So we had a lovely still stomach bug sweep through the household in 3 waves. First it came for the littles, but they got over pretty quickly as the littles often do. Then it came for the basically everyone else, leaving only my oldest son and I standing. Then I got it. Now he has it, so it’s been something of a clean sweep. Two blessings at work here. First, it goes nearly as quickly as it arrives, so you get 24 hours of misery and then recovery begins.

This past weekend I passed the Amateur Extra license exam, the final level of the three licenses for US amateur radio operators. I can now operate with full privileges on all bands allotted to US amateurs. Realistically, this gives me access to some portions of the bands that are reserved for Extra-class license holders and useful DX windows. I’ll be interested to see what the contest activity is like in these slots during the next on-air shindig.

We live on a great piece of property with an unfortunate shape: wedge-shaped, with the fat end on the road and the house situated on the tip at the rear. This means we have a nice, expansive front yard and enough physical space for things like chickens and my poor excuse of an apiary. The one thing for which we’re not well-situated is an antenna. We’re bounded in the back of the property by power lines (and close neighbors), and it’s highly unlikely I could sell a tower in the middle of the front yard to my wife.

I must have read the following quote — or something very much like it — before, because I have been noodling quite a bit on the three-way relationship of Athens, Rome, and Jerusalem for a couple of weeks now. I dug around on Google to see where it might have come from and the cited collection of essays turned up. Memories, man. How do they work? But what really gave the message its wide intellectual scope was Benedict’s way of calling to mind the foundations of European culture, not only as a Christian legacy, but as the fruitful synthesis of the pre-Christian inheritance as well: “The culture of Europe arose from the encounter between Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome — from the encounter between Israel’s monotheism, the philosophical Greeks, and Roman law.

The 2017 CQ WW DX SSB contest was a few weeks ago. On the last afternoon of the contest period, I started scanning bands and looked for interesting big-gun stations that were getting bored. With my current setup - janky antenna and nothing in the way of an amplifier - I figured it might be worthwhile giving digital modes a rest for a few hours. And hey, what do you know?

The Signalink arrived and is performing great. Good signal reports, zero ALC, very precise control over outputs. I can warble and drone with confidence. In other radio news: have moved the end-fed into something of a vertical/sloper situation using the one good tree that’s near the house. It seems to be working pretty well this way. I’m working DX from Alaska well into South America and have logged quite a few contacts in Europe, too.

For the last couple of months, I’ve been training for a half-marathon which takes place in mid-October. The training plan I’m using is 12 weeks long. As of today, I’m halfway through week 8. Several early AM runs are scheduled during the week, sandwiched in between rest days on Mondays and Fridays. I do the long runs on Saturday and cycling on Sunday for cross-training. Most of my running has been on a local greenway system.

I was running a WSPR beacon the other day and another ham hit me up on email with a screenshot that shows my badly overdriven signal cluttering up the band. I thanked him, pulled the plug, and started troubleshooting stuff. The wall I’m hitting, I think, is the audio-in levels going into the data port on the radio. I bit the bullet and ordered a Tigertronics Signalink USB for amateur digital modes.

Radio’s back and good as new. Having quite a bit of fun with the new FT8 digital mode. Also seemed to have finally ironed out some uncertainty around audio out levels to the radio from the PC, ALC, and so on. On the hunt for the next book to tackle. Something on the Theology of the Body, I’m thinking, to help get ready for the confirmation class I’m teaching this fall.

I finished Josef Pieper’s The Four Cardinal Virtues and liked it very much. I foresee going back to it frequently for refresh and review. Also thoroughly enjoyed Frank Sheed’s Theology for Beginners, so much so that I have another of his books, Theology and Sanity, ready to go for some upcoming travel. In the meanwhile, I’ve (slowly) begun working my way through the Summa Contra Gentiles. You can get it for the Kindle for a buck.

All just order in the world is based on this: that man give man what is his due. On the other hand, everything unjust implies that what belongs to a man is withheld or taken away from him - and, once more, not by misfortune, failure of crops, fire or earthquake, but by man. \ — Josef Pieper, The Four Cardinal Virtues And if anyone would reduce it to the proper form of a definition, he might say that “justice is a habit whereby a man renders to each one his due by a constant and perpetual will”: and this is about the same definition as that given by the Philosopher (Ethic.

Went ahead and robbed the hive. The top brood box was 60-70% full of honey, no brood at all, and still no activity in the super. I got into the lower brood box and only saw a little bit of larvae, and no eggs. Also a fair number of supersedure cells, so something’s gone awry in there. I’ll give them another week or two and re-check to see if a queen’s been hatched and laying.

Colony, that is. The questionable one petered out and that was that. Pulled the comb and put it in the freezer for awhile to kill off any wax worms. Should serve a split well later on this summer. The other colony is doing well and has drawn out the second brood box. Still haven’t started in on the super yet. Hopefully soon. The weather has been cool and damp and I’m sort of crossing my fingers for some extended clover time.

The questionable colony seems to have laying workers, which means there’s no queen. Not much to do but wait until it peters out completely and then reclaim the comb for a split or something later on this summer. Main colony seems to be doing fine, though they still haven’t moved into the super yet. Clover starting to show up in places, and this is normally about the time that our main nectar flow kicks off.

