Gotta love the ads you get online: wildforkfoods.com/products/fully-cooked-octopus-tentacles
Antennas
Not quite the Ides
Well, it seems that we are living in interesting times. Folks are sitting on the edges of their seats, drinking in all that they are being told about current events. No matter. The important thing is that band conditions are getting better every day. We are on the upswing of the solar cycle. You can find openings day and night and can always find someone to talk to. I am currently on 17M looking for SKCC and FISTS contacts but will work anyone. There is a sorta zen thing about morse code. The rhythm is relaxing and soothes the spirit. Hearing a reply from a distant station is still thrilling, even with the passage of strange eons. I sit here enjoying my coffee as the remnants of the weather event moves away. It is warm and comfortable and I am thankful for that. My cats are crashed out on the sofa which faces the pellet stove. They are sucking up the heat. My hermit crabs are in the tank behind me and they are moving about, doing hermit crab things. I don’t have to work tonight so I can relax. I think I will leave the radio on for a while to see how many contacts I can make tonight. As I said, the rhythm is soothing. My antennas have lasted the winter in good shape and though Spring is near, don’t need a lot of maintenance. I do need a couple of tree branches cut but that is not critical. I see that I am being spotted on the reflectors and soon someone may be calling me. Again, life is good. TTFN
Veterans Day and other stuff
Hi all. First a shout out to all the vets out there. Thank you for your service.
I would like to change the subject a bit and put in a plug for FISTS, the International Morse Preservation Society. This is a group of ham radio operators dedicated to using Morse Code (CW) on the air. The club promotes fellowship and mentoring. From their webpage:
“FISTS is a well established and recognized CW (Morse Code) organization in the world of amateur radio. Founded in 1987 by Geo Longden, G3ZQS, it now has a world-wide membership in the thousands and growing daily.What FISTS wants to accomplish.
    1. To further the use of CW on the amateur bands.
2. To encourage newcomers to the CW mode.
    3. To engender friendship within the membership.”
Their webpage is http://www.fistsna.org. They hold activities on the air such as sprints and other contests. Best thing of all is there is no dues! You can join online.
Now for something a bit more different, a 1970 film promoting ham radio from the ARRL and posted on Youtube:
Weather and Radio
There is a long association between weather and radio in general and Amateur Radio in particular. When broadcast radio started to become in general use, people began to rely on it for local weather reports. Amateur Radio was also found to be useful for spreading weather reports, not only locally but over long distances. One topic of conversation over the radio has always been the weather. Many QSOs include the local weather. It does go deeper than just chatting, however. Hams are concerned about the weather. If thunderstorms come along, it is bad to have your equipment hooked up in case of a lightening strike. Hail and high winds can take down antennas. Trees can come down during storms and flooding can cause all kinds of havoc.
Amateur Radio operators (hams) have been and still are relied upon to provide back-up communications in emergencies and a lot of emergencies are weather related. Even if a ham cannot get to an area and assist with communications they can still be of value by reporting local conditions. A lot of hams have weather stations in their yard and can report things such as temperatures, pressure changes and precipitation totals to the NWS. There are phone apps that allow you to report (mPing is one example and is free) local conditions. What do you do if your cell service is out? Well there are a lot of clubs out there that hold nets when there is severe weather. You can log into a net on a repeater and report. They usually have a back-up plan in the event that repeaters are down. There are also weather nets on the HF bands where you can report conditions. A lot of options exist.
At the extreme end, there are hams who go out spotting bad storms such as tornados. anyway, here is a list of some resources to use if you want to get into weather reporting or learn more about the weather:
http://www.weather.gov is the National Weather Service website
https://www.weather.gov/SKYWARN This is the official NWS Skywarn page
https://www.weather.gov/skywarn/wfo_links This is a link to find local spotter classes in your area
https://www.meted.ucar.edu/education_training/course/23 This is a link to online spotter training
https://www.skywarn.org/local-groups/ And finally a link to locate groups in your area.
I hope this has been useful information to someone out there. 🙂
Another day
A nice day here in Pencilvania. We were out and about doing some shopping earlier and then when we got home, we burned some trash and I got Satan’s Putting Green under control. I was even nice enough to sweep the grass cuttings off of the road. 🙂 I refer to my lawn as Satan’s Putting Green as it isn’t really lawn. It is more pasture that over grows easily with the wrong kind of grass and other plants. I do have a lot of purslane and millefoil, so it isn’t all that bad. I also have ground ivy which can be used for bittering beer.
Now I am drinking coffee, relaxing and trying to make contacts on my radio. Hmmm … no wonder I am not even getting spotted. I just checked the MUF prediction for this area and I am well above the Maximum Useable Frequency for the bands today. I have been calling on 24.910 MHz and getting no response. Time to tune to a different band. Ok. Now I am on 10.118 MHz. 30 Meters is a good all around band. I will try here. My signal should get out. That is one nice thing about being an Amateur Extra and using CW … you can use any Amateur Radio band. I have even, on occasion, invaded the SSB (voice) portions of bands like 80M and 160M. I am not obnoxious about it. I do listen first for a clear frequency. I just got spotted by a station from Portugal. My signal is travelling. I think one reason that I am not getting anyone is that there are some contests going on. Since 30M is not a contest band, there might be few people here. Oh well, it is all part of the fun. The antenna I am using is my homemade dipole. Dipoles are easy to make and work very well. They can also bee difficult for people to see which is a good thing. There. I worked a station down in Florida. Well closing this for now. Almost time to go on recon.
