Wednesday, April 23 7:37PM - Thought I'd write this early to average out that very late entry last night, if that makes any sense. Last night due to the late hour I only got one QSO before bed time. Not to worry though, as I got two QSOs during the day today to keep the 2+ a day QSOs streak within a streak going. I worked N4FTD as a POTA and VP2VI for a DX QSO.
I had fun at Skyview last night. I'm slowly getting to know all the members and I added a couple more names last night. I also enjoyed kidding around with Marty AG3I about working him as PJ2/AG3I in a couple of SST Sprints lately. I kidded he was probably shocked to work my QRP signal from Curacao and wasn't expecting it as he is always kidding me and Mike about QRP not working. I asked him what my true RST was when he worked me on 40 and 20. I was surprised myself when he said I was a solid 579 both QSOs. He was actually operating Remote from the big contest station of PJ2T whom I have worked 121 tomes in contests over the years.
Almost time to head to the shack and see what I can work for my two streak QSOs tonight. -30-
Tuesday, April 22 11:46PM - Really late tonight after going to the SkyView meeting with Mike. Had a good time as usual. Maybe some more of the story tomorrow evening, but right now just about ready for bed after I update a couple of website pages. -30-
Monday, April 21 8:44PM - I did the SST the full hour last night. Participation seemed down a bit, maybe because of Easter? Still I made 24 QSOs in 20 SPCs which was good enough for first place in the QRP Category. I was happy with that. I guess there is still time for more entries though. I'm not sure when the 3830 Scores deadline is. I'll just have to wait and see if my score holds up.
It was a nice porch sitting day today and I didn't do much of anything else. Tonight I got two POTA QSOs for the streak, one in AR, one FL both on 20M. Now just waiting to get my weather readings. It was dry and my remote reading high was 81 degrees from the remote in my shelter or 79 on the front porch. -30-
Easter Sunday, April 20 7:40PM - Hope you all had a happy and blessed Easter. I had a quiet one here with a light meal with Bruce, Jeff, and Roscoe. Well it wasn't quite so quiet with Roscoe who did a lot of barking demanding his share of the food, which he got. The weather was nice and I spent a lot of the day sitting out on the porch.
I'm writing this early as I may do a full SST Sprint, or maybe not. If I do, then I won't have to rush when it's over to get things done. -30-
Saturday, April 19 8:49PM - Ham radio or exercise. I was short on my exercising earlier today, so right after getting my streak taken care of, I QRT and got back to the exercise, and am now taking a short break from my exercising to finish updating my web site, then it's back to the exercise. I used the CQMM contest for my streak QSOs from NP3Z and KP4PUA. I chased HD8G a bit but I have the Galapagos on all HF bands so didn't waste all that much time in the chase.
Now after my weather readings, back to finish my exercise routine. -30-
Friday, April 18 8:36PM - This was a preview of summer day with some good warm sunshine getting the air temperature up to let's see, 82 or 84 depending where you were, the back yard or the front yard.
I did the first digging of grass and weeds out of the cracks in the brick walks, then cleaned some leaves from the back yard and pulled some weeds there.
My two QSOs this evening were with K0WEW on 30 from Kansas and VE2CSI on 40. -30-
Thursday, April 17 8:33PM - Today was a "Trimming Thursday". I trimmed both my hair and the grass in my back yard. It was a perfect day for working outside and/or sitting on my front porch.
While sitting on the porch around 6PM or so, I happened to be looking down toward the dead end of our street and saw a bigger bird than the usual sparrows and robins. It was a ring neck pheasant. The first one I have ever seen here in town as far as I can remember. I got a few pictures of it. Then a cat came along and chased it off. I don't know if the cat caught it or not. I don't think so because I saw the cat without his attempted prey a little bit after that. I went looking for the pheasant but didn't see it any more. I ran into a young girl on our nearby trail and showed her the picture. She was interested in it and we chatted a bit. She said she had never seen a pheasant in town either. I hoped to post the picture here but I've been having trouble transferring pictures from my iPhone to computer lately. Maybe I'll work on that a little more tomorrow and if I solve the problem I will post the pheasant picture(s).
I also got a chance to talk with my neighbor Jasmine who has moved back next door a few days ago and will be here at least for a while.
So it was a good day that closed out so far as IARU night on the bands as I worked CR3IARU and VA2RAC for my streak QSOs. -30-
Wednesday, April 16 8:42PM - I have been thinking the past couple days why April 16 seemed to remind me of something special, and finally it dawned on me that April 16, 1969 was the day I started work at WPIT-AM/FM in Pittsburgh and spent a little under a quarter century of good times working with good friends. I just talked with one of them Charlie, maybe the best friend, on the phone a couple days ago. We keep in touch every couple months or so. Unfortunately he is about the only one I keep in touch with and vice versa. A lot of the employees have passed away, and a lot have moved away from the area. Neither of us drive now, but Mike (KC2EGL) has taken me to see Charlie a couple times for nice in person visits in Pittsburgh. He and Charlie have become friends also now.
My QSOs tonite were with Gary K1YAN for 26 minutes and a brief one with Scott KW4NJA. And as usual am running a bit late, and it's time for my weather readings, walking Roscoe, and visiting with Bruce for a while. -30-
Tuesday, April 15 7:46PM - A wild Income Tax Day weatherwise. Just about every kind of weather imagineable across PA today - strong wind up to almost 60 MPH in places notably State College at 59 MPH and Reading at 56 MPH, s#$w, graupel, hail, rain, sunshine, and anything else imagineable here and there. Around here it was mostly just strong wind and rain. I'd estimate the wind at around 40 MPH, strong enough that Roscoe wouldn't go off the porch and barely went out the door this morning.
So taking a clue from Roscoe, I stayed inside for the most part doing some chores to pass the time. -30-
Monday, April 14 9:10PM - I love all aspects of ham radio as long as they involve Morse Code - CW, but one of the favorites is rag chewing with friends. And while all hams can be considered friends, there are special friends that one gets to know better than others. I had two long rag chews tonight with old friends, K9SK Dale and AA2VG Peter. Thanks guys.
Such long rag chews throw off my schedule of other things like writing this diary and often the entries are a lot shorter than I would like because I have to postpone some things I would like to write about because of a lack of time. That is true tonight and I must close now. -30-
Sunday, April 13 7:52PM - I'm going to do the SST Sprint again this evening so I'm writing this now because I won't have time afterward. My goal tonight is to break the 30 QSO mark like I used to do regularly a couple years ago. I'll report the outcome in tomorrow's diary entry. -30-
Saturday, April 12 8:36PM - A couple of GAQP stns plus VP2VI made up my streak QSOs this evening. Otherwise it was a non-busy Saturday. If I had my old contest drive I had many years ago, I would have really hit the GAQP hard as it was one of my favorite state QSO parties back in my early days of ham radio. It was also a memorable QSO party in that it is where I first worked and got to know John K4BAI a couple hundred QSOs ago.
Still waiting for the weather to warm up again after teasing us with some almost summer like weather several days ago. Then I can get outside again and do some walking and garden work. -30-
Friday, April 11 9:01PM - Mike and I went to another Lenten Fish Dinner today. It's hard to believe Lent is almost over already, but Good Friday is next Friday already. Before we went to the dinner, we spent some time in my shack and worked a couple DX stations, TI5/VA3RA on 12 meters, the first QSO I've had on 12 in quite a while. I never think of checking there, and when I do in the evening, it's usually dead anyway. Then we worked an IARU station, OQ0IARU where the op was my friend Franki ON5ZO whom I haven't worked in a while. We had a very short chat cut short by QSB but it was good to work Franki again.
When we got home, we talked about where Mike was going to mount his mobile rig when he gets it, then he headed home.
Tonight my two QSOs were KG5SSB POTA (again) and Mike W3TS whom I hadn't worked since 2017, in the QRP ARCI test. -30-
Thursday, April 10 8:39PM - No big projects today. Just a lot of little ones I'm not going to list.
Two quick QSOs for the streak tonight, a SE stn - W7P Salk - end Polio op by my friend Dan KB6NU in MI, and a POTA in MS, KG5SSB.
A chilly wet day with a high of only 48. Hope it warms up soon for some more sitting on the porch. -30-
Wednesday, April 9 8:12PM - Early tonight, but because I just ordered 2 Meatball Pastas from Vocelli's for me and Bruce (and Roscoe) and have to get this written before it is delivered in about 15 minutes.
