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As mentioned in my previous blog posting, I’ve taken a serious approach to my health.  Much of what I accomplished in losing over 30 pounds was just done by following the Atkins diet and casual exercise.  Much of this exercise has been in the form of walking as my wife and I are trying to get in better shape for our trip to Europe.  In previous years, we didn’t prepare ourselves in advance for all the walking we end up doing.  We suffer for the first week as a result.  I believe this year will be different. 

My goal of reaching 200 pounds prior to 15 August was in an effort to verify that diet and exercise will help improve my cholesterol levels.  I will have a checkup next week and my ultimate goal of those results is just to verify that the needles are moving in the right directions.  I know I have more work to do…but I am looking for proof that what I’ve accomplished in the past four months is the right thing.

Part of vacation is enjoying life and I don’t plan to follow the Atkins plan while in Europe.  If you are familiar with Atkins or the Low Carb diet, you know that carbs are avoided like the plague.  The national dish of Belgium is Belgian Frietjes or Belgian Fries.  These are the best fried potatoes (can’t refer to them as French) that I have ever tasted and I’ve enjoyed more than my share of fries.  In addition to the Belgian fries, I’ll also enjoy a few Belgian Waffles and many other delicacies which I just can’t get here in the US.  I figure many of the carbs I consume while on vacation will be offset with the tremendous amount of walking we do. 

Anyway…..10,000 Steps for Health is how I plan to tackle the next phase of my goal.  I’ve heard people talk about losing weight just simply making sure they walk 10,000 steps daily.  But just how many steps does an average person….or more importantly, how many steps do I take on an average day?  A friend of mine has had incredible success with this this program and uses a little device called a Fitbit.  A Fitbit is a small electronic gadget (fancy pedometer) which is worn to track the number of steps you take, the number of floors you’ve  climbed, distance in miles or kilometers and calories burned.  You basically wear this little device and sync the data to a free Fitbit account where you can view your results.

What I found by just wearing the device each day was without even trying I was averaging about ~6000 steps each day.  So by adding an additional daily walk to my schedule (and taking the stairs more at work) has proven successful at pushing me over the 10K mark each day. 

For now, my focus remains on the final 4.5 pounds which I plan to lose by 15 August, then enjoying a fantastic vacation with my wife.  Once I return home and return to work, I will begin working on the next phase of my plan to reach 180 pounds by Christmas.  At this point, I really don’t plan to go any lower than 180 pounds.  I’m 6 foot tall and at 180 pounds, this places my BMI in the normal weight range.  But of course, I’ll consult with my doctor and most importantly perform another blood test to check my overall cholesterol numbers. 

Until next time…

Jerry

P.S.  I realize this blog post has nothing to do with amateur radio.  However, my getting in better shape, getting healthy and staying healthy will most certainly allow me to continue to enjoy the hobby for many years to come.  Plus I just want to share this info with others who might be interested in shedding a few extra pounds.   73 de KD0BIK

My lunchtime QRP sessions continue to be a success with QSOs all over the world.  SOTA stations, special event stations, DX stations and rag chews all have been making it into the log.

Grrrrrrrr! and then more Grrrrrrrr’s! FOBB 2013 was a gud one! Grrrrrr!

Anticipated rain and thunderstorms and was not disappointed. Accordingly, I took up my backpack and walked about 1/2 mile to set up under a small pavilion in our housing development’s lakeside park. So far, so good. Originally I planned to have an EFHW for 40m and another one for 20m. Upon unpacking, realized my 40m wire was in my other pack at home. SHUCKS. I had already put a shot over a 40′ high branch and pulled up a paracord to hook to the wire which was not available. Oh well… it happens even to the best of us, eh?

Grrrrr! So I tried to set up the 20m EFHW and after another great shot with my 1 1/2 oz sinker and pulling up a line realized the tree wasn’t going to give me a good shot as it was too close and not very high. Grrrrrrr=ed a bit more!

K4UPG FOBB 2013 BB#23

Rethinking mode kicked in and was glad I got out early so all the wasted time did not mess me up. Pulled out my handy 20 ft Jackite and a 17 ft crappie pole and decided to give up on a typical K4UPG “hang ‘em high” antenna and do a very Lazy L. I tried to orient it for a bit of slope towards 330 degrees which shoots from FL to Iowa and provides decent coverage of most of the US. Turned out that low antenna worked great but I think the band was pretty doggone decent for a change too.

So about 15 min before FOBB start time fired off a CQ and made a contact and shot the breeze for a bit to warm up. Nice QRP to QRP contact but not counted for contest. Just for grins. I did notice a few “early out of the blocks ops” were calling CQ BB about 10 min before the clock struck go! Grrrrrrrrr! Sync those watches gentlemen!

Contest Started:

First station heard was Cam out in California N6GA but no joy when I responded to his CQ as there was a mini-pileup on him. Grrrrr… Heard a few more 6′s during the day but no peep from Rem Bear or any others I recognized. I did end up with eight PB’s for the day though and a great TU and Grrrrr to my fellow PB’s: AF40 Chuck- PB 153 TN my last contact of the day (more later); Snowbird FL Bear Don K3RLL PB 187 in PA with his new KX3; Jeff K9JP PB 175 in MI was the loudest signal of the day and blew my ears out till I got the RF and AF turned down Grrrrr! didn’t recognize you as a PB… sri bout dat; N1EU Barry in NY PB 336 got a Grrrrr!; N3AAZ John in MD PB 276 sri 2 ya… missed a Grrrrr!; W1PNS Pete in MA PB 348 got a Grrrrrr!; W5ESE Scotty beam me up Bear PB 287 missed a Grrrr too; WA8REI a perennial PB contact for me gave me a PB 21 style Grrrrrrr! I was closing a contact and Blackjack Bear called me on the guy’s freq so kept it REAL short and sweet as I felt like if we tried to QSY there was too much traffic and we’d not make the connex. Sri Ken Bear was a messy QSO cuz of that. Missed hearing Larry W2LJ this time and listened fur some of you udder PB’s but no connex. Grrrrrr!

