AmateurRadio.com

“Davy, are you ready? We’re going to be late!”

Jason Bolton had to resort to hollering up to his son, who was up in his room.

“In a sec, Dad!  Just trying to work this 9L in Sierra Leone. The pileup is way humongous!”

His Dad answered, “Turn the radio off for now, son. We have to get going, now!  We promised we’d be at the soup kitchen in twenty minutes.”

One Sunday each month, Jason and Davy had been volunteering at a community soup kitchen at St. Nicholas parish in Springdale, which was the next town over from them.  Davy was going to receive his Confirmation the following Spring, and part of his preparation was community service.  Twenty hours of service between the end of October and the beginning of next May were mandatory.  Jason didn’t mind, he actually enjoyed it and he felt it was good for his son to help tend to the needs of those who were less fortunate than they were.  Davy didn’t mind either, except that it did eat into the time he spent on his radio.

Amateur Radio was David Bolton’s hobby – no, it was more like his passion. Ever since their neighbor, George Mason N2EBA had tutored Davy in the ways of Amateur Radio, he had taken to the art of radio like a fish takes to water.  And it turned out that Davy, call sign KD2PGA, was a natural.  Not only was he a superb operator at the tender age of 13, but he had also developed a keen sense of the electronics and the technology behind his hobby.  He and his best buddy, Jim Stapleton KD2PGB had been George Mason’s prized students, and their learning did not stop when they earned their “tickets”.  They both showed signs of having “The Knack” and both looked forward to possible future careers related to electronics and technology.

Davy came bounding down the stairs, “All ready to go, Dad!”, he exclaimed.

“I don’t think so, Bud. Aren’t you forgetting something?”

He looked at his father with a confused look on his face. “Forgetting something?  I don’t think so, I have my 2 meter handheld and the food we’re serving is already there, no?”

“Look down, Davy – look down”, his father chided.

“Oh my gosh, my sneakers!”, Davy gasped.

“Yes son, it’s a bit too cold to be heading out on a December Sunday in your stocking feet.  Sometimes, I think you leave a little bit of your head inside that bedroom shack of yours!”, his father responded.

Davy’s shack was his pride and joy. He had been gifted with an Elecraft KX3 by his Dad and Mom last year at Christmas.  Davy’s Mom had passed away earlier that year, after a long fight with cancer, but she knew how much Davy had wanted that radio. And even though she knew how grave her condition was, and that she wouldn’t be with her son for Christmas, she had insisted that Jason purchase the radio early.  She had wanted her “last gift” to him to be as memorable as she could make it.  In addition to the commercial gear he owned, Davy had built up, or homebrewed, quite the set of station accessories, all with the help of George Mason, of course.  George and Jeannie Mason, the Bolton’s next door neighbors had become Davy’s adopted grandparents.  George and Jeannie looked after Jason, too.  They knew that raising a teenaged son alone wasn’t the easiest job in the world.

It seemed that when Davy wasn’t in school, he was on the radio.  He had completed his DXCC and Worked All States awards, and was going on to higher ground.  Even though he was strictly a QRP operator, low power didn’t seem to be a barrier to Davy.  Other Hams might consider KD2PGA to be just a little fish in the ocean of Amateur Radio operators, but he began chasing DX countries with the appetite and attitude of a shark.  His goal was to some day make DXCC Honor Roll using QRP power levels.  The fact that there were only one or two individuals to have done this before him did not deter him in the least.

All this was being done on the understanding that grades didn’t suffer.  Jason Bolton made it clear to his son that schoolwork came first and that there would be no exceptions.  As it turned out, he needn’t have worried. If anything, the discipline of learning a technical hobby was only helping school matters. Davy was proving himself to be a capable student and was keeping his grades at a high level.  He seemed to be as at home behind a history or math text as he was behind his radio gear.

Davy ran and put his shoes on, locked the front door and followed his Dad out to the car.  They were going to pick up Jimmy and then proceed on to the soup kitchen.

“You’ve worked out everything with Mr. Mason, right?” his father asked?

“Yeah, Dad.   Mr. Mason knows to be on the club repeater at 4:00 PM sharp.  That’s when I’ll put out a CQ to the North Pole”.

Davy and George had gotten permission from their local radio/repeater club, the Twin County Amateur Radio Club, to occupy the machine that afternoon.  All the club members agreed to let Davy and George allow the soup kitchen kids to talk with Santa at the North Pole that afternoon.  Davy and Jimmy were bringing their handhelds and George would be operating from home.  Jeannie Mason, George’s wife, even agreed to take on the role of Mrs. Claus for the afternoon, just in case there were kids that were too shy to talk to Santa.  She has a warm and friendly voice and a way about her that had succeeded in pulling children out of their shells in years past.

