First Official F Class match

On Apr 26th, 2014, I attended my first official F-Class match at the Plantation range in Bellingham WA. It was a mid-range prone match at 300 yards. Before this, I had attended a practice 600 yard F-Class shoot  at the Spokane Rifle Club.

I reached the range at around 7:30 AM and it was drizzling slightly but the air was calm. I registered for the match as an unclassified F-T/R shooter. By that time other participants had started showing up. I was assigned position number 6 on the line. Soon enough, the line was crowded with about 30 shooters and their equipment. Shooters was divided into 3 groups of relays and I fell into relay 1. Other people shooting at my position were David and Beverly. Beverly got the pit duty first and David got to scoring.

There were a lot of high power shooters and I was surprised to see many young boys and girls.

At 9, the first match started. The wind was quite calm although I could see one of the three flags picking up some wind intermittently. Before the first match, everybody was allowed 5 minutes for unlimited sighters. I shot about 7 rounds before I was hitting the X.

Now the X at 300 yards for F-Class is a 1.5 inch diameter ring. That makes it a 1/2 MOA target. Considerably bigger than the Benchrest targets but smaller than the high power targets.

I was shooting a Savage F-T/R rifle in .308 Win with a 30" heavy barrel. I had added a Karsten adjustable cheek rest and a lightweight ski bipod called the 'MPOD'. For a shooting mat, I was using a drag bag with tarp underneath it. I had to put a couple of mats under the bipod to elevate it enough so I get on the target. The reason for this elevation was that I had a high rear bag (Protektor - Deluxe Bumble bee).

For the ammunition, I used Norma brass, Winchester large rifle primers and Hornady A-Max 155 grain bullets with 46.0 grains of powder behind it. The neck tension was approximately .002 and the necks were not turned. This combination gives me a velocity of 3030 fps with my 30" barrel.

I shot the first match with enough X's but also enough 9s and got a score of 193-6X.

After that it was my turn for next 3 strings of fire to do the pit service. By that time, it was raining quite a bit and I ended up being very cold and wet in the pits.

I came back and looked at the scores and my heart sank. Almost everybody had better scores than I. Thats when I realized that this is no ordinary crowd. And this was just the beginning of that realization.

My next 2 strings went 193-7X and 197-8X. Wind had picked up during the fourth string two of my shots landed on the 8 ring and I only managed to shoot a 188-3X ending up with a final score of 771-24X.

Almost everybody including the high power shooters shot considerably better (200-54X !!) than I and it was a very humbling experience.

Later talking to Stefan Issacs and looking up information on the other shooters, I came to realize that most of my competition was either US or Canadian current or former Palma team members. Some hold national records and some are junior national champions.

Who knew AC/DC were so right when they said "It's a long way to the top (if you wanna rock 'n' roll).

Objective 2 Headphone Amplifier

As I write this, I am listening to 'Brothers in Arms' using my AKG Q701 headphones along with a newly built Objective 2 Amp. nwavguy (nwavguy.blogspot.com) is the one who designed this amp.

It took a while for me to get this built. I totally screwed it up the first time I tried the board assembly. The mistake was soldering a voltage regulator in the wrong orientation. Trying to remove the component and then fix the board ultimately resulted in a total PCB destruction and a lot of frustration. After ordering a new PCB and all the components once again, I started on this and this time it was completed without a hitch. Total build time was close to 5 hours. Here are some pictures:

Partially-populated board:

Completed- Front view

Comparison with iPhone

With AKG Q701s

CMoyBB by JDSLabs Completed

Phew... I finally completed my first DIY circuit that was also my first DIY headphone amp... a CMoy (specifically the CMoy with Base Boost by JDSLabs). The soldering was done in about 2 hours but getting the enclosure right took 3 days, 2 broken altoids boxes, 2 broken hole punches, a burnt dremel drill bit and a couple of more tools. But its all done now, and I am enjoying pure audio bliss. It totally drives AKG Q701s without a hiccup.

Some pictures...

AKG Q701

I just received my new shiny AKG Q701 headphones (Lime-Green). And initial tests with my macbook pro were very underwhelming. While they sound good and crystal clear, they aren't even close to what they sounded in Magnolia Audio Video?

