Children and Radio Enrichment

Yesterday at noontime, I didn’t do my normal CW practice for an hour. Instead, I worked the children of Winn Brook Elementary via 18 Mhz SSB and through the good offices of W1HIS. Chuck has been volunteering his services as a science teacher for nine years now and throughout the nine years has used Ham Radio to facilitate that instruction. He solicited his club (YCCC) to donate some equipment and uses an IC_746 Pro and an Icom Amp with wire antennas to introduce Ham Radio, Geography and also Morse Code. The class has enough touch keyers to let each child have one and by the end of class in June Chuck has the students sending and receiving the Morse Code at 18 words per minute.

Chucks class room teacher partner is a lady named Donna who herself has a call ( I forgot it) and has fostered this enrichment for her classroom and permitted Chuck to come into the class setting and worked her curriculum around the Science Enrichment. Aside from normal local SSB contacts, Chuck works some DX which serves nicely to help with Geography and also opens lots of doors for the youth to experience other cultures. It is a lot for young minds to gather in but they seem very enthusiastic.

W1HIS with students at Winn Brook Elementary

We spent about 1.3 hours on 18 Mhz SSB with the children on Friday and worked through each of the three “neighborhoods” that the class is divided into. This was my second attempt at having a QSO with the kids and this one lasted a bit longer than the first and seemed to go very well. There were a number of stations reading our “mail” and some stopped by to compliment the intro to Ham radio to the class. Among those stopping by were KU9RK and KI4EFP. Thanks fellas!

W1HIS with Winn Brook student

All in all a wonderful way to spend some quality time with nice kids. I really enjoyed the whole of that QSO!

Neighborhood 1

Nathanial, Jacob, Eleanor, Symantha, Stella, Calder, Amaleah.

Neighborhood 2

Theo I, Theo G, Rebecca, Kavya, Anya, Ryann.

Neighborhood 3

Brian, Brennan, Isabella, Julia, Juliette, Angelina, and Theo M.

Thanks kids!

Thanks for reading my Blog. Best, Chas W5PG.

 

Gramps Got Some MOJO Back!

Ive been searching for mojo for some time now. I suppose that happens when you get old enough to put all of your well worn excuses into play. Lord knows I’ve developed a _lot_ of excuses over the years. I lamented here some months back that I could not get up energy to do simple things like I used to do like run a couple of hours in a contest. Well I am pleased to report my contesting mojo has been found.

Saturday I found it again and actually enjoyed myself in a CW Contest. This one is the latest derivation of the old ARRL CD Parties now reborn as NAQP or North American QSO Party. It was a hoot. I actually managed a smallish run on 15 M early on and was quite surprised to see how many states I could work on 80 M. I had zero expectations for 80 M and so was happy with the results. NAQP is limited to 100 w and so my low and short dipole was handicapped on the lower bands.

Our local contest group (DFW Contest Group) is kind of a low key organization and is also freshly minted in as much as it has been in existence for about a year now. Since its beginning the guys have encouraged participation in lots of low key events such as QSO Parties and State QSO Parties like CAL QSO or NEQP. These are operating events that one can do without committing a whole dedicated weekend to the radio-something that a lot of us have a hard time scheduling. A link to the website is here:

At long last I finally managed to get the Function keys properly set up in N1MM Logger and so things went swimmingly throughout the test. The interface worked properly, the radio and antenna functioned just fine and the operator began to understand the vagaries of CW Contesting. I have done SSB testing before but the challenge for me always has been to do it in Morse. Well, now that I have done a modest effort it may be time to step it up a notch and try for a higher team. Our group fielded four squads and I was on Team #3. Perhaps I can climb the ladder a bit next time. Results were very modest but Matt was here on his last day before Spring Semester so time was of some concern. Still…..I was happy with the result. 51K and 385 Q’s in around 8 hours.

Thanks for reading my Blog. Best, Chas W5PG

 

 

 

 

3300 Steps and other stuff

Ive been using my new Christmas gift regularly. Daily in fact. This iPod Nano Gen 6 is quite the toy. I like the pedometer feature almost as much as I enjoy the wonderful FM Radio built into it. Today I tried to download my walking statistics so I could capture a screen shot. The iTunes Site warps you over to a Nike Site and I tried to “Register” there but no joy. The site never responded. Ill try again later. Anyway, to make a long story shorter, Ive learned that my morning walk is 1.6 miles, generally, and approximately 3350 steps. The reward for this effort is 180 calories burned. I need to walk farther I guess. Habitually, I do my walking before the crack of dawn so Ill probably have to change habits to include more miles per week.

