A Decent Little Power Bank, With a Few Limitations

A few weeks ago FCEM purchased a few of these small 200w Powkey power banks (Amazon link, $80), and I was asked to evaluate one for possible ham radio use.  My overall impression is that it's a pretty good unit, but it is slightly dated and decidedly sub-optimal for ham field use.  Read on, but first let's get the TLDR out of the way.

Pros: Intuitive operation.  All-in-one unit.  4-LED "gas gauge."  Sine wave AC output.  Easy solar.

Cons: "12vdc" outlet is only 11.5vdc.  USB-A only outlets.  AC inverter puts out some radio interference.

Maybe/Maybe Not: Is 200 W maximum output and 146 W-H total enough for your application?

OK, now let's unpack the TLDR.  Intuitive operation, sure.  On/off switch then AC on/off switch, then plug in whatever you're using.  Be sure to take it out of the fitted foam-lined case though first, because there's a vent on each side.  That's easy.  Sine wave AC output is what you want, because that's also the kind of current that comes from home wall sockets.  (Earlier, cheaper power inverters put out "modified sine waves," a sort of stair-step approximation that could damage many devices.  Not recommended.)

It's easy to interface with solar, and in fact I'd recommend buying the combo pack with a 60 watt solar panel for $135 total (link).  Just plug it in, and in good sun it should fully recharge a spent bank in about 4 hours (if the quoted numbers are right).  Of course, you still can and should recharge the bank from a wall socket before heading out.

Now for the downsides.  First and foremost is the 11.5vdc problem, with a 10 amp maximum output current at that.   Some 12vdc devices are OK with this, many aren't.  You can step it up with a boost converter (link, $30), but (a) that's $30 more you have to spend, and (b) you now lose the all-in-one convenience factor.  Oh yeah, and (c) you've got to wire plugs on this extra unit, for whatever plugging you're planning.  But it is doable.  Finally, that 10 amp limit means that you won't be running full-power on any radios – 115 watts input maximum, which translates to about 25 watts RF power out.  So QRP, sure, and a legal-limit CB will do fine, but for typical ham base or mobile units you'll have to dial back the power.

Next up, the USB-A problem.  OK, it only has USB-A ports.  Plug your phone's USB-C charger into one of the two AC ports just like you would at home and rock on.  Don't want to give up an AC socket?  Bring along an AC power strip and you'll have as many ports as you like.  But that's... one... more... thing.

Now, how bad is the problem with the inverter putting out radio frequency interference?  In my testing, an AM radio was unusable in about a 10 foot range around the device, while broadcast FM was unaffected.  It's not bad, but it is something to be aware of, especially if you're thinking of two-way radios.  Again, not bad, but it is there and it is a consideration.

Now for the maybe/maybe nots.  With only 200 watts output, you're not going to run a 1200 watt coffee maker or your kitchen refrigerator on this thing.  Could run the coffee grinder though, and then make your coffee on a camp stove.  And it will run many, many other useful things: a household LED floor lamp (10 watts), maybe a small TV (check its specs), a Dremel tool to sharpen a chainsaw, those sorts of low-draw things.  As for its total energy (146 watt-hours), you could run a couple of lamps all evening and charge a couple of phones (about 15 watt-hours) overnight.  A floor box fan pulls 40 watts on low, so only about 3+ hours there.  Of course, when the power's flowing in from the sun during the daytime and once the battery's charged, it's all free energy until sundown.  Just know the limits and do the math: 200 watts maximum output, 146 watt-hours total, in any combo you like.

Bottom line is this is a pretty nice little plug-and-play unit, with a few hiccups in its design: namely the USB-A only and 11.5vdc output issues.  Paired with its solar panel, it will keep a few lights on, the phones charged, and the coffee beans ground on a car camping trip or after a hurricane, all at a price that won't break the bank.  If any of the cons really bug you – or you just want something with better build quality or a name you recognize – there are lots of other options out there.

Big Stupid Fun, and Mostly Harmless

• K0NR (aka Bob) writes about the Brass Knuckle Gang at his blog, including a link to the BKG website.
• Singletracks online mag weighs in on what is probably the first production Ti-framed 32" wheel bike, and they can't quite decide what it is.  Gravel?  Mountain bike?  Likely fun either way.

Neither one is my thing, but hey, it's good to see people out there Doing Unusual Stuff.

