Sunday Oct 15 8:45PM - Another quiet day, although I did fool around on the ham bands again still learning all the little bells and whistles that I need to run CW/QRP. I got a hold today on how to run split. I hadn't heard any split station operation until today when I heard ZD9W on 30 meters. The only problem was the pileup was huge and wide. I knew what to do, but the pile overwhelmed me and I had no luck. I do know how it works now though and I'll be ready for the next one. Regular diary readers know I do not use spotting of any kind as I feel that is someone else doing my work for me and I like to do things myself. I only use spotting if I work someone and because of QSB/QRN/QRM I wasn't 100 percent of their call. Then I will use spotting for a double check of the call sign. As far as finding a station, I do that only by getting on the air and tuning around the bands to see what is there. So I can't find stations operating split except in running across them on the bands.
The tuner continues to work like a dream with 3 simple steps. 1. Switch to the right antenna. 2. Switch to the desired band. 3. Send a dot to activate the tuner by finding a match or going to its memory to find a previously set match for the frequency. If a previous match is found, it takes a second or two to be ready to go. If it has to retune a frequency from start it taks maybe 5-10 seconds at most. Great!
Tonight being Sunday, I got my QSOs from the SST sprint. I worked two stations with a Greg as the op, W0GAS and WK0B both on 20.
Other than the ham radio activity, my Sunday laundry, some computer work, my daily walking of 7 miles or so, there wasn't much else except a few little chores. -30-
Saturday Oct 14 - I think I spent more time on the bands today than I have in quite a while. I was mainly just giving the replaced and now working Mat705Plus antenna tuner a good workout hoping it is going to hold up. So far it's give a good account of itself. I jumped around the bands a lot because that's what I was doing when the first one quit on me. No problem at all today. As I went along, I worked stations here and there in the various contests going on and a couple rag chews also. I gathered up a few new states and entities. I got NV SD HI for states and have 47 now with DE RI UT left to go. The KH6 was also a new entity taking me to 30. Of course I'm speaking of WAS, DXCC, and WAC with the new IC705 rig since I got it September 9. Hey, KH6 would also be the fifth continent. Didn't think of that till now. I need Asia for WAC now. I got 3 AZQP stations, one SDQP, and the KH6 was in the OC Contest. Didn't get anyone in my own state QSO party, the PAQP. Maybe I'll try to give out some Armstrong Co QSOs tomorrow.
That pretty much sums up my day. A lot of rain (1.28") today, so I wasn't out much except for Roscoe's brief walks. He's not much of a water dog. HI Better than he was when he was younger though. -30-
Friday Oct 13 9:14PM - It was an interesting Friday the 13th today. A lot to write about but little time to do it.
A couple days ago I received a replacement Mat705Plus tuner from DX Engineering and was very discouraged to find it didn't work any better than the one that stopped working. I thought probably it was a problem with the tuner interface in the IC705 itself. I was so discouraged I never even tried working with it yesterday. Finally late this afternoon, I tried it again and lo and behold, it worked perfectly (so far anyway). I didn't do anything different, it just worked. So chalk up one good thing on a Friday 13th. A couple other little things also turned out the same way, but I won't go into them as time is short.
I figured the growing season is about over here so I pulled out my tomato plants and closed up gardening for the year. I guess the 5 plants gave me 35-40 tomatoes for the year, not bad.
Once I got the tuner working, I tried it out on a few different bands and worked some DX, some POTAs and some rag chews. One rag chew deserves mention. It was with K4RCW who I must say had one of the most perfect straight key fists I have heard. He is 81 years old and used a J-38 key. It sounded like perfect computer generated Morse.
Well time is moving on and I have to run now.
Thursday Oct 12 8:44PM - I was just working W1AW/6 on 15 for my second QSO of the night when Bruce next door called and said he had a pizza. So I went and had a couple pieces and now I'm back to write the diary. Besides W1AW I also worked LZ3ND who was having trouble getting QSOs so I gave him one easily. I guess I'm not the only one having trouble due to the lack of regular QSOs I talked about a few entries ago.
I got on this afternoon also and worked S52OW on 17. Then a very short QSO with N4JHB followed by a nice rag chew with W0AAJ/M for 29 minutes on 20M. Love those nice rag chews. He can't operate from home in his apartment so does his operating from his vehicle.
It was a pretty nice day today but I didn't have time for a good walk. Maybe tomorrow when it's supposed to be nice before a cool wet weekend and first of next week.
I'll get my weather after I finish my web site update, then think I'll check the bands again before it's time to walk Roscoe. -30-
Wednesday Oct 11 8:56PM - As I said yesterday, this was going to be a busy day, and it proved me right. I'm a bit tired tonight so just a short entry. The bands were pretty good tonight and I had no trouble getting a couple of nice rag chews with KC5THR on 20 and W8ACM on 40. The weather was nice today for our trip to the vet and Roscoe got a very good report for his 11+ years of age. I had a couple nice walks near a mile each in the great fall weather we had today. And that in a nutshell sums up the day for me. -30-
Tuesday Oct 10 7:39PM - The bands were pretty good this afternoon for DX, so I tried to add to my IC705 DXCC totals. I worked 4 additional entities, IS0, S5, F, and YU to bring the total to 27 entities. I also thought I had a new WAS entry in NM when I worked W1AW/5, but I noticed I worked them a couple days ago also, but didn't add NM to my states total. My WAS total is now at 44.
I've also been working on updating my main streak page totals the past few days. That's the QRP - QRP Streaks - Main page if you're interested or curious.
For the first time in a couple days now, I went outside without a jacket as it hit 60 degrees. No long outside walks though. Just some short ones walking with Roscoe. It looks like a very wet weekend coming with a cutoff low pressure system hanging around PA for 3 or 4 days. So my walking will be indoors, I guess.
Tomorrow is a busy day. We take Roscoe to the vet for his annual checkup and shots. Later in the day it's time to get my food at the food bank. Most of all, I should be getting my Mat705Plus antenna tuner back from DX Engineering. It doesn't say in the correspondence if they repaired the one I had or are sending me a new one. No indication of what the trouble was. Maybe there will be some info in the package when it gets here tomorrow some time. I just hope it works good again like it did before the trouble developed. -30-
Monday Oct 9 7:40PM - Back in 2009, the first year Mike and I took N3A to the Kittanning Community Park for NAQCC Anniversary Week, it was so cold that we got to the point where it was rough using our fingers to send Morse Code. So we quit and went home after just 5 QSOs in about an hour and a half.
As Yogi Berra would say, "It was deja vu all over again today." Although the temperature was in the 50s, with cloudy skies and a wind blowing, it felt similar to that day in 2009 and we quit after a couple hours and headed home. When we started I suggested to Mike that he take 20 meters and I would take 40. He always does well on 20 and I wasn't feeling like running up a lot of QSOs. I had that figured right. I made only 2 QSOs and I believe Mike said he made 14. I got bored and figured out that the CQ I had programmed into the KX3 plus 4 seconds between calls meant one CQ cycle took 23.73 seconds. I won't repeat the math here, but that figures out to be 150 CQ cycles per hour. Doing some more figuring that meant with time out for my two QSOs and a walk around the park to ease my stiffness from sitting so long, I called about 260 unanswered 3x2 CQs. Where was everybody? If there had been more activity, I could have stood the cold and stayed longer, but I gladly left when Mike said he was ready to go also.
At home we talked about our new radios and other things, then went and got a pizza. After we finished that, Mike headed home to check on Jayden. The end of another great day with Mike despite the conditions at the park. -30-
Sunday Oct 8 8:53PM - It will be one month tomorrow that I got the new ICOM IC705 rig. It's been everything I expected of it and it will be even better when I get my Mat705Plus tuner back from DX Engineering. The T1 I'm using now works great, but it takes several screen taps, button pushes, etc. to change bands. The Mat, once initially set up just requires a single dit on the keyer when changing bands to be tuned and ready to go.
In the past month I've gotten on the bands a lot more during the day, and that has been a revelation to me. I believe my streak is winding down slowly. There is less and less CW activity among those like me who just enjoy getting on the air and talking to someone. Nowadays it seems the only time folks get on CW is to chase a POTA, SOTA, or some other *OTA station. If not that, then only to get on to get into one of the many many little sprints there are. Oh, and one activity that has been around as long as ham radio, chasing DX. Maybe county hunting or chasing other awards, but that seems to be dying also. I really don't have any statistics to back up what I'm saying. I'm just telling it like it seems to me from my own getting on the air more because of the new radio.
Tomorrow Mike and I are going to Kittanning Community Park to put N3A/3 on the air for NAQCC anniversary week. If we don't get frozen out we'll try to be there on 40, 30, and 20 starting at 1700Z until ????. If it is too cold like it was several years ago, we'll have to just tear down and come home early. It's very hard to send CW with cold fingers. We found that out during that forgettable day. I think we made 1 QSO that day, if memory serves. -30-
Saturday Oct 7 7:58PM - A little clue to my IC705 last state quiz in last night's diary. It won't be Alaska. I just worked AL7LO on 17M a few minutes ago. Now I've got to go back and work a couple CA stations for the streak on Oct 8. I may add to the diary later or let it stand as is. br>
I'm back and I got two CA stations easily on 15 meters, K6VO and K6CQP. Earlier this afternoon I worked M0AIA on 17M for a new IC705 country, #22. I'm really enjoying the new radio and going for WAS, WAC, DXCC with it adds to the enjoyment. BTW I also heard Hawaii this evening, but he (KH6LC) was in the CA QSO Party so I couldn't work him.
OK that's it for the diary tonight. Now I've got to update the two other pages I update every night, Home and Propagation. -30-
Friday Oct 6 9:15PM - The contacts came a little easier tonight. First PJ2ND at 0004Z on 20, then W1AW/3 at 0031 on 80, lastly N5G at 0047 on 20. There was a lot of listening in between to find those stations to work, but when I did find them, it was easy to work them.
This afternoon I got country (entity) #21 on the IC705 when I had a little rag chew with Sergio IZ3GOA on 20. I also was thinking about my IC705 WAS. I need 8 states to finish it up. I wonder which will be the last one, and when it will come. I'm thinking maybe in the Sweepstakes in November? Which state? Maybe KL7? What do you think? Email and take your guess. One state and one date in two different contests. In other words the state doesn't have to come on the date, they are two different things. Hope that's clear. Oh, here are the states I need in alphabetical order. AK DE HI NV NM RI SD UT. -30-
Thursday Oct 5 9:09PM - Good bye summer, hello autumn. Looks like tomorrow is the transition day. Oh well.
Hard to get a QSO tonight, but as usual, I wound up with my two contacts to continue the streak. One was a 2xQRP with Bob KC9UR on 40, and the other was a hard to get one from WB0RLJ in a POTA activation. Must have gone through at least 15 contacts before he heard me.
I went for a mile outside walk this evening. It's pretty dark now by not long after 7:00PM especially when it is overcast like tonight. Oh well, with cooler weather coming I can get my outside walks in during the day now until it gets too cold. Then it will be inside walking only. Alright got to finish my web site updating then it will be about time to walk Roscoe. -30-
Wednesday Oct 4 7:19PM - The next to last lingering Summer day tomorrow, perhaps. A trough of colder air is digging down into the USA from Canada and will be sliding off to the East here by Fri-Sat. Then next week we should have closer to normal temperatures with highs in the 50s or maybe even the 40s in some normally colder spots here in PA. I guess it's that time of year, unfortunately.
My Mat705Plus tuner for my IC705 wasn't behaving well so yesterday I sent it back to DX Engineering in Ohio for Analysis and repair or replacement. I hope the trouble is indeed with the tuner and not the IC705 itself. J kind of think that, and the support person (Troy) at DX Engineering seems to agree. I guess I'll find out within a week or so. I would have liked to try the setup out with another ham who has a similar setup, perhaps someone from SkyView, but then I decided to forgo that and guess the trouble was in the tuner and save some time that way. Of course if that is wrong, then I'll have lost time in the long run.
Meanwhile I got my 42nd state with the 705 today when I worked AI0Y in ND. I also got a better MD QSO in K2TPZ instead of using a DC QSO for MD. No new ountries for a few days now. Doing too many other things plus I haven't been hearing any countries I haven't already worked. Well, about a half hour till streak time now. -30-
Tuesday Oct 3 9:23PN - Just time for a brief entry. Strange conditions tonight. I just couldn't get anyone to hear me calling or to answer my CQs. I was beginning to wonder if I had rig or antenna problems, but everything looked OK. Finally I did have a brief QSO with Barry WA7WKY in OH, but he wasn't copying me all that well. Some more unanswered calls and CQs, but the NP4H in NJ answered my CQ and we had a solid 15 minute rag chew. Go figure! Anyway I got my 2 QSOs for the streak and now I've got to go walk Roscoe. Later! -30-
Monday Oct 2 3:09PM - I just got this in the mail a little while ago:
The slight distortion is from my poor scanning work. The actual certificate is perfect. Thanks Larry W2LJ. He sent two certificates, one for me and one for Mike. We were both shocked. We had no idea we won first place OVERALL, by a good margin 23,140 to 17,824 points. Too bad we had to miss this year's Skeeter Hunt because it conflicted with the annual SkyView S&S.
Sunday Oct 1 7:44PM - Do you ever find a band dead and call CQ? I do that often when I know propagation should provide openings on that band. Once in a while it gets me a QSO. Not every time nor even close to every time, but often enough to make it worthwhile trying. With so many rigs having panadapters or frequency scanners or whatever else they are called, it is easy to look at a band and see that lone station calling CQ. Not like the old days when you had to slowly tune across a band to hear someone. Often you just tune right across a station who is pausing in his sending at the moment. So nowadays calling CQ on an "empty" band has a better chance of being found. So give it a try. Who knows what will happen. What reminded me to talk about this was it happened to me today. 30 meters was totally dead (in the CW portion of the band.) So I plopped down in the middle of the CW segment and started calling CQ. After no more than 3 or 4 CQs, KB9W answered me and we had a nice chat before I had to QRT to take Roscoe for a walk.
Tonight I may get into the SST Sprint to see if I can get any of the 11 remaining states for my IC705 WAS. That's coming up in a few minutes now.
Today I went through my paper logs to see if I had transferred all the contacts to my computer log. I had missed one and I added it in before I sent my September QSOs along to eQSL. I had 166 QSOs in September thanks to the new rig encouraging me to increase my air time activity. -30-
Saturday Sep 30 9:07PM - Back to being a little late again. Wow, where did September go. In one of my rag chews the past couple days, the person I was talking to agreed completely with me that time does accelerate when we get older. September definitely speeded up. It went out on a nice note though. Great weather - sunny and mild. Good for two nice walks, and even thought it was a bit warm, I didn't tire out even after going over a mile.
I got on the air this afternoon a couple times, and I've been noticing when I do get on the air that time of day, there is not nearly as much activity this sunspot maximum as there was during the previous one. Are we losing more and more CW hams to the Silent Key kingdom? I know for sure that if that is the case, they are not being replaced by younger CW hams. I can probably count on my fingers the number I work in a year. In fact I'm sure that is true for those under 30 years of age. It's sad. Remember Newton Minow's words something like TV is a vast wasteland. Maybe the CW bands will be the latest vast wasteland not because of content, but because of lack of activity.
OK, that's my soapbox comments for tonight. -30-
Friday Sep 29 5:58PM - Yes, I'm writing early tonight. I was on the bands a little more than usual today. But first let me explain that. Before the IC705 came to live with me, I'd get my two QSOs per day in the 0000Z hour then get off the air until the next evening at 0000Z for two more QSOs, etc. But now, with the new toy to play with, I find myself getting on the air more during the daylight hours. Today was even a little more than that. Ironically, one of the hams today with whom I had a long rag chew was in a similar situation. He got a new rig just about a month ago and said since then he has been on the air more often. I guess a new rig is the inentive for that. Oh, and Mike also fits the description. Since he got his 7300, he has been much more active in ham radio, operating, building, etc.
I got my 39th state on the 705 today, NH. Ironically, Maryland is still holding out. It was one of the last states in my original WAS way back in the 1960s. I can't remember now, but I don't think it was THE last state, but was pretty close. I'll have to check that. I have a file somewhere that lists my WAS award in order of states worked for each of the 50 states. Also the continents and DXCC entities. Right here in the Awards section of the web site is the chronological list of entities worked for the ARRL Millennium DXCC in 2000.
Not all is well with the new station here. The Mat705Plus Antenna Tuner is acting up, and I haven't figured out wny yet, and went back to the T1 tuner until I do. Otherwise I really like the little rig. -30-
Thursday Sep 28 7:55PM - Thought I'd get the time stamp on the diary then go up to the shack. I worked a few QSOs this afternoon. HB9CVQ whom I've worked many times, I see in my Excel log this was time # 26 today. I also worked special German station DL65ENNEPE, not once but twice, once on 17, then on 20 a few minutes later.
The bands seemed a little better this evening than they have been, but it was still a little ruff getting a QSO. Like always so far though, I made it tnx to WQ9H and W3TW on 40 meters. Not much else to say, so 73. -30-
Wednesday Sep 27 9:18PM - As usual every time we go to the Requin, it is a good day, and today was no exception. Mike and I left here a little before 9 and arrived there a little after 10 with some construction delays and 1 minor wrong turn without which it wouldn't have been a Mike and John trip. HI. Art had things set up for us as he always does, so we got right to work with Mike at the key and me at the logging "desk". It was the first or second CQ that brought a quick response right when Al N2MA walked in. We thanked him for bringing the QSO with him and suggested he go back out and come in with another one. HI
It was a little busier than usual and we wound up with 16 QSOs, our higest total of late except maybe for Museum Ships weekend. The sub tours on the other hand seemed very sparse with only a very few people per tour. It was nice to visit with them as they passed by though.
Nothing really out of the ordinary happened during the subpedition and we packed up and moved out by 2PM. Thanks to all those who worked us today. Conditions weren't all that great for the most part and copy was a bit rough along the way for some QSOs.
On the way home as usual we stopped for food. Today at Chili's. I had a big hamburger with a lot of toppings and Mike had a BIG dish of boneless chicken wings. I told Mike that was a great invention as regular chicken wings are pretty much a waste, nothing but bone.
Gotta go now to walk Roscoe. Maybe a little more about today in tomorrow's entry. -30-
Tuesday Sep 26 9:05PM - It took some time to get my streak QSOs tonight, but I made it thanks to K9UCX on 30 and W1AW/1 on 40.
It was a chilly day today which was good for walking but not standing still outside. HI. I took a couple long walks and did some shopping along the way. I won't be able to do a lot of walking tomorrow as we'll be spending a few hours in the Requin radio room hopefully making lots of QSOs. However as I've been finding out being on the air during the day a lot lately with the new IC705, there just is not much CW activity on the bands during the day these days. At least there is some POTA and SOTA activity, but not much rag chewing. Things change over the years.
Anyway it's time for my weather readings, so I'll cut this short here. Hope to work you tomorrow. -30-
Monday Sep 25 4:02PM - I've gotten some interesting emails the past few days or so. Here are a couple examples that I feel should be shared with you. Mike KB5UKT wrote this excerpt from his email. "I’m being ask to demonstrate CW to a group of 5th, 6th, 7th, and 8th graders next Spring during a History Class at our local museum...... I was asked to demonstrate radio and cw. I’m looking for help in finding old straight keys to use in this class. I have been looking on line and the cheapest key I can find is about $6. Is there somewhere I can go to find about 6 to 10 keys for these students to use?" If you would like to help with any info, email me and I'll pass the info on to Mike. I suggested he consider building simple keys out of pieces of wood. I sent him info about the keys I built out of popsicle sticks several years ago. He was going to look into that idea, but if you have any other suggestions, speak up.
Ed KJ4R wrote asking about LW and AM BC Band DXing. Specifically if my IC705 was any good in receiving those areas of the spectrum. I told him I might try that some day, but right now I'm still studying its behaviour on the ham bands. I'm very happy with it that way. If you have any info on that topic, again let me know via email and I'll pass the info along to Ed. Or if you have info on any other ham radios and their performance in the LW/AMBCB bands.
Another reminder of our trip to the Requin on this Wednesday. We'll (me, Mike, and Al N2MA) be there on the air from approximately 1400-1800Z. Frequencies will be around 7037-7043, 10114-10120, and 14057-14063, only one band at a time, so tune around. No specific time for any frequencies. We will simply go with whatever band at whatever time provides us with the most activity. We'll use the sub's call of NY3EC and QRO power around 100 watts to the sub's vertical antenna. Hope to work you at some point that day. QSL to the address in QRZ.
Sunday Sep 24 7:49PM - Kind of a flashback last night. I had a good long rag chew with AI7R on 20 meters after midnight. We went for 33 minutes. I remember back in the early days of my Novice, then General license in the 1960s when I was a teenager, I used to have many great rag chews after midnight on 40 meters. There were many other teens who stayed up late and got on the bands. I recall specifically a group of hams in Texas I used to rag chew with. One in particular was Don WN5FQV, later WA5FQV. We got to really know each other. Sadly, I believe he is now a silent key. Probably some of those other then teens are now silent keys. Ah, memories.
Back to the present now. I think I'll use the SST sprint tonight to try to get some new states in my IC705 log. I am at 34 states now, and 18 countries after working V31XX today.
Better get going now. 73. -30-
Saturday Sep 23 7:00PM - Hmmmm, very seldom do I get a time stamp on the diary that is right at the start of an hour.
Not much going on today. It's been a steady light rain since about Noon today thanks to an outer rain band from TS Ophelia. In fact just about the most outer band as the rain ends not far to our west about at the PA/OH border and it's been pretty much the same orientation all day since Noon. It's the kind of rain we really needed as we've only had .05 inches since the 9th, the day I got my IC705. Any connection? HI
To keep busy, I played with and learned more about the 705. I got one new state in MA for a total of 33 with the 705 now. I've done a lot of rag chewing with the 705 and it's interesting how many folks have either the 705 or the IC7300 in their shacks. I've gotten some good info from them. All who have the rigs seem very happy with them. I know for sure I am happy with mine especially combined with the Mat705Plus antenna tuner.
Other than that, as I said, not much going on. I did a little house cleaning, but not very much at all. Looking forward to Wednesday and a trip to the Requin with Mike and Al N2MA. This is Al's second trip to the Requin with us. Mike checked with Art and he gave the OK for the visit on the 27th. -30-
Friday Sep 22 9:18PM - OK, here we are late again. Not really much to talk long about. I continue to play with and learn about the 705. I'm getting in a lot more QSOs than usual each day since I got it on September 9. 95 QSOs since then if I count right. There aren't enough superlatives for me to use in describing it. More details in future entries, but now I gotta run. -30-
Thursday Sep 21 4:47PM - Just a coincidence this is being written at the exact time as yesterday. I just did some work on my station pictures page adding an updated picture with the IC705 and its tuner on it. Take a look via the "Pictures" link in the above menu.
I also did some work on the station today. I now have it rigged up to be able to use any of my 4 keys again almost as it was with the KX3 with one exception. Now I have to go into the 705 menu and change from paddle (My Begali and ARRL paddles) to straight key (My Begali SK and Vibroplex bug). I was reading in my 705 Nifty Manual there is a setting in the 705 to make a paddle behave as a bug (automatic dots and manual dashes). I'll have to try that some day.
I also found out that the Mat tuner is even simpler to use than I described yesterday. I was experimenting and all I had to do to change bands was to select the band and the correct antenna, find a clear spot on the dial and tap the key. It tunes the antennas in a matter of seconds and I'm ready to start operating. NEAT! Just like the setup in the Requin.
It's been a nice day in other ways as well. The weather is beautiful. When I went out to get my mail, Jasmine was there and we talked about going to the Museum next week. I guess you can't ask for a better day.
By the way, don't tell this to my KX3/PX3, but I'm beginning to think I like the 705 just a little better. Some points still go to the KX3, but the 705 is a really great little rig which I'm finding out more and more as I get more familiar with it. I still plan to compare the two here in the diary some day. I'm taking mental notes now, and will get them down on paper soon, I hope. -30-
Wednesday Sep 20 4:47PM - The Mat705Plus Tuner arrived at midday today, and it is a real gem. I unpacked it from the neat packaging DX Engineering had it packed in. Perfect, not a mark on it or the box it came in. I dug up a USB charger and connected it to the cable that came with the tuner, plugged it in and let it do its charging which took maybe 45 minutes or a little longer. When the light went out, I hooked it up to the IC705 and started some testing. That went so smoothly it was hard to believe. I just went to 20 meters, switched to my 20M attic dipole, and activated the tuner which consisted simply of tapping FUNCTION on the IC705, then being sure it was on part 2 of the FUNCTION menu (it was), I held the TUNER selection for 1 second. The Mat705Plus did its thing, matching the antenna in 5 seconds or so, exiting the FUNCTION menu back to where I was when I activated the tuning process, all ready for me to make a contact. I checked some other bands with the same procedure and all had a very low SWR. I didn't measure exactly but at a glance all looked near a 1:1 match except 160 which looked a little higher. When I have more time, I'll go through and check each band more thoroughly. Just to satisfy myself I wasn't just getting some freaky non-accurate results, I easily worked SP8ARY on 17 meter and had a short chat. -30-
Tuesday Sep 19 7:15PM - Early again tonight. It was a nice day today and I took a long walk and sat in the park for a half hour or so. I also watered Ange's garden this morning. It looks like bad luck this time around with a very dry week coming up so I'll probably have to water at least one more time, maybe twice. At least the weather is cool so I don't have to stand in the hot sun to do it.
I checked the bands a couple times today and the first time they were pretty much dead all up and down the dial. I guess that was due to a CME yesterday. Then later in the day, they started to recover and I made a couple QSOs with PJ2ND and N3HAM. I also heard F6FJI with a good signal and a D44 station pretty weak. So hopefully by now they will be even better for my streak QSOs. I also played with the 705 a bit trying out some other features. I checked the GPS and found it interesting showing my position and which satellites were involved plus a few other little pieces of data. Then I checked the Weather Channel and found the channel for nearby Butler, PA. That's another way I can check the weather. I also checked the FM BC band and found it loaded with stations. I need to tweak the audio a little yet to get it sounding better. Finally I checked the aviation band, but didn't find any signals there. I need to find out where the local frequencies are. I still have to check the General Coverage portions of the spectrum to see what I can find there. A really amazing little radio is the IC705.
Oh and I got tired of debating with myself (if that's feasible) and decided on a tuner late last night just before midnight and ordered the Mat705Plus from DX Engineering. Now a couple days wait to see if I made the right choice. I think I did, but I'll see. -30-
Monday Sep 18 7:36PM - I got a couple packages in the mail today. When Mike and I were doing some projects about a week ago, we found that he didn't have any clip leads and mine were in sad shape. I ordered a packet of 20 clip leads for each of us and they arrived today. So we're set for clip leads for a while now. I also remembered a mini manual that Mike got for one of his rigs at a hamfest a few years ago and thought it would be nice to have one of those for my IC705. I found one via a site called Nifty Manuals or something like that, and ordered one. It also arrived today about 20 minutes after the clip leads. I've looked through it quite a bit and find it to present everything about the 705 in a clearly written, easy to understand style. I find it easier to understand than the ICOM manual for the 705 in a compact easy to handle shape.
Other than that, I took a couple 1 mile plus outside walks today. I haven't done that for a while now and it felt and feels good. I'll have to do that more often while we have this nice moderate weather, not too hot nor too cold. Plus it gives me a chance to stop in Sprankle's more often and see who is working. I'll probably pick up more snacks and put on a little of the weight I'll lose by walking. HI
And of course I played with the 705 and picked up a couple new states in WV and GA for a new total of 28 now. I didn't hear much DX except a CT7 and a F6 station. Didn't need the CT, and didn't wait out the F6 who was rag chewing. Now tonight I'll see what the bands have to offer. I'm going to have to print out a list of states to keep track of what I need now. I forget when I'm on the air. OK, that's it for now. -30-
Sunday Sep 17 - Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, and that's pretty much what I did today. I did take a couple walks in the nice fall weather. Also I got on the air playing with the new IC705 a couple times in addition to my regular streak session in the evening. Only one new country, Canada for a total of 17 entities now for DXCC. 5 new states for a total over the half way mark at 26 now. IN WY NE VA NC. Nice to get NE and WY logged early in the run. Good rag chew with the WY station K7SHR Paul. I don't get many rag chews or other QSOs with that state.
Still trying to decide on a tuner for the 705. Getting it narrowed down to probably either the AH705 or the MAT705PLUS. Also in the running but lagging behind are the T1 and LDG100. They could come from behind, but the delay in getting a T1 plus it being a manual tuner not controlled by the 705 going against it. The size and too many controls and lights go against the LDG for me. I should decide this week on one.
Time for my weather check now. -30-
Saturday Sep 16 8:52PM - Back to running a bit late. Got an SD card for my 705 today. Formatted it nicely and it records well. Got the 705 settings recorded now. I'll have to play with it some more. Might be nice to record QSOs when there is a lot of QSB QRN to make sure the other station copied me correctly or vice versa. I think hams use that feature sometimes when I call them. Occasionally there is a considerable delay before they come back to my call. I think they might be recording/playing back my call to get it right. That's just a guess, but it seems a logical reason for a long delayed comeback.
I collected some new states and countries on the 705 today. Be back in a minute with some totals. OK, new states today OK CO IA WA PA, new countries EA9 SM TF CT1. Totals DXCC 16, WAS 21, WAC 4. Lots of fun sort of starting over again with the new rig. It will be interesting to see which countries and states come first this time around. Already EA9 has come much earlier now, I know offhand. Others will have to wait for some checking.
Oh, the PA QSO was with Brian K3ES, one of our WPA Chapter friends.
Well, that's the news on the IC705 for today, the first week's anniversary of owning it. HI. -30-
Friday Sep 15 5:01PM - Yes, I'm here early today for the first time in a couple days. Now I've probably forgotten a lot of the things I haven't had time to write about lately. Let's see:
I was going to talk about the Skyview meeting Tuesday evening. Mike and I are going to try to make it an every second Tuesday that we attend the meetings. It's a weather related meeting and Mike and I get to play in the radio room and learn the setup there. Since we both have ICOM radios at home now, we are pretty familiar with the radio room radios which are mostly ICOMs as well, and all ICOMs have many similar features. What we don't know all that well is the antenna setup and switching, but we are learning slowly. I believe the club has 14 antennas. Anyway no matter the number it is possible to switch any antenna to any operating position, of which I believe there are five. So it is pretty complicated and before recent times, we only got to play with it once a year. Now once a month makes it somewhat easier.
It's also nice to have some of the members drop in the radio room from time to time when there is a lull in their interest in the weather related meeting in the meeting room. I especially got to talk quite a bit with Bob WC3O who is in charge of the radio room. He's a very interesting fellow to talk with. We chatted quite a bit while Mike was working, or trying to work stations on 15 meters. When I was operating, I was on 20 meters. I made 8 QSOs. Nothing really exotic, but I was hearing E25--- (forget the suffix now) absolutely booming in from Thailand with a huge pileup I couldn't break even after I became familiar with split operation on the rig I was using. I'm pretty sure that was the first time I've ever heard Thailand. Well, I think now they used to have the prefix HS and I may have heard them then???? It was really a fun meeting and we're getting to know more of the members now.
That same day before the meeting, Mike and did some ham radio projects here. We tried out his antenna tuner on my 705. We also worked on a setup for his radio where he could operate his straight key and paddle without any switching of plugs or switches.
I also did a lot of work on my random wire, changing its length and configuration to try to get it to a lower SWR on 160 and 80. I finally got to the point where I'm satisified with it and made it kind of permanent in the current configuration. Here are the latest pictures of it. The wire is hard to see against the brick building so I marked with a little red arrow where it begins and ends in each picture.
Coming out the attic window down the side of the house
Making a 90 degree angle along the back side of the house
Around the corner of the house along the side of the house
Another view of the last scene in the opposite direction
I think that proves antennas need not be rocket science to work. With minor modifications along the way, this one has served me well for many years on 160-30 meters.
Finally here are my totals for DXCC, WAC, WAS on the new 705 as of right now. 12, 4, 16. Got a nice prefix this morning at 1336Z in LY787A on 17 meters. That gets me caught up for now with the diary entries, I hope. -30-
Thursday Sep 14 9:24PM - As usual late again so I'll just say tune in tomorrow when I hope to get the diary caught up to date.
Wednesday Sep 13 9:17PM - I did some work on my random wire today. I juggled the length of it to see if I could get better SWR readings on 160 and 80. 40 and 30 pretty much stayed the same as I changed length. They stayed right around 1:1. 80 stayed pretty low, but did vary a little bit around 1.3:1, up and down from there. 160 remained stubborn not going below about 2:1, and at some lengths, much worse than that. All in all, I'm pretty happy with what I have for 160-30 at 2:1, 1.3:1, 1:1, and 1:1. I may still experiment some more. Maybe when Mike is here again, I can get him to adjust the length while I'm up in the shack checking the SWR. That will save me a lot of running up and down the steps although I will miss the good exercise that gives me.
Other than that, I got my monthly food box from the local food bank. Also Bruce's brother Jeff cut my grass today. And that wraps up another entry. The story of the SkyView meeting will have to wait another day. I'm sure it won't mind. -30-
Tuesday Sep 12 11:15PM - VERY late tonight after getting home from SkyView and getting my 2 streak QSOs after that. So this will be it for tonight just to let you know I'm still here and OK. HI -30-
Monday Sep 11 9:22PM - Running late again. I have a good idea for a diary entry, but no time to implement it today. I'm thinking of comparing the KX3 to the IC705. After using the 705 for three days now, I have a pretty good feel for it, and how its features compare to that of the KX3.
Tomorrow Mike is going to visit for some ham radio projects and then the SkyView meeting tomorrow evening. So that will give me more to write about tomorrow nite. -30-
Sunday Sep 10 7:15PM - How about a picture fest for this diary entry? From yesterday with brief notes, my unboxing and setting up of the new ICOM IC705. Combine them with my commentary from yesterday's diary entry and perhaps you can vicariously share my excitement with my new rig.
The box arrives and awaits opening
Tape removed to reveal contents
Half the box is nothing but bags of air
Oh here's a smaller box from inside the big one
Inside the little one a bunch of papers, notes, etc.
Oh, a manual. Now we're getting somewhere.
Actually three manuals in three languages
Some parts and the rig in plastic bags
With the plastic bags removed
The assembly went smoothly as I said yesterday
The back view looks good so here it is again
The power pole connectors went smoothly so I honored them with this picture
I'm not sure what this is used for??
Here it is all ready for initial testing
And from today close to what will be the final setup replacing the KX3
Kind of silly, but if nothing else it gives me something to remember the day the IC705 came to live with me. Sniff sniff. I'm very happy.
Today was a happy day also despite getting up very early to start the day at 7:00AM EDT. Mike arrived a little before 8:00A and we visited for a while mostly talking about our new ICOM toys. After a half hour or so we headed to Unionville, PA for the BCARA Swapfest. It was mostly a meetfest for me and Mike. We didn't swap or buy anything although Mike did win a door prize. Hopefully when he's here tomorrow again, he'll comment on that in tomorrow's diary entry. It's a rather interesting funny story.
The best part of the swapfest was kibitzing with the hams we know mainly from SkyView and a few others. I'm not even going to try to list them all because I'll leave out someone or more and feel bad about it. Here's a picture of some of them though.
L-R that's Bob WC3O, Mike KC2EGL, Paul AC3IE, Tom WB3FAE, Me K3WWP. How come I always look so old? Oh yes, it's because I am old!!
Up to get my streak QSOs, then back here to tweak anything that needs tweaking. Hmmmm, could I tweak myself to not look so old???? -30-
Saturday Sep 9 7:08PM - It came today as the FedEx Internet site promised. I think it was around 1:00PM EDT. I didn't check exactly. I guess I was too excited. I was walking through the house doing some exercise walking when I got to where I could see out the front window. There was the front white, red, and blue of a FedEx truck. I opened the door just as the FedEx man was putting the package on the front porch.
I took the package inside and was just getting ready to open it when I got a phone call. After a 5 minute interruption, I started the unboxing. I took pictures of the whole unboxing. I need to edit them and then I'll present them in the diary either tomorrow or the next day, probably Monday as I'll be busy with Mike tomorrow. It was very well packed and it arrived in perfect condition. I unpacked it carefully and slowly. Taking the pictures helped me to be careful with it and to take my time.
When I finished, I set the wrapping aside and took what I needed up to my shack. The first thing I did was install the battery pack carefully. After that was done, the next step was installing power pole connectors on the bare ends of the power cable. It went smoothly, or at least more smoothly and faster than when we did Mike's IC7300 a few weeks ago. Next I plugged in the power cable to my power supply and to the IC705. I got into the menu of the rig and changed a setting as recommended by ICOM to have the battery charging continue while the rig was powered on. I turned off the rig to be sure the charging lite was on and the rig was charging both while the rig was off and on. That completed the initial setup of the rig.