To be truthful, I almost expected them to disappoint me when tried with a MBP. I am going to try these with my AV receiver next but I think I am eventually going to need a dedicated amp to power these.

There is no end of the search for perfect audio :-)

Headphone craze

I have always been interested in Music and audio and I truly appreciate any instrument that can reproduce a good recording, be it speakers, amp, receivers etc. I also realized that one can go nuts on trying to achieve the perfect sound and that the 'law of diminishing returns' do exists.

Since last couple of months, I have been going crazy over high-end headphones. It all started in October 2011 just before leaving for India. I started thinking of ways to cope with the long flight and then the idea of a nice pair of headphones started taking shape.

When I reached the airport, the first thing I did was buy a pair of AKG K518LE which sounded very good. I tried a bunch of IEMs as well (shure, westone) but they sounded so thin and treble heavy and I am not even a bass-head. Much later would I find out that probably they didn't fit properly in my ears and that was what was causing the lack of bass.

Now, before I bought AKG 518LE headphones, I had not read any reviews on them or even knew they existed. In fact, I didn't have much clue about AKG. I found that these headphones sounded better than any other that I owned till that point. Bass was adequate and everything sounded crystal clear even in the flight. Sound isolation was very good.

However, these headphones were very uncomfortable. I have a large head and these headphone would clamp on my ears like a vise and get very hot.

Anyway, my search for headphones continues while in India. I kept reading various reviews and then finally everything boiled down to Ultimate Ears 700 and Jays Q-Jays. Both had similar specs (Dual balanced armatures). Jays was way more expensive then the UE 700 ones so I thought I'll buy the UE 700 and thats what I did.

The issue was that I was in India and UE was going to be delivered to my US address. So, I went out and bought another pair of earbuds in India, Klipsch S4 (white). That was a very good buy, I think. The Klipsch S4 are true value for money. They sound excellent and are priced quite cheap compared to other headphones in the market.

Of course, UE 700s have a different sound signature and with the comply foam tips, I found that UE 700s are definitely a level above the Klipsch, not to say that they are much smaller.

Before all this started, I had a pair of Apple earbuds that came with my iPhone, a Sony MDR-CX280 (INR 1800 in 2002) and my wife own a Sony MDR-XD200 (INR 1750 in 2005). I had just added 3 more headphones to this collection within a span of 3 months.

It ends here... NOT !

I think I was very satisfied with UE 700s. However, I revisited the old Sony headphones that I have had for many years.

The problem was that now I had an experience of a very good pair of headphones. These Sony headphones sound good, but they don't even come close to the AKGs or the UE and not even the Klipsch.

So, now I wanted a pair of full sized headphones for home. As I began my research, I started reading more and more about headphone amplifiers and why they are needed for certain headphones. I was almost convinced that I needs an amp and a DAC before I came across NwAvGuy's blog. What an eye-opener it was.

I knew for a fact, that I can tell between a bad sound and a good sound. I can also tell if a certain reproduction is bass heavy, muddy or very treble focussed. However, I can't tell the difference between a 256 kbps and a 320 kbps audio file played on the same earbuds/headphones.

Maybe I was getting sucked into the audiophile craze that has become a sub-culture.

In any case, I kept researching on the headphones and one day I found out AKG Q701. Now, they are expensive and I deliberated on them for a long time before I went out to Magnolia AV and tried them out along with a pair of Sennheiser 598. Those headphones just blew my mind.

If you have never had a chance to hear these, do yourself a favor and go to your local AV shop and try them on. It was like sitting in a large room with some musicians playing in front of you. You can hear the bending and release of acoustic guitar strings and the fingers sliding.

And I like to hear that.

AKG Q701. I ordered them after 3 days. And they are arriving today.

Coming back to the research on Amps that I was doing; when I was listening to AKG Q701 in Magnolia, I looked at some of their instrumentation and they have serious hi-fidility systems on which they let you hook up the headphones. I am yet to hear the AKGs at home, but I think I was sold on the fact that I need to try out the headphones I own with a headphone amplifier.

