W3GMS Monday Night Workbench Net

This episode of the W3GMS 985 Workbench blends technical troubleshooting with on-air operating strategy, focusing on two topics every ham eventually wrestles with: signal quality and solar conditions. Hosted by W3MOW, the discussion moves from microphone levels and deviation control into a deeper look at how solar data actually affects HF operation.

The group breaks down practical use of propagation indicators including K-index, A-index, sunspot numbers, MUF, and real-time band condition tools. Operators share how they interpret solar data—or deliberately ignore it—choosing instead to tune the bands, call CQ, and let experience drive decisions. The conversation highlights why charts don’t tell the whole story and how “poor conditions” often just mean fewer people calling.

Additional discussion covers audio setup and mic gain control, repeater etiquette, equipment setup realities, and why longer CQs matter in the era of band scopes and waterfalls. Real-world experience takes precedence over theory, reinforcing the Workbench’s hands-on, practical approach to amateur radio.

If you’ve ever wondered how much stock to put in propagation numbers—or why calling CQ still works when charts say it shouldn’t—this episode delivers grounded insight from operators who’ve tested it on the air.

Recorded live on the W3GMS 146.985 MHz repeater

Weekly Workbench – Mondays at 8 PM Eastern

Topics include: solar indices, MUF, HF propagation, mic audio setup, repeater operation, and practical band selection

What is W3GMS Monday Night Workbench Net?

Every Monday Evening at 8pm Eastern Time, the W3GMS/R Crew get together on the repeater at 146.985Mhz and discuss technical questions and sometimes do lessons related to Ham Radio for newer Operators to learn from experienced Elmers. The Workbench was set up to be a safe place for any technical questions to get asked and good answers to be given.

Thank you.

Good evening and welcome to the 985 workbench. I'm W3MOW and my name is Mike. I'm happy to be your host tonight. I'm located in the village of Sattrayville in beautiful Chester County, Pennsylvania.

We meet here every Monday night at 8 p.m. on the W3GMS Parksburg Repeater. The frequency is 146.985 megahertz and the PL tone is 100 hertz. For those stations that use tone squelch on receive, the repeater uses a tone squelch of 94.8 hertz.

Newcomers are very welcome and we encourage all stations to check in. When you get a moment, take a look at the repeater website located at www.w3gmsrepeater.com as it has a lot of information including technical articles, pictures of the 985 users in action, and repeater etiquette and history.

Now here on the workbench we focus on answering general amateur radio questions and discussing topics of radio theory and operations. Additionally, we'll be asking each station to make some general comments about what you did in amateur radio in the past week or anything else you'd like to share.

So when you check in tonight, please indicate if you have a question for the group and even if you don't have a question, we ask you to check in. After all stations have checked in, we'll go into our general comments portion of the workbench using a round table like forum, kind of like what we do on Thursday night.

And after each station gives their general comments, we'll move on to stations with questions. After the question is heard, I'll call out to the workbench for stations to get us started with the question. And then once we have the question answered satisfactorily, we'll move on to other stations with questions.

Please remember the workbench is the time and place to ask those in-depth questions. Please don't hesitate to ask.

Also keep in mind the question portion of the workbench is a direct comment. I ask you to wait to be recognized by me the next whole station before beginning a transmission. This will help us ensure we answer your questions efficiently and keeping that running smoothly.

However, there may be times when two stations need direct communication for general statements or just follow up and I ask you to do that if necessary. Just pass it back to that control afterwards.

We do have a few quick things to remember here on 985 and the first one is to click, wait, and then talk. And that's just to ensure we don't miss the first few syllables of your transmission. Also we need you to let up on your PPP from time to time. Something like this.

As the repeater has a three minute timeout timer. And finally at the end of your transmission, turn it back over to neck control. Before we begin tonight, I'd like to thank all the other stations for volunteering as hosts for the workbench. If you'd like to host the workbench in the future, please reach out to one of us and we gladly get you on the schedule.

Lastly, I ask you to please join Luke KC3SDY this Thursday at 8pm as he is hosting this week's session of the 985 Thursday night round table. At this time we're going to start the check in process. During the check in process there may be some longer pauses on my end as I'm just doing some administrative work to the check in list.

So we're going to begin the check in process now. Remember to indicate if you have a question for the group. We're going to start off the check in tonight with digital check ins only at this time. So digital stations only at this time. Stations using All Star Echolink wishing to check in from the 985 workbench. Please call now. This is W3MOW.

Whiskey 8, Charlie Romeo Whiskey, CR, no question.

I have no questions.

I have no questions but maybe I have an answer.

Alright, I have WACRW and W1RC. Do we have any other digital stations wishing to check in from the 985?

Please call now.

Alright, nothing heard. We're going to take all stations, all stations at this time wishing to check in from the workbench. Please call now.

If you're going to check in from the 985, please call now.

NA3CW, no questions.

WA3VEE, no questions.

WA3KingFoxTango, WA3KFT, no questions.

WA3ILS, no questions.

WA3IFG, Jim and Malvern, no questions.

WA3ILS, no questions.

Second, last call for check-ins for the workbench.

Please call.

Alpha 3, Lima Hotel.

Alright, Leon, I got you in there, AA3LH.

During the check-in process, I don't think I was keeping the tabs on questions as well as I should have.

Do we have a station with a question that I may have missed?

If so, just let me know now.

Mike, AF3Z here.

I don't really have a question, but I would throw out a sort of a discussion question if you don't have anything else. AF3Z.

Jim, that's a great idea. I'll add it to the list. So, no questions on the docket tonight, which is fine.

Feel free to chew the rag a little bit during the check-in process.

I'm sorry, during the general comments portion.

And then we'll get to Jim's discussion question on this chilly, chilly Monday evening.

Alright, so here's the check-in list as I have it.

Feel free to write down the station that comes after you.

