QST de N7GMT

I attended an Appleseed Project shoot a few weeks back. I was very impressed with the program and with the ability one can learn to shoot accurately, consistently, and quickly. To that end, a buddy and I went out to the range to practice what we’d learned.

I wanted to practice with something that had decent iron sights on it (i.e., not the stock Ruger 10/22 sights), so I took my AR-15 defense rifle. I had never really sighted it in, so that was the first order of the day. After a few “squares” at 25-meters, I was starting to feel very good about the capabilities of my little rifle.

We put up some AQT targets and took turns shooting and timing. You have to get forty rounds off in 4 minutes: 10 rounds shot from a standing position at the 100-meter equivalent target; 10 rounds sitting or kneeling at 200-meter equivalent target; 10 rounds each from prone at 300- and 400-meter equivalent targets. You have magazine changes and position changes, all within that four mintues [sic]. (Oh, and don’t forget to count the number shots for each target on the bottom rows! 3,3,4 and 2,2,3,3)

09.Oct.2009 11.45h MDT "236"

After a morning of leisurely sighting-in, the AQT didn’t seem that bad, even with the time pressure. I managed to squeeeeeeze off the last round about three seconds before the clock ran out at four minutes. And this was the result:

236/250 points!

Needless to say, I was quite pleased with my score. At the regulation twenty-five meters you can just barely make out the gray fuzz of the 400-meter equivalent targets when focusing your eye on the front sight, as you’re supposed to, but it can be done.

Thanks to One-of-Three for the encouragment … and for the use of his loop sling!

—Two-of-Three

Note to self: order enough loop slings for all rifles.

I got a kewl new logger for my birthday! Whaddya think?

My "new" (used) manual typewriter

OK, so I don’t really plan on logging with it. It’s just a nostalgia kind of thing, I guess:

While I was serving as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (a.k.a., The Mormons) I bought myself a little fire-engine red, manual typewriter. I loved that little thing, German key layout and all. I even got pretty good at typing on it—that means typing without many errors, something nigh unheard of in today’s culture of “the easy backspace.”

I have but one regret, regarding that typewriter. As it had a German key layout, I figured I should probably leave it in Germany for the next missionary who wanted a typewriter to use. I wish, wish, wish I had brought it home with me.

My Sweetie found this one for me on eBay, and surprised me with it for my birthday. Thanks so much, Sweetie! Who knows, once I have a real shack, it might just find its way down there, and I might even really do some logging with it. (Don’t hold your breath, though.)

Funk- — of or relating to radio.
Vergnügung — enjoyment, pleasure.
Funkvergnügung would therefore be something akin to operating pleasure.

Ahh — the K3/100 is here! All unpacked, assembled, (troubleshot, sent back, repaired, aligned, reshipped, and re-unpacked,) antennified, and energized.

Operating the K3 — Funkvergnügung!

The first weekend I had it (all healthy and whole) was the CQWW-SSB contest. This is 48 hours of pure DXer heaven — well, for those of us who don’t do CW well enough anyway. Stations from all over the world are on, trying to contact everyone else they can. I only had 58 Qs (QSOs: contacts) in the few hours I had to operate. Many were from Argentina and Brazil, with a few other South American contacts, a few Hawaii and Mexico stations, and a solid contact with a station in Spain!

The crazy thing, for me, was how wonderfully selective the K3 was, as compared to my IC-706MKIIG, and even my K2. Admittedly, I do have some nice roofing filters in the K3, but being able to tune up and down the band and have stations copyable despite the closeness to other stations … sometimes they were less than 1-kHz apart, but still workable, where all of my other radios want the more standard 2.5- to 3-kHz spacing between stations if you want to reliably understand what they’re saying.

Simply amazing.

I love my new K3. I had a chance to do some A/B testing with an IC-756 ProIII at another club-member’s home, and while there were strong similarities in capabilities between the radios, and even though his had some nice features — like the band-scope, being sexier to look at — I’ll keep my K3, and be very satisfied with it.

Thank you, Elecraft, for designing and producing such a nice radio. Not for everyone, admittedly, but I’m one happy camper — erm, ham-mer.

For those interested in the problem:
There was an intermittent solder short from the factory on one of the boards which caused one of the many micro-controllers to fail. Gary, on their tech support staff, was very good to work with, and helped me narrow the problem down over several days (email exchanges being what they are). Elecraft made good on it though, and did all the repair work. They even aligned the radio once everything was working. They want to make sure that all the parts are not just working, but working together in the system as well as they can make it work. That meant I had to be a little patient again, but that’s OK. This radio’s a joy to own and operate!

OK, so whose idea was it to hold the Payson Golden Onion Days Parade in the freezing, hail-laden, nigh-hurricane yesterday?! Seriously wet. And cold. Those poor Queens and Attendants up there on their floats. The Drill Teams, Bands, and other assorted marchers. Yikes!

Here, let me show you what I mean:

Incoming storm (with reports of hail on its way)

Color Guard at the head of the Parade
(They’re not going to let a little rain and wind stop them!)