BBC Mid-Winter Broadcast Results

Well I was going to post this yesterday.  However, I was attacked by a fiend with a torque wrench and a laser, who made off with nearly $600.  Yes, that's right, I had a dental appointment to have a crown re-attached to its implant.  And I was damed glad to get that emergency appointment too, I might add.  Mostly painless.  So... on with the post.  Blog post that is, not the dental kind.

As noted and described two days ago, Sunday just before 5:30pm EDT I drove down to Lafayette Park in Apalach and within minutes had a sort of half-assed inverted-V random wire antenna up (no, I didn't follow my own advice and string it vertically; I was rushed by the start time, and this was good enough) and plugged into my Tecsun PL-660 shortwave receiver (see inset – actual action picture).  Then... I listened.

Propagation condition numbers are on the left; click to embiggen.  Here's the short and sweet SINPO (signal, interference, noise, propagation, overall; each on a 1–5 scale):

9460 / 31m band Woofferton (UK):  nothing heard

9510 / 31m band Ascension I. (S. Atlantic): 35422 – very wavery signal, barely usable

12070 / 2m band Woofferton (again, UK):  35433 – not bad, not great, but perfectly useable; best of the bunch

Most of the half-hour transmission consisted of families sending well-wishes, interspersed with short musical clips.  It concluded with a short clip from the Bangles' version of Hazy Shade of Winter, and then ... silence and static.

As a small technical note for the non-technical, notice those frequencies.  They're about ten times higher than typical AM broadcast band frequencies – think of WWL at 870 kHz or WLCY at 1380 – and wavelengths go as the reciprocal of frequency, i.e., the waves will be about ten times shorter.  Hence, shortwave.  There you go.  So why do they travel so much farther than say regular broadcast AM or FM?  Short answer, just as different colors of light will refract differently in glass, different frequencies of radio waves will refract differently in Earth's ionosphere, high up in the atmosphere at the fringes of space.

So what was the point of all this trip, gear, and analysis?  Because it was there, and it was fun.  Oh, and pretty easy too – total prep time, maybe 10 minutes; set-up, maybe 5.  And oddly for Florida this time of year, no bugs.

Summer Solstice... Already?

Yeah, right now, 4:24 am EDT.  Guess we're in high summer now.  Well, you probably missed the exact moment, being at awful-oh-24, but you can still get in on the BBC's midwinter transmission to Antartica from 5:30 pm – 6:00 pm EDT this afternoon.  That's 21:30 – 22:00 UTC if you're confounded by EDT.  Here are the frequencies;

• 9460 kHz (Woofferton)
• 9510 kHz (Ascension – always wanted to visit that place, might get there yet)
• 12070 kHz (Woofferton)

More details can be found over at The SWLing Post, including after-action reports and recordings eventually now up over at another post at the SWLing Post.  ps: Decent reception here on the northern Gulf. I'll have something interesting up tomorrow.

Definitely not summer solstice weather in Florida

Good Night, and Good Luck

CBS News Radio signs off, forever, in about a half-hour.  End of an era.  Two stories & Wiki link:

• At (where else?) CBS
• At NPR
• Wikipedia

Hrm.  This feels so... wrong.  Almost like watching a Roman road get dug up to be re-used as fill dirt for a strip mall.

ps: The final few minutes recording with a corresponding stills slideshow over at youtube.

Hurricane Season Kick-Off Recap

And today's event (mentioned previously) went pretty well.  Perfect weather, blue skies, and an enthusiastic crew putting it on all made it come together.  At the radio tent, we had HF & VHF/UHF radios, field-worthy antennas, and solar power.  Here are some pics:

Yaesu FT-450D HF & FT-7250D VHF/UHF radios, along with solar controller and a few other do-dads

leftmost: VHF/UHF vertical; two other poles: HF W3EDP antenna

60 watt solar panel; easy up, easy down

As usual, there was a good bit more interest in the solar than in the radios.  That's OK, emergency preparedness info got passed along in all ways at hand.

The Ground-Side Fuse Question Revisited

First addressed in 2020, the consensus was "don't put a fuse on the negative wire to your mobile ham rig, because" eh, go read the post.  Lots of good reasons given there.

However, this auto mechanic makes a valid point for having a fuse on the ground side in this video.  Go and watch (7 minutes), you'll see a new side of things.  Oh, here's the TLDW: Sometimes the engine ground cable ends corrode.  With 100 to 150 amps cranking current, if that ground cable connection isn't pretty darned good, it's going shoot some current back through various unintended paths and ultimately through the negative/ground wire and into your radio, in which case you really really want  a fuse on that thing.  This is especially a problem if the antenna is permanently mounted on the car body, i.e. not a magnet mount.