If you don't have a pen and paper around or you forget, just send it back to me and I will get it to where it needs to go.

So, starting off the top of the list, we have CRW8CRW.

And we have Mike, W1RC.

Then it goes over to Chuck, NA3CW.

Then Ron, WA3VEE.

And I believe it's his birthday again, to remind everyone.

I'm sure Ron can correct me if I'm wrong, but I think it's his birthday.

Then we have John, WA3KFT.

Keith, KB3ILS.

Then we have Jim, KC3RFG.

Then Bill, KC3OOK.

Then Charlie, N3CRE.

Then Renee, K3FF.

Then we have Jim, AF3Z.

Then John, KD3EE.

And then Leon, AA3LH.

And Leon, you can pass it back to me when you're done with your comments.

Also, I do believe tonight is the first night of Hanukkah.

So, happy Hanukkah as well.

So, CR, good evening to you.

Happy Monday night.

WHCRW.

This is W3MOW.

Good evening, sir.

Good evening, Mike.

And everyone on the net.

CR here.

This week in ham radio has been normal.

985 activities.

Some other nets on other repeaters.

And that's about it for me.

Mr. Mike, W1RC.

Take it away.

WHCRW.

Very good.

Thank you, CR.

Good evening to everybody here on the second night of Hanukkah.

And wish everybody all the best for all the holidays.

No matter which one you celebrate.

They're all good.

You know.

Holidays are good.

And this week in ham radio, well, I'm working on a radio right now.

I'm working on an ICOM IC735.

It has one of the common problems that the ICOM 735 has.

And that is the rotary encoder used for tuning.

But, you know, you can fix them.

Or you can send them out and have the encoder rebuilt for about $35.

So, I've got three of them downstairs that I picked up at flea markets.

And I've decided that I'm going to fix them and find new homes for them.

I don't really need them anymore.

They're taking up room.

But I'd rather fix them up.

I like fixing 735s.

They're nice radio to work on.

I have the service manual.

And so, it's kind of an exercise.

I like working on them.

So, I don't know who it goes to.

I'm not good at recording that, I'm afraid.

So, I'll turn it back to you, Mike.

And I'll let you be the traffic cop tonight.

This is W1RC.

No problem, Mike.

We'll pass it over to Chuck NE3CW.

This is W3MOW.

Thanks, Mike.

Well, assuming it is, congratulations, Ron.

Happy birthday.

Hope it was a good one.

And many happy returns on your witch anniversary of your 29th.

So, there you go.

Quiet time in ham radio.

Usual 985 activities.

Mobile.

Some mobiling.

And the usual.

Antique Wilders Association PM AM pre-net host.

And the net.

On Sunday afternoon.

Always fun to get on AM and listen to every combination of AM rigs old and new.

And make an occasional solder smoke over here at the bench on the ever popular Joe's Tuner project.

And, John, when you come on, I have to turn it down.

But, Leon, it was just painful.

You really got to back it down.

Please.

Editorial's done.

WA3VEE NA3CW.

Good, Chuck.

And, yeah, what Chuck said, absolutely.

Right here, Rodney, volume control.

Similarly, for sure.

Very good.

This is WA3VEE.

Mike, first of all, great to hear you.

Great to hear everyone tonight.

And, Mike, thanks for doing the net tonight.

All very good.

Not much to report here.

Although I finally have a radio back on, operationally, back on my bench in my lab.

Although tonight I am working here at the main console, my main station here in the basement, on the IC9700 and the X300 antenna.

But just before the snowflake started to fall on Saturday night, I managed to get an X50, a diamond X50, put up on a painter pole at the corner of my back deck.

It's only up about maybe 10, 12 feet at the most.

But it's good enough.

I'll still be able to hit 43 repeaters, but that's not its main goal.

The main goal is to get radio back on the bench and in my wood shop so that I don't have to have this radio turned up full blast to be able to hear anything that's going on, especially when I'm in the lab and the shop.

So we did have that capability here originally.

However, we redid the deck about a year ago.

Never got around to putting an antenna back to take the antenna off the railing on the deck.

Now it's a better antenna and it probably will stay up there for a while.

So that's the main accomplishment here.

And the SWR was incredible on that antenna.

And it's relatively flat across the entire amateur 2-meter and 70-centimeter FM portion of that band.

And it's flat as a maximum SWR of about 1.5, 1.6 down to about 141 megahertz to 151 megahertz.

So it's a very nice antenna.

A Diamond X50.

It's about 5 feet 6 inches tall.

And it's not very big, but it's a little brother to the X300.

So Diamond makes a very fine antenna.

No question about it.

There are others out there, of course, but I know diamonds work very, very well.

That's the big accomplishment over here besides getting the lab bench straightened out.

Funny how these benches never seem to always be in order, they're always being straightened out.

So John, how's your workbench going over there? I remember seeing it and I don't know what color it is because I couldn't see to the bottom of it.

Very much like the situation here. WA3KFT, WA3VEE.

WA3VEE, WA3KFT in the net.

Which bench?

I have an electronic bench in the back porch and I have another electronic bench in the basement.

I can't see the top of either one of them.

And to some extent, duplicate test equipment on both benches.

Anyway, we've been counting coins.

The XYL like to save quarters.

And in particular, the state quarters.

I've been counting my way through and putting them in rolls and so forth.

And, uh...

Ouch!

Uh...

She has a lot of quarters.

Two hundred quarters.

And, uh...

I'm looking at a container that has, uh...

Two hundred quarters in it.

And, uh...

They're all New York State.

So...

I think I'm gonna start selling them.

Uh...

To coin collectors or whatever.

But, uh...

I will retain...

At least, uh...

One roll of every flavor.

Something like that.

Uh...

But, uh...

Uh...

At this point, uh...

I don't have any particular wants or needs in terms of electronics or whatever.

Uh...

That may change within a day depending on what I'm doing.

