January 24, 2008 - Motor order is in and new batch of Winch2048's will be available next week. This the first bulk order of motors after the first two to check quality and performance from the new vendor.
Site News:
| June 1, 2010 - Field testing successfully completed! Couple of Retrievers2010's going out for user trials. Four good days of testing so the design is ready to go. |
| May 26, 2010 - Field testing the Retriever2010 tomorrow. Simplified the AutoPickUP mode of the Retirever2010 by using a single solenoid to hold the arm out of the way during launch, a simple push of the arm will set it for the next launch. This eliminates the costly low RPM motor and complicated limit switches. Spool has been replaced with a commercial unit. |
| May 17, 2010 - Discovered a problem with the pickup arm on retriever when used in the AutoPickUp mode. There needs to be more space between the pickup spool and the drum so the frame is being made about 2" wider. |
| May 8, 2010- Many requests for the Retriever2010 so I have worked hard to get a supply of winches ready to ship so I can spend more time on the retriever. Plans are currently to start next week and spend as much time as needed to finish up the design and parts list. Hang in there, they will be available soon. |
| April 21, 2010 - Winches are in stock and ready to ship. |
| April 12, 2010 - Winches are sold out - for now! More will be available in four or five days. |
| March 20, 2010 - Winch2010 and Winch2000 available for shipping. |
| January 31, 2010 - Prototype frames for the Winch2010 are finished. First frame was built discreetly, second is being used to make fixtures to insure proper alignment of motor and other parts. |
| January 23, 2010 - Thanks to all for a great 2009! Winch2010 frame is ready and in production. New frame features stronger more rigid motor mount. Spend some time cleaning up the web site and verifying links. |
| December 29, 2009 - HAPPY NEW YEAR to all!! Major rewrite of the web site is in the works and will probably take a couple of weeks or more to finish. Also watch for new designs in 2010. |
| December 12, 2009 - Season is over and end of year clearance sale is in effect until early spring 2010. Most items are being sold on the message forums. |
| October 26, 2009 - Things never work out the way they are planned! New grandson took a couple of weeks and time out of town. Weather has not been the best to work outside so the AutoPickUp Retriever2000 has been put on the back burner for a while. |
| October 4, 2009 - Completed field testing of the AutoPickUp Retriever2000 and units will be available within a few days. With a whole day of retrieves with 4 fliers and about 50 launches no miss pick ups or any other malfunctions were experienced. Retrieves are quick a positive. Just a couple of items to work out before starting s short run of Retriever2000's. |
| September 9, 2009 - Static field testing of the AutoPickUp Retriever2000 have been successful. Full flight testing will begin a little latter this week depending on weather. |
| September 2, 2009 - A little delay due to health reasons but should have the AutoPickup Retriever2000 ready to test within a couple weeks. |
| July 13, 2009 - After experiencing several server outages have moved the site to Godaddy. Three failed drives, two older ones and one new drive forced me to reconsider the remote hosting. |
| July 8, 2009 - Watch for the return of the Winch2000 in a few days. There have been several request to produce a less expensive winch and the answer is the Winch2000, a Ford Long Shaft powered winch. |
| July 2, 2009 - Web site will be off line on Monday July 6, 2009 in to replace a failed hard drive. Site will be offline for a few hours during the evening but back online by the next day. |
| June 1, 2009 - Issue with Sears and the PM-1 batteries has been resolved. Sears and Odyssey has admitted to a manufacturing problem and a date range of batteries may be defective. Both companies will honor the warranty - proof of purchase date is required and in some cases a lot of talking. |
| May 14, 2009 - Sears and Odyssey battery recommendation has been removed due to early life failures. Neither vendor has offered any information about the failures or if the warranty will be honored. Sears claims they will if the battery is tested and found to be below standard, Odyssey will not admit to any problems being reported from the field but claims it will honor any warranties if the battery is presented for warranty. |
| April 25, 2009 - Motors back in stock and Winch2048's are ready to ship. My motor supplier could not ship in a timely manner this time so for a week or so I was out of motors to build winches with. Made arrangements with the supplier to always have at least six ready to shipt. |
