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. This three-way encounter has shaped the inner identity of Europe. In the awareness of man’s responsibility before God and in the acknowledgement of the inviolable dignity of every human person, it has established criteria of law: it is these criteria that we are called to defend at this moment in our history.”

Jerusalem, Athens, and Rome: they form together an overarching standard of human rationality. And it was Christianity, in fact, that made possible the creative interplay and mutual fructification of these three sources of reason: belief in God, philosophy and science, and law — and Europe grew out of this synthesis. This Europe was also the ancestral root of the secular state, and, although not immediately and directly, of the modern culture of human rights as well.

— Martin Rhonheimer, “Benedict XVI’s Address to the Bundestag from the Perspective of Legal Ethics and Democracy Theory,” Pope Benedict XVI’s Legal Thought: A Dialogue on the Foundation of Law

What prompted the noodling? Under cover of darkness, a so-called identitarian movement courageously put up some posters and stickers on a local college campus. They seem very much into European identity, though as far as I can tell, they go no further than the Rome bits. Forget about Athens. And Jerusalem? No one has time for any that. We want the Europe that looks like Skyrim. Scratch a bit of the shiny paint off, and what you find is the same old props and affectations of what used to be called “The Uptown Klan,” — the ‘Citizen’s Councils’ of the mid-to-late 1950s. There’s nothing really new here beyond social-media-driven amplification. I’d hazard a guess that some flirt with the edges of this stuff because it prompts an immediate rise out of others: internet lulz culture breaking into meatspace.

The new packaging certainly invites a closer look — community building! civic engagement! The marketing has gotten better for sure. Gone are the grotesque caricatures faded from several generations of photocopying and furtively distributed by hand. There’s a modern website, nifty photos, and all the other accoutrements of a respectable online presence. Replace the text and it might just as well be a VC firm or Bay-area startup.

Polished though it may be, the group’s racist foundation becomes evidently fairly quickly. Moreover, the group declares itself wholly secular, which neatly avoids any requirement to contend with even a third-grade understanding of the Gospels, to say nothing of sustained engagement with a transcending anthropology. In short, I’ve probably burned more calories on this than it’s worth. In light of Christian duty, however, I’ll note the following. It ought to be self-evident, but maybe not, so here we go again:

To reject another human being, or seek to divide the human family, is to deny the inherent dignity of the other as made in the image and likeness of God. It also dismisses out of hand our Lord’s prayer for unity and His direct teaching on the limits of charity (spoiler: there aren’t any). That individuals have unique gifts, talents, and weaknesses is evident on its face, but as I’ve stated previously — the human body is a perfect symbol of an invisible, immortal reality. Separate the two and you’re left not a person, but a mere object, in which case a trip down the materialist cul-de-sac is a foregone conclusion.

This path leads nowhere but to sin and death. Pray for the conversion of those who are on it.

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? I was able to log phone contacts with Bonaire, Jamaica, Italy, Cape Verde, and a few others. That the massive antenna systems on the far-end were doing lion’s share of work, no question. Still pretty nifty. I submitted my log for the hell of it and wound up with a whopping 494 points. Not at the bottom of any of the lists, so I’ve got that going for me. The aforementioned giant contest stations and dedicated single operators logged scores in the millions, by way of some relative comparisons.

Not long after the contest, I made a voice contact with CO8LY on 17m, a ham in Cuba that I’ve actually logged before on other bands with digital modes. It was nice to hear his voice. Finally got the Azores in my book, too. My antenna is now running to a tree out back, thanks to quite a bit of rope+paracord setup as a halyard and a wrist-rocket slingshot to get the whole thing started. Quite the Wile E. Coyote afternoon, I don’t mind saying. The current configuration is something of a proof-of-concept, and while the system’s still not at an ideal height, it sure feels like I’m getting out a little better.

