Not a bad week. A lot of cleaning up……………………..

As always, first the chronology:

8/13/23 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to church with Kathy.  Had lunch at the church.  Home and did the blog.  Started the battery on charge from POTA.  Continued cleanup efforts.  Met up with the Rice family at the Yoki Buffet for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

8/14/23 – Monday – Up very late this morning.  Again it’s a very dreary day.  Yard work needs done but it will wait till tomorrow or Wednesday.  Spent the morning doing chores.  Then to the shack to resurrect a set of wireless headphones.  Did some more clean up.  Up and took a nap.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

8/15/23 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time.  Chores around the house and cleaned myself up.  Had lunch and Kathy was out for a hair appointment.  I went to the shack and started scoping out the UHF repeater and looking for crystals.  Kathy came home and we went into J-town for a little shopping at Kroger.  Home, put things away and out to get gas for tomorrow’s yard work.  Back and cooked supper.  Usual evening routine.

8/16/23 – Wednesday – Up at the usual time and out to do yard work.  Very heavy and wet so it took a long time today.  Stopped for lunch but didn’t get done till almost 4PM.  Inside, cooled down and a shower.  Dinner and usual evening routine.

8/17/23 – Thursday – Up at the usual time.  Down to finish some research and send info.  Did some ordering.  Had lunch.  Back to the shack to play radio.  Cleaned up then a one hour zoom class.  Kathy and I went to Bob Evans for dinner.  Some shopping at Meijer and Walmart.  Home and usual evening routine.

8/18/23 – Friday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out on the motorcycle.  Made a stop for lunch at Hooters.  Got back home around 2:30PM.  Kathy was out shopping and got home shortly after.  Got cooled down and changed clothes.  Spent 2 hours on Zoom doing CW classes.  Had dinner and usual evening routine.

8/19/23 – Saturday – Up at the usual time.  Kathy was out to do things with Julie today.  I went to the shack and started some research on a couple things.  Broke for lunch.  Went out and checked the battery voltage on the motorcycle.  All appears good.  it started OK.  Back to the shack and did some CW work.  Up for a nap.  Kathy came home and got in bed.  I got up and had a snack then back to work on the CW straight key.  Up for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

Spent the first part of the week cleaning up the stuff I took for POTA last weekend. Got my large capacity battery re-charged. All is back in place in the travel cases. Ready for the next expedition.

Monday was very crappy weather. We had a cold front come through that gave us torrential down pours and gusty winds. Nothing unfamiliar to us in the Ohio Valley. The good side was it cooled things down tremendously. Was very nice the rest of the week.

It was so nice we did yard work Wednesday. It took a couple days for things to dry out after Monday’s weather. It was a long job as it was about a week overdue. But we got it all done and survived.

Friday it was so nice I went out for a motorcycle ride. Spent a couple hours riding then stopped at Hooter’s for lunch. Stopped for gas on the way home and of course the motorcycle wouldn’t start after I filled it up. Obviously an electrical issue. The indicators wouldn’t even light up. A guy offered to go get jumper cables but I had it started by the time he got back. Seems like something wrong with the electrical system that makes the bike think it’s a dead battery till it cools down. After I got it home I checked and the battery voltage was up where it should be. I started it and when running the battery voltage came up where it was suppose to be for charging. I have no idea what it is at this point but will continue looking.

The couple that owns the UHF HAM repeater here in Spencer County wants to add GMRS to their system. So I’ve been looking at resurrecting an old Regency repeater I got from Gary on a trade for a computer he needed. I tried to find someone that makes crystals so I can change the frequency but have not been successful yet. I might have to modify the thing or just junk it and look for a used one somewhere. I do have the duplexer so that’s not a problem.

A fellow at church brings his mother and she is hard of hearing. Complains all the time that she can’t hear the sermon. I tried to resurrect a pair of wireless headphones but by the time I got them working the padding for the ear piece started falling apart. So I did some research and a lot of churches are using low power FM transmitters in the commercial FM band. Then people can use simple pocket AM/FM receivers with headphones and hear the sermon easier. So, we decided to invest in things and I ordered a transmitter and 3 headsets from Sweetwater and 3 radios from Amazon. I’ll set those up this week.

Made some phone calls this week. My friend Jim is doing well. Some of his buddies got together and took him out to a park to do some POTA. My friend Lynn still has the head cold that caused her to test positive for COVID. Says she is tired at times but mostly just the issues with the head cold.

Gary was just out of the hospital last week and was having some adverse reactions to the antibiotics they were giving him. So we didn’t go over to visit. I texted his wife this week and she says he should be in good shape for company this weekend. His biggest gripe is he lost his cap with his HAM callsign. So I’ll help Loretta order a replacement for that this week.

Well that’s about all the excitement this week. As always, hope this finds everyone safe and healthy. Stay that way and I’ll blog at you again next week.