This is a little late but Cat 5 cable has four pair of wire inside.  Ethernet only uses two pair.  You CAN run two Eithernet connectons inside the one cable but you have to do some custom wiring.  If you have the RJ45 ends and a crimp tool you can do it.    This is NOT the recommended method but it works perfectly.  

I'd go with the hub or switch upstairs unless you just can't for some reason

You can buy a converter for about $2.  I doubt you could buy the parts to make your own for that price.

Google found this
http://www.techadvice.com/help/Products/K/keyboard-adapters.asp

Python and SDR.  Look at "GNU Radio".  They use Python.

GNU Radio is made up of "blocks" these are written in C++ but the main program the one that strings all the blocks together is in python.
http://www.gnu.org/software/gnuradio/doc/exploring-gnuradio.html

Sorry I don't know anything about notepad and dos windows. I hardy ever use MS Windows.  But I'd guess you could save what you have in Notepad to a file and from there do whatever you want.

If you are going to use plastic plumbing pipe.  Use ABS.  That is the black waste water pipe.  ABS will last forever outdoors and it is much easier to find in large diameter sizes.  30 feet is "pushing it" for plastic of  any kind

I used steel chainlink fence parts to make a 30 foot tall mast. Fence parts are about the lowest price source of steel tube.

People seem to be thinking only about the frequency response of the mic but I think it's pattern may mater more.  Is it directional or omni?

Why I think ity matters is that your voice may be picked up by the mic but then continue on and reflect off the wall and be picked up again.  This will mix slightly out of phase.  The effect is a bit like a comb filter.  The mic pattern, how close the mic is to the operator and room acoustics all combine.

Now about the fact the the mic has frequency range well outside of the 3KHz that can be transmitted.  true.  But think about reflections,  Some higher pitched component of the voice and a reflection of the dame might combine and alias to a frequency below 3khz.  In radio we call this "intermod" it's where two stations both outside your passband are spaced such that the sum or difference of their frequencies fall inside your passband.  Room acoustics, reflections and mic patterns all work together and I'm sure some of the beat frequencies are in the 3Khz passband.  

That said, I'm sure the effect is subtle at best but may explain why different mics have a different "sound" even when bandpass filtered.

I recently bought an ebay Tek 465.  It's 20 years old and some day maybe it might break.  But these sell at such a low price that you can just buy another one.
I paid $120 for a dual trace 100Mhz scope. You can download the service manual too, the older scopes are actually servicable and use (mostly) generic parts.  Newer scopes use amny custom ICs that you can't buy.

Just make be careful when you buy.  If the seller can't produce a photo of a waveform on the screen assume that's because the scope can't show a waveform.  avoid the sellers who say "I don't know anything about scopes, selling as is"  This means "it's broken"

Scopes seem to come up on ebay in waves.  You will get a better price when many are available.  Wait for a deal and don't over bid.

My 465 works almost as well as new and I paid 1/4 the price of a new 20Mhz scope

A spring or bungee will produce a force that is proportional to the amount of stretch.  So the tension in the wire will depend on how far apart the supports are.  The weight will always put the same amount of tension on the wire no matter how far the wind pushes the supports.  So springs and weights are not interchangeable.  You have to decide if you want a constant tension

I would think you shoud be able to make an adapter plate using some thick steel.  It would have to be designed by someone who actually took an engineering class and knows how to design it for the required stiffness. Don't guess.

The other option is to rent the conc. drill and do the work yourself.  Last time I had to sink some deep hole in conc. I think It was just under $100 for the equipment for one day.  I'd go with oversized holes
so they don't have to by so straight.  

I could have written this same question.  I was learning the code had made some progress then the FCC dropped the requirement and I upgraded with just an easy 35 question test.  Now I want to get back to learning Morse Code  

I spend some time a few days a week in the gym.  I have an iPod.  I'm thinking that I could use the time even more productively if I put something on the ipOd that would help learn code.   Yes I know the computer programs work but I can't use a computer while I'm in the gym, mowing the grass or whatever.

So... What to load into the iPod?  Possibly I can capture the audio from one of the computer programs?

"...I have been trying to talk a friend in the wire business into adding capsicum to wire insulation but I cannot persuade him there's a market for critter resistant wire...."

There IS a market.  But rather than capsicum they mix ground glass in the insulation.  The phone company here uses this for underground feeders.  They call it "gopher wire".  You can handle it without gloves as the glass is fully encapsulated inside the plastic.

I seriously doubt there is a market for "gopher ladder line" not many people bury this kind of wire in the ground

Use a hot glue gun.

It "cures" in five minutes to an inert plastic.  Also the unused plastic glue has an unlimited shelf life.

"I am seriously looking at the Tenma 35MHZ dual trace shope, that is on sale now"

I recently bought a Tektronix 100Mhz dual trace scope for about $115.  There are a lot of these available.  The $115 20 year old Tek scope will outperform any 35Mhz
scope.

One other option on the power supply is to buy a deep cycle battery.  You could even use an old car battery.  Mobile rigs are designed to run off batteries so it will work fine.  But then you need some way to charge the battery but you don't need a 20 amp charger.  A much smaller one will do.

As for an antenna.  It is very esy to make a 2 meter antenna.  More important is what you mount the antenna to and how tall it is.

You can use a simple off/on switch that is temperature controlled but you can do better.  Many computers use a variable speed fan, The reason is to minimize the fan noise.  Using a simple on/off control means that either the fan is dead quiet or it is running at full speed and making a lot of racket.  You'd like to run the fan at a lower than full speed when you can and hope that you may never need to run it at full speed.  A temperature controlled variable speed fan is more complex but we are seeing these used now quite a bit.

People will spend lots of time to get one more db of
noise floor removed from a radio design, or they will buy feed line with low loss but then you add a fan that dumps 27db of acoustic white noise into the room.

If noise is the issue you want the largest diameter slowest turning fan you can find.

The method used on that web site is wrong.  It is not hard to compute a Great Circle path.

First, the definition:  Three points the Earth's center and your two locations define a plane.  This plane "cuts" the earth into two equal parts because it always passes through the Earths center point.  The intersection of the plane and the Earth's surface is the shortest path (and the longest path if you go the other direction.).  The total distance around the circle is the same as the the distance around the Equator.

The route only looks like a curve on flat maps because flat maps must distort the Earth's surface features.  On a globe a Great circle looks like a straight line.  Pull a string as tight as you can between two places on a sphere and it will form a great circle.

How to compute the distance?  Multiply the total circumference  by the fraction of the circumference you would have to travel.