The bands cooperated with two Quick QSOs by 0007, one POTA and one DX, KG5SSB and VP2VI. And only some more train maintenance, track cleaning, to account for much of the rest of the "action" here today. HI -30-
Tuesday, April 8 8:52PM - My project for about an hour and a half today was doing my Federal and State Income Taxes. I'm poor and never pay anything nor get any refunds so it doesn't take long to do them on line with Turbo Tax. Other than that it was another inside day today. We had some s@#w this morning, Just enough to have to sweep off the steps before taking Roscoe for the first walk of the day around 9:45AM. I also did some more maintenance on my trains and had fun running them too.
Tonight the same pattern as last night, one short and one long rag chew. Now weather checking time. -30-
Monday, April 7 8:55PM - I spent quite a bit of time today with one of my other hobbies, model railroads. I did some maintenance and cleaning and some reprogrammimg lashups, etc. Then just some plain fun running them. It was a good day for being inside doing things like that. It was a cold and breezy day. Now it's getting very windy a3nd blowing things around. And I have to go out in it and get my weather readings now.
Two rag chews tonight, one short and one long. -30-
Sunday, April 6 9:18PM - 26 QSOs in 22 SPCs in the SST this evening. I worked a fellow SkYview member AG3I, Marty who was operating from Curacao.
That's my diary entry for tonight as it's late with a Roscoe walk coming with a visit with Bruce. Maybe I'll say more about the SST tomorrow, but now 73. -30-
Saturday, April 5 8:41PM - I think every one of my 105,000 QSOs is important and interesting in its own way, but now and then one comes along that stands out in its own way. One such came along tonight. I answered a CQ from Rick WA4IAR and he sent me the usual opening exchange of most rag chew style QSOs, RST, QTH, Name. Then he apologized for the mistakes he was making in his sending. Then he said it was because he was learning to send with his off or left hand. Well that immediately triggered my memory, and after I in turn, sent my opening info, I explained that I sent with my left hand for about a month or so several years ago. Just to interject here, neither of us had any physical reason for doing so, we just wanted to learn how to do it. I explained I thought it was a good thing to do in case someday we would have a problem sending right handed and have to go with the left hand. Rick went on to explain that a couple of his ham friends had done it and he wanted to give it a try. When I did it, I used a hand key and a paddle. He used a bug which I guess would be harder. He spent some time altering a bug for left handed use as he couldn't find a ready made left handed bug anywhere. Anyway the QSO went on for quite a while and went into a few other subjects like our work for example among other topics. When it wound down, I told Rick he was inspiring me to give left handed sending another try which I might just do some day. I said then maybe we can have a 2X left handed QSO some day. Yes, a really enjoyable QSO.
My other QSO was also interesting. It was W2A, a special event call bringing attention to autism. I promised I'd look up the info on the W2A QRZ web page. I think I'll do that after I finish the web site update here and get my weather readings. -30-
Friday, April 4 8:28PM - Another of those I'm here early tonight and not really much to talk about. It was a showery April day today, but not as bad as some parts of the country like the area around TN, KY, and OH for example. I hear they got upwards of 10+ inches of rain in that area and it's not done yet. Here we probably got less than a half to one inch so far. It was even nice to sit out on the porch quite a while and listen to Cousin Brucie and Vinnie Medugno on WABC podcasts.
Tonight it was two POTA QSOs for the streak from N9JF in IL on 20 and WB4IT in AL on 40.
Tomorrow it's the semi-final games of March Madness preparing for the championship game Monday evening. -30-
Thursday, Apr 3 10:59AM - The following is a copy of my diary post of one year ago today with the numbers updated to those for today.
The number of the day is 62. Yes it was 62 years ago today my ham radio license as shown here was issued by the FCC:
Of course I didn't get the license in the mail until a few days later. No instant gratification in those pre-Internet days. In fact, my first QSO didn't come until 5 days later on the 8th with KN3WWW, my high school friend with whom I took my Novice examination a couple weeks before. Then we worked again the next day. No more QSOs until the 21st, when I worked Art K3HGD, another local Kittanning ham. Finally I broke out of Pennsylvania when I worked WN9GAR in WI on the 22nd. Things continued to go slow through the rest of April and never picked up until May 9. From then through the end of May as I learned my way around, I got 41 QSOs in my log. A glance shows my most distant QSO in that time was WN5FQV in Dallas, TX. After that, things continued to roll to this day, and I now have 98,609 QSOs in my KN3WWP/K3WWP log plus 6,736 QSOs using other calls besides KN3WWP/K3WWP for a total of 105,345. Whew! Wonder how many dots and dashes of CW that involves?!! -30-
Wednesday, April 2 8:51PM - Tomorrow, April 3, it was 62 years ago I got my first ham license as KN3WWP. Atually it was issued 62 years ago, but I didn't actually get it till a few days later. I'll have more to say about that tomorrow, I hope as I'm running a bit late again tonite. I know I wrote about that in last years diary archive on this date. Maybe I'll just dig that up and copy it. HI.
I got my usual two streak QSOs tonight. The victims tonight were KB9RPG on 30 and NZ0T on 20 for two nice rag chews.
Can't think of a lot more that happened today, so I'll close now and head to the back yard to get my weather readings. We had about a normal early April day today with a low of 32 and high of 56 and some light showers. -30-
Tuesday, April 1 9:15PM - Late again. Had 3 QSOs for the streak, a POTA and two rag chews.
Did my March weather info today. It was a warm month. The daily average maximum was 9 degrees above normal. Precipitation about 1.3" below normal.
I also finished up a couple other EOM chores today. Not a lot else to report. -30-
Monday, March 31 8:29PM - Big event today besides it being End of Month chores day was my log program crashing when I was putting in my SST QSOs from last night. After a brief panic, I thought things out, restored the program, re-inserted the QSOs it didn't restore (just 4 of them), and got things back going correctly again. Then I did a backup of the file that I neglected doing for a while. (Lesson learned, I hope)
After that I got ambitious and now have most all of my EOM chores done.
I had fun working J62K on 20 tonight. He was a bit weak at first, and busy working a small pileup, but I stuck it out and got him. Then added AI5BE for the second streak QSO. -30-
Sunday, March 30 9:10PM - OK, tonight it was the SST causing me to be late here at the diary keyboard. Should have skipped the SST as conditions were abominable. Had to struggle to make 17 QSOs. They were from 12 states. Maybe I'll go back to just using them for my streak QSOs.
Otherwise briefly, it was a nice day again today except for a little drizzle. A high of 72 under partly cloudy skies. -30-
Saturday, March 29 9:05PM - Two POTA QSOs for my streak this evening, N5NR and KK7RR, both on 40.
Nice day in the mid 70s. A lot of porch sitting felt good. -30-
Friday, March 28 9:08PM - There, see, I'm late again. HI. And a lot I could talk about. Let's get in as much as I can in this short time.
I had a tough time with my streak tonight. I worked a station who just couldn't get my call right. He had K2WWP even after I sent it maybe 2 dozen times or more. So I just didn't log him and got two other stations, N1TKS and old friend John K4BAI for the two good QSOs.
We had a good day on the sub today. Mike and I were joined by two newcomers to the sub, John KC3TJW and Jim AB3LF. The four of us had a lot of fun and made about a dozen QSOs among us. It was a very busy sub today. There were about a few hundred school kid visitor coming through the sub. I'm pleased to say all were very well behaved. I could add more about the sub visit but I have to finish this and walk Roscoe. After the sub visit, Mike and I went for a fish dinner at the fire hall. -30-
Thursday, March 27 7:34PM - Early tonight for a change, and with a lot of time, really not much to talk about. Can't win. HI
I did want to add something about our Requin visit tomorrow that I forgot. As always we will be using the sub's call which is NY3EC that I neglected to mention in last night's entry. For those who don't know, that's the sub's military naval call of NYEC with the number 3 added to convert it to a ham radio call. Should you work us and want a QSL, send your card to the QRZ address and Art will send you a sub card with a picture of the sub on it.
It looks like a pretty nice day tomorrow with only a chance of showers after we leave the sub at 2PM, hopefully not while we are walking to our car. NOTE to self: take your umbrella!
