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• Sentimental Journey - The Best Places on Earth

This Weekend in Hedonism (Segment 2)

• Cheryl’s Recipe Corner!

• Carrot Cake Cheesecake Bars

• Description

• In this life, I have 3 desserts that rock my world.  #1 is carrot cake, #2 is Cheesecake… and #3 is Key Lime pie.  This dessert, which is perfect for your Easter meal, scratches my top 2 favorite desserts off that list in one tasty little dessert!

• Ingredients

• 1 cup and 2 tbsp. flour

• 2 cups sugar, divided

• 1 1/2 tsp. Ground Cinnamon

• 1 tsp. baking soda

• 1/2 tsp. Ground Nutmeg

• 1/4 tsp. salt

• 2/3 cup vegetable oil

• 4 eggs (divided)

• 2 tsp. Pure Vanilla Extract

• 1 1/2 cups finely grated carrots

• 3 (8 oz.) pkgs. cream cheese, softened

• 1/4 cup milk

• 1 tsp. Pure Lemon Extract

• Directions

• Preheat oven to 325°F. Mix 1 cup each of the flour and sugar, cinnamon, baking soda, nutmeg and salt in large bowl. Add oil, 2 of the eggs, vanilla extract and carrots; mix well. Spread 1/2 of the batter into greased and floured 13x9-inch baking pan. Reserve remaining batter. Set aside. Beat cream cheese and remaining 1 cup sugar in another large bowl with electric mixer on medium speed until well blended. Add milk, remaining 2 tablespoons flour and lemon extract; beat until well blended. Add remaining 2 eggs, 1 at a time, beating on low speed after each addition just until blended. Drop spoonfuls of the cream cheese mixture and reserved carrot cake batter, alternately, over the carrot cake batter in pan. Cut through several times with knife for marble effect. Bake 40 minutes or until toothpick inserted in center comes out clean. Cool in pan on wire rack.

• Cheryl’s Mixed Drink Corner

• Cadbury Creme Egg Shots

• Description

• Continuing on with the Easter theme… how about turning a Cadbury Creme Egg into a Shot Glass?  Russ loves the Cadbury Creme Eggs (I’m not a fan), but I might change my mind using this recipe!

• Ingredients

• 6 large Cadbury eggs (NOT the Caramel ones!)

• 2oz Irish cream

• 2oz White Creme de cacao (dark will work in a pinch)

• 2oz Heavy Cream (milk will work in a pinch)

• Directions

• Unwrap the Cadbury eggs at least halfway (or take the foil wrapping completely off) and place on a cutting board. Boil some water and stick the blade of a serrated knife into the water, giving the blade time to get very hot.  Dry the blade off quickly and use it to cut the top off the Cadbury Egg (you’ll want to cut just a little over 1/3 of the top of the egg off, leaving enough room to scoop out the contents).  Be careful when using a “sawing motion” to cut off the top of the egg, or the egg may crack, rendering it unusable. Scoop out the creamy center of each egg and place in a small bowl.  Pour the Irish cream, White Creme de Cacao and Heavy Cream into a cocktail shaker.  Add the creamy center mixture from the Cadbury eggs into the shaker. Secure with a lid and shake, shake, shake! Pour into the hollowed out chocolate eggs and ENJOY! Strawberry or Caramel Irish Cream bumps this up to the next level of yum!

• Russ’s Drink Corner

• Kirk and Sweeney Gran Reserva Rum

• Description

• Handcrafted in the Dominican Republic, this rum adheres to the very strict regulations to be called “Dominican Rum”. The process begins with hand harvested, high quality sugarcane that is pure. The byproduct of the sugarcane, “Blackstrap Molasses” is then carefully fermented and distilled. The rum is then aged in a variety of American and French oak barrels, with the distiller conducting various steps of dumping, blending and re-barreling through the years. The final blend is a selection of variously aged rums between 5 and 20 years, painstakingly hand selected, this is indeed a rum well worth pursuing. It delivers an intriguing range of aromas, from intense vanillas to faint notes of sherry and raisins–all built upon a notable undercurrent of roasted cane sugars.