I see the guy's point, and it is a valid one.  He's actually seen the bad effects this can have.  However because all my vehicle antennas are mag mounts, it's moot.  I'll keep fusing the positive-side only, but if I change my antenna & mounting system I'll consider adding a fuse to the negative wire.

Finally, I'd previously written back in 2020:

Of course all this is moot for a fully-floating ground plane antenna, but how often do we see those in mobile installs?

Turns out, all the darned time, with every single magnet-mount antenna out there, which is something like half of the antennas actually in use.

It's surprises like this that keep the hobby fresh.

Quotes of the Day

I'm in the middle of planning out a radio tower for the new Franklin County EOC, and two quotes came to mind that are worth mentioning here.  The first is from the very best source, author unknown:

Always and Everywhere,

Mission drives Hardware

I'd like to tattoo this on some people's foreheads.  Reversed of course, so that they could just look in a mirror as needed.

The second of course is from Robert A. Heinlein:

What are the facts?  Again and again and again – what are the facts?  Shun wishful thinking ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what  the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" – what are the facts, and to how many decimal places?  You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue.  Get the facts!

RAH may be an even more unassailable source of quotations than either Mark Twain or Winston Churchill.  Probably not the two combined, however.

Thus ends my smartassery for the afternoon.  Time to get down to some Egli calculations in order to nail down just how high this antenna has to be.  Because "as high as we have budget to build!" holds no water whatsoever with me, and in fact actively ticks me off a good bit.

A Glimpse into What's Going On at the ARRL

Over at KB6NU's blog.  It's bad.

Here are my earlier thoughts on the matter, to provide some context.

Martin F. Jue Documentary – Coming Soon

Here's a short article over at Dan Romanchik's place about the in-production Martin F. Jue documentary, with links to the filmmaker's page, which has a film trailer.  Go read & watch.

What a remarkable man.  I've used many of his company's radio-related product over the years, and commented on them here at the blog.  Here they are, pre-searched.

Contemplating a Resilient but Lower Gain Antenna

Referring back to Sunday's post, the new Carrabelle repeater antenna is expected to have about 4 dB less gain than the old one.  That's a lot.  But how much of a real difference in range will this make?  Consult the Egli model.  In it, range drops as the fourth root of gain (remember to convert from dB to magnitude), so 4 dB down corresponds to about a 21% drop in range, all else being equal (which it never is, but you have to start somewhere).  Here's a map of repeater-to-vehicle range predictions for the two antennas:

Not great, but not a deal-breaker either.  That's engineering trade-offs for you.  If this one is unacceptable, upgrade your vehicle's antenna.  Going from a 1 dBi shorty used in the above modeling to a 5/8ths wave antenna will get you nearly all of this range back.

Jurassic Duck Mk III & PRC-26

From that last post, you could probably tell that I've been up to something.  Following up on last month's Three Days In The Woods, it was painfully clear that we needed serious radio power in a backpack-able format.  Some discussion of updating the old AN/PRC-25/77 radio concept was batted around.  Starting with the Jurassic Duck Mk II as a prototype antenna and building up a backpack frame with a TYT-9000D 2m radio and a 20 AH LiFePO4 batt, we took the original DoD realization from 42 pounds and 2 watts for $5000 (inflation adjusted) to a much improved 14 pounds and 60 watts for $300.  Of course, that's 60 watts on 2m, which for the typical 40 MHz used with the PRC-25/77 series, has about the same punch as 5 watts at that frequency.  OK, so a third the weight and two and a half times the power for a sixteenth the cost.  Wrap it up, I'll take it.  Also, this being 2026, we dubbed it the "PRC-26."  Picture on the right.

Of course, any project such as this one will naturally bring in a few refinements and construction notes.  Here they are for this iteration:

• We used a cam-lock lever to allow the antenna pole to pivot over to half-size for storage and transport.  This has caused all kinds of havoc, and I don't recommend it.  First, it necessitated bringing the coax out through the side of the PVC pipe above the pivot, which makes slipping things in and out during adjustment a bear.  Also, it necessitates a longer lower segment, which makes the whole thing wobbly.
• Recommended for next iteration: Two glue-on male threaded adapters with a female threaded coupler to join them.  Note, the UHF plug connector can slip through all of these and come out through the bottom of the lower pipe.  Much simpler, more rugged, and easier to construct.
• Be damned sure to get thin-walled PVC!  Bring a section of 450 ohm window line to the hardware store with you and try slip-fitting it in.  It'll be snug, but make sure it fits fairly easily.
• Revised lengths for the j-pole internals: 
• main radiator = 38" with an inch or so of loop-over (cut it a little long and tune down 1/4" at a time)
• 450 ohm segment = 17" total length, remembering to leave enough to solder the bottom legs together and an extension on the hot side for the main radiator wire attachment
• tap 1.75" from the bottom of the window line

And that's it!  I'll be building up my own personal copy of this revised version in the near future.

