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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

There’s a cat chewing on my arm!

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Bet that got your attention. 🙂 I am sitting by the window watching a beautiful day go by. My cats are nearby including Mayhem, my little sweet girl who was chewing on me a minute ago. My big motional sports cat, Marley, is laying down by my feet and taking up a shitload of floor space. Basically I am chilling. I just finished 3 days in a row at work and only have tonight off before I have to work another 2 days. It is no biggie. I am used to it. I also have to look at my work sched and figure out when to schedule a dentist appointment, a doctor appointment and a routine blood draw. Lots of fun. I also have to consider when I am next going to brew some beer. That is not a chore, it is fun. I have some kveik yeast in my fridge (Lutra strain) and I will make a starter before I brew. In a few minutes I am going to go upstairs and ride my exorcise bike while killing stuff on my PS4. It is a way of distracting myself from the fact that I am exorcising. Tonight I will get on my radio for a few. I will try to make some SKCC and FISTS contacts. What are those? Well SKCC is Straight Key Century Club and FISTS is the international Morse Code Preservation Society, both fun groups to belong to. I will include links to their web pages below. Here is a link to a page which tells me what propagation conditions are like on the ham bands: https://hamradiofornontechies.com/current-ham-radio-conditions/

It explains very nicely what the numbers mean. SKCC page is: https://www.skccgroup.com which describes the group and FISTS is: https://fistsna.org

Well enough for now. I am going to pet Mayhem and let her chew on me before I go exorcise.

Namaste y’all

“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.

Momento Mori

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So here I am, sitting down. I just finished kegging my blonde ale and now it is a matter of waiting for it to carbonate. One nice thing about brewing beer is that most of the work is done by yeasts. Once you make them a nice home they go to work procreating and when they have had their fill of procreation, they become factories. They take in sugar and other fermentables and process it into alcohol and gas (CO2). Wonderful little critters.

It is always a good thing to question your own motives. Why did I join a certain club? Better yet, what am I giving to the club to make things better? Clubs will die from lack of activity. When I first got into ham radio I joined a local club. On paper the club had over 50 members. I never saw more than a handful at meetings and the only activity the club did was a half-assed attempt at Field Day. The “leadership” of the club was content to do nothing and there was a sense of ennui throughout. Basically the club was dead. I am hoping that history does not repeat itself. I am currently in a new club that needs a boost. I realize that there are a lot of things in a persons life and priorities have to be set but a little time can be spent on a positive thing.

A Fine Summer Evening

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Here it is, the eve of St Swithin’s Day. We should all be hoping for a great weather forecast tomorrow! Satan’s Putting Green (my yard) is brown and crispy since I mowed it. We have not had much rain yet this month (about 5.56mm) but that doesn’t bother me much. I have been watering the EarthBox that my tomatoes are in every other day. They are about 1 meter high now and still growing. Looks like I might have a decent crop. I guess it is a bit strange that I grow tomatoes as I don’t eat them except in sketti sauce and catsup. I just like to grow them. I am considering making my own sauce as I also have growing oregano and thyme. It might be interesting. I also have some cayenne peppers growing and I might theow them into the sauce.

I was on the radio this evening and worked a couple of stations. Relaxing, it is. I send my signal out over the air and wait for a return. Sometimes I get several, sometimes I only get a few. Either way I enjoy it. I live next to the old bed of the Newport and Shermans Valley Railroad (actually it runs down the border of my property) and I think that will legitimize me running a special event commemorating the railroad. I just have to work out a few details. Instead of a QSL card I will provide an e-mail address and will reply to contact information with a printable certificate.

Weird Coincidence

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Ok. The last post I made in this blog was the last time I mowed. Today I mowed again and I am posting again. It must be fate! Actually, Satan’s Putting Green was getting wild and I had to subdue it. The demons were getting brave and creeping out. My neighbor came over last night and asked if he could borrow my wheel barrow as he needs to cart away some rocks. I hear him hitting them every time he mows and he told me he had to get his mower fixed. Go figure.

Anyway, I am on my way to a VE session tonight. I volunteer with a VE team testing folks who want a ham license or to upgrade their license class. I see this as a way of giving back to the hobby. Basically I sit and monitor until someone needs their test graded. As I am an Amateur Extra Class operator, I can grade any level of test. It is very simple. I remember when I first started as a VE, Morse code was still a part of the tests. The leader of the VE team used to have me verify the tapes to make sure he had copied corrrectly. His hearing was going so he wanted to be double checked. Now it is just a written exam. Well I am going to end this entry now and wish you all a great day

Namaste, kidlets.

