Even at my age, curiosity makes me do unusual things

| December 18, 2021

Our Omaha Steak special New Year’s spiral cut ham arrived this week and after finding room in our freezer for 10 pounds of ham, I moved the foam cooler out to the garage. After giving some thought to how nice and cold the contents were, I decided to see if the dry ice was keeping […]

Archiving: Our Corbett Family Thanksgiving photo for 2019

| December 2, 2019

Thanksgiving dinner with the Corbett, Oostra and Ankrom familes (click for high res) It is nice to have a few holiday rituals and for us, it is a Thanksgiving family feast with my brother and his family. Brenda, in particular, has now fully taken over the setting of a nice decorative table with all the […]

Music Monday: R.Dean Taylor – Indiana Wants Me (1970)

| March 25, 2019

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HAMing it up with HF radio and Winlink Pactor connections

| 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 […]

Why amateur radio operators say “73”

| 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 […]

A few amateur radio updates including my new call: K4RDC

| 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 […]

Playing with our Baofeng UV-5Rs and contemplating antennas

| 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 […]

Amateur Radio WordPress widget and vanity call signs

| 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 […]

My first amateur radio emergency Tactical Net

| 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 […]

Powering up a Yaesu FT-2900 on a dark and dreary night

| 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 […]

The shutdown is over and the FCC issued my Call Sign – KD8VSB

| 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!

Desultory - des-uhl-tawr-ee, -tohr-ee

  1. lacking in consistency, constancy, or visible order, disconnected; fitful: desultory conversation.
  2. digressing from or unconnected with the main subject; random: a desultory remark.
My Desultory Blog