Next I connected the antenna T1 tuner and the key paddle. I used my Bencher paddle that I use for portable work so as not to disturb my KX3 setup. I will get to the point where the 705 replaces the KX3 and gives it a well deserved rest, but I don't want to do that too hastily. Now it was time to play with the rig and start my learning curve.
Even after watching several tutorials and reading the 705 manual before the rig actually arrived, I was still confused by some things. For example, I tried calling a very strong K4A on 20 meters, and he couldn't hear me at all. It turned out I wasn't really transmitting as I didn't have the Break-in and VOX controls set right. Once I noticed and fixed that, I was off and running with my first QSO with the K4A station. From then on, it was just trying out as many controls as I could, being careful not to mess things up. All in all, I made 10 QSOs in between trying this and that control. I tried 20, 17, and 15 meters. My first DX was WP3C followed by HA9RT, CT1BQH, CT9/UR9IDX, DK9PY, and DL5YM. In the midst of those QSOs, I had a rag chew with K1YRW, and worked W1AW/7 in OR.
Everything worked well, but as I get more familiar with the rig, I need to tweak some settings to get them more to my taste.
I like it very much and I think it will continue to "grow on me".
OK, you've probably seen one before, but here's a picture of MINE. Yes, MINE. HI.
More pictures upcoming in the next couple days. Now it's almost streak time. -30-
Friday Sep 8 8:51PM - Well we had a conflict of apps today between Mike and me. I got an email from GigaParts about my IC705 saying it was shipped yesterday. Then the tracking info via my laptop said it left Nashville at 9:09AM today. However Mike's app said it was out for delivery which would mean I should have gotten it today. I guess my laptop app was more accurate as it never showed up today. However I just checked the tracking again and it was in Grove City, OH at 8:01PM. Barring a very late FedEx delivery tonight, I should have a brand new IC705 sometime tomorrow.
The bands were good tonight. I got 4 QSOs. Special Event station K4A something about "never forget" which I guess is referring to 9/11. A brief QSO with K4JTP. Two Route 66 SE stations, W6M in KS and W6I in TX.
I also had a little visit with Jasmine today. She's getting settled in next door now after moving back a week or so ago. -30-
Thursday Sep 7 7:21PM - Not much else to do at the moment so I guess I'll write my diary entry now. I'm continuing to work on a web page about memorable QSOs I have had in my 60 years of being a ham. I've made some ground rules for myself. They should be QSOs that come to mind without having to go through my logs to remember them. I may have to go back through logs to find some specific details about some QSOs, but in general they should come right to mind. That's the main concept of the page. However, then I wish to report on QSOs that do need some research. Those would be my first QSO on a certain band or the first QSO from a continent for example. Then some other things like a QSO with the last state for a WAS or the 100th country for DXCC as some more examples. I think that gives you some idea of what I'm aiming at for the page.
Then with tomorrow being the 27th birthday of my web site, I want to perhaps elaborate on the somewhat brief history of the site I presented in last night's diary entry.
Those two projects should help me to keep busy while time passes for my ICOM IC705 to arrive. I'm getting a little more anxious for that to happen each day now. I'm continuing to study the manuals for the rig and also I'm studying to figure out which external antenna tuner I'm going to get. I really like the Elecraft T1 that Tom WB3FAE loaned me to use for some hands on experience with it. Even though it doesn't directly interface with any rig, it is so easy and quick to use, that doesn't matter as much as it did before I used the T1. Right now, I'm using it with my KX3 with the internal KX3 antenna tuner bypassed. Except for 160 and 6 where the SWR is about 2.5 to 1, it gives me a perfect 1:1 match on all other bands except a couple that are 1.2:1 and that as they say, ain't bad at all. I think by some tweaking of the random wire I can probably get the 160 SWR down to at least 1.2:1 also. I'm not sure about my 6 meter dipole. I'll have to do some thinking on it.
OK, soon time now for my trip to the shack for my streak QSOs. -30-
Wednesday Sep 6 1:09PM - Bears and other animals hibernate in the winter to keep warm. I'm hibernating today to keep cool in our 90 degree weather. It should go up maybe 2-4 more degrees before the evening comes.
So I thought I'd do some web site work. My web site celebrates its 27th birthday this Friday the 8th of September and begins its 28th year of existence. I believe that is one of the longest lasting continuously updated personal ham radio sites on the Internet. I changed my top logo that shows up on all my pages to reflect that change. It will read starting Friday "...its 28th year...". For those of you who haven't been with me that long and wonder about the history of the web site, let me give a brief history here and then see if sample pages from the early years of the site are still available on the Internet Archive.
Back in 1996 my neighbor, friend, and fellow ham Eric (now KB3BFQ) and I got to discussing starting a web site. His main interest at the time was sports, in particular hockey and he decided he would do a hockey site. Of my many interests in life, at the time ham radio and auto racing were at the top of the list. After some thought, I decided on ham radio for my site. I went through a few site hosts over the years, but Eric and I got our start on GeoCities which is no longer in business but that link leads to its history when it was active.
At first I dedicated my web site to the history of how WA8EOH and I started the CW County Hunting Net (CHN) back in early 1966. That quickly developed to include a wider range of ham activities, all of which depended strictly on CW / QRP / simple wire antennas. Of course that's how it remains to this day, many years later. Of all things associated with the web site, I'm proudest to say it has convinced many hams that CW and QRP are the way to go in ham radio.
In addition to content, also changing over the years was the format. I hope to show that instead of describing it by refering you to the Internet Archive. Let me see if that still works. Looks like it does and it contains random pages from my site going back to 1998. Here are 3 links to various years of my site. It's a bit complicated, but I'm sure you can easily figure it out.
Tuesday Sep 5 8:49PM - Not much going on today. I was doing some more studying of the IC705 Advanced Manual preparing for when I get my 705 hopefully in 2 to 3 weeks now. That advanced manual is huge, but if it has a hundred pages (the numbering is not straightforward on the pages so I'm guessing 100), only maybe 15 to 20 interest me. The rest are on voice, digital, dstar (whatever that is), and other things I don't even remember nor have any interest in. It will be like my KX3, a dedicated CW/QRP rig period.
Conditions seemed pretty good tonight with lots of strong sigs from 40 up through 17. I got my 2 streak QSOs on 30 though and just tuned the other bands briefly.
I'm looking forward to the Unionville hamfest on Sunday. After Mike and I check it out, we'll come back here and take on a couple projects. More on all that later. -30-
Monday Sep 4 9:11PM - Running late again for no particular reason tonight. So I'll have a short entry again.
It was the first of maybe 3 or 4 90 degree days today topping out right at 90 on all three of my thermometers. So I was only outside to walk Roscoe. Well, not really true. I went out to breakfast with Bruce's brother Jeff this morning.
I'm starting a little project which I think I also started several years ago. HI Anyway I'm listing memorable QSOs I've had over the years like the first Asian QSO, my QSO with VK6HQ when he called me on the landline after we worked, My K1N QSO for the last entity in NA, and QSOs like that. I've got a couple dozen or so, so far. I don't know if I'll put it in the diary or maybe make it a separate page somewhere on the web site. And that's it for this entry. -30-
Sunday Sep 3 7:46PM - Several years ago, I loaned my TS570 rig plus a homebrew tuner/SWR meter and a homebrew paddle to Eric KB3BFQ. A month or so ago, I asked his dad to have him call me to see if he was still interested in buying the equipment. He never did call, but his dad came here today with the equipment. I don't know if Eric gave up on ham radio or maybe got a rig of his own or what. Anyway I have the equipment back. I'm thinking of maybe fooling around with it this week or maybe waiting till Sunday when Mike will be coming here to go to the BCARA hamfest.
Also this week, my friend Jasmine whom I used to talk about in the diary from time to time is moving back next door again. An interesting week, indeed.
Tonight it's the SST Sprint for my streak QSOs in a few minutes. Then maybe I'll just check the WARC bands for some DX or a rag chew after the streak QSOs are secured for another day.
Although it is now meteorological Autumn as of the first, this week may see our hottest weather of the year with highs for a few days in the low to mid 90s. I thought maybe we'd have an all time high for September, but that is 98 degrees back in 2011. I don't think we'll reach that, but... -30-
Saturday Sep 2 8:47PM - I fooled around some more with my random wire today. I added some more wire to it yesterday and today and got it pretty good on 80 meters now with the T1 tuner. The 80M SWR is now about 1.2:1 or 1.3:1 with the extra wire. I just have the wire temporarily connected. I want to experiment some more to see if I can do better on 160M. I saw at one point the SWR there was about 2:1 so there is room for improvement although that's not too bad.
The bands were kind of strange tonight. They seemed good when I got on at 0000Z, but then seemed to go downhill rapidly. WWV reports some solar and ionospheric storminess so that could be the cause. Anyway I got my two streak QSOs from W1AW/8 and W8HOG both in Ohio and both on 40M.
That's about it for today. Time to get the weather data now. -30-
Friday Sep 1 11:38AM - Welcome to Autumn (meteorological). It looks like next week we return to summer weather with several days in the 90s. I know a lot of you enjoy my weather comments from your emails, etc. So since I just put the August data in my weather spreadsheets, let's look at the month briefly.
It was a very normal month as far as temperature goes. The departures from normal were as follows: MIN: 62.9 +2.2 MAX: 82.4 -1.7 MEAN: 72.7 +0.3. Precipitation was pretty much above normal at: 5.39 +1.3. Individual daily records, only 1: 25th Highest minimum (tie) 70 in 1975 and 2023. Monthly record 2: Lowest mean daily range 19.5. Lowest greatest daily range 27. That's pretty much it except for the usual August records: No temperatures at all of 32 or less.
Barring anything out of the ordinary, that's the entry for today. -30-
Thursday Aug 31 9:15PM - Another late nite and a brief entry. It was a good day today with a lot of good happenings that I don't really have time to talk about.
I got my end of month work just about half done. Ran out of time so will finish tomorrow. Good bands tonight. Worked an old friend I haven't worked in about 10 years, Dave NF0R. Before and after that QSO I worked TI70RC on 20, then on 30. Still playing with and enjoying the T1 Antenna Tuner. It's very impressive despite its small size, about that of a deck of playing cards. OK, more tomorrow. Got to go now. -30-
Wednesday Aug 30 9:20PM - Wow, it's sad, but meteorological summer is almost over. Just one more day before fall shows up. A very nice season except it's a prelude to winter and s@#w.
I'm late tonight so just a couple other brief comments. Still playing with the T1 tuner and liking it more. Still haven't played with it on 80 and 160 to see if I can get a better SWR there. Maybe tomorrow.
A nice cool day today so I did some outside work on my back yard and sidewalk. Also took a couple outside walks. One to Sprankle's for some shopping. One in the evening that totalled one mile. Felt good out in the cool air. OK, got to go now. -30-
Tuesday Aug 29 2:16PM - I just finished my first round of checking of the Elecraft T1 ATU loaned to me by Tom WB3FAE. I thought I'd report my findings here in the diary.
First of all, the setup. Quite simple. I bypassed the internal ATU in the KX3. I connected the T1 between the KX3 and the input to my antenna switch. Then I proceeded with the test. It was a little tricky the first couple tries till I learned the sequence and timing of the T1 button pushes and when to send some RF from the KX3. It soon became second nature after a minute or so. I started out on 20 meters since I wanted to check my resonant antennas first before tackling the random wire and using the 15M dipole on 17 and 12 meters which should have provided a little tougher test for the T1. 20M gave me a quick 1:1 SWR with my attic dipole. Next it was 15M using th 15M vertical dipole. A bit of a hesitation at first, then I got a 1.1:1 SWR. Perhaps I should have tuned one more time to try for a 1:1, but I didn't. Instead I spent some time on 15 making sure I was getting out and not just getting a false reading. I guess it was working as I got OM3CW very easily. He didn't give me an automatic 599, but a 579 which I guessed was close to being accurate. Then I tried a CQ and got an answer on the first one from N5URL in New Mexico. We had a nice long rag chew talking about my setup here. He was especially interested in my 15M vertical dipole. Unfortunately the band changed or we might still be talking.
So far so good. I finished up with my two other dipoles for 10 and 6 meters. I forgot to note my 6M result, but I believe it was also 1:1 as it was on 10M. Now came more of a test with the non-resonant antenna bands. I started with 12M and got a perfect 1:1. Then on to 17 with the same results. Not to be different, 30M also gave a 1:1 report.
Nothing is ever completely perfect, so 40 meters with the random wire only gave a 1.1:1 like 15 meters. Oh well, I can live with that if some tweaking can't lower it to 1:1. However now come the real troublemakers, 80 and 160. I couldn't get them to give lower than a 3:1 SWR. They will take some further study. The internal KX3 tuner will give just slightly above or at a 1:1 reading. Perhaps a small loading coil at the start of the random wire that I can switch in and out?
My overall opinion of the T1. I like it very much with one exception. It has no memory and must be retuned at every band change. I love switching around all bands when I'm operating. I like the size of it for portable operating and I don't switch bands as much when I do that. I might getone as a dedicated ATU for portable work, then get one that does have memory and can be controlled directly from the rig for fixed station use. Still a lot of time to think about that before the IC 705 gets here.
Monday Aug 28 6:08PM - I just mounted the Hall of Fame plaque in my shack and took a picture to send to Jeff VE3CW since he helped me pick out a spot when he was here yesterday. Then I decided I'd post the picture here in the diary as well to show to you, my diary readers. It wasn't easy to get a really good picture with the sun shining in the shack, but I masked off the sunlight and I think it came out pretty good. I also didn't take a full shack picture so the printing on the plaque would show up better with a condensed shack picture. OK, here it is:
I also received some pictures of the ceremony from Mike. Here's the one I like best:
Thanks Mike.
I've got a little more work to do now, but I wanted to get this info about the plaque posted as soon as I could. -30-
Sunday Aug 27 6:51PM - Here I am at the keyboard after a somewhat busy and tiring day. First of all, the day started off about an hour earlier than usual so we could get to SkyView early for our QRP demo. Mike was still held up a little bit along the way here, and we arrived at Skyview a little before 9:00 if I remember right. We greeted some members whom we knew before going to the radio room and also in the radio room. Gradually we're getting to know more and more of the members after spending more time at the club house. We saw some of the members who had gone to the Requin with us in addition to others we've known for quite some time now. I'm not going to make a list here for fear of leaving someone out, but you get the picture.
Bob WC3O had the radio room set up for us. Mike started on 20 meters with the club 20M station and I did the same with 40M and the IC-7610 which I had never used before. However it seems all ICOM rigs are similar in many ways, so I applied what I learned from studying for my IC-705 I'll be getting next month and made out pretty well. I did have to ask some questions though.
It was pretty chaotic in the radio room with members talking loudly and we having to turn up the audio on our rigs. But it all turned out well. I made 10 QSOs among all the chaos and talking myself with visiting members. After a while, I decided to try 15 meters. After some help in figuring how to change bands and which antenna to use, I worked 2 Hawaii stations and one from Curacao. All on QRP 5 watts, of course, but with some bigger antennas than the simple wire ones I am used to.
Mike meanwhile was concentrating on the Kansas QSO Party. I don't know how many he worked, but it seemed he was working someone every several minutes. He also worked Hawaii, and I also worked a couple Kansas QSO Party stations.
Around 10 o'clock or so, VE3CW/VA3JFF Jeff showed up with my QRP ARCI Hall of Fame plaque. I had no idea what kind of ceremony they had planned. Jeff didn't either so he went to find out. He came back and said it would be at 11:00 by the announcement tent. I was glad to hear that because that meant it would only be a little fuss instead of a big one. HI
That was right and it went smoothly and fast. Jeff spoke for maybe a minute and I said my thanks to QRP ARCI, those who nominated me, and to Jeff for bringing the plaque in person from Ontario. Then I said let's get back to swapping and shopping now. That was it. Several folks took pictures of the "ceremony". Here's one after the ceremony back in the radio room again from Brian K3ES.
Hopefully some of the other picture takers will send me a copy of their pictures also.
After looking around the S&S area to see if there was anything interesting to us, Mike and I went back to the radio room and continued with our QRP demo and chatting with those visiting the radio room.
I had a lot of fun despite the chaos. My most fun I think, was getting some hands on experience with the ICOM IC-7610 because that should help me when I get my IC-705. Next was probably becoming familiar with some members I hadn't known all that well or just meeting some for the first time today.
Jeff wanted to wait around for the prize drawing. When we found none of our little group won anything, we left and Jeff and I headed to Applebees where we'd meet Mike for my treat of a dinner. After that it was on to my home to give Jeff a tour of my station. Mike worked a couple more Kansas stations while Jeff was looking over my QSL card collection. Then Jeff headed to Welland, ON, and Mike went off to Brookville to check on Jaden.
Me, I reflected on a great day while doing my Sunday laundry a bit later than usual. Thanks to everyone who made this a great day. Oh, and as I think I mentioned in an earlier entry, Tom WB3FAE brought his Elecraft T1 antenna tuner for me to play with and learn while waiting for the 705 in case I decide to get that model for my 705 tuner or even if not, to just learn something about how external antenna tuners work. -30-
Saturday Aug 26 8:30PM - I had P33W in my sights, but couldn't work him. That would have finally completed WAC on 40M, but he never gave me so much as a ?. He wasn't hearing other stations calling him or asked for several repeats from stations, so at least that took some of the sting out of it. He was definitely strong enough to work. Ironically the only easy station I heard him work was K3WW. I knew it wasn't me because I heard Chas easily calling him. Oh well. Someday, maybe.
Tomorrow is SkyView. Mike, Tom, and I will be doing our annual QRP demo there with a difference. We'll be using the club call of K3MJW. It will still be QRP power but we'll be using their big antenna farm. Usually I would use one of their simple wire antennas, but now since they will be K3MJW QSOs, not K3WWP QSOs, I feel it OK to use the big antennas. Kind of like on the Requin where they are NY3EC QSOs so we use QRO power. I will still keep any K3WWP QSOs at QRP and simple wire antennas though.
Tomorrow as a minor side show in a way, I'll be getting my QRP ARCI Hall of Fame plaque from Jeff VE3CW. I'm hoping no big fuss is made about it. Afterwards, I'll be taking Jeff out for dinner to say thanks for delivering the plaque and also showing him my shack after that. Should be an interesting day. -30-
Friday Aug 25 9:08PM - I guessed wrong last night. Actually the August 28 delivery date for my IC-705 was the wrong one. Actually the 2-4 weeks waiting date for delivery was correct, so I won't get my 705 probably until well into September. Oh well that will give me still more time to study the antenna tuner options. My friend Tom WB3FAE is going to loan me an Elecraft T-1 tuner to play with and study. I hoped to do that starting Monday, and maybe I still will, but not with the 705. It will be with the KX3 and/or my K2 rigs which will give me a good feel of how at least one tuner gets along with my antenna farm. Tom is bringing the T-1 to SkyView Sunday.
I had a 3 QSO night with two POTAs and one great rag chew with Hayes N8NHT who just a couple minutes ago followed up with an email. Let me read that, then I'll finish this entry. OK. It was a great rag chew QSO in which we exchanged a lot of various info just like a good rag chew should be. Thanks Hayes!
Almost time now to walk Roscoe and then my neighbor and I are going to watch Casablanca. We watch movies in 30 minute segments so we don't wind up too late. HI -30-
Thursday Aug 24 7:11PM - In the diary entry for the 22nd I said, "Still studying the antenna tuner situation for when I get my IC-705. I've only decided that I am going to order the 705 now, probably on Thursday and let the antenna tuner situation hopefully take care of itself by the time the 705 gets here." Well, "I dood it." Yep, I ordered the 705 from Gigaparts a couple hours ago. I'm a little confused about when it will get here though. However as I thought about it, I think it may be this way. On the 705 description page it says there may be a 2-4 week delay in shipping. However in going through the ordering pages, when it asked how I wanted it shipped, it says it will be delivered on August 28. Huh? I think now that perhaps they didn't update the description page and the 2-4 weeks may already have passed since they updated it. Just a guess, but if I'm right, I should expect to see a box on Monday with a 705 in it. So I may have to speed up my decision about an antenna tuner. It's not really urgent though. I imagine I could run the 705 without a tuner on the upper bands where I have dipoles which should match the rig close enough to work till I do get a tuner. It will all become clear before too long now.
Anyway, that's the big diary story for today. Nothing much else happened to write about. Oh, we will be using the SkyView club call of K3MJW when we do our QRP demo there on Sunday. The operating plans are pretty much like those for the Requin. I'll have some more specific info before Sunday rolls around. -30-
Wednesday Aug 23 5:42PM - Just got back from Pittsburgh not too long ago so thought I'd write up the day while it is still somewhat fresh in my old mind. Mike arrived around 8:30AM and we talked for about 15-20 minutes, mostly about our new and soon to be new rigs. We took off for Pittsburgh about 8:45AM or so figuring a delay in traffic would get us to the Requin just in time for opening at 10:00AM. Well, there was traffic, but we got through it quickly and arrived early at the Requin around 9:45AM. We killed time talking with Art from the sub after we met Paul AC3IE who arrived even earlier than we did. A trip to the restroom in the Carnegie Science Center when it opened at 10:00AM. Then on to the radio room. Mike went there before us and he had things ready to go. It was a little more busy today than the last few times we were there. Mike had 5 QSOs on his shifts, Paul had 7, and I had 6 for a total of 18. The states worked were MS GA PA MI NH MN WI AR IA FL MO LA OK for a total of 13. Not a bad day overall. Of course we enjoyed greeting the visitors to the sub for a brief chat. The tours move through quickly which doesn't leave time for much conversation. The three of us talked among ourselves as well while waiting for answers to our CQs. Mike and I picked Paul's brain about ICOM rigs since we are both new to them and Paul has had more time to play with and learn them. Finally 2:00PM came too quickly and we packed up and headed home. Mike and I headed to Applebees where we had a great meal before Mike dropped me off at home and headed up north to Brookville. All in all another great day and it was good to have Paul along with us this time. One last note. It was great to work old friend Carl N5XE. We hadn't hooked up for quite some time until today.
Next up, it's the SkyView Swap and Shop on Sunday. We're changing our SOP there starting this year. We are going to copy the Requin SOP to a certain extend and use the club's equipment instead of bringing our own. We will use one of the club calls and it will still be strictly QRP power, but we will use their antenna farm. We figure this is more of a SkyView event than a NAQCC event now, hence the change. Also it will save us some work in dragging our own equipment down there and setting it up. -30-
Tuesday Aug 22 8:42PM - 1 rag chew + 1 DX + 1 VOTA = 3 QSOs for the streak this evening. The bands were pretty good, the best in the past few days, I think. They allowed me to work KN4CQB in NC on 40, I1YRL on 20, and W1AW/0 in ND on 40.
Tomorrow Mike and I and AC3IE go to the Requin. Details in last night's diary entry. Hope conditions are good or at least better than the last couple times we've been to the Requin.
Not much going on today. It was the first day of the local county school year, but that doesn't really mean anything to me and hasn't for a good many years now. In fact I graduated from HS the same year I got my Novice license KN3WWP in 1963. Wow, 60 years ago now. I feel old.
Still studying the antenna tuner situation for when I get my IC-705. I've only decided that I am going to order the 705 now, probably on Thursday and let the antenna tuner situation hopefully take care of itself by the time the 705 gets here. -30-
Monday Aug 21 9:09PM - A bit late tonight after a couple fairly long rag chews. One with Tony N2ATB whom I've worked quite a few times and one with Art WB8CCR for the first time ever.
I'm getting more and more confused about a tuner for the IC 705 when I get it. I'm making a chart of several different tuners with a PRO and CON column and finding entries for both columns for every tuner I study. I think I'll just go ahead and order the 705 and with a shipping delay of 2 to 4 weeks, maybe by then I'll have decided on which tuner I want. If not I can work the bands for which I have dipoles which should work pretty good without aid of a tuner.
I better post some info here about our subpedition on Wednesday. It's pretty much SOP for those of you who follow our doings. For newbies, the sub opens at 10:00AM (1400Z) and we try to start operating shortly after that. We op one band at a time since the sub has only one antenna. We alternate among 40, 30, and 20 meters depending on conditions and activity. We use the sub's call of NY3EC. Frequencies are in the ranges of 7037-7043, 10114-10120, 14057-14063 depending on QRM. We don't have specific times for any of the bands. We just go with the flow, so use your rig's band switch and tuning knob to look for us. We try to keep the contacts short if there is a lot of activity. If not, we can chat a bit. We hang around until 2:00PM (1800Z) or so depending on activity. That pretty much covers all you need to know. We hope you can work us and keep us busy at the key.
I guess that's it. Almost time to walk Roscoe. -30-
Sunday Aug 20 7:41PM - Well, let's see what happened today. It's Sunday so the laundry was the first thing I did. Then I went with Bruce as he checked out his upcoming school bus route for anything unexpected he might run into when school starts on Tuesday. There were no glitches. Next up, I readjusted my belt again and now it fits better.
Some computer work editing and indexing some pictures passed quite a bit of time. Then an unsuccessful needle in a haystack search. I was going to watch Casablanca later this evening with Bruce, but I can't find my VHS tape anywhere. It's not in the place it should be and not in any of the other places it might have been if I pulled it out and watched it or loaned it to someone. I don't remember. Everything has to be somewhere so I'll search more thoroughly tomorrow if nothing else comes up. Anyway my tape collection needs a good dusting so I can do that while I'm searching. Meanwhile we might watch The Maltese Falcon, The African Queen, or She Wore a Yellow Ribbon instead until Casablanca turns up.
Tonight it's the SST sprint for my streak QSOs. Mike texted me today saying someone forgot to turn the sunspots on today meaning conditions were not much good. I didn't check myself. I'll find out in about 10 minutes. -30-
Saturday Aug 19 8:33PM - Hey, same exact time as last night's entry. Also pretty much the same kind of day as yesterday. The QSOs came a bit easier this evening. I actually worked a SA station. They've been scarce of late. Well, not really scarce. I just haven't been heard in that part of the world much lately. Tonight I made it to Uruguay and CX90RCU. The 90th anniversary of Radio Club Uruguay? Yep, good guess.
Not much else going on today. Well, my neighbor's brother did cut my grass. Also I modified my belt a bit. Needed to make it a little shorter as I get rid of some weight. Not all that much, just a few pounds. I guess that about sums up the day.
Mike and I will be going to the Requin this Wednesday, the 23rd. We'll have another first timer accompanying us in the form of Paul AC3IE. We met him at the Skyview meeting a couple weeks ago. I'll have some details in one of the diary entries between now and then. -30-
Friday Aug 18 8:33PM - I'm finding I'm getting more excited about getting the ICOM IC-705 the more that I read the tutorials, reviews, operating manuals, etc. for it and for the antenna tuners, MFJ 939 and mAT 705. I'm leaning toward the 939 now but I want to study those two and a couple others before I make a final decision. Then I will order the 705 and whichever tuner I decide on. One thing in favor of the the 939 is that it can act as a stand alone tuner with any brand of rig. It doesn't have to be interfaced with any particular rig. However interfacing it with a particular rig (the 705 for example) allows for activating and tuning the tuner in a few different ways from both the tuner itself or the rig itself. Stay tuned for further updates.
The bands were pretty much the same as they have been for some time now. I did manage 3 QSOs tonight though from K9UT on 40, N9ANA (POTA) on 40, and VE2CSI on 30 to keep the streak going. I'm entertaining thoughts about dropping the second QSO after 1 year is up and just continuing with the traditional 1 QSO per day. Perhaps getting the 705 will encourage me to continue with the 2 QSOs. I think my KX3's noise blanker is starting to have some problems or maybe it's just my local noise is getting worse. It gets discouraging some nights when conditions keep signal levels at or below the noise in most cases. It will be interesting to investigate that to see if it is the KX3 or the actual noise itself. -30-
Thursday Aug 17 8:52PM - Well, I bit the bullet and ordered a Union Pacific Living Legend 844 locomotive from Hobbystore in Indiana, PA today. It's a BTO Legacy from Lionel so it is going to take some time to be built and shipped to me, but at least it will be well worth the money and the wait, I'm sure. I've wanted one practically since the first day I set up my trains again some 5-6 years ago so adding a little to the wait won't matter that much.
Now the next project is getting the ICOM IC-705. There is some delay in shipping them at most stores which is actually a good thing because I want to do a thorough study of the available automatic antenna tuners available for the 705 to be sure I get what I want the first time. I'm getting it narrowed down to maybe 3 or 4 now, and it may be rough going to narrow it further.
The bands were noisy tonight and it took a little doing to get my streak QSOs, but by 0028Z I had the two contacts, KG8CO POTA in MI and DL1BUG DX on 20M. -30-
Wednesday Aug 16 8:44PM - Not much to talk about again today. I did a sad chore though. I picked some of the dead flower stems off my daylilies. They have stopped blooming for the year as they usually do around or about the 10th of August. They did not seem to do as well in this crazy weather year. I usually often pick off over 100 dead blossoms in a day. I don't think I topped maybe 80 on the best day this year. I'm speaking of the blossoms there, not the flower stems which are two different things.
The bands were not so good again tonight, but I still managed my two daily QSOs nonetheless. Both on 40 although 30 seemed to be the best band tonight.
That pretty much sums up my day except for a shopping trip to Sprankle's and Family Dollar to stock up for a couple weeks or so. -30-
Tue Aug 15 7:38PM - Just about halfway through August already. I wonder if anyone has figured the rate of acceleration of time as we get older. I'm sure there is some kind of increase.
Another kind of nothing day today. I did go to the PO to mail some mid-month checks. That was a little different anyway. I was going to go to Sprankle's this evening but a couple of rain showers popped up about when I wanted to go. So I decided to try for tomorrow morning before it gets too hot.
I went up to my bedroom to shave today and while I was there, I checked the bands. Except for 1 or 2 W/VE stations, everything from 17 on up was virtually dead. U wonder when the upper bands are going to open up in this building sunspot peak. Or more to the point when are hams going to realize they are already open and start firing up their rigs and take advantage of them. Better wake up soon. The way time flies, we'll have passed the sunspot peak and start sliding toward the next minimum.
It's almost time now to head back to the shack for streak time. I wonder what tonight will bring. At least most nights if there aren't any rag chewers around, I can count on some POTA activity on 40 or 20 and sometimes 30. Tonight will start some new VOTA states also. I forget which ones are scheduled this week. My list is up in the shack. -30-
Mon Aug 14 7:48PM - Almost streak time, but I thought I'd write a bit of the diary since then. Last night was interesting on the bands. After I got 2 SST QSOs for the streak, I listened around on the higher bands a bit and had a rag chew with N0GRA in CO on 17 meters. It was pretty solid 2X copy till the band eventually succumbed to the inevitable QSB. Right after that I got a quick QSO on 17 with 6D1A.
Today I did some unexciting chores around the house. I cut my hair. I also cleaned up some things in the basement to put out for the garbage tomorrow. Ho hum. Hope the bands at least are a little exciting tonight. I'll find out in about 7 minutes as I write this. -30-
Sun Aug 13 7:34PM - The severe weather kind of fizzled out last night. At least the strong winds and tornado parts of it. It did rain pretty good though and we had a 24 hour total of 1.87 inches as of 9PM last night. That made for a total of 3.22 inches while Ange was on vacation. That took good care of watering his garden for this year as far as my part is concerned.
I did my usual Sunday laundry today. I also weeded my tomato plants. Of course they didn't need watering. I didn't do a whole lot else the rest of the day. I sat on the porch with Roscoe for a while and gave him a couple extra walks.
The streak QSOs should come easy tonight from the SST sprint. If I feel like it, I may go for a rag chew or two on 30 meters after the streak is secured. I guess that is about it for this diary entry. I wonder what number this entry is. Let's see. I started the diary in 2006, but it wasn't an everyday thing right away. Figuring it was pretty much daily starting in 2007, that would make it 16x365= 5,840 entries from 2007 thru 2022 plus roughly 220 days this year = 6,060 plus maybe 180 back in 2006 = very roughly 6,240 days I've written a diary entry. Whew, that's a lot! And I never even got writer's cramp. I got writer's block now and then though. HI -30-
Sat Aug 12 3:56PM - We've got a severe weather Saturday afternoon and evening going here so I thought I'd write the diary now in case we lose power or worse later on. Right now we're got a severe storm warning or advisory or whatever they call them after modifying all the warnings, advisories, watches, etc. in effect till midnight and a tornado watch until 9:00PM. At least I think the term 'watch' remains the same, that is conditions are favorable for the possibility of something happening. In this case, a tornado.
With the WAE going on again tonight, it should be easy and quick to get my streak QSOs for day #10,601.
Anyway that's the diary entry for this evening just in case. -30-
Fri Aug 11 2:24PM - I don't know if you remember, but I do. Last year it seemed to take forever to get my 13 Colonies award. This year it took just a couple days past 1 month since the event ended. Here it is.
I like the way they come up with a different design every year, always dealing with the Fourth of July in one way or other. I just hope that one year I can get one with GB13COL on it. So far that hasn't happened as GB13COL never seems to be that active. In fact I've only heard them once and very weak at that. Nevertheless it still is a wonderful event every July. This is the 15th year of the event. I wish I had discovered it from the start, but I didn't and this is only my 9th year of participating, the last 8 of which I have earned a clean sweep. I thank all those involved in the event especially Ken KU2US and all the K2* operators. All 13 state ops plus WM3PEN and TM13COL are always very active every year and it is easy to work them. -30-
Thu Aug 10 8:32PM - Back to normal time schedule tonight. I got two rather quick QSOs for the streak and was done by 10 after, but still stuck around listening and trying some CQs until around 0030Z or so.
Let's talk a bit about the Skyview meeting Tuesday evening. Mike and I left here around 5:00PM and were two of the first to arrive at the clubhouse. A couple members were sitting in the radio room talking and they let us have the radio. We chose the ICOM IC-7300 since Mike just got one and it is similar to the IC-705 I'll be getting either this month or in September. Some members wandered in the radio room from time to time and offered some tips on the 7300. John WA3KFS wanted us to try some QRPp with the rig. I worked Bulgaria LZ3FA at 500 mW. Although the meeting in the next room was going on about Skywarn, Mike and I stayed in the radio room learning more about the 7300. Around 0045Z or so, the meeting broke up and we talked with some of the members before heading home including WC3O and K3JZD. I've known those two before Mike and I became members, but I also "met" a couple other members and got to learn their names and calls. There was John WA3KFS whom I mentioned and also Mike KC3CBQ. I guess the list of folks I know will grow as we attend more meetings. Oh also Paul AC3IE who will be going with us to the Requin on the 23rd, and John K3STL who came in the radio room to make a few POTA QSOs.
Almost time to check my weather station, so I'll close the entry now. -30-
Wed Aug 9 9:21PM - Late again tonight, but I know why. I got three rag chew QSOs in my streak hour tonight. It was good to chew the rag again, but it does consume some time which is not a bad thing, but it does throw off my schedule a bit.
One of the rag chewers emailed me after the QSO. N4EII Al said, "Thank you for the nice qso this evening 8/9/23 I had no idea I was rag chewing with a celebrity. Thank you for all that you have done for Ham Radio, hope i can be a contact for you again soon. I hope you can keep your streak alive for many more years. 73, Al"
I don't know about the celebrity part, but I do appreciate both the QSO and the followup email. Got to hurry now. Almost Roscoe walking time. More tomorrow about the SkyView meeting and other things. -30-
Tue Aug 8 10:07AM - Late yesterday, early today. Mike is coming this afternoon about 3PM and we're going to the SkyView meeting this evening so I want to get some things done early before all of that. At least I don't have to water Ange's garden for at least a couple more days since we got about a third of an inch of rain last night and maybe a little more during the overnight.
I just got back from the Post Office where I mailed my 1A0C QSL card to manager EA5RM. They are charging $5.00 for up to 15 QSOs which of course includes my 1 QSO. It's worth it though as I'll probably never work 1A again.
It looks like Paul AC3IE will be going to the sub on the 23rd with Mike and me. Also he is going to the SkyView meeting tonight so we'll meet him before the subpedition.
Now for some breakfast then some more exercising to see if I can make my quota in just about a half day today. -30-
Mon Aug 7 10:22PM - I'm very late tonight for no particular reason. Nothing much happened today anyway so it doesn't matter. It was a showery day which is good since my garden friend Ange is on vacation and without the rain I would have to water the garden for him. So this particular week I strongly approve of the rainy weather. The other 51 weeks is a different story. HI
The bands were poor here this evening and it took a while to find and work somebody who happened to be K4NYM on another POTA outing followed by N8CKU in GA. I hadn't worked him since back in 1981 when he lived in Detroit.
