August 31, 2019 Night

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Good evening! Mostly clear and 53 degrees at the Perkins Clearing. Starry night 🌃, beautiful looking up at the starry skies but no northern lights.😍 Calm wind. The dew point is 48 degrees. Cool but in my hoodie not too bad. I brought the propane heater ♨ for the cold mornings but so far I haven’t used it. Maybe tomorrow though it will be nice with a hot cup of coffee. ☕

I thought today was a good day. 🚶 It was nice hiking Pillsbury Mountain, it’s been eight years since I last done it. I was up there for an hour with nobody else around. First time ever going back to Cedar Lake in the West Canada Lakes Wilderness, it’s an area that I want to explore more. 🐸 The trails back there are pretty good and not real steep. I really should spend more nights back in the wilderness but I do like the ease of truck cap camping. I was happy 😊 that I didn’t run into many crowds back there although there was a couple 👫 camping ⛺ back at Cedar Lake but I headed to a different part of the lake for solitude.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 45 degrees at 3am. 12 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 30th. Light north wind. In 2018, we had light rain in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It was somewhat humid. It got down to 66 degrees. The record low of 41 occurred back in 1967.

Tonight will have a Waxing Crescent Moon 🌒 with 10% illuminated. The moon will rise at 8:50 am. The First Quarter Moon is on Wednesday night with partly cloudy skies. The Harvest Moon 🌝 is on Friday, September 13th. The sun will rise at 6:21 am with the first light at 5:51 am, which is one minute and 6 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 10 hours and 47 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be partly sunny 🌞, with a high of 68 degrees at 2pm. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 25th. Maximum dew point of 52 at 6pm. Light and variable wind becoming south 5 to 8 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. It became somewhat humid as the day progressed. The high last year was 79 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1953.

I might just hang out at camp tomorrow ⛺ with a good book 📙 in the hammock or I could go hiking again. 🚶 Small game season opens tomorrow for squirrel,🐀 but we will see. I could drive over to Mason Lake and do some fishing 🎣 or maybe up to Watch Hill and hike it 🚶. Probably though will stay in camp, maybe see if I could drop some tree rats but I’ll see.

Tomorrow night is going to be quite wet based on the current model 💦but hopefully the rain will hold off until late. I’d like to enjoy a nice Sunday and then just overnight in the truck cap and head home early on Labor Day. This campsite is well drained so I’m not worried about mud by there also is no practical way to hang up tarps here.

In four weeks on September 28 the sun will be setting at 6:43 pm,🌄 which is 50 minutes and 43 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had rain and temperatures between 62 and 52 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 67 and 46 degrees. The record high of 83 degrees was set back in 2014.

Looking ahead, Average High 70 🎑 is in 3 weeks.

Wild Lands in Northern Catskills

Generators and Alternators

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If a gasoline generator produces alternating current then how can it be called a generator?

Generators aren’t widely used anymore because brushed DC motors wear out relatively quickly, produce sparks and are noisy.

Generators produce direct current using brushed motors, pre 1960s cars had generators. Modern cars produce alternating current with brushless AC motors which is run the through a diode bridge to produce DC current.

Sciencing: DC Generator vs. Alternator

In some ways its kind of ironic that cars use alternators and not the term generators because they ultimately produce DC power after rectification. But auto makers aggressively marketed the term alternator in the 1960s as they were superior in many ways to generators. Alternators are driven by voltage regulators, they have precise control over the output voltage so idling a car with the headlights on doesn’t discharge the battery. And the solid slip rings are so much more reliable than brushed motors.

My grandfather told the story about how he drove to Watertown after dark by the moonlight with his headlights off during the call for war during World War II, because his generator was worn in his car and it couldn’t keep up with the load. Stories like this were not uncommon in the days before alternators. Headlights and tail lights were much smaller and dimmer compared to modern cars too because the generators could only output a few amps at 6 volts DC – so you might have only had fifty or 100 watts at most to provide all power to the vehicle. Nothing like the 1,400 watts or more a modern 100 amp alternator can provide.

To be fair, generators do generate power. But it still would be a lot more accurate to describe gas generators as gas alternators.