Confirmation bias? Or effective way? shrug The longer term plan is to switch out the 54' wire with one just about 125', which should put the far end closer to the top of the tree and get it higher still. I’d love to give a doublet or G5RV a try, but the vertical portions of either would wind up dangling down in the middle of the backyard, and there’s no point in tempting the dog or kids with something like that. Long term, some sort of vertical is probably in my future, but I still want to wring everything I can out of what I’ve got.

Switching gears to theology: parts of JP2’s TOB that I’m still sort of getting my head around - well some of many, anyhow:

• Man only comes into the fullness of self-knowledge through community
• The second creation account in Genesis shows Man understanding what he is not (by encountering the animals) and what he finally is (through his encounter with Eve).
• The other is simultaneously different (at an obvious somatic level) and the same (in shared humanity)
• Man only knows the other through the giving in totality of himself as a gift to the Other.
• As a gift, the physical embodiment of Man is the visible and perfect symbol of the invisible reality, namely, that he is also Spirit, much the same way that any physical gift that we give to someone is an outward sign of something else.
• In receipt by the Other as a gift, Man comes to know himself as a gift. There must be a giver, a thing given, and a receiver. The gift must be given and received in its totality, not under terms or rejected, in right relationship.
• Absent this anthropological understanding, the physical body becomes a thing to be treated like any other material object, used, possessed, discarded.

I can’t recommend Prof. Mary Stanford’s 3-part podcast, Theology of the Body 101, highly enough. It only seems to be available via iTunes, unfortunately. It’s engaging and quick (I could have listened to 2-3 more hours' worth of the material as she presents it). Our parish’s confirmation preparation group (of which I’m a part) is doing double-duty with a series of TOB evenings for the confirmandi and their parents. This is probably the sort of material we all ought to be listening to by way of an introduction to the main ideas.

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. All using FT8 or PSK31 running 10-15 watts at most. Most of the heavy lifting, I am sure, is on the far end. Even so it feels like my success rate has gone up and bodes well for a more permanent vertical antenna setup at some point in the future. For now, this is getting the job done.

The weather should be good for the half-marathon this weekend. I think I’m ready. Everything feels pretty good and I’ll spend the week doing some carb-loading.

Theology of the Body continues apace, as does my studying for the Amateur Extra exam.

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. It’s beautifully wooded, following the local river, and generally has a decent number of other folks running, walking or biking.

My goal is to finish strong, so I’m not likely to be breaking any speed records. My long runs are well over an hour at this point, with walking breaks for water and occasional chewy gummy runner snack things. My next long run is 10 miles and it was high time to add music to the routine.

Herewith my workout playlist. Healthy amount of 80s and 90s pop on there. Some of the more recent stuff comes courtesy of having teens and pre-teens in the house. For better or worse, this lets me keep track of the latest hot hits. You could probably take a pretty good guess at my age from the list below.

