Field Day, 2021

 And for the first time since we moved here, I'm participating! I'm running in Class "1 Delta", which means 1 transmitter, at home, running on commercial power. If I was running on my little Honda generator, then I'd be class "1 Echo", which means 1 transmitter, running on emergency power.

It's a very good test of the new radio, as the bands are crowded (Field Day brings LOTS of people out), with a mix of very strong, and very weak, signals. Earlier today I talked to my friends on the Iowa, and was able to get through on 17 Meters (18MHz) after they could barely hear me on 20 Meters (14MHz) due to a very high local noise level, "QRM" in Ham-speak.

I've only been operating for a few hours, and have collected 18 different states, and even "rag-chewed" a bit with some of the operators.

So far the new radio working very well. I can pull weak stations out of the noise, and reject strong stations just a few kHz away. The Digital Noise Reduction and Noise Blanker are the best I've ever used, very smooth, and they don't introduce a lot of "artifacting" to the audio.

I still haven't learned to use all the wanted signal enhancement and unwanted signal rejection features of this radio, and this is a good time to learn them, and practice with them.

There are some nits and quibbles with some of the features on the radio, but as far as "Basic Receiver Performance", Yaesu knocked it out of the park this time.

RAIN!

 Finally getting some much needed rain after several weeks of dry and sometimes 100* weather.

So far my rain gauge indicates .05" for the last two days. I sometimes doubt the accuracy of my rain gauge, so I bought a "NOAA Approved" model that I can use to dump a "calibrated" amount of water into the collection bucket on the weather station and see how accurate it is.

My rain gauge is of the "Tipping Bucket" type, and when calibrated they're quite accurate.

The rain falls into a collector can, and then drips through the hole in the center into the little buckets inside.

Collector:

 Tipping buckets:

 Each time the bucket tips, it trips a switch sending a "One Bucket Received" signal to the controller, incrementing the rainfall measurement by one unit. In my case, each tip of the bucket indicates .01" of rain received.

I'll fill the "Calibration Device" with water, and pour it into my collector and see if they agree. After I make my measurements, I'll delete the record in the database for the rainfall so as not to skew the data set by a 1" rain measurement.

I'm beginning to think you can't trust your eyeballs when it comes to determining the amount of rain you get. An inch of standing water in a pan outside after a storm passed by doesn't necessarily mean you received 1" of rain.

Just another thing to wrap my head around while I try and understand (or "grok", if you will) this particular aspect of meteorology.

Hope y'all have a good weekend!

NLG Doing Fine

 Got his first sponge bath today, and his Mommy and Daddy dressed him in his first little outfit.

 Not doing bad for 10 weeks early.

His Daddy's arm in the foreground, and his Mommy's arm in the background.

 So tiny.......another miracle and blessing from Our Lord and Father...

Had a couple of gorgeous days, but now it's heating up again. No rain forecast until Thursday, but it's a "50% Chance" which means we'll get at least some sprinkles.

Happy Father's Day, Guys!

 Annnd I just wonder how soon this will be under attack? Mother's Day is under attack to become "Birthing Person's Day", so I can imagine what the lefties want to do. "Toxic Masculinity Day"?

Oh, well.....Be strong, and be proud of the youngsters YOU helped raise to manhood.

Can I even use that word these days?

Time to hit the road. Hope y'all have a good weekend, and Happy Father's Day!

Biden's Latest Gaffe

 Or was it a Freudian slip?

Courtesy of Stilton's Place.

That ain't gonna buff out.....

OK, Here's The New Little Guy!

 Wife can't figure out how to email phone pix to me, which means they get sent as text attachments.

Which means I have to download them from my phone to this PC, which takes a bit due to my having to use a program to access my phone from this Linux PC.

Oh, well.......

This is one of the first ones we have, shortly after birth.

Cleaned up and getting checked out.

The breathing tube was removed after about 36 hours, as he was breathing fine on his own. It was replaced with a headgear/nose mask in the following pix to supply him with extra O2.
 

And here he is with his Mom.

 

So tiny.....And Mom looks really tired....

Feeding time.

I had thought that they'd keep him in the Natal ICU until his due date, like they had to with his brother, but The Kids informed me it's based on "scores" much more than time, so if he does well, he'll be released early. Time off for good behavior, I guess.