It looks like our next trip to the Requin will be the 23rd of this month. More info as the day draws closer. -30-
Sun Aug 6 1:43PM - I got an email today from Dave K8RXB asking about my decision to purchase the IC-705. Let me use my answer to him as my diary entry for today.
My KX3 has developed a couple problems after being used each and every day for the past 12 years or so. One with the band up button and the noise blanker no longer works as well as it used to. With two problems like that, it's likely that more problems will develop as it continues to age.
I could get another KX3 or send this one in for repairs, but both options would probably take several months. Also the technology would still be old compared to the 705 which has developed much more since the KX3 was released and its technology is several years newer and better than the KX3. Also I can get the brand new 705 probably within a month.
Hence kind of a no-brain decision to go with the 705 no matter how much I like and am devoted to the KX3. Maybe sometime after I get the 705 up and running I will consider repairing the KX3 and using it as only a portable rig and backup rig. -30-
Sat Aug 5 8:20PM - The NA QSO Party provided 2 quick streak QSOs this evening. Both from hams I've worked a lot over the years. KP2M in the VI 78 times including tonight and KJ9C Mel in MT 39 times but not since 2009 when he was living in Indiana.
I used to really enjoy the NAQPs when I was more active in contesting. I did quite well in them. A couple of times I averaged over 50 QSOs per hour in the 10 hour contests. Maybe some day I'll give one another real try to see if I can still do that well. This would be a good time to do it with the bands in good shape as we near the latest Sunspot Cycle peak.
I'm pretty much decided now on getting an ICOM IC-705 rig probably around the end of this month. I spent about an hour and a half to two hours today studying up on the rig. It has so many bells and whistles, my brain hurts from all that studying. The ironic thing is that I'll only be using a small percentage of the features that deal with CW operation and the built in panadapter or spectrum display. Maybe a few other little things too, but that's it.
A nice day today for an outside walk and some porch sitting. -30-
Fri Aug 4 7:45PM - Well, tonight will be the first day in the 30th year of my streak. Wow, it seems like just yesterday in a way, that the streak got started.
I thought I'd write this a bit early tonight in case I get involved in a long rag chew like I did last night with Jose KP3W in San Juan, Puerto Rico. We had a solid 15 meter path between us and talked on a variety of topics. We had 15 meters all to ourselves. We wondered if no one else elected to check the band to see if it was open. It was amazing in a way how strong and steady our signals were for the whole QSO.
I thought for a while I wouldn't be able to update the web site tonight. There was an Internet outage late this afternoon, and when I called support, a recorded message told of the outage and said it was estimated it wouldn't be fixed till 5AM tomorrow morning. That was inaccurate as it was fixed within 5 minutes of the announcement.
I picked 4 ripe tomatoes today. After an initial surge a few weeks ago, these are the first ones to ripen since then.
It was a nice day today, except for one short heavy shower that passed through in mid-afternoon. It only stuck around long enough to deposit about a tenth of an inch of rain.
Off to the shack now to get that first QSO of the 30th year of the streak. -30-
Thu Aug 3 7:36PM - A couple of interesting items for me today. I had been a little worried about my web site. August is renewal time for my domain name of k3wwp.com, and I hadn't been able to contact Cahaba Internet, my web site host. However a third email today brought a quick response from Bill WA4FAT of Cahaba. Bill and I go back in ham radio many years and he generously has been donating space on the Cahaba server for my site for several years now. I'll have to see if I can find when we first hooked up about the web site. Also Bill has taken care of my domain name of k3wwp.com for the same amount of time. I pay him for the service and he in turn takes care of paying, I believe, GoDaddy for the domain name. At least I think that is how it is working. HI. Kind of like driving a car but not really knowing all the inner workings of the car, I guess. Whatever, I am now set for another year of the web site.
I got another call from Dave WA8EOH today and we had a nice chat about a lot of things, mostly ham radio, of course.
Now what was the other thing I wanted to talk about? Hmmmm. It will probably come to me shortly after I upload these web site updates.
I did go on a shopping trip to Walmart to get some things for Roscoe and for myself. Also I've been doing some more studying of the ICOM IC-705 manual in preparation to getting an IC-705 sometime later this month. It seems like a very nice rig from the manual plus seeing Mike's IC-7300 on Monday since both rigs have many things in common.
OK, time to shove off to the shack now for the streak QSOs. While I'm getting them, I'll probably think of what else it was I wanted to talk about.
STOP THE PRESSES! Now I remember. I just wanted to say that when I get my QSOs tonight, that will mark the completion of 29 years (10,592 days) of the streak since it started on August 5, 1994. I think my math is correct? HI -30-
Wed Aug 2 8:36PM - Kind of a quiet day today after the busy past few days. The weather was pretty nice, not too hot nor too cold and no rain. So I sat on the front porch quite a bit just taking it easy. I guess about the only thing I did besides the usual daily tasks was to fill out the QSLs I printed yesterday and put them aside for the next time I accumulate enough to mail a batch to the ARRL Outgoing QSL Buro. I also logged a few more eQSLs from the upload I did yesterday. That is it in the proverbial nutshell.
The QSOs tonight were a POTA from MA, and someone I've worked many times, but not much lately. Let me get some stats. This was the 63rd time we've worked, but not since February 15, 2022. I'm speaking of CO8LY. We worked in one of those 599 TU quicky QSOs on 30 meters. We first worked back on November 13, 1994. -30-
Tue Aug 1 8:27PM - August already? Wasn't it just May a couple days ago? It was a busy day today with a lot of little chores related to the first of a month. I took a couple of longer outdoor walks to the bank, Sprankle's, and the Post Office. Then another just plain walk this evening. I took care of some eQSL work, logging some QSLs from there and then uploading my July contacts to there. I got some printer ink today and printed up a few new QSL cards to take care of those who wanted my card in the buro mailing a couple days ago. I also sat out on the porch and enjoyed another nice day. I also put the July weather into my weather spreadsheet and file. July was a pretty normal month as far as temperatures go, but the precipitation was close to being around double the normal amount. That about covers my busy day today. This evening I worked FY5KE on 30 and W1AW/4 in KY on 40 for the streak. -30-
Mon Jul 31 9:13PM - "A Tale of ....." No, that was yesterday although today was kind of divided into two parts. This morning and early afternoon I worked on my end of month projects. This afternoon, Mike came by with his new Icom IC-7300. We unboxed it, and got it into working order. It went fairly smoothly with one major exception. It took us about an hour to assemble two Power Pole Connectors. They just were very stubborn and wouldn't go together. We couldn't figure out why. Finally we stopped soldering them, and just crimped them which we should have done in the first place. I'll not say more about that. Finally we got everything going after we stopped for a pizza. I guess that helped. A little later, I had the honor of "first QSO" with the 7300 working N9EP on 20 meters. I think Mike is going to be very happy with his new rig. I think this is the first time I've mentioned this, but I'm in the market for a new rig also. My KX3 is showing some wear after being used every day since I first got it in 2011. I'm looking at the Icom IC-705 which is similar in many ways to the KX3. More about all this later on. It's late now after the busy day. -30-
Sun Jul 30 7:14PM - "A Tale of Two Bands" by John Dickens. It was the best of times, it was the worst of times. OK, enough of that, John. It was good times on 20 meters for Mike in the FOBB today. He was racking up the contacts there to the tune of 35 of them. Meanwhile over here at this park bench on 40 meters, I was struggling to say the least to make it to just 17 contacts. I'm not sure if there was some problem with my antenna or a lack of activity on 40 meters or more likely a combo of both. Without the antenna tuner in the circuit, my SWR was 3:1 which isn't really that bad. With the tuner in, it was 1.1:1. I really wasn't hearing much activity at all no matter the SWR, so most of the problem probably was lack of activity. I guess they were all over at Mike's bench on 20 meters. HI. The bottom line though is any day hanging out with Mike is a good one. Plus you couldn't have ordered better weather, puffy cumulus clouds, warm, but not hot, and a nice breeze blowing.
Mike's coming back tomorrow with a new rig to show off to me. More about that in tomorrow's entry.
I started work on my <5,000 mile distant countries. I need 3 entities to finish off Europe. Mt. Athos in Greece is over 5,000 milea away. Market Reef is well within 5,000 miles at around 4,100 miles. Then there is Kosovo. Part if not all of it is within 5,000 miles. To make it confusing, I've worked Kosovo, but before it was assigned its official prefix of Z6 and hence wasn't an official DXCC entity at the time I worked them, even though it was Z60WW back on 11/24/2012, not all that long after it became an official sovereign country on 9/10/2012, but not a DXCC entity. Therefore, I need two under 5,000 miles entities in Europe. I'll get to the rest of the world later this week, I hope. -30-
Sat Jul 29 7:39PM - There have been a lot of interesting things going on in my life lately. Another one today. I was out walking Roscoe and a car drove up and the driver said hello John. It was my former next door neighbor Denny, the father of Eric KB3BFQ whom is mentioned quite a few times here on my web site. I hadn't seen him since before the CoVid pandemic in 2019. After I finished with Roscoe, we visited for quite a while getting caught up on our activities of the past few years.
I'm still excited about the 1A0C QSO last evening. It was a perfectly good QSO after what I described in the diary last night. Some times I have a little doubt when I work someone, wondering if he got my call correct or not, but I'm sure of this one. I also got to thinking about something related to the QSO today. I wonder if it is the last country or entity I've worked that is less than 5,000 miles distant. I'm going to work on that. I know I have all the NA countries worked and they are all within 5,000 miles. I need a couple small entities in Europe that I'm not sure about the distance. Mount Athos in Greece is one, and I can't think of the other at the moment. I'll have more about this in coming days here in the diary.
I mentioned this a few years ago in the diary. I have a globe that I modified to move the N and S pole bearings to make Kittanning the new North Pole, so to speak. As such I can rotate the globe and see roughly the distance to any country in the world. Here are a couple pictures of the globe.
The first picture(L-R) shows the relocated North Pole bearing. The second picture shows the first 5 1000 mile markers on the frame of the globe. The third picture shows how the 5(000) mile marker relates to Europe and a bit of Africa.
That's all I'm going to work on right now. Stay tuned for more info in upcoming diary entries.
Tomorrow Mike and I will be doing the FOBB sprint. Hopefully the weather is good and other things go according to plan. We're BB # 88. Hope to work you. I think there are a couple competing contests going on. Hopefully we can co-exist peaceably. HI. -30-
Fri Jul 28 8:52PM - Got 'em!!!! Log 'em, Dano!!! I'm talking about 1A0C, The Sovereign Military Order of Malta. It's going to take a while to bring down my excitement level after that QSO on 30 meters. That's for sure. Let me do a little play by play. I ran across 1A0C when I decided to see what was happening on 17 meters after 20 meters seemed quite good. I fairly easily worked LZ1ZJ on 20 and had a full exchange of info, not just a 599 TU QSO. Well, there was only one small peak on the PX3 on 17M and it proved to be 1A0C. I didn't think conditions were favorable for me to work him, and I was right. I had him all to myself with no competition. He kept calling CQ and I kept calling, but he never heard me at all, so I gave up after 10 minutes or so. No use beating a dead horse. I decided to move on to 30 to see what was there. I already had 3 QSOs and just felt like hanging around. I'm glad I did. I noticed the traditional look of a typical big DX pileup. A clear peak on the PX3 for the DX station and several good peaks a bit higher in frequency. I tuned in the solitary peak and didn't quite catch the call the first time I heard it. I felt it was 1A0C, and I was right, and he was much stronger than on 17 meters. Strong enough to work if I can break through the pileup. After years of working DX, I know pretty accurately if a station is strong enough for me to work or not. The 17 meters signal was borderline, but I tried for a while anyway, as I said. I set up for split on 30 and prepared for the battle. After he worked a few stations, he said specifically UP2, so I reset to his frequency +2 and started calling, and calling, and call.... with no results at all for it must have been 10 to 15 minutes. Wait a minute, what's this. He's sending WWP?. I go back with K3WWP, then K3WWP K3WWP when he doesn't return right away. OK, we're getting there, but he's sending K4WWP 599. I'm not going to blow it this close now, so I send K3 K3 K3 K3 K3 WWP. I'm not sure how many K3s I did send, but he still sent K4WWP 599. Oh no, I've got to correct him. I hope no one breaks in and ruins things. Again it's 5 or 6 K3s followed by WWP. A little pause and he comes back with K3WWP 599. Whew! I send TU 599 73 and I have now worked one of the rarest "countries" in the World which is my entity # 228 overall now. Wow! I only have a minimal knowledge of just what The Sovereign Military Order of Malta is. I'm going to expand that knowledge later tonight with a good Wikipedia article.
OK, out of time now. Got to update a couple more web pages, then QRT to go walk Roscoe. -30-
Thu Jul 27 7:41PM - One major interesting thing overshadowed anthing else that happened today. Dave WA8EOH replied to the message I left as described in last evening's diary entry. We wound up talking for one hour and 21 minutes. Also Dave's friend Bob, ex-WA8EOI joined in the first part of the conversation. As you can tell from the call, Dave and he took their initial ham test together in the early 1960s and did a lot of things together over the years. We had a great conversation covering many ham and non-ham topics. I enjoyed it all, but mostly talking about the early days of the CW County Hunters Net that Dave and I co-founded way back in 1966. I'm not going to go into detail about the call. Suffice it to say it was a wonderful time, almost like going into a time machine through the past 60+ years since we last had any contact with each other. We are going to try to keep in contact now via phone, email, or text messaging. Dave lives in California now. He was in Dayton, Ohio at the time we founded the CW CHN. Too bad we're not closer now. It would be nice to have an eyeball QSO. Actually we never have met in person. In the 1960s we talked via ham radio or regular mail. Today will be a day I'll long remember.
Time now to get to the shack for the streak QSOs. -30-
Wed Jul 26 9:13PM - Running late, so a short entry, then more info tomorrow. Conditions for our Requin trip were horrible. We struggled to make 11 QSOs in 4 hours even with our new "crew" member Dan NM3A posting us on the Internet. I believe that Dan, Mike, and I make a great team and I'm looking forward to doing some more subpeditions, parkpeditions, POTA, for the three of us.
I got a real surprise phone message when I checked my answering machine a little while ago. It was from Dave WA8EOH. If you've read the county hunting section of my web site you will know that it was Dave and I who started the CW County Hunters Net back in 1966. I replied to his message and now waiting to hear back from him so we can talk a good bit and get caught up on the past 50 years or so since we were last in contact. If you haven't read the county hunter section, I urge you to do so. Then when I talk about Dave and I in upcoming diary entries, you'll know more what I'm talking about.
Gotta run now to walk Roscoe and do some other things I put off earlier when I was on the Requin. -30-
Tue Jul 25 3:16PM - I thought I'd do an early entry today to plug our USS Requin subpedition tomorrow so here goes.
We usually arrive aat the sub a little past 10:00AM ET. It doesn't take long to set up the radio room. Art WA3BKD has it mostly ready for us if everything goes smoothly. We can only operate one band at a time, so we alternate among 40, 30, and 20 meters in these frequency ranges depending on QRM, etc. 7037-7043, 10114-10120, 14057-14063. We have no set schedule as to when we operate which band. It depends on activity. If one band is particularly good, we'll stick with it as long as activity holds up, then QSY to another band. So tune around in the designated frequency ranges till you find us. One of us operates and one does the logging. We use the sub call of NY3EC. We try to keep the contacts short if activity is heavy. If we are running a lot of stations (usually we are not), a very minimum of RST can suffice. Otherwise we can chat a bit. Please give us RST, state, and name for our log. We'll usually stay until 2:00PM ET or so depending on the amount of activity. Since this is really an event to promote the sub and the radio room and not a true QRP event, we use the sub's ICOM radio at 100 watts. QSL to the NY3EC address in QRZ. Art WA3BKD takes care of QSLs.
I hope that covers everything. I usually retype it for each subpedition. Now if this one is good, I'll keep a copy and use it each time we go to the sub. If you think anything should be added or changed, let me know so I can make this one as good as possible. Thanks. Hope to work you tomorrow. -30-
Mon Jul 24 7:18PM - It's been a couple days now since the Jean Shepherd question. Charles KW6G, Dennis WB8DD, Mike N4VBV, Don VA3BOW, and Mike KC2EGL all checked in with the right answer. Good work, guys. For those of you who may have looked, but couldn't figure it out, compare the picture on the Shep video to the image on my Pictures page, the seventh picture from the bottom. The Shep picture is blurry, and shown at a slightly different angle, but they are one and the same. The Shep picture apparently was altered by someone with some skill in using good image editing software. All the items on both pictures are in the same relative position. I don't know who made the video. The only clue is a simple statement at the very end of the video that says, "Gary in California". At least the only clue I see. There may be something else in the long line of comments below the video. I'm not going to read them all. Well, there is a comment at the very top that is signed "silentshep". Maybe that is Gary. Anyway I'm honored to be connected in the slightest way with Shep to whom I listened so many times on WOR and PBS.
This little sidetrack about Shep was interesting and a lot of fun. I think I'm going to take some time and listen to some of his shows on the Internet. I like it when he sings "Ragtime Cowboy Joe" among many other things. Ah, those WERE the GOOD OLD DAYS. Now broadcast radio (and television) is nothing but a bunch of (fill in your own word here). Except for WABC who has brought back Cousin Brucie and other jocks recreating the sound of Top 40 radio from so long ago. And some other stations also, but they are few and far between. 18 minutes to streak time now, so 73. -30-
Sun Jul 23 7:25PM - A busy day today, but nothing all that interesting to write about. It was a nice weather day with a lot of sunshine and not too hot unless you were in the direct sunshine. The high was, let's see, 85 in the shaded thermometer shelter. I saw an 88 on the front porch which isn't as shaded and gets the full sun in early evening.
Of course this being Sunday evening, I can get a couple quick streak QSOs in the SST sprint. Then with that secure, I might look for some DX or maybe a rag chew. I don't know how conditions are as I didn't get on during the day again today.
Dennis WB8DD watched the Shep video and recognized what I talked about in last night's diary entry. Good work Dennis, and thanks for checking in. So far you're the only one who made any mention of it. -30-
Sat Jul 22 7:23PM - When Mike N4VBV saw the phrase "major award" in the Skyview Facebook posting it triggered a memory in his mind of a movie and he asked me a trivia question to see if I knew what movie it was. As the saying goes, to make a long story short, I got it right away. It was "Christmas Story" by Jean Shepherd. We got to talking about "Shep" and had a few email exchanges about him. In case you don't know, among many other things, Shep was a ham radio operator with several different calls as he moved around the country, the last being K2ORS. He was also a broadcast radio personality, best known for his show on 710 WOR in New York for several years around the 1960s. I used to listen to his show almost nightly. It ran from 10:15 to 11:00PM. It would take me a whole web site to describe the content of the radio show which was a mixture of comedy, nostalgia, and many other topics. He even aired the story behind the Christmas Story movie before it was ever made into the movie. If you remember, it was centered around a couple subplots, one of which was the "major award" which was a lamp in the form of a shapely ladies leg. I'm not going to go into any further detail because there is an excellent Wikipedia article about Shep which does go into very deep detail about this fascinating personality who is no longer with us. However besides the Wikipedia article, there is a wealth of other Internet material including recordings of his radio shows, You Tube recordings with some video added to the radio recordings. One of those contains the point I'm finally getting to. It's one about ham radio bootleggers in and around Chicago a long time ago. Here's the link to it, YouTube. While not documenting any actual names or pictures of the bootleggers or their stations, whoever made the video did incorporate pictures of ham radio stations, antennas, and other items at random. OK, finally we're here to the point. Mike N4VBV told me to pay close attention when the video reached the 9:22 point, so I did, and was shocked to see something familiar. I had to rewind and check it out a few times. I'm debating whether to say here what it was or wait a couple days, then if you didn't recognize it, I'll reveal it. Yes, think I'll do it that way just in case you haven't figured it out as soon as you see it. You should, with all I'm saying about it. Anyway it is a good story, as are all of Shep's radio broadcasts. I see where there is a flash drive for sale with supposedly all his radio broadcasts, 1200 of them. Have fun researching Shep if you don't already know a lot about him. Thanks to Mike N4VBV for bringing back a lot of memories. I'll quote his last message when I give the answer in a couple days.
I guess that will do it for this entry as it's getting close to 0000Z now. -30-
Fri Jul 21 8:39PM - Well, we got a lot of rain last night, but missed the storminess as our shields were working good again. We got just over 2 inches of rain which is no big deal since the ground was pretty dry and absorbed most of it.
Another short little shopping trip used up some time today. It was a nice day and I sat out on the porch a few times playing some games on my iPhone. Sure am glad I got that thing a couple years ago. I also shredded some more old papers in my goal of getting rid of a lot of different records that mean nothing any more and I haven't even looked at in years.
Two POTA QSOs satisfied the streak this evening. As I said a couple weeks ago, it seems rag chewing on CW is diminishing more and more these days. -30-
Thu Jul 20 8:22PM - Sitting here watching the weather. A line of strong storms approaching from the WNW with the first wave about 20 miles away. Hope our "shields" protect us. In case you wonder what I mean by shields, it seems that a lot of storms bypass Kittanning for whatever reason, either to our north or south or sometimes splitting us north and south.
Two quick streak QSOs tonight, N2ATB and W1AW/0. A little rag chew with Tony N2ATB before the band took a quick change.
That's about it for this slow day. -30-
Wed Jul 19 2:19PM - An especially interesting day so far. My neighbor Bruce took me on a grocery roundup shopping trip this morning and I am nicely stocked up on food again. Sometimes I let it go too long and wind up needing more groceries than I can comfortably carry walking in a single trip and rather than make several trips in the summer heat and humidity, Bruce takes me shopping in his van.
Then a couple very nice emails came in a while ago. One was from Mark WU7F following up on our email exchange of yesterday. He elaborated on his son Mike and what he has been up to lately. Basically Mike and his wife are small business owners and doing quite well at it.
Mark also said something very interesting. He was involved with some teenagers learning about ham radio, and said one thing they were interested in was learning CW, but with somewhat of a twist. A straight key kind of turned them off, but they took to sending CW with a paddle and keyer. Something to think about when exposing teens to ham radio. Expose them to CW using a paddle/keyer. Who knows? it may work to bring more youngsters into ham radio and CW especially.
The other email was from friend and fellow Skyview member Tom W3TLN. He sent me the following quote from the Skyview Facebook page. Since I don't do any kind of social media at all, I wouldn't have seen it otherwise. "Who did we find at the clubhouse last night but QRP CW legend John, K3WWP! Come to the Skyview Swap N Shop on Sunday, August 27th to see John presented with a major award for his many accomplishments." I didn't know I was a legend. Is that like the Union Pacific Living Legend locomotive UP 844? Maybe so, since we both have never been retired. HI
Tom also sent me a great picture of me at the Skyview club meeting a few days ago. Since this was a rare good picture of me (the rarity comes from the subject of the pictures, not those taking thwm nor the cameras), I used it to update the picture on the main page of the web site to a 2023 version. Take a look.
That's it for now. I was going to check the bands during the day today till the matters above came along. -30-
Tue Jul 18 6:52PM - I don't know just when Mark WU7F found my web site, but he and I go back together a long time. Then his son got interested in ham radio and got his license. We have communicated fairly regularly although sometimes there's a long time between communications. That's the case now, but I heard from him today in a long email congratulating me on the QRP HOF as well as bringing me up to date on what he has been doing in ham radio, as well as what his son has been doing (or not doing) in ham radio and life. His son at one point emulated my streak for 184 days back when he was 11 or 12 years old. Then the teen age years came along and like so many hams, the interest in ham radio waned in favor of other activities. Mark says his son did join him for FD this year though. The son is Mike KD7UUB. He wrote a story about CW in my Teenagers and CW section of the web site. You should read it and also my other teenager stories if you haven't done so. It would be nice if I would receive some more stories for that section. I know there aren't as many teenagers on CW these days, but I do run across one every now and then. Anyway it was great to hear from Mark again and find out what he and Mike have been up to of late. I could talk much more about Mark and Mike and teenage hams in general, but I'll just end this here for now.
It was a somewhat cool day today and I took advantage and finished clearing the grass and weeds from my brick sidewalks. They really look nice now, but the grass and weeds are probably planning their next attack already.
I again didn't get a chance to check the bands today. I know I was going to try to do that regularly, but other things keep getting in the way. At least, for sure, I will be getting to the shack at 0000Z as I have been for some 10,500 plus evenings in a row now. -30-
Mon Jul 17 7:50PM - Another of those days when I was busy, but didn't really accomplish too much. I shredded some old bills and receipts. I hope to do some of that every couple days and reduce the amount of old records I'll never need or even look at again. Then I fried some zucchini that Bruce gave to me several days ago. It was not an outside day again as the humidity was quite high once more. Also we were under a Code Orange AQI for haze and some smoke that made it all the way here from British Colombia in far western Canada. Nothing like what we had a few weeks ago, thank goodness. Now it's time for the streak QSOs again. Hope the bands are good. I didn't check during the day today. -30-
Sun Jul 16 7:44PM - Sunday is supposed to be a day of rest, but it was anything but for me today. I can't even remember all the things I did. I'll try some. I started off with a walk to the PO to put 5 letters in the outbox. However I thought I had put the wrong amount of money into one of them and took it back home. I found out I did have the right amount after all, so put it aside to mail later in the day. Next up was my regular Sunday laundry with a Roscoe walk in the middle of that. Brunch was next with some left over pizza from last evening with Bruce and Jeff. I did some other chores after that. I worked on another area of my sidewalk removing grass and weeds. I didn't stay at that too long as it was starting to get warm. I made some tomato juice to use up some of my surplus tomatoes as the plants Bruce gave me are really producing. I did some routine daily chores, and then early this evening after a Roscoe walk, I went back to the PO and mailed that letter. I finished off a bottle of orange juice, and thought the bottle looked so nice, I'd keep it for something. So I soaked the label and peeled it off.
That pretty much brings us to now as I update my web site pages until going to the shack for a couple SST streak QSOs and a look around the bands to see if anything "good" is around. -30-
Sat Jul 15 7:34PM - The middle of July was quiet here. The weather was hot and humid with an accent on the humidity since the temperature was "only" 89 for a high. Right now it's 83 degrees and 63% humidity. I've got a heat index on this remote unit, but never think to check it. Let's see what it says right now for those 83/63 figures. It says a heat index of 87. I'll have to remember to check it some time when I notice a high temperature and high humidity.
Whatever it was, I wasn't outside much today. I cleaned up my back yard so my neighbor could mow my grass. I've got two sump hoses, a drain pipe and a couple ornaments that need to be moved each time it is cut. Other than that I was only out to walk Roscoe as far as I can recall.
I got Volume II of the 2023 Lionel Catalog in the mail today. When I opened it up, I was delighted to find a Union Pacific 844, the Living Legend in it. I didn't read any of the details yet, but I'm hoping it's what I've been wanting to get ever since I restored my train setup a few years ago. I'll peruse it more closely in bed tonight before I go to sleep (and dream about it? HI)
Looks like some rain coming. Maybe it will cool off and I can sit on the porch a bit after I go to the shack and get my streak QSOs. -30-
Fri Jul 14 8:59PM - Happy Bastille Day to all of those who may be celebrating it. I don't know why I think about it every year. Maybe because I seem to have a lot of ancestors who came from the Alsace-Lorraine region of France.
Be that as it may, it was a good and somewhat more busy today than yesterday. It was cooler this morning so I attacked some more weeds and grass between the bricks of the sidewalk. As I was doing so, the fairly new neighbor and his 3 year old son came down and visited and helped out a bit. Seems like he is going to be a good neighbor.
I also heard from my former next door neighbor and still friend Jasmine. We had a short text session. I hadn't heard from her for a few months now. She is doing good, and I was glad to hear that and glad to hear from her.
The bands seemed a little busier this evening. Well at least 40-30-20 were. I didn't hear much above that. I worked a POTA station and had a reg chew for my two QSOs. Let's see, it was January 5 this year when I started in again making at least two QSOs every day. That figures out at 192 days if my math is correct. That's about 10 days past a half year now. Wonder how long I'll keep that going. I remember the last time I did it, I quit after about a year after I realized making the extra QSO or more per day wasn't really proving anything that the first QSO didn't.
Well, almost time for a Roscoe walk, so I'll close this entry and finish the other web site updates before that. -30-
Thu Jul 13 9:09PM - Well, it's a bit late and I don't really have much to talk about. It was mostly just a take it easy day today. I guess most folks are due a day like this every once in a while, but I don't like them. I'd much rather be doing something. Well, actually I didn't really do nothing. It's just that the things I did do were ordinary every day things not worth writing about. Like some grass and weeds pulling, a lot of indoor walking and exercising, eating, etc. You know what I mean. It was a hot and humid day, so other than the grass and weeds pulling and walking Roscoe, I was pretty much inside most of the day. I wanted to go to Sprankle's, but not in that heat and humidity. Maybe tomorrow I'll have some projects to write about, but for now, that's it. -30-
Wed Jul 12 6:06PM - I meant to do this earlier in the day, but got involved in other things. Mike and I had a good time at Skyview last evening. He arrived here and we fooled around with some ham radio things. One of the things that didn't turn out so well was our check of the bands. They were in very poor condition, so we wound up just talking about ham radio matters until we left for Skyview a little past 5PM. It was a fairly uneventful trip. We played our alphabet game to pass the time on the journey. We arrived at around 6:15PM as two of the first half dozen or so to get there. We went into the radio room, and one of the members helped us get set up. I don't know how many pieces of gear and antennas are there, but it's a lot. Since we only get to operate the station once a year, it's hard to remember everything with that much time in between operations, and also there are many changes made in that time frame. After one of the rigs was set up, Mike operated for a while chasing some DX, but with no luck, even using their big antenna farm antennas. After a little while, Dan NM3A dropped in. It was good to meet him and I was glad he was here, because I wanted to call Art and find out about our trip to the Requin later this month. Dan would be going with us. I did so, and Art said our date would be good for him also. So all four of us agreed at one time on the 26th for our subpedition. That way we didn't have to bother going back and forth on the phone, email, text, etc.
Mike continued to play radio as I watched him and tried to grasp some of the setups of the radio room. Other members started arriving now and a few dropped in the radio room. Bob WC3O was there with a new Begali paddle he wanted to use for a photo session. We hooked it up to the radio and used it to operate. As with all Begali paddles, it was as smooth as silk. Still no luck with the DX though. 4L8A was booming in, but we had a lot of competition beating us out. There were other DX stations also, but we couldn't get them either. Mike wandered off for a bit and came back with drawing tickets for him and me for the Swop and Shop at Skyview next month. Then he went out again to the meeting which dealt with weather and lightning in particular. I stayed in the radio room, and visited with members who wandered in and out. I especially enjoyed talking with Marty AG3I. We talked a lot about the IARU contest. He worked almost all of the special Championship stations while I had concentrated on the HQ stations as I mentioned earlier. I also talked about the 13 Colonies event with another member. The Skyview members made 24,000 QSOs with K2M. I also asked him about GB13COL and he confirmed my thoughts that a lot of folks were complaining about them not being as active as they should have been or not having a good enough station.
Marty tried a couple stations with no luck either even though he ran the power up to 100 watts or so while Mike, I believe, kept it at 5 watts or so. There were now more folks in the radio room with more talk going on. I stayed and fooled around with the rig trying to learn more about it and the antennas. After a while I tried to work some stations. I didn't have any luck either with stations like XE2HQI and a couple others. It was hard to hear the rig, even my sending till Bob came in with a set of headphones which helped trememdously. Finally I did work someone with 5 watts. It was W1AW/7 out in Utah for the VOTA activity. It was getting late now and Mike came back from the meeting and after I talked some more with Bob and another member, it was time to go. So I bid farewell to members and Mike and I headed back to Kittanning after an enjoyable evening. -30-
Tue Jul 11 10:26PM - Late as you see. Good time at Skyview tonight. Details in tomorrow's entry. -30-
Mon Jul 10 8:47AM - I'm here early just to clear up a couple things about the 13 Colonies event and the IARU Contest. Well, not so much clear up, but add a few things I forgot to include in the diary and IARU story.
One thing I enjoy about events like these is when someone takes time out of their running of stations to greet me by name when we work. It's sometimes difficult to figure out just who it was when they are using a special call like the K2 13 Colonies calls or the IARU HQ calls. I often can figure it out by recognizing a fist from a certain area. Sometimes they will ID themselves. Anyway I had a few of both in these events. In the 13 Colony event it was Bob WC3O operating K2M, John K4BAI at K2G, UnID at K2L in SC. In the IARU, it was Franki ON5ZO/OQ5M at OP0HQ. Maybe a couple others I can't recall now. Bob WC3O is a member of Skyview. I probably see him more often in person than on the air at the club and hamfests. John K4BAI goes way back in my ham radio history and we have worked 251 times since our first QSO on May 10, 1964 in the GA QSO party. In addition we've worked many other times when he was op at another station or I was op using N3A NY3EC, etc. I am pretty sure who the K2L op might have been, but I can't remember the call right now, and I won't guess. Franki and I have worked 18 times as OQ5M, several other times as a different call, as well as communicating via email.
There have also been many others over the years in many different contests/events. Thanks go to those plus the ones mentioned specifically above for making ham radio a little more personal along the way. -30-
Sun Jul 9 7:52PM - A simple diary entry tonight. Just an invitation to go to my CONTESTING section, Stories page, 2023 IARU CONTEST, and read about my adventures in the IARU contest this past weekend. I hope you'll find it interesting. -30-
Sat Jul 8 7:52PM - I've wanted to say this the past couple entries, but forgot. So I'm starting a couple minutes before 0000Z and streak time, and will finish it after I get my QSOs, probably in the IARU Contest. At least it's started here so I won't forget again.
I mailed my 13 Colonies report today to Ken KU2US. It is suggested that a 5 dollar donation be sent along with the report, but it's not mandatory. Well, I've had so much enjoyment from the event the past 9 years now, I decided to make my donation 13 dollars or 1 dollar for each of the 13 colonies. I hope that was a good idea and will be appreciated by Ken and his helpers. It would be nice if everyone would think about doing that or something similar.
It felt kind of empty today without al the 13 colonies stations to chase. OK, off to the shack now, then back here to finish this entry.
It's now over 3 hours later and finally I'm back. Conditions were superb in the IARU contest. I started out seeing how many headquarters stations I could work in Europe. Then my goals changed as I went along. Next was getting a contest WAC, which I did. Then I tried to add more EU countries to the ones I worked the HQ stations in. OK, next it was grabbing some new prefixes, but none of the championship I4# stations. In the midst of all this I worked one of the strongest JA stations I ever heard among the 230 or so JA stations I've worked. It was 8N8HQ, and he was strong for at least a couple hours. That's all I'm going to say for now. I'm going to wait till tomorrow to compile some statistics of what I did, and write more in tomorrow's diary entry. For now, it's Good Night. -30-
Fri Jul 7 4:54PM - Well, no GB13COL today (yet), and there probably won't be. But the hunt for it got me on the air to get a couple other interesting things. First of all, I got my first ever 13COL station, K2H on 6 meters. I heard K2E in DE on 10 meters, but couldn't work him, as he was very weak and just at my noise level. I did get a couple of question marks from him which may have been directed at me. Had I gotten him, that would have been state #49 on 10 meters. MD is the other state I need on 10. I did a dumb thing with it a few years ago. I worked MD on FD, but afterwards it dawned on me I worked him with our FD call of N3A (or maybe N3AQC that year), and I couldn't rightfully claim that for my K3WWP WAS. Dummy!!! Next up today, another 6 meters QSO with N4OW. Not even a new grid square though as we worked on 6 several years before from the same QTH. Finally I did get something NEW. I worked RI on 12 meters from K2C. My 28th state on 12 meters.
Now I'm going to make a prompt sheet of the states I need on 160 through 6 meters. Then if I hear a call on one of those bands I can quickly check QRZ on my smart phone to see if it is a state I need. I need the following number of states on the following bands: 160 - 8, 80 - 1 (AK), 60 - 38, 17 - 7, 12 - 22, 10 - 2, 6 - 32. I just haven't been diligent enough in chasing needed states the past several years. And you regular diary readers know I never use spotting to find stations. In fact RI on 12 today was the first new band state since June of 2015. Hopefully I can keep up the activity of late generated by my interest in the 13 Colonies event and add some more new band-states. We'll see.
Now that the SST is over on 20, I think I'll go check for GB13COL again. -30-
Thu Jul 6 6:14PM - I spent some time today chasing GB13COL, unsuccessfully. Never even heard them. That's par for the course here. As I said in an earlier entry, I have never worked them in 9 years of trying, and only heard them once a couple years ago, very weakly. Too bad they can't be like TM13COL. But then, I guess France was our ally in the Revolutionary War, and England was the enemy. HI.
I have the award application made out and ready to mail, but I will wait till the bitter end, just in case I do miraculously get GB13COL.