• Details

• Mashbill: 100% Sugar

• Proof: 80 (40% ABV)

• Region: Dominican Republic

• Color: Reddish Amber

• Nose: This full-bodied rum delivers an intriguing range of aromas, from intense vanillas to faint notes of sherry and raisins–all built upon a notable undercurrent of roasted cane sugars.

• Taste: Expert blending comes to life with the first taste, revealing a deep vanilla flavor, followed by dried fruits, nutmeg, cinnamon spices and a hint of oak.

• Finish: Immensely smooth all the way through, this rum unwinds with a gently wavering sensation of oak, sherry and raisin.

• Price: $50 (750ml)

• Rating: 81

• Bill’s Whatever Corner

• Pendleton 1910 Rye 12 Year

• Pendleton® 1910 is a rare 100% rye whisky distilled in Canada and is oak-barrel aged a minimum of 12 years. Featuring round, rich notes of tobacco, charred oak and butterscotch with a spicy rye kick and peppery heat, Pendleton® 1910 Rye Whisky is rounded out by the smoothness of maple and sweet cherry to provide a weighty and balanced, yet complex, flavor profile. The 1910 name pays homage to the year of the first-ever Pendleton Round-Up and comes packaged in an iconic 750ml bottle with unique and intricately embossed detailing reminiscent of tooling on a saddle and features the famous Pendleton Round-Up bucking horse. It is a work of art sure to be a favorite in any connoisseur’s spirits collection.

• $30 - $40 (750mL)

Segment 3 (Announcements & Feedback)

• Hamvention GoFundMe

• We’re only $60 from our goal!

• Source: https://lhs.fyi/hv2023

• Additional Info: https://www.pamperedchef.com/party/hamvention23

Segment 4 (New Subscribers, New Supporters & Live Participants)

• Facebook

• Brian Markland

• Instagram

• darkstar_rf

• revberaldo

• rafael_haag

• dragonfleye42

• Mastodon

• NV4C

• G1WVK

• KC1SRI

• LinuxSys666

• IsleofManDan

• Discord

• chailbronner

• Live Chat

• Jon, K1BTZ

• Tony, K4XSS

• Steve, KA7HVT

• Winston, KB2WLL

• Ted, WA0EIR

 My dad passed while I was at a very young age but through my mom, I learned that he was a Lancaster bomber pilot in England during WW2. I remember asking her questions but she did not know much as he spoke of his time in the war very little. 

What I did know was he was a commercial pilot in Ireland and then joined the Air Force during the war. At the time he was asked to train as a tail gunner as at the time there were too many pilots and not enough Lancaster aircraft. He completed his training but never sat in the tail gunner turret as he was called up as a pilot. That's all I know of his military time but I have always had an interest in that part of his life. When I lived in Ontario just outside Toronto is the home of the Canadian Warplane Heritage Museum. They have one of the very few flying Lancaster bomber aircraft. In the book the sound of the Rolls-Royce Merlin engines of the Lancaster were often mentioned. I can somewhat understand this, when the museums Lancaster was out flying as it did often you could hear the rich sound of the 4 engines.

This brings me to the book I just finished reading called Bacon and Eggs the story of a Lancaster bomber crew. It is a fictional story based on real crew and actual events. This book goes over the events of the formation, training and missions of one Lancaster crew. It's a short read and is available on Amazon as a book and ebook. If you subscribe to Kindle Unlimited then it is a free read. In closing, after reading the book I look at sitting down to a meal of bacon and eggs in a different light now.

Do You Need That Filter?

The Yaesu FT-DX10 comes standard with a 500 Hz crystal (xtal) roofing filter, but offers an optional 300 Hz roofing filter.  Should you purchase the optional filter?

The 300 Hz roofing filter is twice the size of the 500 Hz filter so it must be twice as good right?  

If you casually switch back and forth between the two filters on a noisy band, it sounds like the 300 Hz filter markedly improves selectivity and quiets the noise.  But try this: Select the 500 Hz filter and narrow the bandwidth (using the bandwidth control) to 300 Hz, then switch to the 300 Hz filter. 

When you digitally narrow the bandwidth of the 500 Hz filter to 300 Hz you will "hear" the same reduction in noise as you have cut out 200 Hz of higher frequency sound.  Engaging the 300 Hz filter lowers the volume a bit (3-6 dB) due to insertion loss.  