Last week I came across a wonderful short video on youtube that I may not have shared here yet. It is done by a physician and is quite cleverly done in stop action cartoon style but the message is succinct and appropriate to today’s society. This short attempts (successfully IMHO) to answer the Question: What is the single most beneficial thing we can do to improve our health? You can find this video here.

I like to listen to Bill Bennett on the early morning radio (Why do iPod and walkman makers never include an AM radio in the features of these wonderful toys?) as he is a non strident radio host, yet manages to explore today’s important themes. He is also a Classically Trained Philosopher with a strong background in ethics. Last week or perhaps before, he had some discussion going that involved subjects as disparate as death and appreciation of life. Some references were made about a book called the New England Primer. I just caught a small bit of the discussion but involved a statement like, “one cannot fully appreciate life without knowing death”. I had not ever calibrated this concept (most of you know I am not a deep thinker) but it sounded intriguing. So, hat in hand off I went to discover what messages were contained in this New England Primer. Low, I never found the bits I was looking for, but did come across a short prayer that I had been made to memorize as a small child. It began, “Now I lay me down to sleep”….I never understood the derivation of that poem/prayer but found it this AM in the New England Primer. My Grand Mother was an old school Quaker so I suppose she would have brought this to our young minds. The prayer may in fact be a lot older but it was contained in a version of this book printed around 1744. Who knows, it may have come from old England.

Now that I have that discovery committed to the blog-o-sphere, I suppose I should go find out about life and death as written by a preacher named Cotton something or other….News after of course.

Thanks for reading my Blog. Best, Chas W5PG

 

Catching up after the holidays

Just a short note to celebrate finally arm-twisting my son to go to a Ham Meeting with me. Since getting his new handie talkie for Xmas he has had some ups and downs with radio, not the least of which was me when he lost his mind and failed to ID properly this morning. On the way home from class today he was mobile and someone in the local fire department was  attempting to activate the local school emergency net and needed a volunteer to go to a local school house-just as luck would have it Matt was passing by. He arrived home all a twitter. Some good things are happening under no direction from me. If this is going to take off it will be with his energy; not mine. But first tonight we get to to the local contest group evening dinner which happens once per month. A second evil grin placed here please.

I think I will do NAQP CW this month. If I can get N1MM Function Keys set up correctly to run as well as S&P I should be in bidness. CT was a lot easier for the casual contester. NAQP is a nice QSO Party along the lines of the old State QSO Parties save this is a National Contest. I need an excuse to get my git up n go back in motion. Somewhere along the line over the last several years my code practice has warped my brain into enjoying rag chews more than Contests, so I need to test my mettle again and see how it goes. Who knows perhaps my mojo will come back.

I am just sitting here with the radio burning up some BTU’s and was listening to 10M FM at the behest of another local in zip 75019. No joy today Jerry. I heard the repeater ID but that is all. Otherwise 10M was open nicely to the northwest USA. Later I was on 18 Mhz and heard a D2 station working a pileup not bothering to ID very much so I didnt either. I do not believe I have ever worked Angola. Hmmm…..maybe I should have called.

I had better get ready to go with the boy to dinner. Pardon my drivel here. I didnt have a lot but wanted to record a week of firsts for the kiddo. Inasmuch as this is as much a family document as anything else it really needs put onto some medium, if for no other reason than kidding him at some later date.

Thanks for reading my Blog. Best, Chas W5PG

 

Just a kid and his radio playing in some fields

First of all Happy New Year! I trust that you all enjoyed the Holidays and find yourselves safely ensconced in 2012. Good Job!

I spent yesterday afternoon reading a wonderful Ham Radio Tale as told by Dave, W6AQ that can be found here.I found this on Larry’s fine blog over at http://w2lj.blogspot.com/. I don’t know how long it has been posted there or how I could have missed it before but I thoroughly enjoyed the “all too brief” read. I certainly can identify with a lot of his early radio experiences, especially those involving FCC inspectors and early testing. Thanks for posting that link Larry! And a very big “Thanks” to Dave Bell W6AQ for writing this delightful account of his early experiences.