Getting close to shack time now. Hope I don't jinx it, but I'll be going for day # 32 in a row with 2 QSOs per day as part of my big streak. -30-
Wednesday, March 26 9:07PM - A bit late again tonight. I got a bit behind in my walking exercise for one thing. Plus a couple medium length rag chews for my QSOs tonight with KC9YI on 30 in WI and KB7RYU on 20 in MO. Now here I am typing the diary entry and then updating my Main and Propagation pages.
If I haven't mentioned it, Mike and I are going to the Requin this Friday. It will be the usual routine. Get there about 1400Z and operate till 1800Z or so using the sub's rig and call at 100W on or about 7042, 10117, 14062. We'll have a third op with us, Jim AB3LF who will be there from about 1600-1800Z. His first time on the sub for one of our opoerations. Should be fun. Hope to work you there. -30-
Tuesday, March 25 8:39PM - One big project occupied a lot of time today. My printer stopped working a couple days ago and I had some important things coming up to be printed so I quickly picked out a new printer and ordered it from Best Buy. It got here in a couple days today and I installed it, got it working, and did some test printing, scanning, and copying. Seems to work good and has great quality print on all three jobs.
My two QSOs came quickly tonight from K3JN in PA and NB4M in TN on 40 and 30 respectively. Nice rag chew with K3JN but QSB and QRN messed with NB4M. -30-
Monday, March 24 9:19PM - Another late night. Not sure just why tonight. It just happened. I got two short QSOs, one a TU 599 for whatever reason and a short rag chew. Not much else to talk about for today. Just some house cleaning and regular chores. -30-
Sunday, March 23 9:09PM - See the time stamp? It's that late because I did a full SST Sprint tonight. I made 23 QSOs in let's see, 18 SPCs if I counted right. Not bad for not having done one in over a year now and logging on paper. FUN!! I'm going to close now and get back on schedule. HI -30-
Saturday, March 22 7:48PM - Not anything really special today. Of course I followed March Madness. Nothing really out of the ordinary there except maybe Arkansas getting their second straight upset as a number 10 seed. Otherwise I edited a batch of my digital photos and got them a little better in order.
Soon I'll be heading to the shack for my streak QSOs at 0000Z for the 11,889th straight day. Well actually not 0000Z every one of those days. Although most of them came from the 0000Z hour, a lot came from other times of the day as well. The pages QRP Streaks and Yearly Stats in my QRP section have more detailed info on my streaks.
Mike and I had to change our date for the sub visit from Wednesday to Friday next because Art, the sub caretaker had to change his days on the sub to Monday and Friday for the time being.
Off to the shack now. -30-
Friday, March 21 7:27PM - Mike and I had a good Lenten fish dinner today. It was kind of a madhouse, but we waited out the lines and finally got our food and really enjoyed it.
Now I've put off the pictures long enough. Two signs of spring for sure. My tulips sprouting, and the first three robins of the season that I've seen. Here they are:
And that is the entry for today. -30-
Thursday, March 20 9:04PM - Just got the temperature. It was 40 degrees compared to a high of 78 degrees yesterday. This must be March in West PA.
Not a lot going on today. Some house cleaning, running my trains, following March Madness, and usual other chores. Well, I guess that is something, not nothing.
A couple rag chews with K1LGM and K1YAN made the streak QSOs this evening.
Tomorrow a fish dinner at a local fire hall with Mike. -30-
Wednesday, March 19 8:42PM - To close out yesterdays's entry. Yes, I did finish my walking exercises. It was after midnight, but I made it to keep that streak going. I'm not sure how long the completing my exercises streak is. I'll have to figure that out some time. Too many things to do. But that's good. Much better than sitting around doing nothing.
A POTA (AB9CA) and a DX (PJ2ND) made up my streak QSOs tonight. I was going to post a couple pictures of robins and tulips to welcome spring, but I'll wait till tomorrow which is the first day of Astronomical spring (and the 20th day of Meteorological spring. -30-
Tuesday, March 18 10:46PM - A busy past hour. Mike and I went to Skyview tonight and of course I got home late with a Roscoe walk, temperature reading, streak QSOs, finishing my exercise routines all to take care of before going to bed.
Here's how it went. I told Bruce I'd be home at 9:45 to take care of Roscoe. It went right on schedule.
Next it was out to get the weather readings which also went smoothly.
Then up to the shack where I thought it might be rough to get my QSOs. I thought maybe one tonight and one during the day tomorrow. Wrong! That went smoothly also. I found Bert W5ZR finishing a QSO on 30, called and worked him right away. After that QSO, I found K1GUP calling CQ on 40 and called and worked him easily.
Still have some walking exercise to finish but I may get it done.
The day with Mike was good earlier. We killed some time, ate a pasta meal each, then off to the meeting. Had a good time there. I met Jim AB3LF. We talked quite a while. Turned out he'd like to go with us on the Requin if we go next Wednesday. So all turned out very well today. -30-
Monday, March 17 8:23PM - Happy St. Patrick's Day. Hope you had a good green one today.
My two QSOs this evening were both POTAs from AB9CA and KG5SSB on 20M. That's 22 straight days now I've gotten 2 or more QSOs per day for the streak. I think I'll see how far I can go, but I'm not going to continue if I have to work too hard at it. I'll drop back to just 1 per day as I've done for the past 30 years or so.
Tomorrow evening Mike and I will be going to the SkyView Club meeting after spending some time here and having something to eat. -30-
Sunday, March 16 8:19PM - We escaped some bad weather today. The forecast was much worse than the actual weather which seems to happen a lot around here. We kid that we have shields that we put up when bad weather threatens. When you analyze it as I sort of do with my daily readings, there actually seems to be some truth in it. Any way we were under a tornado watch, high wind warning, severe thunderstorm warning a good part of the day and all we got was about a 15 minute burst of heavy rain and moderate high wind. Nothing serious at all.
I've got to make this short and get back to setting up my spreadsheet for March Madness now. My favorite sporting event of the year. So 73. -30-
Saturday, March 15 8:39PM - Another nice day to be outside. I even ate part of my meals out on the porch. Fortunately it's still too early for the main bug population to show up. Also had some good walks with Roscoe who seems to feel better after his visit to the vet a couple days ago.
Two contest QSOs satisfied the two streak QSOs this evening. YU5R in the Russian DX and K4GM in the Virginia QSO Party. -30-
Friday, March 14 8:49PM - A beautiful spring day with a high just missing 80 at 79 degrees on my unofficial remote thermometer. So maybe we did hit 80 on the official mercury in glass thermometer when I check at 9:00.
Both QSOs this evening were DX from HH2K and KP2AA on 20 and 30 in that order.
A lot of porch sitting today playing iPhone games or just watching life go by.
Missed the eclipse. Had my phone alarm set, but either it didn't go off or I set it wrong. Oh well, it was right up over my house and would have been hard to see that well anyway. -30-
Thursday, March 13 8:51PM - I spent a good part of the day sitting on the front porch enjoying the 72 degree weather. I also spent some time Roscoe. He wass feeling a bit down after his vet appointment yesterday after the shots and poking around his body doing some checks, but he seemed a bit livelier this evening.
I made three QSOs this evening, one a POTA, one DX, and one short rag chew.
I don't know if I'll stay up or get up for the lunar eclipse tonight or maybe neither which is most likely. If I were younger, I've definitely want to watch but..... -30-
Wednesday, March 12 8:36PM - Today was vets day for Roscoe, and other than a tumor or growth on his right back leg, he passed the checkup with flying colors. Not bad for an almost 14 year old dog.
It was also the day for my monthly Seniors Food Box. On top of all that, we went to Walmart to pick up a supply of breakfasts for Roscoe. So it was a busy day.
I still managed to get my daily two QSOs, one DX PJ2ND and a POTA N5ILQ. -30-
Tuesday, March 11 8:53PM - Once again late with some time to find my two QSOs plus only having one hour before I have to QRT at 9:PM. I got the QSOs though. K1EO and K4TN, both on 30. -30-
Monday, March 10 8:50PM - Did you ever have one (or more) day(s) when a lot of little things went wrong? I did today. Nothing major, just little things. I thought it was going to continue into the shack this evening. I just couldn't get anyone to hear my call, even a couple strong stations I called. Finally though I got a POTA station, AB9CA in TX on 20. Then finally got the 2nd QSO thanks to K9SK on 30 meters for a short 13 minute rag chew.