Checked on the hives this weekend and went ahead and supered the big one. At the rate they’re going, I expect the top brood box to be drawn out completely in another week and I wanted to give them some room to keep working. The second colony was doing OK at last check, but was looking a little lackadaisical from the outside and sure enough, seems to have superseded. I saw eggs and larvae but no capped brood, so hopefully things are starting to ramp up here shortly.

I gave up on getting the EARCHI to tune up on 20m for now. As it is, I was able to make enough contacts on PSK31 (50 unique callsigns) to qualify for PODXS070 membership. I was awarded number 2497, in the off-chance we cross paths on the waterfall at some point. If I want 20m, I just run into the attic, move the feedline back to the dipole, and hoist it back into the rafters.

I added back an RF choke (“big ugly balun” style) on the EARCHI antenna and seem to be able to get all of the 40m and 80m bands now. SWR is a little higher at the bottom of 40m, but still well within the internal ATU’s range. I’ve been able to work 10m, 15m, 17m, and 21m, including some great DX to South America on 10m yesterday. If I can get 20m back, I’ll declare total victory across the board.

I recently bought an “EARCHI end-fed antenna”:www.earchi.org/proj_home… put it together in about 30 minutes (20 of which were winding and re-winding the toroid) and have been testing it out, by which I mean, trying to get it to tune in the attic, using the included 30' wire with and without a counterpoise, with and without an RF choke outside the attic with a longer wire and a counterpoise I switched out the 30' wire they included with a 53' length, and here’s where things stand right now, using the internal ATU of the radio.

Two nice things. First, a blessing from the 1946 Roman Ritual that was originally for a telegraph, but adapts quite nicely for any radio-related endeavor: O God, who walkest upon the wings of the wind, and thou alone workest wonders! By the power inherent in this metal, thou dost bring hither distant things quicker than lightning, and transferest present things to distant places. Therefore grant that, instructed by new inventions, we may merit, by thy bounteous grace, to come with greater certainty and facility to thee.

So the DIY digital modes cable seems to be a success. I’ve been working JT65 on 20m and 40m, including one 3000 mile QSO with a station in Alaska. That’s my longest DX yet, and pretty amazing on only 5 watts. The full BOM for the interface ran about $20: some stereo plugs, a USB soundcard about the size of my thumb, and a mini-DIN adapter to connect to the radio itself.

Just cobbled together a BOM for a homemade USB/sound interface for the FT450D. I was all set to buy an off-the-shelf version (Signallink or RigBlaster), but after some research and a short conversation with another ham at last night’s club meeting, I figure there’s not much to these things. For $20 or so, it’s worth a shot: USB soundcard dongle, a 6-pin mini DIN connector (think: PS/2 mouse) and a couple of 3.

I think I finally have my head around most of CQRLOG, and especially its integration with LoTW. Parts of the UI had baffled me, but someone on /r/amateurradio set me straight and I think I’m good to go. I can definitely see how the hooks into fldigi will be useful once I get into digitial modes. Had a chance to run the local ARES net last night, which is always a gas.

I significantly adjusted the 20m legs and re-tied them so that they’re not quite on the same plane as the 40m, hoping to reduce any interaction. Success! The radio is showing under 1.5 across the band, even before letting the ATU do it’s thing. I seem to be good for 40, 20, and 15m. I’ll probably add 10m for the sake of completeness and then lay off multiple trips to the attic while I’m ahead.

…at least according to the meters. After some sanity checking from a couple of youtube videos and the Amateur radio subreddit, I shortened both legs by about 5" and now have a good, sub 1.5 SWR across 40m! Frustrating though it was at first, I learned the process of tuning/pruning, which should be useful for future antenna work. If I can pick up an inexpensive SWR meter at a hamfest, I probably will, but the meter in the radio is going to suffice for now.

The ham tickets are frequently described as a license to learn. The impatient guy in me just wants everything to work. On the other hand, trying, failing, and getting better is one of the actual points of the hobby and it’s good to be regularly reminded. It turns out that my dipoles are wonkier than I thought. Possibly way wonkier. I finally figured out how to effectively use the SWR meter built into the FT-450D and both the 40m and 20m antennas are reading too short.

Reviewing the FT450 docs and scrounging around online, I think the SWR readings for the 40/15 and 20 meter elements are good, and if not good, at least acceptable. I tried to make contact another station on 20m yesterday, but the band was fading fast and he lost me in the noise. Band conditions seem to be pretty good in the morning and mid-day hours, which are unfortunately when I also have to work.

…in “Amateur Radio.” After a couple decades of putting it off, I got my Tech and General licenses this past summer. Current gear: Yaesu FT-60R HT Yaesu FT-450D Kenwood TM-V71A Uniden BCD396XT scanner Mobilink TNC2 Elk 2M/440 Diamond NR770HN (for mobile work) Diamond SRH77CA Homebrew 40m dipole The FT-60R goes with me when I fly. I also use it with the Elk for working satellites and the APRS digipeater on the ISS.