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Every Thursday evening at 8pm the Crew of 146.985 W3GMS/R get together on air to host a weekly informal net with varying hosts and topics
Thank you.
Thank you.
Thank you.
Good evening.
Me again.
This is Jim AF3Z.
And I will be a host, the host tonight for the 985 Roundtable.
I am located outside of Mount Joy, PA, about 30-some miles away from the repeater.
And we meet here on 985 every Thursday evening at 8 p.m. on the W3GMS Parksburg repeater.
Frequency is 146.985 megahertz.
And the PL tone for accessing the repeater is 100 hertz, even 100 hertz.
If he is tone squelch on receive, note that the tone for that is different.
Some rigs will support two different tones, some won't.
But anyway, the squelch tone for receive is 94.8 hertz.
I encourage you to take a look at the repeater website located at www.w3gmsrepeater.com.
A lot of good information there, technical articles, news, pictures, a place to get signed up for using Echolink, an all-star on here, all kinds of good stuff.
Besides the Roundtable, we also on Monday nights have another 8 p.m. net, but this is the 985 workbench on Monday nights.
We deal with answering technical questions, questions of operating an amateur station, setting up your station, all that good stuff.
So that's on Monday nights at 8 p.m.
I am sitting in here for Phil tonight, following a death in his family, and so we want to keep Phil in our thoughts and prayers.
Appreciate Phil very much, and our hearts go out to him this week.
So, on the Roundtable here, newcomers are definitely welcome.
It's an informal kind of Roundtable.
Technically, we don't even call it a net.
It's a Roundtable.
And if you haven't checked in before, I certainly encourage you to check in.
If you can't stay real long, we do a short-time check-in at the beginning, which allows you to get in and out pretty quickly.
So you're welcome to check in during the short-time check-ins if you need to keep moving.
Then we do our so-called regular check-ins after the short-time folks have checked in and had a chance to comment.
Discussions are informal.
We pass the mic around in the order in which stations call in and check in.
And so I encourage you to at least write down the call sign of the station who checks in right after you,
because then when it comes to your time to do your speaking and you give your comments, then you can turn it over to that station directly,
rather than passing it back to me.
A lot of us just write down all the stations as they call in and you have a good picture and you have a sense of when you're going to be called on and all that good stuff.
So anyway, at least get down the, if you can, get down the name or the call sign of the station after you.
And if you're not sure, you turn it over to me and I'll have the list and we'll keep on going.
We always, almost always, usually begin with a question as a discussion starter.
And that's what it is.
You can talk about it.
If you don't have any good answer for that, you can just comment on whatever's on your mind tonight.
But we do start off with a question.
I'll be giving that in a little bit here.
If you have any suggestions or questions about the round table, you can contact Phil, KC3CIB, or myself, Jim, Alpha, Foxtrot3Zulu.
Both of us are good on qrz.com.
So you're welcome to get in touch with us.
One thing to be aware of is at times on 985 we get intermod interference.
And it's a little more technical involved than I know or understand or want to get into.
But basically what happens when that happens is one of the telltale signs will be that when somebody lets up on the mic,
like I just did, and when the repeater drops, sort of the squelch tone we call it when that drops out,
it'll be sort of a funky sounding.
I can't describe it, but it sounds different.
And others, it can interfere with stations.
Sometimes it'll seem like they're kerchunking the repeater just repeatedly, a ch-cunk, ch-cunk, ch-cunk type thing.
And also some of us out farther might not even be able to get in at all because the interference beats us out,
and we can't get into the repeater.
The intermod, we try to announce that and mention it when it's there.
But the things you can do when the intermod happens is, one, be sure you're running high power if you're on RF.
And the other option is to run Echolink or All Star because intermod doesn't affect coming into the repeater on the digital modes.
One thing you need to know, though, is to use Echolink and All Star on the repeater, you do need to be registered.
Registered with the repeater here, so you can find out the information for that on the website, w3gmsrepeater.com.
And it tells you where to send an email to be able to get on the list so you'll have access via those digital modes.
One of the little things, don't be too quick to talk, and that doesn't mean don't say much when you're giving your comments.
It means pause a couple seconds after the station before you let the repeater drop.
In case somebody needs to check in or wants to, and also the digital stations need a little more longer spaces between our transmissions if they're trying to get in.
So leave a little bit of time before you then hit the press-to-talk switch on your mic.
Or your foot switch, if you like some people we know.
And then once you've hit the press-to-talk switch, wait again about another second or so while the repeater processes your PL tone if you're on RF.
And otherwise the beginning of what you say gets cut off.
So leave a little time before you press the talk switch, and then also leave a time after that.
And finally on all this timing, the repeater has a three-minute timer as required by the FCC.
And so if you're talking and you keep your finger or your foot on the press-to-talk switch for over three minutes, the repeater will just shut down.
And those of us out here can't access it, and we don't hear you.
And until you let go of your press-to-talk switch, the repeater just stays off the air.
So every two to three minutes, if you let, I've done it a number of times now, but just let up on your press-to-talk switch momentarily.
Press it again, and you're good to go for another three minutes.
All right.
So one minute I'll do the short-time check-ins.
The question for tonight is a pretty simple one, and this is AF3Z, by the way.
I want to make sure you give your call once you turn to talk.
On the workbench, we often deal with antenna questions on Monday nights.
But what happens to the signal once it leaves the antenna and is headed out or signals coming into your antenna?
The whole matter of propagation is very interesting, somewhat mysterious, complicated.
But it's a narrow topic, propagation, but it's a big topic at the same time.
So curious for comments on propagation, things you have found interesting, experiences you've had, things that have amazed you or frustrated you.
Maybe something you learned about how signals get around and that was interesting to you.
Maybe a question about it that you've never been able to figure out.
Or I'll let you talk about antennas if it's some kind of crazy antenna you tried, and it actually was still able to propagate.
In other words, propagation helped you, and it still worked.
So that kind of thing.
Anything to do with propagation, questions, experiences, things you've noticed and how it happens, stuff that amazes you.
Propagation.
That's the topic of the night more than a question of the night.
We will move now to taking the short-time check-ins.
We'll start with the digital stations.
So again, this is AF3Z.
AF3Z.
And if you're checking in by Echolink or All Star and you want to check into the short-time list, please call now.
KB3 ZUV short timer via echolink.
That's Kilo Bravo 3 Zulu uniform Victor.
Adam in Romansville.
All right, very good, Adam.
Thank you for checking in.
It was funny when I left up on the mic for digital stations,
my phone rang right away.
Thought maybe somebody was trying to check in by phone,
but it was a nonprofit.
Apparently they wanted my money.
So anyway, I'm not cynical in the least,
but I get hot calls.
Any other, well, let's just go on.
I left a good bit of time there for that.
So anybody, RF or digital,
who would like to check into the short time list tonight
for the round table, please call now.