Thanks to the time change it is now a bit late so I'll cut this short to go get my weather readings in a couple minutes and walk Roscoe a little later after that. -30-
Sunday, March 9 8:20PM - It seemed funny waiting till 8:00PM EDT to head to the shack for my QSO(s) after the time change last night. I handled all the events affected by the change otherwise though.
Of course being Sunday, the SST took care of my streak QSOs. I worked WK0B and K1BG. Not much else to talk about today so 73. -30-
Saturday, March 8 8:27PM - Rag chew and contest QSO tonight for the 2 QSOs. KB6NU on 30 and N5OT on 20.
Just got done with the first part of setting clocks to DST. I like the spring setup much better than the fall setup for a couple reasons. The spring setting means good weather is close at hand. Also you only need to go ahead 1 hour instead of back 23 hours on all the clocks. Part two comes tomorrow morning when I see if I forgot to set any clocks or forgot which ones set themselves. Another thing is when I set them this early I get confused between now and bedtime just what time it really is. Oh well it only comes twice a year.
It was a cold day today with a bitter wind chill adding to the actual temperature, or I should say subtracting from the feel like temperature. -30-
Friday, March 7 7:59PM - An interesting day today, as are all days when Mike visits. Today was a visit mainly for a Lenten fish dinner, our first of ?? of the Lenten season. We also got on the air for a while. Mike did the SST from my shack. I just sat and listened and sorted some DX cards that arrived recently. When the SST ended at 4PM, we headed to the Firehall and partook of our fish dinners which were very good as usual.
When 0000Z came, and Mike had headed home, I went to the shack and quickly worked EI9LB on 20 for the first of my two streak QSOs. Then I had to look around a bit to find the second QSO, but I did and it was another good rag chew of 16 minutes with KR8R in Ohio on 40 meters.
Finally a weather tidbit. Tomorrow, March 8 is the 65th anniversary of one of the days that helped start my real interest in meteorology. On March 8, 1960, the temperature dropped to 2 degrees below zero, something at that time was a very rare occurance in March and attracted my attention to weather records of various kinds. I had kept daily weather readings as sort of a school project for a good part of 1959, and then started keeping my daily readings that continue to this date on January 1, 1960. However it took record events like the March 8, 1960 one along with other records to really fully cement my interest in meteorology and kept it going all these 65 or so years. -30-
Thursday, March 6 8:45PM - Another two QSO evening for the streaks. One a 30 second POTA QSO and one 41 minute rag chew. K4NYM and WA1GXC respectively.
Winter paid an encore visit today with some light s#$w, strong wind, and cold with a daytime high in the low 30s. However it will be a short encore with highs in the 60s most of next week.
Tomorrow will be the first Lenten fish dinner for Mike and me. I'm looking forward to that. -30-
Wednesday, March 5 8:17PM - One last nice day before it cools off a bit the next few days. But it's very up and down weather so it's actually hard to predict just what is going to happen until it happens.
I made it to two QSOs again this evening thanks to KC1BMD on 30 and N2JPR on 40 to keep the 2 a day streak going another day.
Not much going on today. I did some financial paperwork and a little cleaning up. That was about it. -30-
Tuesday, March 4 7:58PM - Another unusual thing on the air this evening. I worked my first regular QSO with a California station in a good long while. W6RDF in San Diego on 20 meters. Then from a distant state to a very close one. KA3UAW in Pennsylvania on 40 meters who answered my CQ.
It was a beautiful spring day today with a high of 66. Nice weather for sitting on the porch, which I did for quite a while. Tomorrow we get a typical Spring day also, but of the nasty rainy, thunderstorm, windy type, but still better than a "good" winter day anytime. -30-
Monday, March 3 7:36PM - Two Madeiras this evening. CT9/DK7YY on 10109 using my 20 meters antenna (forgot to change after being on 20), then CT9/DF8AA on 7027 (right antenna for this one.) Both on 1st or 2nd call. Also an ID station on 20 meters before those two. So the two plus QSOs streak goes another day.
Main project today was doing some spring housecleaning. Sure collected a lot of dust. Wonder where it all comes from. I read somewhere sometime that a lot of house dust is actually from human cells that the body sheds. If so, I could build a new human from all the dust I get here in just a few weeks. HI. -30-
Sunday, March 2 7:41PM - Of course, the 2 a day streak goes on. Easy tonight with the SST Sprint going on.
The main project today was getting the February weather into my computer spreadsheet. One very unusual stat showed up. The daily mean departure from normal was 0.0 degrees. Very seldom do any stats like that turn out to be exactly normal. Other than that, nothing else unusual turned up. There were two daily records, both for greatest daily precipitation.
The local Lenten Fish Dinners started last Friday. Mike and I will be going to our first one this coming Friday, the 7th. The price has gone up, but at $15.00 it's still a good bargain and for a good cause. -30-
Saturday, March 1 8:20PM - It's Here!!! Welcome Spring!! Now who is the wise guy who asked for an encore of winter?? It's going down into the teens tonight with some s#$w flurries over the next couple days. Oh well, it will be a short encore (I hope).
I got a DX buro mailing today with 11 cards. Nothing really exciting beyond a couple new prefixes, SC50 and DM75. But all QSLs are nice to receive.
For the 6th evening in a row now, I've made 2 streak QSO. Both rag chews tonight which was nice. -30-
Friday, February 28 7:53PM - From 2/7/2011 to 2/6/2012 and from 1/5/2023 to 1/4/2024 I worked at least 2 QSOs per day during my 11,166 consecutive days main streak. Now I've got a 5 day 2 QSOs per day streak going as of today. It's in the back of my head to try to turn this into another year long 2 QSOs per day sub-streak, but I doubt if I will do it. I just don't have the drive now to go beyond the 1 per day QSO of the current streak, but....
Today of course was an end of the month day which is always busy for me. This month I didn't procrastinate like I did last month (for 3 or 4 days!), and got most of the EOM/FOM chores done already. I only have a couple little things left like putting the February weather data in my computer which I can't do until sometime after midnight tonight anyway. Oh and take town the spring countdown on this page for another year because we will be in Spring in about 4 hours. HOORAY!!!
Oh, the two QSOs tonite were a POTA AB9CA on 20 and DX CT9/DF8AA on 40. -30-
Thursday, February 27 7:39PM - Another evening with two QSOs, one POTA and one rag chew. Deja Vu all over again from last night.
Happy last day of meteorological winter UTC. Saturday will be the first day, normal time of meteorological Spring. We will have made it through another winter. It wasn't too bad this year unless you compare it to the two previous almost non-winters.
There wasn't much out of the ordinary going on to write about today -30-
Wednesday, February 26 7:50PM - Another evening with two QSOs, one POTA and one rag chew. Is activity picking up or what. Folks coming out of hibernation? Whatever, I like the increasing activity.
It was also another day of pretty good weather. A bit foggy and damp, but more s@#w melt to the point it is almost gone now and everything looks much nicer outside. Even the mud looks good compared to the s@#w. -30-
Tuesday, February 25 8:09PM - For the second evening in a row, I got two QSOs for the streak, Jim K8MPH and Dick K5TF both on 40M. Also for the second day in a row, we had nice weather, PC and a high of 49 with the delightful sight of a big s@#w melt. HOORAY!
We don't even have to peer around the corner for Spring now. It's coming right down the street toward the door now. Again HOORAY.
With the coming of spring, also comes the awakening of the Requin from its Winter nap on March 8. So we will be doing a Requin subpedition next month sometime. More on that as it draws closer. It's a great time of year!! -30-
Monday, February 24 8:11PM - A great s#@w melting day. We got rid of quite a bit of s#@w today. Good riddance. Hope it stays away now. Looks pretty nice for the next few days anyway.
I got two QSOs this evening for the streak, K2QU on 40 and KC8JW on 80. Both nice rag chews. -30-
Sunday, February 23 7:31PM - I had to miss the South Hills Hamfest today due to a sore back and leg. Mike went though and sent me some pictures and a video in a message. Looks like they had a good turnout. Mike said he didn't win the IC7100 prize which he was hoping for. He didn't mention winning anything else either, Several folks asked about me. That was good to know and I appreciate it.
Once again I thought of putting in an effort in the SST this evening, but again at the last minute I decided to just get my streak QSO, then QRT. I worked Fred N4BA on 80 meters. -30-
Saturday, February 22 7:49PM - We almost saw or felt 40 degrees today. My remote unit shows a high of 39 today. I'll take it.