1. Hey Ya! – Radio Mix, OutKast
2. Gonna Make You Sweat (Everybody Dance Now), C+C Music Factory
3. Call Me, Blondie
4. I’m Still Standing, Elton John
5. Black Betty, Ram Jam
6. Hungry Like The Wolf – 2009 Remix, Duran Duran
7. Cradle of Love, Billy Idol
8. I Ran, Flock of Seagulls
9. Pump It, The Black Eyed Peas
10. Pumped Up Kicks, Foster The People
11. Sonnentanz – Sun Don’t Shine, Klankarussell & Will Heard
12. You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), Dead Or Alive
13. Tainted Love, Soft Cell
14. She Drives Me Crazy, Fine Young Cannibals
15. Walking On Sunshine, Katrina & The Waves
16. Beds Are Burning – Remastered, Midnight Oil
17. Smooth Criminal, Alien Ant Farm
18. Land of Confusion, Disturbed
19. Girls On Film, Duran Duran
20. Turning Japanese, The Vapors
21. Waka Waka (This Time For Africa), Shakira/Freshlyground
22. I’m Gonna Be (500 Miles, The Proclaimers
23. Tarzan Boy, Baltimora
24. Mexican Radio, Wall Of Voodoo
25. She Sells Sanctuary, The Cure
26. Higher Ground, Red Hot Chili Peppers
27. Wild Wild West, The Escape Club
28. Rebel Yell, Billy Idol
29. Enjoy The Silence, Depeche Mode
30. Message In A Bottle, The Police
31. Psycho Killer, Talking Heads
32. A View To A Kill, Duran Duran
33. Uma Thurman, Fall Out Boy
34. Thrift Shop (feat. Wanz), Macklemore & Ryan Lewis
35. Bad Moon Rising, Credence Clearwater Revival
36. Suffragette City, David Bowie
37. Paint It, Black, The Rolling Stones
38. Weapon Of Choice, Fatboy Slim
39. The Rockafeller Skank, Fatboy Slim
40. Bad Romance, Lady Gaga
41. The Power (7” Version), SNAP!
42. Sandstorm, Darude
43. Come Out And Play, The Offspring
44. Can You Dig It (Iron Man 3 Main Theme), Brian Taylor
45. Main Theme (from Superman), John Williams
46. I’m Shipping Up To Boston, Dropkick Murphys
47. Derezzed, Daft Punk
48. Rio, Duran Duran
49. Mama Said Knock You Out, LL Cool J
50. Jai Ho, A. R. Rahman
51. Mundian To Bach Ke, Panjabi MC
52. How To Be A Millionaire, ABC
53. 100% Pure Love, Crystal Waters
54. Turn Down For What, DJ Snake & Lil Jon
55. Animals, Maroon 5
56. Crazy, Gnarls Barkley
57. Forever Man, Eric Clapton
58. Dirty Laundry, Don Henley
59. Higher Love, Steve Winwood
60. What is Love, Haddaway
61. Crazy, Seal
62. Groove Is In The Heart, Deee-Lite
63. Unbelievable, EMF
64. Jump Around, House of Pain
65. Things That Make You Go Hmm, C+C Music Factory
66. Pretty Fly (For A White Guy), The Offspring
67. Pause, Run DMC
68. Mortal Kombat Theme, Utah Saints
69. The Sign, Ace of Base
70. Finally, CeCe Peniston
71. Two Princes, Spin Doctors
72. Cotton Eye Joe, Rednex
73. Ready To Go, Republica

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. One of the shortcomings of the DIY cable I made is that there isn’t a good way to control audio levels into the rig except for the sound mixers in the operating system. They work fine, but the data input pin on the Yaesu is really, really sensitive and I need more control over the voltage. I can keep audio level very low, and end up operating QRP (according to the meter on the radio), or I can move the slider a millimeter and then blow the levels out again. There’s no middle ground, even with CLI controls.

A divider circuit or pot would probably do the trick, but I’m not confident enough in my abilities to try either and the purpose of the exercise is to eliminate as many unknowns as I can while I clean up my signal. They seem to be the de facto standard digital modes gadget, which has to count for something.

The devices aren’t particularly expensive and I had a nice email exchange with a guy in customer service wherein a couple of my questions were answered and some suggestions offered out. The service was great, which bodes well for any future questions I might have.

Bookwise: I just finished Weapons of Math Destruction by Cathy O’Neil, which was featured on a recent 99% Invisible podcast. Very good stuff there. It was written by a former academic mathematician-turned-Wall Street quant who grew increasingly uneasy by the level of control that badly written algorithms are claiming over our lives. Black box approaches to difficult problems (such as determining which teachers are effective and which aren’t) seem to offer an unbiased, scientific pathway. They sometimes fail spectacularly (to wit: when Google’s Photos app identified African-Americans as gorillas back in 2015), but more often fail subtly. The subtle failures are arguably worse.