So what you are actually "hearing" when you switch back and forth between the filters without changing the digital bandwidth is the reduction of the higher frequency noise that can be accomplished using the bandwidth control alone with the 500 Hz filter.

So, from a selectivity standpointthe 300Hz filter doesn't gain you anything over using the digital filtering with the 500 Hz filter.  The real benefit should come in the form of adjacent signal rejection.  So let's look at that.

In the video below I demonstrate the signal rejection of a 40 dB over S9 adjacent signal to a weaker S3 - S5 signal.

From the video you can hear that there is a very small demonstrable difference in strong signal rejection when using the 300 Hz optional filter, but the difference is so small that I doubt many of us would find practical benefit over simply narrowing the DSP bandwidth while using the 500 Hz filter. Even when contesting.  The digital filtering built into the FT-DX10 is really, really good when using the included 500 Hz roofing filter alone.

Yes, I spent the $200 for the optional filter thinking it would help, but I wished I had known what I do now.  I would have $200 for some other nifty radio gadget to spend instead. 

That's all for now.

Lower your power and raise your expectations

Richard AA4OO

https://www.hamradioqrp.com

I don’t usually get pulled into historical investigations, but I recently found something interesting about my call sign, KØNR. I received this vanity call in April 2002. Before me, Craig Larson W3MS held this call sign starting in 1975. These are the only two entries in the FCC database (Universal Licensing System).

The story starts with me poking around the Digital Library of Amateur Radio & Communications (DLARC), an online archive of radio communications media. I search on “K0NR” and got a number of hits, including an entry from a 1962 Callbook. Back in the olden days, ham radio callsigns and contact info were published in a thick book, kind of like a phone book.

The callsign was listed with “USNR” in the name or organization field. I wasn’t sure what USNR meant so I asked for help via Twitter. Quite a few people came back with “United States Naval Reserve”, which did turn out to be correct. The graphic below is from the 1962 call book and it has multiple callsigns labeled USNR and one labeled USN.

Then Jason W5IPA came up with a page from the July 1949 issue of QST.This article shows there were many amateur call signs assigned to naval reserve stations.

Click to access QST-1949-07.pdf

Then N8URE poked around and came up with this from a 1960 telephone book:

I suspect the 5-digit telephone number is long been obsolete. There still is an address for the Naval Reserve in Dubuque but it is on Jet Center Drive, near the airport.

So there you have it: it was common for Naval Reserve centers to have amateur radio call signs assigned to them. For obvious reasons, they tended to have NR in the call sign. K0NR was assigned to the station in Dubuque, IA.

Thanks for the help from: W5IPA, N8URE, K8BCR, K4ZDH

73 Bob, Kilo Zero Naval Reserve

The post Kilo Zero Naval Reserve appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Ham College episode 99 is now available for download.

Extra Class Exam Questions – Part 37
E7G Active filters and op-amp circuits: active audio filters, characteristics, basic circuit design, operational amplifiers.

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Looks like a CW contest...nope pileup for CY0S

The other day I was checking DX Heat cluster and saw CY0S was operating on 40m at 7.005. This time unlike on 15m and 20m I could hear them very well. I put the rig into split doubling checking as I did not want to repeat my Murphy moment of the recent past of transmitting on their call frequency. BUT Murphy did show up

again.....The pileups on 15m and 20m have been huge but this morning on 40m it was almost vacant of callers. It was easy to follow his calling pattern in the pileup. I kept dropping my call but nothing! I tried with no word of a lie for 20 minutes and at times CY0S faded in and out. I thought I was losing a good opportunity to get them in the log.

CY0S pileup on 40m I was very lucky

All of a sudden my Murphy moment occurred to me...yesterday I was adjusting my 9A5N solid-state paddle. I turned the power to ZERO as I tested the paddle and the freaking power was still at ZERO!! Turned up the power to 100 watts and on the first call I was in the log! Murphy had blinded me and I did not notice the 7610's very large power meter sitting at ZERO for 20 minutes! Oh well, I had a good laugh and entered my prize in the log.