Recently Logged

Freezing rain and high winds resulted in a power outage in my neck of the woods Monday. I love the sound of a low noise floor in the morning and I logged three new navigational beacons among the 15 I could hear during the power outage that I normally cannot hear otherwise.

CAT on 254 kHz transmitting 25 watts from Chatham, New Jersey, 99 miles to the southwest

SW on 335 kHz transmitting 50 watts from Stewart Air National Guard Base, New York, 67 miles to the west.

FR on 407 kHz transmitting 25 watts from Plainview/Farmingdale, Long Island, New York, 65 miles to the south-southwest

Also added ZZR to the log on January 11 on 317 kHz transmitting 30 watts from Quinte West, Ontario, 290 miles to the north-northwest

All four were received with an ELAD FDM-S2/SW2 receiver and an 80-meter inverted Vee antenna.

Also added WPTK to the log on January 16 on 850 kHz transmitting 5kw from Raleigh, North Carolina, 512 miles to the southwest.

And on January 17, I added CHUM on 1050 kHz transmitting 50,000 watts from Toronto, Ontario, 363 miles to the north-northwest.

Both were received with an ICOM IC-R8600 receiver and an ICOM ICOM AH-7000 discone antenna.

Oliver and Shaq

Oliver and Shaq

Our family lost a member Thursday morning: our first cat, Oliver. 

As a kitten nearly 16 years ago, he followed my wife home when she was walking our first dog QT-Pie and he moved in after some pushback from me. Turns out, Oliver and me hit it off and he became my best buddy, my "Big O" and always greeted me when I came home from work.

Oliver and QT-Pie were the only males in our menagerie and they became best friends. After QT-Pie died three years ago, one of our female cats, Shaq, seemed to replace QT-Pie in Oliver's life. The two cleaned each other and usually slept with each other.

After Oliver died, Shaq seemed to be lost looking all around the house for her friend. Friday night, when I took our second dog, Pumpkin Pie, out for last call, Shaq got out. She seldom gets out, but must have thought her friend was outside, so she went looking for him. Shaq was out until nearly 3 AM. 

I think Shaq found Oliver because the next day, I found a dead mouse neatly placed right in the middle of Oliver's grave!

High Weirdness

Smudge

I was sound asleep this morning when the doorbell rang at 1:30 AM. My first thought was that it cannot be good and expected the police to be at the door with some bad news.

I went downstairs and looked out the windows of the front door, but no one was there.

Suddenly, a cat hopped down from the porch railing, scooted halfway down the sidewalk, and turned around to look back at me. After a second or two, it moved on.

I was not wearing my eyeglasses, so I could not identify the cat as one of our neighbors' felines, but I have a feeling it was a neighbor's cat named Smudge, who my daughter and I rescued from a tree and babysat for a few days when he was a kitten.

I felt bad for the cat because it was about 20 degrees Fahrenheit at that time with a wind chill factor down in the single digits.

But how did it ring the doorbell? The doorbell is within a cat's reach from the porch railing, but was it just dumb luck or was the cat very intelligent.

And by the way, just as I began typing this, about 15 wild turkeys just crossed our lawn on their way into the woods across the street!

My Sad Bat Story

Oliver, our "Number One Cat" escaped just before dark yesterday.

He returned about 30 minutes later with a trophy. In the past, he has brought home dead birds, moles, voles, chipmunks, and mice. Last night, he brought home a bat and deposited it in his trophy case, also known as our front porch.

My job is to bury the dead. Actually, I just dump the dead in the storm drain so that our dogs don't find and perhaps eat the carcasses.

I got a small shovel to scoop up the remains. As I began to scoop up the bat, it chirped at me and fluttered its wings. The poor thing was still alive, but one wing was damaged (a big hole) and its body was cut up badly and seeping blood. In that condition, it was evident it would never fly again and would probably die sooner or later, so I decided to put it out of its misery.

I used a sharp chisel to do the job. I hated doing it.