As far as I am concerned, March 31, 2015 was my Groundhog Day because I saw my first groundhog of the year yesterday (and I saw three more today).
The property around my workplace is an old apple orchard and groundhogs have the run of the place during the warm weather, but until yesterday, they were out of sight. That is understandable considering that snow covered most of the grounds until last week.
And although it snowed last night, spring is in the air and the Red Sox play on Monday!
“By far, my biggest complaint is the frequency display. When you tune the radio, the radio displays the frequency, but when you stop tuning, the frequency disappears after a few seconds and displays the time, if the clock has been programmed or nothing, if the clock has not been programmed. To display the frequency again, you must press the Freq button momentarily and again, the frequency disappears after a few seconds and displays the time or nothing!”
“When I am DXing, the frequency is much more important than the time of day, so I would prefer that the frequency was the default display, not the time. Or at least allow the user to select the default display”
C.Crane listens to its customers and I am happy to pass along the news that the default display is now user-programmable, that is you can program the radio to display by default either the time or the frequency! Version 2 of the 2E manual indicates that this is so and an e-mail query to C.Crane confirms it.
The 2014 installment of the Hamvention was a memorable one.
I have been attending Hamvention regularly since 1978 and this year, we had some of the worst weather I have ever seen at Hamvention... even worse than when the event was held a month earlier when the potential for lousy weather was higher.
It rained, sleeted and hailed on Thursday, Friday and Saturday. Morning temps during those days started in the high 30's and did not get much above 50. I knew precipitation was in the forecast, but I did not expect it to be so cold and I did not dress appropriately. Luckily, I had a hoody to keep me warm when needed.
My family likes to watch my progress to and from Dayton via APRS, but I do not have a ham radio installed in my vehicle, so APRS was not an option. However, I do have an iPhone and there are some APRS apps for it. So I bought an app called OpenAPRS and it filled the bill as can be seen by my tracks as displayed on aprs.fi above.
As I wrote in my previous blog post, "I always staff the TAPR booths on Hamvention Fridays and Saturdays, so if you make it to Hamvention this year, stop by... and say “Hi.” Well, at least one of you did just that: Dave = WA1OUI, who has been one of my most loyal readers and is also a long-time friend going back to the FM repeater wars of the 1970s. Dave was working in one of the ARRL booths just up the aisle and I returned the favor and stopped by his booth!
I ran into a lot of other old friends during the weekend --- not sure if they read this blog or not. Some showed up at the TAPR booth and some I bumped into on the convention floor; folks like Al = N8DHF, Bob = WB4APR, Craig = K1QX, Dave = K1ZZ, Guy = KC5GOI, Harold = WJ1B, Joe = K0NEB, Rich = W2VU, Steve = N8GNJ, Tom = K3IO and many others.
The TAPR booth was very busy all weekend, busier than its been at recent Hamventions probably because we had a lot to show this year. John = N8UR was showing his high precision timing projects, Jeremy = NH6Z and Scotty = WA2DFI were demonstrating SDR, Mike = No-Call-Yet had his HackRF attracting a lot of attention, Chris = KD2BMH was with his WhiteBox SDR handheld transceiver, and there was a big crew staffing the digital voice demo. I fielded packet radio and APRS questions and filled in at the cash register and elsewhere while others took breaks.
Touring the Hamvention floor on Saturday, I stopped by the booth of the Society of Amateur Radio Astronomers. Since I dabble in both radio and astronomy, I thought that the booth would have something that interested me and I walked away with a radio telescope kit to receive signals from Jupiter, the Sun and the galactic plane. I will have more to say about this after I build the kit and get it on the air.
I hate the drive to and from Dayton, but I am already looking forward to doing it again next year!
I saw my first groundhog of the year today.
The property around my workplace is an old apple orchard and groundhogs have the run of the place during the warm weather, but until today, they were out of sight. Typically, I see my first one during the last week of March, but considering the unusual weather around here this year, the groundhogs probably decided to hibernate for an extra week.
I saw only two today, but I expect their friends and family will be up and around in another day or two.
The sky is falling, but that could be a good thing or a bad thing, according to this week’s installment of Surfin’.
This week, Surfin’ finds out which way the wind blows -- and which way the propagation flows -- at the revamped National Weather Service website.
One inch of snow accumulated on Compounce Mountain last night. Total snowfall this winter is 6 inches.
It snowed overnight for the second snow event this winter. Three inches accumulated on Compounce Mountain, but heavy rains are in the forecast for this afternoon, so there may not be much snow left after the rain.
Total snowfall this winter is 5 inches, which is 30 inches less than one year ago.
First snow of the season fell overnight. About 1-2 inches at the top of Compounce Mountain followed by heavy rain and rising temperatures, so the snow will not last.
In comparison, on this date one year ago, we had a 17-inch snowfall, which added up to 35 inches total for the winter at that point (there was lots more to come).
So what do I do with the 13 inches that fell here October 29-30?
Although most of the leaves had fallen from the trees in my neck of the woods, that was not the case in the surrounding area. The heavy wet snow that landed on the trees still full of leaves caused tree branches, as well as whole trees to fall and damage the power infrastructure.
As a result, my house has had no power, no telephone, no Internet access, no weather station, and no ham radio since Sunday morning. My electricity pimp has not dared to estimate when it expects to restore power, so the prospects for a quick fix look bleak.
The little woman says that we should buy a generator. I wonder how well that will go over as her Christmas gift?
Probably not very well.
The rain was heavy and we totaled 3.76 inches over the weekend, not much when compared to other areas of the state which were pushing two digit totals.
The wind was constant with speeds reaching as high as 43 MPH Sunday morning and it was still blowing steadily when I went to bed Sunday night, but it did not do much damage. The yard was full of leaves, twigs, and branches, including one huge 20-foot branch that I had to subdivide before I could haul it away.
The guyed 55-foot tower was steady as a rock throughout the storm. I was a little concerned that the ground was so saturated that one of the guy anchors might come loose, but it never happened.
And I saved the best for last: we never lost power.
The temperature hit 70 about ten minutes ago, but as I type this, I can still see a pile of snow sitting on the curb across the street. The accompanying photo juxtaposes that snow pile with the daffodils that are ready to bloom in our front yard.