Headphone amplifiers are very interesting gadgets. There is an entire sub-culture of DIY guys who just build their own amplifiers. One of the reasons is cost. Another reason is the DIY satisfaction.

So, I thought I'll also build what has been built over and over again, a CMoy amplifier. I bought the cheapest soldering station and multimeter etc. that I could find so that the cost of building the amp doesn't go too high. Instead of a protoboard, I chose the PCB from JDSLabs (www.jdslabs.com). I ordered the parts from Mouser and JDSLabs and they are yet to arrive.

I'll post further updates on how the CMoy project goes. If it is successful, I think I am going to try and build a desktop version of the Objective 2 amp ( http://nwavguy.blogspot.com/2011/07/o2-headphone-amp.html).

4767 miles on road

-Seattle
- North Cascades National Park, Washington
- Spokane, Washington
- Glacier National Park, Montana
- Great Falls, Montana
- Yellowstone National Park, WY
- Grand Teton National Park, WY
- Longmont, CO
- Mesa Verde National Park, CO
- Durango, CO
- Page, AZ
- Grand Canyon National Park, AZ
- Las Vegas, NV
- San Francisco/Berkeley, CA
- Seattle

Time taken: 16 days

Printouts of route, maps etc were taken, we loaded the camping gear we picked up from Ron and we were ready to go on our first true adventure on 24th August, 2007.

The start was unexpectedly bad. We had a rift in the morning and the traffic on I-5 North on a Friday afternoon was unbelievably horrible. Anyway, we slowly moved along with the traffic and finally were on I-20. I took over driving and it was pretty smooth from here on till we reached NewHalem campgrounds in North Cascades National Park. This was our first time setting up a camp but it was a very simple process and soon our tent was up and we were set. The plan was to trek in North Cascades the next day and then move to Spokane where I had to pick up my car from Ron's place.
Next day, as planned, we did a 2-3 miles long hike among cedar trees and got some very interesting information about the forest. Of course those trees ignited the adventurer spirit in Shilpa and she managed to climb a couple of them.


"Shilpa crazed out"

We started for Spokane a little after noon and I knew that we had to cover a long distance. We stopped at Diablo and I spotted a small island


"My Dream Island"

which I thought I could buy on down payment. Well maybe not, but what have I got to lose being ambitious. Right ?

We reached Winthrop and had lunch there. Its a very interesting town although you can figure out at the first glance that the cowboy town image is there to attract tourists only. On the other hand, I found that Republic is a genuine old cowboy town. We felt truly alien there.


"Feeling western"

We made a stop at Colville to load food etc. in the cooler and then moved to Spokane. It was around 11:00 in the night by the time we reached Ron's house. We had a nice dinner that night and slept promptly for I wanted to move early next morning.

We managed to leave by 9 AM next morning for Glacier National Park. Shilpa drove this time and managed to miss an exit and after about 20 minutes or so we figured that we aren't on highway 2 but instead on Idaho-200. Anyway, that why we had an atlas. We found a 50 mile long road called 56 which would put us back on highway 2.
I have to say that this was one of the best roads in the whole trip. It was a pleasure to drive with almost nobody on the road :-)

Soon we were in Montana and this was the first time we had crossed a timezone on Road !

We pushed on. This was a long drive till Glacier National Park and we had lost an hour because of timezone change but we managed it partly because I found that in Montana it is very difficult to drive a car slowly and I gave up trying to remain below speed limits :-). That was also the first time I drove at 100 mph.

We found a camping spot and set up our tent before dark. Unfortunately, Montana had a statewide ban for lighting camp fires so our hopes for grilling hot dogs were left in vain and we had to again eat burgers which Shilpa was already getting tired of.


"No fire, no hotdogs, just wine"

Glacier mountains were very different from the North Cascades range. They really look very grand and almost impossible to climb.



"Glacier"

We did a 3 mile long hike from Avalanche Creek.


"Avalanche Creek"

Some people on a trek had seen a bear few minutes before we reached that point but all we managed to see was a deer eager to be photographed.



After the trek we drove on what is known as "Going to the sun" highway which probably got its name because it is relatively closer to the sun. Well, jokes aside, it was one of the most dangerous roads we drove in our trip and it made me nervous enough to want to reach the pass ASAP. We reached Logan pass and could see many peaks from a closer distance this time.


