General Radio History

I Got Some ‘Splainin To Do

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Ok, I guess my posts have been somewhat obfuscating and confusing to folks who are not familiar with ham radio and/or with my sense of humor, so I am going to strive to clarify a few things. 

First off, the owls. No owls have been harmed in the writing of this blog.  I like to take one of my owl decoys along with me when I am doing an activation as a sort of mascot/decoration. I have 3 owl decoys: Zarathustra, Tootsie and Ptolomey. I also have a plastic flamingo named Charade. Yes, I am a big kid and like to have toys. 

Next I should explain the whole POTA thing. Back in 2010, some hams got together and put together a program to get hams more physically active. There is a SOTA program (Summits On The AIr where folks can climb to a mountain top and operate from the top) but not everybody is cut out for that. Some hams are older or not physically able to climb mountains so HAMPARKS.ORG came into existence in September of 2010. The idea was to encourage hams to get outdoors to State and National parks and operate portable stations. It caught on and became very popular … so popular that in 2016 the ARRL (American Radio Relay League, a national organization for ham radio operators) ran a year-long event called National Parks On The Air. This sort of melded into the POTA program and it has evolved into what it is today. There are hams who go into the parks and operate (activate) and there are hams who contact these hams from home (hunt) and there are hams who do both. There are various awards and certificates for levels of achievement and thresholds crossed. The program is run by dedicated volunteers. It is also a way for hams to practice setting up in off-the-grid situations and to practice operating in less than optimum conditions. Myself, I use it as a way to keep active and maintain mental acuity and to have fun. It gets me out into the woods. 🙂

Well that is all for now. My fingers are all finged out from the typing. Namaste, kidlets until next time!

A new Pod!

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That is the Pod! It arrived last Monday and is a Christmas present from my most wonderful wyfe! It is an ice fishing shelter though I will be using it for POTA activations. Without any heat source it was nice and warm inside today. Much better than it would have been sitting out in 40 degree F (that’s 4 C for those who use Metric) temperatures with a light breeze blowing. It is large enough to fit a table and chairs inside and tall enough for a 2 meter high person to stand upright, though I am nowhere near that height. It has windows that let enough sunlight in to keep from needing a lantern. It isn’t too heavy though I would rather not have to carry it any great distance. I am very pleased with it overall. I activated Big Spring State Park today and made a total of 46 contacts to include some park-to-park contacts which is always nice. The day was a good one weather wise. I am trying to take advantage of all the nice days we are having. I used to do a lot of portable operating when I was younger, operating QRP and doing it as a personal readiness exercise. I, over time, fell out of that habit. POTA renewed my interest in it and I admit that I have dived right in. I am a neophyte to the POTA program but I enjoy the “freshness” of the whole thing. Each time I go out there is a new motivation. It is the same with hunting at home. Each time I reach a new goal hunting, I set another one. Another new experience I had today was a drive-by by a DCNR vehicle. When we were taking our stuff down they came back and talked to us for a few minutes. The driver was the regional manager for some of the local parks and was interested in what we were doing (in a good way). She even asked about the POTA program and for the web page for more information. We (my wyfe and myself) answered their questions and they seemed happy when they left. Well enough blathering. As soon as hunting season is over, I hope to activate some of the State Game Lands around here. Keep watching for new entries and stay safe. Namaste, kidlets

Ptolomey watching my 6 as I log a contact.
My set up including owl, log book, battery and coffee … always coffee. 🙂

