StormRaven

The only song I can find with that title was done by REO Speedwagon.

Believe it or not...I did debate using that theme, but Learning to Fly had already been requested by Wingman and DragonRider during the discussion after the event.

The videos are out on their own thread...something about a real crash at Vogel or something or other.

And after all that work I just saw the blunder that the title says Tail of the Dragon 6 instead of 7...

Good evening ladies and gents, This is the moment that y'all've been waitin' fer. *clears throat* This is the video of my crash into a tree off the road on Blood Mountain. The video is meant to be taken as a lighthearted affirmation that neither man nor machine were critically injured in this event. Really. I only sustained a minor burn and some bruising. Bubba also made a special appearance and conducted a pre-recorded live interview on the scene at an undisclosed cabin at some point later on. The following link is to the live recording of Bubba's broadcast to BUBBA-TV:

The Problem that my wife (GAWildKat) is talking about that lead me to lay the blanket ban on allowing anyone with a machine with Windows 8, 8.1, or 10 in the house is the feature they label Wi-Fi Sense Password Sharing feature. Microsoft has enabled this "feature" by default in their operating system. With this feature active, when I give a friend the pre-shared key that allows access to my encrypted Wi-Fi connection, Wi-Fi sense will propagate that information to their contacts on Outlook.com, Skype, and (the real kicker) Facebook. While those that receive the information through this automatic sharing won't necessarily know that they have it, by extension they would get automatic access to my Wi-Fi if they ever visited my house, without ever having to be given the access credentials...thus reducing the control I have over who can use my network. Outlook.com and Skype would only allow direct contacts of my guest to receive the information, so that's a relatively minor thing to me, as the friend of my friend is usually a friend as well, who would also have the credentials given to him. No, the part that outright scares me is Facebook Sharing. Depending on how my friend has his profile set up this information could be spread to his direct Friends (possibly some overlap), "Friends of Friends" (same amount of overlap, but a greater percentage of people I have no idea who they are having access to my credentials), or "Public" (ever use facebook public information to play 6 degrees? Share stuff on the "public" channel and that info WILL get to some kind of predator.) What they also don't tell you is that as a function of most routers and access points, unless they have a special flag put in the SSID, will store address and location information that will get passed to Wi-Fi sense as part of the same header that stores the wi-fi credentials. The key to keeping Wi-Fi sense disabled on visitors' computers without having to dive into their settings to make sure it's disabled is to add the "_optout" flag to the SSID of the router/access point. Also, that bit about routers storing their location information? That's a function of Google. All it needs is an Android Smart Phone that connects to its Wi-Fi. The phone will use its GPS and Cell Tower location tracking information to mark the router/access point with an address that the router will store for easier access in the future, providing other cell phones in the area with another method to get their location. Cell phones don't actually have to log into the network to make use of the information. It's passed on automatically as part of the SSID broadcast that the router/AP will continually pass out in its beacon. Disabling the SSID broadcast in the router configuration will not stop the router from storing the location information either. The way to stop this security hole is to add "_nomap" to the SSID string. So if you normally name your router's SSID "ThisIsMyHome", to force disable Wi-Fi sense and Location services, you would have to name it "ThisIsMyHome_optout_nomap" Refference pages: http://www.pcworld.com/article/2951824/windows/how-to-disable-windows-10s-wi-fi-sense-password-sharing.html [Disable Wifi Sense] https://support.google.com/nexus/answer/1725632?hl=en [Disable Google Location Services]

Got a new issue with my Venture today. Well, I guess it's been a week in the making or so. This past week just after one of the many rains when I tried to start her up first thing in the morning, the starter became intermittent. I'd hit the starter button and the headlight and dash lights would turn off as well as I'd hear the audible click of the relay every time. First thought: Did I hit a dead-spot in the starter I just installed last year (replaced a dragging 2-brush with a 4-brush that I got from Skydoc)? Then the starter woke up and did not have any of the telltale drag of a burned brush that the previous starter had. It was at that point I decided I was going to clean and re-secure contacts this weekend as a first step. It did the same one other day that week, wasting the 10 minute lead time I had that morning with trying to get the starter to catch. Fast forward to today where I cleaned the contacts (found the retaining bolt on the ground screw was loose) and tightened down the bolts. Went up, turned on all the switches, had her up on the center stand, clicked the starter once, and then that thing decided that it was going to power the bike from then on. I hit the stop switch, turned off the key, pulled what I thought was the main fuse (upon closer inspection of the wiring traces... it wasn't) and nothing would stop that thing from trying to crank the engine. I seriously think it'd try to power the venture down the driveway if I let it. Well, the only way I could get the starter to die was pulling the negative lead off the battery terminal. For now, I've left it this way as what was going to be a single 5 minute job inevitably turned into another 3 hour round of hunt the gremlin; a game I have too many other projects to have time for... Before I let it get that far, I'm hoping that one of y'all would have a critical piece of insight that would save me a ton of time: I'd like to know, where are the starter relay and/or solenoid mounted so I can go straight to them and verify if they are burned out or otherwise damaged. Or, there's the other possibility that I am completely barking up the wrong tree with this path of attack and the gentle guidance of my more experienced betters would be greatly appreciated before I put time into yet another project that will be a herring marked with red.