First, despite any claimed objectivity, algorithms written by fallible human beings often encode the assumptions and biases of their creators. Second, in many of the most egregious cases O’Neil explores, there is no apparent feedback into the algorithm for correction and optimization. Finally, bad outcomes tend to reinforce the flawed assumptions that went into their creation, so the cycle continues. Did we mention that creation of these algorithms is Big Business, that they tend to be jealously guarded intellectual property, and are thus even further removed from any sort of public scrutiny?

Also still working my way through Pope St. John Paul II’s Theology of the Body audiences. The TOB has been called something of a theological time bomb, and it’s hard to disagree, even only partway through it. More later.

Finished up the 20th Aubrey/Maturin novel (The Hundred Days) on a recent trip to the Florida panhandle. This leaves one complete novel (Blue at the Mizzen). Then I guess I’ll go finish out the all of the Richard Sharpe books and then go for an O’Brian re-read.

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.

Looking ahead I can see a pivot into deeper scriptural study. I was perusing the reading lists at the Dominican House of Studies and a book on the Wisdom literature by Richard Clifford caught my eye. Apropos, I started re-reading Job last night, making it as far as Elihu’s appearance.

The HF rig is headed back to Yaesu. Something is wonky with the transmit circuit and it’s still under warranty, so off it goes. Bummer, too - the new FT8 digital mode is taking off and and I had just dipped my toe in it before everything went ahoo. Such is life.

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. v, 5) who says that “justice is a habit whereby a man is said to be capable of doing just actions in accordance with his choice.” \ — St. Thomas Aquinas, S.T., II II Q. 58

Justice is the moral virtue that consists in the constant and firm will to give their due to God and neighbor. Justice toward God is called the “virtue of religion.” Justice toward men disposes one to respect the rights of each and to establish in human relationships the harmony that promotes equity with regard to persons and to the common good. \ — Catechism of the Catholic Church, #1807

I was asked recently about God’s justice and mercy and specifically, how to reconcile the two. The question caught me off-guard, so I asked for a bit of time to think before giving an answer.

If justice lies in giving someone what they deserve, then mercy is giving someone something that they don’t deserve. God is infinitely just, yes. This ought to catch our attention like nothing else, for what would that mean for most of us, if we’re being completely honest with ourselves? In the face of something so awesome, despair and existential paralysis are the only reasonable responses. Who among us could be saved?

But He is also infinitely merciful, and we can - and should - draw comfort from this. This doesn’t mean we algebraically balance both sides of the equation and then go about our lives. Balancing the two isn’t a puzzle for us to be solved: with man this is impossible, but with God all things are possible.

Or in Catholic-speak: this is a mystery. Let it go.

If we want to try to wrap our minds around it, we have no better example than the parable of the prodigal son. A wastrel son asks for his inheritance early, a request tantamount to announcing to his father “I really would rather not wait until you’re dead,” and takes his leave of his family and home to go out into the world. Finding himself destitute and alone in the midst of famine, he comes to his senses - returning to right reason - and makes his way home. The father would have been completely justified in sending him away again. Who would have blamed him for it? Sorry you spent everything, but we’re done here. Go figure it out elsewhere. Instead, incredibly, the exact opposite happens: he is welcomed home and restored to his place. He desires our restoration and reconciliation. He will run to meet us on the road like the father in the parable.

Neither can truly exist without the other. Mercy without justice is the mother of dissolution, says the Angelic Doctor. Justice without mercy, he continues, is cruelty. These two find their nexus in the person of Christ, Emmanuel, who made his dwelling among us and told us to be merciful as our Father is merciful.

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. If not, I’m going to let them go and reboot with new stock next spring with 2-3 nucs. The yield is 24 lbs so far (about 2 gallons), and there’s still some to bottle. I crush-and-strain the honeycomb through a couple of coarse filters to keep out any bug parts and bits of wax.

Upside: it’s super cheap and I don’t have to worry about getting ahold of an extractor.

Downside: you lose the drawn comb and it takes a while for the honey to filter out.

It ends up cloudy and so forth from some pollen that gets in there and yes, it’s delicious. This year’s is almost overwhelmingly sweet.

