To All My Friends In The Path of Hurricane Sandy

I'll be praying for you all to be safe, warm, and dry.

I know most of you are far, far better prepared than John Q. Public, and for that I'm thankful.

And while I don't know all of you on a truly personal level, other than the few I've directly talked to or corresponded with, I consider you to be part of my family.

Be safe, my friends.......

.

.

Lies, Damn Lies, and Still MORE Damn Lies

Regarding the attack on our embassy, and the MURDER of four Americans, seems the administration is flip-flopping...AGAIN!

Hmm...first it was caused by a poorly made "movie" trailer, then it wasn't, then it was spontaneous, then it wasn't, then the State department knew ahead of time, then they didn't, etc, etc, etc.

Or maybe I got it all backwards?

Well, at least our Traitor-In-Chief is being consistent!

Texas Threatens To Arrest Election "Watchers"

All I have to say is....

DON'T MESS WITH TEXAS!

Article follows here:

Texas authorities have threatened to arrest international election observers, prompting a furious response from the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
“The threat of criminal sanctions against [international] observers is unacceptable,” Janez Lenarčič, the Director of the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), said in a statement. “The United States, like all countries in the OSCE, has an obligation to invite ODIHR observers to observe its elections.”

Lawmakers from the group of 56 European and Central Asian nations have been observing U.S. elections since 2002, without incident. Their presence has become a flashpoint this year, however, as Republicans accuse Democrats of voter fraud while Democrats counter that GOP-inspired voter ID laws aim to disenfranchise minority voters.Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott further fueled the controversy on Tuesday when he sent a letter to the OSCE warning the organization that its representatives “are not authorized by Texas law to enter a polling place” and that it “may be a criminal offense for OSCE’s representatives to maintain a presence within 100 feet of a polling place's entrance.”
.
.

And As Far As Big Bird And His "Special Friend" Go......

I think this sums it up pretty well.....

.
.

Pretty Much Recovered

From both the big JOTA event on the USS IOWA, and the, uhhhh......colonoscopy I had Monday.

The Doctor gave me a clean (hah...pun intended!) bill of health, although he had to use a couple of "clips" to seal off the ends of one of the 'dingleberries' he removed.

He said I "might" have some cramps, but don't worry about them, as they'd pass.

Monday night / Tuesday morning I woke up repeatedly feeling like a mule had just kicked me below the belt.

Cramps? Yeah, right........POW! here comes another one.

My sweet wife looked at me Tuesday morning, and said she'd call my boss and let him know I wouldn't be in.

Anyway.....I've always been sympathetic to what our lady friends feel every month or so, and now I'm a bit more sympathetic to you ladies.

SO....that explains why I've been out-of-action since Sunday, when I was drinking a freakin' GALLON of this "stuff", and reeeeal busy in the latrine.

And I've been digging out some goodies for a friend who's working on a REAL "Ham" radio.

I should get those shipped out late this week, or early next week so she can continue along on her project.
.
.

Prediciton For Tonights Debate

Shamelessly "borrowed" from Hope n' Change Cartoons.

I'm a little 'out of it' today, as I just got back from the Doctor recommended Alien Anal Probe, aka colonoscopy.

Whatever they knocked me out with was/is rather enjoyable, as the bursitis is my shoulder doesn't bother me today.

I still feel it, I just don't give a damn about it!

;-)
.
.

Saturday's AAR

Things went pretty well, but we didn't have any where near the number of Scouts show up that were "predicted".

I'd be surprised if we had more than 200, but I think the weather may have had more to do with it than anything else.

It drizzled and rained a bit driving over to the Iowa, but stopped when I was lugging the last of my gear on to her. Mostly it was cloudy, and started to sprinkle a bit as we were loading the trucks back up.

I had originally planned to operate on FO-29, AO-27, AO-7, and possibly the ISS if they were on-the-air.

It turned out the AO-27 is still being recovered from a system crash, and was non-operational; AO-7 had switched to "Mode A" which meant it was on a 10 Meter (28 MHz) downlink, which I didn't bring an antenna for (DOH!) and so was unusable; and the International Space Station hed their radio operating as a packet radio digipeater, so the was out of the picture, too.

That left ONLY FO-29, and only for two passes.

I was only able to use one of the FO-29 passes we had available, but what a pass!

