Posts Tagged ‘Personal’
Retirement and Ham Radio
January 11th, 2016 | 
Author: Basically my last day in the office was mid-December, so I've had a nice taste of freedom from employment already. My schedule, or lack thereof, is starting to gel although I'm sure I will go through numerous "phases", I think the pattern is set. So below are few things that I've already experienced on how retirement will effect my ham radio pursuits.
- I've had time actually read the owner's manual for my radios.
- I've learned to set-up and use the frequency/band memory functions available on the K3
- I now understand more of the menu options for the radio
- I can now operate my HT.
- I'm reading books about antennas
- I love CW and have found that rag-chewing is a very enjoyable aspect of ham radio. I have met some very interesting people and I've started to make a lot of new friends since I've taken time to just call CQ and not append DX to it
- I joined the local 2 meter weak signal group and I actually check in to their weekly net.. When I'm home I monitor 144.200 on SSB/CW. VHF/UHF can provide a lot of excitement for a DX minded ham. The DX isn't as far, but it's just as satisfying.
- I've acquired a lot of new equipment over the years, but I haven't gotten rid of much. There are many avenues to sell gear, EBay, QRZ.com, eHam, etc.... Now that I'm retired I will have a more modest ham radio budget and getting rid of the old stuff provides a little cash for even more toys.
- I haven't finished this yet, but I've started
- I love SOTA and can now plan extended SOTA activation trips with no time lines.
- I've activated 10+ IOTA islands and can now consider planning more trips.
Next Stage
- I've been working 40 years and that's enough
- I've been married 40 years and that's, well, that's good
- Both of my sons have lost their hair
- My oldest grandson is 6' 2" tall
Next Stage
- I've been working 40 years and that's enough
- I've been married 40 years and that's, well, that's good
- Both of my sons have lost their hair
- My oldest grandson is 6' 2" tall
Nasty OT Ham – Reality or Myth?
It's not uncommon for me to read the articles, and then inevitably, come across some comment by a self-proclaimed "newbie" wherein he or she begins to bemoan the treatment they've received from some "old fart", nasty, mean ol' Ham.
The common scenario seems to be:
"I'm new, bright-eyed, bushy tailed, full of exuberance and spit and vinegar - but yet somewhat lacking in knowledge and experience. I've gone to WB#XYZ repeater or to the Amateur Radio Club of Greater Podunk, where my inquiries were met with laughter, ridicule, sarcasm and down right meanness from Joe Ham. I am now going to sell all my Amateur Radio equipment because I'm traumatized and I never even want to hear the words "Amateur Radio" again."
I've seen this retold several times, in several different instances. I hate to question the veracity of the people making these claims - but can they be true? This has become a pet peeve of mine.
I've mentioned many times now, that I've been licensed for over 35 years. In all that time, I have never, ever, not even once come across treatment like that from an older Ham. Don't get me wrong, I've had to withstand my share of newbie ribbing, and have received my share of friendly and gentle reprimanding when doing something wrong - but nothing like these guys are describing.
A case in point. Shortly after upgrading to General in 1979, I joined the Old Bridge Amateur Radio Association. They owned and operated the KB2TX repeater at the time (well actually, it became the KB2TX repeater after Walt, the owner, changed his callsign to KB2TX - I forget what it was before that). Anyway, I had installed a used non-Icom microphone with a DTMF pad on my Icom 2 Meter mobile, so that I could make phone patches if the need came up. Back in those days, (am I dating myself?) it was rare for a mobile microphone to come with a keypad pre-installed. Unbeknownst to me, the microphone's element wasn't working. The DTMF tones were making it through, but my voice wasn't. So Walt got on the air and in his usual gruff and no-nosense manner announced, "Hey! Whoever's sending the tones - you've got no audio. Stop it and identify yourself". I was saying "KA2DOH (my call at the time) testing.", but it wasn't coming through. I had Walt's phone number and gave him a call, explaining the problem. After listening to my profuse apology, he got quiet and thought for a few seconds. Instead of giving me a tongue lashing, as technically I was breaking the rules, he suggested that the impedance of the microphone element might not be the proper valuthat the rig was looking for - a mismatch. Sure enough, that's what it turned out to be.
I listened and I learned something (that had never occurred to me) and was able to remedy the situation by going to Radio Shack, where I purchased and soldered into my microphone an element with the proper impedance. Walt could have dressed me down, and read me the riot act, but he didn't. He was that way to everybody. In fact, in dealing with all the Old Timers throughout my Amateur Radio career (there were many) - they were all like that. I can't ever remember a time where I received a snotty, snarky or sarcastic reply to a question. In fact, in my dealing with experienced Hams, they have always been helpful, accommodating and educational. And I live in New Jersey, too - supposedly the home of unfriendly, sarcastic, snarky and just plain mean ol' human beings in general!
