Lots of photo opportunities and I let them all slide………………………………………………….

As always, first the chronology:

7/30/23 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to church with Kathy.  Home and lunch.  Down to do the blog.  Over to Gary’s for the Sunday afternoon get together.  Home and picked up Kathy.  Over to Applebee’s for dinner.  Back home and picked up some things.  Then over to the repeater site to get the RF Power Amplifier working.  Home and usual evening routine.

7/31/23 – Monday – Up and out to Shelbyville to do some shopping for DC connectors at Harbor Freight, Auto Zone and Lowes.  Then a stop at Arby’s for an early lunch.  Down to Taylorsville to check the auto parts store there.  Home and on the computer to order the things I couldn’t get locally.  Kathy was up and out early to watch grand kids.  She got back mid afternoon.  She took a nap then we went to Cattleman’s for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

8/1/23 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time and out to do yard work.  Stopped briefly for lunch.  Finished up around 3PM.  Had extra work since the rain cut our efforts short the last time.  Inside, cooled down and re-hydrated.  A short nap and cleaned up.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

8/2/23 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time.  Kathy was already out to take Carter to the orthodontist.  I did some trouble shooting on the switching power supply that failed at the repeater site.  Made some phone calls to get a replacement for the bad component.  Had lunch.  Kathy came home and I got cleaned up.  Then out to take Kathy into Louisville for a routine doctor’s appointment.  Stopped at Logan’s Roadhouse for dinner.  Went up and picked up Shelby to stay the night.  Stopped at Kroger’s on the way home.  Usual evening routine.

8/3/23 – Thursday – Up a little early this morning.  Gather my things to work on the repeater.  Up to the farm and spent a couple hours doing some reconfiguration, replacing batteries in the UPS and changing some connectors that were the wrong kind.  Packed up and came home.  Unloaded things.  In the house.  Our niece Amy and her husband Ed stopped in for lunch on their way through.  We all had lunch and they left.  Tried to take a nap to no avail.  Mike came over to pickup Shelby.  We had dinner then usual evening routine.

8/4/23 – Friday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to Gallrein Farms for corn.  Got 4 bags of 4 dozen each.  Julie is coming over tomorrow and we are going to put it up in the freezer.  Had lunch while out.  Picked up some items I needed to finish up my portable setup.  Spent the afternoon going through emails.  Took a little nap.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

8/5/23 – Saturday – Up a little early today.  Cleaned up and prepared the garage for corn husking.  Had 4 bags with 4 dozen ears each.  Shucked, cooked and blanched then put up in freezer bags.  Julie and the grand kids came over to help.  Finished up around 2PM.  Had burgers and dogs on the grill.  Julie and the kids departed.  About an hour working on cleaning up.  Then a nap for a couple hours.  Up and dinner and finished cleaning up.  Otherwise, usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

The local UHF HAM repeater stopped working late last week. So Kathy and I took a ride up to the farm Sunday evening and I put a new power supply on the RF output amplifier to fix the problem. Brought the defective power supply back to the house and did some trouble shooting. Found a thermistor that got a little too hot. Probably from a bad solder job or a nicked wire. Either way, it burnt the thermistor. I did some research, got a schematic from MFJ and ordered the part. Should be here this coming week. I’ll fix it and use this supply as a backup.

Thursday morning I went up to the repeater site and replace the batteries in the UPS. I don’t think they have been changed since the UPS was manufactured. Put new connectors on the power leads to the RF power amplifier. Changed some options in the repeater itself. All should be good now for Allstar and Echolink.

Our niece Amy and her husband Ed stopped by on their way from State College, PA to somewhere in Texas. They were driving a car down to give to their son who is getting his doctor’s degree in psychology. Enough said about that.

Friday we went over to Gallrein farms and bought 4 bags of corn. Each bag had 4 dozen ears of corn. Julie and the grand kids came over Saturday morning and we started shucking it, then cooking it, blanching it, cutting it off the cobs then putting it up in freezer bags. Should have enough corn to last us for a couple years now. A good day but physically demanding. My legs hurt a little today but Kathy’s back was killing her. She didn’t even go to church this morning.

Tuesday was the first time we had a break in the weather and nothing planned. So we spent the day doing the yard work. It took longer as we had some catching up to do. Last time we did it we got hit with rain so we didn’t get a lot of the trimming done. So this week we caught up on that and everything looks pretty again.

We went over and picked up Shelby on Wednesday evening after we went out to eat. This will be the last week we keep her on Thursday as the kids start school this coming week. The summer has really flown fast. I guess that’s a product of getting old.

We went over to spend some time with Gary last Sunday. I texted his wife Loretta this week and she said he was back in the hospital to have a wound on the bottom of his foot taken care of. He just lays in bed all day. I don’t think I’d ever want to live like that. Again, I have a lot of thoughts on that matter but I’ll keep them to myself.

Haven’t done much with the CW this past week. A lot to do and I needed a break. I should get back on that this coming week.

Well that’s all I can think of for this week. As always, hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Stay that way and I’ll blog at you again next week.