Category: People

Winner! and Winter

Oh, I forgot to mention it, but I won a drawing for a Wolf River Coils Silver Bullet Mini. Bob Plank, KK4DIV, had a drawing to celebrate reaching  1000 YouTube subscribers. My name came out of the hat (literally!). Gonna have to do something mobile with it. Check out Bob’s channel … he’s got some interesting stuff.

This morning when I went out to the truck to leave for work at about 0530, it was in the low 30’s and I had a nice coating of ice on the windows. We didn’t even have a chance to do frost first … directly to ice! My trusty spray bottle with rubbing alcohol and water did the job, though. Take that, ice!!

73 de Dick N4BC

Frostfest 2017

I made the annual trip to Richmond for Frostfest, leaving at about 7 am for a drive of a little over an hour. The crowd seemed to be a bit bigger this year, and the vendors seemed to be doing a lively business. The video below was taken about noon … the crowds had thinned a bit, and people were also grabbing lunch.

I saw a few old friends … Rob, Al, Dan, Darrell, Will, Charlie (I’m terrible about callsigns). We talked about a variety of stuff … none of any great importance in the overall scheme of things. Still, it was great to see them and catch up.

I attended a couple of forums, both very interesting. the first was on DMR radio and I learned a lot from that. The second was a Winlink forum. It was interesting, but I don’t think I will ever get into it. It’s primarily used for ARES/RACES, and I don’t participate due my status as “critical personnel” during an emergency because of my job in public safety communications.

I hung around until the bitter end so I wouldn’t miss the grand prize drawing ($1000 to be spent at the Hamfest). There were several other unclaimed prizes drawn then, too. As usual, it was a bust … no goodies for me.

I DID have a great day, but my back and feet are a bit tired. All I bought was about $40 worth of powerpoles and coax connectors. Then again, that’s all I planned to buy, unless I saw a deal I couldn’t refuse.

73, everybody de Dick N4BC

Oh my aching blood pressure!

***RANT ON***

I sat and listened to a DX station working split last night. Most of those calling listened to the instructions and were calling above the DX’s transmit frequency. I never DID hear the DX, myself. There were so many calling on his TX frequency, and of course, the self-appointed traffic cops sending “UP … UP” (without IDing, of course), that I couldn’t hear the DX. There can’t be THAT many clueless people out there, can there? Oops … silly question. Of course there are! Don’t people LISTEN anymore? Where’s my blood pressure medicine?

***RANT OFF***

73 de Dick N4BC

A Voice from the Past

I recently received an email requesting a QSL from a Russian station for a contact when I was VQ9RB, on Diego Garcia. Even more interesting, I got a card in the mail from a Brazilian station for one of my Seychelles cards! Needless to say, I no longer have any blank cards for those QTHs. They were all used up or lost in a move many moons ago.

So, necessity is the mother of invention, they say. I searched the OfficeMax location here and believe it or not, could not find any card stock in the weight I was looking. So, Amazon Prime to the rescue. I ordered a 200-sheet pack for about ten bucks, and will roll my own. Microsoft Publisher and the ol’ laser printer should work just fine. The trouble I go to for you guys out there still working at increasing your DXCC numbers :-D.

Remember, the final courtesy of a QSO is the QSL. If I can, through some earthly process, supply you with a needed card, I’ll take care of it. I have been there, guys! My pleasure!

73 de Dick K4FTW (ex-VQ9D, VQ9D/D, S79D, VQ9RB, G0/WB4YZU, WB4YZU, ad nauseum :-).