3 Mike Foxtrot, Bravo.
Sounds like we have the two of you.
Table for two.
Round table for two.
Go ahead and I can make another call then
after you guys have given your comments,
see if anybody else has shown up.
But again, question or the topic is around propagation.
Any kind of experiences, things you've learned,
questions you have,
crazy little antennas that seem to propagate anyway,
whatever it might be.
So Adam, over to you,
and then you can turn it over to my KB3ZUV AF3Z.
Okay, Jim.
AF3Z.
Thanks for taking the chair.
This is Adam, KB3ZUV here in Romansville,
enjoying the lovely cool weather and fall.
Looking forward to the next couple weekends spent with family.
It is my father's birthday this weekend.
He is 83 years old.
And so I'll be spending this weekend with my family.
And then the following weekend,
we'll be going into the city to do Thanksgiving with my,
we'll be staying at my sister-in-law's house
and having Thanksgiving over at my father-in-law's house.
They both live in Center City, Philadelphia.
My sister-in-law lives a couple blocks away from,
she lives right between the Philadelphia Art Museum
and Eastern State Penitentiary.
And then we will go to the Thanksgiving parade.
And on our way out to the parade on the Ben Franklin Parkway,
we'll keep walking and we'll walk over to my father-in-law's place.
And he lives over in Rittenhouse Square.
And we'll go there for Thanksgiving dinner.
So we do, we mix it up.
Odd-numbered years like this one,
we do Thanksgiving in the city with my wife's family.
And then even-numbered years,
we spend Thanksgiving with my family up in the Llehi Valley,
Bethlehem area.
So that's the news here at the QTH in Romansville.
But I saw there's a breakfast tomorrow.
I hope everybody goes to the breakfast, has fun.
And yeah, I saw the bad news about Phil.
I had to send him a sympathy note sometime.
I saw he mentioned family loss on social media.
So good job, SubminInform, Jim.
And that question tonight is a good one with antennas and propagation.
It's probably one of the most interesting parts of the hobby.
And I always think the biggest, the biggest, the most exciting thing for propagation for me is when you get propagation on VHF and UHF.
And when it happens, it's like, it's, it's, it's really, it's really, really random and really magical.
Seems to happen a lot when it starts to get really hot in like late spring, early summer.
It's the few times I've seen it where, where, where you get openings on VHF and UHF.
It seems, and now I realize, of course, that there's VHF, UHF contests.
And there's people that are like six meter specialists.
John KFT has, he, I think he was actually a member of the, a six meter only radio club, the Mobile Sixers.
So six meters is its own, is its own specialty of VHF, UHF, where they're trying to, you know, chase those, those openings.
But it's those unexpected openings on VHF, UHF, where things get, where things get really wild.
And you start hearing people come into the, you know, they need to know what the PL is.
Although when I was in college, we did not have a PL on our repeat, on our UHF repeater at the University of Pittsburgh.
We did not have a PL on it.
We just had it, we just had it open.
There was not a lot of activity on UHF in, in Pittsburgh in the 1990s.
It seemed like all the, all the, all the congestion was on VHF.
So over on, on VHF, yeah, they would have, they would have the tones, but we did not have a tone on our repeater in college.
And as such, when, when, when UHF opened up, it was wild.
I actually had Long Island open, it opened up.
And so you're just, you know, I guess, I guess it's a, you're talking about propagation in the antennas.
You know, with UHF, I mean, you're really just talking about really, you're just talking about really small antennas.
Although obviously then, you know, when you're getting into two meters, then your antenna can actually help out.
If you have some, you know, some sort of, where they have those parabolic, the log parabolic antennas that you can use to get, get a lot of gain and actually exploit, further exploit those few, those few openings you get.
When it, when it, when it opens up, you have the, the, was it the inversions and the ducting where, where, where VHF will open.
So that to me for propagation was always, was always the cool, was always the coolest thing.
It would happen when you would not expect it.
And you would get these really interesting key shows like Pittsburgh talking to Long Island, New York, or VHF opened a few years ago locally.
And, you know, people started coming in to 985 or, or, or, or certain one, two meter simplex on 146 52.
You could hear Northern New Jersey down in Chester County on, on, on 52 simplex.
So that's my, that's my propagation story.
Haven't, haven't heard any of that in a while.
Um, and obviously with the digital modes and echo link and things like that, you know, you can routinely get people coming in from all over the country.
Now digitally, um, on, on, uh, on the, uh, on VHF and UHF, uh, through the, through the, well, we don't call it magic, but it's the internet.
Right.
But, uh, I, you know, it was been the dial, it's been the dial on HF again and see, and see who, see who I can get as well.
Things, things have been fun on 40 meters, uh, this year for me.
So, uh, so that's my, that's my, uh, that's my story on that.
Let's keep things moving.
Let's say seven, three to everybody.
Good to, good to hear you in there and send it down the hill to Thorndale and Mike W3MFB KB3ZEV.
Clear.
Clear.
Adam, W3MFB here.
Howdy, howdy.
Uh, gonna be on the short timer list for the first time in a long time.
I gotta get tuckered out, really tuckered out.
Long day at work.
And then, uh, down at church we were, we were packing up meals for the Lord's pantry for Thanksgiving.
So we had pallets upon pallets of, uh, food to, uh, unbox and, and, uh, and pack up.
So, lots of running around, bending and lifting and you name it.
So, tuckered out tonight.
I'll listen for a while.
Good question, Jim.
Good question.
Uh, I have to agree with, uh, with Adam there about the, the UHF openings and whatnot.
It seemed like it was pretty open yesterday morning, too.
I, I checked the Mellow link or whatever it's called.
The propagation, uh, map with the colors.
Uh, that's a great, uh, website there.
But I, I do notice, um, and Barry and I have noticed this over the last five years.
Uh, him and I talk simplex a lot.
Whether it be 2 meter or 440 sometimes.
And then 10 meter.
Lately, it's been a lot of 10 meter sideband.
And AM.
Um, but we've noticed this.
And he always laughs because he's sitting at home in front of his, uh, radio.
And he can see his meter.
And usually I'm driving, so I can't tell, uh, what my S meter looks like.
But, uh, he's noticed that when planes are passing over, so you get that plane scatter, uh, when airplanes are flying over, uh, the signals pick up.
Uh, he's noticed.
And it happened today as well.
We were on the, uh, uh, 28, 390, um, chit-chatting.
And, uh, he's like, oh, your signal just came up, like, 2 S units.
And I was like, he's like, there must be a plane.
And I looked up through the window.
And there she was, heading, uh, south, southeast.
I was like, yep, here it comes.
And he's, he, we just chuckled at it.
Because, you know, uh, the house is always near a plane.
Or near the airport corridor, I guess, going to Philadelphia.
But, uh, you know, we, we see it on VHF and, and, and HF, uh, for, you know, 10 meter or whatnot.