All in all worked 25 QSO’s in 17 states and all of them were BB’s! Lightning came up as I was finishing my QSO with AF4O and it was TOO CLOSE. Almost blew me out of my seat but I held onto the key and finished up. Sitting there holding the wire and I started singing, “Antenna on the ground, antenna on the ground, when da lightning is around get your antenna on da ground” to the tune of the famous “Pants on the Ground” song by “General” Larry Platt.

Thus ended a nice outing after 2 hrs and 45 minutes but I truly enjoyed this one. Great number of participants and bet I could have almost doubled the numbers if the lightning did not end the day. Was hearing a lot of new calls just prior to shutting down. At least I got to give the serious contesters some points this year. Maybe next year will be my turn fur sum extra Q’s ? Grrrrrrr!

72 from Orlando, Kelly K4UPG PB 173

One of the things I’ve been up to the last few weeks is testing a new Bluetooth TNC made by Rob WX9O who is selling them as Mobilinkd. I had to put testing on hold while my Motorola smartphone went away to be repaired (by BuzzBox whom I can recommend highly.) In the meantime word got round and Rob sold out of these gadgets before I could write about it.

The price was around $49.95 which I thought at the time was amazingly cheap and probably explains why they are all sold out at the time of writing. The module is a small PCB slightly smaller than a Baofeng UV-3R and if you remove the belt clip it can easily be fixed to the back of it. My picture shows it strapped to the back of one of the Baofeng’s predecessors, where it makes a nice inexpensive and compact APRS tracker. The board and it’s battery (which can be charged using a USB cable as shown in the photo) are shrink-wrapped in a tough translucent plastic casing.

Ready-made cables are available. Rob sent me a Kenwood-format two-pin connector which fits the later model Baofengs and the two worked together perfectly. The audio levels were just right on both transmit and receive.

Yes, receive. This is no mere tracker. It’s a full KISS TNC and decoded all the packets received by the Baofeng. The software used was the latest APRSDroid running on my Motorola Milestone (a.k.a. Droid) smartphone.  Droid and TNC paired easily and made an effective APRS mobile station.

I did try to pair up the TNC with APRSISCE on an HTC Touch Pro running Windows Mobile 6.1. The two devices paired but could not connect as the Bluetooth software did not recognize the TNC as a valid device type. I think that is a limitation of the Windows Mobile Bluetooth software rather than the TNC module.

If you are interested in APRS and would prefer to do it over the radio rather than a cellular data connection (real hams use RF, right?) then this is a nice toy to play with.

The AmateurLogic.TV Voice of America Museum Special is now available for download.

Tommy and George visit the National Voice of America Museum for a first class tour. Learn about the history of VOA, why and how it got started. What type of antenna switching was required for a world class shortwave station. Transmitter, tubes, audio routing, network feeds and much more.

45:08 Worldwide shortwave adventure.

Download

View in web browser: YouTube

This afternoon I rode my bicycle to Old Hill Village and worked Cuba, Ukraine, Spain, Belgium and Denmark. It was a fantastic afternoon.

I took the trail south from Needle Shop Brook. It was glorious. The road winds through fields and old farm land. One section close to the river is lined with helianthus flowers.

Hill Village lies on the opposite side of the Pemigewasset River from Sanbornton. The old road runs along the river from Franklin, through Hill Village to Bristol. The road has been closed since the 1940s when the area was abandoned to create a flood control area for the Franklin Falls Dam. It’s a perfect spot for a bike ride.

Today was crystal clear with a good breeze. It was nearly 75F… one of those summer days when kids swing from ropes and do somersaults into the river. After peddling more than two miles, I set up under an old butternut tree across from a field of goldenrod.

I tossed a line 40 feet into the tree and pulled up 30 feet of wire. I sat down in the grass and tuned the Elecraft KX3 on 17 meters. I used a 9:1 unun from the Emergency ARC in Honolulu. I was running five watts.

I only operated for a half an hour. But there were plenty of strong stations
on 17M that heard my weak signal. I had no trouble working into Europe.
Rather than detailing each QSO, here’s a copy of my log:

30 Jul-13 1934 18.078 CO8LY CW 599 599 Cuba
30 Jul-13 1936 18.077 UT7UJ CW 599 599 Ukraine
30 Jul-13 1940 18.085 EA7AJR CW 559 599 Spain
30 Jul-13 1942 18.087 ON7PQ CW 339 579 Belgium
30 Jul-13 1955 18.090 OO8ZL CW 599 599 Belgium
30 Jul-13 2000 18.074 OZ2TF CW 559 599 Denmark

The view from my operating position was refreshing. Ironically, I had more trouble taking down the antenna than I had putting it up. In fact, I left a spool of wire stuck fast in a branch high in the tree. A knot in my line got stuck in a tight spot and wouldn’t come loose. When I tugged hard on the line, it snapped and left the spool of wire high above the road.

Returning to Needle Shop Brook was a treat. I didn’t just ride the bike back, I soared, seemingly several feet above the road. The fragrance of the summer air caressed my whole being and my eyes absorbed the richness of the wild growth along the riverside. I thoroughly enjoy these outings.