RichC | April 25, 2024
It has been a while since I’ve posted anything amateur radio related, so this is a blast from the ThrowBack Thursday #TBT past … and it reminded me of my teenage years and learning Morse Code visually (chart below the break).
RichC | July 20, 2023
An automotive journalist friend of mine regularly promotes his radio appearances on Chicago’s talk radio, which often leads to discussions regarding radio in general. Often the thoughts are to broadcast radio, both AM and FM, verses streaming via an Internet signal (or perhaps satellite)? One thing lead to another and I reflect on my amateur […]
RichC | March 25, 2022
Those who know me likely have noticed that I’m often wearing an Aftershokz headset. I’ve worn them for the last several years and since my hearing has been impacted by Ménière’s disease way back in the late 1990s (long story) … in dealing with Menieres related hearing loss, I have found a bone conduction headset […]
RichC | July 12, 2021
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RichC | June 3, 2021
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RichC | April 26, 2021
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RichC | March 25, 2019
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RichC | March 21, 2019
My friend Jeff Pitts has been my closest friend ever since our college years at Ohio Northern University (also the only guest blogger so far). Besides college, he was on my bachelor party trip, years and years of hiking and camping … including a great trip to the Canadian Rockies with my son Taylor, who has […]
RichC | January 7, 2019
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RichC | April 12, 2018
Since I needed to replace the “metal” plates on the old 1982 Mercedes Benz 300D Turbodiesel this year, I’ve opted for the amateur radio registration. It did require submitting my General Class K4RDC call license, and $20 (??) extra, but figure it was a nice way to support both ham radio and my love for […]
RichC | February 9, 2018
As a Fox Business addicted viewer, I keep a live-feed running much of the day just as others do for music, talk radio or sports. One of the challenges is that it isn’t convenient or available, especially in a low bandwidth, "just" audio feed … unless I’m in the car and listening on SiriusXM Radio. […]
RichC | September 7, 2017
Obviously the "promises" made by the Obama administration, and the Democrats who passed the Affordable Care Act (ACA), have failed us … and the current GOP controlled congress have failed to fix, repeal or replace (their promise if elected). Who in middle class America can afford health insurance at $1000/mo with a $12,900 deductible? As […]
RichC | January 8, 2017
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RichC | November 14, 2016
As part of getting a handle on the Amazon S3 costs, it is finally time to move into the 21st century and eliminate the old-school audio player on MyDesultoryBlog. I attempted to go with an HTML5 player a few years ago, but struggled with using it especially with different browsers. A few years later, everything […]
RichC | April 27, 2016
A leftover weekend project was to see if I could get my dad’s old Triplett 630PL meter back to working shape. As a boy, I remember "carefully" using "his" meter when I was in junior high school and attempting to build Heathkit projects … like my shortwave radio. Thankfully I never has to depend o […]
RichC | September 4, 2015
Pandora has announced that it will celebrate it’s 10th anniversary on Wednesday September 9th and will offer those who are non-paying listeners with an ad free day. According to a Forbes article, free listeners still make up 95% of Pandoras’ active users and maybe hoping that a sample of what the premium paid-subscriber tier is […]
RichC | August 19, 2015
Well … one of the positive things that happen at funerals (and weddings) is that families get together. Taylor took a funeral day (plus weekend) from his job and Katelyn and Drew drove home from Wayzata (Minneapolis, MN) and brought along his “new toy” … quadcopter with a camera – what a great distraction. We […]
RichC | October 7, 2014
Summer has passed without giving much of a thought to turning on my HF rig or making any amateur radio contacts. The recent Last Man Standing amateur radio event had me firing my ICOM IC-718 and connecting my upgraded SCS PTC-IIe Pactor modem. Obviously using it for “slow” Winlink email is not a priority when […]
RichC | May 16, 2014
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RichC | January 31, 2014
