Category: Club

A Quickie …

It’s been a while since I last posted, and quite frankly, I haven’t been on the air at all … life has gotten in the way. Problems with nursing homes, a death in the family, and a persistent cough and cold have conspired to make me silent, but I’m coming out of it now.

Tonight is the club meeting. Tom, WE4TOM is doing a presentation on DMR, so that’s of interest. I’m looking forward to it.

BAM! The holidays are upon us. I had to run into WallyWorld to grab some new windshield wipers for the truck and it’s CHRISTMAS in there! I STILL say Christmas sales shouldn’t start until after Thanksgiving at the earliest!

Actually, that was the first time I’ve been in WalMart in ages. Nine times out of ten, my go-to shopping spot is Amazon. “You can buy almost anything at Amazon!”

73 de Dick N4BC

Updates

Last night, we had our monthly radio club meeting. We had a good turnout, with some old friends we hadn’t seen for a while, and some new ones. We even picked up a few new members … HOORAY!

Our Treasurer, who has held that position for over fifteen years tendered his resignation as treasurer due to health and family issues, and I was elected to take his place. I’ve really got some big shoes to fill, don’t I?

We had a good meeting, and the presentation was on mobile radio installation. Well done and very interesting. It’s my turn next month, and my tentative subject will be portable operation … Radios in the Wild.

There were ten checkins to the Tidewater 31515 DMR Net this evening. Topics of discussion were the upcoming Virginia Beach Hamfest and IDing on DMR to comply with FCC Regulations … Section 97.119, to be specific. As I’ve said before, it’s more of a casual gathering than a formal net, and it’ll be nice to put some faces to the calls at the hamfest Saturday. I noticed that a couple of new calls showed up as unknown, so I updated the user database in my MD-380. I hadn’t done that for a while.

I also went into my new DStar radio and added some local non-digital simplex channels. The programming in that radio is still a work in progress, but truthfully, with the GPS and built-in repeater database, not much pre-programming is needed for repeater use.

73 de Dick N4BC

Holy Cow! Another Win!!

You may remember, not too long ago I mentioned that I had won the Icom HamNation weekly “swag” contest. Well, they take all the weekly winners and draw for a monthly Grand Prize. I WON THIS MONTH!!! The Grand Prize is an Icom ID-51A Plus 2 D-Star transceiver. Thank you, Icom!

I’m just starting to get a reasonable understanding of DMR, and now I’ve got to learn about D-Star, too! Well, they say the way to stay young and keep your wits is to challenge and exercise your brain. Thank you again, Icom!! You’re obviously thinking about my mental health!

Last night was our monthly club meeting, and Charlie, WB4PVT, did a presentation on connectors … PL-259 vs Type N. Even an old-timer like me learned a few new things. I also picked up my ticket from Rob, KE4JDY, for the Virginia Beach Hamfest in early September. There’s a forum on implementing a mesh network that looks interesting.

You know, I find that I’m becoming less interested in the equipment for sale at the hamfests and more interested in the forums. There’s a lot of good knowledge presented. And, it sometimes leads you in new directions … that’s how I got interested in amateur DMR.

I haven’t done a lot of operating this week. Lots of reasons (excuses?) … Thunderstorms, other commitments, and just pure, unadulterated laziness. Hopefully this weekend will bring some relief from my static state.

73 de Dick N4BC

 

Almost Field Day …

Tomorrow, Field Day gets under way. I had hoped to participate with the club, but it’s not looking too likely. Got lots  going on this weekend … family, church, etc. I’ll try to make an appearance at the site, but probably won’t operate there.

I’ve been fighting a killer summer cold this week, so I’ve gotten behind on a lot of stuff. It was the whole array of symptoms too … cough, runny nose, achy body and headache.  I was off work for two days. My wife called a couple of hours ago, and it sounds like she and my daughter are coming down with it now.

Even if I can’t operate any significant time with the club station, I’ll try and get some operating time in from home. I just can’t totally miss operating during field day. Maybe there’ll be some nice six meter openings!

73 and enjoy Field Day if you’re participating de Dick N4BC

Mixed Blessings …

I flipped on the radio when I got home from work yesterday afternoon, and had to check and see if the antenna  was connected (as a matter of fact, it wasn’t … I had disconnected it the night before during some violent thunderstorms). So, I reconnected it … didn’t make a lot of difference … reception still sucked! Switch to OFF!

Later in the evening, I returned to the rig and was pleasantly surprised to hear something besides QRN. Eighty through 12 meters were showing SOME signs of life … especially on FT8. I worked about a half dozen contacts on most of those bands (primarily eighty meters). There was quite a bit of CW activity on 40, and I would have liked to sample that, but alas, I was needed elsewhere.

Charlie, WB4PVT, posted a video on the local email group about how “TUBS” are made. Every week, he posts a video of interest to hams. A couple of weeks before, he had posted one on how vacuum tubes are made, but had made a typo in the title … TUBS instead of TUBES. I kidded him about it the next time I saw him. He got me back by posting one last week about how tubs … BATHTUBS … are made. Got me!

Field day is fast approaching. Hopefully I’ll have time to participate with the club. Actually, we have several clubs combining for the event, as we do every year. The club I’m a member of just cant’t muster enough bodies to put together a team, so we make it a group effort and have a great time!

It was a good evening, after all.

73 de Dick N4BC
(from the bottom of the cycle … which ain’t so bad anyway!)