This evening saw a couple DX stations in the log from the UBA contest, CT9ABN and LZ9W. Also one from the SCQP, WW4SF.
That's a mini-Reader's Digest type story of my day. -30-
Friday, February 21 8:22PM - I mentioned hearing from an old ham friend about a week ago, but I think I neglected to mention his Call and Name. Well, it's KB3DRW and Don. I also wanted to mention something interesting he said. As you may know, I often mention time going by so fast when you are old and how it accelerates as you get older. Don commented on that and said there may actually be something to that. Let me quote from his email, ".....And you are right, time sure is flying. I hear it seem that way when we age because each year is a smaller part of our existence. When we were 10, a year was one tenth of our life. When we are 70 a year is one seventieth of our life. Makes sense I guess." Yes it does make sense if you think about it.
Tonight I had to search a bit for my QSO, but found Rich W3RJ and we had a nice rag chew. We are contemporaries in our ages, but he has 5-6 years on me in the length of our ham "careers". -30-
Thursday, February 20 9:13PM - Still in the winter doldrums. A little light s#@w, some cold temps, etc. every day for I don't remember how long now. Possibly a break coming this weekend and next week with some dry less cold wx, but we'll see. Fingers crossed.
Mike and I are going to our first hamfest of the year this Sunday. Looks like good weather.
For the streak I heard and worked Tony N2ATB on 40 meters. -30-
Wednesday, February 19 8:41PM - I did some house cleaning today. I also did some painting on my train layout. Those things plus other routine chores filled in the blanks in my day.
This evening I worked Pierre VE2PID operating remote from a station in MI. At least he makes it clear he is operating remote. I think some fellows don't bother mentioning it and then you don't know how to log that QTH. Modern ham radio, I guess. Anyway no matter where someone is located, portable, mobile, remote, etc. it is still a good QSO even though you are not sure where you worked. -30-
Tuesday, February 18 7:31PM - Spring is closing in. Ain't it great! Still winter has about ten days or so to go, but if you look around the corner.....
I heard from an old friend today. WY3H Tom Mitchell. It's been quite a while now and I was delighted to see his name show up on my Apple Watch Phone as I was eating a meal here. I was even more delighted to hear that he is doing well. As you may or may not know, I was the co-founder with Tom of the North American QRP CW Club, NAQCC way back in 2004.
I didn't get to spend much time on the bands tonight. I heard and worked CO6DE on 30 meters almost as soon as I turned on the rig to book my streak QSO for another day. -30-
Monday, February 17 7:49PM - Another miserable winter day. It's amazing how spoiled we got with the past couple non-winter winters. Now this one that is not really all that bad when you get right down to it seems like a really miserable one.
Not much to report on this day except I think I've swept more s@#w this month than totally the past couple years before the last two mild ones. Of course those years the sweeping involved heavier s#@w than I handle at my age. This year mostly inch or less at I time which I mostly swept just for Roscoe's sake when I walk him. He's getting old too. Came here in August 2012 when he was a few months old, we think.
My streak QSO tonight was KD9SU for a rag chew on 21 minutes on 30 meters. -30-
Sunday, February 16 7:21PM - I never did get back in the ARRL DX Contest, so I wound up with 8 QSOs in 8 countries including my 43 minute WAC last evening. Tonight a quick SST QSO sufficed for my streak QSO from WA5PFJ.
Today I got an Email QSL card from R9LY in Tyumen for a QSO on August 27, 2024 on 20M at 0413Z. One of only a handful of DX QSLs I've gotten via that method. I'll have to see how I should reply to it.
Winter struck a blow today with wind, cold, and snow after a heavy rain of 1.3" during the night and early morning. We sure have had a variety of weather this month. -30-
Saturday, February 15 8:05PM - I got a quick streak QSO in the ARRL DX Test from CR3DX, and I really had nothing much else to do for an hour, so I figured out something to do in the Test that I could do easily in that hour. Something I do a lot in DX contests - make a WAC. I decided I wouldn't count the ZF5T QSO from last evening. I started with Africa from the CR3DX QSO at 007Z, then it went like this, Asiatic Russia - RA9P at 0019Z, South America - ZP6/N3BNA at 0033Z, North America - TO4A at 0039Z, Oceania - NH7T at 0041Z, Europe - IO4X at 0050Z. A WAC in 43 minutes. For those of you who don't know, I never use spotting of any kind. All my QSOs including the 43 minute WAC tonight are made by simply tuning the bands and listening or calling CQ. 43 minutes is not the fastest WAC I have ever made. I don't recall the exact time now, but I'm pretty sure it was less than 20 or 15 minutes. And folks say QRP doesn't work. HI
Mike and I often borrow a phrase from the radio comedy show, "Chicken Man" which goes like, "He's everywhere, he's everywhere" whenever we tune around the bands and keep hearing the same station over and over again. Well, I think I'll award the Chicken Man award to the station I hear the most when I'm doing a contest. This weekend's Chicken Man award goes to ZF5T already even though the contest is only half over. I don't know how many times I've heard ZF5T so far. He really is everywhere, it seems.
That contest WAC stimulated my contesting a bit and maybe I'll get a little more active again tomorrow. Maybe even try 80 later tonight. -30-
Friday, February 14 8:01PM - Happy Valentine's Day. Hope you and your significant other had a great romantic day today.
Once again another big contest is on and I have virtually no interest in getting seriously involved. I worked ZF5T for a streak QSO, then listened for 45 minutes or so, but didn't find anything that interested me in working. I did hear some rare things like Mongolia, but I've already worked it about 10 or so times. Maybe I'll listen again during the day tomorrow. For sure I will use the contest to get my streak QSO tomorrow evening, and probably will listen again then to see if I can find something I've never worked like a new entity, prefix, band entity, etc. Maybe I should just start all my records over again at #1. HI. -30-
Thursday, February 13 8:36PM - Another one of those quiet days with not much going on. Biggest thing I did today was clean up a lot of old correspondence I hadn't touched in quite a while. Then I spent time running my trains along with other daily usual chores.
This evening, the bands were a bit strange. I chased 3 different PJ2 stations and only got one of them. That one took quite a while to get in my log. Unusual because PJ2 is usually very easy to work for me. Conditions seemed pretty good also. Oh well. At least I got my streak QSO.
One other thing today. I got an email from an old friend whom I hadn't seen in person since the late 1990s when he visited here a couple times and loaned me his SG-2020 rig to try out for a couple days while he took care of some business in nearby Pittsburgh. I wrote a review of the rig and it is still on my QRP Rigs page even though I believe the rig is "retired" now. -30-
Wednesday, February 12 7:49PM - A nice day today with only a little precipitation in the form of lite rain late this afternoon.
I worked a DX station for the streak this evening, VP2ECV on 40 meters. Owner/operator of the station is KG9N according to QRZ. You will see on my home page that it was Chuck who was the very first QSO I worked to start the streak back on August 5, 1994 when he was KG9N/C6A in the Bahamas. I think I will write him and send a QSL for this QSO. He sent me a card a few years later for our first QSO after he read about the streak here on the web site.
I also had a long rag chew tonite after that with N9OL which lasted 35 minutes till QSB ended it. -30-
Tuesday, February 11 10:19PM - A long day with Mike today from Noon till 9:30PM. A condensed version of what we did: Chatted a bit, cleaned my train layout, checked the (mostly dead) bands, had a Vocelli's pizza, went to the Skyview meeting, came back home, Mike headed to Brookville, I'm now getting caught up on things.
Got my streak QSO at Skyview. Added a NA sprint QSO at home here. -30-
Monday, February 10 8:19PM - A calm day in between storms is the best way to describe today, I guess. There haven't been too many of those the past month or so. Now we have some s#$w coming tomorrow and maybe some ice or hopefully rain on Wednesday.
The bands were kind of quiet this evening, but I made 3 QSOs, the most of any day this month so far. N2ATB on 40, K7WN in FL on 30, and K3CT/VP9 apparently getting ready for the ARRL DX Test on 30.
Tomorrow it's a visit from Mike depending on the weather. -30-
Sunday, February 9 7:24PM - Another day, another QSO. Now and then I get asked how many days long is my streak of making at least one QRP/CW/simple wire antenna each day. I'm glad to tell them, but there is a simple way to find out. Just look at the table a little below the mid point of the main page here on my web site. I update the totals there each day when I update that and other parts of the web site. For example if you look at about the time I'm updating this diary entry, you will see that as of now, the streak is at 11,148 days during which I made 77,490 QSOs. Other entries in the table list data about one of the QSOs I made that day. There's a legend below the table that explains the entries. Above the table is a synopsis of the streak telling how it started, etc.