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 nectar dearth traditionally starts about now but maybe we’ll get a little extension.

Radiowise: I ordered an LDG Z100+ antenna tuner and look forward to seeing if I can lick 60m and 20m on my end-fed setup.

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. Not sure how much of a factor the weather has been, though.

Radiowise - have put the fan dipole back into place so I could get back on 20m for awhile. I need to just invest in another run of coax and an antenna switch and keep it all connected all the time.

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. If not, I should be able to move a frame or two over from the boomer and kickstart things. I had added a feeder with 1:1 last weekend to encourage comb building but they’re not finding it.

Couple of the kids suited up for some close up help. It was windier than I would have liked, but we inspect with the weather we have, not the weather we want. In and out without any sort of incident, so I’ll call it a win. They’re still working henbit and dead nettle which has been thick on the fields now for a couple of weeks. Dandelions are starting to come on now strong and it looks like some tree pollen is still out there. The next waves will be clover and privet. Cross your fingers.

Radio-wise, I was able to work Ireland and the Netherlands JT65/17m on Saturday morning. It was surprising (and fun) to have them coming back to my CQ rather than the other way around. Putzed around a bit decoding weather fax transmissions out of New Orleans and made a couple of PSK31 contacts in the evening. After running HRD/DM780 for a month or so, I’ve switched back to Linux (flrig/fldigi/cqrlog) and will probably stay put for awhile. Stability hasn’t been a problem and I’ll have an easier time transitioning from the VM to a dedicated workstation. It’ll certainly be cheaper in any case.

Still having a ball with the digital modes, obviously, and along with my PODXS 070 membership (#2497) I joined the 30M Digital Group last week too (#8217)

Eyeballing RTTY next.

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. Another piece of coax and an antenna switch would be pretty useful. I’m good for all bands between 80m and 6m (except for 60m, which the EARCHI can’t seem to do either).

Also had my first QSO via CONTESTIA the other day. It’s an interesting mode, and the users seem to eschew the macros that pervade PSK31. Had a nice chat with a guy down on the FL panhandle and will be on the lookout for more of those. So between JT9/JT65, PSK31, and the oddball other thing now and again (I saw a THOR-16 alert pop up the other day), I’ve got plenty to do. And I haven’t even really explored RTTY yet, beyond “reading the mail” and trying to get a sense of the QSO etiquette.

In other non-radio news, we’re in the midst of a late-season cold snap that’s had the bees hunkered down for a few days. We should be clear of it by the weekend. I’m looking forward to seeing them get back to work. Weather permitting, I’ll try and do a quick inspection of the upper brood boxes to see what’s up, with an eye to splitting into a third colony once things are warmer and drones are flying again. I’ve got supers with frames ready to go, though I won’t install the wax foundation until the last possible minute. It’s still sitting here, boxed up in my office. No way am I letting the wax moths into it. Swarm season will be upon us soon, so I’ll be putting boxes up in a few places and crossing my fingers for free bees.

Books: still working my way through Etienne Gilson on Aquinas and Anthony Esolen’s translation of Dante’s Purgatory.

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. The matchbox end is just inside a second story attic window, with a 16' counterpoise in the attic. The main antenna element slopes down to a nearby tree to about 6' above ground. It’s not ideal, but it’s the closest tree I have. Herewith the latest results:

So on the one hand, here are a whole pile of new bands! On the other hand, losing all of 20m and the bottom edge of 40m sucks because I just started working JT65, JT9 and PSK31 there. The consensus is that an external tuner will do the trick. Hard to fault the built-in one too badly, though. I will add an air choke back to the feedline at the matchbox, though, and see if it makes a difference. If nothing else it’ll minimize RF coming into the shack. Now if only the weather would clear out so conditions would improve a bit…

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. Through Christ our Lord. Amen.

This courtesy of Monsignor Charles Pope’s blog.