National Guard (hopefully dressed for the weather)

After that, it got down-right nasty out there. The winds were whipping along, rain was coming down in sheets. Nearly everyone stayed right on parading though:

A soggy marching band

A soggy float

Soggy pipers

Not everyone let a bit of damp get their spirits down. Apparently they grow them plucky down in Santaquin. Here we see Miss Santaquin and her Attendants really doing their best to show us they’re having a grand time, the sassy wenches! Way to go, gals!

Miss Santaquin and her “Attitudes”

We were operating at the announcer booths so we could feed them line-up changes and call in any problems. I was actually under the Push-Up shelter thingy for the announcer, so I only got wet from the waist down (about where my rain-coat stopped), but with the temperature drop and the wind-chill from 20-50 mph winds, I can only imagine how miserable some of those parade folks were.

As it was, we lost the mountain-top repeater for a bit — possibly due to the lightning in the area — and had to switch to a backup frequency. Other than that (and the weather) the parade went very smoothly.

Certainly not something anyone will be forgetting any time soon.

Oh, and do you know what puncture weeds are, or “goats heads”? These little beggars completely covered the empty lot where we were setup. A few folks came through in flip-flops — which, given the weather, I thought was insane anyway — but no one seemed to get stuck very bad. It took me a while to pull out all the goats heads stuck to the bottom of my shoes when I got home, and longer to pull out all the broken off spikes. These things are vicious! Take a closer look at the tires on this pickup that had backed up to the sidewalk so they could watch the parade from the bed.

Well, that was a thing. We took the day and went to Lagoon as a big family. We managed to convince my brother-in-law and sister-in-law to come, too! A bit warm, but if you know how to deal with it, it wasn’t too bad, I guess.

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The last full weekend in June is ARRL’s Field Day 2008 (yes, I’m just that slow posting). This year my boys and I joined UDXA in their FD outing up on Skyline Drive near Fairview, UT. They boys aren’t yet licensed but I figured this would be a good year to have them work on the GOTA station. This station is specifically meant to let folks get acquainted with Amateur Radio … and hopefully to get them bitten by the Ham bug!

Warming up in the sun while eating breakfast.

The boys had a blast! They each made about twenty-five contacts with folks from all over the States. One YL had already worked our station, but wanted to work us again, just because we had young folk on the radio. My boys are nine and six.

My nine year-old, the Gamer, was working stations almost without prompting from the get-go. He is my Ham buddy and has worked a contest or six with me before. He’s getting quite good, actually. Once he has listened to me give a contest exchange several times, and has done a couple of them himself, he settles right down and works like a veteran. Several of the UDXAers commented on how well he did and how impressed they were with his operating skills. We <cough>I</cough> need to get him going on getting his license so he can join me more regularly.

This was the first serious radio event for my six year-old, the Etymologist. He was a bit nervous and a bit shy at first, what with everyone wanting to help him. Once he warmed up, he did really well, though — especially once he got his “outside” voice going. (Not his real outside voice, which he occasionally uses on a festering, ingrown sibling, but his normal voice with enough punch behind it to bust a pile up! I was very proud of him.) He turned out to be the darling of the GOTA tent; every shutterbug in camp wanted their turn to get pics of him with the headset and boom mic on.

The night before, my boys and I wrangled ourselves some radio time over on one of the rigs just to see if maybe we could make a few contacts for fun. Thanks to Hal, WA6ZHK up in Roseville near Sacramento, CA; and to Craig, N7CAL, up in Custer, Montanna. The boys were especially excited to talk to Craig: he lives and works on a spread up there in big sky country, where they ride four-wheelers and horse to help run about 900 head of cattle. To a couple of suburbanite boys, that sounded like heaven! (Craig was going to be having a different kind of field day; he was expecting a “water turn.” Having cousins who had to herd cattle and help with the water turns, I know it can be fun — for about one day, then fun it is&nbsp;&hellip; not quite so much. Brought back fond memories though. Thanks for the trip down Memory Lane, Craig!)

Sunrise behind the SSB tower.

The club was running 3A — which means three full-time stations running on generator power. We had a dedicated CW station (operating Morse code), a dedicated SSB station for voice contacts, and a “mixed” station for working either CW or SSB on whatever band seemed to be hopping and would help us get the most points. This group is incredible; they had two huge towers up there on Skyline Drive. Oh, and they call it Skyline for a reason. the horizon up there is (at or lower than) straight out pretty much in all directions. It’s a beautiful area. There were virtually no flying critters (we saw a few ’skeeters and a fly or three) and the temperature was pretty mild at 9100 ft. (2770 m) ASL. There were lots of ants and old mole trails, but that was just for effect.

Cereal at 9100 feet ASL.

All in all, it was a very pleasant weekend. We only stayed the one night and left about six hours into the actual operating event, but even that little bit was a bunch of fun. I certainly wouldn’t mind going up again next year; maybe this time we can stay long enough so my boys’ dad can get some operating time in himself.

Go Team!

[Yes, this is a little late; sue me.]

She’s not the “fairest in the land”,
Nor is she the smartest,
But she’s my Mom.

She’s not the fastest runner,
Nor is she bestest cook,
But she’s my Mom.

She’ll never win the spelling bee,
Nor the Nobel Prize,
But she’s my Mom.

She’s no Joan of Arc,
Nor a Madame Curie,
But she’s my Mom.

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