Some random thoughts - pre-Valentines Day

Having Friday and Saturday nights off will allow me to spend more time with Allyson and the kids. So, it will be a balancing act. As always, I want to continue to give Allyson her "special time" either before or after the various contests that I do now so that she will not feel like I have abandoned her. And my daughter still has to have her "daddy moment" where we sing songs and pray before she goes to bed. She enjoys singing and so do I, so I want to encourage her continuing in this effort. Of course, I am trying to get her to stop wanting to sing Christmas songs now that it is February, but it is not going well with that effort. So, we have been singing rousing renditions of Jingle Bells for months along with other songs!!! And who says you can't have Christmas all year long???

I am very blessed to have a wife that tolerates the contest weekends, so I don't want to do something stupid to cause Allyson to become resentful or upset by my contesting. To give you an example of how much she spoils me in this respect, I was operating in one of the contests (I think it was Sweepstakes) and she knew that I was giving it a maximum effort, so she even brought a plate of finger food out to the shack. She is truly a blessing to me and I am so appreciative of her. She even offered to go pick up the building permit this week while I was sleeping so I would not have to do it, but I told her that Larry wanted to accompany me on that adventure on Thursday, so she said OK. I have to admit that I don't tell her nearly enough how much I appreciate her and everything that she does for me and our family. I try to tell her every day, but I truly feel that that is not enough. For a disabled person, she does very well. I truly married up. I got the better deal by far. There is not too much of a market for overweight, balding geeks, but there sure is one for beautiful, kind hearted and loving women such as Allyson.

I just hope that she continues to be as tolerant when all of the aluminum starts going up in the sky!!!!! I know that she will be, but she has never really seen an amateur tower and all of the trappings up close and personal. She is learning this stuff as we go along and she actually is picking up things well. She has no desire to become a ham, but she does enjoy hearing about the new countries and contests that I work. There is a good side to that. Since she has no desire to be a ham, I don't have to worry about sharing my station. That would really be a pain. I wouldn't mind her having a technician license so we could work 2 meters with each other but I don't know if she would go with it.

So, my life is very good on the home front. Of course, I wish that my oldest son, Justin, would get his license so that he could pursue possible ham scholarships, but I don't see that coming. John shows an interest, but I just can't talk him into committing to studying for the exam. And, of course, Emma is too young, but she is interested when she can talk with Santa!!!

The BUMS DXpedition

I am kinda "bummed" out that I did not get a chance to work this one. I just completed changing over to a new work schedule that caused me to work 10 days straight and included a change in my sleeping pattern. Now that I am working the new schedule of 10pm until 6am Sunday through Thursday, I hope to be in a better position for working some new countries and getting my DX totals up, along with being able to work in some contests that I have never had the opportunity to participate in.

I was hoping to not only make contact with them, but to even attempt to use my Buddipole to do so, but it was just not to be. Plus, I was not really looking forward to freezing my butt off playing radio. It has been really cold her for about the past week and so that has also tended to limit my initiative to work on the radio. Maybe one day I will have the shack better heated, but for now, it can get very frigid out there!!!

So, I have missed one DXpedition that I really wanted to make contact with. Fortunately, I have Montserrat in the log for DXCC, but it is still a loss for me.

Interesting item

I was reading Jeff's (KE9V) blog, Long Delayed Echos and he just put up a post about the HPS-1a Gamma HybridCommunications Power Supply. It sounds pretty intriguing and might make a great addition to my hopefully portable operations in the future. I will have to save up my money and see if I can afford one in the future. Of course, I have to weigh it against my needs. I have not done that much portable operation from the road. When I am travelling, it is usually with the family or for a work activity that does not often lend itself talking on the radio much. Allyson and the family did tolerate me doing some operation from Tennessee last year when we were visiting with my mother. I used Larry's portable setup for that and it worked great. Now that I have the Buddipole system, that eliminates the needs for wire antennas with the exception of the 80 meter band and I can even get a set of coils for that now. So, I might eliminate the wire antenna altogether. It is interesting item and something that I really need to consider in the future. Jeff appears to like it and I have found him to be a reliable source of information, even though he is more of a CW person than I am. I do hope that one day, he and I will get a chance to have a QSO, especially since I am working on getting my CW skills back up to a usable level again after the long period of their lack of use.

Larry a blogger???

Larry (W3MGL) has set up a new blog called Geezer Notes. He has entered the cyber world and I am looking forward to seeing his thoughts over the coming months. He and I agree on a lot of things, except politics, religion and some parts of our worldview, but for the most part, you could not tell that he is not my father. He gets me in trouble from time to time and I keep him in hot water with his wife just as much!! But, it will be good to learn from his 60+ years as a ham and his over 80+ years of life.

So, good luck on your blog, Larry. I will be sure to keep up with your postings.

Things are moving along

Well, things are falling into place. Thursday, Larry and I went and picked up the tower building permit. I was quite pleased that the permit only cost $50 since I am not a wealthy man. Of course, my priorities are my family and a minimal cost always helps when making changes or repairs to the station. Now, it is just a matter of getting a hole dug and filled with concrete. As we are expecting some frigid temperatures for about a week, I am going to see how things shake out.

Today, while I was taking a nap (because I had not slept since before I went to work last night) the replacement boom piece came from Cushcraft. I also ordered the parts to replace the boots on the traps and the end caps for the elements and booms. So, when the weather breaks, there is another project. The nice thing is that when the tower and tri-bander go up, the antenna will be just like new.

So, this means that things are moving in the direction we want them to take. Of course, this is not a month where there are the major contests that I participate in, so this will give me an opportunity to do some work on the station. I will be off for a few days later this month, so it could be that I might be able to get the majority of this work done then. We will just have to see how things go. It would be wonderful to start the month of March with a drastically new station!