At least I've been putting in time on the air besides my usual daily 0000Z hour when I go for the streak. I have gotten some DX I wouldn't have gotten otherwise like PJ5/PA4O today and JM7OLW yesterday plus some others here and there like 9A/E70AW, HF90LOT, LY90DG, and SP8ARY. No new countries or even new band countries, but a couple new prefixes.
Say, I'm just thinking, I don't think I heard TM13COL in all the time I listened today. That's unusual.
Time for a Roscoe walk in the oven that is our outdoors today with a high in the low 90s. He won't stay out long. -30-
Wed Jul 5 4:38PM - "He's Everywhere, he's everywhere". I'm sure all you Chickenman fans out there will recognize that phrase. Chickenman was (is) a 2 1/2 minute radio show that was created by Dick Orkin in the mid 1960s on WCFL in Chicago, and later syndicated to many radio stations worldwide. It is a story of crime-fighter Chickenman, whose alter ego, a la Superman's Clark Kent, was a meek mannered Shoe Salesman named Benton Harbor. I'll leave the rest of the story to Wikipedia who has an excellent write-up about Chickenman. Click here for the article. I'll go on to explaine my usage of the phrase here. Both Mike and I are Chickenman fans, and we use the "everywhere" phrase whenever we see an overabundance of something somewhere. There are many examples to illustrate it, but I'll just give one. If we happen to be doing a ham radio contest together, and we hear one contester over and over again on the same or different bands, that's our cue to say, "He's everywhere, he's everywhere". OK, let's finally get to the point of all this. The phrase applies excellently this week to TM13COL. Every time I get on to look for colony stations, I am bound to hear TM13COL. He (they) are more active than any of the 13 Colonies stations or WM3PEN or GB13COL.
Then there is the opposite that I could call, "He's nowhere, he's nowhere" referring to K2C in RI. I have not heard him a single time in all the time I've put in chasing the 13 Colonies stations. I've heard the other 12 many times over on different bands. Hopefully now that I've spent time writing this little story, I'll get on this evening and there will be K2C whom I will get on the first call. Yeah, dream on John. I have the feeling that is going to be my Achilles heel in the Colonies event this year and I'll miss a clean sweep the first time since 2015 when I first learned about it and only got 3 colonies that year.
P.S. - Love these PSs. The scenario above about getting K2C RI almost came true. Actually it took a few minutes to find K2C on 40, then a couple minutes to work him on split. So that's a clean sweep of the 13 colony stations for the 8th straight year now. I also got WM3PEN all 8 years. Never have gotten GB13COL, and only got TM13COL the past 3 years now. Whew! That's a relief now.
Tue Jul 4 7:44PM - Sometimes it's so easy, it's not even fun. Well, not really, but it is easy sometime. I turned on the rig looking for PA, MD, and RI in the 13 Colonies event at 2210Z and almost immediately there was K2M like he was waiting for me. Worked him on the first try. Looked around for the other 2, and after hearing most of the 11 I already had, finally at 2221Z on 20, I heard "MD". Yes, it was K2F in MD. No pileup, but he wasn't hearing me at first. Finally after sending my call at least a half dozen times, he came back with "K3WWP 599 MD" and after sending my exchange, I was down to needing RI (and GB13COL) to have them all. No such quick luck with RI, and I still need that one. I'll try again after I get my streak QSOs at 0000Z. I'll probably try for 13 Colony stations on new bands for the streak. Also that will give me insurance QSOs for the event, although every one so far has been correct and solid. -30-
Mon Jul 3 7:19PM - I'm not having any luck with the last 3 colony stations, but I'm having a lot of fun working DX. Conditions are finally getting to be like the last sunspot peak with very strong DX signals especially from deep into Eastern Europe. They are very easy to work with just a call or two. Late last night around 0300Z I easily worked UR4CW, RX6LG, and LY90DG all on 20M. The evening before that as I mentioned it was RC30RR on 20M. Tonight so far it's HF90LOT on 20M and SP8ARY on 17M for a short chat. Fun, fun, fun till someone takes the sunspots away (apologies to the Beach Boys). Now where are PA RI and MD to complete the 13 colonies. I'm going back hunting now. I'm only working each colony on one band so far. I'll save the dupe bands for my streak QSOs, I think. -30-
Sun Jul 2 7:26PM - Ten down + TM13COL and WM3PEN. Three to go, PA, MD, RI. I haven't even heard my home colony of PA yet. I heard MD a couple times, but couldn't break the pile on 40 last night and too very weak on 20 this evening. Can't recall now if I heard RI or not. I don't think so. It was interesting to work some colonies this evening very easily on 20 that I couldn't work last night on 40, like MA, DE on the first or second call. Also CT, but had to follow him jumping around and calling a couple times to get him. I wonder how hard the last three will be now. Of course I could use spotting to find them, but you know I don't do things that way. I just tune and search the bands myself.
It was also interesting that in between the colony chasing I caught a nice DX station and new prefix in RC30RR on 20 meters.
What else happened today? Well, we had a few showers, a couple quite heavy. We've had 1.15 inches of rain yesterday and about 0.75 inches so far today. That's about our total rain for all of May, and approaching our total for all of June. Anyway it sure got rid of the Canadian smoke and I hope they got a lot of rain up in Canada to help deal with the fires.
The variety of bad weather the past few days kind of depleted my groceries, so my neighbor Bruce took me to Sprankle's today to stock up. I got just under $70.00 worth of food. Of course with inflation here in the USA, that was only about half the food I could have gotten for the same price back before 2020 or so.
Closing in on 0000Z now. I'll get my streak QSOs in the SST Sprint, then spend some time looking for the last 3 colonies. -30-
Sat Jul 1 3:22PM - 2023 is half over already. It hasn't been the best of years so far due to a lot of things which I'm not going to go into. There have been bright spots along the way. Hopefully in the second half of the year, the bright spots will outnumber the bad.
The second half got off to a good start today. The smoke from Canada is pretty well gone now and we are down into a much safer Code Yellow now at an AQI around 55. All my EOM/FOM chores went very smoothly and quickly including the eQSL upload, my banking, and other more minor things. Today saw something unusual. After working K2G in GA to start my 13 Colonies collection, I then worked TM13COL, the French 13 Colonies station. That's the earliest in the event I ever worked them. Maybe that bodes well for working GB13COL this year.
More news later, maybe. It would be nice to knock off a few more 13 Colonies stations to get off to a good start. -30-
Fri Jun 30 7:43PM - Yes, it's an EOM (End Of the Month) day again with its associated chores that need taking care of. I got most of them done mainly because with the Code Red air quality alert, it was a stay at home day again. I got my June QSOs uploaded to eQSL just a little while ago. Earlier I changed my calendar pages to July, got my bills paid at least except for actually dropping them in the mail, updated some computer files, and a few other things. Along the way around Noon I checked the bands and as usual there was virtually nothing to be found except one strong PJ2ND on 17 I think it was, or maybe it was 12.
That leaves very little left to do. I need to put the June weather in the computer after I get my last June readings later. I have a little banking to do that can't be done till June is completely over. That's about it.
It's just about time to head to the shack for my streak QSOs. Also I think the 13 Colonies event starts at 0000Z tonite. Or is it at Midnight EDT. I always forget. I better look now. Well, actually it is 9AM Eastern according to the rules page. That's 1300Z tomorrow morning. I thought it was sort of an unusual starting time rather than using 0000Z. Whenever, it will be a lot of fun and a challenge. I wonder which state will be the hardest this year. Also will this be the year I finally get the GB13COL station? Time will tell, and now it's a couple minutes before 0000Z, so I'll close here. -30-
Thu Jun 29 8:22PM - It's getting harder and harder to find rag chew type QSOs on CW in the evenings lately. I was glancing back through my shack paper logs and I see a lot of POTA, VOTA, SST, etc. QSOs and very few rag chews. That's sad.
Still a lot of Canadian smoke around here. We just changed from a Code Red to a Code Purple alert at an AQI of 204, so it looks like the hibernation continues here into tomorrow. One forecast says it will be down to a Code Orange tomorrow. At least that's a bit of an improvement if it is true.
At least since I can't go outside, I'm getting some inside work done like cleaning out some drawers of 'junk' and things like that.
I got the other VOTA station for this week tonight, W1AW/3 in MD on 40 meters. That's only the 33rd state I've gotten in the first half of the year. I wonder if I'll make it to 50. Up next is the 13 Colonies event starting in a couple days. I'm hoping for another clean sweep this year. -30-
Wed Jun 28 4:46PM - With an AQI (Air Quality Index) of 188 now and 206 earlier around the boundary between Code Red and Purple today, I decided to stay indoors with the exception of a couple very short Roscoe walks. One of the things I did to pass the time was get on the air a couple times. Once around 1700Z and again around 2030Z. As usual there was very little activity both times except for a very few very weak stations. The first time though, I did run across and work W1AW/9 in IL on 40 (sort of). He sent my call as K3WWG, and did come back again after I sent WWP a couple times, but the rapid QSB took him out before I was sure he had my call right or not. I think he did, but..... During the second on the air time, I heard him again, and worked him again. This time I was sure he got my call right.
Other than that, I didn't do anything out of the ordinary today in my "cabin fever" stint. Our surrounding hills are gradually clearing up so the smoke and haze is diminishing and the hills are turning from gray to green again. I hope they soon get all the wildfires contained up in Canada.
Anything interesting happen tonight, I'll add a P.S. to the entry.
P.S. - This is worth a P.S., I think.
At least the Canadian smoke has one good feature causing red sunsets. I was in the shack and glanced out my window and saw this and thought I had to get a picture. I almost ran downstairs, grabbed my camera and went out into the smoke, and took 4 pictures. -30-
Tue Jun 27 8:41PM - For a long time now, I've been printing my own log sheets for "paper logging" in the shack. I modeled them after the ARRL logbooks that were 8 1/2 by 11 or so. I don't know if the ARRL still makes them or not. Anyway I just wanted to say that I number each new log sheet and I am just starting on page 800 when I get my first QSO Wednesday evening for the streak. Whew!
I checked the bands again this afternoon aroun 1900Z and found them once again virtually dead from 17 up through 6 meters with one exception. S51DX was a legit 599 on 17 meters. I worked him easily. It seems that the bands are really in good shape but no one seems to get on CW in the afternoon (EDT) for whatever reason.
One final? note about FD. during the FD this year, Mike signed us up for N3A again for next year. Nothing like getting an early start in preparations. HI
Let's see, what else happened today. Not much worth talking about. It was very unlike late June weather. The high was just 73 with a lot of showers passing through, so I didn't get in any walking except for that with Roscoe. And I guess that is it for the diary tonight. -30-
Mon Jun 26 7:20PM - First Mike's comments on FD, "The logging issue wasn't the fault of its author. It was a precaution to keep from writing over previous files. Once that was figured out it was too late to go back to it. So we continued using GenLog."
I put the 208 QSOs into my "Other Calls" spreadsheet log today. There was one dupe and a couple of typos, but all in all our system of me sending and tuning for stations worked out well with Mike doing all the logging. I think with a little fine tuning and tweaking we will have an excellent system if we decide to go that route in the future.
I found we wound up with 207 good QSOs in 41 states plus ON QC NS and SK in Canada. Total ARRL sections were 59 worked. Only a little behind our totals from 2022 FD when we ran two stations, one for me and one for Mike. That's encouraging for any future systems like we used this year.
Our friend Tom from Chicora did what he called a laid back operation at his QTH. He was assisted by another friend Bruce AA3LX. He sent me a copy of his summary and dupe sheet to look at. They did close to what we did as far as totals go, I see 178 QSOs in the summary in 52 ARRL sections + 1 DX. They had a rate of 15.2 QSOs per hour. I don't know what ours was. Let's see if I can get a rough estimate. I see we operated roughly 10.5 hours so that would make for a rate of 208/10.5 or 19.8 QSOs per hour. About a QSO every 3 minutes on average. I'm happy with that. Oh, we had 2 DX, KP2 and KP4.
I got on the air this afternoon for a bit and tuned from 40 up through 6 meters. The only thing I heard were a couple signals on 40. Quite a contrast to the activity on the weekend. Where do all these CW ops go when there is no contest? If only a small percentage would get on during non-contest times, the CW bands would sound a lot like they did back in the 1960s and 70s. Wouldn't that be great?
I think that wraps up this entry and our FD report. -30-
Sun Jun 25 7:17PM & Sat Jun 24 - Yes a combo diary entry. Mike arrived Sat about 10:30AM. We double checked to see that I had what I needed for the weekend. It wasn't much since we'd be using Mike's home station as a 1D FD entry. We arrived at Mike's QTH in around an hour or so. It was great to see Mike's dog Jayden again. I think he was happy to see me also from the greetings I got. We got set up for FD which included getting Mike's computer ready, taking Jayden for a walk, and other last minute details.
When 1800Z came, we started out and worked a few stations, but soon discovered the computer wasn't behaving. I'm not sure what program Mike was using, but it caused us to lose those few QSOs we made. I was doing the transmitting and listening work and Mike was doing the logging. While we decided what to do, Mike logged a few QSOs on paper, then decided to use GenLog for the rest of our logging. He reconstructed what he could of the stations we worked. Then we moved on. Another glitch was Mike's paddle which started acting up forcing me to switch to another paddle.
The bands were all good with many strong signals, and we were working just about anyone we heard for a while. With our late start and the other glitches, we were only at 8 QSOs by 1900. The 1900 hour was better with 24 QSOs. Things continued on fairly well with 19 QSOs in the 2000 hour. We were skipping around from 15 to 20 to 40, going with whichever band was best at the time. We stopped to eat in the 2100 hour and didn't get back in action till 2245 or so. 2300 was our best hour with 32 QSOs. 0000 was close behind with 30. 0100 had 25. We quit for the night in the 0200 hour.
We watched TV for a while, and Mike took Jayden for his walk. We went to bed around midnight, and decided to get some breakfast at 1200Z. We went to the same restaurant as last night and had a great breakfast. Then it was back home for the second day of our FD Odyssey. The bands were poorer with deep rapid QSB the main hinderance. Strong signals disappeared in the blink of an eye. We did make 25 contacts by 1500, but they were all rough ones. We were discussing sections we needed and one was EMA. Almost immediately one showed up and we worked it. Then like the saying, work one, then a bunch will show up, we worked maybe a half dozen or so other EMA stations.
We closed out the day with around 10 per hour, and wound up with 208 QSOs, 59 sections, 44 states approximately. Mike then sent our logs to my email address to use for our report later in the day. We relaxed for a while and Mike walked Jayden again. Then it was time to go. I hated to leave Jayden. We had a lot of fun together during our contesting as well as on our breaks.
We got home here in Kittanning, and made out a repair report for a piece of Mike's equipment. Then we made out and submitted our FD report to ARRL. That went pretty smoothly after which a little relaxing before Mike headed back home to Brookville.
As for me, I'm getting caught up with my diary and other web pages while doing my delayed laundry. In a few minutes I get my streak QSOs in the SST Sprint. I got my streak QSOs in Brookville last evening in FD. That pretty much has things caught up now. I'll see if Mike wants to add anything about FD for tomorrow night's diary. -30-
Fri Jun 23 7:25PM - Kind of a quiet day today just waiting for FD, I guess. Mike and I changed our plans for a couple of reasons. First the weather doesn't look all that good for the weekend. Also we had a computer glitch limiting us to one logging computer. So we decided to operate from Mike's home station as a 1-D or 1-E entry. We'll take turns operating and logging. Basically that's our plan. We still may tweak things a little before FD starts tomorrow. However it turns out, it will be a lot of fun. It will be like what we do on the Requin, but at a much faster pace. Besides FD, it will be good to see Mike's dog, Jayden again. We got pretty friendly last year over FD weekend.
I haven't decided on whether or not to take my computer so I can update the web site Saturday night. I may just leave it here and get caught up on updating Sunday afternoon or evening. There are still some other things up in the air because of this last minute change of plans. I'm not sure if Mike wants to use commercial power or battery, for example.
I tuned on the rig this afternoon again to check the high bands. They were mostly dead as the proverbial doornail, unlike yesterday when I was hearing activity all the way up through 6 meters.
I was going to go for a walk this evening, but it has just started raining. We need the rain badly, so I'm not complaining. -30-
Thu Jun 22 8:54PM - Not much going on today but a couple of small interesting things worth mentioning. I picked my first ripe tomato and think I'll have it on a cheeseburger a little later. I got on the bands this afternoon and was a little surprised to hear a couple of beacons on 6 meters. One was in OK and if memory serves, the other was FL. No QSO activity, but I did work EW1I on 15 with just a single call. That might be a new prefix. I've worked other EW prefixes with other numbers, but this my be the first EW1. Maybe I'll check. Oh, might as well do it now. Nope I've got at least a couple earlier EW1** QSOs. Oh well. Not even a new band prefix as I have other EW1** stations on 15.
Looks like a wet weekend for FD, and we also may have a couple other glitches as well. More about that tomorrow. Time now for my 9PM weather check. -30-
Wed Jun 21 7:25PM - A good day for a subpedition, and we made the most of it. Brian K3ES arrived hear about 8:45AM just as I was finishing an early morning walk with Rosoe. We introduced each other as it was the first time we had met in person. We went in my house and I finished a couple things as we talked. Then we took off for Pittsburgh just about at 9:00AM. We had a lot to talk about on the way to the sub to get to know more about each other. The trip went smoothly. I introduced Brian to our alphabet game and he picked up on it easily and liked it very much. With his younger eyesight he was easily picking out the letters faster than I could.
The only glitch in the trip came when we neared the construction area near the Highland Park Bridge. Traffic was at a standstill and delayed our arrival at the sub by about 10-15 minutes or so. We finally made it to the Carnegie Science Center, got parked, and headed for the sub with a stop at the restroom along the way. Art was waiting there for us.
We kidded with Art for a bit then headed for the radio room. I was hoping the girl tour guide, Auri, whom I met last time at the sub was there, but she wasn't. Art had the room all set up for us, and we got on the air after a couple minutes. We started on 40 meters after finding a clear spot in the frequency range I mentioned in my last diary entry. That led to a long string of unanswered QSOs. I let the newcomer Brian do the calling and I did the logging. We did wind up working Glenn K3SWZ on 40 before moving on to 20 and 30 and slightly better luck. We got 8 QSOs there before we switched seats and I went to 20. I got 4 QSOs there including a YL, Nancy in VA. It was now 1700Z and a final hour of work on 20 and 30 added 4 more QSOs to our total. We wound up with 17 QSOs in 15 states all around the country. We were satisfied with that considering the conditions.
Conditions were for the most part horrible. We got several answers to our CQs from what we called ghost stations. We just couldn't finish those QSOs with the deep quick QSB and always present bad QRN on the Requin. Giving them 119 RST reports would be way too kind. Losing those extra contacts was the only bad part of the day, but there was nothing we could do about it.
We finally gave up around 1815z, shut down, and headed for home. Along the way we stopped at Chili's in the Mall for a meal, then continued home. We talked about a lot of things along the way along with a part of another alphabet game. Before we got to Chili's we again went through the traffic slowdown near the Highland Park Bridge.
Here at home, I gave Brian a tour of my ham radio station, antennas, QSLs and other ham radio items. I also demonstrated how the station worked, adding TM100M and HB9CVQ both on 17 meters to my log. We continued talking on various topics, one main one being POTA. Brian is quite the POTA activitist, having done immensely more work in the program than I have. Hopefully we'll do a POTA together some time, and maybe another subpedition.
Back at the sub, I had the chance to get to visit with another of the girl tour guides named Lindsey (sp?). I asked her how she enjoyed the guide work and she said she really enjoyed it. She said she had visited the sub a lot as she was growing up, so being a guide suited her to a T. I also enjoyed, along with Brian greeting the folks touring the sub. As usual, we surprised some who weren't expecting live "crew members" on the sub. Art, probably kiddingly mentioned that some folks asked about the mannequins in the Radio Room.
Brian headed home around 6:15PM or so, and I'm going to close this entry now with a picture of us in the Radio Room.
That's Brian K3ES at left and the old (looking older every day) man K3WWP at right. -30-
Tue Jun 20 2:02PM - Here it is almost time for our subpedition to the Requin tomorrow. So here's a tentative sked of the operation with Brian K3ES and me. First a little preface. In the past we've tried to come up with an exact sked splitting up time among 40, 30, 20 on certain frequencies on each band like 7041, 10117, 14061. We tried spending a half hour on each band cycling among the three bands. Although that worked fairly well at one time, lately to put it bluntly, it just no longer works due to propagation conditions, QRM from POTA, SOTA, and other such activities along with frequency specific QRN.
Beginning tomorrow we're going to just give a rough frequency range on each band, and find a good spot there. We'll move among bands, but not at regular times. If we go to a band and there is no activity there after say 15-20 minutes, we'll move to another band. If a band turns out to be a busy one for us, we'll stick with it as long as we get results. When it dies out, we'll move on again. Since we'll be transmitting most of the time either calling CQ or working someone, if you don't hear us on one band, try one of the other bands.
Now here are the specifics: 40 meters range will be 7037-7043, 30 meters 10114-10120, 20 meters 14057-14063. We'll start on 40 as soon as we get set up which will be sometime between 1400Z-1430Z and move around as described above. Although I never use spotting in any form, I wouldn't be averse to you spotting us when you hear us and/or work us since this is really a Requin operation and not a K3WWP operation. For that same reason I am not averse to operating at QRO power of 100 watts to promote the activity of the submarine. We'll use the Requin's ham radio call of NY3EC which is derived from it's naval call of NYEC when it was in active duty. We'll stay as long as activity warrants which is usually around 1800Z-1830Z.
Anything worthwhile mentioning will come in a P.S. this evening.
P.S. - I've taken some nice pictures lately so thought I'd share them tonight.
First one of the QSL drawers I was talking about after "uncramming" it.
Here's the cabinet that contains the QSL drawers.
One of my first almost ripe tomatoes of the year.
The first really nice African Violets since repairing the plant's roots.
Finally one of my red roses.
Hope you enjoy the pictures as I go off to get my streak QSOs for the evening. -30-
Mon Jun 19 8:43PM - A busy day today which saw me get a lot of things done. Don't worry, I'm not going to list them all. HI
Ham radio wise, I got the QSLs I printed yesterday on the way to Newington and the Outgoing QSL Service. I filled out the field in my spreadsheet as to how the cards went out, in this case AB for Answered via Bureau, and the date that each one was mailed, in this case 6/19/2023. Also if they went to a manager instead of direct to the station I filled in the manager's call in the proper column. That allows me to keep track of all the cards I send out. I also do a similar routine when I receive cards. Next I filed each of the cards away in my card cabinet which is pretty much stacked full of cards. I was just thinking a few minutes ago of how to add on more space which is really needed. The cards are jammed in so tight now it's hard to insert new cards. There's a big chest of drawers that belonged to my late aunt, and I was looking at that, but it already has a lot of other things taking up its space. SIGH. I'll figure something out one of these days.
Wednesday Brian K3ES and I are going to the submarine Requin. I'll have a list of tentative times and frequencies in tomorrow evening's diary. I'm looking forward to that. -30-
Sun Jun 18 8:42PM - I fired up my print shop today and printed a batch of QSL cards. Well, actually my laptop and printer to be more accurate. I printed around 20 cards all together to handle the requests I got from DX stations in the ARRL Buro mailing several days ago. Then I filled them out and am getting them ready to mail maybe tomorrow or the next day. That was my ham project for the day besides getting my streak QSOs this evening, of course. I did that in the SST sprint working KG4CRJ and W0NY. After that I did a tune around like last night and found pretty basically the same thing I found then. One interesting thing was hearing VP6A on 15 and his huge pileup. He was maybe strong enough to work but not through the big KW/Beam wall. I worked a VP6 years ago when it was Pitcairn Island. Now I see it is Ducie Island this time around. Then it was VP6BR and I got them on 20 and 12.
A good weather day again and I did a little outside work and took a couple walks. In between I sat on my front porch. Now it's almost time to get the weather. -30-
Sat Jun 17 8:51PM - A couple entries ago I talked about getting quick QSOs vs. long rag chew QSOs. Tonight it was the quick type with two WV QSO Party QSOs and one VOTA W1AW/5 QSO. Then I spent some time checking all around the bands. 160 had a couple SP QSOs. 80 had a lot of noise. 40 had several good signals including the WV QSO Party. 30 had a couple good sigs I didn't ID. 20 had some AA contest QSOs, but only non-Asian calling Asians I couldn' hear. 17 had a small DX pileup, I didn't ID the DX. 15 same as 20 but not as many stns. 12 had a couple weak sigs as did 10. Nil on 6. I think that pretty much sums up how the bands have been here lately on average.
A couple of events coming up this week for me. A trip to the Requin on Wednesday with not Mike, but Brian K3ES for the first time. I'm not sure if he has been to the sub before or not. If he told me, I forget. Then it will be FD next weekend at Mike's QTH in Brookville. More details on those events as they get closer.
A very nice cool summer (yes, it is meteorological summer which started on June 1st) day, and I took advantage with a couple good walks that included stops at Sprankle's and Family Dollar to replenish some supplies.
Time now to go outside again to get my weather readings. -30-
Fri Jun 16 9:14PM - I'm talking on the phone with a cousin right now, so forgive any mistakes. HI. Nothing much exciting or different happened anyway. I did get on the bands briefly when I went up to my bedroom for some reason. Oh yes, I got a couple new pillows in the mail today and I was taking them up to my room. The bands were pretty empty except for Joska HA9RT who was booming in on 17. I worked him easily. This evening was about the same. Not a lot of activity, but some strong signals. I got 3 QSOs, 2 on 40 and one on 20. One was N5G calling CQ PARKS. I'm not sure if he was a POTA station or something else. I'll check later. I guess that's it for this entry. -30-
Thu Jun 15 9:23PM - Running late tonight. Some nights I get two quick QSOs in my streak hour of 0000Z. Other nights I get two longer rag chew QSOs. Tonight was the second choice. First I worked Dan KD4AN, A 29 year old youngster who has only been a ham 3 years. We had a 16 minute QSO, talking about portable setups for POTA and SOTA and other things. When we finished, W4RN tail ended and we talked for 21 minutes about broadcasting and other matters. I always enjoy those type of contacts. It was especially refreshing to talk with a youngster who is into CW. Oh, and the KD4AN QSO was a 2X attic antenna QSO. br>
Not a lot else to talk about that I can remember now, so I'll just close here. -30-
Wed Jun 14 8:56PM - I got a call tonight from old friend and "neighbor" Tom WY3H who now lives in TN for the past several years. We spent about a half hour talking about old times and some new things. I guess the best news was that Tom and family recently purchased a house. Tom now has more room for his ham radio antennas.
The bands were good again tonight. I got a POTA station, 2 VOTA stations on 15 and 20 meters, and R1DX with a single call on 17 meters
It was a chilly breezy damp day today, more like April than June. -30-
Tue Jun 13 9:11PM - From drought to deluge. Well, not really. We did get .20 inches more rain today with more coming overnight. 0.70 inches in two days does not constitute enough for a deluge. Even if we add the predicted 3/4 to 1 inch overnight. The dry ground just swallows that amount easily.
The bands were better tonight. I had no trouble getting my two streak QSOs, then adding a NAQCC Sprint QSO with John K4BAI on 20 for good measure. I heard W1AW/5 in AR, but the hearing wasn't mutual. He kept calling CQ without any answers at all, so I quickly gave up. Just the opposite from last week when I got the two VOTA stations in the first hour.
That's it for tonight. No P.S. needed tonight. -30-
Mon Jun 12 8:56AM - It looks like I'm not going to get any more answers to the picture trivia game. See the entry for June 4. So here's the answer. The device is a representation of Dr. Who's Tardis. What's a tardis? For those who don't know, basically it's a time and space travel machine enabling the Dr. to travel through space and time to the settings for the next adventure in the TV series. Tardis is an acronym for "Time and Relative Dimension(s) in Space". Doctor Who was first aired on BBC in 1963 and is still in production today. Instead of reinventing the wheel, here is a link to the Wikipedia article for those interested in knowing more about the show. Doctor Who
I first discovered the show probably in the 1970s and was intrigued by the concept of the show. Of all the actors (male and female) who have portrayed the Doctor over its run, I think Tom Baker was the best of the ones I have seen, and I haven't seen them all. Peter Davison was another favorite mainly because he was in another favorite BBC series, "All Creatures Great and Small". OK, that's enough of a teaser. Go read the Wikipedia article or just ignore the whole thing. HI
More later this evening if anything turns up worth writing about. OH, it is raining by the way, officially ending the streak if not the drought. Looks like at least a quarter inch looking out the window at my rain gauge.
P.S. - These P.S.s are getting to be a habit. It may be a good thing since if something happens early in the day, I tend to forget it if I wait till evening to write about it.
Anyway it was a half inch in the rain gauge by the time it stopped, then we got some more after that.
I checked the high bands again today and there wasn't much to be had. Maybe one weak QSO on each of the bands from 17 through 6, and that was it.
I got an email question today from Mark WO7T. It's one I haven't answered in quite a while now. He asked what happens to the streak when I go on vacation. I answered him this way, "That’s an interesting question and one that is easy to answer. I’ve not been a big fan of traveling since I’ve grown up. I can’t even remember the last time I’ve been on an extended vacation but it was some time before my streak started. I have been away for a day or two staying with a relative or friend. It was easy to set up there to get my streak QSOs. Like when I did FD at KC2EGL or WB3FAE with them. I also did the 2003 CQWWDX contest from my cousin’s home. The story of that is on my web site in the CONTESTING section, stories page if you’re interested."
I hope that answered Mark's question and also anyone else who may have been wondering about that.
The bands were rough tonight and I had to resort to a couple POTA QSOs for the streak. I shouldn't say "resort to" because POTA QSOs are all very interesting like all other QSOs. To illustrate that, I was listening to K4NYM tonight and he said the next QSO would be his last since he was being "bugged" by bugs. So I called and got him, worked him, and kidded about the bugs. -30-
Sun Jun 11 7:30PM - We had a little more water fall from the sky today, a la Chicken Little and the "Sky is falling". I think it's called rain if memory serves. Once again like a couple days ago, it might be only a Trace, and we may continue our "Lack of Measureable precipitation streak". There is more rain in the area though and we may get some more before today's measurement period ends at 9:00PM.
I checked the bands this afternoon, especially 6 meters after my 6 meter QSO last night, but everything from 6 down to and including 20 was pretty much devoid of stations. At least tonight is the SST sprint so I should have no trouble getting my two streak QSOs, I hope.
I guess that's it for the diary this evening. Now time to wait for 0000Z to get here.
P.S. 4 more 6 meter QSOs tonight from the LA/MS area according to their GS. Yes, 3 MS and 1 LA. That was fun for a change. -30-
Sat Jun 10 9:04AM - Just wanted to mention Mike N4VBV got the picture trivia right. See the entry for June 4 if you don't know what I'm talking about.
Also there was a little water in the rain gauge last night. Much less than .01 inches as I suspected. So we still have a streak of no MEASUREABLE precipitation as by definition a Trace isn't considered measureable according to most definitions.
I guess that pretty much summed up the day even though I wrote it so early. HI It was just a quiet day, warm and humid, so maybe that's the forward scout for some rain headed this way. I just got home from a walk, and it really did feel on the warm humid sice. I stopped at Sprankle's to pick up a couple things and to see who was working this evening. Now I'm getting ready to head to the shack for streak time.
P.S. I made a QSO on six meters this evening in the ARRL VHF Contest. First six meter QSO since June 23, 2015. It was Todd N9NE in WI. I haven't worked him since March 13, 2011. Tonight is the 65th time we've worked. -30-
Fri Jun 9 8:44PM - A couple of unusual happenings today. At least things that haven't happened for a while here. First I saw water falling from the sky today. Had that not happened, this would have been the 20th straight day without rain here in Kittanning. It wasn't much, probably less than .01 inches, I would guess, which in meteorological terms is a Trace of precipitation.
Secondly for the first time since May 22, I got a QSO via my CQ. Everything else in between then and now I got by answering someone else's CQ, or a POTA or contest type QSO. Tonight I was answered by Jack KB4CG down in VA.
Jack said the smoke at his QTH was really bad yesterday, along with a lot of other places in the Northeast. NYC had the worst air quality in the World I think it was yesterday or maybe the day before? I forget now. It was never very bad around here. If you didn't hear about it in the news, you might have said when someone mentioned smoke, "Smoke? What are you talking about?". There was haze in the sky, but that was mostly regular summer haze maybe with some smoke mixed in.
Anyway, time to check the weather readings now and see if any of today's rain lasted till now in my rain gauge. If not, I'll log it as a T since I know it did rain. The shape of the gauge discourages evaporation, so even a Trace could have survived pretty easily. -30-
Thu Jun 8 7:34PM - I guess the big ham news today was something that hasn't happened here since March of 2019. That is I got a mailing from the QSL Bureau. Two envelopes full of 14 cards each. Nothing outstandingly new. Perhaps a few new prefixes verified, but no new band countries that I noticed. I'll have to check things a little more closely to be sure. It certainly was a surprise to see those envelopes as the mail carrier handed them to me as I was sitting on the porch.
Nothing much else worth writing about. Our drought continues for the 19th day in a row now. Some scattered showers were in PA, but nothing around here in Kittanning. Same situation tomorrow. It depends where the showers decide to hit whether we get any rain or not. We also haven't really gotten the worst of the Canadian smoke in Western PA. It may be a little worse tomorrow, then pretty much start back down to normal.
I don't know if I ever mentioned this in the diary, but back in 1950 when I was just a youngster (Well I still am in a way, but that's another story), We had a really bad invasion of smoke from Western Canada forest fires. The day turned to night around noon. I remember being in my parents' bedroom wondering what was going on, being a little scared, not all that much since they were there with me, but still it wasn't normal by any means. I can't remember much in the way of details like how long it lasted. It's one of my earliest memories as a kid though.
Getting close to streak time now, so I better close and see what the bands have to offer. -30-
Wed Jun 7 5:22PM - I was checking out the latest NAQCC Newsletter and found this picture of my QRP ARCI Hall of Fame plaque. This is the first time I've seen it or even had an inkling of what it would look like.
It looks nice, but I'm sure this picture doesn't really do justice to the real plaque. I'll find out when I get the plaque itself in late August at Skyview.
I'm sitting here looking out at yet another beautiful June day, the 18th day in a row without any precipitation. It looks like there is a chance of breaking the streak tomorrow as there is a 40% chance of precipitation after 10AM which may produce less than a tenth of an inch. I'd kind of hate to see the streak broken, but we really do need the rain.
Here's an oddity of late. Last evening I got both of the W1AW VOTA stations, LA and AL, within a few minutes on 40 meters. They have been hard to find the past couple weeks or so, but not last night.
I wonder what the bands will bring tonight. It will be a while as I type this till I find out. -30-
Tue Jun 6 5:48PM - This is the day we remember the day so long ago on which the beginning of the end of World War II started with the Allied invasion of Normandy and ultimately all of Europe. We have many folks to either thank or honor their memory.
D-Day could also stand for a Dull Day in my case. Nothing much at all happened around here despite it being another nice weather day. Hazy, warm, and dry. It's the 17th day in a row now with no rain. We might have had a few drops here on Saturday when Mike and I were in Pittsburgh, but there was nothing in my rain gauge when we got home nor any other indication that it rained in my back yard where the gauge is located, so I logged it as 0. I don't know if that is a record or not. I would either have to examine all my monthly records going back to 1959 or write some code to do it for me to find out. I don't feel up to doing that, at least not right now. I could first just check the October 1963 page. I mentioned that was the month we had only .29 inches of rain. I think I'll look. It rained on October 3, then not again till October 31, leaving 27 straight days with no precipitation. So we've got a long ways to go for a record now. While I have that month's LCD (Local Climatological Data) page open, let me look at some other data from that somewhat unique month. Because of the extreme dryness and clear skies, it got cold at night and hot during the day as a desert climate would. The average daily low and high were 40.6 and 76.5 for a range of 35.9 degrees or 11.6 degrees above normal. The greatest daily range was 51 degrees on the 6th, 34 to 85. That stood as a record for quite a while until we had a couple of 52 and 53 degree range days. The average daily low was 1.1 degrees below normal, the average high was 10.5 degrees above normal. Looking back, September set the stage for the dryness with only 1.32 inches of rain. November followed pretty wet with 3.87 inches of rain/s@#w mix.
Unless something very out of the ordinary happens this evening, that's it for today's diary entry. -30-
Mon Jun 5 9:04AM - I'm writing this early, but not posting till the evening. I asked Mike for comments on yesterday's entry, and he responded with comments on our Saturday at the Requin, so I'm using them as the first part of this entry. Here's Mike, "It was a slow day radio wise due to QRM from other radio events. It was still quite enjoyable giving out the hull number of the Requin SS 481. Best part of the day was being able to hang out with Art, the submarines de facto caretaker. He had enough help to guide the tours passing through the sub. The cherry on the cake was logging the USS Nautilus which is moored in Groton Connecticut." Thank you Mike.