Ha Ha Charade You Are

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It was a somewhat gloomy day though not quite. Actually, it was pretty nice when we set out, my long-suffering wyfe and I. The goal was to activate K-1376, Little Buffalo State Park, about 19 kilometers away in New Bloomfield PA. The parking area near the swimming pool is gated off for the season which had no effect on me as I had no plans on going to that end of the park anyway. We went to the boat launch area. It overlooks the Eastern end of the lake and is usually less crowded with foot traffic. Today there were a few dog walkers and one fellow who put his boat into the water and went fishing but that was all. A side note about the fisherman, He had something in his truck that was causing a broad band humming on my radio, not enough to interfere but it was noticeable. It stopped when he shut the truck off. Anyway, I was set up in about 15 minutes and go on the air. I used my Buddistick this time and had good results. Ever since I stopped trying to tune using the counterpoise and started using a 6 meter by 10 centimeter strip of copper mesh as a ground plane, tuning it with my tuner is a breeze. I started operating on 7.188 MHz and made several contacts and then had to move due to a net coming in on top of me. I moved to 7.278 MHz and was able to finish out my operation. I stayed as long as I could but the cold did get the best of me. The temperature was around 7C but the wind was blowing from off the lake a constant 11 Kph and gusting to 28 Kph which took the core temperature right out of me, in spite of the copious amounts of coffee and the nice blanket I was sitting on. I made 46 contacts and had Zarathustra with me to keep watch for lake monsters. Namaste for now, kidlets.

My Buddistick. The cones mark the copper mesh ground plane.
Zarathustra watching over my shoulder for lake monsters
A view of where I was operating from.

A Tale of Two Activations (with apologies to Charles. The Dickins you say?)

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It was the best of times, it was … actually pretty good. even the bad was good. We went out on the 24th, Tuesday October 24th, for those who were wondering, and the weather was beyond compare. Sunny and in the mid 20’s C ( mid 70’s for those stuck in the F scale, mid 290’s for those who prefer K). Not much wind. My antenna went up easily , almost like it knows where it is supposed to go. The contacts started rolling in very quickly and in no time I had worked a total of 43 including some park to parks and a couple husband-wyfe teams. a good day. After packing up, my wyfe and I took a ride up Hemlock Road and she did some videoing before we went and got some lunch/supper (lupper?). My owl decoy, Tootsie, kept the bears and Karens away and generally helped me log. The park is one of the nicest places a person can go; remote and quiet with a wooded charm.

Yesterday, 28 October, my wyfe said that maybe I should take advantage of the weather and activate as rain was supposed to move in today. As you may be able to tell, I am doing my best to get as many activations in before the weather turns shitty for the next 3 months. I like the outdoors but sitting out in the cold doesn’t appeal to me much these days. I guess I should explain that I am a neophyte when it comes to POTA. I only started doing this with any seriousness this summer. Sure, I had worked a few parks before this and I had registered on the POTA website in April for 2022, but I never really made any effort until this past summer. I started hunting and then I started doing activations. I am no expert by any means, though I have a lot of experience doing portable operating. In fact it is good to be getting back into it. Ok. Enough history. Yesterday I packed up the car and brought along Ptolomey as my mascot/guardian. I also brought my pink flamingo, Charade. It didn’t take long to set up but it did take a while for my first contacts to come in. I thought it was going to be hard to get 10 but finally they started gaining momentum. I started getting spots on the POTA APP and I was able to work 54 contacts with a lot of Park to Park contacts. Overall, though the day was a bit cloudy and dismal and the temps were a bit lower than Tuesday, It was a good day. Hopefully there will be more chances this Autumn.

Tootsie watching over my shoulder.
Logging under the careful supervision of Tootsie.
Ptolomey being a proper guardian.
Working another contact
Got visited by a curious forest gnome.

