Field Day

Well, so far it's been pretty quiet. Nobody fell off a tower or out of a tree, or blew up a radio or generator, at least not yet.
The Solar Index dropped off last week, and with it, HF propagation. We only have 1 'Big Gun" station this year, and he's running CW, where each contact nets two points. The other two stations we have set up, besides mine, are using fairly low dipoles and a vertical. They're doing kinda-sorta OK, but I doubt if we'll get even one-third the points we scored last year.
Things went pretty smoothly for me setting up the satellite station, and I was ready to go about 20 minutes before the event started. The first satellite pass didn't occur until 45 minutes later, so I ran around and helped everybody else chase Murphy away.
So far I've made 16 satellite contacts after untangling a couple of problems of my own, and the higher-elevation passes will occur later tonight.
Next pass is AO-7, and it happens in 10 minutes, so I'll end this.

The Most Interesting Comrade In The Whole World

H/T to Alvie

Field Day Preps

Well, I brought the 4'x6' U-Haul home tonight, and even managed to back it into the driveway without running off the concrete, or taking anything out.
Tomorrow I'll tip over the tower, and pull the VHF antenna off the cross-boom, and then pull the cross-boom out with the UHF antenna still bolted to it. This allows me to do the minimum of dis-assembly, which means the minimum of RE-assembly at the Field Day site on Saturday morning.
I tested all my gear last weekend (and had a ball doing it!), and it's all packed and staged in the garage, ready to put in the trailer tomorrow. Saturday morning I'll hop in the Jeep, and head down to the site. My son will meet me there with the tent and the other camping gear, and we should have everything running by 11am when the event officially starts.
We usually set up on Friday, 24 hours before the event starts, but this year we're down to about one-third our normal strength, and nobody is staying overnight at the site.
I'm NOT leaving my generator, radio, and other support stuff unattended there!
Our three most experienced operators, and all their equipment, will be operating with one of the other clubs they belong to, in celebration of the 60th anniversary of the other club.
We've been running category "5A" or "6A" the last several years, but we might be "3A" this year, if another club member decides to come out.
The number in the category refers to the total number of transmitters we have on-the-air, and the letter indicates our power class. "A" is for off-the-grid, generator operation.
Six transmitters might sound like a lot, but you can have multiple transmitters on the same band, as long as they operate different modes. We usually had one SSB, and one CW station on the three most popular bands, but things can change around quickly if there's a "Band Opening" with a lot of activity. One of the CW stations might decide to go operate SSB, say if 10 Meters gets hot, and the CW band he was operating in wasn't producing many contacts.
Field Day is NOT supposed to be a contest, but that's the way most clubs approach it these days. I think the record was a club operating something like "157A" ( !! ), but in reading about their operation, they kind of bent the rules by about 90*!
Field Day is supposed a simulated emergency test, where we all go out away from our normal stations, and operate with portable equipment and power sources, as a test of our preparedness. It's also a good opportunity the show the General Public what Amateur Radio is all about, and to (try) and introduce them to the fact that there are other ways to communicate besides using a cellphone or the Internet.
And it's a good test to see if all your radio junk that's been buried in the garage for the last 12 months still works!
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Happy Father's Day!

......And I'm going to play radio ALL DAY!

Thank You For Your Service

H/T to Jeffro

Satellite Station Up And Running

And it was remarkably painless!
I was a bit concerned about using my newer laptop with Windows 7 this year. The 4-port USB-to-Serial converter I'd been using for years did NOT have Win7 drivers, so it forced me to get a newer version. Then Windows remapped all the ports compared to what I had been using on my older laptop, so after a bit of digging, I had the correct cable on the correct port, and was able to set up the radio, the tracking interface which tells the rotor controller which way to move the antennas, and my HP GPS clock.
And it all worked!
I could easily hear myself on the FO-29 downlink, and had a chat with a guy in San Diego. Not exactly DX from here, but the satellite's footprint was mostly over the Pacific, so I was lucky to have somebody to talk to.
FO-29 is a Grand Old Lady, having been launched in August of 1996. She's had some battery trouble, but the guys at JAMSAT have kept her running all these years. They've been turning it off during extended eclipse periods so the batteries don't go completely flat, and they've done a superb job.
Now I just have to wait for some more passes that are over this area, and see who else I can yak with.

Field Day Is NEXT Weekend

And I'm dragging all the stuff out of the garage and shack to do a dry run.
The picture is yours truly from 2010. The smile on my face is due to the fact that I'm in the process of making 35 satellite contacts....the best my club had EVER done!
In 2011 I made 45 contacts, another "record" for the club. This year we've lost a couple of satellites, AO-51, and HO-68. AO-51 was an FM only bird, but HO-68 was a linear transponder (SSB and CW), and I made about HALF our contacts on it last year.
AO-51's batteries finally failed after 7 years in orbit, and HO-68 suffered a failure of a relay used to switch things around, and has been beacon-only since January 2011.
Back later with more.....

New Flavor at Baskin Robbins!

From one of my friends.....

In honor of the 44th President of the United States , Baskin-Robbins Ice Cream has introduced a new flavor: Barocky Road

Barocky Road is a blend of half vanilla, half chocolate, and surrounded by nuts and flakes. The vanilla portion of the mix is not openly advertised and usually denied as an ingredient. The nuts and flakes are plentiful.

The cost is $92.84 per scoop...so out of a hundred dollar bill you are at least promised some CHANGE..!

When purchased it will be presented to you in a large beautiful cone, but after you pay for it, the ice cream is taken out of the cone and given to the person in line behind you at no charge.

You are left with an almost empty wallet, staring at an empty cone and wondering what just happened. Then you realize this is what "redistribution of wealth" is all about.
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Have To Agree.....

Courtesy of The Feral Irishman!

Help Find Out How Your Local PD Is Using Drones

The guys over at the Electronic Frontier Foundation have published a handy little guide of things to ask your local PD.

Here's their opening paragraph:

Since last month, when EFF released a list of the sixty-odd public agencies that have already received from the FAA approval to fly domestic drones, the issue of drone surveillance has reached front and center in many Americans’ mind.  Yet barely any information is known about what law enforcement agencies plan to do with these unmanned flying vehicles. So we want your help to gather this information into one place.

To find out more, head on over to the EFF website, and read the whole thing. 

If you don't want to read the entire thing, here's a link to the questions.

I've been an EFF member for some years now, and while I may not agree 100% with them, this is a worthwhile venture on their part.
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Colorado Fires *UPDATE*

Well, the stepson's GF heard from her Mom today.
Their house is still standing.
She said it's a bit scorched, and the deck is gone along with all of the outbuildings, but the house itself appears intact.
Her parents haven't been allowed back in the immediate area yet, so they don't know if it's habitable or not, but at least it's still there.
She's headed back today to help with the mountains of paperwork that come with a loss like this.