Not an overwhelming week but we kept busy…………………………

As always, first the chronology:

11/22/20 – Sunday – Up a little early and usual morning routine.  Cleaned up and downstairs to do the blog.  Then some radio play.  Made a couple FT8 contacts and some PSK contacts.  Had lunch.  Chatted with Kathy.  Got dressed and over to the Sunday afternoon get together at Gary’s house.  Home and chatted awhile.  Then ordered Mexican.  Stopped at Country Mart for some groceries on the way to pick up our Mexican.  Home and ate.  Downstairs to play radio and do computer updates.  Upstairs to bed.  More computer updates and sleep.

11/23/20 – Monday – Up very early this morning.  Went to bed too early last night and was awake at 4:30 this morning.  Laid in bed till Kathy got up at 6:45.  She was off to watch the grand kids today.  I did my usual morning routine.  Wanted to cleanup some thumb drives and external hard drives that turned into a mess and spent all morning on it.  Mike (my HAM friend) called and wanted some help with FLDIGI on HAM radio.  Had lunch then out to the shop to take the mower deck off the tractor and put the snow blade on.  Brought it over to the house and put it and the golf cart on battery conditioners.  In for a nap.  Downstairs to play radio.  Kathy came home and we had dinner.  Chatted with the guys on 2 meters.  Played radio.  To bed, TV and sleep.

11/24/20 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine.  Got cleaned up and we went into J-town to pickup a couple prescriptions.  Got the truck gassed up while out.  Home and played radio while Kathy did some things.  Then lunch.  Out to take down Halloween/fall decorations and put up Christmas decorations since the day was nice.  Won’t turn the lights on till Friday.  Back inside and helped Kathy do some cleaning.  Played radio till dinner.  Down and chatted with the guys on 2 meters then played radio some more.  Upstairs for dessert, Bed, TV, Computer updates and sleep.

11/25/20 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine.  Kathy was already up and out to watch the grand children.  I got cleaned up and out to get my hair cut.  Did some shopping and back to the house to work on FLDIGI and FLRIG.  Kathy came over at lunch with the grand children and sandwiches.  Had lunch then played cribbage with my grandson.  Mike came over to get the kids so I chatted with him awhile.  He left and Kathy and I made a quick shopping trip and picked up Subway for dinner.  Home and ate.  Chatted with the guys on 2 meters.  Did some more work with FLDIGI.  Did computer updates.  Upstairs and chatted with Kathy awhile.  Bed, TV and sleep.

11/26/20 – Thursday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine.  Got cleaned up and helped Kathy prepare to haul food up to Mike and Julie’s.  Left the house about 11:30.  Help Julie finish preparing things and finally sat down to eat around 2PM.  Helped clean up and was back at the house around 4PM.  Unloaded the car.  Downstairs to play radio.  Computer updates.  Upstairs to bed, TV and sleep.

11/27/20 – Friday – Up a little early, usual morning routine and out to fire up the heaters in the Morton building.  Mike was suppose to come over around 9 but didn’t make it till 10.  We changed head lamps in his Landrover and checked all the fluid levels.  He left shortly before lunch.  Kathy and I had lunch then I came down to play radio.  Made a bunch of digital contacts.  Didn’t feel well so went to take a nap.  Up and had dinner.  Chatted with the guys on 2 meters.  Played a little with and RTL-SDR.  Then bed, TV and sleep.

11/28/20 – Saturday – Up at the usual time and usual morning routine.  Did chores around the house and got cleaned up.  Then downstairs to play radio.  Made a lot of contacts.  Up for lunch and more radio.  Took a nap then dinner.  Chatted with the guys on 2 meters.  Computer updates.  Upstairs to bed, TV and sleep.

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Now the specifics:

I started this blog with a short list but it’s gotten very long. Hang in there.

In the chronology I talk a lot about playing radio, FLDIGI, FLRIG, PSK, FT8 and many other strange terms. Let me simplify things. With the band conditions poor, digital modes are much better than phone(voice). So, I did some reading and learned about FT8 and PSK. These are simply two methods of transmitting and receiving information digitally. Both have computer programs that encode and decode information on the computer screen to audio signals and transmits and/or receives them over HF radio. A program called WSJT-X does the FT8 mode and FLDIGI does the PSK mode.

This is a screen shot of what FLDIGI looks like. You can also let the computer control the radio with either FLRIG or HAMLIB. FLRIG works with FLDIGI but I found out it doesn’t work with WSJT-X. So, I uninstalled FLRIG this week and hosed up FLDIGI at the same time. So then I installed HAMLIB and FLDIGI again. Now everything works as it should. I like PSK with FLDIGI the best. You can chat with people keyboard to keyboard. With FT8 it’s just an exchange of canned information. So, this is the new thing I have been playing with. It’s a lot of fun to use when the bands are no good for talking.

The green twins are in there place for the winter. Monday I took the mower deck off the tractor and put the snow blade on. Moved it over to the house and put both it and the golf cart on battery conditioners. This is my insurance policy that we won’t get a lot of snow.

Tuesday we did some running around and I got gas in the truck.

I go to the local folks here but prices below $2 are common around this area. Of course don’t enjoy it too much. It looks more and more like Biden is going to be our future President and if he gets us back into the Paris Climate Accord again, you can look forward to $4 a gallon and more. And if you have any friends in the oil industry, start saving a little money to give them as a lot will be out of work. Sad, very sad.

Kathy was watching the grand children on Wednesday so she brought them over to the house so she could get some things done in preparation for Thanksgiving dinner on Thursday. I took advantage of the situation and spent the afternoon playing Cribbage with my grandson. He almost beat me. He took 3 sets in a row. He is getting very good at it.

So we did the usual thing on Thursday. Kathy made a ham, green bean casserole and pies. Julie and Mike did a Turkey and a bunch of other stuff. We hauled everything over and of course we had so much left over that we will be eating from it for at least two weeks. I just don’t understand it but the ladies have a good time.

The table did look good and all the food was excellent. We even got to use the good dinning room at the Rice residence.

And I got to spend time with my favorite member of the family. Cooper is my buddy.

My son-in-law came over Friday. Had a headlight out in his Landrover. They seem to only last a year or so in that car so we bought two and replaced both of them. Went over the vehicle and checked fluid levels and tire pressures.

Kathy and I took down the outside Halloween/Fall decoration and put up the lights and the outside Christmas tree on Tuesday. Over the weekend we got the inside tree out of the storage closet and set it up in the family room.

Kathy was a little slow getting started on the decorating part. But I’m sure it will improve.

OK, well that’s it for this week. Sorry it was much longer than I planned. As always, hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Please stay that way. Blog at you again next week.