So where does this curmudgeon live? DOES this curmudgeon live? Or have we become so hyper-sensitive to any kind of criticism that even helpful criticism is taken as an incidence of ego-shattering reprimand?
Maybe they do exist, and maybe I'm lucky that I've never come across one. Maybe I just need to go down on bended knee and be grateful that I've never run across the "No kids, no lids, no space cadets" type of Ham. I can tell you that I have become dear friends with several "Old Timer" Hams who did have very rough and gruff reputations, only to find out after spending some time talking with and listening to them, that they had hearts of pure gold. Sometimes that's all it takes, just listening for a bit instead of always chattering and insisting that we know everything, and that we're always right - when maybe, just perhaps, we're not.
Food for thought.
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Busy weekend!
The weekend was busy chore-wise. And normally, I wouldn't consider that such a great thing. The HF bands have been so crappy, though, that at least I've been too busy to bang my head against that ionospheric brick wall. The few times I did turn the KX3 on for a few minutes, I thought both my antennas had disappeared, with one exception I will talk about later.
I spent Saturday mowing the lawns, front & back, as well as completing all the trimming in the backyard. It's kind of amazing how much lawn I've reclaimed by beating off and cutting back all my neighbors' flora overhang from my two side fences. Not only does the backyard look bigger now, but mowing the lawn will be easier. Each time I got near the fence on each side of the yard, I was being treated to whaps in the face by low hanging bush branches encroaching from their yards. Not a problem now!
On Sunday, I had the great honor and immense pleasure to be interviewed by Eric Guth 4Z1UG for an upcoming installment of his "QSO Today" podcast. I have no idea when it will actually be released, but someday soon you'll be able to hear my voice and you'll suddenly realize why I've stayed a CW guy all these years!
All kidding aside, it was a fantastic experience. Eric is a warm and friendly person who immediately puts you at ease. It was just like having a QSO with a dear, old friend. The interview lasted for close to an hour, but it felt more like five minutes. Eric has done a lot of really cool podcast interviews with a lot of deserving and interesting Amateur radio ops, so why he selected me is anyone's guess. But you should do yourself a favor and follow the link I provided and listen to some of them. He's performing a great service to the Amateur Radio community by providing fascinating conversations for us to listen to. This series kind of reminds me of the old Edward R. Murrow "Person to Person" TV show, but on an Amateur Radio basis.
After I finished up with Eric, I dove into cleaning up the shack. I'm not proud to admit that over the past few months, it became a dumping ground and a pig sty (however, I am Flying Pig #612, so maybe that's appropriate?). I ended up spending about three hours, cleaning, organizing and pitching "stuff". I ended up filling four of those large 30 gallon green trash bags with stuff I should have tossed a long time ago, but never did.
As a bonus, I "found" a few items that I have been looking for and had misplaced. For instance, last Winter, I had ordered a few kite winders that I wanted to use for storing the radiator wires for my EFHW antennas. As QRPTTF and FOBB approached, I knew I had them, but I couldn't locate them. I had put them down in the shack, and just couldn't figure out where - exactly. I found them yesterday and they are now safely in my portable ops backpack. Of course, it's as we approach the end of the outdoor QRP contest season - but I have them. Yay!
I actually have room to move around and breath in there now! Don't get me wrong .... it's by no means an immaculate shack. I still need to dust and I want to re-hang my DXCC, WPX and QRP-ARCI awards on the main shack wall before I will consider the job done. However, I can now bring a visitor into the shack without fear that they'll be swallowed up like one of those hoarders you see on TV.
I finished up the evening, by returning to the shack after dinner to see how 80 Meters was behaving itself. It sounded relatively quiet, so I guess that's another depressing sign that Autumn is on the way. (My regular readers know that I'm a Spring/Summer kind of guy and that Autumn bums me out because I know that Winter is not far behind.) I plunked down around 3.561 MHz and tried calling CQ for a bit. For my efforts (no real big effort!) I was rewarded with a QSO from Lee K4ISW in Chartlottesville, VA. Lee just recently acquired a K3S and I was one of his first week's worth of QSOs on the new rig. Lee's K3S sounded great and Lee sounded happy - so I'm thinking a win/win situation is occurring at the K4ISW shack.
80 Meters sounded great after a Spring and Summer filled with static crashes and loud background QRN. The return of 80 and 160 Meters into useful Amateur Radio bands is the ONLY good thing about Fall and Winter, in yours truly's humble opinion.