"Peaks at Logan Pass"

After that we just had to exit Glacier from its east gate and I kept driving across Montana and since the state has more cows on roads than Cops, it helped us reach Great Falls in time.


"Mom, look ! There's nobody on the road !"

We managed to find a cheap but decent motel there and a Papa John's pizza place and within no time we crashed.

Next morning was our journey towards what I would come to know as one of the most interesting but not-so-beautiful places on the planet. Yellowstone national park. The journey to Yellowstone was fast as other times. We stopped at Livingston for a Car wash and when we were done with it, it looked such a beauty ! Truly worth every penny spent on it.

Little did I know that beauty seldom lasts for long.

We reached Yellowstone and for the first time I saw a national park really crowded. It was very hot too. There were lots of Elks roaming near the Visitor center.


"Good times !"

We did a small trek to Mammoth Hot Springs and for the first time I realized what is so special about Yellowstone. Most of the park is a volcano!

We reached our campsite and this time we managed to light a fire. Shilpa found a new game and was very happy playing with Fire. She has a nag for discovering new ways to make me nervous about her. Anyway, we grilled some sausages and had a couple of hot dogs each (with Mayo & Mustard).


"Hot dogs"

It was very cold that night and the sleeping bags didn't really help.

Next day we planned to explore north of Yellowstone. The highlights of the day were Grand Canyon of Yellowstone, Mud Volcanoes and Bisons crossing the road in front of us. We had to camp in southern Yellowstone this night and it was again very cold here.

Next day we explored the rest of Yellowstone which basically meant that we wanted to see some Geysers (I call them geezers). And man we were lucky. We saw 4 geyser explosions which is something most people aren't able to see in one single day.


"Castle Geyser. This one went on for more than 30 minutes !"

By evening we reached Grand Teton and I was in for a surprise. The atmosphere feels so clean in this national park and has a bluish hue to it. This mountain range is truly beautiful.


"Grand Teton range"

Grand Teton is a small park and most of it is about various interesting drives so we did all that and then moved towards what was the going to be the longest stretch (so far). Longmont, Colorado. To make things worse, the restaurant delayed our lunch order by approx. 1 hour and it started raining.

That's when I realized, all the effort we had put in to Wash the car went to waste in just 2 minutes.

Anyway, I started driving. And kept driving till we crossed all the small cities along highway 26.
Shilpa took over till dark and then I drove again. It had got really dark and we were trying to make it by 11 in the night to Shilpa's friend's place. It seemed impossible to do that with a speed limit of 75 mph. So I pressed the gas pedal hard and we finally reached Longmont at around 11:30 in the night.

Shilpa's friend Anjali and her husband Ravi were both interesting people and me and Ravi hit it off well partly because of our affinity towards good beer. I promptly declared that I won't drive till I am in Colorado and they gladly agreed to show us around.

Next day, we went to Rocky mountain national park and walked around a lake like cute old couples.
By then me and Ravi were already thinking about beer although I am not sure if Anjali was too happy about it. She was a good sport though. We went to Boulder for dinner where I also bought 2 interesting T-shirts.


"Ravi, Anjali and Shilpa"

We came back in the night and we left next morning at 8:30 for Arches National Park.
However, after about 4 hours Shilpa suggested that we probably should skip Arches and go to Mesa Verde instead. It was an excellent suggestion although I was not so happy about skipping Arches. I got good sense in time and understood her point and we reached Orray around 6:00 or so in the evening.

From here, we had to take what is known as the Million Dollar highway. It was a 74 mile long, very curvy road which went upto around 12000 feet and ended in Durango. That scenery was very nice but the road did manage to tire me.


"Million Dollar Highway"

Once again we somehow managed to find a cheap motel in Durango and stayed put.

Next day we reached Mesa Verde. It showed some very interesting cliff dwellings where people lived from 400 A.D. to 1200 A.D. It would have been a very difficult life. I was wondering where they got their water from. Never got a satisfactory answer though.


"Cliff Dwellings"

We left from Mesa Verde around 2:30 PM and the exit was delayed because an RV had blocked the traffic (a train of 12 vehicles behind it) and it didn't budge for next 40 miles. And unfortunately nobody managed to pass the RV.