Ha, ha, ha, ha.

But, uh...

Uh...

The operating table is straightened out.

And, uh...

We can play radio easily.

Okay, Travis.

Over to you.

N3 ILS.

WA3.

King Fox Tango.

Hey, it's KV3 ILS.

Uh...

Keith.

Kilo Echo Endo Tango Hotel.

KV3 ILS.

Not the first one to confuse me with Travis N3 ILS.

Although, I am the original ILS, as everybody here knows.

Um...

I've been off the air for a while.

Uh...

Six, seven weeks.

I was traveling for work and a little too busy.

But, last week or so, been getting back into it.

Uh...

Been walking the dog with my KH1 portable rig.

And, making some, uh...

Pedestrian mobile contacts.

Which is nice.

But, most importantly, I am getting active in arranging and setting up and organizing and corralling the 985 Winter Field Day Crew.

It's only about seven weeks away.

January 24th and 25th.

We'll do the Winter Field Day at the same place we do the Summer Field Day.

It's a lot of fun.

If you want to come out, you want to have a good time.

You don't need to be an expert op.

Anything from beginners to experts are welcome and encouraged.

And, anybody who wants a little of the help on CW or SSB or making contacts, it's a great way to do it.

Winter Field Day is very chill.

Get that chill, Winter Field Day.

Uh...

Very chill and relaxed.

And, a lot of fun to do.

Not as quite as much activity as Summer Field Day, but it's a great way to get some time on the air.

So, please join us.

If you want to join and you haven't gotten my email already or the one that Joe sent out, you can contact me.

My information is good on QRZ.

We're having our first planning meeting this Wednesday at 7pm via Zoom.

I can get you that information.

Last Winter Field Day, Joe left me in his tent with a straight key and told me to make a contact.

I had never made a straight key contact.

I made my first one on last Winter Field Day.

And, a lot of fun.

Made some contacts in the spring.

Today, I pulled my straight key out for the first time probably in six months.

I figured I'd be starting over, but it came back really quick.

I was sending pretty good, so I made about ten POTA contacts.

Getting ready for my first ever straight key night this year on January 1st.

Well, that's it for me.

So, I'm going to turn it over to KC3RFG.

Over to you, Jim.

KC3 ILS.

Thank you, Keith.

This is KC3RFG, Jim, here in Malvern, PA.

Not a lot to say on the radio front.

Either the normal daily nets, a little bit of 985 activity.

Did double check and re-secured all the dipoles after the snow, but everything stayed up pretty well.

Knocked the snow off.

But, for this particular storm, it didn't change the SWR at all.

It changes more, it seems, when it's wet.

So, that was kind of interesting to note.

Really didn't have to re-tune anything for 75 or the other nets.

And, just before getting on here tonight, my PI4 ham clock kind of went down.

So, I'm going to start troubleshooting that and see if I need to re-put the operating system on or what it's going to need.

Check all the power connections and such to get it back in operation.

So, that's about it from here.

I'm going to send it over to you, Bill.

KC3OOK from KC3RFG.

KC3RFG.

KC3OOK.

Thanks, Jim.

Well, I'm not super active on radio this week, but I did, I guess, yeah, it was just this last Thursday I hosted the 985 round table.

And then Saturday night I was central control for the Simplex net.

And Sunday night I was net control for the, uh, Lancaster County Welfare net.

Other than that, not a lot of radio activity.

Uh, we're finishing, uh, just putting the last coat to finish on the rack cabinet.

And we'll be able to screw that together and it's all done.

So, that's about it from me.

And I'll turn it over to Charlie.

N3CRE.

I hope you found, uh, the information needed on your, uh, your American Flyer locomotive.

N3CRE KC3OOK.

KC3OOK.

OK, Bill.

Yes, I did.

N3CRE.

Uh, thank you very much.

I, uh, did make contact with the, uh, NEC on Sunday.

Uh, very interesting group.

Uh, Sunday at 9:30.

And I'd go for trains and, you know, things related to, uh, buying trains and making bids on eBay and stuff like that.

So, it was very interesting.

And, um, Ron, I'd like to wish you a happy birthday.

And, uh, other than that, I haven't really been on, other than listening and haven't been on the radio, looking at the snowstorm, taking care of all the snowy lady issues.

I have a turn over to Renee, uh, uh, at K3FF.

I'm Charlie, uh, K3FF here.

Happy birthday, Ron.

If it's, uh, if it's your birthday today, I guess it is.

Um, this week in radio, I spent pretty much all the time, radio-wise, on a, uh, project, uh, ATU-1000.

If anybody has seen the ATU-100s, uh, they scaled it up, uh, put together a kit.

I got it off of, uh, Amazon.

It's, uh, a design built by, uh, N7DDC, who then put it out there for anybody who wants it.

And the Chinese gobbled it up and are making all these variants of the ATU-100.

So I got the 1,000, and I put it together.

Uh, I modified the design a little bit because I have a separate, a CPU and a separate enclosure,

then the relay and, uh, high, uh, high-voltage stuff, uh, the, uh, RF stuff.

And, uh, uh, it works pretty well.

I use it on my Clipperton, in fact, and now the Clipperton has its own, uh,

uh, uh, uh, uh, automatic antenna tutor, uh, for it.

So I fired it up with a, uh, I fired it up with an 830.

So, that's my vintage slash brand new, uh, design.

Other than that, not much else in radio, a little de-axing, but, uh, but that's about it.

So, uh, let me turn it over to Jim, uh, AF-3Z, uh, K-3FF.

Okay, thank you, Rene.

AF-3Z here.

Good evening, everybody.

And, Mike, thanks for hosting here tonight.

And, uh, yeah, my ham radio was sort of normal.

My normal CW up here and that kind of stuff.

I might have mentioned this.

What is this?

This is the workbench.

I might have mentioned it on the round table.