Programming a TYT-9000D VHF Radio... by Hand

At FCEM we've been using TYT-9000D's for general-purpose 2m radios.  They're easy to work with, and at around $130, the price is right.  Also, up until now, they've all been really easy to program using chirp and the proper USB cable.  The data port's right there on the front, and there're no complicated "get this thing into programming mode" steps to follow.  It's more of "just plug it and do it."

Until lately.  The last couple of radios we've gotten in would. not. talk. to. the. computer. grrr. for anything.  Tried some of our other, older 90000D's, no problem.  Tried different computers; nope.  Got the latest copy of chirp, still no dice.  I just had a handful of repeaters and simplex channels to program in anyway, so how hard could it be?

As it turns out, it's not a lot of fun but not completely awful either.  Here's a useful video.  The guy over-explains a lot of stuff for somebody who just wants to get the job done, which stretches it out to 15 minutes.  However, all that over-explaining is way better than under-explaining, and some people might need it.  Anyway, if you just want to get down to business, here are the steps:

1. Set the bandwidth/frequency deviation as described near the bottom of this post first!  Fortunately, you'll only need to do this once, and can program in all the other channels without repeating this step.
2. Punch in the repeater's output frequency using the hand mic keypad.
3. Press P5 and use the big knob to set the PL tone.
• To cycle through T, TS, DCS & OFF options, use P5 repeatedly.
• Press P3 to return to VFO mode.
4. Press & hold P4 to get to the offset menu.
• Big knob changes offset (you'll want 0.6000 on any 2m repeaters)
• Press & hold P4 to cycle through +, –, and OFF.
• Press P3 to return to VFO mode.
5. To save into memory:
• Quick press F
• Use big knob to dial to the memory channel you want.
• Quick press P3 to save to that channel.

Done!  There now, that wasn't so easy, was it?  Oh, also, I have no flippin' idea of how to program in alphanumeric names by hand.  I think that it's theoretically possible, but you'd have to get Rainman to read the manual and show you how.  If it's just a half-dozen channels, make yourself a 3x5 card if you need to.

Also, here are a couple of handy items when in operating mode:

• P3 toggles between VFO and Memory modes.
• F P5 locks & unlocks the radio's controls (good when working in the brush).

While we're at it, here are three other useful setup items that took me a good long while to dig out of the manual.  I'll put them here, partly as a note to future self, and also as a help to other poor souls.

First, the digital noise reduction filter is way overkill, like dialed up to eleventy and sounding all underwaterey, and it's not needed for FM anyway.  Turn it off by:

1. Press the F key for about 3 seconds.
2. Use the P1 & P2 keys as up/down to get to Menu 31.
3. Turn the big knob to get it from "RENC-ON" to "RENC-OFF".
4. Press P4 to confirm setting & get back to operating mode.

Second, if you have managed to get your radio to work with chirp, you'll want it to display the alphanumeric name you put in, e.g., "CBELLE" rather than "145.230" for the case of the Carrabelle repeater.  Toggle that over by:

1. Press the F key for about 3 seconds.
2. Use the P1 & P2 keys as up/down to get to Menu 26.  (not 27 per the manual; it lies)
3. Turn the big knob to get it from "DSP-FR" to "DSP-CH" to "DSP-NM" – frequency, channel number, or alphanumeric name, whichever you want.  Probably the alpha name.
4. Press P5 to confirm setting & get back to operating mode.

Third, all the 9000D transceivers I've seen have three FM deviation settings.  For 2m ham, you want the widest setting.  (Yes, I know the manual only says two settings.  The manual lies.)  You can set these using chirp (if it works on your radio), or do it by hand.  Important: if you're programming channels by hand, do this first!  Here we go:

1. Press the F key for about 3 seconds.
2. Use the P1 & P2 keys as up/down to get to Menu 08.
3. Turn the big knob to get it to "BAND-25" (i.e., 25 kHz deviation).
4. Press P5 to confirm setting & get back to operating mode.