A few minutes later, Jimmy bounded into the Bolton’s Jeep and the threesome was headed to the soup kitchen.

To be continued …….

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

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

It's been a busy couple of weeks for me, full of different activities. It's hunting season in Texas and that is something that I enjoy a lot. The weather, while cold, has been perfect for hunting and has resulted in a couple of successful hunts. So there is meat in the freezer and with that a certain satisfaction of providing. We will not discuss price per pound:-)

As I have mentioned before, I am a guitarist for The No Refund Band, www.norefundband.com, and we had a great show on Saturday night. It was one of my better performances, landing all the notes and licks in front of a nice crowd, very satisfying. Check us out on iTunes, Amazon or most any digital outlet.

That brings me to radio. I guess I've been spoiled with the last few expeditions as I have documented here, getting nice band counters from S21 and XZ on the high bands. With higher sunspot numbers long path to Asia has been fantastic here in Texas, with loud signals and relatively easy QSO's. With the VU7AG expedition I expected nothing less than to make contacts on 10m and 12m. However, this chase was very different. Texas and VU7 just don't have the same path as the aforementioned countries. I listened and listened and listened. The long path was working to the US east coast, but stopped somewhere in the mid west. Kudos to the operators who tried to make this path work, but it just wasn't, until Sunday morning. I was in front of the radio, antenna turned to long path, nothing but static. Then I see some spots from W5 stations, still nothing, what gives? I turned my antenna to short path and there he was, a decent signal with a touch of artic flutter, but otherwise a great signal for short path 10m at 8:30 am from India to Texas. Unashamedly, I cranked up the amp, found the station he was working and started calling, expecting a QSO at any minute. After all, I am destined to salvage this expedition on 10m, aren't I? I called for 30 minutes when the signal began to fade and soon there was no signal and no QSO. The expedition is now QRT. Unlike the hunt and the gig, not very satifying.

However, as I said, I am spoiled. I did manage two new bands, 17m and 30m and a new mode, RTTY. As satisfying as those QSO's were, the lack of success on 10m seems to have dulled the accomplishment. But I'm over it. I still have some excitement waiting for me in the future. If we don't have hope, what do we have?
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Still seeing plenty of transatlantic stations on 10m WSPR. I wonder how long it will last?

WSPR spots on 10m band at G4ILO

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I was excited to see that Ken Reitz, KS4ZR, managing editor of MT, will continue to publish an e-magazine called The Spectrum Monitor. As most of you know, Monitoring Times has ceased publication with the December, 2013 edition.

The lineup looks fantastic:

Keith Baker KB1SF/VA3KSF, “Amateur Radio Satellites”

Kevin O’Hern Carey WB2QMY, “The Longwave Zone”

Mike Chace-Ortiz AB1TZ/G6DHU “Digital HF: Intercept and Analyze”

Marc Ellis N9EWJ, “Adventures in Radio Restoration”

Dan Farber ACØLW, “Antenna Connections”

Tomas Hood NW7US, “Understanding Propagation”

Kirk Kleinschmidt NTØZ, “Amateur Radio Insight”

Cory Koral K2WV, “Aeronautical Monitoring”

Stan Nelson KB5VL, “Amateur Radio Astronomy”

Chris Parris, “Federal Wavelengths”

Doug Smith W9WI, “The Broadcast Tower”

Hugh Stegman NV6H, “Utility Planet”

Dan Veeneman, “Scanning America”

Ron Walsh VE3GO, “Maritime Monitoring”

Fred Waterer, “The Shortwave Listener”

Thomas Witherspoon K4SWL, “World of Shortwave Listening”

A charter subscription is available for the very affordable price of $20 and includes 12 issues available in a variety of digital formats.

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

After losing Rooster, the alleged brains of the WG0AT SOTA team, we have great news from Steve, WGØAT.

Two new goats have joined the herd, getting trained up for more Summits On The Air (SOTA) action.

Meet Acorn and Barley, or is it Barley and Acorn? Watch out, Peanut, you’ve got company.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

1. A clicking noise from a hard disk doesn’t mean anything good.

2. This stack of part finished or finished bu not boxed up projects needs to be dealt with over the Christmas break if not beforehand or the XYL will go bananas.

3. Must not buy any more bits and pieces off Hans Summers, G0UPL (http://www.hanssummers.com/index.php) until I’ve completed all of number 2. Oh apart from the gps and replacement pa’s for my QRSS transmitter.

4. The UKAC contest series is short, enjoyable and keeping me close to a mic but isn’t helping with getting on HF.

5. No matter how much I think they’ve started, there are no builders in the back garden working on the extension. This is all very well as its not costing me anything but it means there is no tower up.

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

Messages decoded from the FUNcube-1 satellite

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].