'Tis the season

Tis’ the season…Thanksgiving has always been my most favorite time of the year. It’s not just because of the changing colors and the leaves dropping, but because so many people stop and give thanks for what they have in their lives. Thanksgiving around our house was a bit unusual. Our grown up kids and their families had dinners with their respective spouses’ families…so my wife and I were home alone! No worries, we spent the day productively finishing our respective favorite projects…and then on Friday, we celebrated with a giant feast with our clan. We still have plenty of turkey leftovers!

I finally finished my personal project: to re-engineer my shack…all of the outside coax has been replaced, all with new connectors. Probably made up 30 coax connectors! Lots of soldering and practice involved with that project. So now my coax for all of my antennas comes to a single box outside my house. From there it is properly grounded and travels to my basement. It is still not perfect…but it works much better at tracking down issues, like bad connectors or bad antennas and certainly knowing that the right type of coax is now being used for the right antenna is a huge benefit. Part of the fun of this project was the purchase (I know, I should have made it) of a new short wave antenna. My old one was among the first antennas I bought 20 plus years ago and it was really shot. This new one is designed for shortwave with some heavy duty wire and a couple of traps. Well, I was thrilled to fire up my Icom R75 and actually hear noise on it again! I immediately started to log stations that I heard…Australia, South America, Europe…tons of religious stations…there actually still is life on those bands. Once I got my computer fired up and started to search some of the stations and frequencies, I discovered that all that I had known before in shortwave listening in print had moved to the Internet. There is software and programs available to log your reports with graphics and all sorts of detailed information that I just never bothered to seek out before. Shortwave listening is how I came to this hobby. Listening. Now how rare is that! In an age when everyone can broadcast, it is fun to stop and listen. When I was a kid, I loved the incredible diversity of opinion and languages that you could find on shortwave and I have to say all of this came rushing back as I spun the dial around. Now, it is true, that there are not nearly the same number of stations that there were in the past and most of them you can stream on line, but for a guy who loves the simplicity of a wire and a radio, this filled my Thanksgiving with great joy. Really, it was like the thrill of re-discovering on old lost friend.

Also, Thanksgiving gave me a chance to fix a ton of broken parts that were laying around in various stages of disrepair. The really ugly part of this story is the number of replacement parts you just cannot buy anymore. It is frustrating to live in a throw away culture…and nothing is built to be repaired. Still, I enjoy tearing things apart to see if I can fix them. That’s how the wine cooler ended up on the dining room floor. It stopped working so I ripped it apart and learned a few things about Peltier coolers and power supplies. There is a vast network of folks like me who enjoy stuff like this, so I found all sorts of useful advice from people who had faced similar problems. I did order some parts and will have to see if I can fix it…but the process of going through the unit was fun. Meanwhile, as I was on the floor searching for a screw that fell out of my connector I was repairing, I was thinking about the age old adage about not working with small parts over carpeting. This was a tiny screw…and I thought I could easily swipe my hand across the surface and it would pop out. Well, it never did. I used an intense flashlight, even a large magnet…nothing. Finally, I surrendered and looked for a replacement part - eh, electrical tape! So, I guess my next purchase will have to be a piece of plastic for the floor so I can find parts that drop!

I am thrilled to have my shack back. One more section to clean up and I will be fully operational…look for me on the air, chasing DX again. Enjoy the Holidays.

73, Rob K9RST