I usually mention the daily streak QSO here in the diary, but tonight I'll make you look in the table to see who I worked. HI. -30-
Saturday, February 8 7:25PM - Another in a series of storms passed through today, and again we lucked out so far. It's almost all the way through now so we should make it all the way OK, I think. All kind of precipitation and weather was predicted from rain to freezing rain to snow to sleet to wind to a thunderstorm, but pretty much all of the invitees that showed up was plain rain. That was fine with me.
I got a POTA QSO for the streak this evening from Ian NA4A hopefully from some place having good weather. -30-
Friday, February 7 7:41PM - Deja vu all over again according to Yogi Berra. The weather forecast for tomorrow is the same as for Wednesday night. I just hope the results are the same. That is, the worst of things missed us. The time frame is different, afternoon tomorrow vs. overnight previously. Then that's followed by another storm Tuesday and a couple the week after that. Gee, let up on us, please.
The bands were busy with RTTY but not much else tonight. I did manage to work Vin WZ2J for the streak. -30-
Thursday, February 6 7:48PM - We lucked out yet another time last night. The worst of the freezing rain kind of passed us by as far as I can tell. We did get a dose of regular rain. I'm not sure how much as I haven't been out to check the gauge yet. We did have a thunderstorm pass through. I slept through it, but my neighbor Bruce heard two loud claps of thunder accompanied by two brilliant lightning flashes around 3:00AM or so. I later heard on the Penn State weather show that there were 950 lightning strikes recorded across Pennsylvania during the night. Awesome for February.
For anyone who missed the storm, there well be an encore performance on Saturday night according to some reports. Me, I was happy missing it, especially the freezing rain part. It would have been interesting to see the thunderstorm in February though. Oh, well.
The QSO tonight came from a friend I haven't worked in quite a while now, Jim K8MPH in MI on 40 meters. We chatted about 12 minutes before the band kind of gave out on us. It was unusual in one respect. It was one of those somewhat rare QSOs where I go the whole QSO with not a single sending error. Then after that I called CQ for maybe 5-10 minutes with only one error. -30-
Wednesday, February 5 7:43PM - Not a good weather evening. We're waiting for an area of freezing rain to show up, hoping it will change to regular rain before it does any damage here. We are kind of the border between both and it could go either way. It is supposed to arrive around 10 o'clock (EST), and of all the forecasts I check here, NWS, ACCUWX, Weather Bug, WX Channel, etc., it seems all have a slightly different forecast for the storm intensity, type, and arrival time.
I had a QSO with Nova Scotia tonight on 40 for the streak. First time I've worked NS in ages except maybe in a contest, and I don't even think that has been too recently.
I forgot to mention that Mike visited yesterday. Sorry about that. We just spent some time here at home running my trains. Also he helped me clean up the layout and remove all the dust that had accumulated over the past couple years since the last time we did it. Still a couple corners to clean but it looks much better now. We also checked out the bands and of course had a good meal from Vocelli's to top everything off. -30-
Tuesday, February 4 7:51PM - The next battle of winter comes up tomorrow night when some freezing rain invades western Pennsylvania. We're right on the battlefront and a swing of a few miles this way or that determines whether we get rain or freezing rain. It doesn't look like we'll get a lot one way or the other at this time. We'll just have to play it by ear. Then Thursday will be another day in the 50s that will help melt any frozen precipitation. Then the cycle repeats a few times over at least till Valentine's day. What a potential mess!
Meanwhile the streak goes on also. Tonight a nice rag chew with Gary K2ON on 80 meters until the band changed after about 20 minutes.
Stay tuned for the continuing saga of Winter: 2025 - February. -30-
Monday, February 3 7:54PM - One of the best days of winter so far. A high of 57 and a lot of sunshine. I even took a half mile outdoors walk this afternoon. The first such walk in a few weeks now.
Tonight the first day this month I got more than one QSO in the evening for the streak. WB0GKH in WI on 40 and CT3MD in Madeira on 40.
I just uploaded my January QSOs to eQSL to pretty much finish up my Jan/Feb change of month chores now. -30-
Sunday, February 2 7:44PM - Anyone want to join me in a groundhog hunt tomorrow. The ugly little creature saw his shadow this morning and forecasted six more weeks of winter as if we haven't had enough already. BAH!
Right now we're going through a bit of freezing rain and it's very slippery outside. At least we're getting one nice day tomorrow with a high of 57 degrees. Now that's the way February should be.
For the third evening in a row, my streak QSO came on 80 meters. Tonight it was Fred N4BA in the SST. -30-
Saturday, February 1 7:30PM - Here we are in a new month and I continued my EOM/FOM chores today. It was a beautiful looking day till you got out in the wind chill temperatures. I don't think I've seen the sun this bright all day in a long while now. The high temp today came at midnight and dropped or held steady since then. I don't think it got out of the upper 20s during the day. I sure hope it isn't this sunny tomorrow. I want overcast skies so Phil won't see his shadow.
I'm going to work on my January weather data now. I got my streak QSO from the VT QSO Party and N1SP on 80 meters. -30-
Friday, January 31 8:34PM - Being the last day of the month, I did some of my End Of Month chores like flipping calendar pages, getting ready to do my EOM finances, etc.
It was a nice weather day today with mild temperatures and rain which is a great deal better than cold and s@#w. It's supposed to be cloudy on Sunday which may mean no shadow in Punxsutawney for Phil to see. Groundhog fanatics know what that means.
A nice 80 meters rag chew QSO this evening with Dale KO8L in Ohio. -30-
Thursday, January 30 8:26PM - Well, in UTC, here it is the last day of January which means we are at the end of two of the three worst months of the year. So far, winter hasn't been all that horrible except for a cold spell of a few days with a couple of those days below zero. No large accumulation of s@#w. I guess the most on the ground at one time a couple of inches. The ground has stayed covered for a long spell, but only with an inch or so. Of course February can be pretty nasty so we're not out of the woods yet.
The bands were pretty busy this evening, but it was hard to get a QSO with a lot of QSB that made breaking the several pileups hard to break. I finally did get a WWA station with a very minimal pileup, II2WWA. -30-
Wednesday, January 29 2:05PM - As usual, not much happening to talk about even though it is another nice day with sunshine and a temperature of 41 degrees. It's breezy today so that helps to circulate the warm(?) air and mix it with the cold air near the ground to promote s@#w melting as opposed to uniform cold air. It's too bad it doesn't melt as fast as it does down in Georgia. Here's that picture Ange sent me of a palm tree in Savannah, GA with melting snow around its base. -30-
Tuesday, January 28 7:53PM - Another pretty good day today. A lot of sun and a high of 40 with some delightful s@#w melting. Still not a lot, but every little bit helps to get rid of the ugly stuff. My gardening friend Ange is down in Florida and he said it was snowing and cold down there also. He is going to text me a picture of a palm tree in the snow. If he does, I'll post it here in the diary.
A quick TU 599 QSO with K4IEY for the streak tonight. I'm not sure if he is some sort of SE call or why he gave such a quick QSO. I'll try to find out why later. I've got to hurry a bit now as I'm going to order a Pasta dish for me and Bruce (and Roscoe probably) in a few minutes now.
I had something unusual tonight. I got an answer to a CQ and couldn't pull the call through QSB and QRN. Most of the time with tweaking the tuning or trying a different antenna on receive I can copy most anyone calling me, but not this time. Should the caller happen to read this, I apologize. -30-
Monday, January 27 7:41PM - And the beat goes on. Nothing of real interest going on today. It was a beautiful sunny day. If only it were in another season besides winter, it would be wonderful to be out walking, sitting in the park, sitting on the porch, or something else like that. SIGH!
It was a little difficult finding a QSO this evening. Finally I found the big contester and DXer N8OO calling a plain CQ so I answered him and we exchanged a brief 599. He must be checking some equipment or getting ready for some contest? Anyway it was a QSO that kept the streak going another day.