I don't remember.

But, uh, one of the ham radio highlights, I guess, was one of the days.

I get on CW when it works out for us, like around 1 o'clock during the day.

And after that, sometimes I, and we get on 10 meters.

10 miles away, 10 meters, that's just fine.

And, uh, so then I listen around and the one day I heard one station, it was, uh, uh, somebody on St.

St.

Martin.

I think I did mention this last night.

But anyway, and then, uh, two in Western Africa.

One in Mali and one in Western Sahara.

And, uh, so that's always fun to, uh, I'm not a big DXer, but I still get a kick out of it.

When I, uh, happen to hear somebody.

And they were coming in strong.

They were probably from, the guys from Africa were probably coming strong and stronger than the guy from 10 miles away.

So that's always kind of fun.

That was probably my main thing.

The other thing is not so much on the air, but, uh, the Straight Key Century Club's, uh, anniversary of month starts on January 6th.

It starts on January 2nd.

At least the activity does.

Uh, and, uh, I help to coordinate, you guys have heard this before, coordinate three land operators who operate with a special call sign.

So as of, uh, the 15th, which is today, started last night at 7 o'clock because it was UTC today.

And, uh, anyway, we started scheduling operators, uh, for the operation, which starts on the 2nd.

So, uh, my, uh, email and, uh, computer activity is picking up to help to manage, manage that stuff.

I think we have about 10 to 16 operators so far signed up to operate with K3Y/3.

So, that month, January is a busy month for me, ham radio-wise, but not all on the air.

Probably most not on the air.

All right.

Where am I here on the list?

Ah, I think it was John that was in there.

KD3EE, is that right?

Hopefully.

Uh, AF3Z.

Thanks, Jim.

This is KD3EE.

Uh, John in Landisville.

Am I making it in okay?

John, you're sounding really good tonight.

Uh, W3MOW.

Um, I've been traveling and not around.

Um, but, while I was in Florida, I got to see some manatees that come up the, uh, come up the one river to look for some warmer water.

And, uh, I activated that park.

It's my 40th unique park.

And that's a little milestone that they give you.

Uh, there's a little graph showing you when you get there.

So, that's, you know, 40 parks sounds like a lot.

Excuse me.

Um, and, uh, I've been traveling and not around.

Um, but, while I was in Florida, I got to see some manatees that come up the, uh, come up the one river to look for some warmer water.

And, uh, I activated that park.

It's my 40th unique park.

And that's a, that's a little milestone that they give you.

There's a little graph showing you when you get there.

So, that's, you know, 40 parks sounds like a lot.

Excuse me.

Um, I reproduced an all-star issue I had.

I took the all-star node with me.

I didn't use it.

But, um, when I brought it back and I plugged it in, like, immediately I tried to, like, dial it back in to 985.

And it kept, it kept giving me that error that I had reported, like, six months ago.

Um, and Jim said, no, every, or Joe said, everything's fine.

Um, I think it just needed time to, like, re-register with the network.

And, um, it's 10 minutes later when I tried to connect it up.

Obviously, it's working right now.

Um, so if you, if you have trouble with that, it might just need some time to settle.

Take a moment.

Um, I've noticed, um, I, I have down an antenna because that one fell over.

Um, so I'm on all-star.

But I did plug that bigger radio into one of my other smaller antennas that I have strung up into the tree.

And, um, I've, interestingly, I found that the TYT mobile can hear, um, 985 just fine.

Um, where that same antenna plugged into, like, a little Quan Shang HT can't, can't hear it at all.

Like, even if I, uh, monitor and turn off squelch, it's still barely there.

So, kind of interesting.

Um, neither radio is really expensive.

Um, and finally, uh, I've not been doing a lot of radio stuff, but I have been working on the advent of code,

which is, uh, a series of, uh, puzzles for, for people coding.

Uh, you change, you, they give you the puzzle input and everything and what you're supposed to get.

You write the code and, and see if you can get the right answer and work your way through.

So they have 12, 12 problems to work on.

So I've been working on that.

Uh, let's see.

Next up.

Uh, Leon, Alpha, uh, Alpha 3, Lima Hotel.

This is KD3 EE.

KD3H, KSAT, good evening everybody.

Happy birthday, Ron.

I just wanted to, uh, say hi to everyone and, uh, give it back to Leon.

KD3H, KSAT.

See that?

Got a flat tire and a bust.

I had a jacket up and, and change the tire.

Let me reset.

This is AA3OH.

You know, you know, you know, pour me a cup of hot tea.

For it is the best in the land.

I'll sit here and drink it like a man.

I'll hop and board my old snowboard and snowboard all over the land.

This type of weather?

Yeah.

Why not talk like that?

Well, forget being on the bus for all the snow.

It's just ride out and snowboard and have fun.

What did I do this past week in ham radio?

I don't know.

I just run 80 meters.

I just have my stuff in 80 meters that I play with early in the morning.

And, um, and some days it's not so early.

But that's, that's about what I do.

Uh, and, uh, and, uh, you know, besides snowboarding and waxing down my, my sled waiting to go, you know, flying down the hills, you know.

Well, yeah, we got to talk like at this time of the year.

Talking like that in July doesn't work.

But nonetheless, I didn't do an awful lot more than that on ham radio.

Nothing special to talk about, but it works.

And I, I'm, I'm glad I have what I have.

All right, it goes back to Ron, no, no, no, workbench control, AA-30H.

Okay, very good. AA-3LH, KC-3H-2Z, and the Monday Night Workbench. This is W3MOW.

Gene, it was nice, uh, to hear you tonight.

Uh, put you on the log. Thanks for checking in. Thanks for your quick comments there.

Um, let's see. As far as, uh, well, great comments all around, uh, from everyone.

I'd like to just mention that there's a lot going on at the, excuse me, in the 985 user group.

