Category: Non-Ham

I fired up the rig when I got home from work yesterday, and found a few takers on the bands.

All of these were quickies (as are all FT8 contacts) … less than an hour for all sixteen. I was rushed, as I had to get myself ready and head out to my weekly Scout meeting and then choir practice … grabbing dinner on the way (Whopper combo). Not the healthiest dinner, but fast.

After choir practice, I had to rush home for the weekly Tidewater DMR net (TG 31515). I joined only 7 minutes late at 9:07. Participation was good, with quite a few new check-ins, and lots of spirited conversation. Next week (being Thanksgiving Day) we’ll not meet.

I can see this holiday season is stacking up to be hectic. Lots of events coming up … concerts, banquets, family events … you know what I mean. By the time the new year is here, you’re just glad for a break!

The combined PARC/SPARK Holiday Dinner is coming up on Tuesday, December 4th at the County Grill in York County on Route 17. The food is always good there, and the company will be too!

I see the ARRL November Sweepstakes is this weekend. This is the SSB one, and I am just not into SSB so I’ll pass. Furthermore, I’ve always thought the exchange was too involved and complex, so I’ve just never participated in the Sweepstakes events. If it’s your thing, more power to ya’. Just not my cup of tea.

73 de Dick N4BC

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

Aftermath

Michael has come and gone now, and it was nowhere as bad as it could have been here at my QTH in Tidewater, VA. There were tornadoes and heavy rains all around us … to the South, West, and North … but most of the really nasty stuff was to the North of us. At the house, it was mostly high winds, rain, overturned trash cans, and lots of silver maple branches in the front yard. Many people are without power, but my power never failed. I did lose internet for about a half hour. When I look at the videos of the storm hitting the Florida panhandle, it’s sobering to see what Mother Nature can dish out.

Of course, the internet dropout was in the middle of the weekly Tidewater DMR Net on TG 31515, so my hotspot became a nice paperweight with a pretty blinky red led. Before I lost my link, we had nine check-ins, and several regulars were absent, no doubt because of the storm. So, better luck next week!

After the Net went away for me, I went ahead and got the DXLab Suite working with Win4Icom. Simple, really … just set up the virtual ports to interface with DXCommander and all worked well. I’m using two monitors and if I don’t judiciously manage what applications I’ve got open, I find I’m running out of room on the monitor desktops. You have to be creative in closing or minimizing and resizing windows on the monitors to keep things from piling up on top of each other.

Today, things are getting back to normal. Michael is heading out to sea, and I’m at work, looking forward to the weekend (as I always do!). We still have generators running at our tower sites that are without power. My daughter, who is doing her practice teaching for her teaching certification/licence, has the day off, since schools are closed today (again!) due to trees down, minor flooding, and power outages.

73 de Dick N4BC

Methodical

If nothing else, I’m methodical. If I’m going to buy something … pretty much anything … I’ll spend some time researching and reading reviews. It just makes sense … I want the best I can get for what I have to spend … value for money. This applies to appliances as well as radio equipment.

Recently, I’ve been trying to decide whether to buy a new washer or repair the old one. I think I’ve just about convinced myself to spring for the new one. The dryer is another story … it’s over 25 years old and still going strong. All I’ve ever done to it is replace a fuse about ten years back. Good investment!

I just got notification last night that the Icom ID-51 Plus 2 DStar radio that I won has shipped. It should be here next Wednesday. I’ve spent way too many hours researching DStar programming and operation, but I want to hit the ground running when it does show up. Same principle as above …try to know what you’re doing before you act.

Let me tell you, there’s a LOT of information out there on the WWW. Most is helpful, some is downright UNhelpful, and some is just … I don’t know … wrong is the best way to describe it. You really have to sort through everything to mine the nuggets of information that are useful. I DO think I’ve gained a lot  more understanding of DStar than I started with, which was pretty much zilch! I now feel like I can get on the air without making a fool of myself … that’s the goal, isn’t it.

73 de Dick N4BC