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K6JRF's Page formerly W6FZC Home Pictures Photos by K6JRF |
(Updated: Aug 8, 2009)
San Diego has been fairly arid in the past few years. The rainfall totals are particularly low an my neighor and I could see that
water restrictions were on the way to becoming 'law'. So we beat the rush and had artifical turf installed. The project was started and completed by Forever Lawn in San Diego. The selling point was the "look" of the grass. It has embedded "thatch", a brown colored grass. It looks real b/c that's what real grass does. I can add, it's was one of the best things that we did since currently there's grass watering restrictions in effect! |
Both lawns were done together. This way a bobcat was used to remove both lawns in one 'scoop'. On my side, there was the remnants
of a large ficus tree. The roots were massive and although the tree had been removed a few weeks before, the roots that were
"un-earthed' by the bobcat, totaled about 500+ lbs. This adds to the 2 tons of tree that was cut-down. The tree started to take
over my house, so it had to go!.This is my favorite shot . . . shows the flower garden, the "island" and my neighbor's grass. |
My wife and I decided to specialize in low-water requirement plants and bushes. And we also decided to go with a "container garden"
concept rather than use the soil b/c this would allow us to better control the water usage. So you can see a collection of desert
plants and succulents that have thrived well here. |
The "island" was my idea b/c I thought that the front yard would be too barren w/o a tree of some sort. But I didn't want another
'real' tree so while researching on the Internet, I found a site that builds neat palm trees using real bark. The inside is a
bendable metal tube and the tree comes in sizes from 3 ft to 15 ft in height. The 15 footer is $5000! I opted for a 6' and 3' with
different 'bends'. All in all, it looks pretty nice, IMO. |
This pic shows the 'grain' of the grass and it's extremely easy to 'clean'. I use a blower and collect the debrie from birds,
blown leaves, etc and that gives me my "grass" maintenance exercise. The bushes to the far right are . . . "REAL"! Just so you
don't think that all is fake! The center island clearly shows in this picture and lighted at night by 16 solar lights w/ an
great amber glow at night.You can see (left to right), the solar panels, HDTV OTA antenna mast, C-band satellite dish, flagpole and the base section (with the ladder) of my tower. |
This is another favorite angle showing the my highlighted area with the backdrop of my neighbor's home. In the background
you see a large 'tower' . . that of the Verizon Wireless cell tower about two (2) blocks away. The gray pipe that sticks up
is where I built and tuned the CD78 dipole. Also it's where the 3el SteppIR antenna will be built . . shortly.
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This pic shows the side of the house with some unusual plants. The foreground shows a purple Irish four leaf clover
with white buds that the humming birds just love. Every afternoon they stop by for some "lunch". One of these days
I'll get a good picture. |
Since this is a HAM radio site, I can't very well leave out the "tower"! So here's shot from the front yard showing the tower
fully extended with the CD78 dipole at the 75 ft level. On the top is the G6-144 2mtr colinear antenna at 93 ft.
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Most of the pictures on this web site and on my other (Mercedes and FT1000) web pages were taken with the only
camera that I've had for 20+ years, a Sony MaViCa (Magnetic Video Camera). This camera was
introduced in 1981 and it employed a 3.5" removable disk as the main recording media and it was the first commercial
electronic camera. The main selling point was the use of the 1.44Mb floppy disk that inserts into the camera that ends up holding the pictures in a standard "jpeg" format ready for computer download. Not a bad idea for that time but I've never replaced it until just recently. And that was b/c of my wife's interest in a new, fast digital camera. 
Long story shortened, the new camera is a Panasonic Lumix DMC-TZ50. Coming from the "Mavica", it's like stepping
into a Maybach after driving a VW bug! This new camera takes pictures automatically that I used to spend hours trying
to take w/ the Sony. Here's an example . . . and I don't have to explain it for those who know the difficulty in taking this kind of picture. And the Panny does it automatically! Click the picture for a larger size. 
Here's another picture I took by night with the soft glow of . . . LEDs and LCD screens . . . there's lots of them in
use today. It's the "tube" that's in short supply. Click picture for larger size. |
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