Just goes to show, uh, the different aspects of the ham radio service and what everyone's interested in.

So, if you're listening on the side there, you can kind of, uh, see what, uh, folks are doing on the repeater in amateur radio.

Um, as far as myself, I haven't been really doing, uh, ham radio related stuff.

Although I am going to look into, uh, getting a Shari hat, potentially.

Uh, so I could do all-star in the mobile, which would be really cool.

Um, I do have a Raspberry Pi 3B hanging around somewhere that's not being used.

So I was looking at, uh, maybe getting a Shari hat.

I think that's the easiest way to make an all-star note.

That seems, uh, relatively affordable. They're like $100 or something like that.

So, that may be something I'll be exploring into the new year.

Uh, that's really all I have, uh, as far as comments on amateur radio in the past week.

Uh, let's see.

All right, so, uh, with that being said, there was really only one discussion question, uh, with Jim.

So we'll get to that, uh, here in a second.

I just want to make a general comment real quick before we go into this part of the net.

And it's just that the workbench participation is most important to us here on 985.

We just encourage all stations to make some comments and share experiences.

Knowledge level doesn't matter here on the repeater.

So, just like you were doing before, pick up the mic and have some fun.

And Jim, I hope this is a very in-depth question to keep us busy for the next 30 minutes, 30 or so minutes.

Um, but also I do want to make note that even though the net does, you know, we try to make the net last about an hour or so, try not to go over.

Uh, sometimes it goes a little past an hour.

Uh, but I do want to say that if, uh, if stations want to carry on the workbench, uh, later past 9 o'clock, that's absolutely fine.

Continue the conversation and, uh, maybe do deeper dives and questions.

That's obviously encouraged, uh, by Joe.

So, with that said, uh, let's go to Jim with your discussion question for the evening.

AF3Z, this is W3MOW.

I have a question for you.

A3OH has a quick question.

Oh, sure, Leon, go ahead.

Actual modulation background, a deviation. Does it sound any better?

I think it sounds good. Uh, uh, Chuck and Ron and everyone else, how do you guys, uh, think Leon sounds now?

I think it could come down even more. What do you think, Ron?

Just reaching for the microphone. That's WA3VE over here in the lab.

Uh, yeah, I would back it down a little bit more. Maybe another, uh, try another, uh, uh, let's see, uh, maybe 20 degrees on the pot.

on the pot. It could stand to go down a little bit more, Leon. Why don't you give it a shot and let us know what it sounds like.

Thank you.

You still there, Leon? There's a couple clicks, Leon. I don't know if that was you, but there's no audio coming through.

Thank you.

All right, very good. Thanks, Mike.

AF3Z here.

This is sort of a follow-up on various other conversations, I think,

but asking for honesty and openness and transparency and all that good stuff.

At times, it seems like recently we got on the subject,

somebody I think asked about what do you do with all these solar numbers,

like the K index and the KFC index and KFT index and all that stuff.

Yes, I'm kidding.

But really, folks, how do you deal with the whole thing of propagation,

the solar activity and that stuff?

And if you do use the numbers or go by the numbers,

I'm curious how you do that or what you do if you check the numbers.

Does that change where you operate or does that direct where you operate or that kind of stuff?

Anybody have practical what you do with the solar numbers and stuff?

Or you can also just say how you tend to pick your frequencies to operate.

And, of course, talking mainly HF here, so I apologize for that.

But do you just have a general sense and sort of go and find a band or whatever?

But that's the thing.

What's your experience with all those solar numbers?

And to what degree is that practical in your amateur radio practice?

Okay. Very good, Jim.

Before we call out to the workbench, I'll share my general comments on it.

This is coming from someone who doesn't operate HF very much at all,

and I need to get back into it, of course.

And I know I can.

I just got to get off my butt and do it.

But for someone who watched people on YouTube, that's how I learned most of the time.

I remember I think I got my license right at the lower part of the solar cycle,

so not the good part, but the worst parts for HF.

And a lot of people online would say,

well, you've still got to go out there and operate.

And, yeah, even though these numbers say that,

or these charts and all say that the bands are going to be dead, so to speak,

most times they're alive and well.

Everyone thinks the same, that the bands are not going to be good.

So no one puts a call out there.

But really the bands are doing okay enough to work someone.

But if everyone has the same mentality of, oh, this chart says the bands are not good,

well, if you don't really put your call out there and try to make contact with anyone,

then, yeah, the bands are going to be dead.

But I do understand your question.

I know that wasn't a good answer.

But just based on what I've learned via people on YouTube and watching people operate HF,

I thought that was a pretty interesting concept when you look at it.

But anyway, that's my piece of the puzzle.

Do we have a station that wants to get started with Jim's question?

If so, please call now.

This is W3MOW.

I think you came in good, but your audio just was sounding a little off on that transmission.

Doubling with us.

Is this any better?

Okay, that's what it was, Chuck, there.

Yeah, Ron, you were okay.

I think Leon was doubling with you.

Mike, how do you want to proceed?

Do you want to do Leon first or do you want me to respond to the question?

Why don't we just take a pause with the question real quick and we'll get Leon in here to get him squared away. So go ahead Leon.

I'm going to take a commercial break, so how do I sound now?

Feedback welcome.

Go ahead.

It's doubling. Run, transmit. Very good. Wait for you guys to figure that out. Leon, you're still a little hot, but nonetheless, it'd be interesting to know, maybe after the workbench we can get you squared away, but you're still a little hot.

But, you know, it's a little more bearable than what it was. Chuck, what do you think? NA3CW, WA3VEE.

NA3CW, I think it's, excuse me, I don't know how much of it is mic distortion or voice distortion or overdrive, but as far as level goes, it's much better than it was.

And I would say it's at the don't worry about it point at this point. Back to Nat.

Well, how do I sound? I'm doing the same mic.

You sound fine, but you don't have as big a voice as Leon does.