I made 13 contacts in the 16 minutes the satellite was available, and was able to connect with one of my friends who was doing a satellite demonstration at a Hamfest in Northern Arizona. I knew he was doing the demo, but sure didn't expect to work him!

The next pass of that satellite turned into major fail.

The station next to me had positioned his antenna about 10' from mine. Normally, this shouldn't be a problem, as the frequencies I was operating at were about TEN times as high as his, so we shouldn't bother each other.

WRONG!

Murphy showed up, and whenever he keyed up on 20 Meters (14 MHz), my receiver went nuts, and a couple of other things seemed to flake out, but not too badly. We asked him politely to NOT operate on 20 meters, updated, printed, and posted the Operating Instructions for that station, and did some testing with that station on other bands, and all was good, and I went on to make the 13 contacts just fine.

WELL.....90 minutes later when good old FO-29 came back over, this ding-dong decided to operate on 20 again.

About two minutes into the 14 minute pass, he keys up, and everything on my end went bonkers.

My laptop bluescreened, and my trusty Yaesu FT-847 locked up, something I'd not only never seen, but never even heard of happening.

With the laptop pouring gibberish out of the USB port, the rotor controller freaked out, and started the antennas moving all on their own.

I immediately shut down the rotor controller, turned the radio off, and yelled over at the guy to "Get Off Twenty........NOW!" while rebooting the laptop.

He finished the contact he was having, and then went on to make another!

About this time the event coordinator came over, told the guy to shut down NOW, and didn't he READ the printed instructions clearly showing the times the satellite passes were scheduled for? You know, the sheet printed in BOLD, right next to the clock?

By this time the laptop was back up, but the radio was still hosed even after a power-cycle, so I dove into the menu and did a Master Reset to it.

Since the radio is completely under control of the laptop, doing a Master Reset was more an annoyance, as I didn't have any frequencies or other things stored in it, but it took about a minute to find the menu setting, and execute it.

By the time I got everything back online, there was only a few minutes left in the pass, and the only guy I worked was one who I'd worked before, and wondered what had happened when my station quit in the middle of a "CQ FO-29". He said there were people asking where I was, so I explained what had happened, and he said he understood. He then asked me how much weight we tied to the guy before we dumped him overboard.

I don't know how many contacts the other stations made, as I was too busy explaining all kinds of things about satellites to the various Scouts (and their parents) that came by, and doing an interview for a scouting magazine.

Still, for an inaugural event I think we did pretty well. The rain held off until we were finished loading up after the event, and the Scouts had a good time. Multiple Radio Merit Badge classes were offered and were FULL at each sitting, and a whole lot of Scouts will be adding another badge to their sash.

There was also a very large group of young people dressed in BDU/ACU or whatever they're calling it these days, but I didn't get a chance to ask if they were Sea Scouts or the local group of Young Marines who I've seen many times at Fort MacArthur in San Pedro.

The most heartening thing I saw all weekend were the Scouts. Every single one of them was polite, asked good questions, listened attentively, and had excellent attitudes.

Maybe there's hope for us yet......
.
.

Equipment Loaded, and We're Go for JOTA!

GROAN.....Five trips up the aft "brow" today lugging my complete "portable" satellite station on to the IOWA.

 The radio and support equipment are stored in one of the ship's secure areas, and the tower and antennas shown in the picture, and the generator, we're lugged up there today and stowed by the #3 turret.

No, we won't be using the tent, and the handsome young guy in the photo (my son the EMT) won't be there as he has to work his "day job".

So, at a little past O-Dark-Thitry I'll be trundling down there with the last few bits and pieces (laptop, 3G/WiFi Mobile Hot Spot) and start setting up.

I had been told we were expecting between 300 and 500 Scouts, but the Scoutmaster in charge of the event, who helped my tote everything down there, has raised his count to almost 1000 based on the inquiries he's been receiving.

ONE THOUSAND Boy Scouts............WoW!

I just hope we do a proper job introducing them to Amateur Radio. God knows we need new blood in the hobby!

73, drjim

.
.

Gonna Be Busy On Friday

The good folks who take care of the USS IOWA have agreed to let us prestage our equipment for the BSA JOTA event on Saturday.

So, Friday afternoon I'll be lugging my semi-portable satellite antennas and radio gear down to the IOWA. One of my friends has graciously offered to come by Radio Central here and help me load the big stuff into his truck, and then bring it all back Saturday afternoon.