| March 13, 2009 - Winches back in stock for immediate shipping. |
| February 10, 2009 - Read the article in Model Aviation magazine |
| January 5, 2009 - Back from vacation and business a usual, hope everyone had a happy and safe New Year's. |
| December 9, 2008 -The Shop will be closed starting December 15, 2008 until January 5, 2009 for the holidays. Happy Holidays to all! |
| December 1, 2008 - Back from the Holliday and shipping will resume. Hope everyone's Thanksgiving was as good as mine. |
| November 26, 2008 - The Shop will closed November 27-30 for Thanksgiving. Happy Thanksgiving to all! |
| November 21, 2008 - I have been able to negotiate better shipping cost by using FedEx exclusivity. |
| November 12, 2008 - Shipping cost have gone up due to DHL stopping US operations. |
| October 26, 2008 - Finally got around to posting the gallery of pictures from the TNT held October 17-19, 2008 |
| October 14, 2008 - The Shop will be closed starting Thursday, October 16, 2008 until Monday, October 20, 2008 to attend the TNT in Texas. Orders can be placed but will not ship until the following week. |
| September 29, 2008- Ground Post for the Turnaround II has been field tested and is ready for shipment. Ground Post well be made to order and not stocked. |
| September 15, 2008 - After a successful contest using the Turnaround II they are available. The turnarounds were used for a two day contest with about 300 launches. |
| September 13, 2008 - Prices set for the Turnaround II and has been modified for F3J use. Pulley has a quick disconnect feature allowing fast setup and take down. |
| September 1, 2008 - Prototype of the Turnaround II finished and first unit sent for field testing. First production units should be completed by September 8 and ready for shipment shortly after that. |
| August 25, 2008 - The Shop is open and will resume shipping after a great contest in St Louis. |
| August 20, 2008 - The Shop will close noon Thursday and back on Monday so we can attend the St Louis Gateway Open. Any orders placed after noon Thursday will not be shipped until Monday, August 25. Emails and phone calls will be returned in a timely manner. |
| August 4, 2008 - Winch2048 back in stock and ready for shipment. Shipping has been increased due to the fuel charge added by UPS but the overall pricing of the Winch2048 has been lowered. |
| August 1, 2008 - Congratulations to Dennis Hoyle for winning the Winch2025 at the LSF awards banquet. |
| July 29, 2008 - Out of stock on the Winch2048 - expect more the first week of August. |
| July 22, 2008 - Sold the remaining Winch2025 and the design has been retired. |
| July 7, 2008 - Allowed the domain name to expire but was able to renew. |
| July 1, 2008 - Prices reduced on several items this month, please check the Store page for more information. I've been working with my vendors to get my pricing down by committing to purchasing larger quantities to reduce the cost per item and shipping overall and have succeeded in several areas however due to the "oil shortage" shipping will again have to be raised - UPS has added a surcharge to every shipment which I must pass on to the end user. Turnarounds and Winch2048's will be reduced. It has always been my intention to provide a quality product at the best price I could and it takes time to find the right source. |
| June 1, 2008 - Several days of web site maintenance have been lost due to a drive failure. Several things have happened during the 10 weeks I have lost, motors have been are now available for outright purchase, adaptors are finished and available and an new pulley for the turnaround has been sourced. Check the store page for details. |
| March 16, 2008 - Shipping cost reduced on winches. Worked a deal with UPS to reduce shipping cost - not much but today any bit is a good bit saved. |
| March 5, 2008 - Due to external pressures the motor has change slightly. I can not longer order the W9128/9129 (Injoy TB1225/1248) motors so I have specified a motor of my own configuration. The electrical specifications are the same - the only difference is I have specified an isolated ground. The motors now have two terminals, one for the positive lead and the other for the ground. With this configuration very positive grounding is provided through the motor itself and never relying on frame or chassis. ground. Also added links to maintenance and setup documentation. |
| February 20, 2008 - Check out the specials in the Store - added some combo deals the store page |
| February 6, 2008 - New pictures with new colors for 2008. Found a somewhat more durable paint - appliance epoxy in a spray can and easy to touch up and available just about anywhere. Colors are limited to white, bisque and black. |