I've been watching an interesting TV series with Bruce. It's called Aerial America and examines each state from the air discussing the history of the state among other facts about the state. We watch about a half episode each evening after I take Roscoe for his last walk of the day. Very interesting. I've learned a lot about the states that I never knew before. -30-
Sunday, January 26 7:10PM - Back to the quiet days again. Not much going on today. It was a little less cold again with a high of 39 but it didn't promote much s#@wmelt. Things just have frozen so hard from those bitter cold days even the bright sun didn't have much effect, but better days are coming for sure. Rain and temperatures in the upper 30s and low 40s are predicted for next weekend and that may help.
Tonight I just used the SST for a quick streak QSO with KR0Q at 0000Z, listened around a couple minutes and QRT. -30-
Saturday, January 25 7:34PM - Winter marches on relentlessly. SIGH! At least I got out for a while on a shopping trip to replentish my groceries supply thanks to Bruce's brother Jeff. I spent just shy of $100.00 on food that will be gone probably in a couple weeks. Let's go back 4 years in time. That same 100 dollars could have bought enough groceries to last 3-4 weeks, pre-inflation.
Since it's Saturday, it was also my laundry day. It was nice to have a couple things to keep me busy along with some other household chores. There's nothing worse than sitting around doing nothing. That's more tiring than being busy working.
BTW, now it's s#$wing again. Just a nuisance s#@w, thank goodness. Could be worse.
I used the CQ160M contest for my streak QSO this evening. K2AV in NC.
My web site was busy the past couple days with over 200 hits on my site counters. It must have been mentioned in a big site somewhere as that is what usually causes a big surge in hits. Also I had a couple of guestbook entries and those are few and far between these days. Anyone have any idea what may have caused the surge? -30-
Friday, January 24 7:48PM - These long lasting winter days are getting more and more depressing. I'm developing a serious case of cabin fever. At least the real bitter cold has departed for the time being anyway, and there hasn't been a lot of s@#w. I guess I should be thankful for the little things if not the overall winter picture.
Let's see, what did I do today out of the ordinary boring existence? I can't think of anything out of the usual daily routine.
I did get 4 QSOs this evening. That's a bit unusual. On 4 different bands, 40 N1W, 20 K0DTQ, 80 W8BJO, 160 VE3AT. Maybe I'll fool around a bit more in the CQ160 ontest later, but probably not. -30-
Thursday, January 23 8:09PM - I kind of enjoyed the less cold weather today. We got all the way up to 32. It felt almost like summer. Well, not really. It was better than the highs in the teens and low twenties the past few days though.
It was still too cold to be outdoors except for walking Roscoe and he didn't stay out that long. I did some needed house cleaning and some 'redding' up here and there.
I got two QSOs this evening for the streak. N1MX in MA on 40, and W3JRR in PA answered my 80M CQ for a good rag chew. Nice to see some rag chew action, and also nice to see some action on 80 meters. -30-
Wednesday, January 22 7:31PM - We bottomed out at -8 this morning, and never got above 14 all day. At least no s@#w at all and only almost calm wind so it was bearable. Now we move on to a little less cold period the next several days and a dry one as well. That's how it looks at this point in time, but things often change rapidly in winter making predictions difficult beyond a day or two. I had been waiting to store some Christmas things up in the attic because of the cold, but decided I'd put it off long enough and ventured up there today. It was 37 degrees so my venture was short. HI The rest of the stuff can wait a few more days.
I did some rare non-frozen dinner cooking today. Do they still call those TV dinners? I cooked up a squash I got in my food box earlier this month. It turned out good and I saved a half of it to cook another day, maybe tomorrow.
The bands were on the busy side tonight, but most everyone was already engaged in a QSO. I finally found and got with a single call FM5BH on 40 meters. I've worked him a lot over the years. -30-
Tuesday, January 21 6:50PM - Not a fun day today, but not as bad as it could have been. We started out at 5 below zero and it got less cold rather quickly going up to 10 above around 10AM, less cold enough to take Roscoe out for his first walk of the day a little later than usual. Then it stayed mostly in the mid-teens most of the day peaking at 18 at one point. One more cold day then a little moderation starting Thursday or Friday. That will be a relief. I'm getting tired of hearing my furnace running so much, but it sure feels good with the warmth it brings.
Time now to head to the shack for my streak. Hope it's a quick one as my bedroom/shack is not all that warm although not all that bad either. -30-
Monday, January 20 7:51PM - I am doing a little close out work on the weather records, and soon I'll have them all caught up to date. The weather outside was bitter old today but only a preview of the next couple days before it turns comparitively nice starting on Thu/Fri. Before I got on the air this evening I dug out a nice heavy blanket to add to my bed to help me make it through the next couple below zero nights.
The one I really feel sorry for is Roscoe. We try to hurry him back indoors when we go for a walk, but he is just not aware of the situation or else he is immune to the cold. I worry though because he is around 13 years old. He is in good condition except for for a large tumor or some large fatty tissue on one of his back legs.
It doesn't seem to bother him though and he runs around like a puppy a lot of the time. Still that condition plus his age can't be helped by this bitter cold weather.
Just one QSO tonight. I heard my friend Tony N2ATB calling CQ and we had a short rag chew. -30-
Sunday, January 19 7:56PM - A busy day today for a change. I finally got around to putting my 2024 weather records into my computer spreadsheet. That was quite a task that actually took me parts of three days to get it done. Now I have to analyze the data for a while. I did note it was a very warm year with the temperature checking in at almost 3.5 to 4 degrees above the 30 year mean.
That's the only stat that jumped right out at me without any analysis. I'm sure I'll find more with further examination when time permits. Right now the only thing to think about weatherwise is surviving the bitter cold the next 3 or 4 days. They have slacked off on the predictions a bit as the days draw closer, raising the predicted lows a few degrees each of the days, and that's good.
I just got a quick SST QSO this evening from WA3AAN for the streak. -30-
Saturday, January 18 8:07PM - Good bands tonite. W4I on 30, II2WWA and CQ3WWA on 40, all WWA stations plus an 11 minute rag chew on 160 with a NY station.
Getting ready for 4 straight sub-zero nights here starting tomorrow night. It was a mild day today approaching 40 giving a nice s@#w-melting show.
Regular diary readers know about my gardening friend Ange. I retired from the garden work this year, but he still gave me a house plant to house-sit for about a month while he takes a vacation down in Florida, I believe. It's a big parsley plant. Maybe I'll post a picture here tomorrow. -30-
Friday, January 17 8:02PM - A little better day today. Some s#@w melt to watch. Temperature almost 40. Worked on my trains today, trying successfully to remember how to lashup 2 engines after Mike and I couldn't figure it out the other day. We weren't making it simple enough then, making it too complicated. Then some DX on the bands tonight - DL2025S and E7W on 40, then HI59UD on 20 a little later.
Let's see how many countries I have in 2025 so far. K, VE, E7, DL, CE, UR, KP4. Not off to a very good start, but I haven't really tried all that hard. At this rate I won't make it to my goal of a DXCC total in 2025, but it doesn't really matter all that much. -30-
Thursday, January 16 7:54PM - The good news is we are into the second half of winter now. The bad news it is also in the very depths of the coldest part of winter. Old man winter is going to prove it next week too. Various weather forecasts show low temperatures of below zero on 2 or 3 days, some as low as 14 below. BRRRRR
It's a very depressing time of year. I just don't even feel like doing much of anything except what I have to do all the time. Like get my daily QSO to keep the streak going alive and well. I got three tonight, a regular one with Larry W8NIC whom I've worked a few times before, A DX one with CE2SV whom I've also worked a few times in the past, and a POTA QSO with WB0RLJ whom I've worked many times before. Conditions seemed good, but as usual, not a lot of activity. -30-
Wednesday, January 15 7:59PM - Another not much going on day today. We went shopping for dog food for Roscoe and got stocked up for a month or so now.
Tonight I got a couple QSOs for the streak, one DX and one a regular QSO. -30-
Tuesday, January 14 10:16PM - A second Tuesday, so off to Skyview with Mike after a couple hours visit here. We ran my trains, and got a couple pasta dishes from Vocelli's before going to Skyview. The weather was not good with some lake effect s#$w, but the roads were decent so we made the trip to the meeting easily. We were two of just 5 members who did make it though. We mainly played with the stations. I think Mike said he made 5 QSOs and I made 3 including one that counted for my streak since it was CW of course, 5 watts QRP, and a simple wire dipole antenna. It's late now so I'll just close here. -30-
Monday, January 13 7:20AM - Another pretty quiet day today. I can't think of anything out of the usual daily chores that happened. Well, the sun came out a little while this afternoon and pushed the temperature up to 41 or 42 degrees and I got to watch some lovely s@#w melt. Not a lot but still better than nothing.
