AmateurRadio.com

But during the past week, we had another family milestone event. The last of our parents, my mother-in-law, Nora Dunmyer, passed away last Monday.  The funeral was this past Friday. Needless to say, it was a hectic week – mostly for my wife Marianne and her brother, Tim.

Obviously, the photo above was taken on the day of our wedding (14 years ago, when I was much thinner and my hair had way less gray in it).  In the photo, my father-in-law, Joe is standing next to Marianne, and my mother-in-law, Nora is standing next to me.  She was a wonderful woman who was born in Donegal, Ireland into a large family.  Of all her brothers and sisters, only she and her brother Harry Gallagher came to the United States. As a young woman she earned a degree in teaching. She taught reading and English in the Catholic Schools system in New York City and in various communities in Northern New Jersey, for many, many years.

She was an inspiration to many of her young students, who have since grown up to lead responsible, productive lives.  And several of them contacted Marianne this past week, via Facebook, to let her know how important her mother, “Mrs. Dunmyer” was to them.  That has to be about the nicest tribute anyone can pay.  To touch lives in a significant way was her gift.  She will be missed.

On a side note, Marianne still has plenty of cousins and a few aunts and uncles still living in Ireland. One of her uncles was a Ham, although Marianne cannot recall his call sign.  From the times she has visited the Emerald Isle, though, she was able to tell me about the tower he had on the side of his house, and unfortunately, also about the time it was struck by lightning and how the house almost burned down as a result.

Needless to say, there was no radio activity of any kind this past week.  I had hoped to play in the 4 States QRP Group 4X4 Sprint yesterday, but that was not to be.  However, an e-mail today on QRP-L from Hank  N8XX reminded me that the QRP ARCI Fall QRP QSO Party is next weekend.  So while that is not a portable event by any stretch of the imagination (although there’s no reason it couldn’t be if you wanted) I hope to make a semi-significant effort if time allows. There’s no way in Heaven that I will be able to operate anywhere near the 24 hours out of 36 allowed.

A) I just have too much going on which precludes that possibility.
B) And even if “A” were not true, my butt would preclude the rest of my body from sitting in a chair that long.

So I will be happy if I manage to get 4 to 6, perhaps even 8 hours in of “giving out points”.  Hope to hear you  on the bands next weekend!

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!

I’ve been working on a review of the Wouxun KG-UV920 for Practical Wireless over the last week or two. All done now and you’ll hopefully see the review in around a month. With the Wouxun out of the car I’ve decided to have the FT-7900 in the car for a while rather than the FT-8900. The 8900 is now in the shack and working out quite well.

For example I can scan a bunch of repeater channels and monitor 145.500. A couple of contacts have resulted already. Interestingly, although the 8900 is on a triband collinear for 50/144/432MHz, on a couple of days when 29MHz has been open, I’ve heard stations quite well. I may turn the power down and see what can be worked!

In the car, I’ve replaced another magmount and am back on 28MHz mobile which is good. Heard an A4 on 29.600MHz FM yesterday. Keen to try and work some 29MHz AM as well!

I’ve been quite active on 28MHz JT65A over the last few days too with some nice QSOs into South America in the evening. I was excited to work A61BK this afternoon – and even more excited when Khalid posted a picture of the QSO on Twitter!

Series Five Episode Twenty-One of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• RSARS e-docs library available online
• 2012 Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award
• Chinese student club complete in CQWW DX SSB Contest
• Emergency wireless system to close
• Sweden loses 2.3 GHz band
• Dundalk Amateur Radio Theory Classes
• FITSAT-1 – signal reports requested
• First RSGB ARDF world champion

Listener mailbag and Chris Howard (2E0CTH) reviews a Homebrew Voice Keyer.

Series Five Episode Twenty-One of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• RSARS e-docs library available online
• 2012 Barry Goldwater Amateur Radio Award
• Chinese student club complete in CQWW DX SSB Contest
• Emergency wireless system to close
• Sweden loses 2.3 GHz band
• Dundalk Amateur Radio Theory Classes
• FITSAT-1 – signal reports requested
• First RSGB ARDF world champion

Listener mailbag and Chris Howard (2E0CTH) reviews a Homebrew Voice Keyer.

For more years than I care to remember my website G4ILO’s Shack has been a member of the QRP Web Ring. Web rings are a tool dating from long before search engines came on the scene and were set up to help web surfers locate sites of similar interest.

In order to be a member of the QRP Web Ring I include some links to other web ring sites on my home page, plus a banner.

Clicking some of the web ring links from G4ILO’s Shack and other linked sites today I found that many of the links were broken and most of the rest were pages of extremely poor quality. So I am considering removing the QRP Web Ring code from my site.

Whether you still use the QRP Web Ring to find other QRP-related sites, or if you have never used it and have no intention of using it now that you know about it, I would appreciate your comments.