Catching up again.....

It has been quite a while since I posted anything here, not because I have not been doing anything, but because I have been quite busy.

Let's see, Allyson had surgery on February 22 and I took a week off to be here for her. I was supposed to be at W4MYA's house the weekend of the 3rd for ARRL International DX contest. I was really pumped. But, Allyson was not doing as well as we thought she would so, I decided to stay close to home. I did not put forth an all out effort, but I did work maybe half the contest. On Sunday, I noticed I started having a sore throat and coughing. Tuesday, I went to the doctor and he decided to keep me out of work until Wednesday (March 7) and treat all of my symptoms. I kept getting worse, but went to work on Wednesday night. I had a mandatory supervisor meeting Thursday morning, but the Fire Chief, and my bosses all made me leave after an hour. I was just not able to shake this stuff. I went back on Sunday to the doctor and he made changes to the medications that I was taking, and I am showing some improvement, but I am still not back to even close to normal. I even had to have the Vice President of the radio club stand in for me tonight at the meeting just because I am still so weak and unable to function as well as I would like.

As if getting some terrible upper respiratory infection was not enough, the old Kenwood TS-440s appeared to give up the ghost during my last few contacts on Sunday. My signals were all over the board, people were saying that I was distorted and I was noticing that it was doing wierd things while I was operating. So, I am pretty bummed by that as I don't have enough money right now to go out and buy a new radio. I am going to borrow Larry's Icom for a couple of contests until I can get Kenwood to give me an estimate on repairing the 440S. Of course, because of my health, nothing got done radiowise around here.

I was able to get about two pounds of cards to the bureau, so the only outstanding DX for the bureau is the contest I just finished. I do have some that I want to send direct and hope to feel well enough in a few days to complete that task.

The tower is still not up as the weather or my health have not been cooperating. But, the weather appears to be breaking and as soon as I get a day off, I want to break ground for the tower. With the tower project complete, then things will hopefully go smoother.

I am keeping all my fingers crossed!!!