A couple of WWA DX QSOs this evening. EN0U and DA0WWA on 40 meters. -30-
Sunday, January 12 7:46PM - Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, and I took that pretty literally today. I didn't do much of anything except run my trains and walk Roscoe. He sure looks great after his grooming yesterday and seems to feel better also.
After a restful day I didn't feel like just getting a quick SST QSO this evening for the streak and went searching for a rag chew. I found one, but fate stepped in and the XYL of the potential rag chewer called him to supper just one or two minutes into the QSO. I couldn't find another QSO via S&P or calling CQ so I QRT. -30-
Saturday, January 11 7:32PM - Well, we got Roscoe to the Groomer today and he looks a lot better now and feels a lot better. We didn't get as much s#$w as expected overnight and only a few flurries during the day today. That and a little housecleaning in addition to the usual daily chores took up a lot of the time today.
With the NA contest going on, I knew I wouldn't have any trouble getting my streak QSO, and I didn't, working Bud AA3B on 40 meters. Then I QRT for the evening. -30-
Friday, January 10 8:43PM - I worked on my End of Year weather processing today, but didn't get beyond rewriting the instructions to myself on all the intricacies involved. I had been meaning to clarify them for a few years now as age takes it toll on my memory. HI. Maybe tomorrow I can get to entering the weather data. However tomorrow I have to help take Roscoe to the groomer, weather (not the data, the actual weather) permitting. HI. We're getting some s#$w overnight and depending on how much and when it ends will determine groomer or no groomer.
For the first time in a while outside of contests, I got three QSOs this evening, two from my CQs. -30-
Thursday, January 9 7:53PM - Something unusual tonite that used to be a common thing several years and more ago. Someone (Ian VA3ICC) was calling CQ FISTS on 40 meters. Not near the FISTS frequency of 7058, but on 7028. I answered him and had a short QSO trading FISTS numbers before QSB and QRM set in and ended things prematurely. I remember when CQ FISTS used to be common around the "58" frequencies (3558, 7058, 14058, etc.). Then there was the unfortunate fire at FISTS headquarters followe not too long afterward by the death of Nancy Kott WZ8C who was the driving force behind FISTS here in the USA and North America. It was my pleasure to write a QRP column for the FISTS publication Keynote for many years. My total number of columns was right around 100. All are available here on my web site in the CW Section in the sub-section, "My FISTS Columns" if you are interested. After Nancy's death, interest in FISTS declined rapidly despite the efforts of some to restore and keep up activity in the club. By the way, VA3ICC's FISTS number is 22833, a good sized number. I don't know how many members there are in the club. Let me see if I can find out quickly. If not I'll spend more time later trying to find out. The highest number listed in the "New Members" list is 22849 so it looks like Ian is one of the newer members. Let's hope there will be many more new members in 2025 and beyond. Then maybe we can increase the FISTS presence on the bands to where it was previously. -30-
Wednesday, January 8 7:42PM - A busy day today with a lot of things accomplished. Let's see which ones I can remember. I got my December weather records done and in the computer spreadsheet. It was about 3 degrees above normal for the month. I have yet to do the records for the whole year of 2024. Maybe tomorrow.
For lunch I cooked a butternut squash that I got a couple weeks ago in my monthly senior food box. First time I've ever done that and it turned out delicious for a first try.
This was the day for the January food box. I got a lot of goodies including, guess what. Right, another squash. Also a pumpkin was included, so I'll have to learn how to cook that now.
After that, on the way home from picking up the food box, we stopped at Walmart where I got a pair of Jeans and some printer ink.
Not much happening on the bands, but I got a POTA station in CO to keep the streak alive. -30-
Tuesday, January 7 8:03PM - I was going to do my weather records for December today, but noticed my printer was done somewhat on ink, and since I had not only the December records to print out, but several pages for the year 2024, I decided to put it off till I ordered a couple ink cartridges for my printer.
So today pretty much consisted of just doing my regular daily chores.
I had a good rag chew mostly about radio broadcasting work with Dave K4FOY. It lasted about 26 minutes before QSB set in and cut it short. Those are the kind of QSOs I like but I'll take whatever comes along to continue my streak, POTA, DX, SE, Contest, etc. -30-
Monday, January 6 8:13PM - Back in my WPIT days, we called it DD-Day. That was the day we took down and put away all the Christmas trim, hence DeDecorating Day. I did that here today. There wasn't a whole lot to do since I cut back on my trimming last year and continued that this year. I got everything taken down except for a couple things I need to use a ladder for. Mike will help me with them when he comes here next week. Also I still have to put all the things away in the attic. Now they are all just sitting on a spare bed for the time being. It's kind of sad to see all the trim down now, but it means another milestone on the way to spring and good weather.
That was the "big" project for today. Maybe tomorrow it will be getting the December and the 2024 weather records into my weather spreadsheet. I haven't done that yet.
I got a couple quick QSOs this evening for the streak. A WWA station, N9W, and Pete K4EWG whom I worked a few nights ago also. Tonight QRM and QSB cut our QSO short though unlike the 26 minute earlier QSO. -30-
Sunday, January 5 8:07PM - The SST made for an easy streak QSO this evening. Thanks Fred N4BA.
Another day with nothing much to talk about here in the diary. It was a cold day not getting out of the 20s so not much s@#w melt going on even though there is not much around to melt. It's such a lovely sight to see s#@w melting, too. I really enjoy watching that beautiful sight of nature. It's too bad we have to endure it on the ground for a while to have a good s#$wmelt. We might get an inch or two tonight and tomorrow so there will be some material for a good melt if it ever decides to warm up. Come on Spring!! -30-
Saturday, January 4 8:01PM - One of those take it easy days with not much of anything going on. Too cold and s@#wy to do much outside beyond sweeping s#$w off the steps and taking Roscoe for short walks. Not much to do inside beyond the usual indoor daily chores.
Not much on the bands this evening. I struggled to complete a QSO on 20 with K6KPH. I may have set a record in number of times I had to send my call before he could copy it right. He said he had some bad QRN that started up a little before our QSO. -30-
Friday, January 3 8:32PM - I kept busy today cleaning things up and getting caught up on other things. Each month at the end of a month I upload my QSOs for that month to eQSL. I did that today and wound up with 70 some matches which I went through and marked in my Excel Ham Radio Log. I also put in order some of my magazines that had been lying around such as Sky and Telescope, QST, and the Lionel Collectors Club model railroad publications. Then a trip to the bank and to Sprankle's took up some more time.
The bands seemed good again tonight, but again everyone seemed already engaged in a QSO. But tonight I did get a fairly quick answer to one of my CQs and had a nice rag chew with Vin WZ2J for 23 minutes.
We had some bad s#$w flurries today that left 1/2 to 1 inch of the ugly white stuff on the ground. It looks like winter is going to hang around now till at least the middle of January according to the Penn State meteorologists. I can only hope they are wrong and winter won't hang on that long, and maybe leave altogether before mid-January. -30-
Thursday, January 2 4:55PM - I did some work on the web site today. I updated a couple of the pages to bring some "streak" stats up to date through the end of 2024. The streak table on the main Home page of the site and the Yearly Stats page in the QRP section of the site.
I found it interesting to compare the stats with the current state of the sunspot cycle. Despite being less active this year, my streak stats showed better results in many of the DX related stats such as total DX entities at 110 the most since 114 in 2016, most 10M DX entities at 68 the most since 85 in 2014, many more stats the highest since the mid-2010s, around the end of the previous sunspot peak. Check it out if you're interested in such things. -30-
Wednesday, January 1 7:31PM - It was an uneventful day here. I did do some of my EOM/FOM work today like uploading my December QSOs to eQSL, closing my December financial records, and so on. I still have to do my December weather records and some other things to close out the month. Then I still have some End of Year - First of Year things to get done. No hurry on those, but I'll try to finish them off tomorrow and Friday.
The bands were quite dead this evening except for a handfull of stations, including W4I and N5W whom I worked on 20 meters.
Oh, I also watched some of the NCAAF playoff games today. Surprising how easy Ohio State is handling Oregon, but the game is not over yet. Notre Dame - Georgia should be interesting later tonight. -30-