So, that's always fun.
Uh, scattering off of planes.
Never intentional aiming at a plane, because I'm just using a vertical.
Just got long-winded there.
Forgot I was on, uh, the repeater.
But, uh, yeah, just, uh, you know, always using a vertical.
So, never aiming at a plane and, uh, bouncing it off.
But if I had a Yagi, I guess that would be, uh, something to play with, uh, to give that a try.
So, uh, for experimentation purposes.
But, yeah, that's about it for me, I guess.
Um, haven't really, I don't get up early enough for the meteor scatter that they have on six meters.
Uh, that group on 50.145, sideband, obviously.
Um, they, uh, they're kind of in the East Coast, Virginia, Carolina area.
Uh, a bunch of folks on there.
If you need, if you want to listen for sideband, I would listen there.
Or 50.145 and then 125.
But, uh, you'll hear more folks on 145, uh, on six meters.
Um, but, yeah, I never really know what, what's opening or what.
Because I do hear folks out there, um, but not sure if it's meters, scatter, scatter or not.
Um, I thought I heard some aurora propagation when we had the aurora going on late, uh, the last couple weeks.
Because they sort of sounded like Darth Vader, you know?
But, uh, it wasn't, it was kind of in the weeds, so I didn't really get the full, full effect.
Uh, but that's it for me.
So I will be listening out.
And, uh, Jim, I'll pass it back to you.
AF3Z, W3MFP.
Very good, Mike and Adam.
I'll make a comment or two in a minute here.
But anybody else out there wishing to, uh, check in on our short time list for the 985 round table, please call now.
All right, no propagation in some direction.
All right, very good.
And, uh, thank you, Adam.
Yeah, very good on, uh, yeah, figuring out holidays with two families feeding into it and all that gets interesting.
Uh, but, uh, center city option, that sounds interesting.
And I don't know, I don't know, I was never to, like, holiday parade in there.
But I guess Mummers is New Year's, isn't it?
Not Thanksgiving.
Uh, but anyway, that could be fun.
Uh, so thank you very much.
And, yeah, unexpected stuff.
Six meters, I believe, is what they call the magic band because it can be magical at times.
The way it works and doesn't work.
And, uh, Mike, I got a kick out of it when you're talking about airplane scatter.
For those of us of a few more years of seniority, I remember the good old way of the TV would flicker when planes would fly over.
Uh, you would get a sort of a wah, wah, wah visually on the screen.
So anyway, very good on all that stuff.
And the food pantry work, yeah.
That kind of stuff can be, uh, tiring.
But that's great that you're doing it.
All right.
So let's go on now.
We will move on to, uh, the regular check-ins.
And if you still want to be short time, just mention that when I get your call.
And we'll stick you at the top of the list and let you go.
But regular check-ins for the 985 round table.
And my call is AlphaFoxShot3Zulu.
My name is Jim.
Please call now.
Oh, we'll start with Echo Link and All-Star first.
Long time, regular time check-ins, Echo Link and All-Star.
Please call now.
Whiskey 8, Charlie Romeo Whiskey, CR.
Alpha Charlie 2, Echo Golf.
Name is Eric.
All right.
Very, very good.
CR, got you there.
W8CRW.
And Eric, welcome aboard.
Alpha Charlie 2, Echo Golf.
Uh, or golf.
Whichever.
Welcome aboard.
Uh, just curious here, Eric, where are you calling from?
Um, I'm in East Petersburg.
So, uh, just an hour, so you're west.
Not too far.
Yeah, and I'm out up near, I don't know if you heard that, out near Mount Joyce, so we're
not too far apart.
Very good.
Welcome aboard.
All right, let's go on now to RF check-ins and any other digital stations out there that
want to check in.
Uh, but calling now for the 985 round table.
Please call.
Okay.
Maybe I didn't say that right.
Anybody wanting to check in to the 985 round table, please call now.
KC3CW.
KC3OOK.
Alpha 3, Kentucky Fried Turkey.
KC3GOI.
KC3OOK.
KC3OOK.
Sierra, Quebec, India.
All right, let me break in here.
Going over the list, I have W8CRW, AC2EG, NA3CW, WA3KFT, and you got listed first there, John, because
I heard about half of your W before Bill came on.
And I knew who it was from that little blip.
So anyway, WA3KFT and then KC3OOK, nosed out at the finish line.
AA3GLI, David, and KC3SQI, Wayne.
Others would like to check in to the 985 round table.
Please call now.
Alpha, Alpha 3, Lima Hotel.
The name is Leon, Jim.
Adam, and Gobbler's Knob.
All right, seems like we have the cream of the crop here tonight.
All right, added Leon to the list.
Actually, you said your name is Leon, Jim.
Is that like Jim Bob or some of those southern combinations?
Leon, Jim.
Welcome, Leon from Gobbler's Knob.
Good to have you with us.
Don't put out one more call, and then we'll get moving around the table.
This is AF3Z.
Anybody else wanting to check in to the 985 round table?
Please call now.
All right.
All right, all is quiet.
We will get started.
And again, if you missed the question, it's more of a topic area to comment on.
And that is propagation.
What happens to signals once they leave the antenna?
And how does all that work?
Not so much how does it work.
But interesting experiences you've had.
Things about it fascinate you or frustrate you.
Things you've learned over the years.
Questions that you still are struggling with.
And some people said sometimes the questions are more important than the answers.
But that's a whole other story.
Maybe you tried some crazy antenna system accidentally or on purpose, and it still propagated.
We'll even let you get away with that.
So anything around the idea of propagation.
Comments on it.
Experiences.
Things you've learned.
Questions you have.
All that kind of good stuff.
So again, we'll go down in the order that everybody checked in.
And while I'm taking a breath, anybody else wanting to check in?
Now's a good time.
It must have gotten out that I'm hosting tonight.
All right, CR, up to you.
And how are you doing?
What's up with you?
This is AF3Z.
Good evening, Jim, and all on the net.
Propagation.
A couple years ago, I discovered that there were multiple 985 repeaters.
But you only hear them when the band is open.
But it was interesting.
You hear this conversation that's going on, and it's like, who are these people talking?
I don't recognize anybody.
Then I discovered it was because of propagation.
So how did I fix it?
Well, you can't fix it, but I bought a different radio.
My YASU radio is unable to put in received squelch.
So I ended up buying an ICOM radio where I could filter out the unwanted stations.
The other propagation issue that's always interesting is Saturday night simplex net.
Sometimes you hear people.
Sometimes you don't.
So this past weekend on Saturday night, I heard nothing.
So that's how it goes.
Let's go to Eric.
Eric AC2EG.
W-8-C-R-W.
Thank you, W-8-C-R-W.
This is Eric AC2EG over in East Petersburg.
I didn't realize, Jim, you're right next door in Mount Joy.
That's great.
Propagation.
