Queens Crap

For those of you who don't know, I live in the Borough of Queens in New York City.

To say that many sections of Queens are going downhill is an understatement. Nice single family homes being replace with Multi Family homes - many illegally

Here is a blog that covers it:

http://queenscrap.blogspot.com/

WAS and New Mexico

Well, one of my big goals for FD didn't happen AGAIN this year. The ONLY state I have NOT worked - EVER, is New Mexico.

I often hear stations working New Mexico, but I've NEVER even heard a station out of New Mexico

The only other state I don't have confirmed is CT - Mostly because I still have not sent out the card from LAST Field Day

Contesting and CW

This year, during FD, I tried contesting a bit on CW. Now I'll admit my CW stinks. I'm slow, and VERY rusty, so I was using CWGet to back me up, which basiclly means I only got to work strong stations.

I liked it - I liked it a LOT. The QSOs went a LOT faster. Stations actually sent their call sign every QSO! I'll tell you, it's a real incentive to actually sit down and practive my morse code. 5wpm doesn't cut it for contests - contest CW is 25-30wpm, but is VERY stylized - you KNOW what is coming - call sign, and exchange.

Well, it's time to break out g4fon's program, and get back to it

Field Day

This year, Field day has not been so much fun. I've got some health issues, so I'm running class 1D with my lousy antennas. On top of that, I went to bed early. I figure my health is a heck of a lot more important than Field Day.

I probably should be on the air right now, but the way I feel, probably better off relaxing

Bloomberg Changes Party Registration - Again

Mayor Blooming Idiot of NYC "left the Republican Party" yesterday. What I want to know is, when did he ever join the Republican Party. Yes, I know he changed his party registration to Republican, and was elected Mayor twice on the Republican Party line, but he was never a Republican.

Let's look at a bit of the history - in 2001, Bloomberg, then a registered Democrat, decided he wanted to run for Mayor. Realizing that the way the Democratic Party machine works in NYC, he knew he could NOT win the primary. The Republican Party had no strong candidate to replace outgoing Mayor Gulianni, so Bloomberg changed his party registration to Republican, and ran. I guess the NYC Republican party figured better a RINO than Mark Green in office

So, now Bloomburg wants to run for President, as an independent. He KNOWS he can't win either the Republican OR Democratic party nod, so he drops both parties, and figures he can self finance, after all, he can easly spend $1 BILLION to win

Bloomie, don't let the door hit you in the back on the way out...

Merged Post III

Friday, June 1, 2007
IS Code our enemy? (Computers - not Morse)
This Morning, Jeff Atwood over at "Coding Horror" wrote an article The Best Code is No Code Commenting on Code is our enemy over at Skrentablog

I happen to think BOTH posters are right and wrong. I'll agree with Jeff that Brevity is extremely important, BUT not at the expense of robustness.

Of course, code that does NOT exist is the most robust code there is.

Rich says that there are 3 kinds of code. Stable (aka code that doesn't change over time), Code that gets worse, and Code that gets better. I feel that there are really 4 kinds. The addition is code that RARELY changes

I see a lot of this RARELY change code, but the joke is, this is where I see some of the worst code, because when it does change, it may be a decade since it last changed, and NO one really knows the code anymore, and it often has lots of dependencies hung off of it. THIS is the code that probably needs both the best decoupling and DRY - even though it rarely changes

Merged Post II

Thursday, May 24, 2007
Batteries
I was reading a blog the other day where the blogger mentioned a friend who had batteries that were going dead in a fairly low power device - but critical use, and when they went to switch batteries, the spares were dead too.

This is a common problem. In many LOW power devices, the effective battery life is not really limited by the use of the device, but by the shelf life of the battery in question!

The moral of the story is - don't buy your spare batteries at the same time as your primary batteries. If you want to be really safe, figure out how long a set of batteries last for you in the use in question - and change them at say, 1/2 to 3/4 of that time. Assuming you are going on the 1/2 life change, buy your spares 1/2 way to the change time (aka 1/4) - at 1/2, put the spares in, and buy fresh batteries

Merged Post 1

Programmer Productivity
Jeff Atwood over at Coding Horror has a great post on the relative speed of various CPUs when doing common programming tasks at .

I wish I could get my bosses to understand this. I work on an old 530 Mhz single core PC, with 1 gig of Memory, and that's because I begged for an upgrade.