Great news! She's buttoned up and in the clear. They're waking her up in the OR and then they'll move her into recovery. The next update will most likely be coming from her directly.

Thanks for the best wishes. So far so good. They're about halfway through her surgery now, and they said it'd be about another hour to hour and a half.

Hey All, This is a running thread about the condition of GAWildkat as she goes through her adventures in Gastric Bypass. We got here about 7:30 and they performed all the standard pre-op stuff they do up here. She was just taken back to the OR at 10:50 and I'm told that it'll be about two and a half hours for her to be done. So...next step in the waiting game.

Well, I changed out the main fuse, but now there's a new problem. When I hit the start button it starts making a nose like "clug clug clug clug clug" and if I turn the handle it seems to scream out "mmooOOOOOOOVVVVvvvve.... MOOOOOOOOOOOVVVvvve!" In all seriousness, he's running great and I'm about to take it out for the first time in a month to refuel and make sure nothing shakes loose before I come back and pick up gawildkat for her belated birthday ride

I think you misunderstood, Condor. I've got no power anywhere on the bike, except for aux lights. The bike behaves as if the ignition key is in the off positron at all times. The CLASS does not activate in the acc position, and none of the lights will come on in the run position. Cb and radio will not turn on or operate, and the starter will not click no matter what the switches are set to. Switches tested include kickstand, brakes (front and rear), clutch, neutral, high/low beam, start/kill, starter button, cruise controls, turn indicators, and hazards. Nothing is working.

Tested all of that when the engine went down with all the electronics. None of the switches brought the electronics back to life, and starter would not kick over whatever position any of the switches were in. Battery Ground is good. I get 12.3 volts reading from positive term to the frame. All the additional accessory electronics installed by PO that weren't wired through the central block or ignition accessory switch, such as the Cigarette Lighter, auxiliary lights and accessory circuit for GPS/Radar Detector, also still work. Also the battery was tested under load and gave a read of 515 CCA, which is enough to turn over my Caprice or Traverse without a problem (I wouldn't actually do that ), though I wouldn't trust it on the Van. Haven't tried the main fuse yet, positive cable routes back under the fairing where I can't reach it easily. Going to try that tomorrow when there's more light. PO has done the box upgrade so I have all bladed fuses there. All of those fuses tested good, and I've reseat every one of those. Battery Cables are clean and as tight as the driver can get them without rounding off the corners. I also just confirmed that the CLASS system will not come on when the ignition is in the Acc position.

I'll try that next. One note, after the complete "death," I did try hooking it up to an external battery jumper pack that is capable of turning over my van with a 350 v8, and got a read of 12.68 to the frame. Still couldn't wake the bike from the dead though.

I finally got all the parts together to get the exhaust system assembled (too long to wait for 2 copper gaskets), put everything together, did a 30 second test, fixed the front headers back in their seat, did another 30 second test, got a small leak where the #1 header pipe meets the header...adapter? Nothing major, probably need a new gasket there too since both sections of pipe look in great condition. Got all the plastic back on the bike, did an electrical test to make sure the lights were all working, did another crank just to see if it was ready to be taken off its center stand and off on a test drive / refuel after being down a month. It cranked up and ran for 3/4 of a second...and then the whole thing went dead. No Dash, No headlights, no tail lights, no signals, no vroom. Not a thing. Tested the battery: 12.28 volts across the posts, tested all the fuses, Short circuit tone on every one from fuse post to fuse post(this is a good thing in this case). Switched on the aux lights that are wired to battery and they were nice and bright. Finally at the suggestion of Wes0778, I verified that there's voltage from positive terminal to Frame, 12.31 volts. My first inclination is that this is an ignition switch issue. My wife thought it may be the stator, but would that cause all electrical to go out in an instant or would that be more of a thing where the engine would run until the battery had no more juice to give? Please someone let me know where to go from here because I'm stumped with what to test for next and I'm none too happy that it looks like another 2 weeks at a minimum before I can get to riding SaberWIng again. This after being already a month without it, and a new problem cropping up in the same instant a bear of a project came to fruition. Needless to say...none too happy right now . Any help would be greatly appreciated!