Relaxing how?
Had a good day and now it is time to relax and play on my radio.
Frist thing this morning we went to breakfast at a local restaurant. We then took my mother in law down to a Walmart and then to a food store. That is always an interesting experience. After we came back I fired up the weedwacker and brought Hell’s Half Acre back under control. I have been without a weedwacker for a few weeks as my old one shit the bed. I tried to have it fixed but no luck. I ended up getting a new one. My pole saw fits on it so first I cut down some lilacs that had been killed by a huge wild grape. Once I got that done, I did the weed trimming. It does take a bit out of a person.
Now I am on the radio calling CQ. I just worked a gent from Oklahoma and and trying to see if anyone else can hear me. I am on the 30 Meter band at 10.121 MHz. This is the band I built the antenna for the other day. If I don’t get anyone to reply soon I will change frequencies and try the 40 Meter band. I have found 40 M is a good all day band. I can always find someone on there. I just moved to 7.113 MHz. This is in the old novice portion of the band but I have found it to be a good area to use. Sometimes it is very relaxing to just tune through the bands listening to any signals I might hear. I am seeing spots … not if front of my eyes, but I am being “spotted” by folks who enter it into a database online where you can look and see who is on. I use a couple: reverse beacon network and cw club rbn spotter. Sometimes I use the DX Summit webpage, too. It is a good place to find special event stations.
Well back to relaxing!
A weekend of Antenna fun!
Well we had a productive weekend, antenna-wise. First of all we moved my Fan Dipole up. We connected the center to a pulley on the tower and brought it up about 15 feet from its last position. Since nothing is ever simple, this also involved moving the legs to different positions and discovering which tree branches I had to maneuver around. It was further a matter of pushing my way through thick wild roses and blackberry canes and avoiding stepping on a luna moth caterpillar. Finally got that done and then relaxed for a bit. Today I built a 30 Meter dipole which is working great. I have this set up as a sloper coming down from my tower. I tested it and was able to work stations. This is a good thing.
Cross my heart: a short bit about cross band operations
So into it again. I would like to talk a bit about cross band operations. Basically, this is a feature in a lot of mobile rigs which allows you to extend the range of your hand held unit. You set up a mobile or fixed station to take an incoming signal on one frequency and re transmit the signal on another frequency. Here is an example: you are performing communications for a public event and you cannot reach a repeater with your HT. Your radio in your car, on the other hand, can easily communicate with the repeater of your choice. If the rig is capable, you can set it up for cross band. You would transmit on a simplex frequency on your HT and the mobile rig would take that signal and re transmit it on the input frequency of the repeater. When the repeater transmits, your mobile rig would re transmit that signal onto the simplex frequency that your HT is set on. This allows you to be away from your car if needed and still be in communication with the people you need to talk to (usually a command center or net control station). One thing they caution you about is not to cross band two repeaters as this would cause a loop which could lock up all radios involved. Not cool and potentially harmful to to all radios involved. You should also be aware that your radio doing the cross band is operating at 100% duty cycle and could over heat if not given a rest now and then.
After a short pause …
Well it has been 4 days since my last entry. I am glad I am not on any schedule. I worked this weekend and just did not have the time/energy to write anything.
Have you ever done something that is totally futile, knowing the futility and you do it just ’cause? I am doing that now. I am calling CQ on the 12 Meter band and it is not likely I will get a reply, though you never know. I will probably switch to another band in a few but for now I am enjoying the rhythm of sending CW. If there is only dead air out there, so be it. I can always move. I guess it is a lazy sort of attitude, though I call it relaxing. No response yet but that gave me time to do my daily weather recording. I keep records of the weather every day in a composition book. There is no purpose to it, just a thing to do. Sometimes doing something for no reason can be fun.
Time to switch bands. I wasn’t even getting spotted on any of the online spotting groups. There are sites online where people can post the frequency you are working and your call sign so that other hams can look for you and try to work you. The internet has made ham radio a lot easier. It used to be you would have to tune up and down the bands looking for signals. Now you can see who is where. I dislike crowds and that is why I avoid 20 Meters as it can get crowded. I do use it occasionally for working special event stations, though. Right now I am on 17 Meters using my christmas light dipole. I will soon be replacing it with a 30 meter dipole. I now have the pullys on the tower to handle it. I will also be raising my multiband dipole to see if It works better at a higher level.
Oh, if this reads like a journal, oh well. I make no apologies. Besides, very few peoples read this. 🙂
A day that will live in …
What a day! My friend Don got here on time, unlike the satellite tech who called and said he couldn’t make it and I had to reschedule. This is the second time. The first appointment was in June and we sat here waiting from noon until 15:45 (the scheduled maintenance window was noon to 16:00) when a robot called and informed us we just wasted 4 hours because they could not make it today. I called the company and was able to get an appointment for today. Now my appointment is on Tuesday from 08:00 until Noon. Yes, that is annoying. The work on the antenna went smoothly and we took Don to breakfast. After that I attempted to unplug a drain. Note the word “attempted”. I finally broke down and started calling around for a plumber. Several in the area told me that they are swamped. I finally got one to claim they are coming tomorrow morning. Keeping my fingers finged. So I tried out my radio that is attached to the new antenna and things seem to be working well. Now I can relax a bit.
Nature, Radio, and Me 