So his Mom went home today, and TLG was happy to see her, but wondered where his brother was. He's actually taking it in quite good stride, and I know he'll be an excellent Bog Brother!

Aircraft Tracking with ADS-B

 Now that I moved my little home brew antenna outside, I'm picking up aircraft tracks out to 150 miles away. Most of them are pretty mundane; scheduled airlines, charter flights, student pilots and LifeLine flights. One that caught my eye the other day was an aircraft at 8,000', doing 35 knots. Wondering if the speed was a glitch, I looked up the tail number and found out it was a glider registered at the Owl Canyon Gliderport. I didn't look closely at his flight profile, but a glider could easily do those kinds of numbers into a headwind.

Anyway.....One plane really grabbed my attention tonight, a NASA 747 with a very unusual flight plan track.

The solid green line is where he's been, and the dotted line is where he's going, per the filed flight plan. Departure and landing the sites were both listed as "Palmdale", so it's anybody's guess what they're doing tonight. Must be a "Chemtrail" run. That's why they do it at night now, so people can't see them!

And anywhoo....Mother and child are doing fine. The new parents were treated to a "Surf and Turf" dinner tonight courtesy of the hospital, but TLG didn't get to meet his new little brother as I originally thought. Strict rules are in place, and the only people who get into the Natal ICU are Mommy and Daddy. The NLG is doing fine, breathing without assistance, eyes open, looking around, and eating like a horse per his Mom and Dad.

But he's soooo tiny!

I'll post some pix as soon as SLW sends them.

Daughter-In-Law and the New Little Guy Doing Fine

 Our New Little Guy came into this realm sometime after 0600 this morning. He weighed 2 lb 7 oz at delivery.

Yes, that's right, Two and a Half Pounds. 

He was born with his eyes open, and started crying almost immediately. His big brother was barely over two pounds at delivery, and it took him a week or so to open his eyes and start crying.

He'll be another Miracle Baby to us.

Pix to follow as soon as SLW recovers.....

Oh, Dear.....Ten Weeks Early Again.....

 Well the DIL's Doctors decided that she wasn't showing sufficient improvement with three days of bed rest and medication, so our New Little Guy will be entering this world 10 weeks early, just like his big brother.

Don't know when her procedure is scheduled for tonight, but we're praying on overtime (is there even such a thing?) for everything to to go as planned.

Latest news at 2148 MDT - Since the DIL ate dinner tonight, they're holding off on the c-section until 0600 Sunday morning.

No News Is Good News.....So Far

 Well our Daughter-In-Law is in the hospital. She just passed 30 weeks, which is when the had to do an emergency C-Section to get The Little Guy out of distress. She's been really stressed out about the time, which is probably one of the things which made her BP get high (155/85), which can signal pre-eclampsia, which is what happened her first time, resulting in TLG coming 10 weeks early.

Her BP is coming down now, and the New Little Guy isn't in distress yet, but the hospital is going to hold her at least another 24 hours, and will only release her if there's improvement.

So, we have all our fingers and toes crossed, have the prayer candles lit, and are praying that she can go at least another few weeks so New Little Guy can gain some more weight, and have some more development.

It was quite traumatic to her the first time, not to mention the baby, and we think she has some PTSD over it.

Thanks for all your prayers, and I'll keep you posted.

YAY! Got My FlightAware Receiver / Decoder Operating Properly!

 The issues I had with not picking up aircraft were entirely my fault. The little 1/4-wave vertical antenna I made for this was inside the sunroom, hanging on the Venetian blinds, and I had doubts if enough of the 1090MHz signal would get inside. The window screens are aluminum (SHIELDING!), and the fiberglass insulation in the walls and ceilings is also aluminum foil backed (MORE SHIELDING!!), but since I was receiving some aircraft, I should be able to decode them.

Nope!

As soon as I moved the antenna outside of my "Screen Room", I went from getting A few aircraft displayed to having a screen full of them, and now the "Show Tracks" works, too.

MUCH better than this:

Which gave me this:

Since I'm running this on a little RaspberryPi mini/micro/nano computer, I went and installed the official "PiAware" software from FlightAware, which got rid of the "For Development Purposes Only" map overlay, and has more adjustments to select.

Now I just have to move the little antenna to a mast, and tidy up the cabling a bit.