The second is something I’ve posted before in previous blog incarnations (ha). The weather is warming up sooner than usual and I’ve been in and out of the apiary quite a bit over the last couple of days. The results of yesterday’s inspections look good: both colonies are showing good brood patterns, manageable levels of beetles, and lively foraging. A shipment of frames and foundation arrived today and I spent a bit of time cleaning off old woodenware and getting it ready. Appropriately, herewith an excerpt from a letter given by Pope Pius XII to a delegation of beekeepers who had come to pay their respects to The Holy Father after their annual meeting in Rome:

Ah, if men could and would listen to the lesson of the bees: if each one knew how to do his daily duty with order and love at the post assigned to him by Providence; if everyone knew how to enjoy, love, and use in the intimate harmony of the domestic hearth the little treasures accumulated away from home during his working day: if men, with delicacy, and to speak humanly, with elegance, and also, to speak as a Christian, with charity in their dealings with their fellow men, would only profit from the truth and the beauty conceived in their minds, from the nobility and goodness carried about in the intimate depths of their hearts, without offending by indiscretion and stupidity, without soiling the purity of their thought and their love, if they only knew how to assimilate without jealousy and pride the riches acquired by contact with their brothers and to develop them in their turn by reflection and the work of their own minds and hearts; if, in a word, they learned to do by intelligence and wisdom what bees do by instinct — how much better the world would be!

Working like bees with order and peace, men would learn to enjoy and have others enjoy the fruit of their labors, the honey and the was, the sweetness and the light in this life here below.

Instead, how often, alas, they spoil the better and more beautiful things by their harshness, violence, and malice: how often they seek and find in every thing only imperfection and evil, and misinterpreting even the most honest intentions, turn goodness into bitterness!

Let them learn therefore to enter with respect, trust, and charity into the minds and hearts of their fellow men discreetly but deeply; then they like the bees will know how to discover in the humblest souls the perfume of nobility and of eminent virtue, sometimes unknown even to those who possess it. They will learn to discern in the depths of the most obtuse intelligence, of the most uneducated persons, in the depths even of the minds of their enemies, at least some trace of healthy judgment, some glimmer of truth and goodness.

As for you, beloved sons, who while bending over your beehives perform with all care the most varied and delicate work for your bees, let your spirits rise in mystic flight to experience the kindness of God, to taste the sweetness of His word and His law (Ps. 18:11; 118: 103), to contemplate the divine light symbolized by the burning flame of the candle, product of the mother bee, as the Church sings in her admirable liturgy of Holy Saturday: Alitur enim liquantibus ceris, quas in substantiam pretiosae hujus lampadis apis mater eduxit. (“For it is nourished by the melting wax, which the mother bee produced for the substance of this precious light”.)

The complete text is here.

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. I already have a serial cable in there for rig control.

There was quite a bit of trial and error at first, and I ended up resoldering the mini DIN plug after I began suspecting that my initial run had introduced a short, confirmed with a multimeter. With that out of the way, it was a little more flailing to get rig control and decoding working at the same time. Oh, and to throw an extra twist in, I was alternating between Windows and Linux VMs for all of this.

Where I finally landed: as much as I want to rely on Linux 100% for my amateur radio stuff, the apps running in Windows (an early version of HRD, WSJT-X, and JT65-HF) have been rock solid, no issues whatsoever. They’ll run all day without freezing. I’ve tried old and new versions of WSJTX on Ubuntu, and it won’t run for more than a few minutes without freezing up. Running fldigi ends up cranking the CPU way up. HRD + Digital Master runs fine, though the UI is a bit on the complex side.

Some of this flailing would be from running everything in VMs. I’m eyeballing some dedicated hardware for this. I also need to see about switching out the quick/dirty choke on the antenna with something a little more substantial. At 5 watts of power, I’m getting moire patterns on monitor. At higher power, the wifi hub craps out and both monitors turn off completely.

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 3.5mm stereo plugs seem to be all that’s required. It’ll be fun to give a shot, anyway. I already have the serial connection bit worked out for rig control.