Take care guys/gals - QRP and CW on!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
On a scale of 1 to 10
The day started sunny and bright. As soon as I walked outside at 7:00 AM, it was easy to tell it was going to be a hot one. Summer! I love it!
I set out one of my 12 Volt SLA batteries on a patio chair in the backyard and hooked up one of my small solar panels to get it charged up. I had used the battery as a power source so I could program the Juentai VHF/UHF radio in the house, as well as to do some test transmissions. At 20 Watts out, I depleted the battery rather quickly, so I took the opportunity to use sunny days both yesterday and today to get it back up to full capacity.
I had gone to Mass on Saturday evening, so I used the quiet time (and "cool" morning) to install the Jeuntai into the Jeep. I mounted it "sideways" to the front console in the Patriot, where the transmission gear shift stick is. This is a really lousy photo, but it will show you what I mean:
I had to go to Home Depot to get some shorter sheet metal screws. The ones that came with the unit were about 3/4" long. I put my hand up and in behind the housing/fairing and could not feel anything vital behind my proposed mounting area, but I still wanted shorter screws. I got some 3/8" ones that did the job magnificently. The unit will sit a few inches from my right knee, but it is completely out of the way and non-interfering with the operation of the car. Not that I use it that much, bit it's great to have VHF/UHF in the car again.
Shortly after, I went down the basement shack to see if I could work any lighthouses during International Lighthouse and Lightship Weekend. The bands were terrible! I managed to hear and work one - W8F, the Fort Gratiot lighthouse at Port Huron. Michigan. QSB was terrible, but I gave Stan a 579 and he gave me the same.
Then at 1:30 PM, I left to take a short drive over to Dave KD2FSI's house. Dave was hosting the South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club's Digital Rookie Roundup effort. He had his two Yaesu's hooked up and raring to go. He also had on display a Heathkit transciever that he recently bought at the Sussex County Amateur Radio Club Hamfest in July. Talk about pristine! Dave "lifted the hood" and let us take a look inside - it looked like it was built yesterday. It is immaculate, and looks like brand spanking new. And on the table next to it was an HW-8.
The bands were as terrible at Dave's house as they were at mine (surprise!). There wasn't a lot of Rookie RTTY activity, so Dave graced us with demos of PSK31 and the other digi modes and we had a great time shooting the breeze. Marv K2VHW and Drew W2OU were there in addition to a couple of Dave's neighborhood friends. I think between Dave, Marv, Drew and I, we gave his friends a good enough rundown on Amateur Radio that they could have passed the Tech test had we given it to them!
I had to leave at around 3:30 PM as I had promised my son Joey and my wife Marianne that I would accompany them to the community pool this afternoon. They've made use of the pool a lot this summer, and I haven't - so I promised I would go today. As I was leaving Dave's house and saying my good-byes, Dave says to me, "Make sure you don't leave without your radio." All I could do was shoot him a "?????" look. "The HW-8 ..... it's yours."
I was speechless. He had said that he had read somewhere (guess where?) that the HW-8 was my first QRP rig and that I had very much regretted parting with it years back. He had his son scour eBay for a good deal and acquired it for me. I was still speechless. I managed to croak out a "Thanks, Dave - you shouldn't have". But that is soooooooo inadequate. Dave has a heart of gold and as much as that HW-8 means to me, Dave's frienship means even more. I can't ever re-pay his generosity, but that sure doesn't mean that I'm not going to try - somehow, someway, someday.
As you can see, the rig is in pristine condition, besides the writing on the power supply, there's not a mark or scratch on it. Whoever had it made one modification that I can tell, they traded out the original RCA connector that was used for the antenna connection with an SO-239 - so that's perfect! This baby is going to get a lot of use. Yes, it's a HW-8, but I now have one back in my hands, and it's also a testament to the generosity of a great Ham and better yet, a great friend.
I did go to the pool with Marianne and Joey and even went in the water. I stayed at the shallow 3 foot end as I never learned how to swim as a kid. Even so, Marianne, Joey and I stayed there for about two hours, enjoying the cool water and we played a game of catch with this "Wubba" pool ball (small, soft, floats, unsinkable) that Joey had purchased when we were up at Lake George.
The evening was rounded out with a delicious dinner of grilled Teriyaki chicken, baked taters and corn, all consumed while leisurely sitting around the patio table in the back yard. We were able to enjoy the cooler evening air and each other's company.
So, yeah, on a scale of 1 to 10, today was about a 30 - heck, maybe even a 50!
72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
A long time coming….
