Another busy week…………………………………………………………

As always, first the chronology:

8/20/23 – Sunday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out to church with Kathy.  Had lunch after the service while there.  Home and did the blog.  Out to see Gary this afternoon.  Home, picked up Kathy and down to Hometown Pizza for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

8/21/23 – Monday – Up at the usual time.  Cleaned up and out for a routine dentist appointment.  Home, another cup of coffee and chores around the house till lunch.  Had lunch then downstairs to get things ready for the augment to the church audio system.  Got a new cable on my straight key and practiced a lot of CW today.  Had filled peppers for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

8/22/23 – Tuesday – Up at the usual time.  I went down to practice CW at 10AM but it was at 9AM.  I’ll catch it tomorrow.  Spent the morning continuing the efforts to resurrect the UHF repeater and was successful.  Determined the frequency it was on and the crystals I need to re-tune it.  But the only place I can find them is a place in New Jersey that wants $100 each.  Not worth it.  I think that just killed that project.  Kathy went to a ladies group meeting at church so I made my self lunch.  Back to shack and continued practicing.  Had dinner and usual evening routine. 

8/23/23 – Wednesday – Up a little early today.  Wanted to catch the 9AM code practice.  As it turns out it was a qualifying run.  So did that.  Then checked in with the EMCOMM people in Frankfort on UHF and HF.  Up for lunch.  Kathy had to go pick up Shelby for an orthodontist appointment.  I got my new straight key so spent the afternoon playing with that.  Went into J-town to Kroger and got my flu shot.  Home and continued playing with the key.  Kathy came home and we went to Hometown for dinner.  Home and usual evening routine.

8/24/23 – Thursday – Up a little early again today.  Down to get my hair cut.  Back and started the yard work.  Finished up around 2PM.  Temperature was 86 with %99 humidity and heat index of 105.  Inside and laid down for an hour.  Cleaned up and had dinner.  Usual evening routine.

8/25/23 – Friday – Up a little early again.  Down to catch the 9AM code practice on W1AW.  Kathy ran to the grocery store.  She came home and we went to the church to work on the PA system.  Back home for lunch then down to ACE Hardware and back to the church.  Not a successful day.  Home and put things away.  Did two one hour Zoom Session with the LI CW Club.  Up for a snack for dinner.  Usual evening routine.

8/26/23 – Saturday – Up at the usual time.  Kathy was out to go to the State Fair with Julie and the family.  I discovered that my TARPN node was down.  Went to the shack and fixed that first.  Then worked some stations that were in the various state QSO parties.  Up for lunch.  Out to the garage and tried to isolate the problem with the bike not starting.  Nothing found.  Took an hour nap.  Then down and worked on cleaning things up in the shack and mounted my new weather radio.  Up for dinner.  A friend of mine came over for me to look at the radio in his truck that he was having problems with.  Kathy came home.  Otherwise usual evening routine.

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Now the specifics:

Went for a routine Dentist visit on Monday and had no cavities. And that was the highlight of my week so that should give you a flavor for what’s to come.

As is usually the case, the yard work was scheduled based on weather and Kathy’s schedule. We ended up doing it Thursday this week. When we stopped at 2PM the temperature was 86 degrees and the heat index was 105. By the end of the day the temperature got up to 98 with a heat index of 115. Not to mention that the humidity was in the 90s the whole time.

You have probably noticed that we went to Hometown Pizza a lot this week. Well, twice anyway. They keep sending me these discount coupons for 15 to 20 percent off. We go there and with tip it ends up costing us $35 for both. You just can’t beat that. And they have enough of a variety that you don’t get tired of eating the same thing. Those all ran out the end of this month so unless I get a lot more offers we won’t be going to Hometown as often.

The rest of the week was all technical issues.

I have been trying to keep up with my CW practice. That has been a challenge. The ARRL broadcasts practice sessions at 9AM, 4PM and 7PM Monday through Friday. They alternate slow and fast code practice. I usually try to hit the 7PM session but that’s about the time Kathy brings the dogs down to watch TV which makes it impossible for me to concentrate. So, I started getting up at 7AM and getting breakfast out of the way so I can be at the radio by 9. That has been working rather well so I think I’ll keep up that schedule.

The one morning I got up to practice it was a qualifying run. That’s a session when they start sending code at 10 words per minute then do 15, 20 and 25 words a minutes. You copy what they send then submit that to the ARRL and they give you a certificate that you qualified to copy code at 10, 15, 20 or 25 word per minute. Whatever is the fastest speed you can copy. So I did that and sent in my $10. We’ll see how that turns out.

I had two 1 hour Zoom classes on Friday. The instructor out of Colorado that does those classes is pretty good so I try to stick with him.

I was having problems sending so I ordered a new key. It’s amazing, these things are a simple push button and you wouldn’t think one over the other would make any difference but it did. The one I had been using was an old military J-38 key on a J-39 base. It kept moving all over the place and jumping around on me. Then I recalled that I saw them mounted to the desk when they were used in the military. So I bought a commercially available key that was more modern. It’s much heavier and stays put when I’m using it. It also uses magnets to set the force necessary to push it down rather than springs like the old ones. Bottom line, a much better and easy to adjust device and I seem to be able to send much easier with it.

Tuesday I was able to get the UHF repeater to work like it should. I determined the frequency it was tuned for and what the crystals were in it. I went shopping for crystals to tune it up to the frequency we wanted and the only place I could find that they make crystals anymore is a laboratory in New Jersey that makes them one at a time and by hand. That makes them come in at about $100 each and I need two, one for transmit and one for receive. I can get a unit completely ready to put on the air for $300. So I gave that information to the powers to be and they will decide what they want to do

A guy at church asked me about a wireless headset arrangement in the church for hearing challenged people. I guess his mother keeps complaining that she can’t hear the minister’s sermon. So I ordered an FM transmitter along with 3 pocket AM/FM radios and 3 headsets. I tried to get it installed Friday with no luck. Whoever setup this audio system had no clue what they were doing. The levels are all off and subsequently I couldn’t get enough drive out of the mixer to make the FM transmitter work. So, I’ll give that a try again this week. I thought I got away from this kind of irritation when I retired.

Last week when I was out on the motorcycle it was starting slow. Then when I stopped for gas it wouldn’t start until it cooled down. So Saturday this week I took a voltmeter out and checked it all over and could not find anything wrong. All the voltages where what they should be with no voltage drops anywhere. I guess I’ll ride it again this week and see if it happens again.

Saturday morning I woke up to find my TARPN node dead. I did some looking and found a corrupted initialization file. I fixed that and things are working again. However, I did discover a lot of things that were out of date so I need to do some major updates this coming week.

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.