Tuesday the 10th vs Friday the 13th

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This is a tale of 2 activations, 2 owls and one park. On Tuesday, Oct 10th, My long suffering wyfe and I set out to Kings Gap (K-4361 for you POTA types) and I activated the park. This consists of setting up my radio and making a minimum of 10 contacts. I was able to make 34 contacts in the time I had to be there and enjoyed the day. Everything went smoothly. I got my antenna line over a tree branch in one throw and was set up in less than 15 minutes. My wyfe wandered around taking pictures and also spent some time on the interwebs and enjoying the weather. It was a great afternoon. As I said, everything went smoothly. My owl decoy, Ptolomey (pictured below) kept watch for bears and made sure we weren’t bothered by insects or other pests. Then there was today, Friday the 13th. My wyfe, on the spur of the moment, decided that she wanted to do some videoing up at Kings Gap and since we would be going up there I decided to bring my equipment and activate. First, I had to turn back 1/2 km from home as I had forgotten to barricade off the area of the house where the cellar stairs are. I rather prefer not to return home to our Rhoomba on its back at the bottom of the stairs screaming for help and being circled by well-meaning cats. Then the small store at the bottom of the hill at Kings Gap did not carry the brand of chips my wyfe wanted. Once we go to the top of the hill where the mansion is, there were workmen doing various and sundry things preparing the place for the upcoming fall/winter seasons. My wyfe settled herself in to doing her thing and I started setting up my radio. Yeah … On the 4th throw, my throwing bag wound 3 times around a branch. I stood there, about 15 or so meters below staring at it and uttering lots of nsfw words. There was no way I could leave an weighted throwing bag attached to several meters of florescent twine attached to that branch. Finally the thought hit me: The twine has 2 ends!! I took a convenient stick and tied it up with the other end of the twine and threw it over the branch 3 times. This unwound the throwing bag. Unfortunately, my wyfe had wandered over to observe the spectacle and almost got hit with the bag when it came loose and plummeted to the ground. Now 3 more throws got it over the branch and I was able to raise my antenna. My usual 15 minute set-up took me almost 45 minutes. Now my owl Tootsie was able to scare away any bears but the gnats were another story. They ignored him and swarmed me. I did my best to ignore them. I made 55 contacts and had a very successful activation in spite of Friday the 13th and Murphy. Feel free to look at my pictures and to laugh at me. 🙂 Pic 1 is Ptolomey, Pic 2 is Me on the 10th, Pic 3 is Tootsie and Pic 4 is me on the 13th. Namaste Y’all

Coffee, kitties and CW

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Yup, a nice Autumn day. It is 18C outside and overcast. A good afternoon to sit here sending CQs to the world. I started out on 10M on the frequency of 28.050MHz and worked a station in Arizona. I changed to the 12M band on 24.910. Nothing. That is the way it goes. I sought a lower frequency to work. I went to 18.085MHz to try my luck. The 17M band can be a good on at times, lots of DX or West Coast. I did have a ham tell me he could hear my signal down in Alabama very strongly. I am also seeing spots on the RBN and other spotting pages. Things may be looking up as I go down in frequency. I worked a station in Colorado. Not too shabby. I refilled my coffee and gave vittles to the livestock (my fish, my hermit krabs and my kitties). Sent out another series of calls on 18.085 MHz. Then I worked a ham from Texas who I had last worked back in 2007. Tempus fugit. Went to my old standby band, 40M. I can always find someone to work on 40M. Sent a series of calls on 7.113MHz. It is in the old Novice portion of 40 but I often find people on here. Of course when I am the FIST Sprints I tend to hang around on 7.059 to 7.062 if I am not on 20M. I am glad they started the Sprints back up and I hope they become popular again.

Well it has been an interesting couple of hours but I am going to take a break from radioing. I think I will design my next batch of been.

Namaste, kidlets

Ahhhh …. Autumn

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Well it is Autumn again. I just got done beating Satan’s Putting Green back into submission and I am looking forward to the seasonal die-back. In any event, running a lawn mower reminds me of safety. Thinking of safety reminds me of the annual Simulated Emergency Test. What is that, you might ask? Well :

The annual Simulated Emergency Test (SET) is a training exercise involving the Amateur Radio Emergency Service (ARES) and the National Traffic System (NTS), a message-handling service of amateur radio. The American Radio Relay League is a prime mover in this event, which is organized somewhat like a contest. Its primary purposes are to evaluate strengths and weaknesses in emergency preparedness and communications, and to demonstrate amateur radio to the public.