That's something I think I learned a little bit about it over many, many years.
Different things.
Like when I was younger, I had a novice license.
I knew about skip on HF.
But all I ever really managed to do was local stations as a novice.
And that was probably what nowadays we'd call ENVIS.
It worked well.
But it wasn't until I started working and I had the opportunity to first work on long-haul microwave transmission.
And I just assumed, oh, line of sight, no problem.
Pretty boring stuff.
But as you would have it, you know, depending on the time of year, you would get bending of the light or the radio waves.
And that really wreaked havoc when you're trying to offer five nines service for long-haul transmission.
So there were all kinds of games that were played with diversity to try to fix that.
And then later on, I got into cellular radio a little bit and learned about multipath and rowdy fading.
And along came this technique called MIMO, where it actually lets you take advantage of the fact that you have multiple propagation paths through multiple antennas.
And if you got really creative with the signal processing, you could actually reuse the channel and get high bit rates that way.
And I guess most recently, through some government work, it was pretty eye-opening to me to see how things like turboscatter could be used to force microwaves,
to bounce off the particles in the atmosphere to go long distances, non-line of sight.
But it took immense amounts of power to do that.
And then, of course, ducting, which I think I heard mentioned before.
All kinds of crazy things can happen there.
I've seen it with TV and FM.
And actually built some communication systems that took advantage of that.
So, one of my favorite pastimes, so I don't have much else to do, is just to have PSK reporter going on in the background just to see where the openings are,
if there's any gray line going on, you know, stuff like that.
So, with that, I will turn it to NA3CW.
This is AC2EG.
Hey, very good, Eric.
This is NA3CW.
From my years in the broadcast business, shortwave broadcast on Guam, we saw various instances of things that just shouldn't happen or you wouldn't expect or wouldn't have thought of.
Now, mind you, we were running 100 kilowatts into directional antennas, like 20 dB, 21 dB antennas, which are the size of football fields.
But you still have interesting effects.
For instance, we had some regular listeners in Hawaii.
Well, we weren't aiming at Hawaii.
But if you do the calculation of front-to-back ratio for that antenna, we had effective radiated power of 5,000 watts coming off the back.
Hmm, okay.
So, we had, we had, when propagation was really interesting, we had listeners in Chinese restaurant workers in San Paolo, Brazil,
listening to our China broadcasts that we were aiming at China.
But it went around the world and hit them, I guess, long path.
I don't think it got, I don't think it would get to San Paolo, Brazil from front-to-back, you know, back leakage.
But I think it went around the world and hit them long path.
And we got listener letters, actual listener letters, quoting programming that we had on.
And this was, you know, prior to the Internet being as ubiquitous as it is now.
So, we had some interesting things.
When Joe and I were wee pups, and in the late 60s, we had, I was up at Harry's, which is where the field days, I mean, the repeater site is now,
was, belonged to W3FDY, it had a bunch of towers on it.
And there was times, I think it was on 10 meters, where you could hear your own self coming back.
If you flick the switch fast enough and go, hello, and flick the switch off, and the receiver here, hello, hello, hello.
That was pretty impressive, too.
I was a novice at the time.
That was cool stuff.
I mean, that was really interesting.
The fact that it's still, I think it's a pretty marvelous thing that you can, using 100 watts in a wire, or 55 watts in a wire,
you can launch some RF light out into the sky and rattle electrons up in the ionosphere,
and the rattling electrons create a new signal, which comes down, and sometimes some interesting ways.
It can either kind of bend and come down again, or it can run along the ionosphere,
like running along a layer, and then come down.
It's marvelous stuff.
My hat is off to whoever discovered the ionosphere and figured it out and learned about the layers and the times of day and all that kind of stuff.
But it's still pretty amazing that we can do stuff like that for free and be heard everywhere in the world
with just shining some, you know, five watts of very low, low, low frequency light into the sky,
and our little low frequency light actually rattles electrons up in the ionosphere to do the cool stuff that we see.
I think that's pretty neat.
So, over to John.
WA3KFT, NA3CW.
WBCW, WA3KFT.
Okay.
Well, I haven't experienced all those things.
Only some of them.
And, well, in fact, today, yesterday and today, we were talking to Texas and Oklahoma on 10 meters.
I want to say the band was open, but nobody noticed it.
And we were running our typical retired group net on 28.435.
And yesterday, we had quite a crowd.
And today, we still got a few long-distance contacts.
Typically, 10 meters is a 20 to 50-mile coverage.
But our friendly ionosphere likes to bend the signals and make them come down at some great distance.
And we take great delight in those things happening.
And it's happened two days in a row now.
Yesterday was really wild.
I'll say it started off with two people in the retired group net.
And by the time we were done, we had six.
And the other four were not local.
So, we've had a lot of fun.
And my antenna that I use for 10 meters is a vertical.
I do not have a beam.
I seldom use my multi-band 40 meter fan dipole.
That does have a 10 meter element on it.
But most of the time, I'm conversing with a vertical antenna.
Feed point is 35 feet off the ground.
But, yes, it is a gain antenna.
But it's a vertical.
So, the signal goes in all directions.
And, I'll say, over the past 10 years, being retired, I'm able to get on the air at 1 o'clock in the afternoon.
And we wound up and we've talked to Italy.
We've talked to Johannesburg, Africa.
I don't remember New Zealand or, yeah.
I'm trying to think of the other country next door to it.
Haven't talked to them, I don't believe.
But, many years ago, I did complete, worked all 50 states.
And the last one was Idaho, believe it or not.
I had Hawaii and Alaska.
And the holdout was Idaho.
So, over to you, Bill.
KC3OOK.
WA3-KFT.
Are you coming to breakfast tomorrow?
WA3-KFT.
KC3OOK.
Yes, John, I will be there.
I'm going to be there for the parking lot.
And I may eat and run.
I have a sick friend I wish to visit.
And I have a bunch going on.
But I'll talk about that in the next round.
Jim, thanks for taking the chair tonight.
And, yeah, this is Bill in Oxford.
And I guess, Jim, the thing that really interests me, wonders me a lot, is the effect of weather and propagation, and specifically local weather.
I've done, I guess, I've done, I guess, around, I was just doing a rough estimate.
And I'd say about 200 Saturdays in net control for the Simplex net.
And, you know, we know about the band openings, like as Adam said, in July, June and July, early in the mornings, you'll have the band openings.
Where the HF view will be showing it red from Florida up into Canada.
But to me, the interesting thing is when the bands are enhanced or not so great, just based on very local weather, and we've been doing it for so long, we've noticed that it really is affected.
And we have a ham in the Simplex net that's a weatherman.
And Jeff Moran here tonight, he could talk about it, too.
But it really does change.
And as C.R. mentioned on Saturday night, I was using the beam, and I was copying most people.
But the first two rounds, everyone was strong.
The third round, they were just gone.