I had a couple right answers to the trivia question from Lane and Lester who knew the objects represented ******. Well, I'm not giving the answer just yet. I'll wait a couple more days at least to give more of you a chance to give or guess the answer.
I just noticed that the Skyview ARS mentioned my QRP ARCI Hall of Fame induction in their June 2023 newsletter. Thanks Jody. The QRP ARCI and Jeff VE3CW in particular are going to try to get my HOF plaque to me at the Skyview Swap and Shop in late August. More about that when the time draws closer.
OK, time now to finish this off and get it posted. Nothing much happened today. The bands were pretty dreadful tonight. Very deep QSB on all signals. I lost one QSO because of it. Actually HA8WZ was the best QSO, tough at first, but then up and steady for a solid, but short QSO on 20 meters.
I've pretty much got a new subpedition to the Requin lined up for the 21st with a new suspect, Brian K3ES. It will be interesting meeting him for an eyeball QSO, then heading down to the Requin. It's always nice to meet a new ham. We sort of know each other from emails, but this will be the first eyeball contact unless we ran into each other at a hamfest, but didn't really meet as such. HI. -30-
Sun Jun 4 5:28PM - Let's wrap up the activities from yesterday. I have our log here now, and I'll get to that in a bit.
Mike brought my belated birthday present down with him yesterday since we hadn't seen each other since my birthday. I'm going to show you a picture of it and kind of make it a trivia contest to see if you can identify just what it is or what it represents. It's in three parts with arrows pointing to each part to keep them separate from the other objects in the picture. I didn't take time to clear out a spot just for the gift objects. Arrow #1 is the main object. Don't just say it's a police call box which it is, but it has more meaning than that. Arrow #2 is a miniature of #1. Arrow #3 is a little remote control unit for arrow #1. Although I only have the reddish color lit in the picture, it also will light up in all the colors on the remote control unit as well. OK, with all that being said, just exactly what is it, or more accurately what does it represent? Email if you know or want to take a guess. I have no idea how well known the answer may be. Perhaps many of you know, or maybe no one knows. That curiosity is what prompted me to make it into a trivia contest before giving the answer and a longer description here in the diary. Here's the picture:
OK, now let me look at our log from the Requin activity yesterday. I see 17 QSOs altogether, 7 by me and 10 by Mike. Here is a list of states we worked: FL IN OK KS IL KY IN CA CT PA which is a total of 9. FL led with 5, IL 3, IN 2, KS 2, KY CA CT PA OK 1 each. The best band by far was 20 with 14 QSOs, 40 2, 30 1. We apologize to those who may have been looking for us on 40 and 30. We were there, but almost nobody else was when we tried, and we wound up spending a lot of time on 20. We also had to QSY a lot as I explained in yesterday's entry. I think in future we are simply going to give a frequency range on each band and not list any specific times for the bands. Narrowing the specifics down any further just doesn't seem to work out. While I don't believe in using spotting and never do, since the Requin operations are not really K3WWP operations, I would not mind at all if you do spot us when you hear us or work us since that would help get more QSOs for the Requin which is our goal so the activity in the radio can continue to be displayed to the many visitors to the sub. Also the more activity we generate, the more the Carnegie Science Folks are pleased and the Requin is connected to them.
As always, it is a joy to interact with the visitors that pass through the sub. We don't have all that much time to talk with them since it is a single file parade past the radio room doorway. Many of them are fairly knowledgeable about radio and Morse Code, and sometimes we'll let someone like that come into the room and spend a little extra time talking. Virtually everyone in a tour is friendly and will at least give a friendly greeting. Some folks are surprised or even downright shocked to see actual live people 'manning' the radio room. We hope we don't scare them too much. After shutting down, when we were going through the Science Center to pay for parking, etc., I noticed one young lady who was in the tour sitting at a table waiting for someone, I went over and talked with her to get an idea of what she thought of the tour. She was very interested to talk about it, especially the radio room and the Morse Code we were using. I found that very satisfying and it helped make our activity worthwhile. I also talked with one of the young lady tour guides as I mentioned in yesterday's entry. She was knowledgeable about the sub, but she asked some questions about the Morse Code and who we contacted in the short time we had to talk together. -30-
Sat Jun 3 5:39PM - Except for the activity being low, all went well in the Museum Ships Weekend activity today. Mike and I arrived on the Requin about 1410Z and Art was there waiting for us. He had all the equipment set up and ready to go. All Mike had to do was to plug in his paddle and start operating. We got a response to the very first CQ Mike called, and we both figured it was going to be a busy day. NOT! I don't have the log in front of me right now, but I know it was some time before we added a second entry in the log. It pretty much went that way all day till we left around 1820Z. There was a lot of QRM from the KY QSO Party, POTA, and some other activities. It seemed every time we got settled into a frequency, QRM would kick us out. Also signals weren't all that strong for the most part, and those that were soon faded in QSB. With those gripes out of the way, basically it was a good day on the Requin as usual with one exception that made it even better. Art WA3BKD was not busy with tours as usual, and he had a lot of time to spend talking with us. We learned a lot from him about the Requin that we didn't know much about before. We also talked a lot about other topics as well. Every once in a while we'd get an answer to our CQs and took care of that. We wound up with, I think, 16 QSOs scattered around here and there from PA to CA and points in between. There were several FL stations. We worked one other sub, and a famous one, the SSN Nautilus, the first nuclear powered submarine. That's our operating day in a nutshell. As we were leaving, I got ahead of Art and Mike and had a chance to talk to one of the girl tour guides. Her name was Auri. I'd never heard of that name before. She said it was really Aurelia, but she shortened it. She was very interested in our operation and asked some good questions about it. I wish we could have talked some more, but the tours went on and also Mike and Art were ready to go. I told her I hoped she would be working the next time we came down to the sub.
Mike and I bid farewell to Art and headed home with a stop at Applebee's for a good meal. Then Mike dropped me off here and headed up to Brookville and his home. -30-
Fri Jun 2 8:56AM - Yes, AM. It's morning. I forgot to include info in yesterday's entry about our USS Requin operation which is now tomorrow, June 3. It's Museum Ships on the Air weekend. It runs the full weekend, but due to Mike's new job, we can only be available on Saturday since I don't drive and it's a long walk from Kittanning to Pittsburgh. HI. We will try to start as soon after the sub opens for business at 1400Z depending on traffic or other delays. We'll use the sub call of NY3EC. We can only operate one band at a time among 40, 30, and 20. Since it's not really a contest, but an event or activity, we can use 30 meters. The frequencies will be close to 7039, 10119, and 14059 depending on QRM. We'll start on 40 until 1430Z, then go to 30 until 1500Z, then 20 until 1530Z. Then we'll cycle half hour segments on 40, 30, 20 as long as activity remains good, hopefully until at least 1800Z. When activity is high, hopefully, we'll keep the contacts short. Otherwise we may take time to chat a bit. As we do when operating from the sub, we'll use QRO power of 100 watts or so since we are promoting the Requin for the Carnegie Science Center, and not QRP. I think that includes everything you need to know. If not, email and ask. Hope to work you from the sub tomorrow. -30-
Thu Jun 1 3:52PM - I just finished putting my May weather records in my weather spreadsheet so while I have the data handy, I thought I'd give you the accurate May data as I promised in last night's entry.
First of all, I had the month and year (October 1963) for the driest month in my records going back to 1959, but I had the amount wrong in my memory. It was 0.29 inches from 2 days of 0.16 and 0.13 inches. Actually it was an interesting month weatherwise in several ways. Mybe when October arrives this year, I'll do a flashback to that year.
As for May this year it was close to a normal month temperaturewise. The low, high, and mean departures from the monthly normals were -1.9, -1.0, -1.4 degrees. That's about as normal a month as you can find around here for many moons now. There were no overall monthly records save for the usual suspects in May like no days below zero.
Precipitation was quite a bit below normal at 1.85 inches, but nowhere near the record in May 2007 at 1.08 inches. The precipitation for Jan-May was close to the low record at 12.43 inches, about an inch above the record of 11.42 inches in 1969.
As far as daily records, there were a few trivial ones the first 3 days of May in a mini cold spell. The lowest high was 51, 46, 48 on the 1st, 2nd, 3rd. The lowest average 42 on the 2nd. Departure from normal -15 on the 2nd. That's it for the month.
That sums up the month except to say overall it was an ideal May, just like I remember as a kid growing up. And that concludes this diary entry for you weather aficianados out there. -30-
Wed May 31 8:57PM - Where did May go? I know it didn't get washed away for sure. Maybe it dried up and blew away. That's more likely as we haven't had a drop of rain in the last 11 days of the month. Now the grass is getting seriously brown. At least that cuts down on the mowing. It will be interesting to see just how much rain we got (didn't get) this month. I recall one day we had 0.5 inches if memory serves. So it won't be our overall driest month. That was October 1963 when we had something like 0.23 inches. I'll have more accurate data after I get the May data in my weather spreadsheet tomorrow or Friday. Right now you'll have to go by my ageing memory.
Another rough night on the bands, but the QSOs came more quickly than last night. WC8VOA on 20, KI8R POTA on 40, and VP2MKP on 17. Thought maybe VP2M may have been a new band country, but I see I have VP2M on 80 through 10 except 60. It was fun working him though and breaking his big pileup. I knew he was strong enough for me to work with my QRP, so I stuck with him and got him after about 15-20 other mostly QRO stations.
Just a couple notes here. Mike and I will be doing the Museum Ships event from the Requin on Saturday. Details in the diary sometime the next couple days. It looks like I'll be getting my QRP Hall of Fame plaque at the Skyview Swap and Shop on August 27. It also looks like we might miss the Skeeter Hunt this year as Larry W2LJ had to move the date to that same day, August 27. Or maybe something will work out. That's still almost 3 months down the road. That's it for now. Got to get my next to last weather readings for May, except the very last at midnight. -30-
Tue May 30 9:09PM - This was the toughest night this year to get my 2 streak QSOs, but I made it. I heard both W1AW stations, but neither one was hearing me. I tried some CQs with no luck. I also called a few other stations but with no luck. A lot of signals I was hearing were very up and down out of my local noise. I persisted though and finally called K5LY and he came back to me. That was at 0032Z on 20 meters. Then back to the search for the second QSO. There is Red DL1BUG booming in at 0050Z on 20 stronger than any other station I was hearing all evening. It took a couple calls, but I got him to continue my streak of 2 QSOs per day I started early in January of this year.
It was a continuation of our nice weather today although we sure could use some rain. It's been 10 days in a row without a drop of rain now and my grass is starting to get that brown look to it. The tomatoes, with me watering them daily are doing great. My roses are really blooming now like they don't mind the dry spell. I am watering them every few days though.
OK, got to run now. Roscoe walking time coming soon. -30-
Mon May 29 8:59PM - It was a quiet, hot, humid Memorial Day here. I didn't do a lot, but I did attend our Memorial Day parade this morning as I have done every year since the parade was revived many years ago largely due to the efforts of Tom Mitchell WY3H.
I went for just one walk today in the heat, only about 2/3 of a mile or so.
This evening, I had a couple of nice rag chews, one with a newcomer to ham radio - 3 yrs, and one with a ham who got started in ham radio 60 years ago, just like me. With that, I close to get my weather readings. -30-
Sun May 28 5:40PM - I didn't really plan to do it, but something came up, and I wound up putting in a couple hours in the CQWPX Contest this afternoon. I mostly just listened, trying to call a station here or there if it sounded like a new prefix or some contester I knew well and wanted to give them a contact. Things like that with no organized plan of attack. Conditions were strange. 20, 15, and 10 all had quick deep QSB. They would be S9 one minute and gone the next in extreme cases. Otherwise they would be up and down by 3-5 S units. The QRM was pretty bad even with the selectivity in the KX3. I couldn't get some S 8-9 stations to hear me at all, while I worked some S 5-6 stations easily. Very strange to say the least. Mostly because of my picking and choosing who to work, I wound up with only 49 QSOs. I never did get Asia, although that is still up in the air as I may put in some more time before 0000Z. I did hear one weak Japan on 20 kind of early in the day around 2000Z or so.
As for new prefixes, here is the list so far: IB8, DQ2, 9A30, SX9, UW4, LO7, ZX2, AO5
I'll get my streak QSOs from the SST after 0000Z. I may dabble in the CQWPX before then and see if I can get Japan or Asiatic Russia or some exotic Asian station. Or I may just forget it and wait for the streak at 0000Z. I'll see. -30-
Sat May 27 10:55PM - Yes, I'm really late tonight writing the diary entry. I've been playing in the CQWPX Contest for the past couple+ hours. Just having fun like I said last night. Tonight I added 30 QSOs to make a total of 41 including one I worked before 0000Z tonight to make yesterday's total 11. It was AO5V which I thought may have been a new prefix. I haven't checked yet. I also worked KH6LC although my Hawaii pipeline still wasn't up to par and it took a few repeats to work him. The Scandinavian pipeline was working a little better. I worked LN8W easily. Heard a couple other Scandinavians, but didn't really try them. I worked CN3A back to back on 15 and 40 meters. No AS stations (yet) for that contest WAC. Besides the AO5 prefix, I have a few others that might be new like IO4, ZX2, UW4, SX9, DQ2, TM9, IB8, YR9. I wouldn't bet on all of those being new though. Well, it's late and time for my midnight snack and my midnight weather readings, then off to bed. -30-
Fri May 26 9:15PM - A couple of highlights today. I did quite a bit of work in my back yard. I pretty much finished trimming the pine tree and got the trimmings ready for the yard material pick up next Tuesday or Wednesday. I like the tree with more room to get around it with the branches removed from the lower 6 feet or so of the trunk. I think it looks nicer this way also. Maybe I'll post a picture of it, although I only have an "after" picture and no "before" picture to compare it with. Or maybe I do have one somewhere.
I also painted the roof of my thermometer shelter. At least the first coat. Hopefully I'll get the final coat on it tomorrow.
Then this evening I decided I'd fool around in the WPX Contest. I just picked and chose who to try to work. It was rough with all the big contest stations to compete against to work someone. I thought I'd try for a WAC in the first hour, but that didn't work out. I heard a WAC, but couldn't work OC or AS. I did easily get NA SA EU and AF among the 10 contacts I did make. My Hawaii pipeline wasn't operating well yet and KH6LC didn't hear me through his pileups. I tried an Israeli station with no luck. Hey, can I count the Israeli I worked last evening? HI. No, that would still leave OC for a WAC. I worked RU1A for the first time in ages. That felt good. Also SN7Q whom I can work most every time I hear him. So it was fun, and maybe I'll put in some more time over the weekend. Not a lot if I do, but enough to have some more fun. -30-
Thu May 25 8:54PM - Pretty much the same situation as the past several nice days except I didn't stop in any stores on my walks.
Regular diary reader Tom W3TLN asked me how come no mention of fishing in the diary lately. It's simply that I haven't been fishing for the past couple (few) years now. I kind of stopped about the time of CoVid although there was no direct connection and haven't gotten back to it since. I am getting the urge to go again now. Especially when I sit in the park and see others down by the river's edge fishing. So we'll see if anything develops.
An interesting mix for my streak QSOs this evening. I started by working 4Z4DX on 20, the first Israel station in a long time. It was a fairly easy QSO although I did have to repeat my call a couple times. Then after hearing 4L8A and setting up to work him, he just disappeared, so I went to 30 and immediately heard and worked old friend Gary K1YAN for about 25 minutes. Next I closed out the session working AB2E/VP9 on 20.
Earlier in the day around 12:30P, I had a land line call from Al N2MA for about a half hour talking mostly about CW hams and the seeming increasing in the number of hams in the area who are becoming interested in CW. Al joined Mike and me on the Requin several weeks ago. We hope to get together again soon for some ham activities. -30-
Wed May 24 6:55PM - I had a quiet but good birthday today. My neighbor Bruce, with a little help from me, fixed a good Chili supper. As I do every birthday, I noted 3:21PM which is the time of day I was born so many many years ago. I usually try to spend that minute in the company of a good friend like Mike, Jasmine, etc., but this year I was by myself although I did spend a lot of other time with Roscoe and Bruce.
Ken N3AFS took a trip to the Requin to operate the station there today. He had invited me to go along, but since I had no way to get to New Kensington where he lives and it being my birthday on top of that, I had to turn down the invitation. He did give me a phone call from the sub around noon, and we tried all three bands, 40, 30, and 20 to make a contact, but apparently we were in the skip zone since I didn't hear a peep out of the sub's 100 watts.
I did some more work in the back yard on the tree today since it was another nice day. We sure could use some rain though. In fact I'm just thinking I should see if my tomatoes could use some water before I go for that mile walk this evening. -30-
Tue May 23 7:43PM - As you see and read above, I've made a minor change in the diary format which will no doubt be just something temporary.
Another great May day today, and I took advantage of it with the usual outdoor activities, even including some more trimming on the tree in the back yard. In this evening's walk, I stopped in at Sprankle's for a few things and saw one of the girls there I hadn't seen in a while. That's always nice. I don't remember if I mentioned it, but one of the Sprankle's girls now lives a couple houses up the street with her boyfriend and two young boys, 3 and under 1 years old. I was talking to her a bit today while working in my back yard.
In addition to the HOF messages, a few of you wished me Happy Birthday for tomorrow, and I thank you for that, even though I really should stop counting. HI After all though, birthdays just celebrate a number of years, not how those years have treated you, and mine have treated me quite well, and I feel younger than my numerical age, thank goodness.
Time to head to the shack now for streak time. See you tomorrow evening here in the diary. -30-
Mon May 22 9:11PM - I had a great rag chew tonight with Mike KC5GVC, mostly about POTA and portable QRP operations. Thanks Mike.
It was a quiet day today with the usual walks and sitting on the porch. I did do some more trimming to my tree in the back yard and made some more room for walking around in the yard without having to dodge some low hanging branches. Still a little ways to go with that. I guess that wraps up the day with a Roscoe walk still to go. -30-
Sun May 21 5:14PM - I've had to keep this under wraps for around a month now. I did so except to tell it to Mike. Now the time has come for the unwrapping for everyone else.
About a month ago, I got a phone call from Jeff VE3CW/VA3JFF. After he told my voice mail who was calling, I answered and was greeted with some exciting news. I had been elected to the QRP ARCI Hall of Fame. After the initial shock wore off, we talked more about it. The induction would take place on May 20 at the FDIM event at the Dayton Hamvention. I would not be able to attend, and made that clear right away. Jeff said that would be OK. He said they would figure out some other way to get the physical award to me, whatever that might be. We thought maybe one of three ways would work. Either present it at the Butler Breezeshooters hamfest or just bring it to my house or present it at the Skyview Swap and Shop. We haven't finally decided yet, but I think Skyview would be best. I'll have more info about that as time goes by. Basically I am pretty much in dark about the whole thing and I figure details will unroll themselves as time goes by. I never was one to make much fuss over any kind of honors I might receive. However I am very grateful to the QRP ARCI and all the individuals who made this possible. I don't know who nominated, then elected me, but I thank you very much. I feel it is an honor not so much for what I have done, but because what I have done has helped encourage others to follow in my footsteps and find that using QRP/CW/Simple wire antennas has given them a way to enjoy ham radio despite limitations in amount of power they can use, limitations in room for antennas, and other limiting factors.
It was rough keeping the information under wraps but I promised Jeff I would, and I am glad the wait is over now. I've gotten a couple congratulatory emails from hams and I want to thank them personally here in the diary. Thank you Rumi LZ2RS and Bob W3BBO. I've worked Rumi 4 times and I've known Bob for many years now. Should I get any more congratulations, I will acknowledge them here in my diary entries as well.
I now have the QRP ARCI logo along with the NAQCC and FISTS logos on my main web site page. I hope you will consider joining all three organizations if you are not already a member. You wont regret it. You can tell from the club membership numbers that I am a longtime member of all three clubs.
I'm sure there are other things I wanted to say about the Hall of Fame, but have forgotten. Fortunately I can always add them here in future issues of the diary. One thing comes to mind just now. I was curious and counted how many are in the HOF, and I found 66 if I counted correctly including me and K4SWL, the 2023 inductees. Unfortunately at least 16 of those on the list are SKs now. I'm curious now how many of the 66 are in my logbook, but I don't have time right now to figure it out. At a glance, I'd guess about 1/4 or 1/3 of them.
Well, I'm kind of rambling on now, so I'm going to close and take care of some other things. -30-
Sat May 20 7:49PM - A showery chilly day early in the day, then better from mid-afternoon on. Good enough for two 1+ mile walks and a stop at Sprankle's for a bit of shopping. Actually just to get a nice 5 lb. bag of chicken patties. I love chicken patty sandwiches. Plus it was good exercise walking the about 2/3 mile home carrying that weight.
I might have some interesting news in tomorrow's diary if things go as planned this evening. How's that for a little teaser? HI
Right now it's time to go streak QSO hunting. -30-
Fri May 19 9:17PM - Late tonight, so a short entry. Interesting QSO tonite with Mike K1OV. He's into QRP also and he experimented with changing power a couple times. Started with 100W at S9+. Dropped to 20W, then 4W only losing a little over 1 S unit, then finished with 1 watt at 579. Next time we work, I hope we can continue the power experiments. Oh that was on 30 and he is in CT. Gotta run now. More in tomorrow's entry. -30-
Thu May 18 7:27PM - The run of nice May days continues. Good for walking, which I did a couple times making over 1 mile each time and stopping for a little shopping each time, once at Family Dollar and once at Sprankles. Otherwise some porch sitting and yard work mainly just to have a reason to be outside. I did some lumberjacking on my pine tree in the back yard trimming off some of the lower branches to keep from running into them when I'm working in the yard. I also pulled some weeds and grass from around my rose beds. Also some now dead tulip leaves. It's a shame they only bloom for maybe 3-4 weeks, then go back to sleep till next year. Finally I watered my tomato plants. After kind of getting away from gardening for a year or two, it feels great to get back to it again.
Now keeping in mind this is mainly a ham radio diary. It's about 25 minutes before 0000Z now, and you know what that means. I'm hoping for a couple quick QSOs for the streak, although rag chews would be nice also. Looking ahead a couple weeks or so, Mike and I will be doing part of Museum Ships Weekend from the Requin on Saturday, June 3. We would have preferred Sunday, June 4, I think, but Art WA3BKD had another commitment that day, and if he is not available, the sub is not available for us, either. And that's about it for now, but I hope to have a bit of good news this coming weekend. I can't say anything about it yet. Stay tuned. -30-
Wed May 17 8:53PM - The big event today was taking Roscoe to the vet. That went smoothly. Otherwise another nice day as usual of late. It was a bit cooler and breezier today, but still nice enough for a couple over 1 mile walks and a couple of shopping stops.
Conditions were about average this evening although activity seemed a bit down. I made 4 QSOs, two regular ones, and two in the NA Sprint. -30-
Tue May 16 8:43PM - An interesting QSO on 30 this evening. I worked D2EB in Angola, a country I don't often work. I remember way back when in the early years of my ham radio activities, I worked CR6IK when Angola had the CR6 prefix. That was on November 25, 1967 on 20 meters in the CQWWDX test. Then next in 2012 it was D3AA and I worked D2EB before also on 30M in 2016. Tonight was a real tooth puller. I don't know how many times I sent my call. First he got K3WW, then I think it was K3WWW, then K3WWJ, and finally he got WWP. Copy was rough here also. Anyway it's not a new country or even a new band country, and I know I worked him.
Another nice weather day, and I enjoyed it to the fullest. I did work in the garden weeding and watering my new tomato plants and also filled in a couple small holes in the back yard when animals (skunk?) dug them. Then the usual walking, porch sitting, walking Roscoe, etc. The great weather is supposed to continue for the next few days also.
Tomorrow among other things, we take Roscoe to the vet for a checkup. Maybe I'll finish my shelter painting also which I was going to do today, but didn't get around to it. Now it's time to get my weather readings, so I'll close here. -30-
Mon May 15 7:24PM - The nice weather continued today with sun through a light high haze mainly from the Canadian wildfires. The high again was 77. I just got back from about a 1.1 mile walk. Earlier in the day I did a lot of porch sitting after putting a second coat of paint on my thermometer shelter. It's pretty much done now except for painting the roof. I need a ladder to do that and didn't feel like dragging one out today. Maybe tomorrow. I'm not going to do the interior as it can stand to go another while yet in the shape it is in. Also today I had to work on my dryer vent pipe. It came loose from the dryer and I had to move three pieces of kitchen furniture to get to it and secure it back on. Hopefully that won't happen again.
We're closing in on 0000Z and about this time every night I wonder what band conditions are going to be like. Hopefully they are just about totally recovered from the storminess of late. The WWV numbers look good, but that doesn't always mean conditions will follow. -30-
Sun May 14 8:28PM - As beautiful May (or any other month) day as you could ask for. Bright sun with a few high clouds, low humidity, temperature in the mid 70s, and no precipitation. It gave me a chance to work on my thermometer shelter. I got one coat of paint on most of it. The paint I got claimed to be a primer and a finish coat all in one. It did soak in the bare spots in the wood, and when I applied a test second coat to some of the spots, it seemed to cover up pretty well. Those spots might need a third coat. I'll tell more tomorrow. Then I had to move a clamp holding the wood post to the metal support pole up a few inches to get away from a place in the wood that had a little bit of rot. That's good and solid now for another 60 years. HI. Yes, the shelter was first built in the early 1960s, and some wood is original from then although most of the shelter was rebuilt a couple times over those years. It felt good to do work like that again. Those are the dividends of good diet and exercise over the almost 78 years of my life.
I also spent a lot more time outside today enjoying the weather, walking, sitting in the park and on my front porch, walking Roscoe, etc.
Of course the SST sprint gave me two quick contacts in streak time this evening, Amanda KY4GS in SC and Greg WK0B in MN both on 20 meters.
Tomorrow the second coat of paint on the shelter if all goes well, and then who knows what else. Probably a dupe of today since the weather is supposed to be a dupe with sunny and warm again. -30-
Sat May 13 7:39PM - The rain kind of put a damper on things today. All my outdoor work plans got cancelled. I did get in two mile walks after the rain departed late this afternoon, but my plans of painting the thermometer shelter will have to wait till tomorrow when it is supposed to be sunny and in the mid 70s.
Otherwise I just fooled around inside except when I took Roscoe out for his regular walks. He doesn't like rain so they were short walks. He is better with rain than when he was younger. Then most of the times he wouldn't even get off the porch.
I hope the bands are better tonight, although last night I did get two DX QSOs for the streak. It took a while to find them however and there weren't many W/VE stations that I was hearing. The DX QSOs were easy once I did find them. -30-
Fri May 12 7:00PM - Another somewhat busy day today. I took care of mid-month bills today. A bit early because my phone/Internet bill got lost somewhere in April and I had to get caught up by paying for two months this month so I wouldn't lose any service. So I decided to just do all the mid-month stuff instead of one today and the rest Monday. So that chore is out of the way now. Then I took a walk to the PO to mail the checks. It felt good and warm and humid today. The first real feeling of humidity this year.
Then when I was coming home, Bruce was just pulling in in his van and said he had a surprise for me. He bought me five big tomato plants. I wasn't going to have a garden this year, but that changed my plans. They already have small tomatoes on them. So I cleaned out my garden spot in the back yard, and planted them. Then a little later, I staked, tied, and watered them. Finally I took a picture of them as shown here.
The tomatoes are hard to see in the foliage, but they are there, about one or two per plant along with a lot of blossoms. I may have early tomatoes this year even though that wasn't in my original garden plans.
And that sums up my day as I await streak time in about 45 minutes. -30-
Thu May 11 8:19PM - Same formula as last night for my streak QSOs - one DX, EI9JF and one POTA, K4NYM. Last night it was KQ4YC for POTA and DK5KK for DX. So it didn't take long tonight or last night either, 4 minutes tonight, 5 minutes last night. Nice to get those quick ones now and then, although I also enjoy the longer rag chew type QSOs.
Another just about ideal May day today. I did a little work on my back steps. I noticed a couple loose screws and fixed or replaced them. One other project involved Roscoe. Bruce has a swing on his front porch and Roscoe loves to swing on it with me. However lately due to weight or age or both, he had been having some slight difficulty jumping up on the swing. So I lowered the seat a couple inches and a test run this morning ran smoothly.
Then of course I took my walks, both inside and outside. I went to the PO to mail a QSL card. If you read the diary regularly, you may remember I talked about an increase in regular QSL cards lately. They're still coming in about maybe one every 7-10 days or so for whatever reason. I'm delighted to get them and to reply with my card in return. I'll have to print a few more cards now.
On another one of my walks I stopped in at Sprankle's again to pick up a couple things and to see who was working. There was another new girl this evening. I think they are cutting back a bit on workers since they adopted a couple self check out counters a few months ago. That's why I never use the self check outs. I believe it takes jobs away from an already job starved economy.
Tomorrow if the weather is nice and it is supposed to be, I may paint my thermometer shelter. I checked it over a bit today and it is in pretty good shape. It doesn't need much scraping, and it is pretty much ready just to have a new coat of paint applied to it. -30-
Wed May 10 7:44PM - Just sitting here waiting for the crack of a new UTC day at 0000Z. It was a busy day with a lot accomplished. I started off by finishing my painting job on my back steps. Considering the wood could be in better shape, the paint job turned out pretty good as shown here:
Next it was a walk downtown to do some banking. On the way home I stopped at Sprankle's. That was my first time there in some time as I'd mostly been doing my shopping at dollar stores with Bruce. I saw Teela still there and one new girl, Tara, waited on me.
When I got home, I worked on the computer and did some exercising until it was time to go pick up my monthly food bank box. On the way home we picked up some white paint at Busy Beaver. I'll be using that to paint my thermometer shelter. Back home and I put my food in the cupboard. I killed some time till now, and soon will be going to get my streak QSOs. -30-
Tue May 9 8:30PM - There's an old saying that I've always liked. I don't remember when I first heard it, but it was a long time ago, I'm sure. It's used to compare something bad vs. something good that happens. It goes like this, "Sometimes you bite the bear, and sometimes the bear bites you." Well, tonight I got a good mouthful of bear, for sure.
At 0003Z, I turned on the rig, heard and worked W1AW/1 in CT on 40M. I then tuned down the band, and at 0007Z, found and worked W1AW/0 in MN on 40M. I figured MT would be more likely to be heard and worked on 20M. I was right. I tuned 20 and found and worked W1AW/7 in MT on 20M at 0025Z. It wasn't as easy as CT and MN, and took a few minutes for me to be heard, as I could barely hear him. However I persisted and finally got him in a weak, but solid QSO. So after being shut out on VOTA stations in AK and IA last week, I got all 3 VOTA stations in their first 25 minutes of operating this week. For those who don't know, their week starts at 0000Z on Wednesdays. Also if you don't know, I never use spotting of any kind to work stations, I just tune the bands looking to find someone. Tonight it was the VOTA stations.
So far, overall this year I haven't fared too well with VOTA. I had much more success with the ARRL 100th anniversary event back in 2014. I got the majority of stations in the first half of the year then. This year so far, I've worked only 27 of the 38 states that have been activated as of the week of May 10. So I'm going to have to work hard the second half of the year.
Another great spring May day today, and I painted my back steps and also took a couple good walks/shopping trip along with sitting on the front porch foe quite a while. -30-
Mon May 8 8:55PM - Another nice day to be outside. I finished removing the grass and weeds from my brick sidewalks, and did some other outside cleaning. Now I get a break from the work unfortunately as it is going to rain the next couple days. I still have some painting to do. I want to paint my back steps and my thermometer shelter.
Of course I was also outside for a walk/shopping trip and walking Roscoe. I love this spring weather when it is not too cold nor too hot.
I had a long rag chew and a POTA QSO for my streak this evening. Now it's off to get my weather readings. -30-
Sun May 7 8:11PM - I've had several changes in my life over the past couple years or so, some personal, others I've mentioned in the diary. Most have come in the past year or so. They've all contributed to a lack of intensity in updating my web site. Especially the laptop crash back in February. I'm gradually conquering the changes, and getting around to doing the web site updates. Right now I'm working on the Yearly Stats page in the QRP section, getting the 2022 stats posted. After I do this diary entry and a couple other things I'm going to work on that tonight.
Of course, being Sunday evening, I used the SST Sprint to get a couple quick QSOs so I could get back here and work on the web site.
Being Sunday, I did my laundry first thing today, walked Roscoe, ate some breakfast, and then we took Roscoe to the groomer to get all spruced up for the coming warmer weather. I also did some more yard and sidewalk work while waiting for the call from the groomer and go pick Roscoe up. Those were the highlights for today. And with that I'll close this entry. -30-
Sat May 6 5:56PM - I did a lot of work today, a lot of it outside enjoying the beautiful typical May weather we finally got. Sunny and a high of 73. Couldn't be much better. I helped Ange in his garden twice. Once helping to prop up the fig trees that he resurrected the past couple days. I've written about the fig trees several times in past diary entries including pictures, and I'm not going into it here. Then later in the day, I helped him fold up and put away the tarps that had been covering the fig trees during the winter. Actually with winter the way it was, he could probably have gotten away without burying the trees, but better safe....
In between the two sessions with Ange, I did some work in my back yard, pulling and cutting grass and weeds from around the border of the yard and from around my roses and daylilies. I was on a roll, so then I pulled grass and weeds out of the brick sidewalk. I didn't quite finish that today, which is good as now I'll have something else to do outside again when the good May weather continues or returns.
I also went for an outside walk and sat on the front porch for a while.
Next up in a couple hours, I'll head to the shack for streak time. I'm not sure if there are any contests for a couple easy streak QSOs or not. Think I'll check that after I finish here and upload the diary page. -30-
Fri May 5 8:42PM - Another ho-hum day today with not much at all out of the ordinary. I did have a nice little visit with some fairly new neighbors for about 20-30 mins or so. That's about the longest "QSO" I've had with them.
Other than that, it was a very nice day weatherwise and I took advantage with some yardwork and a couple mile+ walks. I deadheaded my tulip plants. It's a shame they don't last longer. Now I have to look forward to my roses blooming in June and the daylilies in July. I've kind of lost interest in vegetable gardening, but maybe I'll put in a couple tomato and pepper plants. I haven't decided yet.
I got 4 QSOs this evening, 1 DX, 1 POTA, 2 regular QSOs to stretch the streak another day. I passed the 10,500 DAY mark a couple days ago. I put the DAY in caps because every once in a while I run into someone who says something like congrats on the ##### QSOs in your streak. It's not QSOs, but DAYs. In the 10,500+ days, I've made a little under 75,000 QRP/CW/simple wire antenna QSOs. -30-
Thu May 4 7:51PM - Almost time to head to the shack to get my streak QSO(s). It was a pretty good day today as far as weather goes. Still cold for May, but good enought for 2 separate 1+ mile walks outside. Other than that, not much else to talk about. Just an ordinary collection of the usual chores. Maybe something interessting will happen when I'm on the air in a few minutes now. If so, I'll add a P.S. to this entry later. -30-
Wed May 3 5:23PM - I just finished getting my April weather data into my weather spreadsheet so I thought I'd write about it today here in the diary since many of you say you enjoy my weather entries.
It was a warmer than normal month as many months have been of late, although not by much. The departures from normal for the min, max, and mean were +2.4, +3.9, and +3.2. It was dry with 2 inches below the normal of about 3.5 inches of precipitation.
There were very few monthly all time records. These get tricky to say, but we did set a record high lowest daily minimum of 42, tying April 1998. Also there were no days with a high of 32 or less, no days with a high of 90 or more, no days with a low of zero or lower, no days with 1" of precipation or more. All of those tied several other Aprils over the years.
There were 3 daily record high temperature records set, 87 on the 5th, 85 on the 13th, and 89 on the 14th. The all time high in April was 92 four times in 1976 (twice), 1986, and 1990. Three times a high daily mean was set at 68 on the 5th, 14th, and 15th. All in all, it was close to a typical April with cold spells and warm spells sort of cancelling each other out. -30-
Tue May 2 8:48PM - I did a lot of end of the month stuff today a couple days late because of the Requin trip and some other things. I got all the EOM bills paid. I also uploaded my April QSOs to eQSL. About all that is left is to put the April weather info into my weather spreadsheet. I'll save that till tomorrow.
It was a rainy, cold day today and I only got out to the PO to mail the checks for the bills. I see the high on my remote wx unit was only 47. Brrrrr! It is supposed to gradually improve over the next several days now and feel more like May by the weekend. I can't wait.