We're expecting about FIVE HUNDRED Boy Scouts, plus their family and friends to swing by. Besides activating the IOWA with her new callsign for the first time, we're also going to tray and connect with the MISSOURI, WISCONSIN, and NEW JERSEY on the HF ("shortwave") radio frequencies.

This will be the first time ever that all four IOWA-class ships are on-the-air on Amateur Radio frequencies at the same time.

UPDATE

Just got an email that the Wisconsin won't be able to be an-the-air with us as they don't quite have their Radio Room space finished.

They're going to be on-the-air the weekend of the 7th to 9th of December for the anniversary of Pearl Harbor.

.
.

Hey, Kids! Turn In Your Mom And Dad And Win Valuable Prizes!

This is downright freakin' scary!

Federal Government Graduates First Class Of Homeland Youths

Wonder if they'll be wearing brown shirts, or black?
.
.

You Know You're an 0bama Voter If....

Yep, here's another one, courtesy of GrassTopsUSA.

Gee....I wonder how many more I can post in the (less than!) three weeks remaining??

• You know you’re an Obama voter if you think our dismal economy is all the fault of George W. Bush, who left office 45 months ago, and whose average unemployment rate was 6.3% – almost 2 points lower than under his whiz-kid successor. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think lack of adequate regulation is responsible for the home-mortgage meltdown of 2008, rather than a Democratic Congress that (in the name of fairness) made banks to give sub-prime mortgages to unqualified lenders. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the Muslim Brotherhood is a fraternal order. Their initiation rite is killer. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you believe Joe Biden’s claim that the intelligence community initially told the administration that our Benghazi consulate was attacked by a spontaneous mob – a spontaneous mob of al-Qaeda fighters armed with AK-47s, rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and gun trucks. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the president has done a consummate job of keeping Iran from getting nuclear weapons – by enacting more sanctions (which have never worked before), working with our “allies” China and Russia and refusing to draw a red line which would elicit military action against Tehran-- while the mullahs spent the last four years developing fissile material. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Barack Hussein has “got Israel’s back.” By having Israel’s back, the president means sending hundreds of millions of dollars to Palestinians committed to Israel’s annihilation, seeking to dictate Israel’s future borders (so as to make the Jewish state impossible to defend), helping the Muslim Brotherhood come to power in Egypt, and telling the former president of France how much he hates Israeli Prime Minister Bibi Netanyahu. • You know you’re an Obama voter if, like your candidate, you think the Israeli “occupation” of Israel is the principal cause of turmoil in the Middle East, and that, before Israel’s rebirth in 1948, from time immemorial the region looked like Woodstock. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Islam really is the religion of peace – and that al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, the Muslim Brotherhood, the Taliban, Ahmadinejad, the scholars of Cairo’s Al-Azhar University and the imam of Mecca’s Grand Mosque don’t understand their own religion. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the Ft. Hood massacre (where 13 of our soldiers were murdered in cold blood by a Koran-spouting jihadist) was “workplace related violence.” • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think it doesn’t matter that this president skips more than half of his daily intelligence briefings. After all, he reads the reports at night – or on the golf course. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the “undocumented workers” streaming across our southern border (thanks to the president’s non-deportation order) are all hard-working family folk, eager to learn English and assimilate – with nary a hardcore criminal, gang member, grifter or terrorist among them. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Joe Biden is clever and witty, not to mention polite and respectful. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Michelle is hot and Hillary belongs on the cover of the next Sports Illustrated swimsuit issue. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the oil companies, the Arab Spring or hurricanes in the Gulf states are responsible for prices at the pump more than doubling since January 19, 2009, rather than this administration’s insane environmental policies and war on energy development. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you believe that green energy is our salvation – with a wee bit of help from the unicorns, the fairies and the little people. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think drastically limiting off-shore drilling, closing coal-fired energy plants, nixing U.S. participation in the Keystone Pipeline and extreme environmental regulations will make us less dependent on foreign oil. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the GM bailout is a shining success. At a cost of $50 billion to taxpayers, the president saved $56-an hour union jobs, while screwing bondholders and giving Washington 26.5% share of the auto giant. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think “gay marriage” strengthens the family. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you don’t care that the voters of 32 states have overwhelmingly rejected this absurdity by passing defense of marriage amendments. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Obama and Biden care about the middle class – instead of looking at them the way Dracula views a blood bank. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think raising tax rates on businesses, in the weakest economic recovery in history, won’t devastate job creation. • You know you’re an Obama voter if, like your candidate, you think the question of when life begins is “above your pay-grade” – that you can’t tell if an unborn child with a heartbeat and brainwaves and fingers and toes is human. