items/sets/systems to go!
-25 March 2011. We are still making good progress: only 67 items/sets/systems to go. The Australian section is almost completed. Currently we are busy sorting out the various static and mobile direction finding systems. Again, not an easy task as little technical details appeared to be saved. The final section will be the Larkspur Era. This is furtunately well documented.
- 18 January 2011. Requests for assistance in the form of photos, drawings and information is summed up in the 'Can YOU help please' page.
- 16 January 2011. Migration from the Windows XP operating system on my PC to Windows 7 in December 2010, which included the installation of new or upgraded programs etc., caused a bit of delay in the progress of work. Working with the upgrade from MS Word 2003 to MS Word 2010 is, in contrary to many sources, easy, intuitive and on the whole an improvement. Still, during the last months quite a number of 'difficult' parts for WftW Compendium 2 have been completed. The current number of topics, sets and systems covered in Compendium 2 is 213 (no doubt that a few more will be added), with 86 to go.
- Mid-October 2010. WftW Compendium 2 is in preparation. At present we have reached the 50% mark, with about 110 items/sets/systems to go. More details on progress will follow on this web-page, most probably extended with a 'Can YOU help?' section.