Speaking of the club meeting, we’ve a new president and he seems pretty energized. Hoping we’re able to pull off half the stuff he was sketching out at the meeting last night.

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. Not nearly as nerve-wracking as the first time. Twenty-nine stations participated, which is pretty good. No major errors, except realizing afterward that I probably didn’t ID as frequently as I needed to. Will definitely have to keep one eye on the clock, or just follow along with the repeater when it IDs.

In other hobby news: the bees are getting out and about on our recent warm days. It looks like both colonies came through the winter well, which is a good sign. It looks like we’re headed for another cool spell, but I’ll be getting an order in for frames and foundation anyway. They’re working something - I saw white-gray and reddish pollen coming in. Dandelions are starting to show up, but not seeing much yellow stuff come in. The grey is probably early maples. The red is likely henbit, but none of the henbit on our property is blooming yet as far as I can tell. As usual with bees: who knows? Probably somewhere else.

During the Skywarn classes, the trainer mentioned that we our current El Nino pattern portended a mild winter followed by active spring weather. Active in terms of convective weather, which is what we were learning to identify and report. I am hoping this sets us up for a repeat of 2013-2014, which was an epic year in terms of honey production. I pulled nearly 8 gallons out of a single colony and got fooled into thinking it would like that every year. They showed me.

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. Now it’s time to nerve up and actually key the mic a few times. O_o

…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.

Will work to re-add the 20m legs soon, but not right now. I’m done with the attic for a day or two.

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. At the low ends of the bands, the readings are pretty good. At the top end, they’re off the chart, which is not good at all.

How did I finally get an accurate reading? A commonly suggested setting for operators using external tuners is to map the C.S button onto the front to the SWR setting. Once this is done, pressing C.S will generate a 10 watt CW tone for as long you hold it down. The procedure is covered on page 16 of the fine manual, by the way. This kick-starts the external tuner and you’re off to the races. In my case, the constant signal on the internal SWR meter turned out to be enough for me to see that things were not optimal at all.

This is easily fixed, in principle, by splicing some more wire into them and then trimming back as appropriate. In practice, it’s not so simple, since it means returning to the attic and we all know how much fun that is. In any case, another possible culprit is an anti-static-electricity component built in to the Alpha Delta center insulator. I found some information on a forum thread that said it could make tuning screwy, and as the antenna is basically indoors, it’s probably not necessary. I can yank it easily enough to see if it makes a difference.

So I learned more about the radio, my antennas, and the rudiments of tuning them. I’ll call that a win.

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. If I can pull it off without crashing through the ceiling again (since the most recent sheetrock repair is actually still drying as a type this), I’ll carefully add elements for 10m as well. That should about do it for the time being. Then it’s just a matter of, you know, actually making some contacts.

I had the radio connected to an old and pretty flaky Macbook for rig control. It worked, but was sort of meh. Probably a little more interesting when running stuff like fldigi, so a Signalink is probably in my future.

…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. When I’m not working satellites (which is not often, because it’s cold outside right now), the Elk sits up high in my office feeding the scanner. It works extremely well for both applications.

Satellites are a ball to work, by the way. I’m just a wimp when it comes to the cold. My first attempt to hit the UHF digipeater on the ISS made it into one of KG4AKV’s Space Comm videos.

The TM-V71A resides in my office most of the time, though my truck is wired up appropriately for a mobile installation as well (hence the mobile Diamond antenna). When it’s set up at home, the Kenwood feeds an Ed Fong Dual-band J-pole in the attic. I run an RF->IS iGate most of the time via Xastir on one band; the other VFO scans local repeaters. I took the NWS Skywarn classes, then joined the local club and ARES groups to help out during the bad weather (read: tornado) season.

I play around a (very) little bit with SDR in Linux, generally for decoding digital stuff on FM.

