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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.
Thank you.
And I will be the host for the 985 roundtable tonight.
We meet every evening, not every evening, we meet every Thursday evening here at 8 p.m. on the 985 repeater.
I am located out near Mount Joy, Pennsylvania.
Name is Jim.
And the repeater's frequency, you might know that by now, but that's 146.985.
And the PL tone for accessing the repeater is 100 hertz, even 100 hertz.
If you use tone squelch, the repeater transmits a tone squelch of 94.8 hertz.
Take a look at the repeater website located at www.w3gmsrepeater.com.
A lot of good stuff there.
And besides the roundtable, we also have on 985 the Monday night workbench, and that's also at 8 p.m.
The workbench focuses on answering technical questions as well as exploring topics related to setting up a station, operating your station, all kinds of amateur radio questions.
So you're welcome to join us at 8 p.m. on Monday nights as well.
We especially encourage newcomers to check in tonight.
You're very welcome.
And we encourage that.
If you can't stay long, you can feel free to call in during the short-time check-ins at the beginning of the roundtable.
You'll be able to give your comments and be on your way much more quickly that way.
Our discussions are informal here.
We pass the mic around in the order in which stations call in.
And so I encourage you to jot down the station who checks in or calls right after you do.
Because then when you're finished your comments, you will be able to turn the mic directly over to that station so that they can then pick it up.
It doesn't need to come back to me between every station, in other words.
So jot down who checks in right after you.
Now we usually begin the roundtable with a question.
It's just a discussion starter.
You can answer that if you wish.
And of course, you're welcome to make other comments about what you've been up to and other things in your life.
Ham radio and all that good stuff out there.
So I will get to the question for the night in a little bit here.
If you have any suggestions or questions about the roundtable, you're welcome to contact me, Jim, Alpha Foxtrot 3, Zulu, or Phil, KC3 CIB, Kilo Charlie 3, Charlie India, Bravo.
And we are both good on QRZ.
You can find our email addresses there.
Be aware that at times on the repeater here, we have intermod interference.
During those times, and somebody will mention it, and it will become obvious after a while.
But when we have interference, you want to run maximum power, and that will help you get in over the interference.
Or be prepared to check in through the digital modes of Echolink or AllStar.
When the intermod comes in, some of us, I'm pretty far away, and I have trouble getting in.
Others do as well.
So it helps to be able to use those other methods.
To use Echolink or AllStar, though, you do need to register with us first.
And you can find the directions for doing that on the website, w3gmsrepeater.com.
Also, when the intermod is present, before you start a transmission, it's helpful to give a short call and just ask,
am I getting in okay?
Especially if you have any doubt at all.
Say, am I getting in okay?
And then there's net control as the host clogging up here tonight.
As a net control, I will confirm that you're doing well or let you know, no, we didn't catch what you said.
But that way, if you talk for a long time and you're not getting in, it's not a whole lot of fun for anybody.
So once you're confirmed that you're getting in okay, then you can go with your longer comments.
Now, don't be too quick to talk.
It's a funny thing on this thing where we encourage people to talk.
But what I'm getting at is don't be too quick to talk, meaning leave a pause of a couple seconds or so before you hit your mic button to begin to talk.
That leaves a gap in between our transmissions.
It's good repeater etiquette.
And those pauses can be especially helpful, too, to those on All Star and Echo Link.
So leave a pause before you hit your mic button.
And then when you do hit the button, again, pause another second or so before starting to talk,
because the repeater takes a moment to process the PL tone on your signal.
And if you start talking too soon, we'll miss the beginning of what you say, like the prefix to your call and things like that.
So when you do press the press to talk switch, pause a minute while it's pressed before you start talking.
And finally, talking about timing.
The repeater also has a three-minute timer.
And if you talk, giving your comments, and most of us have done this multiple times,
but when you talk for over three minutes, the repeater just shuts down completely.
We can't hear you anymore.
We can't transmit because the repeater's just saying, I'm not going to do a thing until you let up on that button.
So you have to let up on your mic button every two to three minutes.
Just let up for a second or less, and then clamp down on it again and keep going.
All it takes is that brief, momentary letting up on the button, and the repeater will reset,
and you'll have another three minutes.
So with all that said, the question is sort of a two-parter tonight or two related questions.
It's combining a couple of experiences of this week,
one that's happened and one that is yet to happen.
What I'm talking about is the CME, or the Corona Mass Ejection or Solar Flare,
that affected propagation and everything.
I think it was on Monday, late afternoon, evening, and I don't know how long it lasted.
And the other thing is Winter Field Day coming up,
and some chilly conditions and other conditions that will be this weekend.
And my questions are these.
One is, did you have any experience?
We talked a little bit about this on the workbench as well on Monday.
But did you experience the solar flare stuff on Monday?
Did you hear any effects of it on the radio?
Hear any reports about it?
Or if you experienced one some other time, you could share that.
But did you notice some of the effects of the solar flare?
And the other one is, thinking back in your life, and I'm going to say the word worst, but I don't mean worst.
But what's some of the hardest operating conditions you've ever operated in?
It doesn't have to be like five degree temperatures and snow this weekend or something that difficult.
But it could be just at home.
And what makes for hard operating conditions?
So, what's some of the worst operating conditions you've had to deal with on the radio?
It could be in your house conditions, outside conditions, band conditions, whatever.
The solar flare, any experiences, comments there?
And what's one of the hardest times, hardest conditions you've had to operate in?
So, with that said, we are going to go now to start with the short time check-ins.
So, short time digital stations using Echolink or Alt-Star.
And I'll leave some long pauses so you have plenty of chance to get in.
But digital stations, Echolink and Alt-Star, please call now.
This is AF3Z.
KAB3ZUV, short timer via Echolink.
That's Kilo Bravo 3, Zulu uniformed Victor, Adam in Romansville.
That was a pretty good long pause.
Alright, Adam, very good.
Thanks for joining us.
With that long pause, I'm going to move on to the RF stations.
