KRFC Increases Power From 3,000 Watts to 50,000 Watts

 YAY! My favorite local radio stations, KRFC, has flipped the switch on their new transmitter and antenna. They're still tweaking the audio settings a bit, but their signal went up 13dB here.

13dB is a factor of twenty in strength, and should make a big difference in their coverage area.

Before:

After:

If you look at the upper right corner of the spectrum analyzer display, you'll see the center frequency of 88.9 MHz, and directly under that you'll see the signal level in dBuV, or "Decibels Referenced to 1 microvolt".

Some of the increase is due to the increased power level, and the remainder is due to the new antenna. 

This will expand their coverage all along the Front Range, from Denver to Wyoming.

Well done, and now I can listen to them all the way to the Denver airport and back.

What A Beautiful Day.....

 For a Colonoscopy!

Well, at least the weather was nice. Everything checked out A-OK, and other than being a little more spaced out than usual from the Propofol, I'm back home and waking up.

Be back on-line tomorrow...

The Awakening....

 Has begun for the season. It hit 82* here today, and supposed to be really nice through the coming week.

So besides my yard duties, I'll be cleaning up the garage so I can start waking this baby up.....

 If I had the viewership that Phil at Bustednuckles has, we'd have an unending series of memes and jokes about Jim's Supra, vis-a-vis Phil's Sprite....

 

But not tonight. The son and I are "helping" The Little Guy with a new Lego set I got him.

Have a good weekend, and be safe!

RAIN! First in Six Weeks...

 We received .16" last night, and another .23" after midnight, for a total of .39" and big YAY from everybody around here.

Still coughing and sneezing like crazy, even with the Flonase and a prescription, so I might see if my Doctor can see me if it doesn't clear up soon. SLW has been hacking for a week, too, so it ain't jes me!

Perhaps this is the "Long Covid" Jules or someone else spoke of sometime back? I've had three "tests" over the last six months, and they all showed NO exposure to The Plague. The woke would be screaming I need to get ALL my shots, not-a-vax, boosters, etc, etc, etc, but I think not......

Saturday Already??

 Well, having a case of the cruds can make time almost irrelevant.

Since I'm feeling better, I swapped out the wife's snow tires for her summer tires. Should have done it a while back, but one year I did it 'early", and she had some trouble when we got clobbered with a late spring snowstorm. Oh, well.....

And watering and weeding season is upon us. The grass is starting to green, but the "nuked" backyard is having some trouble. The weeds, of course, don't mind the bare dirt; they see it as an opportunity to spread. So I mixed up some Weed-B-Gon, and spot treated all the things that are growing that we don't want. Tomorrow I'll mix up some Round-Up 360 and spray the gravel beds. Damn cottonwood seeds are starting to sprout, and if you don't hit em with a brick, they'll take over.

And on a happier note, the USS The Sullivans has been partially refloated.

Hope y'all have a great weekend, and  be safe this coming week.

Ah, Crud......Sinuses Are Killing Me Today

 Work up this morning with a head full of slime, and a mouth as dry as the Sahara from having a plugged nose all night and mouth breathing. Never been accused of being a "Mouth Breather", so it must be a hidden talent.

Had a bunch of TODOS to-do to-day, but it doesn't look like much will happen on that front until to-morrow....

Apologies to BillB for not getting your rotor to FedEx to-day.

Welcome To The Weekend

 Nice weather here, up to 87* today, but there's a front coming through, so it's cooling down and hopefully we'll get some rain. There's a winter storm warning for the Rocky Mountain Nat'l Park, extending up through the Medicine Bow Range, which starts at the Northern end of the Never Summer Mountains. 6~12" of snow forecast, with winds up to 65MPH. Over on The Plains, they're having winds of ~40+ PH, with gusts going to 75MPH. And NOAA has issued a severe blowing dust warning fo most of the Eastern part of the state.

Tried my hand at just monitoring 6 Meter Meteor Scatter last night for the April Lyrids, and was rewarded with this:

 

The highlighted entries in the log are people calling "CQ", and from the recorded signal strength levels, I could have worked most of them. But not being the Night Owl I used to be, I was fast asleep. Still, that's a whole lot more than I expected to receive just using my 20 Meter vertical antenna. I have a 6 Meter dipole I'm planning on putting back up, and a 5/8ths wave 6 Meter vertical that will be going up as soon as my son and I dig the holes and set the poles. I had a very similar 6 Meter antenna back in SoCal that a friend had loaned me, and when the band was open, it was really, really, really good.

Have a good weekend, and be safe out there!

80 Degrees Today!

 Warmest so far this year. Should be like this all week, and then drop down into the 50's/60's for a few days.

Trees are full of buds, lawn is greening up, and all the flowers have come back from the dead in the front garden area.

Time to bust out my Ross Root Feeder and give the trees and shrubs a Spring boost.

Y'all be safe out there!

Revell Releases New Kit of Russian Cruiser Moscow....

 I've heard it's quite difficult to build as you can't find all the parts....

Looks Like He Got His Wish

 Ukrainian stamp honoring the solders who were captured on Snake Island.

Sometimes Karma's a bitch....

Audio Dummy Loads Finished

 Between the botched flooring, and the delays, and then the plumbing leaks and plumbing repair, I've been a tad busy. It's also the start of the Spring Lawn Care Season, so there's been a lot of that going on. Hoses to lay, newly seeded areas to be kept moist, and trees and shrubs to feed.

And The Little guy was over Thursday night and all day Friday, then The Kids came by for dinner with the New Little Guy, who's taken quite a shine to me and my funny noises and faces.

ANYWAY..... I had most of the parts and a sketch, so I sat myself down and built these up.

The resistors are 8 Ohm, 100 Watt, Non-Inductive resistors in a series/parallel connection. It gives me 8 Ohms at 400 Watts, bigger than any amplifier I'll most likely encounter. I also tapped the point between the two 4 Ohm sections, which also gives me 4 Ohms at 200 Watts, also more than any amp I'm likely to encounter.

So now that I have these, and all my Test Equipment appears to be squared away, I can finally get back on the big Pioneer SX-980 receiver that's been a doorstop the last few months.

Rock On!