Well, golly gee. Another week has passed and I’ve been just too busy to notice.

Busy? "Doing what?" you ask. Why, Radio Stuff, of course. PSK31 mostly to be precise. Though I did make a voice contact with Hawaii early this morning. That was fun even though we didn’t really talk. DX contests can be that way though.

SWMBO did have her gall bladder removed last Friday. Yep, it wore out. Went bad. TU. Blocked so they had to rip it out by the roots. She did really well during and after the surgery though. She feels now like I did after they ripped mine out; sore like she’s been kicked really hard in the stomach. That goes away in a couple of days though so no worries there. Now she gets to learn about Fat Free Diets! (I don’t know if y’all know it, but, you do NOT want to eat any fatty foods after having your gall bladder removed! You Will Pay For It If You Do!)

Not much else going on around here. Weather has pretty much settled down to Warshington Normal. Mostly cloudy, some sprinkles, just enough sun peeking through to make you really miss it when it hides again. Not too cold though.

Bought a new Pandigital Personal Photo Scanner/Converter off Amazon.com and have nearly burned the thing up. Well, not really. But I have scanned 3963 photos since we got it last Thursday. Everything I had in boxes except for 5"x7" and larger. And I think I can get those done in a day or two on the flatbed scanner. Then comes the odious task of merging directories, checking for duplicates, re-ordering, re-naming and generally organizing the damned things. Then burn them to dvd’s (it’ll definitely take more than 1. Or maybe even more then 2.) Then the hard part: do I burn the originals (once the scans are safely backed up) or give them to someone? I just don’t know. I don’t really have anyone to give them to.

On a brighter note: lightbulb.

Just not much going on. Too busy with housework, laundry, ripping and radio to get out much. Not that I can get out much with the price of gas nowadays. I just wonder how the fight for freedom in the Mid-East can raise the price of gas so much? And I can’t believe that everyone "in charge" would rather pay those prices than tap what we already have in this country. It would *have* to be cheaper. And more dependable. But don’t get me started.

And enjoyed the heck out of it.

Finally got over my trepidation about actually transmitting (kind of afraid my transmit signal would walk all over someone else trying to transmit/receive) on 14.070.5 in PSK-31 and sent out a few CQ’s. Answered a few also. "Talked" to N4NUI in Sandy, Utah – WT6X in Livermore, Ca – W8TTY in Cleveland, Oh and KF7ELU in Fort Bridger, Wyoming today. A couple of days ago I "talked" to JH9CHL in Japan and UA0ZAY in Russia. Too Cool! PSK-31 works great!

Found a site that tracks PSK-31 transmissions where you can monitor your call to see where your signal goes. Or how far away someone could tune you in. I was really hitting Southern California and the East Coast. Even hit Japan a couple of times. Didn’t manage to get to my friend in Pa though.

However, tried a few CQ’s on voice/ssb on 14.230 (or there abouts) and my radio didn’t seem to be putting out much in watts. Had the radio set at 75 watts output but my Radio Shack meter (which has been pretty accurate) indicated only about 35 watts output. Didn’t check at the time but now I wonder if my ALC had anything to do with that. I’ll be checking it out tomorrow. I’d like to do some voice contacts.

Spent about an hour trying to set up the hand held I bought. Putting in all the local repeaters I can. Had a heck of a time getting the 70 cm offset straight in my head. It’s +/- .005! So if the frequency is 442.125+ then the offset is 442.130. Then you have whatever the PL tone is. Don’t know why it was so hard to drill into my brain.

Got out and worked on my long wire antenna the other day. Cut 15 feet off it, cut 20 feet off the feedline, soldered them together and got it out of the way. Not nearly as much RF back into the shack now. Nice to be able to run all my computers and transmit/receive at the same time. And I don’t do too bad on distance either!

Just not much else going on around here. Weather mostly sucks. Had a couple of really windy days. Some snow north of Seattle but none here. Now the temperature is really supposed to drop over the next couple of days. Brrr.

SWMBO and I went to El Sombrero’s for dinner last night. I really enjoy my time out with her!

And that’s about it.

My Dad & Me

And I probably wouldn’t have it any other way!

Last week went pretty much as usual. At least I don’t remember anything of great importance happening.

I *did* pass my test for General yesterday. Woo Woo! Now I can get on the 20-meter band. CQ CQ CQ KF7LTT temporary AG CQ CQ CQ. Woo Woo! I even took the Advanced Class test. Got 50% right even though I knew only 2 questions for sure.

The ride to and from Shelton was pretty nice.

Re-built my long wire antenna today. Sorta. I been having trouble with lots of RF interference in my "shack" and haven’t been able to do anything about it. When I transmitted with greater than 5 watts or so my laptop would freeze. I couldn’t have my desktop computer on if I wanted to listen or transmit on the radio. So, I was thinking about the problem when "the light went off" in my head. It’s probably that 12 inches of wire coming in the window and into the tuner that’s causing all the problem. Duh! So I cut the radials off the 10-meter dipole, soldered the long wire to the center lead and ran the ’58 cable in the window to the tuner; and viola, it works. Mostly.

I spent some time transmitting PSK31 at 75 watts (trying to contact my friend in Pa) and the computer didn’t lock up once. I’m even able to leave my desktop computer on. Cool! The "mostly" part is that, for some unknown (as of yet) reason *sometimes* when I transmit the SWR starts out almost too faint to see on the SWR meter; but suddenly jumps up so high the radio turns itself off. (And it’s a damned good thing it does that!) I haven’t found the cause of that problem, yet, but I will. I almost think it’s the Balun I left on the cable from the 10-meter dipole. If I still have the problem tomorrow I’ll take the Balun off and see how that goes.

Still no word from FedEx about my package. A FedEx driver did stop by last (Thursday?) and said she’d left my package with my nearest neighbor, but he says he doesn’t have it. She was supposed to get back to me but hasn’t.

Had a minor wind come through yesterday which blew down some trees over Seattle way but we didn’t get it that bad out this way. Rained some.

Just not much else going on. Getting older. Slower. Grayer. Which beats the alternative.