But other digital stations can still call in as well.
So, now anybody else who would like to check in on the short time list for the 985 round table,
please call now.
Alright, we're going to get started in those two stations.
And after we hear from them, if somebody else is there for a short time, I'll let you jump in here too.
So, again, any comments on the solar flare experience this week or other times?
And some of the toughest operating conditions you've had to deal with when you were trying to make contacts?
So, Adam first and then over to Simon.
So, KAB3ZUV, AF3Z here.
Okay, Jim, good evening.
AF3Z, this is KAB3ZUV here on the round table in the short timers.
Thanks for taking the chair, Jim.
And, yeah, some good questions as always.
I did not operate during the most recent coronal mass ejection or solar flare.
I do remember one a few years ago that was quite large.
And I remember it completely wiped out all the bands.
Now, I don't know if there's different types or different intensities or if anyone tried to make the best of it.
But I remember the one that I did a few years ago.
And it was just obliterated all of HF.
Who knows, maybe you get some, you know, maybe VHF and UHF become better.
Or maybe even those are spotty.
But it was not good.
It just basically was, okay, I'm going to switch the radio off and do something else for the rest of the day.
So, it would be interesting to hear if anyone tried to tough it out and do some operating.
As far as challenging operating, it has not happened during a 9-8-5 field day.
Of which I've done, I don't know, maybe three or four over the last few years with varying levels of participation.
But there was one I did with a previous club, which I'm still a member on paper.
I haven't actually gone to any of their meetings in a couple years.
But the Lancaster Radio Transmitting Society up on Cornwall Mountain, they had a field day about 10 years ago.
And it had to be almost 100 degrees.
I want to say it was maybe like 97 or 98 degrees.
And it was really, really, really difficult.
And it was really unpleasant.
And I was not in very good shape back then.
So, I was handling the heat very poorly.
I just remember just guzzling out of a gallon jug of water.
And so, that was not fun at all.
I made a bunch of contacts.
But I was doing digital contacts.
And this was like pre-FTA era.
So, I was doing like PSK 31 digital contacts.
So, it was pretty interesting.
It was a pretty interesting and productive field day.
But it was not fun.
And actually, it kind of, I don't want to say it put me off field day.
But when field day for the following year came around, I was like, I don't know if I'm going to make the whole distance, guys.
And then the following year, it just rained.
It rained for the whole field day.
So, yeah.
So, field day weather, whether it's winter or summer, it can be very unpredictable.
And I got to say good luck to all of you doing field day this weekend.
Because there's going to, you know, I don't want to jinx it because I'm a skier.
So, of course, I'm looking forward to massive snowfall.
So, I'd be pretty fired up if we get a foot of snow.
But I think those of you out there for winter field day are maybe hoping that the storm turns out to be a bit more mild than what some of these forecasts are calling for.
So, be safe and warm and have fun out there if you're doing winter field day this weekend.
So, with that, let's keep things moving.
I'm going to send it over to KD3.
We're in the kilodelta-three era here.
KD3 BPI from KB3.
ZUV-73, clear.
Good night.
KB3 ZUV, KD3 BPI.
Thank you much.
Thank you much.
And thank you, Jim, for hosting tonight.
On the questions, well, I'm not a very, well, I'm a new amateur.
So, haven't had much difficulty operating, to be perfectly honest.
For the solar flare earlier this week, I was not affected by it.
I only use VHF and UHF.
So, unfortunately, it would have been interesting to see what it was like, though.
I can imagine.
But, I mean, I guess if the bands are dead, it wouldn't be that interesting.
There's just nothing going on.
Anyway, quick answer to that question is it did not.
I only knew it from 985, from the workbench on Monday night, and from Facebook.
On Facebook, I'm a member of a lot of amateur radio groups.
And you can do the idle scroll and see what's going on.
And, yeah, most people said bands are dead.
I saw screenshots of the solar charts.
Nothing going on.
So, unfortunate.
An unfortunate event, I'm sure.
And then, yeah, getting back to difficulty operating.
Yeah, no difficulty.
I suspect that if I get the chance to operate at all this weekend at the field day, which I'm planning on being there on Saturday,
I think that that will be the most difficult conditions, all things considered.
So, but good questions.
Good questions, indeed.
And, yeah, short timer tonight, but I'll still be listening.
I'm doing some painting at my fiancé, and I bought a house in Westchester.
And so we're cleaning it up a little bit and planning on moving in April.
So, yeah, having good fun.
That's why I haven't been on too much.
It's been quite a lot going on.
And with that, I think I'm about to time out.
So I'll send it back to JimAF3Z and say 73, and I'll be listening.
This is KB3BPI, AF3Z.
Back to Matt.
Okay, very good, Simon.
And I will let somebody else speak more authoritatively on this, but as I understand it,
the field day group is going with a one-day field day because of the weather situation.
And, like I said, I'm sure somebody else will say more about it then.
But Saturday is the day to come visit, Simon.
So you're on there, on correctly there.
All right.
Are there any stations out there who wanted to be able to check in here to the round table on a short time basis?
Please call now.
This is AF3Z.
All right.
Nothing heard.
So we will move on to the regular check-ins.
And a reminder.
Well, I can do that later.
So I'll start with, again, digital stations.
We're checking into the 985 round table.
Echo Lincoln All-Star.
Please call now.
This is AF3Z.
Everybody must be out sharpening their snow shovels or something.
All right.
We will take anybody now.
I'll just go for all kinds of check-ins.
Digital, satellite, whatever.
Stringing cans, whatever.
Anybody watching to check into the 985 round table, please call now.
Alpha 3, Victor, Echo Echo.
WA3, VEE.
NA3, CW.
W3, KZG.
W3, KZG.
WA3, King, Fox, Tango.
WA3, KFT.
WA3, KZG.
I'll break in. Maybe it isn't that they're out sharpening their snow shovels. Maybe they were out playing golf today and stuff and they're tired. It was so nice today. Well, relatively.
