What I’ve been up to

Another good title would be where I have been hiding and why I have not updated this blog in a while. Well, to be quite honest with you. I really have not had the need to update this blog in quite a long time. I still operate, some, but not as much as you would think.

Last weekend, I tried my hand at a DX contest for the first time! It was the ARRL CW DX contest. I worked all of 12 stations and got a score of 324 or so the program claimed anyway. It was all on 40 meters. This happened in the span of a few hours. After a while, I got tired of sitting there and I saved my log, printed the file and emailed the log file to the appropriate people and called it a contest. I guess I just do not have the stamina that I used to in my younger years.

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All a twitter

Some of you might have noticed that my Twitter account for Amateur Radio disappeared. This was not by accident. I have become alarmed at the increased policing of twitter and I noticed that someone, of whom I share political convictions, was booted from twitter. I did not like that at all. So, I deactivated my account on twitter for this station. Oh, I still have one for other purposes. Just not for Ham Radio any longer.

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What the heck is going on with 40 meters and Midcars?

You might have noticed that I have been conspicuously absent from 40 meters on Midcars and the 68 group. There are reasons for this. It seems like every time I go down there and try to listen to that net. I have to contend with some idiot LID tossing a carrier on the frequency. Let’s just cut to the chase, okay? They are not tuning up and they are not loading up an amplifier; they are trying to jam the frequency and the net. ….and it ticks me the heck off. 😡

Yes, that’s right; I have been avoiding 40 meters here as of late. When the guys on 3973 end the net, if it has not already faded away on me, due to the band shortening up; I usually listen up on 3.975.5 there and when they sign off, I usually slide down to 3.921 and turn the radio down till 4o’clock. I figure why bother? My Kenwood TS-950SDX does not have an auto-notch. Therefore, I have to tolerate it and so, I just choose not have to listen to the whistles and carriers that these lawbreakers like to transmit illegally on that frequency. 😡

I mean, and I am just going to say this and if it gets back to the authorities at the FCC; then, so be it — The plain truth is that the FCC really needs to step up its game in the area of enforcement of the High Frequency bands on Amateur Radio. This idea that a whole bunch of people actually have to complain to get the FCC to get off their duffs and do anything, offends me a taxpayer. I mean, what my taxes are even being paid for, if these people are not even doing their jobs! I am looking at you Laura Smith! If the FCC does not step up their game and I mean really soon; the Amateur Radio High Frequency bands, I.E. 75 meters and 40 meters, not to mention 20 meters —- are going to go back to sounded like they did back in the 1980’s, during the Reagan era, when the FCC did little or nothing in the area of enforcement!

I mean, even a few days ago, I was on 1.985 with the guys on the “every night 160 group” and there was someone there, tossing a carrier on the frequency and one of the mentioned that he basically knew who it was and that he had been fined once before! I wish I knew his call, I would write about it here. Shame the bastards, is how I feel about it. 😡

Wrapping it up

That is about all I have got to ballyhoo about now. I really just have been have been preoccupied with other things. I have been preoccupied with life, the other blog, and other stuff. No, I do not have a girlfriend! (Me? A girlfriend?! Ha!) Resumes are accepted, must have a large trust fund and a house with lots of property, as in acres, preferably 10 or more! 😛 You must have long hair, down to your butt. I don’t do that dyke looking short stuff, at all. But, seriously, me? girlfriend? After all that crap I went through, with the last girlfriend I had? I think not. Not that I rule it out, but she’d have to be really, really, pretty and have a boatload of money for me to change my mind. As J. Geils Band sung, “First I look at the purse” Which was an OJay’s song, that they covered. 😉

That is all from Detroit for now! 😀

73 DE Chuck K8CPA 🙂