The HF rig is new. For the dipole, I picked up an Alpha Delta center insulator, some good coax, and a big roll of wire. Owing to the peculiarities of our property, it also has to live in the attic for the time being. My first contact was about 500-some-odd miles away, so it seems to be working pretty well. I want to get some more contacts under my belt and then start looking into some of the digital HF modes.

Until I put my foot through our bedroom ceiling fooling around with it. In any event, my attempts to add 20m elements haven’t yielded a whole lot of luck quite yet. I probably need to invest in an SWR meter to make sure things are tuned correctly. As it happens, the local club meets in a couple of days. I’ll ask around and see if anyone has one they’d like to sell. I tried to hand-build my first satellite antenna awhile back and could have used one then, too.

In reality, Advent is a preparation for the threefold coming of Christ; that is, it is commemorative of His historical coming in time, it prepares for His mystical coming into the hearts of men now, in the immediate present, and it looks forward to His final coming in the general judgement at the end of the world. \ — With Christ Through The Year, Bernard Strasser, O.S.B.

Complaints about the over-commercialization of Christmas go back at least as far as Lucy’s sotto voce revelation to Charlie Brown about the “big eastern syndicate” that was running the whole racket. Annual complaints about Yule-creep have become an annual tradition unto themselves. It wouldn’t be Fall without that creeping tension as everyone waits for the first note of Christmas music to show up, like the first swallow returning to San Juan Capistrano (though in point of fact, they’re actually hitting the road for Argentina in October).

All eyes are peeled for the first sighting of decorations for sale, reliably in the larger craft and hobby stores around Labor Day. Strings of orange lights are now par for the course in Halloween decorating, and forget about Thanksgiving. If you take part in any of the local Turkey Trot 5Ks on Thanksgiving morning, you’re as likely to see as many people dressed as elves and reindeer as you are pilgrims and Indians.

So it’s no wonder that by Christmas afternoon most everyone is done with a capital D. Box it up and get it out of here so we can at least sip our New Year’s cocktails in peace before grunting our way through the interminable grayness of JanuFebruMarch.

The antidote to the three month Blitzenkrieg is Advent. Dr. Russell Moore recently wrote about this recently in a piece on Christmas carols generally and hymnody in particular. The opening anecdote:

This guy started by lampooning one pop singer’s Christmas album, and I found myself smiling in agreement on how awful it is. But then he went on to say that he hated Christmas music across the board. That’s when I started to feel as though I might be in the presence of the Grinch. But then this man explained why he found the music so bad. It wasn’t just that it was cloying. It’s that it was boring.

“Christmas is boring because there’s no narrative tension,” he said. “It’s like reading a book with no conflict.”

Now he had my attention.

The narrative tension comment caught my eye. If ever a moment was pregnant (pun intended) with narrative tension, it’s the mystery of the Incarnation, that moment when the Author of the story shows up in its very pages to show the other characters a way out. It’s simultaneously the climax and opening the greatest story that ever was. To put it in Shakespearean terms: we’re reading Act III, the traditional high point of action in his plays, over and over without participating in either the rising tension of Acts I and II or the denouement of Acts IV and V. We’d get pretty sick of Hamlet if we only watched him stabbing Polonius over and over.

If Christmas lacks narrative tension, if it feels incomplete or somehow inauthentic, one response is to restore it to its proper context within the larger drama. Not only can we approach the day itself refreshed, the pent-up joy of preparation demands more than a single day from us. How much extra time? Would twelve days do it? The Church in her wisdom seems to think so.

The days are shorter and the weather (at least in this part of the world) tends to be less agreeable. We owe it to ourselves - our sanity if no other reason - to take time, slow down, and enjoy the meditative and, yes, penitential relief that Advent offers. We diminish the joy of Christmas not a single bit by taking time to prepare, slowly if possible, but at least mindfully if not. This is written, incidentally, not in a silent fortress of Christmas rectitude. We’re playing the music here, too, and goodness knows that the Christmas cookies from Trader Joe’s showed up about a week ago.

The point is that a little leavening goes a long way.