Our next destination was 4 corners where me and Shilpa got some photographs and went to Page in Arizona.


"Four Corners - Utah, Arozona, Colorado and New Mexico meet here"

We reached Page around 7:30 or so and found a private campground.
So far, we were oblivious to the fact that we have gained one hour again after entering Arizona. And next morning when we reached Antelope Slot Canyon at 8:00 AM and it didn't open till 9:00, I had already started saying that it looks like people in Arizona delay everything by 1 hour :-)





"Antelope Canyon"

Not until when my watch showed 3:30 PM that day (or 2:30 PM actual time), did we realize that we have been foolish since morning. We had gained one hour.
It reminded me of the climax in "Around the world in 80 days".

We were in Grand Canyon now and one glance at Grand Canyon says it all. I cannot describe it here. I cannot even say if it was beautiful or simply grand. The word "grand" seems too small for it. 277 miles long. Thats approximately the distance from Seattle to Spokane or (Delhi to Kanpur).

Even so, it cannot be called a monstrosity. It is so calm. It is frightening. Yet there is something about it that makes you keep looking at it without blinking an eye.





We were in the South Rim and kept driving along it stopping at all view points and finally reached the Grand Canyon village from where we planned to reach Hopi point before 6:52 PM or the sunset time. It was easy since there are shuttles every 10-15 minutes to take people there.

It was difficult to capture sunset and I am a bad photographer myself. Someday I'll learn how to stop using the "auto" mode of my camera and handle a longer exposure in dark.

This was the end of national parks for us and from now we had to venture into big cities.

Next destination was The Sin city and we planned to reach there in night. I drove from Grand Canyon to Las Vegas stopping only twice. Once to get gas and second to get some coffee.

Las Vegas was everything I had heard about it and more. After driving for 5 hours in dark, its a welcome surprise when you approach the city. I had never seen a city lighted like that.


"Las Vegas Blvd. aka 'The Strip'"

I forgot that I had to sleep. The first hotel we found was Stratosphere and we checked in there, took showers and then came out at around 4 AM in the morning to see casinos. We had underestimated the scale though.


"Stratosphere"

We planned to walk from Stratosphere to MGM grand and after walking for 30 minutes we could only reach Circus Circus. We postponed the idea till next day and instead had breakfast in Circus Circus, took a cab ride back to our hotel and slept.

Next day, after getting up we went to the rides in stratosphere and after 2 of those, my hands and knees were shaking, my heart pounding and I knew that I am never going on those rides again.


"This is insanity"

We found a $5 blackjack table and after 30 minutes or so I was down by $30, Shilpa had learnt how to play blackjack and we both had one $5 chip each left with us. I lost that one too. Shilpa kept playing and call it beginner's luck, she left the table with 60 bucks. That was 20 up from what I started.
I again lost 60 in MGM grand and there was Shilpa again for rescue. She left the table with 100. And finally we were in a no gain-no loss position which is an achievement in Las Vegas.



"Newyork Newyork"


"Look at the Margarita I am holding"

Needless to say, all this did make her not wanting to leave the city :-)


"Observation deck in Stratosphere"



"MGM Grand"

Anyway, we had to come back to Seattle so next morning we again started towards San Francisco. Driving this stretch was kind of difficult because of 2 reasons. It is really windy and there are too many trucks on the route.
After driving for about 11 hours, we reached Berkeley where I met Apoorva in the International House of University of California and Berkeley. We couldn't find a hotel in Berkeley so we came back to San Francisco at around 2 AM and finally found a hotel which was a little too expensive for my taste but I reminded myself that this is a result of Californication.

We spent next day doing the tourist activities in SFO viz. taking the cable car, going to Fisherman's Wharf, Chinatown and Golden Gate Bridge etc.


"Golden Gate bridge"

We drove to Berkeley again to see Apoorva in the night.

San Francisco to Seattle was one long drive. It took us approximately 26 hours from the time we left SFO to reach Seattle.

16 days passed quickly though. We could only get a glimpse of a lifestyle which most people dream of but few ever achieve.