Philosophical thoughts

The Changing Face Of How We Operate

I was reading through posts in one of the on-line forums (sorry, I can’t remember the poster), and he made a comment that made me stop and say to myself, “That’s so true.” The gist of his post was that with the advent of spectrum displays in more state-of-the-art SDR radios (such as FLEX, IC-7300, et cetera) we have changed the way we search for stations to work. With the older radios, we tune around, listening for other stations to work. Unless you happen across a station while he is putting out a signal, he doesn’t exist as far as you’re concerned. He could have stopped transmitting just a second before you reached his frequency, and you wouldn’t know he had been there. But, with a spectrum display, you’re looking at a broad swath of the band and seeing ALL the activity … ALL the stations. One of those “light bulb over the head moments” for me. ‘Ain’t technology grand?’

73 de Dick N4BC

Unbelievable!

Ya know, I note that as of today, I have had over 33 thousand visits to this website since the start of the year, and that’s either scary or wonderful. I don’t know if they’re looking for something specific or if they’re randomly searching. That makes me humble and wanting to do better. Guess I’ll have to up my game.

73 de Dick N4BC

Who …?

While I was dressing for work this morning about 5:15AM (EDT), I turned on the rig, just to see what might be on. There was a station on 40 meter CW that was a good 599. He was answering stations with their callsign, a 599, and then “UP.” He was going back to primarily JA’s and Europeans. Ya’ know … I listened for at least ten minutes and never heard him identify his station. I guess everybody else knew who he was. Never did find out, myself …

73 de Dick N4BC

Higher frequencies …

I didn’t have much time for radio this weekend, but I did find the higher bands were still alive. I had a couple of contacts on 17m FT8 and did hear some stations on 10m SSB.

Just goes to show ya that there is still a bit of life left “up there.” I wonder how often the band is actually open, but quiet because nobody is there? Hmmm. Maybe we ought to try more often?

73 de Dick N4BC

Silent Key

I just learned this morning that a dear friend, Al Rhodes (KJ4TDG, ex-WN2SOU, ex-WB2ZCP) passed away on Saturday. Al was a past Vice President of Chapter 119, QCWA, in Tidewater Virginia, and I had also worked with him on several job-related projects. Al worked for Federal Engineering as a Project Manager and Senior Consultant, and had worked with me on our Motorola trunked radio system upgrade from analog to digital for the City of Newport News, Virginia. Originally from Annapolis, Maryland, he currently made his home in Virginia Beach, VA.

It’s always hard to say goodbye to good friends, but unfortunately, we have to and then carry on … but not forgetting …

73 de Dick N4BC