New Years eve found me in the shack wanting to do SKN again and yet for another year I failed to get on. This time stymied by a lack of proper adapters to hook the old J-38 to my rig and a decided lack of enthusiasm. I get up early (like 5 AM) so by the time I work up the fortitude to turn off the tube I am already looking forward to counting sheep. So it went again this year- no SKN. The prospect of firing up my soldering station at 9 PM was daunting for some reason. My Git up N Go left me. Look at it this way, I always have something to look forward to next December 31st.

My son received his handie talkie and is learning its strange programming techniques. He received a Woxoun UV6DP for Christmas and I have to admit its programming is strange enough to confound a seasoned veteran ham…..however, when I ordered this radio I had heard about programming so also ordered the programming cable. The computer programming makes this chore a snap. It is a nice little radio and seems to work well. Just how durable it is will reveal itself over time of course. His first ever attempt at trying it out was less than a positive experience though. I let him go solo and he asked for a radio check on a local repeater and some guy started lecturing him on proper procedure. Something like “you don’t ask for radio checks on a repeater” sort of thing. It was all I could do to keep my hands off the handie. So much for being friendly and helpful to new hams. The repeater in question belongs to MARS (that is the Metrocrest club here in N. TX). So later I called a local I know and he was kind enough to meet us on the local repeater so Matt could wet his feet in a friendlier environment. That experience went much better. We will work on more things during the week so by the time he gets ready to go back to school he will have steady radio “sea legs”.

We were fortunate enough to have some additional hours to play radio this week. I managed my usual practice and got down on 40M both early and late in the day to find and renew old acquaintances. The magic is still there for me after all these years; since 1959 in fact. Reading Dave Bell’s experiences with his testing for Morse under the watchful eye of the FCC Inspector brought back some equally terrifying memories. I hope that I never tire of playing with E&M Fields. I admit that like Latin, I don’t speak the language of field theory, but I very much enjoy the end result. Reaching out and touching someone, however far, with simple kit and a battery never ceases to delight.

Thanks for reading my Blog. Best, Chas W5PG

 

Year End Whining

Okay already! I avoided a chunk of coal for Xmas this year, but not for lack of trying. I never cleaned out the garage, nor did I do all of those Honey Do’s I was supposed to get done. But I promise Ill do better this year. Honest. I have the best of intentions. But first I need to limber up for Straight Key Night. Yup, Im gonna try to do this again this year.

Have you ever noticed that when you want to use that wonderful electronic widget that you received for Xmas or Birthday that the proprietary cable, charger, adapter is nowhere to be found? After a lifetime of gifting and buying just the right widget, I am overwhelmed with electronic clutter. These items are too long to be hung up on some sort of rack or never easily located if stuffed into a box labelled “Cables” or tool kit. I can tell you from experience that cable boxes do not work. Pondering one of the of life’s great conundrums this week I think the only solutions is to: one, scrap all that wonderful stuff or two, buy stock in a plastic box company where one buys plastic stacking boxes that will generically hold most of this clutter as a set. By that I mean if a camera is involved, then the box should hold all the accessories for that camera plus the camera. If a handie talkie is the item in question then by all means add another stacking box to hold it. Sheesh. The overhead of modern life is astounding. Shoe boxes used to work for this but stuff is so much smaller now a shoe box is overkill. No wonder us old folks just find it easier to downsize all of that not-so-necessary clutter in our later years.

Speaking of neato junque, I got an iPod Nano for Xmas. I used to walk with an old Sensa that Matt had tossed when he got an iPod of his own a few years ago. This thingy does everything. It has a exercise feature that tracks walks and jogs and calories burned and just about everything a person that does that sort of thing would want to know. Yesterday I went for a walk and found that I had walked 1.67 miles in 32 minutes and burned 133 calories. That permitted me a second slice of apple pie at supper. Today I chose run vs walk so it calculated a greater number of calories as it thought I was running vs walking and so tonight I can have two or three slices of pie! Just kidding!