No, that's a thing. Yeah. So I would probably be better. Yeah, because he's got a strong voice.

Okay, Leon, glad we got you squared away and we could play around a little bit more after the net if that's okay. And Jim, go ahead with your comment. I think you called me. You said something in there.

I was curious what other things, but Ron, you were really hot tonight on volume and stuff. It's not distorted much, but a little scratchy on the edges.

But you may be able to back off from the mic a little bit too, I think. So, does somebody else agree or are my ears going bad?

Very, very good. How's this? Is this better? I haven't used this radio in a while. This is an FTM 100, just like I have in the car. But this is on my lab bench. I haven't used this in a while. So, is this any better? Chuck, what do you think?

Much better. Much better.

Very good. Mike, would you like me to proceed with the answer?

Yeah, Ron, this is a good time now. This is great. This is good workbench stuff here. We're ironing out all the technical stuff. I like it. Yeah, go ahead, Ron.

W3MOWNNNWA3VEE over here on my lab bench. Very good. Well, this is what a lot of repeaters and a lot of nets don't do.

You've got lousy, and this includes the public service folks, if any of them are listening, quite frankly. You've got lousy transmissions. You've got low audio. You've got all kinds of distortion and nobody says anything. It's all meant in good constructive criticism. And I sincerely appreciate the feedback. I was not aware that I was driving it that hard. So, all very good. It's definitely appreciated, at least by me, for sure.

Okay, so getting back to solar stuff. This reminds me that I am remiss in sending to Joe, and maybe to you, Jim. I'll send it to both you, Jim, and Joe, and Phil.

You guys can decide if you want to put this on the w3gmsrepeater.com website.

But I mentioned, I think, last time that I did a presentation on solar weather,

and there is, I think it's on page 32 of the presentation.

I did not do all the slides, believe me.

I just highlighted a few of them.

But there is a handy-dandy red, green, and yellow chart that basically says

what propagation should be like in general for each of the indexes.

If an index is between this range to that range, it's green, and correspondingly yellow and red.

I just started using these numbers because I did not understand any of this,

thus why I did the presentation of Pottstown back in early October.

And, Renee, I think you were there for that one.

But in any event, what I also do is I pay more attention,

I still pay more attention to things like DX Heat, DX Summit,

and general overall just tuning the bands to see what is open and what's not.

And I don't think that just because we might be coming off a solar cycle that all the bands are going to be absolutely dead.

There still will be contacts to be made out there.

I don't know if that helps or not, but let me turn it back to you, Mike.

I'm going to get this PDF of this presentation sent over to you three gentlemen,

and then we'll go from there.

Chuck, I'll include you on that list as well.

W3MOW and Annette, WA3VE.

Yeah, very good, Ron.

Good comment there and great information, of course, to pass along.

Do we have any other stations with comments for Jim?

Please call.

3, Mike Foxtrot, Bravo, checking in and a comment.

November 3, India, Lima, Sierra, the other ILS, checking in and a comment as well.

All right.

Sorry for the delay there.

Just adding you to the logbook there.

So I acknowledge Mike, W3MFB, and Travis, N3 ILS.

Mike, go ahead with your comments.

Good evening to you.

W3MFB.

First and foremost, good to hear you, Mike.

MOW, good to hear you out there.

I haven't heard your voice in a while.

It's awesome to hear you.

And everybody on the net, howdy, howdy.

Hope you're staying warm.

Jim, practical.

Oh, and Ron, if you could put me on that presentation PDF thing, that would be awesome.

Jim, I understand it a little bit.

And for what I use practically, besides just listening to the bands or whatever band you decide to get on.

But for me, the KNDX, if it's in the fours, you know that a flare happened and the bands are going to be noisy.

I kind of like what Mike said.

You know how on QRZ it has that little blurb there and it says, oh, 10 through 12 is dead, you know, in the red, right?

That's not necessarily true.

It never is, honestly.

And I think Mike had a good point there saying that, oh, people see that, they're not going to get on and call CQ or whatever.

I think it's crazy.

Because, as you know, I listen to 11 meter.

And 11 meter, if I start hearing European stations, I know that, you know, 10 meter is going to be open.

I go over to 10 meter and thankfully, lately, people are on it.

CW area for you and the voice and digital.

But sometimes, especially even during the peak of a solar cycle, I would go over to 10 after seeing hearing stations in Europe and Germany and then Western, or I should say Eastern Europe.

And then I'd go over to 10 meter and it was dead.

And I was like, what's wrong with these people?

It's wide open.

But, anyway, the other really practical thing is that I do pay attention to is the MUF, the Maximum Usable Frequency.

And, honestly, that's probably the easiest bit of data you could use online.

You can look it up, look up MUF map or MUF chart or whatever.

And it will give you the whole world in a color-coded area.

And it will tell you the resident frequency in a certain area of the world.

And it's really, really good because, especially in the last couple days, I think it was Friday and Saturday, the MUF was around 32 megahertz.

So anything below 32 megahertz was gold, you know, in the states, in our area and throughout the country.

And if I see it real high like that, I usually try to get on 6 meters, even though it's not close to 50 megahertz, but it's close enough.

And try there, so the MUF maximum usable frequency, good to pay attention to.

The other bit on the QRZ chart is usually the sunspot number.

You know, but anything in the triple digits, so 100 and over, is great, great conditions.

That's easy to remember.

But I've seen it, sunspot numbers as low as 67 and still even work other countries.

So I don't know how trusty that is.

But in a practical sense, the MUF, and then listening on the bands.

And if you don't hear anything, call CQ.

It's very important to call CQ.

I don't care if that chart says everything's in the red.

Call CQ.

There's somebody out there.

I'm sure of it.

Make sure it's a good call.

Like, don't just be like, W3 or CQ, CQ, W3, MFB, and nail it.