| February 2, 2008 - Winch2048's are
available for shipment next week. Orders are filled and shipped so the
remaining are up for grabs. January 24, 2008 - Motor order is in and new batch of Winch2048's will be available next week. This the first bulk order of motors after the first two to check quality and performance from the new vendor. |
| January 9, 2008 - The Winch2025 is back but will only be available by special order, please allow three weeks for delivery. I've had numerous inquires about a FLS power and the Winch2025 is the answer. Once the current stock of the 2.5HP motors is depleted they will be ordered only as needed and not stocked as a regular item. |
| January 8, 2008 - WeakLink2000 is only a joke, it is not for sale. Got myself in trouble yet again trying to be funny. |
| January 7, 2008 - Happy New Year from The Shop We will resume shipping today! Services are over and the grief is now bearable but the loss is still felt. |
| December 25, 2007 - The Shop is closed until January 7, 2007 due to death in the family. My mother died Christmas Eve about 9:00PM, services will be held just after the first of the year. |
| December 20, 2007 - Shipments suspended until after the Christmas rush, this will help with the mishandling that can happen when UPS is in a hurry. |
| December 12, 2007 - Price reduced for the Reteriver2000! Finally fixed the price for the retriever, hold up was finding a good price for the motor. Prices ranged from a low of $72 to as much as $189 for the same part number. |
| November 23, 2007 - Problem resolved! Got the first set of rings and are assembled and have been field tested with success. Retrievers are ready to ship! |
| November 17, 2007 - Problem with the line guide so the Retriever 2000 is on hold for 7-10 days. The fabricator understood me to say I wanted disks where I wanted rings. |
| November 14, 2007 - Retriever 2000 is ready to ship, waiting on the line guide rings. Several units are out on field trials and production will start once they have seen a little more use. |
| November 7, 2007 - Started working on the Retriever 2000, should be ready in a few weeks. Design finished and prototype has been in use for several months. Decided to go with a retriever that requires an operator vs one that is "hand off" or automatic line pickup. After some discussion with fellow fliers it was stated that a hands off retriever was nice but in reality a person should be available during a launch when using a retriever. |
| October 15, 2007 - Winches and turnarounds are available for immediate shipping |
| September 14, 2007 - Winches are available, 2 - Winch 2025, 3 - Winch 2048, 2 - Winch 2000 |
| July 11, 2007 - Winches are available for immediate shipping. I have several of each type build and ready to ship. |
| June 12, 2007 - I am accepting preorders for the winches, PayPal cart added to the page for easy check out. Free shipping is available on preorders through the month of June, offer ends at midnight June 30, 2007. |
| June 10, 2007 - Winches completed and tested very satisfactory. Next step is set up the purchasing page. Work is done but not public, need to verify some cost information first. |
| May 10, 2007 - Updated my kitchen to include a computer/TV and many other upgrades, check here for the complete story |
| February 7, 2007 - Added a picture of my new "old" lathe. This is a metal lathe with a 10" swing and 25" between centers. I was manufactured in 1947 (as close as I can figure) and runs like a top. It is a real joy to use! Added some pictures of a winch project on the hobby page. |
| December 31, 2006 - Added pictures to the gallery and added a couple new plane on the hobby page. Stats have been up this year, the past three months have been on 1,000 per month. |
| June 29. 2006 - I hate computers! After 23 days of bad parts and messed up configurations I finally have the web server back on line. Ordered a new mother board and processor but did not work, fingered it was the mother board and RMAed it which takes a week. Got the new board and still had the same error, RMAed the processor and still no go, another week. Finally sent both back and said to send new board and processor, yet another week. Received them today and once installed had some configuration issues with Windows2003, refreshed the OS and so far things are up and working again. Also renewed the domain name for another two years. |
| June 5, 2006 - As work slows down after retirement I have added a hobby page. The whole site may change in this direction over the next few years. Refreshed all pages. |
| August 16, 2005 - Refreshed all pages, added information about my Media Room. |