On an entirely different subject, I have decided that preaching about noise reduction is harmful. Folks trying to do noise abatement cannot possibly estimate the cost of the effort at the outset and so more often than not fail and declare it fruitless. No one but an idiot or zealot like me would shop incessantly for surplus ferrites so that any event of noise could be dealt with on the spot. I have about 100 pounds of various ferrite snap its and cores deployed and another hundred pounds on the shelf. I am comfortable with being able to deal with the ever-changing menace, but not many would commit to an open ended project just to make a lower noise level in a Ham Radio Receiver. Virtually everything that you or your neighbors buy and plug into the wall makes noise. It is a forever project. Most just surrender and call it a day. Preaching about it just ticks people off. Lesson learned.

Anyway enough of my complaining. I trust you all will have a pleasant New Year and be sure to stay safe.

Thanks for reading my Blog. Best, Chas W5PG

 

 

 

Resolutions

There is some good mixed with not so good when resolving to a list of resolutions. The good bits involve actually thinking about making some positive changes in your life while the bad bits often include having life itself get in the way of good intentions. So, for better or worse I will post a few in hopes that I can make some progress and focus a bit.

• Keep up my Morse practice. This hour per day has provided a nice opportunity to focus on radio while not stealing too much time from chores. I’m not, nor will I ever be a “CW Man”, but it is a task I am content to do the work necessary to improve. Someone once suggested that 2000 hours of practice is required in order to be “proficient” in any manually dexterous task. An hour a day for five days per week intimates a time investment of 7.69 years of Morse Practice to become acceptably proficient. That seems like a doable time frame. We have been at this for around 3-4 years now.
• Make better use of my IC-735 in QRP mode. Ive set things up to run off of battery power and output 5 watts but have yet to do any QRP CW work. Mostly I fall asleep early and I just need to change my habits.
• Operate on SKN. I keep trying to get involved but never actually manage to do this. Another opportunity is just around the corner
• Keep walking each morning. I walk 1.5 miles per day now. Perhaps I can increase that somewhat.
• Continue with my Primal Diet. Ive taken a holiday since around Thanksgiving. Time to get back on track.
• Take my son and grandson camping with telescopes and radios. Nuff said.
• Find a way to have a date night with my wife once per month.

That is enough for one year. It is necessary to have enough but not too many. Someone remind me of this post if I don’t write about about “progress” along the way!

Thanks for reading my Blog and a very Merry Christmas to all. Best, Chas W5PG

 

A Christmas Gift

It isn’t very often that an opportunity arrives that takes my breath away. It happens that this Holiday Season is one of those times. You see we have trouble in our circle. It didn’t appear as an overt or singular event, but one of subtle additions. First there was a friend that went to Wisconsin to visit his Mom. Normally he comes home to Texas in time to have Thanksgiving Dinner with our family. This year he didn’t return. Fortunately I received a phone call and the number remained in caller ID, otherwise I would not have known what was wrong. After I called him and we joked a little nervous joking viz his stroke, I asked again about Christmas….”Sure, Ill be there I just need to get this Colo- Rectal thingy out of the way. A subsequent call revealed a further delay which is not too hard to figure out if you read between the lines just a touch. Now IM not sure if our friend will ever make it back “home”.

Later that month we received news that a close in-law had had difficulty breathing and was having tests done. After many months of exams, poking and prodding, our in-law was determined to have stage four lung cancer. There isn’t anything after stage four of any cancer I am told. So now it is the long dreadful haul through the chemotherapy business.  Fortunately they are remaining positive and marching right along through the process.

Lest this be too depressing a post, my son-in-law had a coronary event for the second time in as many years. He is thirty, in excellent physical shape and had the very bad luck to be born with diabetes. Controlling diabetes is treated with drugs of some sort, and in his case he was treated with a very nasty bit of business called Avandia. Avandia is linked to heart disease and in our in-laws case we believe caused significant heart damage. How often does a 30 year old have a heart attack-especially one in tip top physical shape? To make a long story shorter, yesterday he underwent a laser (I think) blockage removal in his carotid artery. That was a scary procedure since any bits escaping go directly into the brain and potentially cause a stroke.

