What to write in a ham radio blog… when you don’t get to play on the radio?
That’s what I wrote last year on April 26. A clear case of History Repeating. It’s been 4 weeks now (4 weeks? yikes!) that I unplugged my antennas for the forecasted thunder storms that didn’t show up. Of course not, they only show up when I don’t unplug them! This implies that 4 weeks have already passed since I logged my last QSO. Not playing on the radio means nothing to type here. No input, no output. Still I noticed that I have a very persevering Belgian audience. On average these pages are visited by 4 to 5 Belgian readers every day. IOU: short update before you start browsing the ads to see if my station is up for sale after me going SK.
I reread last year’s “What to write” and it’s still very up to date. A lot of work for school. Being creative (or trying to) in inventing programming exercises. Grading exercises. Monitor their graduation projects. Reading the reports of their graduation projects. Some very last minute projects the school’s principal wants me to do. Prepare classes. Etc etc.
Work in the garden. Yearly maintenance of the lawn mower. Mow the lawn. Kill the weeds. Trim trees. There are a lot of trees! Cut trees. Dig out tree’s roots. Remove radials from the trees. Remove low band antenna supports. Move concrete blocks that keep antenna support in place. Break up concrete. Measure things to order construction material. There will be a lot of construction activity in the coming months.
So with the work for school and the hard labor in the garden, the motivation to be in the shack is pretty shy. Reminds me of propagation. No propagation = no fun. Yeah yeah, low band etc etc. With too much daylight and summer QRN? Exit ham radio for a while. My biggest fun in ham radio right now is practicing QTCs on LCWO. Thanks a million Fab! I was looking forward to the NOL boys activating Rockall but: “Landing on Rockall impossible – The skipper of the "Elinca" did not allow a landing on Rockall. The waves are too high; even launching a Zodiac is impossible”.
So that’s why after 4 weeks my antennas are still disconnected and my butt didn’t touch the operating chair. Maybe WPX CW will save the day?