All right, here's what I have so far. Ron, WA3VEE, Chuck, NA3CW, Bill, KC300K, Wayne, KC3SQI, Scott, W3KZG, and John, WA3KFT. Any other stations for checking in to the 985 Roundtable, please call now. This is AF3Z.
Maybe they're out buying toilet paper and milk. Getting ready for the weekend. All right, one more quick call and then we'll go into the questions here. Anybody else for the 985 Roundtable, please call now.
Speaking of milk, we have the cream of the crop here tonight. So welcome aboard, everybody. So you probably heard the questions.
Anything about the solar flare, coronal mass ejection on Monday, I think it was. Or some of the craziest, worst kind of operating conditions you've been in. So there you go.
Ron, up to you. Oh, and here's the list, I think. Did I say that? Yeah, but anyway, VEE, then NA3CW, KC300K, KC3SQI, W3KZG, WA3KFT. I did it quickly because you guys are all on the ball.
Ron, over to you. WA3VEE. This is AF3Z.
Good, Jim. Well, thanks for hosting tonight. AF3Z and the group WA3VE over here in Westchester. And all very good. Well, first of all, yep, the field day this weekend will be one day. We'll be operating Saturday until about 10 p.m. or earlier, weather-driven.
So, and we, again, are operating under Whiskey 3 Romeo. So if you're not part of the group or you, that is, you're not operating up there at the site, feel free to work us.
It is absolutely legal for you to work us, and we could use the points. So we'll be operating as Whiskey 3 Romeo. And we'll be all over the place.
So trying to give a specific frequency is a little more difficult, but get on your rigs. Of course, this is HF primarily. So get on your rigs. Tune around for us.
Most of you in this area, you'll probably hear us on ground wave, for sure, within the range of the repeater, pretty much.
So probably we'll be operating 40 and 20, 15 and 10 during the day, and 75 meters, 40 and so on at night.
So give a listen for us, for sure. Whiskey 3 Romeo is a station call sign that you're listening for.
And we'll have the same call sign next year, winter field day, providing we survive this one.
And, of course, summer field day. So that's all been reserved.
Okay, so tomorrow morning at 10 o'clock, we'll use some help up at the site to help us get set up.
So if anybody's available at 10 o'clock tomorrow morning, it'd be great to have you up there.
I'll be up there myself, along with Chuck and a few other people as well.
Joe's going to be there also. So all very good. Let me reset.
Okay, so very good. This is WA3VEE.
On the question, first of all, if anyone is interested in finding out what all this solar stuff is all about,
a little self-plug here, if you go over to the W3GMS repeater website that Jim so nicely mentioned in the pre-ramble,
love that term, you will find under technical articles, solar weather presentation by yours truly.
It's a presentation that I gave in October last year to the Pottstown Area Average Radio Group on what solar weather actually is
and what a CME is for those who are new to this and may not know, what a solar flare is and all that kind of good stuff,
and what the K-index is, which was the primary metric that was used the other night,
especially even on the generic network news.
So the K-index the other night was an 8. The max is a 10.
And that means that there's a lot of geomagnetic activity to the point to where you could,
the aurora was visible during the wee hours of the morning all the way down to North Carolina.
I didn't mean to step on the commercial there, but nonetheless, I didn't see it.
I was up in the middle of the night for one reason or another, did not see it, but nonetheless, that's what that means.
Anyway, on the other day when the K-index was 8, I did tune around on 40, and it was relatively dead.
And what happens is there's, and I explained this in the presentation,
there's an awful lot of atmospheric ionization caused by all this geomagnetic radiation from either a coronal mass ejection or solar flare from the sun.
And that causes a lot of absorption in the ionosphere.
So that was my only experience there with the latest CME.
So like I said, for more information, please go over and take a look at the presentation that's posted
at the top of the list on the technical articles written by our users of 985.
Okay, worst conditions.
Probably one of the worst conditions I remember in recent history was working Leon.
Not this year, but in previous years out in Colorado.
That was a real struggle.
We were trying to use 40 meters before gray line really kicked in
and before 40 meter propagation was really ripe for going west.
Before 40 meters, as we say, went long.
So it was still relatively short.
It was a real struggle to hear him.
The only other time was way back when VEE was still in Delaware,
and I was trying to get work to all states,
and we had a network set up where you could hook up with a particular station in a state.
And sometimes they got 3-3s and 4-4s, and those were very difficult.
So Chuck, how about your situations, and did you have any experience the other day with the stuff?
NA3CW.
WA3VE.
I haven't operated during this one, so I have no comments on it.
I have been through a number of them with total RF blackouts.
You think the antenna fell down.
And I have found just because, you know, you look on QRZ, on the space weather map,
and it says, you know, conditions on 80 meters are poor.
Well, sometimes it depends on where you want to go.
You know, when it's not a total blackout, of course.
What we find with the PMAM net, it usually works better for us when it is a little bit on the low side.
It's, you know, a little bit dicey because we don't get the bad going along on us early,
and we don't get the distant QRM.
So sometimes, you know, you don't go by the numbers.
You go by your ears and where you want to go.
Let's see.
I'll tell you one.
I mean, I've had, especially here in Parksburg, noisy Parksburg,
I've had the latest one was a power high-voltage lightning arrestor at the end of my block.
It was just, you know, destroying the low bands, well, actually most of them,
like S9, 10 over 9, everywhere, all the time, 24 hours a day.
And finally coaxed them, pushed them, digged them, and they came out,
and they sent a crew in from, I think it was the other side of Philadelphia, just really far away.
Come out here, they didn't have a local crew that did the line quality stuff.
And so they came out, and I told them, you know, I couldn't quite zero in on which pole,
but I knew, you know, which block the noise was on.
And they found it on the pole and fixed it, and that was the end of that.
But the big story in Action News was when I was not in A3CW, I was in H2CW on Guam.
And we had field day, and field day, of course, there, you know, it's hot every day there.