Silly, huh?

I think I'm going to wrap the two blogs together

I really think I'm going to wrap the 2 blogs togther - no sense keeping them apart

New Blog

I've avoided posting Non Ham stuff here at this blog, as I didn't want to get either political, or too much into programming.

To that end, I've created a second blog http://kg2vslife.blogspot.com/ Feel free to drop on by

Alpha Delta DX-EE - and the Rotor

Yesterday, I ended up having to take the day of to take Dad to the MD (HE has cancer now too), so I did some work on the antennas

I took down my Mini-G5RV, and replaced it with a Alpha Delta DX-EE. Based upon some testing, it seems like a LOT better antenna, so I'm pleased. That antenna is going to be my 40m primary antenna when I get the beam up.

Speaking of the beam, I repaired the rotor yesterday - the sender pot was bad, and I had ordered a replacement a few weeks back. I installed that, and now the rotor is working fine.

I intend to close up the rotor tonight, and then, once I make a run to the hardware store for some "stuff", I'll be ready for the antenna party! Don't think it'll be ready for BS7H, and even if it is, it's a small beam. I think I'm going to have to run to a friends place (Hi W2IRT) to try and work them

I am John Doe

Dear Muslim Terrorist Plotter/Planner/Funder/Enabler/Apologist,

You do not know me. But I am on the lookout for you. You are my enemy. And I am yours.
I am John Doe.

I am traveling on your plane.

I am riding on your train.

I am at your bus stop.

I am on your street.

I am in your subway car.

I am on your lift.

I am your neighbor.

I am your customer.

I am your classmate.

I am your boss.

I am John Doe.

I will never forget the example of the passengers of United Airlines Flight 93 who refused to sit back on 9/11 and let themselves be murdered in the name of Islam without a fight.

I will never forget the passengers and crew members who tackled al Qaeda shoe-bomber Richard Reid on American Airlines Flight 63 before he had a chance to blow up the plane over the Atlantic Ocean.

I will never forget the alertness of actor James Woods, who notified a stewardess that several Arab men sitting in his first-class cabin on an August 2001 flight were behaving strangely. The men turned out to be 9/11 hijackers on a test run.

I will act when homeland security officials ask me to "report suspicious activity."

I will embrace my local police department's admonition: "If you see something, say something."

I am John Doe.

I will protest your Jew-hating, America-bashing "scholars."

I will petition against your hate-mongering mosque leaders.

I will raise my voice against your subjugation of women and religious minorities.

I will challenge your attempts to indoctrinate my children in our schools.

I will combat your violent propaganda on the Internet.

I am John Doe.

I will support law enforcement initiatives to spy on your operatives, cut off your funding and disrupt your murderous conspiracies.

I will oppose all attempts to undermine our borders and immigration laws.

I will resist the imposition of sharia principles and sharia law in my taxi cab, my restaurant, my community pool, the halls of Congress, our national monuments, the radio and television airwaves, and all public spaces.

I will not be censored in the name of tolerance.

I will not be cowed by your Beltway lobbying groups in moderates' clothing.

I will not cringe when you shriek about "profiling" or "Islamophobia."

I will put my family's safety above sensitivity.

I will put my country above multiculturalism.

I will not submit to your will. I will not be intimidated.

I am John Doe.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE, INC.

Been a while

Since the last time I posted, life has been busy with NON ham stuff - 20 or so QSOs this year!

I did wire up the Ham IV, and found that the position sender doesn't work, and I've been SO busy I have not had time to send it out to Norm's to be rebuilt

Sigh

I decided to play in WPX this weekend - ended up playing for 21 minutes - I checked my log

Well, MOST of the parts are here

So, the coax and rotor cables are here. I'm waiting on my Cal-Aero balun (should be here today - I hope - Tuesday at worst) and believe it or not, new pins for the AMP connector for my rotor. Yes, my Ham IV is old enough to have the AMP commector. Tomorrow, I'll probably put the elements for the antenna together, and store them

Antennas

Well, I've ordered the Glen Martin rooftop mount form my beam - a MP-33 which needs 2 parts (on order). The rotor (a Ham IV) is in the garage, and the mast and thrust bearing arrived today.

