Greetings, kids. Here I am enjoying another fine evening. The weather has been spectacular border lining on magnificent! The sky is that clear cerulean that appears in the automn and the temperatures have been in the high teens to low twenties Celsius (high 60s to low 70s F). We are expecting more like this over the next week. Gotta love it.

Yesterday I went to US-1376 Little Buffalo State Park and set up at the boat launch as I usually do. I sat and watched the sun sparkling on the water and listened to Northern Cardinals and American Robins having a last go at the good weather. The 40 M band was hopping and I made 28 contacts in less than 1/2 hour. I even had a couple from Illinois which is sorta rare for the time of day on 40. I am not complaining, mind you. SWMBO was not feeling it so she stayed at home and sent me off with her blessing. She did, however, help me transfer my paper log to the POTA app when I got home, so there is that. 🙂

Today, SWMBO and I went to some thrift shops in Chambersburg PA, about a 45-minute drive. She was looking for things that interested her such as DVDs and the like. I was looking primarily for Christmas lights. Specifically, light strings to use for making a dipole. I would like to make a resonant dipole for 80 M. I have a multi-band one that will tune on 80 but I would prefer one dedicated one. Some people might look down on the lowly dipole but they are easy to make, simple to tune and easy to deploy. The only drawback is the needed area. An 80 M dipole cut for 3.750 MHz (the center of the band) is about 125 ft overall (38 meters) which can take up less room if you set it up as an inverted Vee. Dipole construction can be looked up at: https://www.arrl.org/single-band-dipoles. I am also including below a diagram of a dipole from the ARRL.

Well, time to relax. I need more coffee and there are a couple of nets coming up tonight that I want to participate in. Namaste, everybody, and have the type of day that you truly deserve. 🙂