This blog post is LOOOOONNNNGGGG overdue and for that I’m truly sorry. I suppose when one builds some sort of following via social media and through blogging and podcasting and then just vanishes the concern may arise. Please allow me to take a moment to provide some explanation.
As many of you know I was actively pursuing a QSO a day in 2014 and having an absolute blast operating in the ARRL Centennial QSO Party. While my podcast had suffered a few months of neglect, I was active on Twitter and actively blogging about my progress with the QSO a Day and the ARRL Centennial operations. All was going well until mid August then everything changed. The life (and world) my wife and I had created just simply crashed around us in a devastating manner.
My wife and I do not have any children. She and I were both raised around animals and grew up with dogs and cats in our lives. While I had spent much of my adult life without animals, this all changed when I met my wife and she moved to the US. I became the daddy of two cats (Socks and Moustey). Socks and Moustey traveled to the US (Denver) on a British Airways Boeing 777 and in their long life had managed to live in three different countries (Belgium, England and US).
We lost Socks in the fall of 2008. At the time he was 15-16 years old and had lived a good life. My wife had given him the very best life a pussy cat could ever want. At the time of Socks’ passing, Moustey was also 15-16 years old and we were concerned if she remained the only cat in our house that she might suffer. So we adopted a kitten and named him Skye.
Now, after about two years we realized that Moustey really wanted a more relaxed and less stressful life from what Skye (being 2 years old) wanted. So we adopted another kitten (Mickey) in 2010. Mickey and Skye were best friends and Moustey was allowed to gracefully retire for the most part and our little family was happy and content.
Moustey passed away on August 8 of 2013 at the age of 23 years old. About 30 minutes after Moustey left us to go to the Rainbow Bridge, I received a call from my mom that my grandmother had passed away. This all happened the week before my wife and I were scheduled to fly to Belgium to visit her family. August 2013 was not a great month. But as we would soon discover, August 2014 was going to be even worse.
Mickey began throwing up. Now this is just something cats do and if you are a cat person….you know this. So after the second day we decided to take Mickey to the vet. We took him to our local vet and he was examined. The vet could find nothing wrong. He performed an x-ray and scan. No blockages detected…basically nothing detected to give any cause of alarm. We were sent home with some medicine and told all should be fine in 24 hours.
24 hours later Mickey was not improving. He was not eating and he was not drinking. My wife and I decided to take him to the 24 hour animal hospital. After about 30 minutes, we were told what they thought might be the cause and for the first time in my life I heard the term dysautonomia.
Dysautonomia is a disease which attacks the central nervous system and causes it to malfunction. Additional scans and x-rays were performed of Mickey’s esophagus and stomach. Basically the disease prevents the esophagus from delivering food into the stomach and also fails to prevent the stomach acids from flowing up the esophagus. Basically causing an extremely bad case of acid refux.
There are many other symptoms which Mickey exhibited. Sort of the final test to determine if he had Dysautonomia was his heart rate. His heart rate was very low and when given a dose of atropine (which normally causes the heart rate to increase) his stayed low.
We were told Mickey only had a few days (at best) to live and we took him home with us and spent about four hours with him before we had a service come to our home to help him pass away peacefully.
While I dearly loved both Mickey and Skye very much, Mickey was my little buddy. He would follow me all around the house. I taught him to play fetch when he was just a kitten and we were very close. Mickey was only 4 years old.
Of course, panic started to set in and we asked the hospital if it was possible for Skye to also have this disease. They told us it was very rare and while we were very sad to have lost Mickey, we were both determined to show a brave front around Skye and knew he would also miss Mickey very much.
Just a few days after we said goodbye to Mickey, Skye began throwing up. We called the hospital and they reassured us how rare it would be for Skye to also get this. And we should understand that Skye is grieving as well and to relax.
Well….less than a week later we were saying our goodbyes to Skye. He also developed this cruel disease. Skye died one week after Mickey. Skye was 6 years old.
We all face the certainty of death. We are born and we will die. The same applies to cats. While we grieved for Socks and Moustey….we accepted the fact that it was their time. They lived a long and good life. But this just simply is not the case with Mickey and Skye. They were taken from us far, far too early.
Unfortunately, we do not know what caused Dysautonomia to come crashing into our lives. Most vets still say it is rare for the disease to pass from one to another. I guess we suspect food. But as I said, we have no proof.
Anyway….my wife and I still struggle with this loss. It may sound strange, but when I started to think about getting on the air, or doing anything amateur radio related….I thought about my cats and it made me sad. Yes, I’m still sad and I know that ham radio isn’t the cause of anything and I know my interest will return. But this is why I’ve been mostly silent.
Thank you for understanding and thank you for reading.
73,
Jerry
KDØBIK
