Back home where it belongs.

When I was first licensed in the late 90s I saw this radio and thought it was very cool so for some time I set out to buy one. I had an opportunity in 2004; to buy one brand-new in the box. But about a year and a half later; sadly I sacrificed it to buy another radio and it's been bugging me ever sense. I'm thrilled to report now; after sometime I now have one back in the shack. In fact I did not mind that it took almost three hours yesterday to set it up and get it running again.

To finalize the installation this morning another ham came by to assist in programming the radio; via computer. Happily this process only took mere seconds. As many of us known setting up a radio by hand takes hours or days. You got to love technology when it works.

I know for some time now this radio has been receiving bad reviews due to bad display issues but this is now the second radio; of this particular model and still no display problems. Oh I should mention I also have the remote head kit; the DFK-4C and I have no intention of letting that go. The remote idea comes in so handy. I can now say that radio speaking my check is complete.

Good things come to those who wait.

Lets see cents about 2003 my back and my backside have sampled about five different chairs; while sitting at the computer and/or the ham shack. And for about a year now I have been very selective about the kind of chair the two body parts mentioned above most satisfied and about three weeks ago I found just what I wanted. And to sweeten the deal it was $100 off, so timing was good and I just couldn't resist. And to emphasize again my back and my backside are thrilled.

My feet, legs, and knees however weren't very happy last night for a few hours because it took three hours; yesterday afternoon to put the thing together by myself. Here's a picture of it, personally I would like a more detailed picture because this one does not do it justice it looks very so damn comfortable. I now have a real motivator to play wow again; ha ha!

Can't be all bad.

Even though I don't have all my antennas in full operation, I'm not doing so bad on the HF bands. In fact in the last few days I have been doing quite well on 24 MHz with an 18 foot vertical antenna 28 feet in the air. I logged my first contact to northern Spain on that band. I think I'll be pretty proud of that for awhile, don't you?

With all this fun I've been having on 21 MHz, 24 MHz, and 28 MHz I've managed to send out a total of 18 QSL cards this week to a few states and further abroad. I'm still not complaining, yet I sure would love a break in the weather for the rise of one more antenna.

It sure does feel good to be back on the HF bands again with frequency and the reliability of good equipment; it's been a long time.

New tool to use!

every man needs one of these on him at all times; this is a great tool and not a toy the Leatherman Charge TTI. I've had this a little over a month now and I already wish I had one as a child. I was never a Boy Scout I am not a diehard outdoorsy guy; I can tell you that this will probably improve the odds of that happening.

Yes I would admit that it's a little spending, but since when does a man have enough tools. For the short time that I've had it and used it around the house it is well worth the money. Oh yeah this is another great thing I found on Amazon.com. Of all the things to get addicted to that one could hurt a man's retirement plan ha ha!

Antenna plan.

As I mentioned previously I plan on having fairly big antenna plans and for most part everything went well; except for one antenna. It turns out while putting up to the antennas it was discovered that the third was slightly damaged just enough to make it unusable, but it was not a tragic defect. Meaning with a little help from someone better than myself; money spent is not a loss.

I can tell you the two that made it up are doing very well so far. Time will only tell of course. All and all I can not complain the slightest little bit because of the tremendous help I received yesterday from four guys. I suspect that the weather will soon take a turn for the worse, so I patiently await for a whether opportunity to raise the final antenna. Stay tuned antenna updates to come.

Great band conditions today.

As most you know I have been involved with amateur radio for many years now and I have been known to get rather excited when the HF bands open wide. And lucky for me today they did just that for about four hours. I worked all over the Midwest and South West US the whole time. And now I am chopping at the bit to finish the additions to my mini antenna form.

Tomorrow morning or early afternoon my antenna project will be complete after several months of gathering materials; not to mention changing my mind several times over the plan of where and how the antennas go u. I think by now I get it down and all is ready to go. The plan is to change out one antenna, put another one below that one, and add one to the roof. For a total of four antennas to be done. For more details see my website; I will have updates shortly

Happy birthday to me!