And a lot of that is local weather, and it varies from locations.
There's times when nobody's getting much in the west, or maybe no one's getting it from the east.
So I'd love to learn more about that.
And I did do a little reading on it.
There's not much, and I haven't found much that's been studied on it.
I did find an interesting paper from a university in Australia, and it talked about the problems with PHF and UHF communication when there's fires.
They found that, you know, these massive brush fires in Australia, firefighters and emergency people can't talk to each other from one side of the fire to the other.
There's so much carbon that goes up in the air that it actually does not take the signal up, I guess, and it also scatters it.
So those are things that wonder me I'd like to learn more about, Jim.
And let's see.
Who do I turn it over to?
I think it's David.
AA3GLIKC3OOK.
Okay, Bill.
KC3OOK.
KA3GLI.
Yeah, let's see.
When I was still living at my parents' house, early 20s, I guess,
I was heading up towards Nazareth, PA for a weekend to visit one of my college roommates.
So my dad and I decided, you know what, let's try a 20-meter ground wave while I'm on the road.
I had recently installed an HF rig in my car.
And that was pretty cool.
And so we were able to communicate up to, I think, it was right around 45 to 50 miles away from each other, at least by road.
I don't remember, or I guess maybe I never did figure out how far it would have been airline.
But eventually the signals started to fade.
But, you know, that was pretty cool.
Let's see.
I guess it's Wayne's turn here.
KC3SQI.
KA3GLI.
Thank you, Dave.
KA3GLI.
This is KC3SQI.
Yeah, I had a problem one time, and it really was giving me all kinds of grief.
I was about ready to tear my hair out.
I was working on an ultrasound machine for a hospital.
Intermittently, this thing would just get all kinds of noise in the signals that it was trying to read.
And I could not figure that thing out.
And we, you know, I was just couldn't figure it out.
I had a spectrum analyzer, and I just started looking at harmonics.
And I come up with an AM radio station that sometimes would come into the building,
and it was getting into the front end of the ultrasound machine.
But the thing that was completely blowing my mind was usually,
when you were trying to listen to this station, it was only coming in at night.
Well, it took a lot of figuring out, but it actually, what we found or figured out finally,
was it was coming into the substation for the hospital,
and coming in on the power line into the ultrasound.
But that one was one that I couldn't figure out.
And it just, you know, when we finally got it all figured out,
we were able to put a filter on it.
It went away, and that was good.
So, but...
You think that you've seen it all.
You haven't even started.
So, with that, I'll turn it over to...
Leon, Alpha Alpha 3 Luxury Hotel.
This is KC3SQI.
Well, thank you, Wayne, here.
This is a luxury hotel speaking.
The mechanic of the bus, I know.
So, it is A-A-3-L-H.
My name is Leon, and Jim is the host.
All right.
So, I got to say it that way.
I can do that.
Well, and also, you know, under the bus,
I got off from it under the bus.
Yeah, the rusty, uh,
cloth hanger wire, exhaust pipe up is good.
The duct tape on the airlines is good.
Things are looking good.
We're good to go, Jim.
You can go ahead and put the pedal to the metal.
Put the fuel to that tool, man.
To use some other kind of language I used to use a lot years ago.
Well, I have three things I like to talk about.
Propagation.
We had snow on, I don't know, it was a Sunday night or a Monday night or whatever.
And I was out of bed somewhere about, I don't know, five o'clock-ish.
I came across this station from British Columbia on 80 meters.
And it was snowing like everything here.
And we were having a good conversation.
He was 5'9 to me, and I was 5'9 to him.
Now, we didn't have snow the whole way across.
But Ohio had snow, and Canada had some snow.
And we had a great time doing that.
I don't know whether it affects it or not.
But it didn't affect it that day.
It didn't hurt it that day.
Another time.
On two meters.
A 1-4-7-0-1-5 repeater.
Daniel Boone, KB3, ZNMB, and I decided we're going to do a test.
He's going to go ahead, and he goes to New Jersey up 78.
And when he got to Eastern PA and around Phillipsburg, he disappeared.
Then he came back on again and went up that, up with Cherryville in New Jersey, up that exit 7 Hill.
I forget what that mountain is called.
He came in here.
We were talking until he got on top of the hill.
As soon as he got on top of the hill, he was gone.
That was 1-4-7-0-1-5, the Red Rose repeater.
And another time, I talked on just 40 watts to Donner, Richmond, Virginia.
To somebody.
I was running Simplex that day.
I was running that, and he was listening there.
We had a time with that, discussing radios and antennas.
And what I had and what he had.
I remember that conversation.
But I couldn't believe it would talk that far.
But it did.
And since then, I learned that that wasn't really all that far.
After all, the guys talked to Florida from here on 2 meters Simplex.
I guess that's all I have for this round.
So I'm going to give it back to Jimbo on Happy Hiller.
So there's a gobbler's knob turning it over to Happy Hiller.
That KFT guy, Mr. Turkey, better watch himself.
Thanksgiving's around the corner.
Anyway, AH30H.
Hey, Leon, thank you.
AF3Z here.
Let's pause for a second.
Are there any other stations now who would like to check in tonight to the 985 round table?
Please call now.
Alright, sounds pretty quiet to me.
Very good.
Thanks for all the comments.
This is one of my favorite things to ponder in ham radio.
Yeah, the first time you hear a distant repeater coming in,
you wonder, are they on 985 or what is that?
And even after years of doing it, I get fooled at times.
And I realize, oh, that's some other repeater coming in there.
Oh, Eric, I just wanted to mention that times when your voice is loud,
your audio gets really kind of garbly.
And almost hard to understand at those times.
I don't know if you back off from the mic a little bit.
Maybe you eventually need to turn down the mic gain.
But on the peaks and the louder times, it gets pretty garbled.
It's not a good word for it.
Distorted, anyway.
So I just wanted to mention that to you.
But we heard what you were saying.
So anyway, very good on all that stuff and weather conditions.
And, yeah, Wayne, sometimes we think all the propagation happens in the air,
but some of it can be in other lines and surfaces that get in on the act
and maybe send it out again from a different form.
It's like when a lightning strike hits and it induces stuff in a wire,
and who knows what else happens then.
So very fascinating stuff.
Some of you know, past weekend, three of us from the 985 group,
Joe KC3MAI and John KN3I and I, went up to Scranton.
And the Murgus Amateur Radio Club, which is named after Father Joseph Murgus.
I think it's like S-H sound on the end.
It's Slovakian.
Joseph Murgus, M-U-R-G-A-S.
He was a pastor, a priest in the Catholic Church.
He was an architect.
He was an artist, painted some amazing paintings, botanist.
He had one of the largest collections of butterflies in the world
and all this kind of stuff.
And he was an experimenter.
And back in the days of Marconi, we've heard of Marconi,
Murgus was doing his own stuff with a different form of wireless telegraphy.