Carry On Lawnmowing

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Well, I was able to finish taming Satan’s Putting Green prior to the commencement of the rain. It is amazing how fast it grown. Now my neighbor will have to mow his. It’s a never-ending competition. I had my car in for repairs. Now I am sorta relaxing and playing on the radio. Got a cup of coffee in hand. I am hoping that the band propagation gods smile down on me. Speaking of radio, it is almost field day. I have a suggestion for a field day antenna to try. They are simple to build and are quite effective. I am speaking, of course, of a Z-L Special. They are a mono-band antennas and are easy to put together. They consist of 2 folded dipoles spaced .1 wavelength apart and driven 135 degrees out of phase. There are a lot of web pages and Youtube videos that detail the construction and if you are reading this then I believe you can find them on any search engine. 🙂 My point is if you want a simple to construct antenna for field day or for other use, this is a good one to try. You can even build them as a rotary beam. I had a 20M one that I loaned out and it never got returned but I am planning to build another one soon for 17M.

Namaste Again

One More Lap in the Rat Race

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There is currently a thunderstorm going on. It has rained 18.29 MM in the past hour. Gotta love it. I had left my windows in my car cracked open and had to venture out into a waterfall to close them. One good thing, the storm has lowered the outside temperature from 32 C to 21 C. It makes it a lot more comfortable. Unfortunately, I can’t use my radio right now as I have no desire to have my equipment fried by lightening. It might be an exciting afternoon. Here is a copy of the NWS bulletin:

Special Weather Statement issued May 22 at 2:​47​PM EDT by NWS State College

…STRONG THUNDERSTORMS WILL IMPACT SOUTHWESTERN SCHUYLKILL…
NORTHUMBERLAND…DAUPHIN…EAST CENTRAL FRANKLIN…EASTERN SNYDER…
SOUTHEASTERN MONTOUR…SOUTHEASTERN COLUMBIA…CUMBERLAND…EASTERN PERRY AND NORTHWESTERN LEBANON COUNTIES THROUGH 330 PM EDT…
At 246 PM EDT, Doppler radar was tracking strong thunderstorms along a line extending from Northumberland to 14 miles south of Selinsgrove to near Carlisle to near Chambersburg. Movement was east at 25 mph.
HAZARD…Winds up to 45 mph and pea size hail.
SOURCE…Radar indicated.
IMPACT…Gusty winds could knock down tree limbs and blow around unsecured objects. Minor hail damage to vegetation possible.
Locations impacted include…
Harrisburg, Chambersburg, Carlisle, Lower Allen, Colonial Park, Sunbury, Progress, Mechanicsburg, Camp Hill, Shamokin, New Cumberland, Linglestown, Enola, Steelton, Mount Carmel, Selinsgrove, Shippensburg, Danville, Lemoyne and Northumberland.
MAX HAIL SIZE…0.25 IN MAX WIND GUST…40 MPH

The other day, while out shopping, I was able to save a wood turtle that was crossing the road. I picked her up and carried her across while lecturing her on traffic safety. I try to save turtles as often as I can. I have a soft spot for them, and they are not good at outrunning cars.

Speaking of radio, propagation has been rising. There are more and more dx openings and the shorter wave-length bands are opening up on a daily basis. I am seeing more and more spots on 17M and 12M. It might just be a great sunspot cycle!

enuff for now. Namaste!

And it’s a beautiful day…

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On Sunday I worked the W9IMS special event celebrating the Indianapolis Grand Prix. 2 more to go. Every year the W9IMS club runs a series of 3 special events : 1 for the Grand Prix, 1 for the Indy 500 and 1 for the Brickyard 400. They have nice QSL cards and if you work all 3 events you can get a great certificate. I have worked them for the past several years. Their info can be found on qrz.com

As you can tall, I like working special event stations. They can be an exercise in radio skills and a lot of fun. I have a collection of certificates that I have in loose-leaf binders. I have my wyfe laminate them and then I store them. I look through the binders now and then and revel in the memories.

Good outside activity weather is here. I am looking forward to doing some outside operating, either from a state park or doing some basic hilltopping. Some years back a group of us got together and camped out on a mountain top and used helium balloons to support antennas. That was a lot of fun.

Namaste, all

Un-royal Nonesuch

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Wow. Been busy and tired. We have a person out on vacation and my work partner and I have been filling in. It makes for a long work week and I still have 4 more days to go. Enough of that. I just came in from beating Satan’s Putting Green into submission. It seems that this is the first opportunity I have had to attack it as the weather has not been co-operating. So far this month, we have had 25.40 mm of rain and last month we had over 78 mm. The weather report calls for rain tomorrow and Saturday so the mowing had to be done.

As soon as I have the time, I have a few projects to work on. I need to do some planting and then to cut some brush. After that I need to re-hang one of my antennae and finally, I have the ingredients for a batch of beer ready for brewing. I am not sure how I am going to prioritize all this.

I will leave with a parting observation: people in this country need to learn that “freedom of speech” does not mean “freedom from responsibility”. You can say anything you want but don’t whine when there are consequences to your bloviation. As always, Namaste!