And we were able to score an abandoned shell of a building on a cliff line over the Pacific on the western coast of Guam
on the Navy base.
And it was all overgrown with, you know, weedy trees called tangentangens and mosquitoes and everything else.
And, you know, well, it was hot.
It was stinking hot.
But the worst part was I came down with a kidney stone.
And I can tell you what, you're not going to really care much about ham radio when you're moving a kidney stone.
And on that happy note, over to Bill, KC3OOK, NA3CW.
NA3CW, KC3OOK.
Thanks, Chuck.
Jim, thanks for taking the chair tonight and the good questions.
Boy, I don't have anything like a kidney stone, that's for sure.
As far as the first question, I didn't really notice any difference other than when we do have a kidney stone,
I don't know how the solar flares, I look at the HFDX view and HFDX view, and there was nothing.
Talk about bands being dead.
There was just no color anywhere in the entire world map.
It was very interesting.
As far as difficult conditions, I really don't think we've had too many.
Probably the worst thing I can think of, and it's not kidney stones for sure, was, and some of you folks can help me.
I don't know if it was two or three years ago.
We had a year for Summerfield Day when it was just so hot.
We were all just starting to wilt.
Yeah, we went through, I think, three cases of Gatorade.
That was just a little too hot.
But other than that, I really don't have much to think of.
So I'll turn it over to Wayne, KC3SQI, KC3OOK.
Thank you, Bill.
KC3OOK.
This is KC3SQI.
And thank you, Jim, for taking the chair tonight.
As for the recent solar flare, not much.
I didn't realize we were having one, but they're pretty common right now, so not surprised.
I did have one when I was doing some station engineering for a small station out in Denver, Colorado.
And it didn't do much to our transmitter, which was an FM transmitter, but it took out the link going to it.
So we had to try to put something out on the air very quickly while the link was down.
Probably one of the worst conditions I was ever in, was doing communications for emergency in Colorado.
And we'd had a gully buster downtour of rain that day.
And we were watching the bridges.
Police didn't have enough cruisers and things to watch all the bridges, so we were out watching the bridges to make sure that nobody tried to go over them when they were underwater or things like that.
And I got the call on the radio and said, guys, keep your eyes out.
You're probably going to see a death tonight.
We got somebody that's trying to float down the river in an inner tube.
And I just saw about a seven or eight foot diameter tree with all of the roots right behind him.
He didn't make it to me, but they did get out of the river.
So with that, I will turn it over to Scott.
W3KZG, this is KC3SQI.
W3KZG.
Good evening, everybody.
I hope everybody's...
Before the Arctic sets back in.
I know I am.
I've just been working on some stuff here in the trailer.
Got it pretty much done.
Now I'm just loading up gear.
This Saturday morning.
I don't have any...
Going against any kind of solar flares or anything like that.
I did do some research on them back when I got into prepping years ago.
Because, as you know, a very strong solar flare can cause an EMP style event.
And knock out the grid and communications and everything else.
So I did some research on that.
And I do catch, from time to time, there's a lady.
Her name is Tamethus Gove.
And she does space weather, sun weather forecasts and that sort of thing.
And she's very...
They always have her on Ham Nation.
And she seems very knowledgeable.
She gives her forecasts, and I don't understand half of it.
But it is interesting.
So, ready to get to the field day site and get it done.
And get back home before it gets too messy.
Hopefully everything goes well.
We make as many contacts as we can in the 10 or 11 hours we're going to be operating.
Jim, I did not catch who was after me.
I was busy doing something and just listening.
So, if you could pass it to the next person, please.
It would be much appreciated.
AF3Z, W3KZG.
I would gladly do that.
It is John, WA3KFT.
Go ahead, John.
AF3Z.
Hello.
Hello there, gang.
This is Whiskey Alpha 3.
King Fox Tango.
Alrighty.
Alrighty.
Very good.
By the way, I once had a kidney stone.
So, I can sympathize with anyone that has also had one.
Ouch.
Fortunately, I never had to have any operation per se.
But, it was a matter of...
I was dehydrated.
And, the cure for my kidney stone was to flood it.
Just, as much as possible, as many liquids as I could tolerate.
And, we managed to get rid of it.
So, no surgery anyway.
Hooray!
We lucked out there.
At the moment, I am planning to go with Marple Newtown Amateur Radio Club.
We're going to set up a winter field day on Saturday.
And, only Saturday.
We're not going to do it overnight or on Sunday.
So, it's going to be a short operation Saturday morning and Saturday afternoon.
So, I say that now.
I don't know what the snowstorm is going to look like or when.
So, and I have no idea of bands or anything else.
I'll say I'm a participating operator.
So, not one on the planning committee.
That kind of thing.
So, we go from there.
And, I will certainly listen for Whiskey 3 Romeo.
And, see if I can't find him.
So, we go from there.
Okay.
AF3Z.
WA3KFT.
All right.
Very good.
Thank you, John.
Stay tuned here.
I have a special report coming up in my comments.
Anybody else wishing to check into the 985 round table?
This is AF3Z.
Alpha.
Alpha 3 Lima Hotel.
Just chaining up the bus.
All right, Leon.
Welcome.
It's good because I'm going to mention you in my comments.
Let me make another call and then I'll let you talk about our subject of the night here.
Anybody else wanting to check into the 985 round table?
Please call now.
Okay.
Okay.
Okay.
Did you hear the topic?
Well, I'll tell you what it is, Leon.
Any experience or comments on the solar flare stuff?
I think it was on Monday.
Or another solar flare if you experienced it some other time.
And the second part of the question or the second question is, and you can go in all kinds of directions.
We've heard about heat.
We've heard about cold, kidney stones, all kinds of things.
But some of the worst conditions you've had to operate under.
So, you know, what was some of the most trying situations or conditions you had to deal with in trying to operate ham radio?
So over to you there.
Leon AF3Z here.
Thank you, Jim.
Yeah, we're just finishing up putting along the chains.
So we'll be ready to go.