I think it's been about three years now since my parents have enjoyed the new technology in flat-panel TVs. And apparently my mother's guilt got to her because she and dad bought me one for my birthday. So far I've had it for a few hours and already love it. I have future plans to buy a DVD player and/or DVR; I haven't made up my mind yet. I do however plan on doing some looking around for a decent 5.1 speakers. Also at some point before the year is out I would enjoy having the Apple TV device.

It is the Sony-BRAVIA KDL-26M3000 26"

Tropic Thunder.

When gathered together for my birthday we watched the movie Tropic Thunder. I would give it 2.5 stars because it's so ridiculously stupid it's funny. Some times to get out a good gut busting laugh; one has to do, hear, or watch some thing like this movie. I must admit this is a movie I would have never recommended, but the nephew said it's hilarious.

Long time no blog!

Sorry for not doing any entries lately, but I'm back in school now and I am very busy with that. I thought I might take a few moments out of my day; to update you a little bit. Since my last entry there has been a bit of a remodel of my room; pictures to be coming soon. My ham shack has been updated and moved around, those pictures also coming soon. All four of my radios have been working great for a few weeks now. So far the two antennas that I have up in the air are going great as well. No great out of country contacts yet. But I'm trying; mostly on late afternoons nights and weekends.

oh yeah one of the thing. For the past week and two days I have been fighting a very gnarly head and chest cold, so it is ill-advised to drop by ha ha!!!

Thanks to all the guys who helped out throughout the summer and up to just recently. I am not only relieved that most of my recent radio troubles have gone away, now that back on the HF bands I am having a blast. Again thank you everybody

Dolphins at play!

Check this out; this link was e-mailed to me earlier today it is very cool.

click here to see dolphin bubbles

Long time no transmit # 3.

An Icom IC-821H Transceiver for VHF/UHF all mode operations.

Well wonderful news as of 10:30 a.m. this morning and up to just a few minutes ago. I now have my wonderful; fully operational VHF/UHF base radio back in the shack and no antenna problems with these bands.

Even though it's only been a few hours I am already on cloud nine and Monday night at 8:30 p.m. I will most definitely be on cloud nine once again. Because every Monday night at 8:30 p.m. there is a SSB net; for years now. And I can't wait to get back on with a bunch of guys to talk radio stuff.

Long time no transmit # 2 Update

To my stunning surprise the blog entry previous to this one; is incorrect. Because moments ago my radio was delivered right to my driveway via FedEx. I am so very happy! unfortunately today I don't have time to play with it. I did however at least open the box, and she still looks brand-new. by the way this particular radio was discontinued 15 years ago, so it's entirely possible that the radio could be 20 plus years old. I'll keep you informed on how it goes.

Long time no transmit # 2.

An Icom IC-821H Transceiver for VHF/UHF all mode operations.

By the looks of the news just received; moments ago. the necessary repairs and shipment was carried out yesterday afternoon. So with any luck at all I'll have the radio back by tomorrow afternoon or maybe by Monday. And if you haven't noticed I have been waiting; a long over due three years to play with this radio again.

My Quickie Q7 is a go!

As I have mentioned in a previous post it's time for a new wheelchair And two weeks ago I went in to pick out a chair; as well as see what requirements of mine could be granted. To my surprise today around 3:30 p.m. I got the phone call that that initial paperwork was approved swiftly not only by my doctor but my insurance company as well and all of my wishes were met.

In my opinion that is record time for paperwork chasing by any doctor or insurance company these days. With any luck I may have my chair by late September; in time for school. The lady on the phone did say she has seen the ordering process go as quick as two weeks. But my timeline could be as much as a month or more from now. Oh by the way I did change the color, I no longer want root beer brown. I am going for midnight purple.

Long time no transmit.

An Icom IC-821H Transceiver for VHF/UHF all mode operations.