Because I like what Eric KJ4YZI said the other day on his YouTube channel.

That if you're calling CQ, make sure that you do a long run of it.

You know, say what's going on.

You know, call CQ.

Throw your call sign out.

You know, say you're looking for a contact.

Make sure it's a long run.

Because he said a lot of people nowadays with all the waterfalls are just looking for peaks and valleys.

And they're not going to see a small, quick CQ, CQ, CQ, W3, MFB.

They're not going to see that.

So with the folks that do have those radios, that kind of makes sense.

I hope that helps.

I'm going to pass it back to W3, MOW, W3, MFB.

Thank you, Mike, for letting me check in.

Absolutely, Mike.

A great comment there.

And, yeah, very well, Pete.

Thanks for checking in to the net tonight.

We'll pass it over to Travis.

You had some comments.

N3ILS's W3, MOW.

Thank you, Mike.

Greetings to everybody from freezing Minnesota.

This is going to be my last net checking in from Minnesota this year.

Thankfully, coming home on Thursday.

So that will be good.

But, yeah, it's nice and freezing here.

Yeah, my comment is kind of a funny comment.

It's really just wallpaper for me.

Those numbers are sitting in ham clock running up on a display in my office slash shack.

And it's just a number that I see and I look at and I say, you know, one of these days I need to learn how to do that.

So, anyway, sorry for not having a real good answer.

But thanks for letting me check in and I'll pass it back to you.

This is N3ILS.

Back to net.

Well, Travis, I can sympathize with you there.

Thanks for checking in tonight, Travis, and thanks for your comment.

Let's see.

We'll send it over to – actually, we'll call out one more time.

See if we have any station that wants to help Jim out here or not help him out, but share your viewpoint.

Give us a call.

Go ahead, Chuck.

I liked Mike's comment about the MUF.

The general rule of thumb is you're going to get best range, I think, at something like 90% of the MUF.

So, and if you've got a high MUF, it doesn't mean that everything below it's going to be good because it may be, you know,

a total bomb out on the low frequencies, the low bands.

But I have to put in, you know, my agreement with – just because, you know, it says conditions are poor.

As I often say, I am on the PMAM net.

And many a time we've gotten on there and it was poor conditions.

And I kind of like poor conditions because that means we don't get long range – when the band goes long and we get long range QR Nancy and QR M.

Because we have enough power and online receivers or whatever to go from Maine to Virginia, which is as far as we ever go.

So just because it's not good DX weather doesn't mean it's no good.

And also, yes, the idea of, you know, things are booming on CB and nobody's on 10.

I was listening on 10 today up and down and it was basically a graveyard, but I'm hearing beacons running.

And the beacons are coming through just fine.

And so it's either a case of either everybody listening to everybody listening or, again, people looking for bumps on that band scope.

So, you know, you can't beat a long CQ.

So there you go.

Back to net, NA3CW.

All right, very good, Chuck.

We'll send it back to you, Jim, for some follow-up.

AF3Z, this is W3MOW.

All right, thank you, Mike, Chuck, Ron, everybody here.

Mike, the other Mike.

Yeah, very good.

I got a chuckle, Mike MFB, out of your comment when you started to say make a long call because if you're not on there long,

people aren't going to see you on the band scope.

And I don't operate.

I don't have anything that has one of those newfangled displays at this point.

So the same thing is even more true if you're just listening around the bands.

You know, a longer call is more like a better chance of somebody drifting by your frequency if you call for a while.

And I never thought about the fact that they might not pick it up on the visual band scope.

I forget about those scopes and wonder how do people know I was where I was.

And then I realize, oh, they can probably see me on there.

So anyway, that's one side comment here.

And yeah, there are various times in my career I've looked at the numbers, but I've never really gone by the numbers or worked, you know, tried to get practical with the numbers.

My way of operating is I have a general idea of which bands are going to be good at what times of day, that kind of thing.

And I know a little bit about the gray line when you're around the sunset hour.

So I'll sort of go by that.

I mentioned the straight key century club thing in January.

A lot of times when I get on there, I will start at 10 meters and see if I, you know, start calling CQs, see if I can stir anything up there, even if I don't hear anything.

And then I'll gradually work down the bands, go to 15 and 20.

For some of that, it's not a contest, so we can use work bands, but I don't have the work bands at the moment.

So, but I'll start high in frequency and then work my way down.

So that's another way I deal with it.

And the other thing, I've mentioned this before, I'm sure.

Talk about beacons.

All I have to do, at least in the CW world, is go about 70 kilohertz up from the bottom where the digital stuff happens.

And I find this on 10 meters all the time.

It'll be, seem like a dead band, but I'm sure hearing the digital stations on there.

So that's another thing I use as an indicator.

Just listen around the digital frequencies and see what I hear.

But yeah, I've never been successful.

I sort of understand some of the numbers, but generally I'm more just get on and see what I can find.

I mentioned being surprised by working Western Africa about a week ago.

And so when you're not expecting and you're not really looking, you find those things and it's sort of like extra fun.

It's, wow, guess what I heard today.

So it's always kind of fun to just search around and see what I can see.

But generally I won't get to 10 meters in the evening unless I find that things are really rocking up there for some reason.

Or even 20 meters later on in the day.

A lot of times that sort of fades out, but not always.

So it's worth checking.

So very good.

Thanks for all the comments.

I was curious if anybody out there looks at the numbers and then says, okay, I'm going to go to 28.183 or something.

Thank you.

Back to you there, Mike.

W3MOWAF3.

Absolutely, Jim.

Thanks for checking in tonight.

Thanks for your discussion question.

It helped the NET out a little bit with some good dialogue.

And I appreciate everyone for chiming in and sharing experiences and comments there.

Do we have any other questions for the NET before we close it down?

If so, please call now.

Thank you.

Okay, let me make sure I have the call right.

I think it was N3OGF.

