Workin’ for It

Afternoons and evenings, the noise on 40 meters has been terrible here at the ole’ homestead. Lots of hash and static crashes from weather-related phenomena. Of course, this is prime park-hunting time. It’s frustrating to hear stations working the activators and not hear those activators. You can tell they’re there … you can occasionally hear them rise above the noise for a moment … and then they dive back down into the noise. I could probably fake my way through a contest-style QSO … signal report, QTH, and 73 … but that’s almost like cheating if I’m not sure what they’re saying … if I have to guess.

CW’s a bit better. In the past couple of days, I’ve worked NK8O and WB8ERJ, and they had great, readable signals … hey, CW is like SSB with an amp! Digital and CW are certainly the way to go when conditions suck!

Even when you can copy with lots of difficulty … the old ears ain’t what they used to be … the noise and crashes are really fatiguing. You can’t keep it up for long. In the afternoons, after work, I like to listen and monitor the spots while working on other stuff at my desk … it gets irritating fast. It’s summertime!

Late evenings and nighttime are better, but unless they’re camping, most of the POTA guys have packed up and gone home. Parks being what they are, they close at sundown unless you’re registered and camping … nature of the beast.

73 de Dick N4BC

Longevity

On a whim, I just looked back to the start of this blog. I can’t believe the statistics. My first post here was on March 23rd 2013 … that was 53 pages and 263 posts ago. And even before that, I had other blogs and websites with previously held callsigns.

It’s not like I had anything earth-shattering to share … just a random narrative of (mainly) what was going on in my “ham life”. But, it’s fun to look back and see what’s changed, as well as what’s stayed the same. I sort of look at it like a journal. It’s nice that people stop by and seem interested in what I’m thinking, but it’s mainly for me … for whatever reasons … it’s fun!

73 de Dick N4BC

Hot!

Not the weather … that’s cooled down considerably. I mean the BANDS!

I ventured up into the higher frequency bands tonight and it was productive. I had FT8 QSOs on 20, 17, 15, 12, 10, & 6 meters! The six meter contacts were into Texas, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Tennessee. Good strong signals, too! I think that’s about the first time in over a year that I’ve had any luck on six. I saw a strong KH6 (Hawaii) station on 12 meters, but couldn’t break the digital pileup 😀 .

I don’t even have an decent, efficient antenna on six meters. I just load up my home-brew vertical wire antenna with the autotuner and push about 75 watts at it. I have no idea how much is getting radiated. Enough, I guess. FT8 being a weak signal mode helps a lot.

On the POTA front, I’m just two confirmations short of 100 parks. I have worked 121, actually … just waiting for the activators to send in their logs. Whenever!

Tomorrow night is our club meeting, with a Dutch treat dinner beforehand. Always a highlight of the month. I just put the finishing touches on my Financial report … all ready to present

73 de Dick N4BC

Changes …

I took off early from work today to tackle a task that I’ve been wanting to get started on … and also dreading … rearranging the equipment in the shack. I would look under the table at the rat’s nest of wiring and just shudder! And the dust bunnies … sound like a regular zoo under there, doesn’t it?

So, every thing disconnected and placed out of the way … all of the old cabinetry removed and discarded … then everything placed on the new shelving. Here’s the result:

N4BC

The shelving is a “shoe rack” that I purchased from Amazon. It’s perfect for what I wanted to do.

Mind you, it’s still a work in progress. It’ll never be this neat and clean again. As a matter of fact, it’s a lot more cluttered now, just a few hours after this photo was taken. I already made a couple of POTA contacts from the new configuration.

73 de Dick N4BC