Next week, I'll order the coax, and the rotor cable, and I should be good to go

I think I'm going to use 9096-2a for coax

If we get some nice weather (like we have been getting) in a few weeks, I should have the beam up, the Mini - G5RV down, and a 40m Delta Loop in it's place, pluse the 17m/80m trapped dipole moved and up higher. Imagine that, a signal improvement on EVERY band I run (I can't run 12m, 30m, 60m, or 160m)

The eventual goal is still to replace the MP-33 with a Step-IR, but...

Field Day Result

I Never posted how I did on Field Day. As I predicted, I came in forst for class 1E in the NLI section. That turned out to be trivial, as I was the ONLY class 1E in NLI.

I did come in 4th in the Hudson Division for class 1E. Definately have to get the QSO count up. I had 203, where the winning effort (WA2EQF) had 561!. I guess the sleep and off hours killed me. That's the big problem with a 1 man effort

CQWW SSB

Didn't get much time to play in the contest this weekend, there is just too much going on in my life

Ended up running PARTS of 3 different hours - probably a total on the air time of 90 minutes or so

38 QSOs - all on 20m, all while the band was dieing at night, but what the heck

The Beam

Last night, I got a call from Pete (W2IRT) - "XF4 is on the air and LOUD". I get on the air - just a whisper - below ESP level. Man I HAVE to get my beam up. I talked with my XYL - she has given me the OK as my Christmas Gift. Yea! I can start ordering parts before then.

Miscellaneous Musings

It's been a LONG time since I posted. My ham radio life has been very slow, as I've been VERY busy. Mom was in and out of the hospital and rehab (Lung Cancer) etc

Anyway, one major problem I had in my station at home was NASTY 'birdies' all up and down the band from my LAN. This is a fairly common problem. I decided to try and fix the problem. Now, as I already HAD shielded Cat-6 cables in place, I knew that was not going to fix the problem. What I did was make up Cat-5e cables that had a type 43 ferrite at BOTH ends. (small ones - 1/2 hole, about 3/4" long). I had to cut off the connectors and put on new ones. I did it scientifically - one cable at a time, one end at a time. Interestingly, at least on MY LAN, the end near the PC was MUCH more important than the end at the router! I'll guess that the LAN circuits in the PC are less balanced than they are in my router (a Linksys). I lowered the noise at the 'birdie' points from about s-6 to about s-1, so I'd say I made a huge improvement.

This last weekend, I replaced my temporary coax to my 80m/17m dipole with it's permanent coax. Now I don't have to open my rear door to use the antenna. Make me a tad more likely to actually USE the antenna

I've had a bunch of cards come in, and I'd like to thank all the stations who sent me cards.

I'm seriously thinking I'm going to order an NMO mount saw. I have a few friends (Hi Pete (w2irt) and John (KB3MTK)) who need antennas put on their trucks (both Ford Rangers...). My old truck was a Ranger, so I know the tricks with that one.

Sometime this winter (actually next 2 months or so) I should be putting up a beam. Going with a Glen Martin 4ft rooftop tower, probably a 6ft mast. I have a MA-33 that I got from the old Knickerbocker Yacht Club station (Thanks Guys). I eventually want to put a SteppIR up there, but that'll wait. Still debating WHICH coax to use. I keep waffling on that.

Unfortunately, I won't get much contesting done this fall. It's an election year, and my job is related to the elections, so I'll be working 7 days/week until after the election.

73 de KG2V - and Good DX (sunspots? What's a sunspot)

Field Day 2006

Normally I go Upstate and do field Day at WA2GUG's place. This year, due to family commitments (had to watch the children, plus Mom in the hospital), I did Field Day as a class 1E from home

Had a good Field day - 978 points, which SHOULD put me in first for NLI section.

Butt in Chair was a BIG issue - ran frm the start to about 4:30pm, then had to cook dinner for Dad and the kids, so I lost 2 hours there (3 QSOs in 2 hours). Around 2:30am, I hit the wall, and had to sleep. The BIG issue was I set my alarm wrong, and instead of it waking me up at 5:30am, I slept until 7:30am.

My big battery died for tranmit use right around noon - pretty much all I did was get the bulletin. I did get a BUNCH of QSOs on Sunday AM

I'll admit going into the contest tired - with running to the hospital almost every night, I was averaging less than 6 hours of sleep a night

The GOOD news is that it allowed me to ALMOST finish my WAS - I'm still missing New Mexico