This is AA30H.
My radio's not screaming tonight.
All right.
This morning.
Uh-huh.
I couldn't talk to Virginia on 80 meters.
Well, I could work, I believe, with Western Arkansas.
I have to look up the guy and see really where he lives.
I could work in Indiana, but I couldn't work, you know, North and South Carolina, Virginia.
Georgia was very weak.
Just this morning, the last three days, we've been having trouble.
So much noise, static, or just playing on new propagation.
Just this morning.
80 meters was there.
I looked at my radio.
The needle stage is throwing a signal.
The needles are going up, but there's nothing happening.
I had to go out and look if my antenna was up.
But Arkansas could hear me.
Indiana could hear me.
Places like Alabama could hear me.
But Virginia could not.
Yes.
That was just this morning I had.
Worst conditions I operated.
Well, we talk about, just talk about chaining up.
Coming back from the Florida one year.
We come back from, they had 80 degrees, 70 degrees, 80s, real nice temperatures.
And I come back here to chaining up.
We didn't put chains on our van.
We just drove it home in the snow.
I think it's got to be the worst.
That was the worst I ever operated in.
Rainstorms weren't that bad.
But snow.
I mean, in the van, it was cold by 10 degrees, 15 degrees.
So we got home.
It was horrible.
But we made it home.
And I think those are the two worse conditions.
But, yeah, the last three days, 80 meters, 11, 5 o'clock in the morning.
And until, I don't know, I guess 7 o'clock until I got daylight.
So things go ahead and start it to back off.
All right.
Get back to you, Jim.
A308.
Hey, thank you, Leon.
Very good.
My special report.
One of the guys up here lives up near Cornwall area.
Recorded some.
And first of all, let me say on the solar flare stuff, K3Y for the Stratky Century Club has been operating not around the clock,
but all day long throughout the month of January.
So people who are normally getting 17 contacts an hour or something were down to about five and that kind of thing.
But I don't know if I heard of anybody that really got skunked completely.
So there has been some propagation, obviously, I guess.
But I'm going to play for you this recording.
And I'll tell you a little bit to listen to.
It might go about a minute if I last that long.
But you're going to hear some clean CW signals in here and also one that's obviously not clean at all.
And these were two stations talking to each other.
So it's just to show, I guess, that depending on where you're going, where the signal's coming from, and the path and all that stuff,
it can be quite different.
So anyway, take a listen to this.
So, let's go.
Let me just ask, Chuck, are we able to hear that to some degree?
No problem.
Sounds like one of those dirty over the pole, morbulated, interesting propagation signals.
I wasn't really paying attention to hear the call signs, and they don't always tell you where they are.
Yeah, it was interesting because I was not home.
I was at the grocery store, but the guys up here were on a little chat group, and they were describing what they were hearing.
And the one guy described this as sort of like a modern spark transmitter.
But then the guy he's talking to is coming in clear, so very interesting stuff.
And I was thinking about this.
You know, if the Aurora messes up a CW signal to that extent, imagine what it could do to your voice.
Voice communication could really get garbled.
So it's kind of interesting.
But yeah, I didn't hear from anybody that they were totally skunked on the SKCC stuff.
But yeah, it was way down for sure.
I was on like from 2 to 3 that afternoon, and I had beautiful conditions on 40 and no problem at all.
So it seemed to hit after that.
And then on worst operating conditions, I wrote down two things here, and I mentioned this before.
But up in Algonquin Park in Canada, it wasn't bad conditions.
But I had a little tin can QRP rig in a pump tent, and a hunk of wire hanging down on bushes maybe about 5 to 6 feet high.
I don't know how long it was.
And I made one contact with it.
But I was cramped in the tent, and it wasn't all that cold or anything.
It was just more the frustration of trying with a very compromised antenna and all that stuff.
But the other one was winter field day, and this was up with the Red Rose Group up on the Welsh mountain there.
And we were inside a building, but the early years, I think in later years, it was been heated.
But that first year, we really didn't have much heat in there anyway.
It was pretty cold.
Here was a picture of me floating around somewhere in a jacket and a little cap and all that stuff.
So it was chilly.
But also, I had audio interference coming from an operator close to me.
And I won't mention any names, but his call sign is AA3LH.
I was operating code with my headphones on trying to hear, and he was operating voice.
And he was interfering at times.
But anyway, those are some of the worst I've had, I think.
I remember it was a little challenging on one of the 985 winter field days.
I was doing QRP in Greg's trailer, and it was low overhead in the air.
It was cold to some degree.
So anyway, that was a little challenging, but not anything too bad.
So that's my comments there.
Let me see one more quick call.
Anybody else wishing to check into the 985 round table tonight, please call.
This is Jim AF3Z.
All right, so we will go around again, and around two here.
And Chuck, when you were talking about the kidney stone, I had one.
It was fairly minor, I guess, and it passed on its own.
But I thought, that's a different K index that you're talking about.
And yeah, those are no fun whatsoever.
My dad was on a trip one time.
My parents went to Scotland, because that's where the Gaudi family came from at some point
or other, way back.
And anyway, he ended up with a kidney stone over there talking about messing up a trip.
So there you go.
All right, so we're back round to round two, and you can discuss as you wish.
And thanks for all the comments.
Interesting stuff.
I guess most of you were there in the workbench on Monday, so we had two times to talk about it.
One last comment.
I read something not too long ago, these coronal mass ejections.
I think you, I forget, the amount of mass or material matter that gets ejected out of the sun
is like tons of stuff or something.
It's not a five-pound package or anything.
Amazing stuff.
AF3Z, WA3VE, over to you, AF3Z.
Thanks very much, Jim.
AF3Z, WA3VE, all very, very good.
Yeah, some of the CMEs are actually much, much larger than the planet of Earth
that we happen to be sitting on this rock over here.
So, yes, quite interesting.
And one kind of sad note related to that.
Folks may remember that I think it was a month or less than two months ago, there was an MIT professor
who was unfortunately murdered.