Called it the tone system.
Kind of like Ritty has two different tones that are transmitted.
And it might have gone places, but he had problems and stuff.
But anyway, Marconi actually came to see his demonstration.
And the guy from the Navy came to see it and everything.
But Marconi had predicted that he couldn't transmit radio over land.
It only worked over the ocean.
And Murgus disagreed with that.
Talking propagation.
And Murgus came up with this tone system.
And he held a demonstration.
And speaking of propagation, this is kind of funny when you think about what we do today.
They were doing the demonstration from Wilkes-Barre to Scranton, which is around 20 miles, I believe.
So not really long distance.
And we're talking about propagation today.
But they didn't really believe that could be done over land.
1905 is the year of this demonstration.
1905.
And the antennas on both ends were...
They had two tall, like 200-foot-tall wooden antenna structures.
And then I guess they had...
I don't know what kind of wire cable they had hanging from it.
But they made these two tall towers on each side, stood side by side, about 200-foot high.
And they were using spark transmitters.
And they sent messages back and forth and did show that, yes, you can do wireless telegraphy over land.
I don't know what kind of frequency it was.
And I think generally spark transmitters were fairly low frequency.
But they didn't mention that, and I haven't looked it up.
But talking about propagation, all that kind of work to go 20 miles.
Now I've got a small little 10-meter dipole hanging vertically in the tree.
And my local friend here, we get on, not daily, but every week.
And we never notice any difference in propagation because he's 10 miles away.
We're on 10 meters.
But afterwards, I tuned down the band.
The other day, I worked Vancouver, British Columbia, which is around 2,300 miles away.
So I went from 10 miles to 2,300.
And another day, I worked out to the Marshall Islands out in the middle of the Pacific.
So it is fascinating stuff.
I find it very, very interesting.
But Father Joseph Mergish, interesting guy.
And did some interesting stuff.
One more call before we go to round two.
Anybody else out there who would like to join in with the 985 round table tonight, please call now.
This is Jim AF3Z.
All right.
The propagation of people anyway is different tonight than usual.
So, CR, back to you.
I think we're all here for another round.
If we run into problems, just give it over to me.
Anything you want to comment on, more propagation stuff or other stuff as you wish.
All of your preparations for Thanksgiving, whatever.
WHCRW AF3Z.
Very good, Jim.
And the group?
Well, that's about it for propagation.
Like I said, it's weird.
Sometimes things work for you.
And sometimes they don't.
So, as far as preparation goes, I'm going to turn in early tonight to see all the smiling faces tomorrow at the Brass Eagle.
So, I'm going to say 73 for now.
And for those at breakfast, we'll see you tomorrow.
Eric, your turn.
AC2-EG.
W-8-C-R-W.
Thank you, CR.
This is Eric, Alpha Charlie 2 Echo Golf.
And thanks for the feedback on the audio, Jim.
I dropped the gain down 6 dB.
So, see if this helps at all, the audio gain.
Yeah, I enjoy this topic.
But it's...
This is one where I could go into a rabbit hole really quickly.
It's probably easier to discuss it in a slightly different fashion than a roundtable.
But I'm glad the topic came up tonight.
I am hoping...
On a different note, I'm on Echo Link.
And I've been listening for a while.
So, I've been hearing the different names and call signs of the group.
I first stuck my nose in at the...
The summer open house over towards...
Exton.
And I was really impressed with the group.
And I'm trying to get on the air.
Kind of equipment limited.
But I hope to be on the air soon.
So, I'll test the RF link between East Petersburg and Parksburg.
What I've done is I've built a 2-meter Yagi.
Five-element Yagi.
So, that should give me 10 or so dB gain.
And I'm using a...
You're going to shoot me for this.
It's just a Beofeng GT5R Pro.
It's supposed to be the cleaned-up version of the HandyTalki.
And I built a set of helical filters.
So, that will protect the front end on this Beofeng pretty well.
And from what I've been able to measure, the antenna actually...
On the ground, I was getting about 12 dB of gain.
So, I was really happy with that.
But I need to stick it up in the attic because it's not really...
I can't do it in the backyard this time of year.
So, anyway, with that, I'll pass the baton on to NA3CW.
This is AC2EG.
AC2EG, NA3CW.
Very good, Eric.
That just about cleaned it up.
You might want to turn it down one tiny bit, but not much.
There was a couple of little crackles there on voice speaks, but not much.
You pretty much got it.
And your signal into the machine is great.
So, well done, sir.
Yeah, propagation...
You know, antennas and propagation are always big fascinators for me.
And the stuff that Wayne used to do in finding out where offending signals are propagating from or into pieces of equipment,
that is really subtle stuff.
And as he alluded to, sometimes maddening stuff.
But one thing I learned about antennas is almost anything works.
It will get you stations.
And there's times when that's good enough.
There's other times, of course, it's not good enough.
And you want to, you know, really optimize things.
And you really want to get the maximum gain or directivity or front-to-back ratio or other conflicting things optimized.
And that can turn into a passion, an obsession.
But in the end, the ionosphere is the great leveler.
Again, with referring to the Guam station with an antenna the size of a vertical football field.
Well, if you could turn a football field up on edge, on its long edge, that's how big this antenna was.
And we were on the air in the dark of the morning.
And then just about, you know, 9 o'clock, we would go off the air because shortwave propagation ain't that great when the sun's up on the higher bands.
Well, the mid-bands that we operated on.
And I thought, okay, the antennas are free and the transmitters are off.
So I took my trusty little Kenwood TS-140S and I hooked it up through an antenna tuner and a ballon and hooked it up to one of these giant dipole curtain arrays.
And I called CQ.
I think it was on 20 meters.
Midday.
I called CQ.
I called CQ.
I called CQ.
Nothing.
I mean, nothing.
And you think, I got an antenna the size of Delaware and I can't get out of my backyard.
I know the rig was putting out.
I know it was all tuned.
But the ionosphere is the great leveler.
You can have a giant antenna or you can have a piece of wire, some random wire hanging on a clothesline and you can work the world.
It's all up to the ionosphere and how you deal with which bands choose and also your skill at making the best use of the propagation in such conditions as you can.
So it's one of those things that anybody can do but you spend the rest of your life learning how to do it well.
So there you go.
So as we're working here, I'm working on a database for the Parksburg churches have a little consortium going where they do a Thanksgiving dinner giveaway each year.
So this is my second year doing the labeling for it.
So we had, last year we had about 200.
This year we got, well, about 250.
This year we got about 250 meals that are in containers and in bags for people to be delivered to people.
Many of them are shut-ins, retirees, living in complexes or whatever.
There's a ton of volunteers that will carry these things to destinations.
So my job is to put all the dribs and drabs of people's registrations together into a readable database and then have the database print labels.
And I've never done mass label printing before.
So I'm learning about it using Microsoft Access.
