Category: Field Day

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!)

A little life in the ol’ bands (and me) yet …

It’s been a while, but I didn’t fade away … I’m still here and kicking! Most of my activity has been digital modes (and I include CW in that). Just last night, I worked a station about 150 miles away on 80 meters JT9 that I literally could not detect on the waterfall … zilch, nada, nyet! The waterfall was pretty much flat except for background noise, yet WSJT-X detected and decoded the signal. Spooky magic!

The weather has been a bit dodgy lately … HOT and afternoon and evening thunderstorms. Not conducive to safe operating. I did remember to renew my ARRL equipment insurance, though. The reminder was a particular loud and near BOOM! Didn’t affect me, but it sure made me jump! this weekend’s forecast is for mid 90’s and heat indices in the low 100’s. I think I’ll skip portable operation until we get a break.

I missed field day this year … didn’t get a chance to participate at all. I had family obligations. Oh well … maybe next year. I really missed getting together with the guys. At the club meeting last night there were lots of photos and talk about how much better we did this year than last year.

I had a neighbor’s tree drop in our yard, so now it’s MY tree. I have to get out there with the chainsaw and knock it down to size. It’s not a big trunk, thankfully … about 4 inches in diameter. If it wasn’t for the hot weather, it would be an easy job.

Well, that’s enough for now. Catch you later!

73 de Dick N4BC

Computer work

Well, I was going to be good and get that 80M antenna up in the air last night, but rain and thunderstorms took care of that idea. The weather is supposed to continue this way for the next couple of days, so I decided to do some work in the shack. I needed to back up the laptop, since the last time that was done was in April. I saved an image to my 1TB external drive, so that’s done now. I also made an image of my newer Dell Venue Pro 7140 11-inch tablet, just in case.

I think I’ll keep the laptop at Windows 7 and not upgrade to 10 right away. Most of the hams that have tried the Windows 10 previews find that almost all the ham software that I use runs fine under Windows 10, but I think I’ll wait a bit before I do something drastic.The Win 8.1 tablet is already in the queue for the upgrade at the end of July, though.

I am having an issue with the laptop and a very slow boot, however. The drive activity light really does a lot of blinking, which tells me that it’s getting accessed a lot. It takes 5 minutes or so to completely boot. I know there’s a lot of junk on there … it’s 4 or 5 years old now and still has the original Windows 7 install on it, and I know people that do a fresh install every six months. I just hate to have to reload LOTS of software, and then configure it again for all the radio gadgets.

Oh well, tonight is the monthly Radio Club meeting, so I can postpone my decision for a day or so, anyway. I’m sure there will be a lot of info about the upcoming Field Day effort, and an after-the-fact review of the picnic last Saturday.

73 de Dick K4FTW
dick@k4ftw.us

 

What happened to Spring?

We had a few nice Spring days, but it seems like Summer has arrived about a month early. Temperatures and humidity here in coastal Virginia have been Summer-like already. I sure hope this is not a taste of an unbearable August.

Saturday, we had our annual Southeastern Virginia Ham picnic at Deer Park, in Newport News. It was a nice get together, with a chance to put faces to some of the calls I hear on the local repeaters. We had hamburgers and hot dogs with a few sides, and just generally relaxed and got to know each other a bit better.

Field Day is approaching, and once again our club, PARC, will do a joint venture with SPARK at the usual Hampton location. Things will be as usual, but I don’t think we are going to run a GOTA station this year. Last year we had zero luck with that. We are always looking forward to improving every year, and hopefully we can make a better CW showing this year.

I still haven’t had a chance to get an 80M antenna up in the air yet, but with the good weather, I’m going to have to get out into the yard and just do it. I’ve got the wire, 9:1 UN-UN, rope, coax, and slingshot, so the only thing holding me back is lack of motivation! I’m going to go out on a limb here (not literally!) and promise myself to GET THIS DONE!

I’ve recently started trying to make a contact or two at lunchtime from work, using the HB1B from the truck, but not a lot of luck so far. Yeah, I’ve gotten a couple of contacts, but with only a half-hour for lunch, it’s difficult to get some food into myself, get the rig connected and then dismantled, and not feel terribly rushed. Maybe it’ll get easier as I get more familiar with it.

73 de Dick K4FTW