And what he was doing research on was the colliding, one of the things he was doing research on was the colliding
magnetic fields in plasma.
That's exactly what occurs in a coronal mass ejection.
I mentioned this again in the presentation that's on the website, on the 3 Peter website.
And what happens is when these fields collide, and I guess I would liken it to probably something like putting two of the same poles of a magnet together,
two norths or two souths, would get this terrible repulsion.
And that forces matter in the form of photons into the, just forces it away and ejects it from the surface of the sun.
So a little explanation there about what my understanding is, what happens from my research doing the presentation.
So anyway, very interesting there.
So thoughts and prayers to this family up there.
But that was the research I learned that he was doing, very much related to what we're talking about tonight.
Okay, other condition that was really, really hard that I didn't think of the first time, probably the worst one ever.
And yes, I do know I have a little bit of hum on the signal.
It was the 2005 Boy Scout Jamboree down at Fort AP Hill in Virginia.
Very, very hot week.
Very similar, if not, believe it or not, worse than what we had at field day a couple years ago.
In our tent, our staff tent, what I was doing there was I was staffing K2BSA, the National Boy Scout Amateur Radio Station.
It's a two-call, even though Boy Scouts is headquartered in Irving, Texas.
It's a two-call because it was initiated when they had first started, and they were headquartered in New Jersey.
As a result, it got our staff tent at night, got down to 88 degrees.
That's what we had to sleep in.
And during the day in the tent where we were operating, it was just miserable.
It was in the 90s, the high 90s.
We operated with wet towels around our necks and everything else.
And we had a lot of exhausted, very hot scouts.
But we still had thousands and thousands.
We had thousands of visitors to K2BSA.
So all in all, it was a success.
But, boy, it was a very, very hot experience.
That same trip, that's when I elevated to extra class licensee.
NA3CW, WA3VE.
WA3VE.
WA3VE.
NA3CW.
Yep, you got a on your signal.
But you knew that.
You're talking about 88 degrees at midnight and that sort of thing.
That was our bedroom in Guam after a typhoon when there's no power.
And for that, we had rigged a boat battery and two muffin fans on a luggage cart, luggage dolly, that we would put by the bed.
And that was how we survived that one.
And we made a similar rig for each of the kids for their rooms.
That was just nasty.
And as John said, that particular time I got the kidney stone during field day, I was dehydrated.
And I had eaten too much protein.
Like somebody brought ribs.
Ate too many ribs, not enough water.
And I paid the price.
So, that was rough.
As far as that CW note, I've heard, you know, interesting.
Usually it's like a Russian or a Chinese or something signal coming over the pole when there's a roar.
And you get this, even on sideband, you get this sounds like the voice is underwater.
It's garbling away.
You can understand it, but sometimes it's hard to understand.
But it sounds like the signal is bubbling underwater.
So, around here, I've been doing a lot with field day prep.
Finished up Joe's tuner as far as got all the RF wiring.
Well, virtually all the RF.
Enough RF wiring that I can test it now.
I just need to have a calm day where I don't have any appointments anywhere.
And I can just quietly set this thing up and wire some feed lines over to it and test it.
But the electromechanical parts of it are working fine now.
So, it's just a matter of configuring for, you know, we'll call it taxi tests at low power.
See how it looks, how it tunes, get some position data on the different bands.
And when all that looks hunky-dory, then fire up the amp and put some watts through it.
I expect to be at the field day site tomorrow.
I do not expect to be up there on Saturday.
But I'll be there tomorrow.
I have other duties on Saturday.
But tomorrow, on Saturday, you should have the weekenders in there as opposed to just us retirees.
So, the people who are having to work for a living, they'll be available on Saturday.
So, we'll do what we can tomorrow.
And running cables and that sort of thing.
prep everything that we can.
I guess that's all exciting.
All that's exciting from here, if you can even call that exciting.
So, over to Mr. Bill and 7-3 to everybody else as I listen out.
KC-3-O-O-K.
N-A-3-C-W.
Ron, if you're listening, I have one story you'll appreciate.
When we went to sign in this evening, I had just finished getting the first coat on the top for the lab cart I'm making.
And so, I went to the bench, signed in, and turned around, and Buddy was walking across it.
So, now I have cat prints all through the first coat.
I was made at first, but now I'm thinking maybe I'm on to something.
I could make personalized tables with your own cat prints embedded in them.
So, anyhow, I will be up there tomorrow.
I don't know how long I'll be there, but I'll be able to be there for a couple hours, maybe 10 to 2, something like that.
And activity here has just been continuing to plug away little bits on small things in the ham shack.
I started doing some cabling, and most of today was just preparation for storm, pending storm.
We talk about, are you prepared?
Ask it a lot, and in general, I am.
But figuring it through, I picked up an additional gas can today, and I'm actually going to pick up two more propane tanks tomorrow.
And one more small heater, so I know that if we do lose power, I can keep the house heated and not have pipes freeze up, hopefully.
So, that's about it here.
I'll turn it over to Wade, KC3SQI.
KC3OOK.
Okay.
Thank you, Bill.
KC3OOK.
This is KC3SQI.
And not too much else going on around here.
Just trying to get ready for taxes, and we'll see what happens with that.
So, with that, I'll turn it over to Scott, W3KCG.
This is KC3SQI.
KC3SQI.
W3KZG.
Oh, you said the bad word.
Taxes.
Yeah, I forgot all about taxes until I got my W2 in the mail the other day.
I was like, oh yeah, it's getting to be that time of year again.
Where the vampires want their share.
So, anyway.
I didn't know, I wanted to ask Ron if he was planning on bringing a monitor for DX10.
I'm going to bring one for mine.
It's just nice to see the big display.
I don't have too many other ones that are DVI, so I have the one that I had last year, or summer field day.
I'm actually thinking about buying a cheap mount and mounting it permanently in the trailer, but we'll see what that does.
But, not too much more to add.
