… when you don’t get to play on the radio?
There is light shining at the end of the tunnel. I’ve taken a major hurdle this week with an important project at school. For those who don’t know: I’m a teacher. The project carried along a bit of stress and some workload. Now on to another major project and rounding up the school year. It’s safe to say that after the first week of June, my scholar year is finished and I can pick up ham radio to the full extent. If all goes as planned, my new K3 transceiver will arrive, I’ve got a new band to explore (50 MHz) and a lot of free time. I can’t wait to invade 30m again at night or early in the morning to work some DX. There are some ham related projects taking shape in the back of my mind. One of them is a 6m antenna. Anyone got me a clue? I figured a small 3 element yagi would be nice to start with? I won’t put it on the tower though – that is strictly HF territory.
Talk about shining light: it seems like summer outside. We just mowed the lawn for the third time this year. I cleaned the windows and raised a window shield from our biggest window. We keep that down during winter to save on the heating. That means a lot more sunshine in the living room now too. Working on my laptop in the morning will now be much harder due to the light shining. But this sunny weather makes me a happy camper. Next step: get out the garden furniture and the BBQ!
You can tell I’m less active: the flow of direct QSL has stopped. Two certificates came in this week though. I don’t have a scanner to digitize them. I’ll do that next time I visit my parents. Daddy Boy has got one. Always nice to show off HI. Next weekend is a 4 day’s holiday here. Denis K7GK asked me to join the 7th call district QSO Party (7QP). I just might raise the tower and play on the radio. The time has come to make some CW QSOs. And W7 is DX. It’s also NEQP. I like working some QSO Parties. It’s a relaxing way to contest without actually being in a contest.
Noticable facts this week:
- Lots of CQ-Contest mails to delete regarding Skimmer. I think that the discussion is useless. If the technology is wide spread and easy accessible for the crowd, it will be used. Is is ‘assisted’? I don’t know but frankly I don’t care. I’ll copy my CW by ear which is exactly what makes me tick. RTTY is fun for about one hour. After that I’m bored. If CW contesting would turn into a point-and-click event: no thanks! But a nice CW contest? I’m game!
- L.B. Cebik passed away. Sad to hear that. His site is the electronic equivalent of ON4UN’s big Low Band book. Most people feared the site would disappear and started archiving it:
antenneX and its associated companies hosted and sponsored this website for LB for most of those 11 years and it is our desire to continue to make this site freely available for your legitimate use and online reference. The site is designed for online reading only and attempts to mass download the site will abort. A stampede to mass download the entire site has caused the need for controlled access. Plans were already in the works to shift to a login system before LB ascended. The mass downloading accelerated the schedule for this change.
All for now. More later. 73 / take care.