Winter Field Day 2025 – Looks Like a GO

At least, if the weather holds.  Here's the 10 day forecast for Bristol, the closest town that has a forecast.  It's going to be Damn Cold a few days ahead of the event, then moderate towards the weekend – which is perfect, because the cold should knock down the bugs.  If you're new around here, here's the Winter Field Day site – it'll answer all your questions.  Here's the blurb for our (or just my?) camp from the WFD site locator:

Once again, W4ZNG and whoever the heck else wants to show up will be at Wright Lake in the Apalachicola National Forest off of SR 65, at the very northern edge of Franklin County.  This probably includes the Tate's Hell Amateur Radio Club (THARC), but being a highly informal group, it's hard to speak for the other members.

To get there from Hwy 98: Turn north on SR 65, then after 22 miles, turn left onto Wright Lake Road (it's a dirt road, but well maintained).  At about a mile and a half, turn right onto the campground road (it's well marked).  Enter the campground loop and look for an old blue F-150 and a bunch of antennas.  (note: there is no "Wright Lake Road" sign, but it is two miles past the Fort Gadsden sign)

The extended weather forecast looks good but, being tent-based campers, we do reserve the right to curtail operations if the weather turns truly awful.  (We're in this for the cool weather fun, not to prove ourselves in inclement weather – we'll save that for hurricane season!)  If there are any last-minute changes in plans, we'll post them at the website link.  The plan is to set up on Friday mid-day, be on the air at start time, and then operate into Sunday afternoon, leaving time to break camp and get home well before sunset.

We should be operating on HF on 80m-10m, as well as 6m, 2m, and 70cm – if the tropoducting conditions smile upon the atmosphere during the event.  All on solar power, of course.  Cell phone service at the site is almost non-existent, but we will monitor 146.52 as a talk-in frequency.

Bring your own coffee cup (though we may have some spares), and any gear you might want – especially camping gear if you're staying.  Campsites at the Nat. Forest campground are $20/night.  Breakfasts will be eggs and spam, and feel free to BYOG (bring your own grits).

Keep watching this space for updates.  Especially regarding the weather.  Now I've got to get busy and build a new HF antenna!

ps: weather's looking fair-to-good for next weekend:

One for a Monday Morning

All I got.   So far today.

Wooden Satellites – Not As Crazy As It Sounds

Building the main structure of a satellite out of wood kind of makes sense.  If it's already kiln-dried, it's not going to warp.  Good strength-to-weight ratio.  Non-conductive.  Environmentally friendly on its inevitable reentry.  And we certainly have the construction techniques down.  It's time to try building and deploying one, and JAXA has done just that.  Article here.

All I've got for the moment.  Last week was a trying one.  This week: hacking out a large bush interlaced in poison ivy.  Eh, better to do it in cold weather than hot.

A Couple of Neat Techniques

In the past few days, I've stumbled across some neat tricks that are worth passing on.  Both of these apply to ham radio, but the first one also applies to any 12v wiring (cars, boats, etc.) that uses blade fuses.

Using an extra blade fuse as a fuse puller, very short at 1:21.  Once you've seen it you'll recognize the utility of this type of fuse's design, despite its non-obviousness.  One of those tidbits of knowledge that should but doesn't get passed around, I guess.

Setting microphone gain and speech compression using an external power meter, starting at the 6 minute mark (but you probably should watch the whole thing).  I sort of knew of this, and you can do this after a fashion with only a transceiver's power meter, but it was always so poorly documented.  It's much clearer how to do this once you've seen it in this video.

All for today.

My Year So Far

So far I've stayed ahead of events, but still it's been hectic.  No, I won't elaborate further.  It might give that pilot a heads-up on which direction to start turning.

Dumping My ARRL Membership – For the Time Being

This one kind of hurts to post, because the American Radio Relay League (ARRL) has done a lot of good for amateur radio over the years.  They've been our lobbying representative, have published a pretty good collection of technical books, and put out a decent monthly magazine, and many-many other things useful for ham radio operators.  There was a time when I would absolutely not been without a membership.  However, lately internal drama has taken the shine off the organization, and I am loathe to re-up.  Coughing up a million bucks in ransom to restore their antiquated database last summer didn't impress me much either.  It's not the dues money (though the fees have gone through the roof), it's more that I don't want to support the incompetent drama queens running the show.

My membership just expired at the end of last year, and in the months running up to then I was simultaneously receiving renewal notices and reading blog postings such as this one and forum discussions like this.  I kept deferring the decision, but time has run out and so has my patience.

So I'm out – for the time being.  If the ARRL can sort out their socks, I'll be back in a heartbeat.  But they seem to have been taken over by bean counters, they're not listening to members, and so the only remaining constructive thing to do is to drop out.  It's a pity that there isn't a competing organization out there.  We'll see what 2025 brings.

'Forbidden Area' Adaptation on Playhouse 90

Last October I blogged about reading Pat Frank's novel Forbidden Area, and mentioned that there was a TV adaptation written by Rod Serling.  Found it, at long last!  Link.  (note: doesn't play on Safari, works fine on Firefox)

It's... eh.  The super-genius female lead in the novel gets demoted from being a key member of the Enemy Intentions Group to merely its secretary, and finally has a dramatic meltdown in the arms of Charlton Heston.  The central cause of why the B-99 bombers keep blowing up is tipped off way too early.  There's some two-fisted drama in the last 20 minutes that hasn't aged well.  Apart from all that, it's a decent adaptation of the fair-to-good source novel.  At an hour and a quarter length, it's probably time better spent than on what's in the theaters these days.