Tomorrow night, I'm going to go get one more propane tank filled.
I'll have four total, I think, to bring.
And I'm bringing some gas cans to run Greg's generator on.
So he doesn't have to burn up all his ethanol free.
In case he loses power on Sunday.
So I told him, I was like, I'll bring some, you can run that.
And then it'll be empty.
It'll run all the ethanol gas out by the time you need to use it and run your non-ethanol in it.
So it doesn't gunk up the works.
But, yeah, not too much going on here, just gathering up things and trying to not forget anything.
I always end up bringing more than is ever needed.
But I'm always glad, usually, that I did bring it.
Because it's better to have and not need than need and not have.
So, with that said, I'm going to head off of here.
And tomorrow is Friday, last day of work for the week.
And I'll be hitching up the trailer when I get home tomorrow from work.
And finishing loading some things up.
And it'll be ready for the bright and early commute.
So, 73, everybody.
It was good hearing everybody.
And thanks for taking the reins tonight, Jim.
And we'll send it over to John.
I remembered.
WA3KFT.
Gobble away.
This is WA3KZG saying 73.
WA3KFT.
W-A-3 K-Z-G.
And the group, W-A-3 K-Z-G.
Okie-dokie.
Well, I'm going out with the Marple Newtown group for Winter Field Day.
Only on Saturday.
They opted to do just a Saturday event.
And it's going to be interesting.
I've never done a Winter Field Day before.
And I have done June Field Days for 50 plus years.
And I finally got to the point where I made a wooden box with a lid.
And Field Day stuff goes in the box.
And when I bring it home, I don't take it out of the box.
It stays in the box.
So, such things as jumpers and adapters and SWR bridge and antenna tuner and rope.
So, when you want to plan Field Day, I just grab the box and put it in the car and we got the stuff.
Radios are separate.
So, we kind of go from there.
And it has worked out quite well for us.
As far as June Field Days, I've done more than 50 of them.
And after you do so many of them, you kind of know what you need and what to bring and so on and so forth.
And like I said, I just made a Field Day box and put everything in there.
And when I get home, I leave it in the box.
So, I know that if I have to go someplace in a hurry and need stuff, I just grab the box and go.
With that, over to you, Leon, AA3LH and the gang.
7-3 from WA3, King Fox Tango.
Well, thank you, Mr. King Fox Tango.
So much.
Well, the bus is chained up.
It's fueled up.
The heater core is cleaned out.
We made sure that's cleaned out so the bus will be nice and warm as Jim drives cautiously away with them chains on.
And just preparing for what we don't want to come Sunday.
But we have the bus all fuel up, ready to go.
I have to think, you know, really the worst condition that I had was always weather-related.
Always.
I didn't have any bad rainstorms that were bad.
But snow coming up 95, trying to run HF in the snow.
Your antennas with ice up.
And, oh, my goodness.
You have to pull over and knock the snow off.
Whip the antenna and knock the snow off.
Ice and snow off.
So your radio would work.
Oh, my.
I don't want to think about doing that again.
But I imagine if I go to Florida next year, I will probably do that for sure.
Because that's always in February.
At least I hope to go down there.
The weather is real nice.
T-shirt weather.
I hope for that.
But that's all I really have.
And so back to you, Jim.
I have three said A3OH with a loud mouth.
Quick question for you.
Did the deviation get adjusted on your rig?
Or are you on a different rig?
Actually, you won't believe this, Jim.
I'm on a Bale Fang.
I have my other radio.
I line it up and make it sound real pretty and neat and sweet and all that when my wife talks.
I don't know how all the sound that I talk, but yeah, I'm going to Bale Fang.
Three watts.
That's it.
Very good.
Well, the audio doesn't sound as hot or whatever.
It doesn't sound as strong.
I mean, you're coming through loud and clear.
I just mean it doesn't have that overdriven kind of sound to it.
Very good.
And, Chuck, I have a question for you quickly.
Joe's tuner.
At one point, you had reported that mechanically it would tune in one direction but not back in the other.
What did you switch to get it to mechanically tune in both directions?
I had a race condition going between the step pulse and the direction pulse.
The direction pulse was not present enough microseconds ahead of the step pulse in that direction.
And it was marginal in the forward direction.
So I modified the circuit in a spot that put in an RC time delay in front of a Schmidt trigger gate.
So I induced about a 50 microsecond delay in the step pulse to allow the direction pulse to establish itself
and settle before the step pulse was initiated.
And that cleaned it up.
I did experiment with different timings.
Five microseconds was enough, but I made it 50 because it's a low pulse rate anyway.
So I had plenty of time space, you know, tolerance there.
So it worked fine at five, gives me margin at 50 microseconds, which doesn't sound like a lot.
But in circuits that have rise and fall times of, you know, less than a microsecond, that's a lot of time overlap.
So, yeah.
Two little RCs in the right place and all was well.
And A3CW.
Good.
Thank you, Chuck.
That is interesting.
I have never gotten into that kind of detail, but I understood what you were talking about anyway.
Thank you very much.
And, yeah, when I got home on Monday and tried to listen on the bands, I heard some real warbly, gobbly, bubbly, whatever signals,
but I didn't hear that raspy thing that I played for you.
So, anyway.
And one message that seems to come through with this Winter Field Day experience is that you can be very prepared,
but sometimes when the weather gets bad enough, we're really not quite, especially not for fun, prepared to try to deal with it.
It's going to be a challenging weekend, I guess.
I've been ignoring the weather forecast, but today I finally looked at it and saw what they were talking about.
So we'll see what happens.
Maybe it will be sunny and 80 on Sunday, but I doubt it.
All right.
One last call.
Anybody else out there who's been listening or would like to just say hello and pop in here, give us your call sign.
We'd love to hear from you.
So anybody else out there for the 985 Roundtable, please call now.
It's been a quiet night.
All right.
Thank you all very much.
Good discussion.
Glad to be with you.
Glad to host here tonight.
And, yeah, I will not be up at the 985 Winter Field Day.