| May 21, 2005 - Refreshed all pages, check links, added information about upcoming event. |
| March 3, 2005 - Added pictures to Gallery Page. |
| December 3, 2004 - Script kiddies have won, the Request page no longer functions. I have disabled the ability to play a requested song, the song will queue but never play. The requests are coming from the same IP address and is being reported to your ISP and the FCC on a daily basis. |
| November 25, 2004 - The script kiddies with nothing better to do have struck. This appears to be an ongoing problem with the young demented, sexually deprived and mentally deformed idiots that have learned to use a script generating software program. |
| October 27, 2004 - Started using a new encoder for online movies, information on the Media page. Also found a very nice Pocket PC application to catalog movies on the PPC, again more information on the Media page. |
| October 11, 2004 - Someone or maybe many have attempted to hack The Shop's site. So far they have only succeeded in ruining the fun of many. The attacks have been reported the the offending ISP. They probably wrote some sort of script to constantly fill the request queue for the Internet Radio station. While this did not really hurt anyone or anything but a few loyal listeners it was annoying when I wanted to play music I wanted to hear, after all that is the real reason for having the Request Page. I let it run for about 24 hours hoping they would tire then changed some things around to foil any existing scripts while still making the Request Page available to my loyal listeners. If these attacks persist I will take the Request Page out of public view. |
| September 6, 2004 - Crownline Cove web site up. Created a new web site for my friends at Crownline Cove. |
| August 10, 2004 - Added pictures of current completed projects. |
| July 26, 2004 - Added about 2500 tracks to the radio's play list. Finally got around to adding the 2500 to 3000 new tracks to the play list. Cleaned the list up removing anything over 15 minutes long. Spent many hours downloading album information from the Internet so the listing look correct. |
| July 12, 2004 - Added the ability to add songs to the play list, check it out. You may add up to 5 titles per visit. The request page offers a complete listing of the current play list which is over 10,000 titles, you can search by song title or artist name. I am still working on the ID tags to clean them up. |
| July 3, 2004 - Registered the domain name theshope.net. I have been using a dynamic service for several years because I could not obtain theshop.com (a Internet provider and portal has it) so decided to cut my loses and grab this one before it got away. |
| June 28, 2004 - Added new projects to the Gallery. On going - as things get done, pictures get added. |
| May 13, 2004 - Added more information about integrating the computer network into home entertainment. This is turning into a real challenge. I have reviewed many integrating solutions and all of them seem to be lacking something we want. I can find solutions for music, video but not one that does a good job of both. |
| March 15. 2004 - Created a web site for our first grandson, jcd.dtdns.net, check it out! |
| January 13, 2004 - Completed the redesign of the site. Used just the standard package from Microsoft Front Page and found a template I could live with. Just did not want to try to reinvent the wheel! |
| November 22, 2003 - Found Shoutcast and decided to broadcast radio instead of just playing a list around home and the shop. This did simplify things and keeps the music the same at both places. |
| August 8, 2003 - Started the web site rewrite. Just can't find a template I like and do not really have the skills to create a site from scratch and too cheap to pay for someone to do it for me. |
| July 7, 2003 - Retired from the computer industry to perused my real love of woodworking full time. |
| April 10, 2003 - Changed the web site's name from Network 23 to The Shop (theshop.tzo.org) to reflect some of my hobbies and woodworking skills. |
| May 2001 - Website online at brandon.tzo.org, website's name is Network 23 after a bulletin board system ran for many years (1984-1991) in California. |
| January 1, 2000 - Nothing happened which I had forecast from the start. |
| December 31, 1999 - Sat up all night with the computer systems at work waiting for the big crash! |
| June 1999 - Resigned my position at InfoGenesis in Santa Barbara and started at Arthur J Gallagher in Kansas City. Tired of all the travel. |
| 1998 - Web site came online sometime during the year, do not remember and have no records. |
| 1996 - Moved from Santa Barbara, California to Kansas City, Missouri to peruse the woman I love! |