V44KF

It is hard to believe that another month has zipped by so quickly, but this time I can see how and where it went. We must be in the end times, even though that is being said now for the last couple hundred years. I recently stumbled upon this link while searching for the original story to make a point. I am flabbergasted, but not loosing any sleep over it. Follow the link and draw your own conclusion. http://www.smh.com.au/articles/2003/06/01/1054406077856.html Hurricane Earl passed North of V4 land on 29/30 August 2010. Since it was not going to be a direct hit on the island I elected to leave my 40-meter vertical with 3 nylon guys up in the air, for that ultimate test. After a few hours into the wind I was beginning to feel sorry for the belly-dancing vertical. Some time during course of the next morning my neighbour called to inform that one of my antennas was down. A few hours later when it was safe to check I found that the nylon guy ropes were still intact, but the 31-foot ve...

No storm or hurricane for this Independence celebrations is most welcome. The stormy season was already here when Independence came along, and since it is not going anywhere, nor away, we just have to live with the weather and integrate as best we can. I believe that the people and the Country have adapted, and the weather does not unduly spoil their joy. Worst case scenario we have a storm on our shores and the celebrations have to be cancelled, but that has only happened once to my knowledge. The real thing about Independence for most people may be the holidays, the partying and the lime, and the adverse weather helps by adding more days [off from work] for merriment. This is just a Caribbean way of life and I love it. The partying begins today even though Independence day is 19th September.  The 16th is National Heroes day, a public holiday. You may be lucky to catch some folks working hard on the 17th and 18th since the 19th is another public holiday. I think the Labour laws ...

... and the winner is Flex Radio ... with a 40-meter collinear vertical. Over the past week I find myself playing with my Flex radio and rather enjoying it .... and up to now it has not costed me one cent. In other words, I am enjoying my Flex radio for free, and while doing that I am also introducing and demonstrating this technology to other open minded hams. I don't want this to sound like our hams are not progressive, knowledgeable or open to the technology, but as easy as change and adaptation may be for some of us, it is certainly not so for others, especially those who may not be daily impacted by some aspect of technology. I have worked with technology since 1968 so I am extremely comfortable with the Flex radio ... and even more so since the designers have not skimped on its performance. Let me back up and explain that my FREE Flex radio refer to the PowerSDR software, and irrespective of which hardware package I ultimately use later, today I can play with, access and eva...

I am still out of a decent transceiver on the operating table. The Drake TR4CW is decent, but not decent enough for me to spend more than 15 minutes on the air chatting with my local ham radio buddies, during which time I have to touch up the dial and bring it back on frequency at least once, maybe twice. I agree with my ham radio neighbour that if I switch the radio on early it will be steady on frequency when I am ready, but I will also have a steady increase in paying for electricity which I am not using but for heating up a rig. That I do not agree is a wise thing to do. I am looking forward to the Kenwood TS940SAT being on the bench shortly, maybe for the long holiday weekend, so I can justify staying home and talking to some new friends on the other side of the world if we can find the propagation. On a long holiday weekend like this it would be extremely nice if we had a clubhouse where we could congregate and work some DX too. Club house as in the ham radio Society Head Quarter...

The TS940SAT is now outside awaiting pickup and subsequent maintenance. The hammer has failed to resuscitate the receiver on the last few attempts and I had no choice but to pronounce the T940SAT dead to ham radio. A couple days ago V44KO dropped by with his antenna checking devices, and that forced me to remove the Kenwood from the operating table and replace it with the Drake TR4CW . After a few minutes and antenna connector cleaning we had audio. If you had told me that after 10 years plus you could just take up a Drake transceiver, plug it into 240 volts ac, connect an antenna, and it would function just like today was the tomorrow of ten years ago, I would tell you "you got to be making joke", but that is the reality, and maybe someone can explain the "why" of it to me. So why did V44KO bring his modern antenna checking devices? I don't trust the built in Kenwood SWR meter 100%, but I am still guided by it. My old Heathkit HM-102 meter does not agree with ...

This was the comment made by V44KW at the conclusion of the exercise last evening. We were at that time in the Red Cross HQ building on Horsford's Road which housed the EOC and emergency station for the Basseterre communications district. I did not hear any dissenting comments, neither did I hear any verbal response to acknowledge that anyone else in the group heard his comment. For my part I agree, and now that I think about it, it is a great idea, but it does not have to be the full blown operation with establishment of the National network, etc. I also got to thinking that maybe we could use this platform to launch weekly DXing and operating sessions, either from the Red Cross HQ building [until our site is ready] or from portable and mobile locations. Weekend evenings may be most convenient for other hams, but any and every evening is okay for me as I am still unemployed. I have been ready for this operation since last year when my portable top and bottom loaded vertical antenn...

Gosh!!! I must be slipping ... it's like a whole month between blogs, but then I did not promise to be on a roster or a schedule. I am not one of those people who create the news to make the news, like buss your face with a hammer so that I can scoop and report on it, that is desperation journalism, not that it does not happen, but surely not in our Caribbean ... so you have to be careful with the information sources these days, all of them are not decent and honest, like once ago. I understand that my comments last month seemed to cause a ruckus and hams were calling for me on two meters one evening to either clarify or verify or explain, what I wrote in plain language. I did not write in any code, but I now get the impression through the grapevines that everyone is quite clear, and may be in agreement, of sorts, with what I said and what I did not say. The facts are UNDENIABLE, indelibly written in history, but some people have a hard time with it because the word POLITICS may be...