A lot of us Hams are of the age where Nature stops giving and begins taking away; little by little Mom Nature whittles us down to size it seems. I certainly am of that group. I am 66 years old and my bride is also in the same bracket. We have been blessed with many trouble free years of marriage, yet I cannot recall one so back end loaded with reasons to feel blessed. Yes, blessed. Each family in turn has been presented with nasty news, yet each is coping well and soldiering onward as if nothing is dimmed their futures one iota. I trust I will once again see my Wisconsin friend for another Thanksgiving Dinner, my in-law with cancer will camp with us once again somewhere between here and California and my son-in-law is doing well following his procedure. We expect to have a nice Christmas evening meal and can only keep a seat warm for our missing friend with the expectation he will be back soon.

Best of Seasons Greetings to you all. Best, Chas W5PG

 

CW Clubs

I was saddened to see an original charter CW Ops member drop out this week. It becomes easier to understand when one looks at the focus of Club Activities through the year. It seems the Ops group has morphed into a contest club for the most part and that simply does not appeal to a lot of folks. Having added pressures to promote activity that you  are not fond of is adding pressure to a hobby that normally should be reserved for a working environment, not a pastime environment. I sometimes feel we hobbyists project working world drive into our hobby life and then wonder why we burn out.

Lately though, CW Ops has begun a QTX rag chewing activity award. Inasmuch as my practice buddy and I get on each day for an hour, we have divided our hour into three twenty minute QSO’s on different bands and plan to enter that award with a QSO we would have been doing anyway. I suppose that it a breach of some semblance of rule making but until someone tells me to stop Ill submit my hours of activity.

Most of the remaining CW enthusiasts from my era began life in a solitary way, finding our skills by ourselves, learning solo, making friends on the air rather than via the internet and until the coming of phone trees, DX repeaters and DX Clusters ruined everything (for me at least), radio was a singularly solo sport and achievement came at the cost of time and sacrifice with sweat. Clubs rarely organized around a Morse Code event or for that matter ever recognized Morse Operators very much. It was all Repeaters, VHF, UHF, Field Days or other activities which lend themselves to groups. Perhaps that is a fundamental difference between general Ham Activity and those of us that became CW aficionados earlier in life. Perhaps I am recalling wrongly. Maybe I am sentimental and full of BS. Given that the aforementioned is true, I will still miss my friend, but I know where to find him. Another beacon from Asia with an excellent fist and a bit of warm conversation for anyone that comes along. I will be spending more time around the low end of 40 meters this winter on the off chance I can once again renew an acquaintance. And that is the way of Morse and Radio. It is best accomplished live and on the air.

Thanks for reading my Blog. Best, Chas W5PG

 

Leftovers and finding my way in QRP land

It has been a “Leftover” Week. We began the festivities by stuffing the traditional bird. Dyllon and Gramie got up early to do the deed.

That was followed by a series of Turkey Bird experiments on basting, rotating and other assorted black magic of the cooking arts.

Almost Done!

With 20 ish guests for dinner we had two birds. One was smoked, one done traditional fashion. Whilst the first bird was in the smoker, Lindsay and Riley were making cheesecake and pies. One almond praline cheesecake, two apple pies and a pumpkin thrown in for good measure. Yikes! That will destry my Primal Diet for certain.

Lindsay and Riley cookin' pies

Anyway a grand time was had by all. The day after, Cyndi made homemade turkey soup so the whole dang bird was consumed. Everyone had leftovers to take along home too.

Along the way over the holiday, it dawned on my to stop drooling over nice QRP rigs and put my battery back up IC-735 to better use as a QRP rig. To that end this morning I dug out my old Daiwa power meter that had been stored in my parts bin for a very long time and placed it back into service with the Icom. After about  fifteen minutes I had adjusted my old belchfire QRO rig to five watts output and so I have a respectable solution for exactly zero dollars of expense. My old friend Gary (KF6U) had sent along a Vibroplex single lever paddle some months ago and now it is paired with the Icom to make zypher-like peeps in the QRP evenings. Perhaps I too can collect a bee or zombie or some other such critter on the dark side of the HF Bands! Now if I can only find a cheap CW filter for this rig all will be right with the world. I seem to have misplaced my old DSP outboard unit. In fact I seem to have misplaced a lot of stuff. Along with the DSP audio filter, my Icom handie is missing and also my old MFJ antenna analyzer. Maybe my garage is like a washing machine or dryer is with socks. Once they go in only half ever come out.

Thanks for reading my Blog. Best, Chas W5PG