I'll be at the Cornwall Ranger Station Winter Field Day.
Probably only Saturday.
And I have a feeling most people will only be up there Saturday, too, but I don't know that.
So there you go.
And, yeah, our call sign up there is W3CRS, Charlie, Romeo, Sierra, or Cornwall Ranger Station, CRS.
So here's W3CRS.
That's Cornwall Ranger Station.
All right.
So good night, everybody.
Thank you very much.
We want to say a big thank you to Joe for the use of the repeater here.
And as we've said a few times before, getting on the repeater, using it, keeping it active is a good way to say thank you to Joe for making it available to the amateur radio community.
So, again, Monday evening, 8 p.m., is the workbench.
Hope to hear you there.
And that's it for the roundtable tonight.
Feel free to stick around and keep the conversation going if you wish.
And have a good night and a great weekend, good winter field day, and all that good stuff.
73.
This is AF3Z clear.
Maybe Monday night I can take a change off the bus at A3OH.
Chains off for the bus.
I didn't quite follow that.
Maybe Monday night I can take the change off the bus.
We won't need them anymore.
Chains off, not chainsaw.
Okay, very good.
Yeah, hopefully you can.
I looked at a couple of the different online weather things, WGAL and also Weather Underground or something, one website.
They're talking, you know, it's all if, but significant amount of snow compared to the one and two inches we've had lately.
Like, I forget what it's all, six to eight, five to ten.
But anyway, we will see.
Still too early to tell.
And speaking of chains and buses, I have never, I remember when my dad used to put chains on, and I can sort of picture him doing it.
But I never, I didn't grow up in the chain age.
When I was learning to drive, we had studs, studded tires.
And I learned to drive in an old, old 98, big boat of a car.
We bought that used, I don't know what, well, I was learning to drive around 67, I guess.
So that's when we had it.
But we didn't need chains at the point we had studs in the tires.
And then you had to change them because you weren't allowed to have them on the tire during the rest of the year.
AA3LH, AF3Z.
Well, I drove truck.
And yes, we know about putting 120-pound chains on a truck.
Yes, I had my fair share.
And yeah, I did that.
I hold Amish milk.
If I got stuck in the lanes, I had to put them on to get out.
If I didn't think I could get in and out, they didn't have them open, we let them set.
But if I thought I could do it, I'd go in and try.
And yeah, I put my fair share on.
Believe me, I did.
And yeah, well, so I know a lot about putting chains on.
Yeah, that doesn't sound like fun, Leon.
And I don't know, did you have, were your hands so rugged you could do it without gloves?
Or did you have some really good gloves?
Or, uh, that just doesn't sound like fun to me.
Hands really weren't the problem.
As you laid down and put the chains on, you got snow down your shirt collar, coat collar, and up, and up, up, up, up, the bottom side where you're building up, up through your, up to your back.
Yeah, no, it wasn't fun, but it paid the bills, so I did it.
Well, you earned your pay, that's for sure.
Yeah, I, I've thought about that a number of times over my life, but I remember the whole thing with chains, but they were pretty much out of vogue by the time I was learning to drive.
Uh, and we lived down a dead end dirt road, and at times it was a challenge to get out of there, but, uh, didn't have chains on.
I don't even remember, they must have gotten thrown away or something, because I can't even remember them being around.
And you said the weight of the chains, 120 pounds or something.
Is that one chain or whatever for one tire?
And I don't know, on the big trucks, if you have two tires, do they go on both wheels or just one?
Anyway, that's a heavy hunk of chain.
For a 24-inch wheel, to put chains on at a 1,224, uh, yeah, they're wide, they're heavy, they're about 120 pounds.
We'd re-drug them around, and we, uh, we tried to put them on two wheels, I mean, one on each side of the truck in the back, lock the differential together, and try and make a run to get out of the lane.
And, uh, I'd put chains on all fours, she'll dig and go.
But I've done that, and that's not impressive.
Usually the back two were easier.
You didn't have to deal with the fuel tanks up there and the quarter fender up front.
You could just go ahead and flip them around, and then, uh, uh, you know, what you would try to do is have it, before you were totally fast, that you could back the truck on, lay them out, back the truck on, and pull them up around.
That's what you do, and you have to put on the tarp straps so you don't go on the inside of the axle.
You have to cut them off.
But we did that.
We got good at it, and, uh, I had my fair share.
Let's just say that.
Uh, yes.
Uh, yes.
It's interesting.
Jobs like that, being a truck driver.
In my mind, I picture you driving, you know, which you did a lot of.
But there are other things you had to do besides just driving and a lot of hard work.
Bless you, my son.
And, uh, so I was going to say I was going to miss out on the Scrapple sandwiches, but I guess that's off the, uh, off the table now, with it being a one-day event.
So, uh, yeah.
I don't think up at the Cornwall Rangers Station.
I don't know if you've ever been up there.
But, uh, we do have the building, and there is heat there, at least if it's working.
But, uh, uh, I don't know if anybody's going to be staying overnight, and I have a feeling, especially if it really gets to snow, and I doubt that anybody will go back on Sunday.
But I don't think I will, anyway.
And tomorrow my job is, I have a, a, uh, snowblower that was given to me by a neighbor when they no longer needed it.
And, uh, my son and I replaced a carburetor on it one time, and it runs now.
But, anyway, uh, I was the gopher and the helper.
He was the one that knew what he was doing.
But it hasn't been run much.
We haven't had much snow for a year or more or whatever.
So, anyway, I want to make sure it's running and, uh, get it near the garage door so I don't have to try to clear the garage to get it out on Sunday or something.
So that's part of tomorrow's fun.
All right.
Good to talk to you.
So I had a gene for me, and, uh, I am going to, uh, shut down here and go do some, uh, Straky Century Club email work.
73 there, Leon.
AF3 is it.
73, Jim.
So I will say, da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da-da.
Have fun tonight.
A-3-O-H.
Thank you.
Thank you.