And it's kind of fun.
So I'm making progress.
I'm not a database programmer by any stretch.
That's why I like Microsoft Access.
A civilian can actually use it.
There are Linux versions that I have tried that are just too hard for me to spend the time learning.
But making progress.
So hopefully we'll have, you know, 250 or 300 people by the time the dribs and drabs come in to enjoy a Thanksgiving dinner on their own table.
So there you go.
So off to John.
And, by the way, great to hear everybody on here.
Jim, thanks for driving the bus.
And, Leon, thanks for crawling under it.
And 7-3.
And hope to see some of you tomorrow.
WA-3-KFT, NA-3-CW.
WA-3-CW, WA-3-KFT.
Ah, I dragged out my log.
And just a few days ago, again, on 10 meters, in that time slot of 1 o'clock to 2 o'clock,
I was talking to George.
And, uh, I was talking to George.
Uh, up north.
He's, uh, maybe 40 miles away from me.
And then we had, uh, uh, Angel come in from Puerto Rico.
And Lewis from South Dakota.
And Paul from Texas.
And this is all on 10 meters, 28, 4, 3, 5, in that magic hour of 1 o'clock to 2 o'clock.
Let's see, what date was it?
On the 14th.
The 14th of this month.
10 meters has been very active.
And if you can't predict it from one day to the next.
I would say, I'm just a witness to it because we have a net scheduled from 1 o'clock to 2 o'clock in the afternoon.
And there are times if the band opens up, it is wall-to-wall decisions.
And you can't get a word in edgewise.
In which case, we go down to the lower end of the phone band and carry on with our retired group net.
But this one particular day, there were some people out there tuning around and heard us and joined in.
Anyone is welcome.
You don't have to be retired.
I'll say, being retired makes it convenient to go play radio.
But you don't have to be retired.
And the retired group meets seven days a week.
Between 1 o'clock and 2 o'clock.
28, 4, 3, 5.
And our alternate frequency is 28, 3, 3, 3, 3.
For some reason, the European DX stations love 4, 3, 5.
And when they come on, you're not going to get a word in edgewise.
So we go down band at 3, 3, 3, 3.
But today's propagation?
No, just local.
Not anything crazy.
And the 10 meter band was very quiet.
Just didn't have any interference or anything else.
So, it just depends.
Over to you, Bill.
KC300K.
To pick it up.
This is WA3 King Fox Tango.
7-3-0.
WA3KFT.
KC300K.
Well, yeah, I don't have too much more to add.
Chuck was talking about, you know, using your skill.
Along with propagation.
And that's something I lack.
So I operate kind of the way I fish.
Which I also don't have a whole lot of skill in.
But I spend a lot of time doing it.
So, you know, you may not have a lot of skill.
But if you're out there every day and you stick at it,
eventually you catch a fish.
It's the same way operating.
And being retired, I think, really helps.
It's like for the two-meter band openings in the summer there.
It's being up at 5 or 6 o'clock in the morning and working until about 8 o'clock.
Because they start to fade out a lot of times.
So it's just being up and being there.
Being available to be there, I guess, is what it is.
At the times that the bands are open is part of it.
But I'm going to listen out here.
I'm trying to decide if I'm going to keep working and turning and get up in early again.
I was up at 4 and I got a lot to get done.
We're going to have a small antenna party here on Saturday, thanks to a lot of friends here on 985.
So I'm trying to get everything ready for that ahead of time.
I'm constantly thinking of something else.
So with that, and hopefully I've got this call sign right.
David, is it AA3GLI?
This is KC3OOK.
It's actually Kilo Alpha 3 GLI.
But that's all right, Bill.
Yeah, let's see.
Chuck's comments about antennas made me think of an antenna situation I had when I was living in Michigan for a short time.
Let's see.
This was southwestern Michigan.
I had an apartment on Lake Michigan on the third floor trying to figure out what to do about an antenna.
And I always loved going for DX on 20 meters.
Of course, I had to have a 20-meter antenna somehow.
So I ended up with a dipole with the feed point indoors at the window.
And half the antenna sloping down to a tree, which I put up after dark, so hopefully no one would notice what I was doing.
This was actually a half-decent-sized apartment building, so I didn't want people asking questions.
And then the other half of the dipole went back through my apartment.
So being third floor, it's not all that high.
And just the whole situation there, I wasn't really...
I didn't have high expectations, let's put it that way, as far as DX went.
But my first contact was somebody in Sweden, and that just blew my mind.
So that was pretty interesting, and that antenna served me well.
So let's see, I'll turn it back over to Wayne here.
KC3SQI, KA3GLI.
Thank you, Dave.
KA3GLI, this is KC3SQI.
Yeah, back when I was doing radio and TV repair and CB repair,
got over into the dark side on the garbage band, or the other band, and the 11 meter.
And I had...
I figured out that up on one of the mountain passes,
that was about 11,000 feet above sea level,
that there was a very nice, low-grade copper ore deposit
that went all the way through the mountain.
And when you were sitting there with the radio,
if you were on the east side of the mountain, which was toward Denver,
nothing.
Absolutely nothing.
Now, if you went over on the west side of the mountain,
then you could use five watts,
and you could talk to just about anybody in Denver that you wanted to talk to,
and also, even without skip showing in.
Sometimes you could pick up little places like Kentucky or Florida or Texas.
usually those people had more wattage than they should have,
but it was very interesting to see what you could do
with just a little five-watt and a nice whip antenna there.
But that was one of the fun things,
was experimenting and trying to find the best spots to stop the car
and do radio that you shouldn't have been doing.
Oh well.
So with that, we will turn it over to Leon, AH3LH.
This is KC3SQI.
Roger, Roger there, Wayne.
Good to talk to you.
Thank you for turning it over to me.
This is Alpha, Alpha 3, Lima Hotel.
This guy with a luxury hotel.
I mean, you know, we top quality here,
top class up here in this place called Gobblers, Knobbies, and Turkeys.
He built this wonderful hotel.
Well, interesting enough, I got to thinking here, Jim.
On 100 watts, on a G5 RV,
I talked to Australia on 40 meters more than once.
I don't want to say how many, but I was more than once.
Then I talked to Australia.
I talked also on the same antenna.
I talked also all the way down, down to near the Antarctics.
I only did that, I guess, one time.
But when the band was open,
and as that turkey guy says there,
that KFT says it was a 28435,
when I made that contact,
somebody was way down there in South America,
and they heard me talking,
and they came back to me.
So, yes, that was in 10 meters.
The Australia was 40 meters,
and talking to British Columbia was 80 meters,
in unfavorable conditions.
So the band is the band.
Leon, the Skyrider, I guess.
Metallic Skyrider, whatever, Skyrider.
I should have had that for a CB handle back then,
but I didn't.
I don't know what else to say.
You know, when you play around for a lot of years,
you got to think about this.