There.  The TYT-900D is a weird, cantankerous beast to set up, but the price is right and they work pretty well once programmed.  Good luck.  And if you leave the digital noise reduction on, tell Aquaman I said hello.

Kessler... Maybe?

A couple of years ago I posted a little piece on the Kessler Syndrome here (includes a brief discussion one the topic at hand, if you need a reminder), and the bottom line was "yeah, don't worry about it – yet."

Now Kessler and a co-author have recently revisited the topic, and their results are not so sunny.  You can read the abstract and download the paper here, or listen to Sabine Hossenfelder's take on the matter here.  It's going to be interesting to see this one batted around over the next few years.  With such wildly divergent results, there's going to be a good academic catfight.

My advice: Enjoy your Starlink while you can, but brush up on your HF skills too.  And if it comes to it, enjoy the light show.

Protip: Never exceed any limit labeled "Runaway Threshold."  Don't, just don't.

New GP-15 Antenna and The Undead GP-1

During some testing a couple of weeks ago, it became clear that something was up with my trusty old Comet GP-1 VHF/UHF antenna.  The SWR was way off, a little above 3:1 in the 2m and 70cm bands, which is to say that, rather than radiating RF energy, a lot of it was being bounced back into my transceiver and getting turned into heat.[1]

Now, I'd had my eyes on an antenna that would add the 6m band as well[2], and the Comet GP-15 checked all those boxes, as well as adding about 3 dB more gain on 2m and 70cm.  The only real downsides are at 8 feet length it's twice as long as that discrete little GP-1, and it has a somewhat lower wind speed rating, 112 vs. 135 mph.  That lower wind speed rating turns matters from "set it and forget it" to "another item on the hurricane checklist to bring inside."

The GP-15 is kind of an odd antenna.  It relies on one extra-long, tunable radial (see inset pic) to adjust its resonant frequency.  The instructions have a helpful chart showing radial length setting vs. resonant frequency.  I'm really only interested in the 50 to 51 MHz part of the band, where the SSB voice, various beacons, and allegedly some digital traffic hangs out.  (see chart linked below)  The rest of the band, 51 thru 54 MHz, is primarily set aside for repeaters and local FM use.  Not so interesting where there are no local repeaters or users.  Also, the instruction sheet flatly indicates that it has a useable bandwidth of 1 MHz, so choose which quarter of the band allocation you want wisely.  Accordingly, I set things up while still on the ground for my region of interest, mounted it on the roof[3] and.... it was resonant smack in the middle of the band, useable across the entire 4 MHz of the band.[4]  So I tweaked it a little lower to optimize for my interests and called it a day.

Still haven't gotten any 6m band openings[5], but in the wake of the cold front currently blowing through, some tropoducting is in the cards for early next week.  Contacts on 2m & 70cm however report that my signal is much stronger, so there is that. 

Finally, with the new antenna installed, it was time to dig into what went wrong with the 5 year old GP-1 and that 15 year old length of LMR-400 coax.  On the bench both tested out as working perfectly, so your guess is as good as mine.  Maybe I'll have something to sell on the Monday night net, though I'll test them all again before trying to offload them.

Anyway, here's a link to a good set of pdf charts showing what's where on the commonly used VHF & UHF ham bands.  Get your GP-15 (or GP-1, or any number of other interesting and useful items) here.

-----

[1] No wonder the fan was running so much!  I could barely get through a Monday evening net session without it topping 140 degrees.

[2] Why?  Because it's there, that's why!  Stop asking foolish questions.

[3] A process akin to conducting an EVA on the ISS.

[4] Yes, of course I hauled an SWR meter and LiFePO4 battery up on the roof with me, along with many other potentially useful items – wrenches, vice-grips, multi-tool, drill & driver bits, etc.  And of course an FRS radio to stay in contact with my safety man on the ground.

[5] and hence no contacts, though there is one guy over in Carrabelle who can do 6m I ought to call.

XHDATA D-219 AM/FM/SW – A Decent Radio for $13

The folks over at The SWLing Post blog keep raving about these things, so I had to try one.  At only $13 (for the green one; other colors are $4 more, go figure) it's not much of a risk.  My verdict?  A bargain at twice the price.  So much else has been written in three articles over at The SWLing Post that I'll give a short list of pros & cons, then refer you to the links below for more details.

pros:

• It's built around a Silicon Labs SDR chip, and those always work well.
• And yeah, it works great!  Nighttime WSM 650 AM sounded as clear as on my PL-660 (10x$).  Same for daytime reception of WWL 870.
• Basic shortwave stations came in easily: WWV time signals, WWCR, Radio Havana, etc.
• Broadcast FM reception was fine, but it takes a lot of effort to mess that up.
• Runs on dirt-common AA batteries.
• Cheap enough to hand out after a hurricane, and if it goes missing you're only out $13.

con (just one):

• Tuning on the broadcast AM dial was too fast – downright twitchy – making it difficult to pick out a known station/frequency.  If the tuning dial moved frequencies about a quarter as fast, that would be about right.  Trying to find WSM 650 in a crowded AM spectrum was a trial, despite knowing it was there and spotting it on my PL-660.  Once found and locked on though, all was good.

