I bet it’s just off-gassing the spine glue or cover coating or ink. Set them someplace outside but shaded and out of the elements for a few days.
Definitely keep them inside during the night, though, or even in the evening - the nighttime humidity can easily cause the pages to become wavy.
Off topic - you reading through that for business or pleasure?
I’ve been dicking about with local VHF projects and I’m hoping to get my mitts on some HF gear soon to chat bollocks with people further away.
Pleasure. There are a few things I want to better understand within the radio space.
Talking over the air is not one if the things that interests me, but maybe some digital stuff could be fun. I need the time buffer built into text to collect my thoughts and find my voice through chronic pain issues.
I would like to play around with antennae designs, acquire a better understanding of magnetics, build some discrete circuits, gain a fundamental understanding of the various active filter topologies, and several other little details.
The recent solder smoke challenge 40m receiver was the first time I saw a diode mixer and really understood the theoretical framework of frequency division outside of LSI logic, like 4000 or 7400 series chips. Potatosemi makes such GHz capable logic, but doesn’t scratch the surface of the realm of the nude bearded virgin wizards and witches of radio.
The superheterodyne stuff never made sense to me, or diode mixers, and most circuit blocks in radio. I built a little Manhattan style Colpitts oscillator that A2AEW shared on YT ages ago, that I use for testing crystals. I learned enough about guitar amps and effects that I understand most buffers and amplifiers, both discrete and op amp based. And I can at least identify that an op amp is configured as an active filter. I recently discovered discrete SAW filters.
I had several in my miscellaneous crystals junk drawer, but did not know what they were. Now I really want to understand how those work and how to make one. There is definitely a gap between my knowledge of active filters and how these little devices work.
It will probably never happen, but I find cavity resonators fascinating too. Building components stuff out of traces and empty space is some Jedi voodoo shit that tingles both my inner illogical miser… “(just beg borrow or steal a $20k network analyser…)”, and primal shamanistic dogma “(try and grow a beard… it will be better this time…)”. So yeah, mostly introverted stuff. It is probably about like me and car stuff. I’d rather paint and build motors than actually drive the thing stupid fast. Right now I’m in a really good spot to try receiving stuff over the Pacific too.
Brilliant dude. I’m the other side of the same coin - I’m not really interested in the application of the tech - but I got licensed just for a laugh to learn about how it all worked.
My interest doesn’t lie in the manufacturing or physical infrastructure, more the signal theory and ionospheric interactions for over-the-horizon communications. I just find that a bit of wire with a bit of power can send messages worldwide fascinating.
Maybe put them in front of a fan for a couple of days. I’d put a heavy book on top to keep them from getting wet hat “wind swept” look.
Huff enough rosin flux and you won’t mind the smell anymore.
jk the smell will probably go away on its own as the book airs out
Could be the gloss coat on the cover, spray a rag with Lysol or something similar and wipe them down.
If it’s INSIDE the books too, all you can do is fan them and air them out.