Where did, what far did you really talk?
Oh, I talked one time to Tanzania.
I'm not sure off the top of my head which band that was on,
but that was in an evening,
not a middle of the night job.
Most of the things I was talking about
was in the middle of the night.
One was in the middle of the day.
The 2435 guy down near the Antarctic was touring the day.
And I don't have a whole lot more to say.
I just had some homemade antennas.
I played with it.
A lot of learning with them.
And I had a lot of fun learning.
Made a lot of contacts.
So, Ham Radio is alive and well.
Back to Net Control, Mr. Jim by Leon, AA3LH.
All right.
Thank you, Leon.
Thank you for making that so clear so I knew who I was.
All right.
Very good.
Let's pause for a moment here.
Anybody else who's out there listening would like to check in?
Just say hello.
Maybe make some comments.
Any other check-ins here tonight?
This is the 985 round table.
My call is AF3Z.
Call now.
AF3Z and the group.
This is KB3ZIM.
All right.
I thought of you today, Bob.
I forget where it was, but I was behind the truck.
And big letters across the bottom was ZIM.
ZIM.
And I think the web address was www.zim.com.
So maybe that's you.
Anyway, welcome aboard.
I don't know if you heard, but we're just sharing comments, stories on propagation, if you want to make some of those.
So over to you, Bob.
KB3ZIM.
AF3Z.
Thank you very much, Jim, and hello to all the group out there this evening.
I just got up into the shack and was able to get up here and turn it on.
So I am mega, mega, mega late to the party.
In fact, some people may have already signed and left.
But I heard you call for other stations and comments.
So I thought, why not just say hello to everyone?
Yeah, so I don't know what the questions were.
Blah, blah, blah.
I just came in here very late to the party, as I said.
But pleasure to hear you.
Thanks for taking my call.
Hi, everybody out there.
Propagation.
The only thing I can say about propagation is, and of course, I'm no expert in can't hold a candle to a lot of people using this repeater.
But I will say that the way 10 meters has been over the last few months has really surprised me.
I can remember when I first got licensed.
I couldn't, for love nor money, make contacts on 10 meters.
Well, that's not that way.
It hasn't been that way in the last couple of months.
And it's been a lot of fun.
In fact, I found myself drifting over to 10 meters just to make hay while the sun shines, if you will, in terms of 10-meter operation.
Do watch some of the spotting networks.
My favorite one is DX Heat.
DX Heat.com.
And I've just seen lots of 10-meter activity there.
Not every day, but on days when the propagation is good.
So I like that a lot.
And I have to tell you, I have a less than ideal HF antenna.
But having said that, since I've been licensed, I've made contacts with, I think I'm up to 133 countries now.
So for an antenna that's not real high up in the air, hardly optimal, especially on the lower bands, it works.
And it works thanks to the propagation gods being in my favor whenever I operated and got those DX contacts.
So that's one of the most fun aspects of working HF.
Propagation.
It's a crap shoot.
You roll the dice, and it's either there or it's not there.
And I have heard stories.
I've heard stories of people in North America making contacts in places like Patagonia or down into the Antarctic on like a half a watt.
Well, you only do that when propagation gods are in your favor.
So it's a fascinating science.
And I don't get into it as much detail as following the solar index and the K factors and all that stuff.
Although I do see those charts and graphs come up on certain spotting networks, and I do pay somewhat of an attention to them.
But I'm not obsessed with it.
So anyway, that's just me.
I mean, some people follow it like a religion, especially contesters.
Others, not so much.
But anyway, very good, Jim.
Thanks for taking my call.
And I look forward to seeing a lot of people tomorrow morning, as many as are going to make it there.
So anyway, that's enough from my blabbering and rag-chewing run of the mouth there.
Anyway, I hope everybody's well and staying warm.
This is KB3ZIS.
All right, Bob.
And you must have read my mind just as I was thinking.
Nobody mentioned all the numbers and the solar forecasts and all that stuff.
And you did, so thank you.
On that stuff, I don't occasionally I've read up on it and tried to remember it, and then I forget all about it.
I sort of approach ham radio like an egg hunt.
You don't know where the eggs are, but you still go out and hunt and have a fun time and you see what you can find.
So that's kind of what I do with ham radio.
And I enjoy doing some QRP.
I'm not 100% QRP-er.
Especially some of the QRP activities online.
Both ends are QRP stations.
Running five watts or less.
And I get on there in one of those events and it seems normal.
It doesn't seem like I'm only running five watts.
I'm working people, you know, in the evenings up and down the East Coast and stuff.
And it's really fun.
And then I've never done it.
The miracle is some of these digital modes where your computer does the listening.
And how they can pick out signals in the noise with your ears.
You can't even hear them.
And they get solid copy.
That's amazing stuff.
All right.
Anybody else out there who would like to check in here?
We're coming to the end of the roundtable.
But if you'd like to jump in, say hello, say you've been listening, whatever.
We'd be glad to hear from you.
So anybody else wishing to check in, this is Alpha Foxchop 3 Zulu.
W3 GMS.
Busy evening.
I've been listening.
Hope to see all of you at the breakfast tomorrow.
7-3.
Great job, Jim.
W3 GMS.
Hey, checked in by two modes, CW and FM.
Good evening, Joe.
Good to hear you.
Thanks for jumping in and saying hi.
And yeah, I'll be there tomorrow.
As I guess you know.
Looking forward to it.
All right.
Any other comments from anybody?
Or any other check-ins from out in Radioland?
AF3Z.
All right.
Thank you very much.
I found this very enjoyable tonight.
Yeah, Eric, the adjustment you made really cleaned up your signal.
As Chuck was saying there, a little crackle here and there.
But very, very much better.
So that was great.
Sounded good.
And yeah, getting into the repeater solidly.
Very good.
So, and David, yeah, I'm the one who I think I propagated AA because I think that's what I heard.
But I've corrected my list to KA.
So there you go.
First of all, thanks to everybody that checked in tonight.
And a big thank you to Joe we just heard from for making 985 available for the round table and everything else we do here on 985.
And Joe really invites us all to use the repeater off and keep it warmed up and keep it going.
And that is a very good way to show our thanks to him for making the repeater available.
It's really a gift to us in the amateur radio community.
And again, hope to hear you on Monday evening, 8 p.m. for the workbench.
And if you're around tomorrow, the breakfast at the Tin Bird or the Brass Eagle, whatever you want to call that, up there on Route 30.
We'll be meeting at 8.30 for the tailgating time and then 9 o'clock for ordering breakfast.
So that should be fun as well.
And feel free to stick around here and continue to talk on the repeater.
Just because I'm closing up the round table shop doesn't mean that you can't keep talking.
So thank you again very much.
Have a good night, great weekend.
May the propagation gods treat you well.
73, this is AF3Z Clear.
Thank you.
Thank you.