OK, here are the links to other reviews.  If you want to buy, use the affiliate link at the first one.  That way The SWLing Post gets a little bit:

• Rediscovering Simple Radio Joy with the XHDATA D-219 (buying link towards the bottom)
• The XHDATA D-219 Shirt-Pocket Radio
• XHDATA D-219: A Classic Budget Shortwave Receiver

If you've been thinking "gosh, I'd like a good radio, just to play around with or for hurricane season, but I don't want to spend too much" go ahead and get one of these.  In real world practical use you'll probably get the most out of the AM & FM bands, but it's also a credible shortwave receiver and that's always entertaining.

A PDF of Allied's Radio-Formula and Data Book (1953)

Dan Romanchik found a physical copy of this slim book at a thrift sale last week, then scan & posted downloadable copies here.  In these days of science & engineering calculators, perhaps the log and trig tables are not needed as often as in the days of slide rules (but they're still good to have!).  Rather, it's the formulae for, say, calculating the characteristic impedance of twin-lead transmission lines, or resistor color codes that are good to have ready at hand.

A Few Days in the Woods

Missing person found dead in Franklin County, news & video at WMBB's site.

Franklin County Emergency Management was on scene, both searching and providing logistics support.

FWIW, what worked for communications over the 3-ish mile radius we searched in (where cell phone coverage was spotty) was searchers radioing back to the drop-off trucks via FRS (quarter-mile range), which then relayed to the FCEM mobile trailer via 2m ham radio (5+ mile range).  

On one hand, I often go into the woods just to hike for fun and play radio.  On the other hand, this time wasn't for the fun of it.  Anyway, the guy was recovered and FCEM & associated volunteers got a good work-out.  And no, it wasn't any of our FCEM people who actually found the guy, so there is that small consolation.

Wright's Lake Trail, Once More

With the cold weather finally here, I drove north and hiked the Wright's Lake Loop Trail again.  It's looking a little rough, needs some trail TLC, but it's still perfectly hike-able.  Tried out new gaiters and permethrin-treated clothes, and the ticks didn't seem to like that at all, which means that I did like these items quite a lot.  Why gaiters?  Boots aren't high enough to tuck pants legs in, so gaiters just sealed up everything and kept the little creepy-crawlies out.  Treated the gaiters and boots with permethrin as well!

Brought along the FT-70, and made a few contacts through the local SARNET-FL repeater.  When I first pulled up to the user pay kiosk, the campground host saw my call sign hat and immediately asked if I could help him with his Baofeng radio.  Well yeah, of course.  He's not licensed, but enjoys scanning for and listening in on deer hunters, and now he can listen in on SARNET-FL as well (nb: I didn't program in the CTCSS tone code, so there's no chance of him transmitting into it).

Not a lot else to say beyond some earlier posts (1, 2, 3).  Here's pic of the bridge over Coffee Creek, a full four feet less water than I've earlier seen it.  Not much of a creek today, just a slowly meandering remnant in the bottom of the streambed.

A DIY 'News Cruiser' Radio Setup

Jock Elliot over at The SWLing Post has come up with the concept of having a set of pre-programmed news stations in one or more at-hand radios in this article for gray sky days.  Great idea!  You go read now; I'll wait.

OK, you're back.  Here's a list of links mentioned in the article and in the comments.

• list of Clear-Channel AM stations at NOAA and at Wikipedia
• find local stations at Radio-Locator
• Emergency Alert System Primary Entry Point stations & some more discussion of PEPs

Because no blog post is truly complete without a graphic – oh, and I need a reminder to write some of this down – here's a map of the US's PEP stations:

Finally, while I was writing this post I had to look up the definitions of Blue Sky / Gray Sky conditions in the context of emergency management.  These in a nutshell correspond to "normal times" and "disaster conditions."  Along the way I stumbled across one more term, Black Sky Event.  Hoo boy.  Zero stars, would not recommend to friends.