The bands were up and down tonight. They looked almost dead for a little while then suddenly activity picked up and I got a couple easy QSOs for the streak. -30-
Mon May 1 5:47PM - We just got home from the Requin a little while ago. Mike headed right to Brookville, and Ken hung around at the Science Center after we left the Requin. It was a great day, fellowship wise, even though band conditions weren't all that good and we only made 10 QSOs as follows: 40M - 4, 30M - 2, 20M - 4 plus a couple that were wiped out by QSB or QRM before we exchanged enough info for a good QSO. States worked were: OR NJ AR FL LA PA NC NC TN NY. Ken seems to fit in very well with Mike, me, and Art so hopefully he'll be joining us again on the Requin. There were a lot of school kids on the tours today, some were talkative, some shy, and some had nothing to say, but did wave. Still others just walked by the radio room door. Kind of like any typical groups of school kids.
Here are a couple pictures of the ops taking time to look at the camera.
L-Mike, R-Ken.
L-Mike, R-John.
All in all a very good day enjoyed by all. -30-
Sun Apr 30 7:34PM - The SST Sprint will take quick care of my streak tonight. Or at least it should barring a complete shutdown of
propagation which is very unlikely.
I got a lot of little things accomplished today. I did some work on a couple house plants. I shaved and cut my hair. I did some house cleaning. Also a couple other things I'm sure I'm forgetting. I should have been doing my end of month duties, but I decided to put them off a couple days since tomorrow I'll be going on the subpedition with Mike and Ken. Then Tuesday it's a shopping trip to Walmart to stock up on food and treats for Roscoe and maybe some things for me. After that things should calm down and I can concentrate on the end / first of the month things.
It was a decent day today with some lite showers, most of which missed us to our west and east leaving a pretty much dry corridor over Kittanning. As I say when that happens, we had our shields working good today.
Hope to work you from the Requin tomorrow. See last night's diary entry for details. Now getting close to streak time. -30-
Sat Apr 29 8:56AM - Just wanted to notify you early about a change of plans for our subpedition to the Requin. Art called Mike last night and said his Requin schedule was changed. He can't be there on Wednesday, so he and Mike decided on Monday, May 1st instead. Here are the plans for Monday. We'll try to sign on as soon as we can after 1400Z and spend until 1430Z on 40, then a half hour on 30, then a half hour on 20, and back to 40 again and repeat that half hour rotation for as long as we stay there, probably until around 1800Z depending on the amount of activity. Frequencies somewhere around 7041, 10117, and 14061 depending on QRM. Hope we can hook up. Ken N3AFS will join us on the sub this time. His first time on the sub. For those who are new to our subpeditions, we use the sub call of NY3EC and run 100W. The reason for the QRO power is that these are events to promote the Requin for the Carnegie Science Center and not a QRP promotion. With 100W we get a couple S units stronger signal to hopefully work more stations. If you're curious, I do not count QSOs I make on the sub as K3WWP QSOs, but NY3EC QSOs in a completely different log, so K3WWP remains a 100% QRP/CW station. -30-
Fri Apr 28 7:33PM - Today lived up to the description for April - April showers. It rained pretty much all day today. I never did get in any good outdoor walks. Every time I took Roscoe out, it rained. It never rained hard, just a constant nuisance rain.
As I said, next Wednesday we'll be going to the Requin for a subpedition. Of course, we includes Mike and me, but we'll also have a new 3rd member making his first ever trip to the Requin. It's Ken N3AFS from New Kensington. I talked to him on the phone to elaborate on some instructions I emailed to him earlier. I think he'll be a good addition to our little group. It's a shame there's really not room enough in the radio room of the Requin for more than three people. We have some more hams interested in joining us on the Requin some time, but Mike and I can only take one at a time. Also since Mike is working again, that cuts down on the number of subpeditions we can do just a little. More details on the operation sometime before Wednesday here in the diary.
About fifteen minutes till streak time so I'll close this diary entry now barring anything out of the ordinary I encounter while getting the streak taken care of.
Well, it isn't Earthshaking, but it is out of the ordinary. I worked two Manitoba stations back to back for my streak QSOs tonight. VA4ADM and VE4QP both on 20 meters. I've probably never done that before unless it might have been in a contest. I'm pretty sure it wasn't in regular non-contest operation. -30-
Thu Apr 27 7:53PM - As the time stamp indicates, it's just a few minutes before streak time at 0000Z. I'm hoping for a couple easy QSOs tonight.
A very nice April day today. I took a couple good outdoors walks, both over one mile in length. It's good I got them, because the next several days have the potential for a lot of rain. Well, maybe not a lot, but some rain predicted for each day thru next Thursday.
Mike has scheduled a subpedition to the Requin for next Wednesday. We're looking for another WPA ham to join us like Al N2MA did for our last subpedition. There are a couple who've expressed interest. I've got a feeler out to one, but haven't heard anything back from him yet. I may have to try a second one.
OK, shack time now. I'll finish later.
I'm back with another day added to the streak and 4 QSOs added to my log. But I couldn't get W1AW/2 for VOTA. Heard on 20, but just too weak to work. I'd say about an honest S2 at best and pretty much lost in the QSB and QRN. At least there is a NJ VOTA on CW, so there is hope. It is really going to be rough to get all 50 states this year unless the second round later this year is better. 2 of the QSOs were POTAs. I'm getting quite a collection of POTA QSOs without trying all that hard, just working them as I hear them, not really hunting them. -30-
Wed Apr 26 8:45PM - The VOTA stations seem to have come out of hibernation or wherever they were. At least I heard and worked one tonight, the first in a couple weeks now. Hope they will be more active on CW from now on. Thanks to whoever was the op in NH tonite.
Only a couple out of the ordinary events today. I went for a ride with Bruce and his brother to Butler. They both had some business there and asked if I wanted to ride along for a change of pace in my daily routine. I did, and it was nice to do something different. The other event was the arrival of Mike's birthday present in the mail. I'll talk a bit about it in future, but now it's going to be a secret to him, and he reads the diary regularly so I can't be specific about it here.
It was a nice weather day, but I didn't get in much walking due to the trip. I have closed all three of my Apple watch activity rings though. I may try to add some more miles inside here before bed time at midnight. -30-
Tue Apr 25 7:56PM - Just a couple minutes till shack time. I thought I'd save a little time and at least get the heading done for this entry.
Unless something exciting happens on the bands, there is really not much to write about today anyway.
Well, I'm back after a little over an hour. I worked a quick DX QSO in CT9/UR9IDX on 20 meters, then called CQ on 30 meters and wound up with an amazing, interesting QSO when AA4OO in NC answered me. It was a 2XQRP QSO that lasted 37 minutes at 579. Copy was solid both ways all that time like it could just as well have been a 2XKW QSO. NO QSB at all the total time. Probably could still be going except he had to pay some attention to the XYL. That's a problem I don't have here. HI. I can't recall a similar rock solid 2XQRP QSO I've had that lasted that long, at least not for a very long time if so. Yes, QRP does work, and work well with a little help from propagation. -30-
Mon Apr 24 8:25PM - The way things have been going this year, when I turned on the rig tonight and heard the horrible conditions from the geomagnetic storminess, I thought maybe it was going to be the end of the streak. However to paraphrase Mark Twain, who said the rumor of his death was greatly exaggerated, it only took 16 minutes to ensure the streak is still alive and well. Many thanks to easy QSOs with VP9KF on 40 and KZ5D on 30. Whew!!
Space weather was "severe" today. That phrase is very seldom used in reporting space weather. The numbers right now aren't all that bad with a SF of 134 and A-index of 76. I've seen them a lot worse and they could have been just that at the peak of the storm sometime last night. I may research that a bit and report on it tomorrow night. I did hear that there were spectacular auroral displays last night here in PA and that doesn't happen too often.
I did some more work on updating the web site today. Mainly my contesting "Honor Roll". I updated the totals for contest QSOs the past 14 months or so. Only one major correction along with the updates. Somehow I shortchanged N4BP some 23 QSOs. I had to check that a few times to be sure and still don't know how I made that big an error. Oh well, I think it is correct now. I also did a bit of changing on my QRP Contesting Tips page. -30-
Sun Apr 23 8:36PM - Of course being Sunday evening that meant two quick streak QSOs in the SST Sprint. Tonight it was two long-time regulars in the sprint, N7US and WA3AAN.
Another day pretty much like yesterday with not much going on. More walking today though. My Apple watch shows 9.65 miles from 24,658 steps. Maybe I'll cross the 10 mile and 25,000 steps barrier before the day is over.
I worked a little more on getting the web site up to date. Today it was the Contesting section. Still have more work to do on it. A lot of the info there is still good and current, but there were some things out of date, and probably some more yet to be fixed. -30-
Sat Apr 22 9:12PM - A late entry tonight but it doesn't really matter since nothing much was going on today besides the usual. I do go on a shopping trip to get stocked up a bit on groceries.
Two rag chews this evening ate up about an hour on the bands. They were enjoyable with two hams I worked a few times before, AA4MC and VE3WH. And that's a wrap, as they say. -30-
Fri Apr 21 7:14PM - The last day of the current summer weather. No more abnormally warm weather for at least a couple weeks after a warm night tonight. At least according to Penn State, and they are usually right on the money as one of the top meteorological schools in the nation. So I enjoyed today with some walking and porch sitting. Also I had an outside project to take care of. Last night when I opened the door to my thermometer shelter, one of the hinges came loose as the screws holding it on broke off from rusting. So I had to go through my stockpile of parts in the basement to find a proper size hinge and screws which I did. I charged up the battery for my portable drill, and mounted the replacement hinge late this morning. The whole project only took maybe 20 minutes and now the door should be good for a good many more years now.
That's pretty much the story of the day, leaving out the always present daily chores. What's left now is getting my streak QSOs and walking Roscoe. -30-
Thu Apr 20 7:17PM - Let's see, what happened today worth writing about. Really not much. We jumped back to summer, weatherwise, with a high in the low to mid 80s. It didn't really feel that warm as the humidity went down again. If fact there was a brush fire risk for most of West PA. There wasn't much of a breeze though. If one would start, it could probably be easily contained. Tomorrow should be about the same although it looks like the humidity will be a little higher in conjunction with an approaching storm and cold front tomorrow night. That's the K3WWP weather opinion for now.
I did get in a couple good outside walks and sat in the park for a while today. I might go for another one either before or after I get my streak taken care of. Maybe I'll hear the ND VOTA station. I heard them last night, but I kept losing out to other stations in his pileup.
I continued with some web site updates today. I now have all the sub-pages in the HOME section taken care of. Nothing real major like the pictures update yesterday though.
OK, think I will go for a short walk since it's still a half hour till streak time. -30-
Wed Apr 19 7:24PM - Well, the weather has been up and down, so I'll make my starting times of the diary up and down to match. It was just about a perfect April day today after a cool start at 31 degrees, it warmed up to 63 by mid-late afternoon. I just finished two separate outside walks of 1.13 and 1.02 miles. That brings me to a total of 8.03 miles for the day according to my Apple watch.
Walking wasn't the only thing I did today. I also cleaned up my yard a bit picking grass and weeds out of the brick sidewalk while my neighbor ran the lawnmorer.
The big ham radio project today though was updating the picture of my station. You can see that via the Pictures link in the navigation bar above. It was almost 9 years since I last updated the picture. There are a few changes, but outside of those changes, the station remained pretty much the same for those 9 years. I plan to go through the web site over the next month or so to look for other needed updates. You're welcome to email me with any suggestions. -30-
Tue Apr 18 8:26PM - An interesting day today. We slipped back a few weeks as far as weather goes. We barely made it into the 40s today late this afternoon after being in the 30s most of the day. But in a couple days it will be in the 80s in this up and down elevator or roller coaster weather we're having this year so far.
I did manage a 1.11 mile outside walk this afternoon after it "warmed" up. Other than that it was mostly an indoors day except for the Roscoe walks.
I did a little more updating on some web site pages today. I found some really outdated material here and there.
I got some fairly easy QSOs this evening from VE2PID/W8, NA4A, and KA4SCV even though the bands weren't too good. This also closed out another VOTA week as their week runs from Wed-Tue. I didn't hear a trace of NC or MA. I wonder if I'll find the ND and/or NV stations this new week now? It's been a rough go with VOTA unlike the ARRL Centennial a few years ago or the 13 Colonies each year. Both those events were easy to complete. Maybe the tide will turn. -30-
Mon Apr 17 8:41PM - I think every piece of electronic equipment has had some kind of glitch so far this year. Fortunately except for the major computer crash a couple months ago, everything has been pretty minor. I'm not going into any details. I just wanted to say that as sort of a complaint to myself.
A nice day for walking and I got in three outside walks including a trip to the Post Office and Family Dollar. There were a few very light showers that were no problem.
World Amateur Radio Day (WARD) provided me with three Canadian QSOs this evening, VA2RAC, VA3RHQ, and VE9RAC. I also added an Italian station (IC8JOH) to the mix.
Waiting now for my last two chores of the day, getting my weather readings and walking Roscoe. Not really chores since I enjoy doing both things, and chores has the connotation of being something a little unpleasant at least. HI. -30-
Sun Apr 16 4:06PM - Wow, that's early. I have a very long diary entry today and I'm going to be busy this evening. My neighbor and I are going to watch "Casablanca" right after I get my streak QSOs from the SST sprint at 0000Z. Here goes.
My tulips have pretty much all flowered now. For some reason, there are only about half the number of flowers as usual. Something to do with the weather as I talked about a few entries ago.
If the old saying is true that a picture is worth a 1,000 words, this concludes a diary entry that is about 1,100 words long. -30-
Sat Apr 15 8:26PM - A couple of QSO Parties gave me 2 quick QSOs this evening. ON from VA3FN and MI from N8LC. Then I looked around for anything interesting in the way of DX or a VOTA station. Only heard a Norwegian on 30, very weak and he gave me? a ?, and never got any further. So I shut down to come update the web site.
It was a little cooler today around 80 so I went for a couple mile long walks including a stop at Family Dollar for some grub. I also enjoyed the weather sitting on the porch a few times. Not much else going on. Oh, all my tulips have flowered now. I'll try to get a picture tomorrow and post it. -30-
Fri Apr 14 8:35PM - Not much going on today. Just a few routine chores. I didn't even go for an outside walk today. I did all my walking inside for no particular reason. It was rather hot with a high in the upper 80s which I guess discouraged me from going outside for a long walk. I did take Roscoe out for a couple of his walks and will take him for the last walk of the day at 9:30. I did sit on the porch for quite a while a couple times.
The bands seemed a bit off this evening and also not a lot of activity but I got my streak QSOs quite easily. A short rag chew with N1PVP on 40 and a POTA QSO on 17. -30-
Thu Apr 13 9:12PM - Yes, late again. 1 special event station, 1 DX station, and 1 half hour rag chew added up to about an hour of air time.
Not much going on to talk about anyway, so it doesn't matter, I guess. I did a little tweaking of a couple settings on my watch and phone that had been bugging me. I took a couple walks although it was pretty hot going. I made about a mile and a half outside and the rest of my 7 miles or so inside. Some sitting on the porch and other little chores, etc. filled out the day up to this point so far. -30-
Wed Apr 12 8:36PM - Hey, same time as last night's entry. I got a few things accomplished today. I got the grass cut in the back yard for the first time this year. While doing so, I noticed the tulips are not making much progress toward flowering. The buds are starting to show a little, but very little red color to them. I think this is the latest they've ever matured. It's been very dry here. Perhaps that has an effect. Or the warm weather during the winter and early spring. Maybe that encouraged them to produce an inordinately large amount of foliage without the associated flowers. I just don't know.
It felt really like summer today. I started out on a long walk, but cut it short because of the heat. I came home and sat on the porch instead.
I posted the pictures of the reconfigured end section of my random wire antenna and modified the description a bit. Check the Antennas page in my HOMEBREWING section of the web site. There you'll see a link to the pictures on Microsoft's One Drive site.
This was also my day for my box of food from the Seniors Food Bank. They always have a nice selection of canned goods, pasta, cereal and other goodies. Today was no exception.
The bands were good, if not great this evening, and I had no trouble getting a quick rag chew from AD4YB on 30 meters that lasted 18 minutes followed by a quick short POTA QSO from AE4GS on 20 meters. No sign of either of the VOTA activity stations from MA and NC though. -30-
Tue Apr 11 8:36PM - Just about on the average diary time tonight, not late nor early. HI. One project today and a lot of other piddling fooling around things to pass the time.
A few diary entries ago, I mentioned I adjusted the short end of my attic random wire that jutted out into the back yard. In the few days now I've used it that way, I like it, so I made it permanent today. I took some pictures, but it turns out the antenna doesn't show up well at all now that it is right against the brick wall of the house. So the back end is similar to the front end now where it goes from my shack to the attic. I may try to edit the pictures and change the ones on the antenna page in my homebrew section. We'll see.
I never did get the VOTA PA station last week so PA will have to wait till the second half of the year. I didn't hear either of the two new states tonight yet either, NC and MA. Hopefully they will be easier than PA. I did get a POTA QSO for my streak tonight along with a rag chew and a NAQCC sprint QSO. Got to go upload my report now to the NAQCC web site, then get my weather data. -30-
Mon Apr 10 7:42PM - Just arrived home from a long walk, about 1.6 miles or so. I didn't start the timer till after I had gone a while. It shows 1.54 miles right now, so it's somewhere in the 1.60s, I'm sure. And I don't even feel tired. I'm ready to go another mile, but I can't now because it's closing in on 0000Z.
I was on late last nite in the 0400Z hour, mainly looking for the PA VOTA station(s), but didn't find any. I did work some DX though including LZ2PP and LZ20ANT plus one other I can't recall now. Let me look. Oh yes, EA6NB. The Balearic station was on 40, the Bulgarians on 30. All were easy QSOs. I think the Bulgarians were copying me easier than I copied them.
I listened a little this afternoon, but still no PA VOTA station. I've been hearing the OR VOTA station a lot. Maybe this evening for PA.
As you can guess from the long walk, the weather was pretty much ideal for walking today. I had an earlier 1 mile or so walk also. It's supposed to be nice for the next 7 days or so also.
I mentioned about QSL cards in last evening's entry. Well, I got still another card in the mail today. I hope they keep coming. I like QSL cards. It's too bad they are so expensive to send these days.
Another topic to follow up on is my tulips. Finally the flower buds are developing and should be opening some time this week. I'll try to add some pictures here when they do. I also took a bunch of spring foliage pictures on my walk tonight. I'll sort them out and see if any are worth posting. Most were the plain white blossoms. I guess the pink and other colors are yet to come or else I missed them. -30-
Sun Apr 9 9:15PM - Here I am late again. I had a little trouble with my La Crosse remote weather unit. I had to take some time fooling with it, and now it's fine, I think, but I'm late.
I hope you all had a nice Easter today. It was quiet here as usual, but I did have a nice meal with Bruce (and Roscoe of course) late this afternoon. The weather was nice, but I didn't get out much as I was doing things inside mostly. That's about it for this entry. Hope there's more to write about tomorrow. -30-
Sat Apr 8 7:47PM - A busy day today in which I got a lot accomplished. Early this morning, Bruce and I went shopping. I picked up a couple bottles of Vitamins that I was running low on. I also got a bottle of pre-shave lotion. Then after a lot of procrastination, I finally got around to doing my federal and state income taxes. I did them with Intuit Turbo Tax on the Internet. After a bit of updating for it to work on the new computer, everything went smoothly and quickly and both forms submissions have already been approved by the federal and state governments. If you haven't done your taxes yet, I'd strongly recommend giving Turbo Tax a shot. You won't regret it.
To top things off, I also submitted my Real Estate Tax Rebate forms. That was done the old fashioned way submitting paper forms via regular mail.
The weather was nice again today, and I took advantage with a couple nice walks.
I wonder if paper QSLs are becoming popular again. I've received a few in the mail lately. Not an avalanche of them, but enough to be more than I had been receiving over the past few years now. We'll see what develops.
Off to the shack now. Still looking for the VOTA station from PA. I got the OR one last evening. If anything out of the ordinary happens on the bands, I'll add a PS here. If not that's it for this entry. -30-
Fri Apr 7 7:37PM - A somewhat boring day today. I did do some web site work however to pass some time. I modified the streak comment section of my home page to reflect my beginning a 2+ QSO streak on January 5 this year by adding a second QSO each day of the regular streak. I also updated the QRP Honor Roll page in the QRP section of the web site by updating the number of QSOs I have with each station on the list. It was easy to do by simply checking the stations that have QSO numbers of 50 or greater since the last update back on November 18. I only worked 9 stations on the list since then, and most had just a couple more QSOs except W1AW which had around 20 or so because of the VOTA activity this year. They are now a solid second on the list with 268 QSOs behind my friend and ex-next door neighbor Eric, KB3BFQ with 363.
Oh, I also noted K4UK as being a SK on the list. I try to update the SKs as soon as I am aware of the fact, but I missed Stan when he passed away several years ago.
A cool day today with a high of 53 on the remote unit next to me here at the computer. I did get in a couple of fairly long walks though.
Almost time now to head to the shack and get my streak QSOs and look for VOTA stations from PA and OR. -30-
Thu Apr 6 8:55PM - I had three mid length rag chews tonite so I'm late doing the web site updates again. Really not much to talk about today anyway. It was an average early April day with temperature in the low 50s or high 40s most of the day but without much in the way of April showers. Mostly just some drizzle that dampened the ground. As an aside, I'm disappointed in my tulips this year. They don't have any flower buds yet, or at least any prominent ones. I guess their early sprouting in our "non-winter" may have something to do with that. They have very big leaves, bigger than normal. Maybe they used up their energy in producing the leaves with little left for flowers. Well, they may still produce flowers, but not in time for Easter like most other years. 9:00 now. Time for the weather readings. BTW, my official high yesterday turned out to be exactly 86.5 degrees which I logged as 87. I think that's the third earliest time in a year we had a reading that high. Once in late March 2012 and one earlier in April once before. -30-
Wed Apr 5 7:54PM - Hope to get the diary started a little before 0000Z tonight and then finish it after I get my streak QSOs in the log. Kim Mulkey. How many of you know that name? We'll talk about it after I return following the streak. No fair cheating and looking it up on the Internet.
Otherwise today, it was a record setter with a high temperature of 86 degrees on my La Crosse remote weather unit. The old record was 80 back in 1985 and another year or two. We may pay for it tonight with a chance of severe thunderstorms brought on by the heating and a coming cold front.
I also did some financial paperwork today. Now it's off to the shack, then back with more. Hopefully I'll get a couple quick QSOs so I can talk about Kim for a while.
OK, got two quick QSOs, so now who is Kim Mulkey? Of course, Kim can be both a male and female name. This one is female. Those of you who follow women's basketball should know exactly who I'm talking about. She has had and continues to have a remarkable career in basketball. Her main achievements in basketball came in the college game, not in the pro sport. She is the only person, male or female who has won a national championship as a player, assistant coach, and head coach. This year she became the first woman to coach two different teams to a national championship when she led LSU over Iowa handily. I first came to know of Kim when she played point guard for Louisiana Tech back around 1980. It was a delight to watch her lead her team up the court as a point guard. I still think she is the best point guard I've ever seen to this day, man or woman. As a player, she took LA Tech to the AIAW title in 1981, then in the first year of the women's NCAA tournament the next year, it was another championship. After her playing days, she became assistan coach at LA Tech, followed by associate head coach. In that span, LA Tech posted a 450-68 record going to seven Final Fours and winning one championship. Next she moved on to head coach at Baylor. Titles followed at Baylor. This story could go on and on if I covered all that this remarkable woman has achieved in basketball. If I've whetted your appetite to know more, I refer you to her Wikipedia article. I'll close here by saying she savored her return to the state of Louisiana to coach at LSU, and in only her second year at LSU, winning the national championship. An amazing woman. -30-
Tue Apr 4 9:09PM - Yes, late agn. About an hour worth of CW from two QSOs the main cause followed by my weather readings before getting to the diary here.
It was a very nice day again today with a high of 74. So I did some yard work. I cut the dead branches off my rose bushes and got things all trimmed back to the places where the new branches are starting to come out. I also removed some of the mulch from the bushes and part of the edge of the yard where I may plant some vegetables, or maybe not. What else did I do? Oh yes, I put the screens in my front door to get some fresh air into the house. I'm not going to do the windows yet. I may just do them for a while before we get into AC season, then seal them up again somewhat. Not much walking today as the other things took up the time normally allocated to that. Supposed to be in the low 80s tomorrow with some rain, so maybe it will be inside work and walking then. -30-
Mon Apr 3 7:55PM - Just back from a short (about .75 mile) walk and getting ready to go up to the shack and etend the streak another day into another year. I made it a point to get on the air this afternoon to make a QSO definitely on the 60th anniversary of the start of my ham career. Be back to finish the entry shortly.
I'm baaack! I had a couple of rag chew type QSOs this evening for a change. Most evenings lately it's been VOTA, POTA, SST, and Contest type QSOs. Tonite an 18 min and a 7 minute QSO.
So one way or other I still wind up running a little late. Let's see. Today I did a little more financial business. I also uploaded my March QSOs to eQSL. Sorry for those awaiting a LoTW verie. LoTW just won't run on Windows 11 S. I may have to go from S to regular Windows 11. There are a few other programs that won't run on S, so I'm pretty sure one day soon I'll make the change.
A nice weather day today and I got in three or so good outdoor walks to the bank and Family Dollar for a little shopping as well. Now it's almost 9 o'clock and time for my weather readings, so very 73. -30-
Sun Apr 2 8:08PM - April 3, tomorrow is a significant date in my life. On April 3, 1963, a license was issued to a Novice Ham Radio operator with the call of KN3WWP as shown here:
I didn't get the license on that date, but it does mean that 60 years ago tomorrow, I became a licensed Amateur Radio operator. Whew, that's a long long time ago. Because of the mail delivery delay, school, and other things, I didn't make my first QSO until April 8 when I worked my friend Larry here in town, KN3WWW. Yes, I've mentioned this before. We took our Novice test together administered by Red, W3CYG here in town. Unfortunately, Larry did not live a very long life. I lost track of him after he moved out of town, and I learned from his son a few years ago that he had passed away at age 29 in an accident.
My second QSO the next day was with Larry also. Then a delay for school, and the next QSO was on the 21st with another Kittanning ham, Art K3HGD. Finally on the 22nd, my signals made it out of town and state to Wisconsin and John WN9GAR. Things went slowly as I was learning the ropes for a while. Then around May 10, more and more QSOs started showing up in my log. I'll mention just one more. Frank W9RQF in Chicago. Frank was one of those hams a lot of us can be thankful for. He spent a lot of time in the Novice bands working and encouraging newcomers to the hobby.
SIXTY Years!! Maybe 60,000 memories thanks to ham radio. Still making them nowadays also. I owe a lot of it to a BCB receiver on which I listened mostly to KDKA and Party Line. Then one night I tuned away from 1020 and ran across WHO in Des Moines, Iowa on 1040. Wow! I didn't know you could hear radio signals from that far away. Amazing! The interest in radio was born then and there.
Briefly now, or I'll go on all night. I fooled around with the radio, trying to get even more distant reception. One thing I did for no reason then was hook a long piece of wire to this metal thing that the knob turned when you changed frequency. Of course the tuning capacitor or condenser. Apparently that changed the oscillator frequency as I must have connected the wire to the oscillator section of the capacitor. Anyway I started hearing SW BC stations from overseas. One of the first one was Radio Switzerland or the Swiss Broadcasting Company. I forget now just exactly what they called themselves then. It became a favorite SW station. Jumping ahead now, I heard these people talking to each other with strange call letters. One being the aforementioned W3CYG. Somehow, perhaps as a science project, I got connected with Larry to try to build a radio receiver. He told me about ham radio and said he was going to get his Amateur License. We talked more and more about it and I decided I would like to get a License also. The rest is more history. We took our tests as mentioned above. I'll stop here for now.
Changing course somewhat. I logged all my LoTW matches from the past couple months today. I still am not setup to upload to LoTW, but I may upload to eQSL tomorrow. Otherwise today I finished some first of the month things. I took advantage of the weather and took 3 good walks. Finally I'm here now typing away after using the SST Sprint to get my two streak QSOs. -30-
Sat Apr 1 7:26PM - We made it through most of the storm today in good shape. I say most of, because some forecasts still have some fair strength winds in them. It doesn't look like much to me. We had the worst of the wind around 2PM local time. As a very rough estimate, I would say the wind gusted somewhere in the mid-upper 40 MPH range. No damage seen around here. Just one thing of note. My garbage can somehow got blown out of the loop of wire holding it to the front porch and blew back between the houses. Fortunately it has a very secure lid (so secure the garbage men have trouble opening it when they collect the garbage) and nothing came out on it's trip. Also some twigs were blowing around but I didn't see any big branches. But then I didn't go for a walk to see if there was damage elsewhere.
I'm following the FAU / San Diego St. game as I type. FAU has held a pretty steady lead of 5-10 points during the time I've been watching. Maybe we'll make history with a #9 seed in the final, but still 15 minutes to go. FAU just took a 12 point lead.
Getting close to time to head to my shack for the streak QSOs, so 73 for now. -30-
Fri Mar 31 8:31PM - A pretty good day at the Requin today. I say pretty good because everything was good except the activity was slow. It took about an hour to get our first QSO, and things picked up only a little after that. We managed I think it was 14 QSOs in around 10 or so states plus Ontario. The good part was meeting and working with a new op who joined us today, N2MA Al from Mars PA. Also it is always nice to see again the folks from the sub whom we hadn't seen since the day before Thanksgiving last year, especially Art. However Art was busy with a few school tours and we didn't get to spend all that much time chatting with him. We stuck it out until around 1:40PM, then headed home, Al to Mars, and Mike and I to Kittanning where we had our fourth Lenten Fish Dinner this year.
I'm battening down for the winds tonight through tomorrow night. I took all the things off my front porch, the wind chimes and furniture. I also changed the part of my attic random wire that sticks out into the back yard, putting it back a little closer to the wall of the house. It made the SWR a tad higher, but only like 1.2 to 1.3:1. I checked it out and it still works fine. I worked W1AW/7 and CT9/UR9IDX. In adjusting it, I noticed some of the insulation was drying out and cracking a bit. So when the weather settles down hopefully in a couple weeks, I think I'll replace the old wire with some new (or newer) wire.
Now time to get some end of month / first of month work started. -30-
Thu Mar 30 6:21PM - An early entry tonight. Just some routine things here today. Some spring cleaning, I guess you could call it. Some walks and shopping since the weather was pretty nice after a cold start to the day.
Looking out for some high winds over the next couple of days. The various weather forecasting services disagree on MPH figures from gusts in the mid 40s up to the mid 50s or perhaps a little higher. Let's just hope there is no significant damage or injuries. Not too much rain with the wind at least, so probably no flooding. We'll just wait and see what happens.
Almost forgot to mention our subpedition to the Requin tomorrow. It kind of snuck up on me fast here. HI. I didn't talk specifics with Mike, but I figure we'll try to sign on around 1400Z and spend a half hour on 40, then a half hour on 30, then a half hour on 20, and repeat that cycle for as long as we stay there. Frequencies somewhere around 7041, 10117, and 14061 depending on QRM. Hope we can hook up. Al N2MA will join Mike and me on the sub this time. -30-
Wed Mar 29 8:34PM - There seems to be a change in the W1AW VOTA schedule. I worked MS tonite and then checked the official schedule since it seems to be different from mine.
MS changes from the week of 5/3 to 3/29
AK from 3/15 to 5/3
IA from 3/29 to 5/3
All the rest are the same as a schedule I printed out here a month or two ago.
The bands are really active tonight all the way up through 15 meters.
I also got on this afternoon for a while and got a nice new prefix from OL750HOL on 17 and a POTA from AG4JT on 30. This evening it was HC2AO on 20 after not getting him on 15 earlier. I haven't worked Alex in a long time now. Then the aforementioned W1AW/5 on 20 and also a rag chew with K9UCX on 20.
Otherwise a couple walks and shopping trips around some rain showers took up some time. -30-
Tue Mar 28 8:45PM - A bit late again so I'll strictly stick with my experiences on the bands the past 45 minutes. I got started right at 0000Z and it didn't take long to see a pileup on 30 meters. From the strength of the station and the operating pattern, I deduced it might be CY0S. The pileup didn't seem quite as awesome as the ones on 17 and 15 a few days ago. I figured out where he was listening on the panadapter and set out to call him even though I already have Sable Island on 30 from a QSO several years ago, but he could be my streak QSO. After a few calls he finally came back to me easily. OK, now to look around for the second streak QSO. I tried some CQs on 30 with no luck, but then a station came on right next to where I was. He was weak, but easy to copy. It was D2EB in Angola. He was split also. I set up to call him, but he wasn't hearing me at all. Since I do have D2, I gave up and moved on. Lo and behold I found another DX station 9X5RU. That would be an overall new country if I could get him so I set up again, figured where he was listening, and called, and called, and called, and ca......, but no luck at all. He wasn't hearing me at all because he was calling unanswered CQs in between working stations. Oh well, my life isn't going to change if I don't work him, so I moved on to look for W1AW stations. I found W1AW/1 in VT on 20, but very very weak so I didn't even bother to try him, and moved on to 40 where I again found W1AW/1 in VT. I called and got him on the first try or the first try plus a repeat. I wondered if there were any other W1AW/# stations around. Yes, I found W1AW/4 in TN and worked him on 40, but I already had TN on 40 and I believe, but not sure, he should have ended his week at 0000Z tonight? Anyway for a finale, I then worked AB9CA in a POTA activation on 40. An interesting evening, and I'll close the entry here and take care of my weather readings now. -30-
Mon Mar 27 5:37PM - An early entry tonight simply because I have nothing else to do at the moment. HI.
I checked my records on my March Madness Excel Spreadsheet, and this is definitely the first year going back to the start of 64 team tournaments in 1985 that there hasn't been a #1, #2, or #3 seed make it to the final four. Is equality coming to college basketball or this just a fluke this year. I guess the upcoming years will shed more light on that.
I had another one of those big visitor numbers on my web site today. That usually means someone posted my site somewhere or it was mentioned somewhere, somehow. Anyone shed any info on that? I got a guestbook entry from someone today saying he just became aware of my site today after many years of hamming, but he didn't say where he found out about it. Anyway thanks to whoever gave me the publicity. I always like to make more people aware of CW/QRP/simple wire antennas and how successful that combo can be on the bands. -30-
Sun Mar 26 8:11PM - Of course with the SST Sprint my streak QSOs came quickly before 0002Z. That leaves me some time to write the diary entry. Unfortunately nothing much happened today to write about. HI
Being Sunday, I did my laundry first thing this morning. I read my usual comic strips, around 30 of them. When I was a kid, I never dreamed that I would be reading them any other way than in the Sunday paper. How times have changed. Unfortunately a lot of the comics I read as a kid are gone now, but amazingly, some 70 years later, a lot of them are still around. To name a few: Nancy, The Little King, Popeye, Peanuts, Blondie, Beetle Bailey. Actually there are really a lot more besides those as well. So I'll stop the list there.
I took several walks outside today and have a total of 8.06 miles from 20,613 steps so far. I'll add to that here in the house before going to bed at midnight.
One other thing I did today was to get my little WinKey keyer ready for use on Friday when we go to the Requin. That will save some wear and tear on our Fists calling CQ over and over again.
We're all set for the Final Four next weekend with FAU vs. San Diego St and UConn vs. Miami. Not a #1 or #2 seed among them. Nor a #3 either for that matter. There's a #4, 2 #5s and a #9 to decide things this year. I know this is the second year there is no #1 in the Final Four. I think I'll check to see if there was ever a year that didn't have a #1, #2, or #3. Not right now though. Maybe it was mentioned on TV. If so and you heard it, let me know. -30-
Sat Mar 25 8:40PM - Not too late tonite. HI. As of yet, haven't been blown away by the wind, and still have power as we sit here in 30 MPH winds with gusts that must be approaching 50 MPH at times. It's dry though. I guess that's good.
I see we just had another upset in MM with FAU (9) knocking out Kansas St (3). A #9 has never made it all the way. Maybe this year.
The bands seemed a little off this evening, but I did get my two streak QSOs without too much trouble including W1AW/4 in TN to close out this week's selection of VOTA states.