It’s depressing to be back from a few days of sun (and rain), after a long drive from Florida yesterday, but also good to be home. It has been a morning clearing a few bills and accumulated mail off my desk and a light work day before Superbowl XLVIII weekend. One piece of mail, a […]
RichC | January 18, 2014
Those who spend any amount of time listening to amateur radio hear operators closing their exchanges with a polite and concise “73” … meaning “best regards” … but where did it come from? From what I’ve read, it goes back to a convention in 1859 where telegraph operators discussed saving “line time” by devising a […]
RichC | December 14, 2013
My older SCS PTC-IIe Pactor modem came back from Farallon Electronics after being updated with a new electronic serial number and Pactor III update – faster speeds using the HF radio (still very slow by modern Internet standards). A Winlink account is now active and seems to be working over Telnet, so the step is […]
RichC | November 30, 2013
My friend Jeff and I had a chance to get today Friday afternoon and catch up on life. We enjoyed our semi-regular Mexican lunch and talked about work, church, family and our mutual amateur radio hobby. He’s been a Ham (N4XKJ) since we went to our first HamCation back when he was living in Orlando […]
RichC | November 26, 2013
Short on time for today’s post although I did add an Amateur Radio HF Propagation widget to my WordPress sidebar. I’m not sure cluttering up the screen with more data is a wise thing, but for now it helps to know which HF bands are open. Continuing with the radio theme, I applied for a […]
RichC | November 24, 2013
It has been a semi-busy and semi-cold weekend for yard chores, but I’m tackling them just the same since waiting for a dry “warm” Saturday and Sunday doesn’t look promising. I started Saturday early and started to tick off the simple indoor items on my chores list thinking that it might warm up, but I […]
RichC | November 16, 2013
This morning was spent working on the leaves again, but I took a break this afternoon to be part of the Butler Country Amateur Radio Association’s (BCARA) emergency communications network (W8WRK). One of my “senior” contacts in the amateur radio club asked if I could do some volunteer community service and represent the Middletown area […]
RichC | October 31, 2013
This Halloween evening is indeed dark and dreary as the wind is whistling and blowing rain nearly sideways. The garage door was left open (by me) and has puddled to the point Tootsie’s cushions (bed) is damp … which makes the entire garage smell like wet dog. But that’s not the point of this evening […]
RichC | October 31, 2013
Because I’m in the midst of studying the next level of amateur radio theory and hoping to gain access to more HF Ham radio frequencies (ARRL PDF chart), a recent WSJ article regarding Sprint’s gigahertz frequencies made complete sense to me. The gist of the article is that Sprint has a “giant trove of high-frequency […]
RichC | October 20, 2013
Last week Dave Ramsey attempted to simplify the Affordable Care Act on his financial advice radio program for his listeners. He asked listeners to take off the political blinders – be they those of the supporters of Obamacare or those who want the law overturned. In a “tough love” Dave Ramsey kind of way, he […]
RichC | October 17, 2013
The good news from my end is that the FCC is back in business and processed some of their backlog today. One of those items was my new amateur radio call sign … KD8VSB. I’m legal to be on the air. Woohoo!
RichC | June 10, 2012
Although I’m not an “every week” listener, I’ve heard enough shows and shared several “puzzlers” to become a fan. I’m going to miss their sensible nonsense regarding life and sometimes helpful car advice. I’ve often thought these two guys were able to attract a steady audience of both liberals and conservatives in a way that […]
RichC | July 29, 2010
While traveling this week, I enjoy a point of view and odd story for NPR which had self-proclaimed “liberal Democrat” Dan Baum about his Happiness is a worn gun article in Harper’s Magazine on the radio. (currently a PDF version of the article here) He addresses the subject of the love of guns from the […]
RichC | January 16, 2009
During a business call this week, a fellow who listens to streaming radio and knows my interest in Volkswagen TDIs, mention that a station he listens to was holding a sweepstakes offering a New 2009 VW Jetta TDI Clean Diesel as their grand prize. The station is KCPW in Santa Monica, California and features “an […]