#weather

Not a Good day, a Great day!

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It was a great day today. The weather was beautiful and it was a very nice day to be off. One of those Sundays that come along once in a while that make you want to go outside and do things. Today my wonderful wyfe and I went out to a State Park about 15 miles down the road and did a POTA activation. POTA stands for Parks On The Air and is a program for ham radio operators to get out and be active in the public, operating in State and Federal parks, Forests and Game Lands. The park we were at was Big Spring State Park ( POTA Number K-4355) which is located on the western edge of Perry County PA. As I said, it was a beautiful day. It only took me about 15 minutes to set up. I put up an inverted Vee antenna with the apex up about 30 feet. My radio is a Yaesu FT891 and I was using my new LDG Z11 Pro II tuner. The setup worked great and I was able to make 26 contacts in less than an hour of operating before the bugs drove me out of there. In the meantime, my wonderful and long suffering wyfe was enjoying herself making videos of nature and of me operating. All in all, a good time was had by all. Following is a pic of me operating and my setup. The random hunks of tree bark on the table were still there when we left. 🙂

Not so long ago in a galaxy next door ….

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Today the weather turned out nice. It started out rainy but then turned sunny. I was able to beat Satan’s Putting Green into submission and we planted some gourd seeds in the hopes of obscuring part of the yard in vines for most of the Summer.

A funny thing happened this past Saturday. My wonderful wyfe has been wanting an all black kitten for ages. I finally found her one. After doing some schedule juggling we arranged to meet up with the nice lady who had such a kitten and she brought us a choice of 2 10 week old all black male kittens. Of course we took both of them. Meet Dipper and Kalamazoo:

Trust me, they are a lot cuter in person.

I have also come to the realization that I really do live out in the sticks. Here is my proof:

So until we meet again, happy snails and Namaste!

Summertime is getting closer and the living will be easy

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Soon it will be time to start thinking about getting outside more and enjoying the warmer weather …. until it is 95 degrees Fahrenheit ( for those who still use that system, I prefer 35 degrees Celsius) with a relative humidity of about 85% then you will want to lay about in the AC and bitch. Actually I was out yesterday with my new radio and a G5RV Junior playing around. First off I was learning the foibles of tuning this set up as an inverted vee. I didn’t want to have it set up in too permanent looking a configuration as I was in a public location. Second, I was learning the menu system of the radio as so far I have not had a lot of time to use it. Third, I was fine tuning my grab and go style. Back some years ago I could have a portable QRP station up and on the air within 15 minutes of pulling into a location. Yesterday it took me over 40 minutes to get on the air not including having to return home to get my power supply (turning red with embarrassment). I am not as readiness able as I used to be, I reckon. Guess I just need to practice. My plans for the future include bringing alternate antennas to try out. One nice thing is that my wyfe is willing to assist. She enjoys coming along for the ride and likes to laugh at my mistakes. 🙂 In any event, I will keep plodding away and keep posting here. For now, namaste, y’all.

Beware the Ideals of March

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Here it is again, the middle of March. We went for a bit of a ride but the animals were not cooperating. It is currently 2 C outside with the winds between 10 and 26 KPH so I think the ruminants are huddled in the treeline wrapped up in squirrels and robins for warmth. Typical March weather in the Northeast.It is okay, it gives me an excuse for idleness on my day off. I can sit here drinking coffee and listening to folks on the ham radio bands. The stove is running well and keeping it nice and warm in here. I am trying to work a special event station celebrating National PI Day but not having luck so far. They are located in NJ but are right now on 20M which is a bit long to reach here. Hopefully they will QSY to 40M sooner or later. My cats are behaving which translates out to they are asleep. Overall a good day. I have an appointment tomorrow at the ophthalmologist so that I can be informed that my retinopathy has progressed and my cataracts are a bit bigger. It is a yearly ritual; almost pagan in nature. I think I will relapse into a semi-vegatative state for now and lose myself in the comforting white noise of 40M.

Namaste, kidlets.

It is a coffee and radio kinda day

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Wow! I am sitting here yawning and it is only 1623 est. Even copious amounts of coffee don’t seem to help. It is -2 C outside … the kind of day you want to sit inside and do inside things. I was on the radio for a bit, chatting with a few folks after i did my due diligence on my exorcise bike. My wyfe joined me and we spent the time killing things on the video game. It is a great way to distract yourself when you are exorcising. Now I am sitting here contemplating my next course of inaction. My kittehs are all snoozing in the warmth of the stove so I can’t interact with them. My wyfe is cocooning. Well I guess I will have to get back on the radio and see if I can scare up any more people to bother. I am getting a lot better with the cootie key which is a lot easier on my arm. I think it was a good purchase.

Well enough for now. Namaste y’all

Hah Bumbug!

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Well it is the day before Christmas and currently -11 C outside which is a good argument for staying inside and drinking coffee. It is nice to be off this year. It alternates but sometimes the person who works on the opposite shift from me asks to switch. I am going to sit here in the warmth and play on the radio. I just checked the propagation data and it looks promising. https://www.hamqsl.com/solar3.html#hfprop (one of the sites I use). That site is great because it explains what all the data means. Most hams know already but there are new people out there. Learning is a good thing. My antennas are still up despite an ice storm last week which is more than I can say for my peach tree. The only issue I had with my antennas was a very high SWR on 40, 80 and 160 Meters due to the antenna being coated by ice. I knocked it off and all is well with the world. I am getting better with my cootie key and actually can be understood when sending.

My coffee cup is empty and I must go. I hope everybody has a very enjoyable holiday season

Namaste, kidlets

E-mail and Whine

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It is amazing how much we depend on e-mail. When it doesn’t work, it can get very stressful. My ISP (which I will not name) either changed its name to fool people into thinking it was something new or got bought out by another company. I thought my old ISP was horrible for customer service and I didn’t think it could get any worse. Boy, was I mistaken. The new company is beyond reprehensible when it comes to customer service. First off, if you call them, they make it almost impossible to speak with a human. If, on some offhand chance, you do reach a human they tell you to access their webpage for troubleshooting “tips”. You can also chat with a bot which will ask you irrelevant questions. I was finally able to get my emails. The human I spoke with did not seem to comprehend that since the server migration I have received the same e-mail 47 times. I deleted 47 copies of the same bloody email. Oh well

Enough of that. It is a nice balmy 2C outside and inside is is 25C. I am enjoying the heat from my pellet stove as are my cats. This past week there were 2 special event stations commemorating the sinking of the Edmund Fitzgerald. I was able to work both stations. Radio conditions have been good, and I have been working a lot of CW contacts. Now it is time to put my feets up, relax and drink a very good ale. TTFN

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

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.