Some of you really want to know the status of this radio, so this is the story. I believe that it was about four and a half years ago; when I needed this radio repaired.

A week or so ago I sent it off to the manufacturer; for them to fix. Today I got a phone call for an estimate to do the repair. Long story short what is needed is two hours worth of labor for about four dollars worth of parts; in order to have my radio back. It was said that I should have it back by the end of the week or maybe early next week.

My new look.

I was playing around with some of the new layouts and templates that blogger now has available and right now this is close to my own website I can get it. I don't like it when my pages don't all match. So in the coming weeks my blogger page my guestbook page in my own website with all its pages I hope to match as close as possible; to the point where you see very little difference. That's if you really care about how all these pages with a look. I know I do, so I thought it would only be proper to announce major changes throughout to you.

Sick Humming Bird.

For little more than a week now this loner radio; (not my radio) a Yaesu FT8500 with the Yaesu DTMF Microphone MH-39 has been producing a 60 cycle like hum noise when I transmit. I have been aware of this; since the start. For the few of you that insist on being radio doctors, and this list is short. I do ask of you to please stop trying to fix it. I know what the problem is. It is for sure the microphone shown below.

The problem is that it appears the microphone cable is not shielded enough to prevent any noise generated around my house or neighborhood; from getting into the microphone. Typically known as a grounding issue. I know this because it a few months ago I had singular problem with a Yaesu FT8900 microphone. To resolve that issue I traded microphones with somebody else; then the problem on this end was gone instantly. In fact my microphone turned out to work fine at his place.

Sense what I believe to be 1996 I have been running all of my radio equipment on the following power source. Astron power supplies. As of now this is the one I am using. An Astron RS-35M power supply, and in the last three years; from time to time transformer or some other component gets noisy. Pictured below.

To be fair; These so-called radio doctors who have been making comments are not typically found on my hang out frequency. I have had a lot more of you; on my hang out frequency tell me that the interference in question was not making me inaudible; all the time.

As soon as I am told by one or more persons that this noise is very very bad and cannot be heard without severe difficulty; I will stop turn off the radio. I am getting some up and coming help; in which hopefully the problem shell be resolved. I also hope to address some equipment grounding issues throughout the shack as well.

I will soon get my own radios back from their places of repaired, and therefore will announce to the ham world; when the radio gods have decided to bless me. Meanwhile pray for me to have good radio vibes. Oh yeah I googled these images; they are not mine.



This is the microphone in question.



This is the radio that the microphone is connected to. Note I do not have, nor do I want to use the microphone pictured with this radio. (FS-10)



Astron RS-35M power supply.

School Update # who knows what!

Okay people here goes the school story for you; one more time. Yesterday I went out to the school to make sure that a few more Is were doted and Ts were crossed. That means all is swell and ready to go for this coming September quarter. I am a little antsy but still thrilled as well as willing to go for one more time around the campus for a few more months.

Nothing much more to add as far as school details as of now; other than the fact I truly hope my new chair is approved and arrives before the last week of September when school starts. It's really going to be cool buzz around the campus in my Quickie Ferrari.

Surprising Phone call!

An Icom IC-821H Transceiver for VHF/UHF all mode operations.

Before I get a phone call today, I'll give you some history. I believe it was sometime in late 2006 I bought the radio that you see, so I can have VHF/UHF all mode operations. But about six months into owning it, I started having problems with it not transmitting properly. This led to someone offering to work on for me. Some progress was made; over some period of time but as of a few weeks ago it still was not behaving properly. That being learned I made a decision by July 14th. to send it home to ICOM.

Which leads me to the phone call today; that turned out to be very good news. I was told that my radio had been received and definitely is repairable, but I asked if we could postpone it for a short period time, so I could gather all of the funds in question before proceeding and they agreed. I hope to have more good news soon.

More than just a light weight wheelchair.

This is very cool , my hats off to whoever came up with the idea to add that technology to a chair. Light weight wheelchair technology sure has come a long way since the 70s, by the looks of this video.