I guess that's it for this entry. Now it's wait and see how we survive the winds. The high wind warning expires at 11PM so if that means anything, only a couple hours to go. -30-
Fri Mar24 7:07PM - I'm early tonight for a change. Mike and I went to a last minute Lenten Fish Dinner. He arrived here around 3PM and that gave us about 90 minutes to fool around till it was time to leave for the dinner. I suggested we check the bands to see if we could find one or two of the W1AW/# VOTA stations. To interrupt myself here, I did work W1AW/5 in NM later last night. Anyway we didn't find any W1AW stations, but we did come across the very popular Sable Island CY0S stations and their huge wide pileups. I put on my pileup skills hat and went after the one on 15 meters. The pileup was at least 7-8 kHz wide. The panadapter came to the rescue. I watched it closely to try to determine which of the peaks belonged to the station CY0S was working at the moment. After several minutes of close observation, I figured out where he was listening by noting the relationship of his peak and another peak up in frequency. I set my transmit frequency to where I figured he was listening, and startd calling there. I figured right as it didn't take long for him to come back with a K3WWP 599. I returned the exchange and had a new band country. I got out of my seat and turned it over to Mike for him to try. I figured he might still be listening on my transmit frequency. However after a couple unsuccessfull minutes, he disappeared with a QSY 10 which we figured meant he was moving to 10 meters. However we didn't find him there.
After another fruitless search for W1AW, we landed up on 17 meters and there was CY0S once again with an identical setup to the one on 15 meters. I applied the same tactics as described above and got my second overall new band country of the day. I immediately turned the seat over to Mike and after a couple minutes he had the pleasure of hearing KC2EGL 599 resulting in what he thinks is an overall new country for him. He'll know when he checks his log in Brookville this evening.
Last night I was going to comment on the VOTA event. It seems to me that there is not as much action, at least on CW, as in the ARRL Centennial Event in 2014 or in the 13 Colonies events every July. I could be wrong and it just might be I am not listening at the right times or on the right bands. As you know I don't use spotting, and just tune the bands to find my stations to work. I always have done things that way. Maybe if I did use spotting, it would be easier, but not as challenging or rewarding, to be sure, so I'll stick with my way even though I might miss out on some things.
Otherwise today, we enjoyed our fish dinner as we did the last couple Fridays. Next Friday we're going to the USS Requin, and depending on timing, maybe we'll have a fourth fish dinner this Lent. Or we might stop at Applebee's or Chili's on the way home. Enough said for tonight. Maybe some March Madness comments tomorrow in the diary. -30-
Thu Mar 23 8:56PM - Yes, 8:56PM. Running late again. I was going to comment on the ARRL VOTA activity, but I'll wait till the next time I'm not running late.
Not much else to comment on for today anyway. It was a rainy day with quite a downpour late this afternoon. I did squeeze in a walk earlier though. This evening, the bands weren't all that good, but I did manage a POTA QSO with NA4A and another short rag chew with KA4SCV. No big or little plans for tomorrow that I know of now. The rain is supposed to stay mostly south of us so I hope to get in a couple good walks. -30-
Wed Mar 22 6:11PM - Going to try to beat the "running late" syndrome today. It was a nice weather day again with a high of....59 I see on the LaCrosse remote reading unit. I took a couple long walks, and also a drive, courtesy of my neighbor Bruce to a Dollar General just east of Kittanning for some shopping. With the next few days predicted to be rainy, I thought I'd stock up a bit on some food items since it looks like I won't be doing much outdoor walking.
We're planning our next subpedition which is now scheduled for Friday the 31st. There will be a couple differences in this one. Mike and I will have a new 3rd partner helping out. He is Al N2MA from Mars, PA, generally halfway between here and Pittsburgh. Also we are going to try to use my external keyer to call CQ for us. Hopefully that will work and save us some effort in calling long strings of unanswered CQs which we usually seem to have for whatever reason. Someone told us that the area where the Requin is moored is in a part of a National Park. We're going to check that out, and if so, it could also be a POTA event. That should keep us busier as the POTA program seems to be very popular nowadays.
I never got KL7 in the VOTA event. I never even heard a peep out of a W1AW/KL7 station. So I'll have to try to get them in the second half of this year. This week so far no luck either. I don't have my check sheet handy, but I think it's TN and one other state this week. I have time so let me check to see what the other state is. OK, it's NM. So if the activity is there, it shouldn't be hard to get those two states. Maybe even later this evening. -30-
Tue Mar 21 9:03PM - Running late again tonight. Took a long time to get my QSOs. Not so bad for the first one, but the second one was very evasive and didn't come till 0042Z. So this will be a short entry. Nothing much going on anyway. The weather was pretty good with a high near 60. Good for sitting in the sun in the park which I did for a while today talking on the phone with my WPIT friend Charlie. I can't really think of much else I did outside of taking some walks. I'm up to about 7.5 miles so far. I did make it over 10 miles yesterday. Oh the subpedition is postponed till March 31, so more info next week. -30-
Mon Mar 20 8:43PM - Nice day today. I'm almost at 10 miles walking for the day. Need about a half mile more. May do that a little later tonight after I finish the web site updates, get my weather readings, etc.
Took a bit of time to get my two QSOs this evening, but I made it with W1AW/7 and XE1XR on 15 meters.
Waiting not to hear from Mike about our subpedition plans this week. Friday not available, so it's either another day or another week. If I don't hear from him soon, I'll have the info in tomorrow's diary. -30-
Sun Mar 19 7:45PM - Not much going on today. Too cold to be outside much. Following March Madness took up most of my time plus the usual Sunday chores like Laundry. I watched most of the Pitt game since that is the closest major team. They came up short against Xavier though so both big PA teams are now out of it. It's almost time now to head to the shack for the streak QSOs which should be easy with the SST Sprint. After I get a couple QSOs there, I may look around for a while to see if anything interesting shows up like W1AW/KL7 to finish out the VOTA stations for this week. Then back to MM for the last Sweet 16 teams to be decided. -30-
Sat Mar 18 8:25PM - Well, as I now know, there was a big upset yesterday with FDU beating Purdue, a 16 seed beating a #1 for only the 2nd time in 148 16-1 matchups since the field was expanded to 64 games in 1985. Also Mike just texted me that #1 Kansas lost to #8 Arkansas a little while ago. I've got to get my web site updating done and catch up on the tournament doings. I've been busy with other things the past couple hours.
The VA QSO Party provided my 2 streak QSOs tonight. Really not much else to talk about so I'll close here. -30-
Fri Mar 17 8:42PM - Happy St. Patrick's Day. Mike and I celebrated with a Lenten Fish Dinner at a local fire hall. Along with that, we did a couple projects. He borrowed a couple of my woodworking clamps for a project up in Brookville. Then we did a couple projects here. Or tried to.
We tried to put a couple of new spikes or cleats on his golf shoes. We couldn't get the old ones out though. Then he helped me set up my iPhone to have Straight Talk updates automatic each month. That worked, sort of. I now have an extra month's service I don't need. I'll have to call and try to get that fixed one way or other. Then we looked at a broken coupler on one of my model train cars and made plans how to fix it. We have to get an extra part though. So far, not so great. We went and checked the bands, and they didn't have much to offer. So we went off to the fish dinner and that came out good. Back home for another band check - fruitless. Some computer games, and it was time to head home for Mike.
The bands were better this evening and I got 3 streak QSOs including W1AW/8 in OH for the VOTA event. Now I'm updating the web site prior to getting caught up on the March Madness scores. I know no big upsets today although nearby Pittsburgh did win as an 11th seed. -30-
Thu Mar 16 9:05PM - Again running late because of DST and two rather long QSOs. I had a nice long chat on 80 this evening. The longest on that band in a while now.
A nice mid-March day with a high of 60 under sunny skies. Nice enough to go for 3 different 1+ mile walks. Sure felt good to enjoy the weather and the exercise.
Also enjoyable to have March Madness in full swing and acting its normal self with a couple of good upsets already - a 13 over 4 and 15 over 2. I was talking with my neighbor about upsets, and we were wondering what percentage of games are upsets in the tournament. That is, where a higher numbered seed beats a lower numbered seed. With the extensive Excel spreadsheet I have of all tournament games going back to 1939 it wasn't all that hard to figure out. Since 1985 when the tournament went to 64 (68 now with the play in games) games, there have been 2,268 games played not counting this year and not counting the play in games. Of those, 635 fit the definition of upsets for a percentage of 28.0%. So on average you can expect 17.6 upset games per tournament.
OK, gotta move on now and get caught up on some scores. -30-
Wed Mar 15 8:53PM - DST sometimes doesn't give me much time to write these diary entrys. Tonight is just such a case. Fortunately not a lot to write about anyway. It was a good weather day and I took a couple nice long walks. The bright sun took care of the s@#w from yesterday even though it was only in the mid 40s for a high for a short time.
I got W1AW in another state this evening, VA. Still need AK and OH this week. Had an interesting QSO with a blind ham tonite and also a QSO in the NAQCC Sprint.
Now almost time to get the weather, then check on the MM games this evening. Whew, as I said, a lot to squeeze into a short time with DST in effect, but I'm not complaining. I like the bright evenings. -30-
Tue Mar 14 7:41PM - Well, March Madness is underway with the first of the 67 games. Then at 0000Z, W1AW activates some more states in the VOTA event. So it's an exciting evening. Kind of makes up for the bad weather. As I said to my neighbor Donna today, winter is getting off to a late start this year. We had maybe an inch of s#@w overnight and this morning. Not serious, but just annoying. And it's s@#wing lightly again now. I don't worrry about March s@#ws. They're gone in a day or so. Even the 2 feet from the blizzard of '93 was gone in just a few days. Getting closer to streak time now, so I'll close. -30-
Mon Mar 13 7:56PM - Just getting ready to head to the shack for my streak QSOs. When I come back here, I'll fill in the contents of this diary entry. Hopefully they will include some interesting info about this and that.
Well, it's almost an hour later and I'm back. I made 4 QSOs in that time including one with S01WS in Western Sahara on 30. I wasn't sure I had them on 30 or not, so to be safe I worked them and it only took a single call to get them, so I didn't waste time trying. I found out I do have them on 30 as well as 80 and 40. They lie in a very favorable area for me, the NW corner of Africa and surrounding islands like Canary, Madeira, Cape Verde. Also on the continent itself, Morocco, Tunisia, etc. I'm not sure how that works, but it's true for other areas of the World also like Hawaii, Australia, New Zealand. By the same token, there are areas of the World it seems impossible to work like China, India, SE Asian countries, etc. Maybe the way I have to contort my antennas to fit my house gives them peak and null directions like a beam antenna.
I found out more about this Codepad++ app today. When the cursor is on an HTML tag, a popup window explains the tag pretty thoroughly. It also finds matching open and close tags. Neat!
I'm all ready for March Madness to start tomorrow evening. I've got my Excel spreadsheet all ready to track all 67 games. I had a bit of trouble printing out a sheet for Bruce with the new RealOffice spreadsheet setup, but I figured it out finally. -30-
Sun Mar 12 3:18PM - Tonight is going to be a busy evening so I'm writing this early. Tonight is Selection Sunday for the NCAA's March Madness and I want to watch the selection show at 6PM EDT. I'll watch it with my neighbor and we'll be having a pizza to go with it. Then later this evening, I'll be filling in the selections in my Excel spreadsheet to keep track of all 67 games. I wonder if Houston will win the tournament this year. That would kind of make up for the time so many years ago now that they lost to the NC State Wolfpack and coach Jim Valvano. They were predicted to blow out the Wolfpack then, but it didn't turn out that way. One of the more memorable tournaments in my memory, being a Wolfpack, Jim Valvano, and ACC fan at that time.
It shouldn't interfere with getting my streak QSOs as I should get two QSOs in a couple minutes in the SST Sprint.
Thanks to Mark W4MMR and Ed W3NR for offering suggestions about an HTML editor. I decided to just go with the paid version of Codepad++ since it was only $1.49 plus tax. I'm using it now to type this entry. -30-
Sat Mar 11 7:44PM - Well, I didn't notice that the Codepad++ app was just a trial version which expired when I tried to start it tonight. So I'm back to using Notepad for my HTML editor till something better comes along. It will work, but I miss the color highlighting of the HTML tags and some other bells and whistles that Notepad doesn't have.
A lot of contesting going on this evening. I heard Tesla, BERU, OKQP, and IDQP. Perhaps there were more I didn't hear also. I used the IDQP for my streak QSOs. With the two W1AW/7 QSOs and two IDQP QSOs the past couple days, that's 4 ID QSOs, probably more than I ever made before in such a short time span. HI
Not much else going on today. It was a cold one as winter is trying to make up for the Dec-Feb period of true winter. Only in the low 30s. It's 34 now, about as warm as it has been all day.
My favorite sport kicks off tomorrow evening with Selection Sunday when the 68 teams for the NCAA Men's Basketball Playoffs are seeded, otherwise known appropriately as March Madness. I got in tune for the tournament early today watching highlights from past tournaments on the March Madness app on my iPhone. I saw one interesting stat about those who participate in "bracketology" or trying to pick all the winners in the tournament games. The odds against picking a perfect slate are something akin to 9 Quintillion to one just making random picks like flipping a coin for each game. The odds are better if the picker knows something about basketball like it's very unlikely a 16 seed will beat a 1 seed and other combinations like that. It's only happened one time that a 16 has beaten a 1 ever since the tournament went to 64 (68) teams. Oh, the odds if you do know those type of facts in making your picks improve to something like 100s of Trillions to one. I forget the exact number now. As far as anyone knows, the best ever done was when someone picked the first 49 games correctly. Maybe I'll watch the video again and give you some more specific info. -30-
Fri Mar 10 6:15PM - First of all, thanks to Lester AJ5P for confirming my Book 'em Dano jnfo from last night's diary entry. He also added that it was Jack Lord who used the line in the show.
Second, I found a new HTML editor that I think is a little bit better than the one I've been using since I got the new computer. This is the first page I've used it for so far, and it seems good. It is called Codepad++. It'll take more testing before I'm sure, but so far, so good.
Third, I went to my bedroom/shack to shave around noon, and checked out the bands when I was there. I worked V31XX and GM0OPS on 12M and also got W1AW/7 in ID on 10 meters. He seemed to have somewhat of a pileup, but got me right away. That backs up my 15M QSO the other night.
Just noticed this editor uses slant zeroes. I don't know if they will show up like that in a browser. I'll see in a little while. Also I notice when I type something like a line break, a drop down list appears with a completed br tag. Something more to look further into. -30-
Thu Mar 9 7:42PM - Book 'em Dano! Where did that saying come from? I'm not at all sure, but I hear it a lot. I'm not even sure if that's the right spelling. I seem to think it is from Hawaii 5 O? I'm sure one of you will tell me.
Anyway I did book the second of the two VOTA W1AW stations tonight, so this week is finished. I got W1AW/7 in ID yesterday on 15 and W1AW/4 tonight in KY on 40. As those of you who know me well, I don't use any kind of spotting to locate stations. I simply tune the bands looking for things I want to work like the W1AW stations. That makes it a lot more challenging and I enjoy challenges because they take some work to accomplish. That's just my personal way of doing things in life. It's not any kind of criticism of the way other folks do things.
It was a pretty nice weather day today with the windiness of the past few days pretty much gone and the temperature in the low 50s. So I went for a longer walk today of about 1 1/4 miles, stopping at Family Dollar along the way.
Otherwise some continuing work on the new computer. The end is in sight and I should have it pretty well set up to handle things like the old computer did. -30-
Wed Mar 8 3:21PM - I finally got around to putting my February weather readings in my Excel weather file today. It went smoothly using RealOffice with a few tweaks here and there. Coincidentally March 8 is a top 5 date in the history of my meteorological interest. The year was 1960, a year in which March turned out to be colder than January or February. March 8 that year was the first day since I started taking readings early in 1959 that I recorded a below zero reading at -2 degrees. That plus the whole of the March readings helped to grow my interest in the weather which has continued as another life-long hobby along with ham radio.
With that introduction, let me describe this past winter and month of February. It turned out to be the warmest winter since my readings began in 1959.
Ave daily minimum 28.4 (old - 27.7)
Ave daily maximum 45.7 (old - 44.9)
Ave daily mean 37.1 (old - 36.1)
For February the warmest of the following:
Ave daily maximum 52.4
Ave daily mean 40.0 (second to 40.2)
Some daily February records:
Max 68 (10th tie)
Max 72 (15th)
Max 72 (23rd)
Prec 0.56 (27)
High Min 38 (16th tie)
High Mean 57 (15th)
Highest departure from norm +26 (15th)
Additional month of February:
Nr of days min 32 or less (fewest 18 tie)
Mean daily range of max - min (highest 24.9)
Indeed a highly unusual February and 2022-2023 winter season. A sign of things to come or a fluke like other years over the past century and a half of accurately recorded weather readings? Example, the dust bowl years of the 1930s. Time will tell.
Hope you weather fans out there enjoyed this report. I seem to get several comments when I do a weather oriented entry. -30-
Tue Mar 7 7:47PM - This evening was similar to last evening as far as the streak QSOs went. A rag chew on 40 from my CQ, then a quick DX QSO on 20. It was AA1IY in CT on 40, then to 20 where a single call got me a QSO with P43R in Aruba.
It was kind of chilly today because of a wind chill, so I only took one walk of about 3/4 mile outside and got the rest of my daily goal of around 7 miles inside. Actually I still need about a mile to reach 7, but I'll get that before I go to bed, I'm sure.
Other than a little more computer updating, I can't think of anything else besides the daily chores that I did today. -30-
Mon Mar 6 7:31PM - Another day of walking and computer updating. It's kind of nice having to restore a lot of data from my File History backup. For one reason it gives me the chance to organize things better than they were before, and that will make a big difference down the road. Not only do I have a faster Internet and a faster computer now, but it should be faster when I know where to look for a certain file.
My two QSOs came quickly tonight. N8HN answered me after only a couple CQs. Then I went to 20 and found PJ2/N0OJ right away. Sounded like he had a pileup going, but maybe not since I got him right away. He sent K5? twice and no one answered, so he sent K?. I replied and got him the first call.
I guess that about covers the day again. -30-
Sun Mar 5 7:42PM - Another kind of ho-hum day. The weather was good for walking so I took a 1 1/4 mile walk at about a 19.50 minute pace. Of course being Sunday, I did my laundry. Then we went to Walmart to stock up on breakfasts for Roscoe. This evening I got my 2 streak QSOs quickly in the SST sprint. Mixed in here and there was some more computer work. I'm finding a lot of things in my File History folder on my external backup hard drive. I think Microsoft's File History in Windows 10 was really great. I haven't checked yet to see what the backup is in Windows 11. -30-
Sat Mar 4 7:23PM - Not a lot going on today. Mostly similar to a lot of days lately where I do a lot of walking and a lot of working with the new computer.
I'm still working on my February weather report. There are some differences on how MS Office and RealOffice handles some of the things in my weather file. It's taking a little time to figure them out, but I'm getting there. February is a rough month anway with it's dual amount of days having to be adjusted for in the file. Of course I'm speaking of 28 and 29 days. I wish the computer had crashed in a 30 or 31 day month. HI It would have been simpler, I know.
I got a quick QSO tonight at 0001Z from WA8VTD on 30M. Then I found Milan S57V calling CQ on 30 and got him. Took a couple repeats of my call to do it. He was quite strong at S7-8.
That pretty much sums up the day including the regular daily chores also. -30-
Fri Mar 3 7:32PM - A good day today in many ways. First Mike visited and that's always a good day. He came about 1:00PM and we discussed a trip to the Requin and also reorganizing the NAQCC Western PA Chapter. About all we got accomplished is coming up with a list of WPA hams who have expressed interest in some WPA activities like a trip to the Requin, going portable to a park for a POTA operation or just to operate portable somewher. It's not much, but it's a start.
After that, I suggested we go check the bands. I'm glad we did. The first station I heard when I turned on the rig was S01WS in Western Sahara on 15M. Although not an overall new country for me since I have it worked on 80, 40, and 30, it would be a new band-country if I could catch them. So I tried to get them myself before turning over the pilot's seat to Mike to let him get them for an overall new one for him. There was a fair sized pile, but not overwhelming so I figured I had a chance to get him. I kept calling in turn and finally got a clear return from him with a K3WWP 599 and I had my first new band country in ages, or to be exact since working Andorra from the station of WB3FAE on April 8, 2022, of course with CW, QRP, and simple wire antenna. From my home station, it's been since November 23, 2021. Having gotten my QSO, I turned it over to Mike to have a go at it. Unfortunately after maybe almost ten minutes of trying, S01WS had to go QRT.
After playing a computer hidden object game for a while, the time came to go for our Fish Dinner. We thought we'd get there early and beat the crowd. Unfortunately about 150 other people had the same idea and we wound up in line outside in the cold, wind, and light rain for about 15 minutes till we finally made it inside and had our buffet dinner. Then it was back here again for a continuation of the computer game till Mike had to head on home after a good day. -30-
Mar 2 8:03PM - It was another good weather day, but not as warm as yesterday. Only about a high of 55 or so today and it was breezy which made it feel a little chilly for my second walk late this afternoon. Still a lot better than it could be for a March 2, to be sure.
A little tough getting my QSOs this evening, but I made it. I worked a couple New England stations, WA1GXC on 40 and K1YAN on 30.
Still working on the computer today. Today I mainly copied miscellaneous files from the File History hard drive into the computer documents folder. Also did a little studying on putting the February weather data into my Excel weather file using the new RealOffice program. Looks like it will work. I'll see over the weekend.
Tomorrow Mike is visiting, and we'll be going to a Lenten Fish Dinner later in the day. -30-
Wed Mar 1 6:10PM - Another day of walking and continuing setting up things on the new computer. Today it was mainly email. I found a good Windows 11 S email client called BlueMail which seems to work quite well. I just checked out sending a picture from my iPhone to the new computer. Here it is.
My tulips crawled out of bed early this year because of the mild snow-free winter. It's bee almost two weeks now since they first sprouted. It's sure good to see.
I took three outside walks of at least a mile today to enjoy the sunshine and the warm temperatures which touched or exceeded 70 degrees. Great!
Right now just sitting here typing waiting for 6:30PM (2330Z) for Roscoe's walk and 7:00PM (0000Z) to head to the shack for my streak QSOs.
Oh, another thing I did today that didn't take all that long was copying my eQSLs from my File History backup to the hard drive on my new computer which by the way is an SSD. OK, it's 6:30. -30-
Tue Feb 28 8:10PM - It's good to be sitting here and writing these diary entries again. Even when the days don't offer much to talk about a lot of the time. I guess from what my readers say, they really enjoy reading about what I'm up to here. My friend Lane N8AFT said the same thing that Mike and Dennis said in last night's entry. He said the big increase in number of visits was due to the curiousity about what was going on. He said he and others would check in a few times a day to see what was happening. I think my web site counter does not count all the return visits from one person in the same day though, so the actual number was not strictly due to return visits the same day. Anyway I found it rewarding to know so many folks cared. Thanks.
I'm getting close to completing the setup of the new computer. There are a couple of things I'm going to have to study yet to learn more about before they will work. But I will solve them.
Today I tweaked some settings, but mainly worked on getting my February QSOs uploaded to eQSL. LoTW will take a bit more work. Also my monthly weather records will need some tweaking. It all takes time, but it provides the challenge and enjoyment that comes from such work.
It took a little time tonight to get my streak QSOs, but they still came pretty easily in a half hour or so. There are no W1AW VOTA activities this week according to the schedule I have here. -30-
Mon Feb 27 5:54PM - Hey, only one last day of Meteorological Winter before spring arrives. Winter really behaved itself this year. I just hope it is not a repeat of March 1960. That was the year when March was colder than Dec, Jan, and Feb. I've mentioned this before in the diary somewhere and I'm not going to go into it here. Should you be really curious about it, look at my Diary Archive in the year 2008 on the early March pages that year.
Thanks to by buddy Mike and also to Dennis WB8DD who confirmed pretty well that it was curiosity about the absence of updates to the web site that accounted for the increase in visitors. They both wrote interesting info. I am not set up to copy emails or text to the new computer yet or I would post both their messages. Maybe when I do get email set up on the new computer, I'll do so.
Meantime Dennis had a question that I'll try to answer now. He said, "By the way, you never really explained what happened to your friend Jasmine. I'm guessing she moved away but you never explained it. Inquiring minds want to know." Well, there is not much to explain. She moved away on her 18th birthday July 31 last year, and now lives in Ford City. She's living her own life now rather than staying with her aunt next door here. We don't see each other in person any longer. We do exchange brief text messages virtually each and every day. I guess we are the modern version of "pen pals". HI
I hope that is a satisfactory answer without going into any further details since I respect her privacy now.
In a few minutes now, I'll take Roscoe out, watch a little TV with Bruce, then go for my streak QSOs.
Oh as for the new computer, I'm still progressing nicely. I've got my K3WWP log up to date and despite it being a somewhat complicated Excel file, I didn't run into any serious glitches (yet) using it on RealOffice. After that, I'm copying some other MS Office files from my "File History" files on my WD Discovery external hard drive to the new computer. I'm even finding some interesting files I had forgotten about. HI. OK, I'm off now. -30-
Sun Feb 26 7:59PM - Most of my day today was taken up with two things, walking and filling in QSOs in the K3WWP log in my new computer. I just finished putting in the two QSOs from my streak this evening. I still have bits of data to fill in here and there like grid squares and so forth, but the basic info from all my February QSOs is all in the log. Now I'm a bit mentally and physically tired after all the time spent exercising both body and brain. HI So I think I'll just cut this short after one last paragraph.
Something very interesting happened during the time I was unable to update my web site. The number of visitors each day almost doubled. Every day the number of visitors was over the 100 mark. Usually of late the number is normally roughly 60 to 70. I may have some more exact figures in a later entry. I'm guessing either my site was posted somewhere or folks were just curious to find out why no updates or when things would be updated again. Any ideas or comments? -30-
Sat Feb 25 7:10PM - I just got two quick QSOs in the SC QSO Party for the streak.
I'm continuing to work on updating the new computer getting closer and closer to having it close to how the old computer was set up. I haven't found any significant problems, only a few minor glitches that were easily solved. Today I took the important step to find out how my log will work with the new RealOffice program. It works very well with a few minor glitches also that so far have been worked around. As you probably know, I'm a great Microsoft fan and love everything Microsoft, but I have to admit that RealOffice has a couple nice features that MS Office doesn't have. I'm not going into detail since I'm not writing a review of RealOffice. I just wanted to mention that.
So as of now, I have most of the important computer work updated into the new computer, and just have some lesser important things to work on. It's rather enjoyable to be doing the updating although I wouldn't want to do it more often than every several years. The last time was back in mid-2018 so almost 5 years now.
I think I'll add some more QSOs to my new computer's log now. I've made quite a few QSOs in February so far continuing my goal of 2 or more QSOs per day in the streak plus 67 QSOs in the ARRL DX Contest. My 2 a day streak has continued all this year except for one day near the beginning of the year before I started to think about 2 a day. -30-
Fri Feb 24 7:37PM - It's good to sit down after getting off the air after getting my streak QSOs and being able to update the web site again. The bands were decent tonight and I got two easy QSOs on 40 meters from K8MPH and KM4ZZ to extend the streak another day.
I'm getting closer and closer to completely updating the new computer. As of yesterday I found a new notepad clone called Poet that serves as a HTML editor for my web pages as well as a notepad for general text files. It's almost like the Notepad+++ I had on the old laptop. I also got an FTP app for uploading files to my web site server. It's called RealFTP and is very similar to filezilla. In fact it's based on the filezilla code.
Today I got a password keeper app from Microsoft called Keeper Password Manager. It seems a notch up from Keepas which I used on the old computer. Finally a big step ahead. I had been putting off working on my data files like my K3WWP log, my weather records, and others. Today I finally checked my external HD I used for backing up my files on the old computer and was pleased when I saw that virtually all, if not all files are retrievable. Then I got an office file called RealOffice made by the same company that makes the RealFTP app. RealOffice seems very compatible with Microsoft Office files. At least as far as I have checked so far. So that's the state of affairs here with the new laptop.
The laptop itself seems a few notches up from the old one. The display is a little clearer, the built in speakers are almost as good as the previous external speakers I used with the old laptop. So all in all, I'm a pretty happy camper with the way things are going. Hope I don't run into a brick wall down the road. -30-
Thu Feb 23 11:06AM - A lot has happened during the past couple weeks. I found out what it was like not having a computer. It really wasn't that bad as it gave me more time to get caught up on some other things around the house and on the bands. The weather continued to be nice and I got the chance to do some outdoor walking and outside cleaning up. Because of the nice weather, my tulips have sprouted so I took the opportunity to clean up the tulip bed. I pulled the weeds which also have sprouted and cleaned up some leftover leaves from last fall. We've had some strong winds during the past couple weeks. So strong I removed some things from my porch as a precaution. We had a couple of nice sunsets that I photographed. Also a nice alignment of the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter. Perhaps I'll post some of the pictures when I get caught up a little more on the computer work.
It was really disheartening when the computer went down a couple weeks ago. It slowed down dramatically, and then just came to a stop. Windows tried to fix itself, but although it came close, it just didn't make it over the final hurdle, so the search for a new computer began. I didn't hurry for a couple reasons. In a way it was nice not to have to always think about this or that which I "had" to get done on the computer. I got along just fine without it. I also wanted to be sure I got just what I wanted in a computer that will last me as long as possible. It also wasn't that easy to get to the stores to check them out in person since I don't drive and have to depend on others like my friend Mike and neighbor Bruce to get me places too far to walk to. Bruce took me to Walmart where I found a couple nice HP computers that looked good to me. However I preferred to get a computer from a place like Best Buy where I could get good tech support from the Geek Squad if I needed it. So after a few more days, since Mike would be visiting on our annual Presidents Day get together, I asked if he could take me to Best Buy. He could and did. It worked out nicely since he had to go to Golf Galaxy which was right next to Best Buy. To shorten the story a bit, I did get this computer there.
Now the past couple days I've been working to get some programs and data files installed. Just last night I found a good FTP program similar to FileZilla I had on the old computer and started work on updating the web site. Right now after I finish this diary update, it should be completely updated.
Let's get to the ham radio activity during the past couple weeks. One highlight was the Solar Flux. On the 17th, it peaked at 343, an almost unheard of high figure. I'm not sure how many days I've seen or known of it to be that high. I know the all time high was somewhere in the 400s. I have all the exact data here, but I'm not going to look it up right now. I just want to point out that the 343 really opened up the bands for the ARRL DX Contest. I got in the contest for the purpose of working select countries, not making a high score. I was hoping to work some Japanese stations. I always like working Japan mainly because it is not all that easy to work because of my QRP having to traverse a difficult path on the way there. It's easier for me to work VK and ZL than JA despite the fact the distance is greater. Also it took a long time to work my first Japan when I got JA3ZOH in the mid or late 90s. So I made JA my priority, and also KH6 and KL7 as well. I generally have a pipeline to Hawaii and can work it even though the signals from there may be quite weak at times. KL7 is a bit rare here, but not too hard to work despite there often being auroral flutter on signals.
Anyway with the goal of working as many JA, KH6, and KL7 stations as I could, I set out in the contest Friday evening. It turned out that 15 and 10 were nicely open to just those areas. My first 5 stations were KH6TU, KH6AQ, JF1NHD, JG7PSJ, and KL7RA. Then I worked somewhat rare Greenland OX7AM. A couple other non-goal stations were worked in EI7M and CR3W. Then back to KH6LC and KL2R, with ZL1IF in between. My first ZL in quite a while. This pattern continued throughout the contest, although I also took the time to give a QSO to some contesting friends or some big well-known contesters. I wound up with the following goal totals: JA - 16 QSOs, KH6 - 8, KL7 -9, and another country to where I have a pipeline, CT3 - 5. All in all I made 67 QSO of which 38 were from the above countries. It was a real ball. Also the days before and after the contest offered a lot of DX.
It's also been fun chasing the W1AW VOTA stations. I've got ten so far, but missed a couple states at the start which I will have to get in the second round later in the year.
And that gets the web site pretty much up to date. One final thing. Thank you all for the emails of concern about what was going on. I appreciate all of them. I was glad to report to each of you that I was OK, but the computer wasn't. Also thanks to my friend Jasmine for urging me to get my iPhone. It really helped with Internet work such as emails during my computer outage. -30-
Wed Feb 22 10:20PM - I'M BACK!!!! After two weeks without a computer, I will be updating the web site once again. I still have some work to do so don't expect a lot for a couple days yet. -30-
Wed Feb 8 7:46PM - In just a couple months now, I'll have been a ham for 60 years. After all that time something ham radio doesn't excite me very often or very strongly. Tonight was such an exciting time though. I got on for my streak with the intent of first of all trying to find W1AW/4 in GA or W1AW/KH6 in HI. As I explained last night I knew the best place and time to look for them. A quick check showed nothing from GA, and I went to 15 which was the most likely spot to find HI. My furnace with its accompanying noise was running, but one signal peeked out of the noise. I couldn't copy it, but it was about the right speed for a W1AW operation. I listened more and got pretty sure it was W1AW. Then the noise shut off and I was certain and started calling. After about 3-4 minutes with no luck, I heard W1AW send WWP, and I sent K3WWP K3WWP, and W1AW came back with K3WWP 599, I replied with TU 599 and I now have Hawaii in my VOTA collection with a minimum of effort. I sat there for a minute or so just enjoying the moment, saying WOW, HOW ABOUT THAT to myself. I suspect I must have broken at least some kind of pileup. W1AW was working other stations in that 3-4 minutes it took for it to be my turn. Yes folks, my Hawaii pipeline still works and works well. I wonder if maybe that was KH6LC at the key out there. He always copies me well, or at least almost every time I try to work him. In addition to being excited at getting the QSO, I was also amazed because I'm sure I wasn't the only one calling, although maybe the only QRP calling. At any rate, I now have one of the two hardest states in the VOTA log. The other probably being Alaska. WOW!
That was definitely the highlight of my day, and I'm sure nothing else will top it before midnight. HI Otherwise it was a normal day with all the daily things that go on here. I did get my box of food from the food bank this afternoon. That only happens once a month.
Tomorrow back to the search for W1AW in GA. I bet one of the ops there will be K4BAI. That should help me as he has been working me for almost all of my 60 years as a ham. Even so, GA is an easy state to work pretty much whoever is at the key.
And I guess that wraps it up for tonight as far as the diary goes. -30-
Tue Feb 7 8:05PM - The bands seemed pretty good tonight. I got two QSOs easily on 40 meters, one from VA, one from IL. This should be the day that the VOTA event moves to GA and HI. I searched the bands, but didn't find any trace of them. GA should be easy, and actually HI also if I can be at the right place at the right time. You know I don't believe in using spotting so I'll just have to tune around and find them myself. I know which bands should provide good signals from those areas, so that is a start for my search. Also I know to look for strong signals on those bands because such events are always using strong stations to provide maximum coverage so as many as possible will be able to work the special stations. It will be interesting as was the ARRL Centennial event in 2014 and the 13 Colonies events every July.
It was a pretty nice day today. It got off to a chilly start in the 30s, but warmed up slowly into the 50s by later in the afternoon. I went with Bruce to Leechburg today and spent time in a Dollar General while he tended to business. I'm glad I did as I had a good time chatting with the checkout girl there.
I got in a good indoor walk and a good outdoor one today as I try to get in my exercise and get back in shape. It is nice of the weather to co-operate. Tnx. -30-
Mon Feb 6 8:07PM - A short rag chew and a POTA QSO made up the streak for tonight. The bands were a bit crazy. Not a lot of activity on 80, quite a bit on 40, 30 loaded with a DXpedition, I guess Bouvet??, several stations on 20.
It was a chilly day today compared to what we've had lately. It was 37 when I got up this morning, then dropped down to 34 and kind of hung around there the rest of the day. It's still 33 right now. So I stayed pretty much indoors except for a trip to Family Dollar with Bruce to help him with some shopping and to pick up a few things for myself. Tomorrow I'm going for a ride with Bruce as he takes care of some business in a nearby town. There's a Dollar General near where he is going so I may do some shopping there while he takes care of business.
Other than that, not much to report. I did some more work on my K3WWP log, checking some distances and some grid squares, mostly just to have something to do, not that there was any real urgency or really any real reason at all to be doing it. I guess I just love working with stats and my log provides me with a lot of those, for sure. Maybe that's one of many reasons I enjoy ham radio. HI -30-
Sun Feb 5 7:29PM - I used the SST Sprint for my streak QSOs. I tuned around a while in the sprint and was surprised to find a lot of new calls since the last time I entered one seriously around July of last year. I guess they are really growing in popularity. That's not surprising because they have just about an ideal setup for a weekday evening sprint. There's an ideal time in 0000-0100Z, not too late nor too early (except a bit early on the West Coast perhaps?). A simple exchange of name and state, a simple scoring system of QSO points (1 point for all QSOs, no special points for this or that) times number of SPCs. Just enough categories including one for QRP. The encouragement to operate at decent speeds, neither too S L O W, nor too FAST.
It was a nice day today after a cold start. It warmed up rapidly and peaked in the low 50s. Nice enough for a nice brisk 1 mile outside walk in which I got some needed groceries and carried a couple fairly heavy bags home. I never mentioned this in the diary, but I have had some sciatic nerve problems in my right leg for almost two months now and haven't done a lot of my usual walking. Now I'm feeling much better and if it continues and the weather stays nice, I'll make up for the lack of walking now. I never did take any treatment other than diet, exercise, and prayer.
