Going to Dayton this year — first time ever. Lisa and I will be loading up the truck with as many kits & new keyers as we can carry.
Oops — did I say new keyers? Guess I must have slipped.
Addicted & obsessed
I’ve been completely absorbed in trying to get a new product finished. I’ve already pretty much committed to making it to Dayton this year with inventory to sell. I have all fo the basic stuff working, and quite a few of the “whiz-bang” new features that no one else has. I keep hammering at getting the code finished, or at least to the point where I feel comfortable to taking it to Dayton.
I have been hacking away at this code (which is now somewhere upwards of 7,000 lines of C) for months. The last couple of weeks I’ve been doing that and virtually nothing else. I can now copy a limited set of Morse characters at over 20 WPM, sometimes 30… and I still have not been on the air in a couple of years.
So, if you know me, I apologize for being completely out of the loop.
What a difference a day makes!
Wow. Yesterday it was 50 or above, snow melting, got the antenna feedpoint re-connected and actually grilled hamburgers on the gas grill outside! Pete took the dog out to the dog park, which was followed by a bath since he (Buddy, not Pete) came home looking like one giant mudball. What a nice day. Of course we had a small pond forming in the back yard, the joy of living at the bottom of a hill.
Now it’s 10 or below, the pond is now a glacier of solid ice, and it’s snowing. Wind is blowing like mad, it’s just cold as hell.
The antenna work race
Well, the race is on! This is supposed to be our last day of decent weather before we have another week or two of cold & snow. I’ve got some work to do to get my antenna functional again. I had a very temporary lashup with a balun soldered (more or less) on the end of the coax, but without any weather protection. The rain & snow hit a few days sooner than I expected, so right now that balun is in the middle of a block of ice and the wires are disconnected. I have to get it thawed out, the coax patched to the antenna, and the whole mess sealed up against moisture this afternoon or it’s another few weeks of no radio!
It’s a little frustrating to have a nice “new”(er) rig sitting here and not be able to use it. I think I had less than 6 contacts for all of 2007… I’d like to do better this year!
Is it just me…
or did the snow come about a week or two too early this year? I wasn’t quite done with things in the back yard when it started. I’m hoping we get a reprieve, maybe just a few days of decent temperatures with the snow melted off. I’ve got antenna work to finish!!
Mixed blessings
On one hand, the emergence of the Internet has been a huge blessing to many of us. I’d even say most of us. Access to information (some of it even correct some of the time) has been greatly improved.
On the other hand, just TRY to find a specialty shop that carries anything you need. Sheesh. Continue reading “Mixed blessings”