Ragchew | N4BC

Longevity

I came across an ad for the QCWA. I’d seen them before, and had said “OK, nice, but that’s for old timers.” Then I realized … I’m an old timer now. I was first licensed in 1967 …that’s FORTY-SIX years ago! Man, time flies! So, I decided to spring for a membership. I’m now the proud owner of Membership Number 36139. I’m usually not a joiner, but I do like a lot of the things they do (scholarships) and they seem like a pretty good bunch of guys.

I got on the air for a while tonight and worked a couple of Russian stations on 20m CW. One was in Europe and the other in Asia. There were quite a few other stations on, but I’m just beat tonight … had a long, hard day making a salary doing radio work. And it looks like there’ll be more of the same all this week. Bah! Off to the woods camping with the Boy Scouts this weekend, though. YAY!

73 and cul …

Aargh!

I answered a beautiful sounding CQ this evening. Thought I’d have a nice chat … WRONG! I understood about ten percent of what was sent. Why can’t people put spaces between words? It was literally 2 minutes (seemed like hours) of letters and numbers without a space … sheer torture to copy. Some days my sending isn’t real great either, but if you ever hear me doing that, feel free to let me know the error of my ways.

The 17 meter band was pretty good last night. I worked a couple of new ones there. The WARC bands are where I’ve had some of my more interesting qsos lately.

Well it’s time for bed, so I’ll finish up and get this posted. Got to be up bright and early to head to work in the morning. Catch you later …

Beautiful Sunday

I do believe that spring is finally here! Snow last week, and highs in the near-80’s coming up this week. Today it’s in the mid-60’s. Too nice to spend in the shack!

I did work a Dominican (J75PX) station earlier this morning on 17 meters. It still amazes me how he came back to me on the first call, even when others were calling. Hey, I haven’t got a great antenna here … it’s an off-center feed, configured as an inverted-vee, with the apex at about 20 feet, and that’s being liberal with my measurements. The ends are literally 5 feet off the ground. That coupled with 100 watts is not a big gun station. I guess I should just be grateful that it works so well.

Well, as I said, it’s beautiful outdoors, so I think I’ll sashay on outside and enjoy it. Who knows … the way things have been going this year, we might see snow again!!

Station Photo

I just snapped a photo of the shack setup and am posting it here. Outside, I’ve got a 40-meter Windom in an inverted-vee configuration, with the apex at about 25 feet. Yeah, not a great antenna, but it’s sure better than NO antenna.

I listened around a bit today and worked some 30 and 40 meter CW. Forty meters is pretty well populated tonight, and it’s a good night to be indoors. Here it is spring, and it’s snowing again on the Virginia coast.

I’ve been noticing a constant carrier on 14.030.50 … no idea what it is. Saw some mention of it on one of the QRZ forums that I noticed. Oh well, I guess it’ll just have to be one of the great mysteries of life.