I had contact today with some West PA hams who are interested in joining Mike, Tom, and me on some of our events, like POTA, parkpeditions, visits to the Requin, and so forth. Maybe our NAQCC WPA Chapter will perk up again after virtually being shut down since CoVid struck a couple years ago. Mike and I are going to plan a trip to the Requin when we get together on Presidents day on the 20th. Hopefully the new interested hams will join us for the subpedition. -30-
Sat Feb 4 7:34PM - As I started the entry last nite, One DX and one Contest QSO this evening for the streak. Same story different stations. VP5/DK6AS the DX and K1IB the VTQP QSO. I also worked N7IV on 30 from ND. The bands were busy tonight with some digital contest, the FOC contest and the VTQP, and perhaps something else as well.
I've got to move on a little fast here as I'm waiting for a sub sandwich delivery, then going to watch a movie with Bruce (and Roscoe) - The Ghost and Mr. Chicken. -30-
Fri Feb 3 7:51PM - One DX and one Contest QSO this evening for the streak. KP4TF on 30, and N1SP in the VTQP on 40 sums it up.
Nothing much worth talking about today. Just some routine chores. It was a cold day, just barely making it to the upper teens most of the day. The high was 33, but that was at midnight last night. -30-
Thu Feb 2 7:49PM - Happy Groundhog Day. I was awake around 7:20AM and watched the ceremony on my iPhone while lying in bed. I wasn't too happy when Phil saw his shadow, but then I thought 6 more weeks of the kind of winter we had the last 6 weeks or so wouldn't be bad at all. I could handle it quite easily. We will have to endure cold temperatures the next couple days, but then a warm up follows that and should hit the 50s by Tuesday. Now that's a good kind of February winter weather for sure.
I got on the bands this afternoon after I shaved up in my bedroom/shack. I'm glad I did. I added another VOTA state in Texas on 20 meters. Let's see, that's KS, OK, NY, SD, SC, TX now. I made myself a check list today to track the VOTA QSOs. It consists of two lists. One chronologically by the weeks and which states are active each week. Then another list by states to show which two weeks each state will be active.
After the VOTA QSO, I checked 17 through 10 meters. 15 sounded particularly good so I thought I'd try calling CQ there. It wasn't long before DK5SF answered me. That's the first EU answer to my CQs in a few years now. It seems the sunspots are doing their thing in the ionosphere. I'll have to get on more often during the day on those high bands. I keep saying that, then never seem to get to it. Hopefully now I will.
I've been going through my log here and with the help of an iPhone QRZ.com app, I've been adding distances and zones to the DX records that hadn't had such data before. Most of the QSOs have been in the 3,000 to 5000 miles in EU and AF. The Caribbean and SA stations in the 1,000 to 3,000 mile range. A few Russian and Eastern EU stations were over 5,000 miles for 1,000 MPW QSOs. -30-
Wed Feb 1 10:17AM - I just finished putting my weather records in the computer Excel Weather Data File, and as I knew, January was a remarkable month on the good side of remarkable. I came up with the following for a little tale of the month in figures.
Weather records for January 2023
This is the 65th January for which I have weather records. Of the 65, 2023 was perhaps the most unusual,
setting many daily and monthly records as listed below.
DAILY:
Highest daily maximum: 60 on the 3rd
Highest daily minimum: 44 on the 2nd, 49 on the 4th, 38 on the 18th(Tie 2017), 37 on the 19th
Highest daily average: 46 on the 2nd(Tie 2000)
Least daily temperature range: 4 on the 2nd(44-48), 2 on the 7th(34-36), 2 on the 21st(33-35), 2 on the 23rd(32-34)
MONTHLY:
Highest Average Daily Minimum: 32.2
Highest Average Daily Average: 37.9
Lowest Total Heating Degree Days: 835
Highest Overall Daily Low Temperature: 19(Never had a daily low below 19)
Highest Overall Daily Average Temperature: 27(Never had a daily average below 27)
Lowest Mean Daily Temperature Range: 11.4(32.2-43.5)
Least Daily Temperature Range: 2(Tied with many other months)
Highest Overall Lowest Daily Maximum: 30(Never had a high below 30)
Least overall number of days with a low of 32 or less: 17
MISC:
Departure from Average Monthly Minimum, Maximum, Mean: +12.3, +7.1, +9.7
The reason for there not being even more records, in part was due to the temperature staying in somewhat
of a narrow range around 10 degrees above normal at around 38 degrees.
Precipitation was 0.8 inches above normal, almost all of it being rain with only a few light
flurries mixed in here and there.
All in all a remarkable month, not only here but statewide as well. Many stations have records
going back into the 1800s, and for most of them, it was the 2nd, 3rd, or 4th warmest January of record.
Two exceptions being Erie and Pittsburgh who had several warm Januarys back in the early days of their records.
Thanks to those diary readers who enjoy these weather oriented comments. After all, weather is one of the most popular subject to talk about when rag chewing. It's not surprising that carries over into these diary entries. -30-
Tue Jan 31 7:40PM - 4 down and 46 to go. I'll let you think about that for a minute. It was an interesting stint on the bands for my streak QSOs tonight. I started off working N9JF at a POTA site in MO on 20 meters. We both got a kick out of working each other since we have worked so many times before but not for some time now. We had many QSOs in the IL QSO Party when I was very active in state QSO parties.
Next I worked VE3XT who at 64 years of age just got started in ham radio three years ago. And he was using a KX3! He said he hoped I liked my KX3 as much as he liked his. Of course my answer was yes. For those of you who don't know, I started using my KX3 over 10 years ago in October 2012, and it is really the only rig I've used since then except for an Icom IC738 on the Requin and maybe something else like that for a QSO here and there.
OK did you figure out the opening statement? It means I've worked 4 states in the W1AW VOTA year long event. First I found and worked W1AW/4 in SC on 80, followed by W1AW/0 in SD on 40. I am going to try to get all 50 states this year as I did in the W1AW Centennial Event in 2014. As I did then, and as I always do, I won't use any kind of spotting to find the stations. I'll just get on the air, look for them, and work them when I find them. I think that's much more fun and more of a challenge doing it that way. I will check which states are to be active in which week, but I won't attempt in any way to find just where and when they will be active on the bands.
Of course this being the end of the month, I did my EOM chores today. I won't list them except to say I uploaded my January QSOs to eQSL and LoTW. I made 94 QSOs in January. An average of just over 3 QSOs a day without benefit of any contests to run up the totals. I did use some contests for the streak, but only for one or two QSOs at the most in each contest.
I still have to flip over my calendar pages and put my January weather data in the Excel Weather file. That will be tomorrow along with a couple other things that can't be done till tomorrow. -30-
Mon Jan 30 8:18PM - Here it is, nearly the end of January with no s#$w to be seen anywhere and it's been that way virtually all month. Better yet, the first week of February is predicted to be the same way. After that, who knows, but at least we're through with a good chunk of winter by that time.
I went out for a walk today. The first good outside walk I've had in a while now for a variety of reasons I'm not going into now.
The next couple days will be busy ones with my end of month / first of month chores. I do hope to squeeze in some more outside walking those days.
Right now I've got to make a phone call, then it will be time for my weather readings, Roscoe walk, and some TV watching with Bruce. -30-
Sun Jan 29 4:49PM - Many years ago, and since I'm 77 years old now, that is a pretty long time ago, I was introduced to an hour long movie. I can't remember the details now of who it was doing the introduction or how he/she did it, but the movie itself pops up in my memory now and then, and I just have to watch it one more time. For many years I couldn't find it until the Internet came along and one day I did a search for it, found it, and watched it with the same enjoyment as the first time I saw it. It's a unique movie to say the least. It's black and white and is actually a compilation of many individual video clips seamlessly knitted together to tell a particular story of a certain phase of our history dealing with certain human activities. I think that will serve as a little introduction to the movie without going into any specifics of the content. Hopefully that will whet your curiosity enough to get you to watch it. If it does and you do, I don't think you'll regret it. I watched it just before writing this, and it still gives the same pleasure and feeling now as it did so many years ago. OK John, enough of that. Tell the readers how to watch it. Just do a Bing Internet search for "Gizmo 1977 Howard Smith Documentary". That should bring up an IMDB article link, and below that a link to the Movie or Video itself. When you find it, reserve an hour to sit there and watch it. You won't want to be interrupted once you get past the somewhat strange opening.
Since we're on the topic of movies, I'd like to recommend my favorite WWII naval movie featuring Robert Mitchum and Curt Jurgens, "The Enemy Below". I watched that recently also and just like "Gizmo", it is as enjoyable now as the first time I watched it. The interplay between Mitchum and Jurgens as captains of the American ship and German submarine is totally classic. -30-
Sat Jan 28 6:54PM - Just a couple minutes before I head up to the shack and hopefully get a couple quick QSOs in the CQ 160M contest. Today was a nice day with no precipitation and the temperature nudging 50 degrees for a short while this afternoon. It's still 41 now. I was going to go for a walk outside today, but never got around to it.
I haven't done a "Why is it that......" here in the diary for quite a while, so: Why is it that a long time ago radios and other audio devices had automatic volume control (AVC) to keep from having to constantly manually adjust the volume, yet with much improved technology in all forms of electronics, there seems to be no such thing in the audio circuit of modern day computers? Going from one web site to another or from one video to another, you are likely to have your eardrums shattered or else be unable to hear anything at all. Unless I'm missing something, I would think it would be possible to do what was done years ago and pick off some of the audio output, rectify it and feed it back to the audio input to raise or lower the audio level and make things more comfortable. Why not? -30-
Fri Jan 27 6:29PM - I spent a good part of today playing with my new high speed Internet connection. I like it. It doesn't make everything lightning fast, but then I didn't expect that. It does make viewing big videos more smooth with less interruptions while the stream catches up. Some bloated sites load in faster. There is a noticeable increase in upload speed since the upload is symmetrical with the download speed now. Of course the overall speed of doing something on the Internet doesn't depend solely on some local fiber optic lines from the local provider control point to my computer. It depends on the speed of my computer which is now almost 4.5 years old and showing signs of old age. It also depends on the server where the site I'm viewing is located. An old slower server contributes to the slowdown just like my old computer here. Also the connection between there and here may still travel all or part way over something not as state of the art as fiber optic lines. Then some sites are loaded with commercials and other such garbage which contributes to the slowdown also. Having said all that, there is still an overall increase in speed when everything else is optimum also. Let's look at results from Speedtest from OOKLA. Previously my download speed via copper was about 12 Mbps at maximum. Now in a half dozen or so random tests I've run on fiber optics, the highest I've seen is about 812 Mbps. For upload it's about 0.65 Mbps vs. about 921 Mbps. Quite an increase. I'm happy.
OK, almost time to stop playing computer and head to the shack for streak time. Wonder what will await me there tonight? -30-
Thu Jan 26 7:56PM - Well, I got my fiber optic Internet connection today. It wasn't smooth for one reason. About halfway through the installation, the installer got a call to check on a telephone pole that was knocked down by a car. He was the closest to the accident, so he had to go check it out. He said he would be back, and he was, a couple hours later. The actual installation went very smoothly except for the interruption. The installer and I had an interesting chat while he was working about the history of the Internet and computers. He was a lot younger than I am, so we covered two eras of the history. Very interesting. So far, so good on how the new setup is working. I don't notice a big change in speed, but I haven't explored any real download intensive sites. The service is now symmetrical - equal download and upload speeds. Something I haven't had before so there should really be a big difference in upload speed. I'll see when I upload these updated web site pages in a little bit although they are really too small to probably notice any change.
Other than that, nothing else interesting went on today. I got two QSOs for the streak this evening, KC0MYY on 30 and VE3USP on 40. -30-
Wed Jan 25 7:52PM - I think it was Mark Twain who said something like this about the New England weather. If you don't like it, just wait a little and it will change. Correct me if I'm wrong. I don't feel like researching it right now. Anyway that was sort of like our weather here today. We started out with a delay of the precipitation during the night. Next it s#$wed off and on this morning going from heavy to light before a dry slot moved in and put a stop to it in the early afternoon, even bringing out some clear skies, sunshine and low 40s temperatures. Later some rain showers moved in and lasted a while before stopping. Now we're in a lull until who knows what comes next. At least it was a mixture that didn't include anything serious.
Tomorrow I'm supposed to be getting my twice delayed fiber optic Internet upgrade. They really narrowed down the time when they called about it today. They said they would be here sometime between 7AM and 7PM. That's narrowing down??? Might as well not have called. Oh well, I guess it will be nice when I get it. Then my computer will probably die and I'll have to get a new one. I hate to think of that because of all the info I'll have to transfer.
I've kept my streak of getting two or more QSOs per evening going by working KA2DDX and W8BJO, two folks I've worked several times each before. -30-
Tue Jan 24 8:02PM - Interesting QSOs for the streak tonight. I worked W1AW/5 on 40 in OK, then W1AW/2 on 40 in NY. I have to get the full details on the W1AW special year long event. I only glanced at the info a couple weeks ago. It sounds similar to what they did in 2014 for the 100th anniversary of the ARRL. That is operate each week from 2 different states the first half of the year, then do it over again the second half of the year. I think I'll just look that up now. Yes, I've summed it up pretty accurately. Throw in some USA possessions and territories as well. The event is called Volunteers on the Air, another -OTA acronym named event. You can do a Bing search for ARRL W1AW Volunteers on the Air to read all about it. I guess I missed the first two weeks, and only got one state the third week. I'll try to get all 50 states, etc. as I did in the 2014 Anniversary event. I guess I can get those 5 missing states for their encore activity the second half of 2023. It should be as much fun as 2014 was.
The only thing out of the ordinary list of chores today was a shopping trip with Bruce to the PO, bank, and Dollar General. I got a 66+ dollars collection of groceries so I'm set for a while now when the s#$w comes the next 7-10 days or so. It's interesting how few groceries 66 bucks buys these days thanks to the inflation rate we now have the last year and a half or so.
Tomorrow no plans except to watch the ugly white stuff accumulating for 1-3 inches. That will be the only real snow since Christmas time and we didn't have much then. A real weather blessing. Now tomorrow will be a good day to stay inside. -30-
Mon Jan 23 8:20PM - Busy on 80 with 3 QSOs and 1 on 40 tonight. N1W on 40 for another WRTC QSO. I think 2 of the 3 on 80 were first time worked QSOs, WB3GXN and WA1SCI, but with 95000 QSOs it's hard for my old memory to keep track of everyone I work. All QSOs are in my Excel log though so I'll know for sure when I transfer the info from the four QSOs there in a few minutes. The last QSO was with W7FW, the 7th time we've worked according to him.
Nothing special going on here today. Just the usual walking Roscoe, getting ready for the weekly Tuesday garbage pick-up, redding out a drawer, and other stuff like that. I was supposed to get my Internet upgraded to fiber optics today, but never heard from Windstream. I suppose I'll have to call them again.
Tomorrow a grocery shopping trip to stock up a bit as we'll be getting some of that white stuff I hate to talk about over the next few days. -30-
Sun Jan 22 8:12PM - A bit busy on the bands for the streak this evening. I was watching football and was a little late getting to the shack, but I wasn't worried because the SST Sprint was going on and would provide a couple quick QSOs. I say a couple because I'm going to see how long I can go getting two or more QSOs per day now. I wish I'd started that on the first of the year, but I didn't and my first 2+ QSO day was the fifth, and I now have 19 in a row. Tonight I did get two SST QSOs, one on 80 and one on 40. I didn't have anything else urgent to do, so then I called CQ and worked WA1YNJ in NH. When that QSO ended, W2XS John called me, and we had a 23 minute QSO. He was using his KX2, and we talked about it for a while. I had been thinking in the back of my mind about getting one I could use as a backup here at home and use it as the rig of choice for portable ops. It seemed ideal for that purpose from what I had read and what John told me about it tonight. Well, except for one thing. It is not designed for use with the PX3 Panadapter. John says it may work with the PX3, but some features are compromised. I'll have to study that further. I've become so used to the PX3, I would really miss it, especially for backup use here at home. It might not be so bad for portable work since most of time out in the field, I call CQ on one frequency and don't need to tune around the bands looking for signals.
Looks like a crazy WX week here. Seems every forecast is different, and even the same forecasters change their mind every time they issue an update. There is one consensus though. I don't see any real major storms in any of the forecasts, but that could change also, of course. -30-
Sat Jan 21 5:25PM - I hesitate to say this for fear of jinxing things, but I'll try. Since the computer crash and subsequent self repair yesterday, my computer is performing like a brand new one right out of the box. It's as fast as it's ever been, and that's good because on Monday I'm going over to fiber optics for my Internet connection. Actually my Internet today was so fast I had to do a speed test to see if for some crazy reason I was already getting the increased speed of fiber optics. I know it couldn't be and it wasn't because I have the new router still sitting in its box waiting to be installed Monday. Sometimes I think this whole modern electronic world is as strange as it is wonderful.
Still over an hour till streak time tonight. I wonder what conditions will be like this evening. They were good last night after my early diary entry then and I made 4 QSOs easily. One of them with my friend Bob NR8M. In the course of our QSO he mentioned he had just worked Curacao on 30. I guessed correctly it was PJ2ND whom I had worked recently on 40 and 17. So after our QSO and just before I QRT I checked 30 and worked PJ2ND with just a single call. Nothing rare or unusual in the way of DX, but I got a kick out of it anyway. Next time I work Bob, I'll tell him about it. -30-
Fri Jan 20 4:25PM - I had another computer crash today. The Microsoft built-in diagnosis and repair brought it back to life, but I don't know for how long. It is running very slowly. Some programs are working, but a few don't seem to be. If the diary is not updated, suspect my computer and don't be concerned. I think I am going to try to buy a second computer and get it set up before this one goes completely. I don't know if I'll make it in time or not. Now let's see if my Filezilla program will upload this diary page. If it does, you'll see it. If it doesn't, I'll be the only one to see it right now. -30-
Thu Jan 19 8:36PM - Busy night for me on the bands. I got 5 QSOs with PJ2ND, N3JJT, W3ZRW, N4IY, and K4TNE. The first four on 40 and the last on 80. A lot of my QSOs lately have not been on 80 as the higher bands have been better in the 0000Z hour.
To digress for a moment, It is sounding and looking like summer. The lightning is flashing and the thunder rumbling as a line of thunderstorms is paying a visit. Unusual for mid-January, but it's been an unusual winter so far. Now I hear the heavy rain accompanying the storms. It's not like summer temperatures though. It's 41 degrees in that department.
I thought of something while in the shack. I'm sure there are a number of first time visitors reading the diary, and there are some tips that I try to give to readers. I do it one time and never repeat them for newer readers. One is that I have a rotary switch going to my 6 antennas which makes switching bands very easy. It also does something else. For example if I'm on 40 meters working someone using my 40 meters antenna, I can often quickly switch to one of the other 5 antennas on receive and get a much better signal/noise ratio enabling me to copy easier than it was on the 40M antenna. If you have multi antennas and can switch among them quickly give it a try. If you have never done so, you may be surprised at the difference in reception. You just have to make sure you switch back to the correct antenna on transmit. Sometimes I forget and then I either lose the station or it doesn't really make any difference. I have made quite a few QSOs using the wrong antenna on transmit.
Time to go out and see how much rain we got today and be thankful it wasn't s#$w. I think it may be near an inch as a very rough estimate. -30-
Wed Jan 18 7:47PM - I got a DX WRTC station for my streak QSO this evening - LZ0WRTC on 40 meters. Other than that, a trip to Walmart was the only thing out of the ordinary routine. It was time to stock up on dog food and treats for Roscoe. Plus I picked up a new pair of jeans for myself.
Just watching the Penn State Weather World now to check on a potential winter storm next week. I may have to practice my anti-s@#w dances. So far they have been working well this winter and we can only hope it continues that way the rest of the season. -30-
Tue Jan 17 8:03PM - I got a mix of QSOs this evening for my streak QSOs. I worked W1AW/0 in KS on 40 for their VOTA year long activity. Then K4W for another WRTC station, followed by a couple rag chew QSOs to close out the hour. Not much more to report. I did call my ISP to find out what was going on with my fiber optic upgrade. They said they should be out on the 23rd to do the upgrade.
Another spring in January day today with a temperature of 50 right now. That's the high for the day, in fact. Some s#$w coming along next week, but still not a lot predicted. If we make it through January (apologies to Merle Haggard), that means winter will be 2/3 over and done with, and we can see spring at the end of the tunnel.
That's it for now. -30-
Mon Jan 16 8:43PM - A Mike visit means its a good day. He arrived around 10:30 this morning, and set to work preparing a hashbrowns omelet for me. Nice to have someone cater a meal for me. It was very good and I complimented the chef.
Then we went to my shack and explored the bands. We each worked 4 DX and 3 POTA stations, E77DX, HB0CVX, ON4VT, SP0WRTC, K4NYM, K5SJC, K0BWR. It was good to get on the bands at that time, 1700-1820Z and find out what conditions were like at that time. There were openings on all bands up through 10 meters. I'll have to try to get on during that time frame more often.
Then we did some work on our portable antennas, replacing the 4 radials with some more substantial ones.
I needed some printer ink and Mike was good enough to take me up to RiteAid for that. Then he headed for home to see how Jayden was getting along.
I just got back here at the computer from my shack where I had a long rag chew with K4LXY and a WRTC QSO with N9W. -30-
Sun Jan 15 7:29PM - Just a little "Heads Up" to start my diary entry. I think there is more to the computer crash I mentioned. I think I may be having to get a new computer before too long now. So if you don't see any updates on the web site, it's almost certain I am working on installing a new computer.
Other than working (fighting) with my computer, there was nothing else worthy of mention here in the diary. Of course with the SST Sprint this evening, I got two easy QSOs to keep the streak alive. Tomorrow should be different with Mike visiting. He said to expect him here at 10AM, and he'll fix a hash brown omelet for our breakfast before we get to some projects. -30-
Sat Jan 14 9:14PM - The day started with a computer crash. Fortunately, it was a crash the Microsoft operating system with a little help from AVG was fixed automatically although it gave me some quality worry time.
The day ended with a long phone call from a cousin in which we worked on a lot of family history info.
So it's been a long and tiring type of day and I'm closing this entry now. -30-
Fri Jan 13 7:33PM - I hope nothing dire happened to you on this Friday the 13th. It was just another normal day here. I'm not much into this superstition stuff except as a joke. I didn't do anything outside my normal daily routines here.
The bands had little to offer tonight despite the high SF. I probably should have checked 10 and 12 during the day, but I didn't. For my streak QSOs tonight I worked a couple of the WRTC stations on different bands, N0W on 40 and N5W on 20. I heard a CQ7 WRTC station on 80 but didn't break his pileup as I didn't feel like waiting. He wasn't hearing the stations working him all that well or I might have waited longer.
Looking forward to seeing Mike KC2EGL on Monday. We are going to work on our portable antennas, specifically the radials which seem to need a little heavier wire. -30-
Thu Jan 12 2:58PM - It's a real gloomy day here with one saving grace, it's raining and not s@#wing with a temperature of 47, ideal "bad" weather for January when you consider the alternative. I'm just sitting here with not much to do so I thought I'd close out my mini-discussion of remote station operating with a quote from Don VA3BOW that sums up the matter very well.
"Hi John,
This is just an observation. I was in Florida several Winters ago and to
communicate as a ham I was using my laptop to make remote SSB contacts via
our club’s station in Mississauga, Ontario, just West of Toronto.
I contacted a station in Oregon. When I told him that I was in Venice, FL
he replied that he would swing his yagi antenna in that direction. I
replied that my antenna was near Toronto, Canada and that I was using the
Internet and our club station to make contacts.
Remote station operation does help old retired hams with limited power get
out to the world but, as you say, it does lead to some confusion.
73 and God Bless you in 2023.
Don
VA3BOW"
And that sums up the good and bad of remote operating. It helps keep CW activity on the bands, although this example is for a SSB operation. That's good. The bad is the confusion it causes in figuring just where the other end of your QSO took place. If you're a stickler for accuracy, that's a sore point. If you just get on the air to make contacts, it doesn't really matter, I guess. End of topic. Thanks for the couple comments you sent on the subject. Let's move on to some other topics now.
In a QSO a couple days ago, the topic came up about 75 watt rigs we used in our Novice days. Then the question followed, why did the FCC pick 75 watts as the power limit for Novices? We had no idea why it was so. Does anyone reading this know why? -30-
Wed Jan 11 9:11PM - The time stamp shows that I'm running late, so this will be a short entry about a long day. It started getting up early at 7 AM to take Roscoe to the groomer. While he was there, Bruce and I did some shopping at two Dollar Generals and one Family Dollar. So we're both pretty well stocked up on groceries for a while now. The grooming turned out good and back home again for a little while. Then Bruce's brother came and he and I took Roscoe to the vets for a checkup and his annual shots. He got a good report except for one anplasma (?) infection for which he has to take some pills. Back home again for a couple hours before going to the food bank to pick up my monthly box of food further enlarging my stockpile of groceries. Whew! End of the real busy part of my day. Still a couple Roscoe walks and my streak QSO to take care of.
80 was really good tonight with S9+ signals all over the place. I made 3 good rag chew type of QSOs with solid copy just about all the way in all 3 QSOs. That brings us to typing this entry before taking Roscoe on his last walk. -30-
Tue Jan 10 3:12PM - Unusual time to write the diary entry, but... I actually got on the bands in the afternoon or to be more specific in the 1800Z hour. I had been wanting to do that for sometime now, but always something else came along to distract me. So today after I shaved in my bedroom/shack, I sat down and fired up the KX3 and headed to 17 meters. Right away I heard what sounded like DX from the way he was operating split. I waited a bit and he ID as PJ2ND. I set up for split, gave a call and he came right back to me. Later on I heard him on 15 also, but he never heard me at all after trying a dozen or more times. He always answered someone else. Oh well, no big deal. Meanwhile, I decided to call CQ on 17M. Bingo, the first CQ netted a response from Mike AC5P in Oklahoma. We had a nice 35 minute rag chew on a variety of subjects before he had to QRT to help his wife with some groceries. I listened around a bit more on 17-10 meters. Didn't hear a thing on 10 and 12, a couple stations on 15, and back on 17 I heard, but didn't try to work MD0CCE and CT7AUP (?) quite strong. So the high bands are open folks. Give them a try. Probably you should get to 12 and 10 earlier in the day though.
Maybe tomorrow I'll try again, although it's going to be a busy day with helping take Roscoe to the groomer and later the vet. In between doing some shopping for groceries, and later to go pickup my monthly box of food from the food bank. Whew! -30-
Mon Jan 9 7:58PM - Worked some real DX tonight - Mars. OK, those who know PA know there is a town called Mars in adjacent Butler County. I worked N2MA from there. He is also a member of Skyview, but Mike or I never ran into him that I know of at the club. Conditions weren't good and we didn't have that long a QSO due to QRN and QSB, so I'm going to try to follow up with an email to him. I looked in QRZ and saw he started in ham radio the same year as I did. Also he has similar interests in CW, DX, and Contesting. In fact, I think I have worked him in an SST Sprint or two.
Other than that, not a lot happening today, so I'll just close here. -30-
Sun Jan 8 8:20PM - Another quiet day today with only two projects. As I do every Sunday, I did my laundry. After that, I took all my Christmas decorations from the second floor up to the attic. Then this evening for my streak I got a QSO in the SST Sprint from WK0B and a short rag chew hampered by QRN and QSB with N4EW. Tomorrow I hope to get hooked into Windstream's fiber optic Internet service which should speed up my connection several times at no additional cost.
Midweek will be a busy one with 2 trips for Roscoe to the groomer and a little later to the vet for his shots and a general checkup. Later that same day a trip to the food bank for my monthly box of food. -30-
Sat Jan 7 8:32PM - Well, the holidays are officially over at the Shannon house as of today. I took down all the Christmas decorations today and got them up to the second floor on their way to the attic tomorrow. It's a sad time, but also a glad time because it means we are that much closer to starting the three beautiful seasons of Spring, Summer, and Autumn. It won't be too much longer till we reach the halfway point of winter. It looks like we are going to have good weather up until then at least, according to the 3-4 weather forecasting services I monitor regularly this time of year.
That was about the only serious project I tackled today. Nothing much else going on. This evening I had another 4 QSO session. Started with another WRTC station, N5W in TX on 40. Then a couple of somewhat rough short rag chews with WB0CFF in MN and KC8JNL in MI. Then I finished up with a 41 minute rag chew with N5MPM here in PA on 80 meters. 80 was pretty busy tonite compared to the past couple nights. I saw many s8-s9+ peaks on the PX3 screen. That panadapter sure has been a big help in saving time finding my streak QSOs. A visual band display certainly beats tuning across a band hoping to run into and hearing a signal. -30-
Fri Jan 6 6:44PM - Pretty much a nothing day today. I thought briefly about taking my Christmas decorations down, but never did get to it. Maybe tomorrow.
I watched some sports videos today to pass the time. I got a kick out of some of the funny moments in football ones. My favorite was one where the center apparently forgot the snap count and everyone moved but him. Then the official came up with a classic line something like, "Illegal motion offense, everyone but the center"
About ten minutes to streak time now. Wonder if I'll get a quickie QSO or a long rag chew or something in between tonight. -30-
Thu Jan 5 5:27PM - I just took a half hour or so to analyze my weather data from 2022 that I entered in my weather spreadsheet yesterday. Generally overall 2022 was a cold year compared to the last several years according to my data.
Let's look at some of the stats on which I base that.
STAT VALUE DESCRIPTION
LO GDR 41 LOWEST SINCE 1975 (TIE)
DEP RANGE +17 TO -28 IN DEC PERHAPS HIGHEST RANGE FOR A MONTH (NEED MORE CHECKING)
AV YR MIN 42.1 LOWEST SINCE 2014 (40.1)
AV YR MAX 63.4 LOWEST SINCE 2018 (63.2)
AV YR MEAN 52.8 LOWEST SINCE 2014 (51.0)
LO YR MIN 10 LOWEST SINCE 2014 (8)
DAYS MAX 32 OR LESS 30 HIGHEST SINCE 2014 (37)
DAYS MAX 90 OR MORE 23 LOWEST SINCE 2017 (18)
DAYS LO 0 OR LESS 6 HIGHEST SINCE 2015 (12)
DAYS PREC .01" OR MORE 142 LOWEST SINCE 2010 (138)
DAYS PREC .04" OR MORE 116 LOWEST SINCE 2010 (116 TIE)
AV FALL MEAN 54.3 LOWEST SINCE 2014 (53.8)
Such nomenclature tends to be somewhat confusing unless you deal with weather stats a lot. Things like "low high temperature", "highest minimum temperature" at first sound like contradictions in terms till one stops and thinks about it. So if you have any questions about the terminology, let me know. I think most all terms above can be figured out. Maybe a couple need explaining. GDR is greatest daily range, i.e the daily range is the max temp minus the min temp (82-58=24). DEP is the departure from the normal mean temperature. FALL is Oct 1 through Dec 31.
It seems that 2014 was the last year like 2022 as far as temp goes. 2010 the last year it was on the dry side.
Well, I interrupted my writing here to do some things, and never got back to the computer until 8:45PM. So I'm going to cut off the weather info for tonite, add a bit about the streak, and then close here.
The bands were good tonite, at least 80 was very good. I had two LONG solid QSOs. First a 35 minute one with Howard K4LXY, followed by an even longer one of 48 minutes with Art W8XW. Both very interesting.
The weather is hanging tough in the mild dry mode. It can continue that as long as it wishes. I wouldn't mind setting records for the warmest, driest January and February, but I'm sure that won't happen. -30-
Wed Apr... I mean Jan 4 4:08PM - We're having another out of season spell of weather here. No s@#w and mild, almost warm temperatures. It's predicted to last through at least next week, hopefully longer. It's 55 right now and hit 60 yesterday. It's interesting to note the humidity has been stuck at 99% on my LaCrosse remote unit for the past 3 full days or so. I've never seen it hit 100%, so I'm guessing the 99 is really fully saturated at 100%. Anyway I haven't been recording humidity except the past 3 or so years, and I don't recall such a long string of saturated days like this.
I thought I'd comment on remote operation as I promised a few days ago. When you look at it in a certain way, every QSO could be considered a remote QSO. There are the following objects involved in a typical QSO:
There is some sort of connection between each of the steps. Operator 1 connects to a microphone, key, computer, etc. through his body one way or other. Then that device connects to a transmitter through a wire, wi-fi, etc. The output of the transmitter connects through a feedline of sorts, normally a wire, but it could be a microwave relay, etc. Then the RF signal departs the antenna and goes on its way depending on various factors to somewhere, where it encounters another antenna, and the steps occur in reverse till it gets to Operator 2.
Each one of the steps can be considered a remote connection in a certain way. I guess the only connection that isn't a remote one is an eyeball QSO where the two hams talk face to face and shake hands.
The only difference seems to me to be the distance involved in one of the connections, usually the one from the first modulator, key, or computer to the transmitter, i.e step 2 to 3. That may be anywhere from a few inches to hundreds of miles. I don't know what the cutoff distance is between a local and remote connection to have it be called a "remote" station QSO.
Therefore, I don't consider there being anything wrong with remote station operation except for the debate of how to determine the QSO for a remote station. I belive the QSO should be considered to be with the location where the transmitting station is located since that is where the RF portion of the QSO originated and ham radio is about making 2 way contact via RF. End of my opinion. Feel free to disagree, but don't expect a quick return to any comments, especially if it should unintentionally on my part open a can of worms, in which case I reserve the right to just drop the whole topic completely without another word. I have too many other things that are much higher on my importance list than this. -30-
Tue Jan 3 8:06PM - The major project today was getting my 2022 weather data into my weather spreadsheet. Every year it seems to become more of a project, but I finally did get all the data in, and I got printed out what I need to print out. All I have to do now is really take time to look it over and pull out some interesting facts. I think 2022 was a cooler and drier year overall. At least it seemed that way as I was glancing at the data while recording it.
I really didn't do much else today. Roscoe's new leash arrived today, and I tried that out a couple times. It seems to work good. It's one of those auto-retracting ones. It gives Roscoe 26 feet of running / walking distance.
The bands were about average tonight. I made one QSO with WK3A in MD, and that was it. I had a lot of other CQs go unanswered. -30-
Mon Jan 2 8:33PM - Kind of a busy day today mainly because things didn't go right. I was putting my December weather records into my Excel Spreadsheet, and all of a sudden my computer took on a mind of its own and decided to crash. Fortunately with the aid of whatever Microsoft and Hewlett Packard did internally to help it reboot itself, it was completely cured, and now is working fine again. I didn't even lose any of the data I had installed before the crash. That was the first time I can recall this laptop crashing. Sure gave me a start. Another fortunate thing was that I had saved the weather file right before the crash.
I know many of you comment on my weather info in the diary so here are some data about December 2022. It was a close to normal temperature month with an average of 33.3 degrees or 0.4 degrees above normal. A dry month with only about 2/3 the normal precipitation 2.19 vs. 3.29 inches normal. We set a handful of records: The greatest monthly range of temperature from 66 on the 30th (daily high record) to -3 on 23/24th for a 69 degree monthly range. The following are all daily records: 0.85 precipitation on the 15th. High minimum temp 45 on the 7th. Low maximum 10 on the 24th. High average 53 on the 30th - tie with 2019. Least daily temp range 4 on the 18th - tie with 2014. Greatest daily temp range 41 on the 23rd and 38 on the 29th. A few more records than recent months as we had quite a range of weather in December.
80 meters was good this evening and I made 4 QSOs. Two 1x1 calls, W2P and N9W, one very brief QSO with AA2ZW and a long rag chew with John K3MD on a variety of subjects including that he was once a VP and Pres. of the nearby Skyview Club I talk about in the diary.
With all that, I never did get all the 2022 weather in the computer. I hope to do that tomorrow if nothing else happens to prevent it. -30-
Sun Jan 1 7:45PM - A few first of the month chores wound up taking up a lot of time today. Mainly my financial dealings. Not that I have that many, but as I age, it gets a little trickier taking care of them. HI. It was another nice weather day today. Not a bit of s#$w to be seen anywhere. It got up to 50 late this afternoon with some sun. The bands were pretty busy this evening. I didn't feel like just getting a SST QSO though. Nor did I feel like a long rag chew. So I found something in the middle ground, a POTA contact on 30 meters. My first 30 meters QSO in 2023 and the first one in quite a while actually. I was thinking of getting the December weather in my weather spreadsheet, but don't feel that ambitious. The December weather isn't so complicated, but I also have to compile all the 2022 weather this month. That usually takes a while. So I'll probably just fool around doing not much of anything the rest of the evening. HI. -30-
