A busy week but some fun involved…………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

8/6/23 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to church.  Kathy stayed home.  I think doing the corn yesterday wiped her out.  I came home and we had lunch.  Down to do the blog.  Out to the hospital to see my friend Gary.  Spent a couple hours over there.  Home and picked up Kathy and went to Cracker Barrel for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

8/7/23 – Monday – Slow start today.  Bad weather last night.  Tore the canopy off the pool deck.  I got cleaned up and out to Batteries and Bulbs plus to pick up some triple A rechargeable batteries.  Picked up some subs at Jimmy Johns and took them home for lunch.  Had lunch then down to the shack.  Tried to resurrect an old pair of wireless headphones with no luck.  Then fixed the switching power supply that crapped out at the repeater with a thermistor I got in the mail today.  That works OK now.  Finished up (well, for now) the cases with my portable station.  Out and cleaned up the mess the wind made last night out of the pool canopy.  Got that ready for the garbage on Thursday.  Inside for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

8/8/23 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time.  Kathy was already out to watch the grand kids.  I spent most of the day in the shack cleaning things up and getting things organized for the KY POTA event this Saturday.  Kathy came home mid-afternoon.  I was in the shower getting cleaned up for the HAM club meeting.  I had a frozen dinner then headed out a little after 5.  We had testing at 6 and then the meeting at 7. Home and put the truck away and usual evening routine.

8/9/23 – Wednesday – Up a little early for some reason.  Had breakfast and went back to bed.  I guess I was making up for not having a nap the last couple day.  I got up later and did some chores around the house then lunch.  Then down to the shack to organize some more things and make a schedule with a gentleman from the Czech Republic.  Had dinner then back to the shack and uploaded logs.  Otherwise, usual evening routine.

8/10/23 – Thursday – Up a little early this morning.  Cleaned up and out to get my hair cut.  Home and picked up Kathy.  Then to church to do the weekly cleaning.  Went to the Lighthouse Diner for lunch.  A little shopping at Country Mart.  Home and a nap.  Up and did some chores around the house.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

8/11/23 – Friday – Up at the usual time.  Kathy was already out to take a friend for her colonoscopy.  I did work in the shack and some reading.  Had lunch.  Kathy came home early afternoon.  Leeta came over this afternoon and I gave her an education in Allstar and let her practice with my node.  She took off and I went into J-town for HAM testing.  Home and had dinner.  Usual evening routine and getting ready for KY POTA tomorrow.

8/12/23 – Saturday – Up a little early.  Finished packing and off to Taylorsville State Park for the KY POTA exercise.  Finished up around 2PM and packed up.  Home and unloaded things.  Still have things laid out in the kitchenette area to dry.  Got cleaned up and out with Kathy to Cattleman’s for dinner.  Home and early to bed.

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Now the specifics:

Nothing will be in order this week. So much going on its difficult to prioritize so take it as it comes.

Monday the parts came that I ordered. The power supply that we had on the amplifier at the repeater site looked like one side of a thermistor was never soldered. The is just a device to minimize the high inrush current when you first turn on the power supply. Anyway, it appeared as though it just kept arching until enough heat built up that it burned up the thremistor. So a simple replacement job and that worked fine.

We had some rough weather here on Sunday night. It managed to destroy the frame for the canopy at the pool. So Monday evening I went out and took off the actual canopy and cut up the frame that was bent beyond repair and got it ready for the garbage Thursday night.

Early last week I got an email from a gentleman in the Czech Republic. He was doing an exercise in contacting all the counties in the USA. He was having a problem finding a contact in Spencer County, KY as there are only a couple dozen hams and only a few of them have HF capabilities. So I made a schedule with him on 17 meters for Wednesday evening and we passed our reports on FT-8. He was anxious to get things confirmed so I uploaded my logs Wednesday evening and got a QSL card ready to send out Thursday morning. Just one of the fun things associated with HAM radio.

Tuesday we had a HAM club meeting. Had a testing session prior to the meeting. Had a good group for testing and several passed. So that was all good. We had a HAM visitor from Japan. He was an english teacher in Japan and brought some students to the US for a seminar at Kentucky University so he spent his time here playing ham radio. Otherwise our meeting was spent formulating plans for the KY POTA exercise on Saturday.

One of the gentleman that took his technician and passed then took his general test and passed showed up at the KY POTA exercise. He was a real nice guy and asked lots of questions. Turns out he is a pastor at a local Baptist church. Very interesting guy.

The actual exercise was a bust. It started raining shortly after we wet up. I think it scared a lot of people away. I only made 6 digital contacts in 5 hours and none were from Kentucky. But it was good to get out and play. A lot of socializing and some learning opportunities.

A couple pictures of our outing Saturday after the rains stopped.

Thursday was hair cut day. After that we cleaned the church. Then out for lunch at the Lighthouse Diner.

Kathy had the kids Tuesday for the last time this year. They went back to school on Wednesday.

Leeta came over to the house to learn how to use Allstar. I let her play with my node to get the hang of things. Later in the evening she linked us to a repeater in Scott County that had a weekly broadcast. Everything worked well.

Gary was back in the hospital last week. He was admitted for a skin graft on his foot. Since then he has been moved back home but apparently he is not doing well as Loretta said he would not want visitors this week as he usually does.

Well that’s about the short and long of things here. As always, hope this finds everyone safe and well. Stay that way and I’ll blog at you again next week.