During the first full weekend of October of every year in the United States, a nationwide radio communications network is set up that links every major city and most of the geography of the country. This technological infrastructure is set up from scratch within a few hours at locations that vary from state and local government Emergency Operations Centers to isolated areas without utilities of any kind. Every mode of radio communications is utilized including analog, digital, voice, data, simplex, duplex, satellites and even automated relay stations launched on aircraft and with weather balloons. For no more than 48 continuous hours, this nationwide radio communications network is exercised with the primary objective of proving the system’s readiness and capabilities. Then as quickly as it was set up, the system is dismantled and stored in preparation for when it is needed. The system has demonstrated its value time after time during earthquakes, hurricanes, forest fires, terrorist attacks and other disasters. All of this capability is provided by volunteers who continuously hone their technical skills and acquire, build, and maintain their own equipment. These radio engineers and operators, along with their equipment, combine into an important resource for emergency communications.

There you have it. The SET will be held this weekend, OCT 1 and 2. The SET is held this time of year because it is near the end of hurricane season and is a good way of evaluating performance under stressful conditions. Right now, Florida and other areas in the South are being pummeled by Hurricane Ian. There are traffic nets set up on the HF bands to pass health and welfare messages into and out of the affected areas. Ham radio has been a major part of emergency communications and will remain so.

“Of course you know this means war!”

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I have a weather station. One of the great topics to talk about on ham radio is the weather. I am also a NOAA Storm Spotter ( which doesn’t mean that I chase down tornadoes, it means that I report to the NOAA any unusual and or dangerous weather). So anyway I noticed yesterday that for 2 consecutive days my anemometer had registered no wind. I went out to check it and found a spider had built a web on my station and it was locking the wind cups in place. I brushed the spider web away and thought that that was it. NOOOOOOOOO! The frackin spider rebuilt the web. I had to clear it away today. I also took a yard broom to the weather station and hopefully evicted the spider. I think this whole thing was caused by me freeing a praying mantis from a spider web at my mum-in-law’s place. The poor thing was climbing the wall and the web kept pulling it back. I freed it and it flew off happily. I believe the spiders communicated with each other and decided to mess with me. I am waiting the next move. I hope I don’t have to exercise the nuclear option!

Namaste kidlets.

Slash and Chop

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Well yesterday I continued my perpetual war with Satan’s Putting Green. I finished the mowing and weedwacking and was trimming the white mulberry trees back to bonsai size when the first drops of rain fell. I was glad to get it all done and it does get unruly and I start to fear the demons inhabiting the tall grass.

I recently have started to get more active in one of the clubs I belong to. FISTS is a club dedicated to the preservation and use of Morse Code. The name of the club refers to the fact that every operator sending with a straight key has a distinctive style of “fist”. It is as distinctive and individual as a finger print. During WWII one indication that was used to determine that an operative was turned to a double agent was to listen for differences in their sending. A change could indicate the operator was under an unusual amount of stress. In any event, FISTS is a (free membership) club for promoting the use of Morse Code on the ham radio bands. They even have 4 mini-contests (sprints) during the year: spring, summer, autumn and winter. All information dealing with them can be found at http://www.fistsna.org

Again with the Namaste, folks

Summer Musings

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It has been over a week since I posted. I am sitting here marveling at how fast the summer is going. Soon it will be that time of year when I get stuck behind school busses on my way home from work. Joy. I looked at Satan’s Putting Green today and realized it needs mowing. I won’t be able to do it until the weekend. Oh well, my neighbors won’t care. Usually my one neighbor mows his yard the day after I mow mine. Almost a symbiotic relationship.

I was able to work the final (of 3) special event station run by W9IMS. I qualify for their certificate. Every year they run 3 specail events: the Grand Prix, the INDY 500 and the Brickyard. You can get a qsl card for working any of these events and a certificate if you work all 3. Now I am looking forward to the Route 66 On The Air event which happens in the beginning of September.

Namaste y’all