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think opposition to the incumbent is motivated primarily by racism. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think that Barack Obama – who was raised by his white grandparents, spent his childhood in Indonesia and Hawaii and went on to Columbia and Harvard – was immersed in the black experience. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Republicans want to put black people “back in chains.” That includes Allen West, Clarence Thomas, Star Parker and Thomas Sowell. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the man who sat in a pew in Rev. Jeremiah Wright’s Church of God Damn America for 19 years never heard anything in the least controversial – that anti-American, anti-white and anti-Israel sermons were reserved for those occasions when the future president was absent. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Mitt Romney is a liar – but Obama has told the God’s-honest truth about responsibility for the deaths of our ambassador and three other Americans in Libya, getting the unemployment rate under 7% if we passed his $832-billion stimulus bill, cutting the deficit in half in his first term, his Justice Department having no knowledge of Fast and Furious (the ATF’s gunrunning-to-Mexican-drug-lords operation) prior to February 2011 and that he’d never dream of raising taxes on the middle class. The Supreme Court says the “penalties” under Obamacare are a tax – on guess who? • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the president is upholding the Constitution – by interim appointments while Congress is still in session, governing by executive order, refusing to defend the Defense of Marriage Act in court, sending troops to Libya without Congressional approval and not prosecuting the New Black Panther Party for a blatant case of voter intimidation in 2008. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think your candidate’s 2008 resume – law professor, community organizer, Chicago politician, less than two years in the U.S. Senate – trumps Romney’s as a job-creator (Sports Authority, Staples, Domino’s Pizza, etc.) • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Romney would get a kick out of firing Bob Cratchit on Christmas Eve, while stealing Tiny Tim’s crutches and muttering “Bah humbug!” • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think opposition to requiring Catholic institutions to provide birth control through their health insurance plans (in violation of Catholic teaching), constitutes a Republican War on Women. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Joe Biden, Nancy Pelosi and HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are Catholics. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you believe that Ann Romney – who raised five sons while running a household, doing charitable work and battling MS – “never worked a day in her life,” unlike Michelle Antoinette who earned a six-figure salary for serving as “vice president of community relations” for the University of Chicago Medical Center and vacations at five-star resorts on the Spanish Riviera. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you’re blithely unconcerned about your candidate’s past associations with (communist) Frank Marshall Davis, (revolutionary communist) Bill Ayers and (Islamist) Rashid Khalidi. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think complaints about the president increasing the National Debt by $5.4 trillion (almost 50%) in less than four years is a Republican campaign gimmick to divert attention from Obama’s economic achievements – like increasing the food stamp rolls to 47 million (50%) since he took office and raising federal spending from 20.2% to 23% of GDP. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think we can provide health insurance to 10 million currently uninsured – without a plan to add a single new doctor – it won’t cost taxpayers a cent and there won’t be rationing of services. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you’re thrilled at the prospect of turning the best health care system in the world over to the same people who bankrupted Social Security and Medicare. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you don’t care that under this administration we’ll soon have a navy that can float in a bathtub and an army that can maneuver in a broom closet. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think your candidate will be carried to victory by the Big Bird vote – like fans of Public Broadcasting would ever vote Republican, without a gun to their heads. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you’re skeptical about putting God in your party’s platform because it excludes atheists, agnostics, animists and most of the president’s appointees. • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think Islam is a civilizing force that’s enlightened in its treatment of women and minorities, but Christianity is repressive, patriarchal and a threat to liberty and democracy. • You know you're an Obama voter if you think "American exceptionalism" is a ploy devised by Newt Gingrich to stigmatize people who don't think America is exceptional. Just because we have a Constitution that's been a model for emerging nations for over 200 years, we built the greatest economic engine in the world, we created a unique society, and we saved humanity from the horrors of Nazism and communism in the 20th century -- what's so special about that? • You know you’re an Obama voter if you think the Occupy Wall Street movement is composed of idealistic, humanitarian reformers but the Tea Parties are a gang of race-baiting, neo-fascist thugs.

         You know you’re an Obama voter if you think pigs have their own air force, the moon is made of green-energy cheese and, while standing in a torrential downpour, you wonder why you’re soaked to the skin.

.
.