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 […]
Filed under: Archive, Automotive, Diesel, Hobby, Mercedes by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: 300d, amateur, diesel, k4rdc, license, mercedes, radio, turbodiesel
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 […]
Filed under: History by RichC | 1 Comment »
Tags: amateur, code, ham, phillips, radio
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 […]
Filed under: Radio, Sailing by RichC | 3 Comments »
Tags: amateur, ham, hobby, icom, modem, pactor, radio
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 […]
Filed under: Blogs, Radio by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: ham, propagation, radio, widget, wordpress
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 […]
Filed under: Personal, Photos by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: amateur, chores, football, katelyn, license, osu, radio
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 […]
Filed under: Misc, Radio by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: amateur, ham, radio
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 […]
Filed under: Automotive, Friends, Humor, Radio, Social Networking, TBT, Video by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: cars, chicago, comedy, gas, john pinette, mp4, radio, shortwave, TBT, transoceanic, video, zenith
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 […]
Filed under: Radio, Sailing by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: amateur, email, ham, modem, pactor, radio, winlink
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).
Filed under: Education, Radio, TBT, Video by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: amateur, ham, learning, morse code, mp4, radio, visual
November 16, 2022
While talking with an aviation (and space) acquaintance on Twitter earlier this week, I mentioned that while playing “old-school” Battleship with my granddaughter, that I was teaching her the phonetic alphabet (military, aviation, nautical, amateur radio, etc). Thankfully while playing the game, we only made it to “K” since the grid on the game only […]
Filed under: Aviation, Radio, Social Networking, Space by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: alphabet, astro_clay, battleship, game, granddaughter, learning, phonetic, twitter, whiskey
April 26, 2021
This content is restricted.
Filed under: Memories, Music, Radio by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: amateur, build me up buttercup, memories, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, radio, shortwave, the foundations
March 25, 2019
This content is restricted.
Filed under: Hobby, Memories, Music, Personal, Photos, Radio by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: amateur, clear channel, graymark, ham, indiana, listening, mp3, music monday, musicmonday, radio, shortwave, transistor
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 […]
Filed under: Automotive, Friends, Humor, Memories, Personal, Photos, TBT by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: amateur, brenda, careers, college, computers, florida, friends, jeff pitts, jeffp, onu, radio, Rav4, samurai, suzuki, toyota
November 7, 2016
A learning game we played while traveling by car was to spell things out using the NATO phonetic alphabet. Both Katelyn and Taylor did a great job learning it … and I think to this day they remember it. Give it a try if you need a way to pass the time AND practice for […]
Filed under: Aviation, Education, History, Millitary, Tidbits by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: alphabet, amateur, k4rdc, phonetic, radio
September 12, 2016
Unfortunately when one faces cancer, the outcome isn’t always what we want. It is a terrible disease and one which we can only hope medical science will eventually cure … the sooner the better. I’ve corresponded with Judy and Mark Handley for many years via email and Winlink (email via Amateur Radio) and we have […]
Filed under: Obituary, Sailing by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: boats, friends, handley, obit, Obituary, sailing
March 23, 2015
I spent a few minutes updating and cleaning up some of the tags on MyDesultoryBlog this past weekend … more of a maintenance thing than anything essential. Part of the reason was that I am still learning about Blogsy as a blog writing and editing tool, but also just to clean things up. I realized […]
Filed under: Blogs by RichC | 1 Comment »
Tags: blog, blogsy, update, wordpress
January 25, 2014
No … not what you think. I have not gone down the Doomsday rabbit hole … just yet, but for years I’ve been interesting in self-sufficient living and do my share of reading. I enjoy reading both fictional thrillers about EMPs (ie. One Second After) and books oriented towards self-sufficiency. I’ve spent a few hours […]
Filed under: Audio, Energy, Misc, News by RichC | 2 Comments »
Tags: audio, doomsday, emp, mp3, prepper
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 […]
Filed under: Personal, Radio by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: amateur, antenna, baofeng, ham, hobby, icom, jeffp, radio, yaesu
November 29, 2013
Every once in a while we surprise ourselves with a “duh” moment. One where our eyes are opened to something we “should have” known about. A few weeks ago while doing some electronics calculations in my Amateur Radio studies, I needed to use a scientific calculator. Using the advanced mathematical functions on any calculator is […]
Filed under: Cellphone, How-To, Tools by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: app, apple, calculator, iphone, techfriday
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 […]
Filed under: Cellphone, News, Technology by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: Cellphone, gigahertz, radio, sprint
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!
Filed under: Radio by RichC | 4 Comments »
Tags: amateur, fcc, ham, KD8VSB, radio
October 3, 2013
Although I’m not a big fan of the “goings on” in Washington DC, particularly the current government shutdown … but I’m really frustrated to see political elements doing their darnedest to make it even more uncomfortable for everyone. Most news watchers are aware of the brouhaha over the WW2 Memorial this past Wednesday, where World […]
Filed under: News, Politics by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: government, memorials, parks, Politics, shutdown, websites
July 18, 2012
Yikes … another lightning strike and fire too close to home (below is an out the window Palm Pre video on my way home tonight). This make the second house fire due to lightning in the last couple months in an area within walking distance from our home (May 2nd: LINK–amateur video). The surrounding area […]
Filed under: Local, Weather by RichC | 1 Comment »
Tags: fire, lightning, voa
December 14, 2011
A real hot button topic is being discussed after the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) recommended banning portable electronic devices such as cellphones from being used by drivers of automobiles. Distracted driving is fast becoming the seatbelt or drunk driving issue of the day. As someone who spends a significant amount of time on the […]
Filed under: Automotive, Cellphone by RichC | 3 Comments »
Tags: accident, Cellphone, driving, ntsb, traffic
October 9, 2009
From EAA.org news — archiving so I can more easily share. Revised “51 Percent” Policy Good News for Builders, Kit Makers October 7, 2009 — For the past four years, EAA and the amateur-built aircraft community have been facing perhaps the most significant threat ever faced by the homebuilt movement. But today, we’re confident in […]
Filed under: Archive, Aviation by RichC | No Comments »
Tags: archive, aviaiton, eaa, homebuilt