Sax and Violins

Gotta love the Talking Heads.

I was rudely awakened this morning by the trash truck, who showed up at the ungodly hour of 9am. Would’ve been okay if we hadn’t slept with the windows open last night, so it was quite loud in the bedroom. Oh well. Got showered and dressed just in time for Stephanie to come back from her morning errands, so I hung out with her for lunch and then headed up to the club shack. Nice having a key now, I don’t have to rely on someone else being there, and I don’t feel like an idiot if I just want to scan around and listen a bit.

Heard a few stations on HF, don’t remember which bands now. Most interesting was just before I left when I heard a station from Bermuda, on 6 meters! Hey, I’m thinking, I can respond to this one, I’m licensed for anything above 50MHz. Only problem is, I don’t know which antenna (if any) we have that can be used on that band. Oh well, there will be more I guess. Didn’t hear anyone on 2 meters sideband, though perhaps nighttime is better for that. Since I’m new to all of this, I have a bit to learn, and so far my exposure has been to 2m FM work on repeaters and some simplex, that’s about it.

Tomorrow I’ll probably head up there a little earlier, and might spray myself down with tick repellant and mow the lawn there. If I can get a good chunk of it done, and we can keep it down, it may keep some of the ticks away too. I hate those damned things.

Also chatted with Gary and Gerry at different times on the local repeaters; Gerry called me out of the blue on his way home, since he’d heard I would be at the club station. I talked with him (N2GJ) and his wife (N2ATJ) for awhile until they got home. That was a neat experience, to have someone that I’ve not actually talked to on the air call me unexpectedly.

When talking with Gary, he asked if I could do something for the club, namely as I learn about the station equipment and such if I could document it so they could have a “station manual”, something to give people new to the shack so that they know what is what, and basics of how to use it. Examples would be things as simple as which power supplies do what, which antennas go where and such. Sounds like something I can do, so tomorrow I’m taking the laptop up there with me so I can make notes and type things up as I go. After playing a bit with the 2m/440 rig there, I’m also going to make a “Memory Index” so that people know which memory channels are what, and where they are. I didn’t even know that a couple of the repeaters I wanted to use were programmed in. Ideally I could make a list of repeaters (over time) that can be heard and reached by that rig, including bearings to point the beams for best reception. Yes, one should use a vertical antenna for repeater operations, but if all you’ve got is a horizontal beam you might as well point it in the right direction.

I guess that’s all for now. Downloading OpenOffice for the Mac in the background, and waiting for John and Aimee to show up (John sent an IM about a half hour ago that they were just leaving, so they should be here in 10-30 minutes depending on traffic).

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