Is that correct?

That is correct.

And the name is John.

Juliet Oscar Hotel, November.

Okay, very good, John.

Thanks for checking in to the NET tonight.

And go ahead with your comment.

Yes, I tried selling a corn dealer rows of uncirculated corn from the mint nine years ago. He did not want them. I know a guy who has to on-row $4,000 worth of pennies his dad rolled up because the bank will not take them. Rolled up, they want to move.

Well, John, you were sounding good there in the beginning, then you kind of fell off and then your audio went out and then the transmission ended. So I don't know if you're operating low power, but we only got about half of your transmission there.

Yeah, I'm on a Bofang HT.

Okay, yeah, we heard about the bank. They wouldn't take rolls, I think you were saying, but then you kind of cut out towards the end there.

Did you catch the part about the corn dealer did not want new uncirculated quarters? He says everybody has them. Everybody's trying to sell them.

Yeah, we just didn't get the last part there, but okay, very good. Well, thanks for checking into the net and thanks for your comment there on the state quarters. Do we have any other, any questions for the rest of the night or any, does any station have general comments before we close the net down for the good of the group? If so, please call now.

Go ahead, Jim.

I just wanted to mention that I would gladly, John KFT, I would gladly give you 20 cents apiece for those quarters. AF3 is it?

I heard that comment, AF3 said. We will talk. We will talk. I'm trying to think what the dates are.

I don't have a loose one to look at the dates, but we're sorting through and we're slowly getting there. I'm looking at a container that has 200 New York ones in it at the moment. WA3KFT.

WA8CRW.

W8CRW.

Go ahead, CR, with your comment.

The quarters you want are 1964 or earlier. Excuse me. Right now, they're over $11 a piece for the silver content.

WA3KFT.

Yeah, CR, those are the good ones, not the newer state quarters, right? All right. Anyway, we're going to, since nothing was heard there, we're going to close down the workbench for the evening. And of course, feel free to continue conversations after the net closes down. Keep the repeater busy. So, let's see here. So this is a good question.

So, let's see here. So this concludes the workbench for this evening. I want to thank all stations for checking in and participating during the net. Of course, a big thank you to Joe W3GMS for allowing us to use the repeater for the workbench. And then again, please remember to join us this Thursday at 8:00 p.m. for the 985 Thursday Night Roundtable. And that's going to be hosted by Luke, KC3SCY. I wish everyone a great week ahead. 7-3 for now. And this is W3MOW. Now clear for the next week.

Let's see here. So this concludes the workbench for this evening.

I want to thank all stations for checking in and participating during the net.

Of course, a big thank you to Joe, W3GMS, for allowing us to use the repeater for the workbench.

And then, again, please remember to join us this Thursday at 8 p.m. for the 985 Thursday Night Roundtable.

And that's going to be hosted by Luke, KC3SCY.

I wish everyone a great week ahead, 7-3 for now.

And this is W3MOW, now clear for the evening, 7-3 all.

John, are you back with us? This is NHBCW.

Chuck, I'm thinking of taking this radio over to somebody that has a scope and set it up right.

That's what I have in mind doing.

Playing games with it next week or so, take it to somebody and get it set up.

Very good.

Yeah, it would be good to get the aviation set and all that whatnot on a service monitor.

Yeah, that's the right way to do it, I guess.

So, very good. NHBCW.

Bring it to your place, hook it up. I don't have a monitor to do that. I know Joe does. I don't know if Joe has time or not. But the next few days or somewhere at the beginning of next week, take it and get that done.

I have a service monitor. It's old, but it works.

It don't have to be new. This radio is old and it works. So, it's the same thing. Well, I can't get it. Just get it set up right. I know the guy I got this thing from. I got it from a silent key. He had a real soft voice when he talked. You know, you almost had a hearing age to hear him talk. And when I talk like that, I don't sound bad, do I?

No, you don't. Just look at my calendar here. I have a door in the day. I have a dentist appointment on Monday, but otherwise my days are pretty good next week. This week they're pretty full.

Mine. So are mine. I got them. First. There's a meeting on a Wednesday, but next week we'll sound bad. We have your phone number. We can give you a call.

Very good. We'll get something arranged.

things set up right. Then the guys will go deaf when I talk. Because I don't talk like this guy talk. When he talk, he was just so quiet. We had the radio set up so he would talk. But I don't, I'm just not quiet like that.

Very good. We'll work something out.

NA3CW clear.

NA3CW A3OH.

AF3Z. WA3VEE. Still around, Jim? And are you strumming your guitar?

It depends how you define strumming. I'm more picking, finger picking. Go ahead, Ron.

Very good. I sent you, Chuck, Mike MFB and already got a response from Mike. And you're welcome, Mike. And Phil and Joe, the PDF of this solar weather presentation. And I apologize sincerely for procrastinating immensely.

And not getting over to you guys just after I finished it with the Pottstown group. And I think you heard me mention that the reason I did it was because I knew nothing about this stuff to begin with.

And it's a good way for me to learn it. Or at least to get familiar enough to where I could relate what the information was. But if you look through it, there are a couple, like, quick reference, almost like cards, that you can print out or just have available.

And they'll give you the various indices in a column on the left-hand side, like K-index and number of sunspots and flares and A-index and all this stuff.

And what it will do across the top, I think it's across the top.

I've got to pull it up myself.

Remember, it'll have red, green, and yellow, and it'll basically say, I think I started to talk about this.

If the K-index is like less than three, conditions are good.

If it's four to six, conditions are deteriorating or fair.

If it's greater than seven, everything's blacked out.

So that'll give you some indication anyway.

So I hope it's helpful, and I hope if you guys decide, you can feel free to put it on the website.

It's absolutely not a must.

But we've talked about it for two workbenches now, so it might be of some value to somebody.

A-F-3-Z-W-A-3.

V-E-E.

Very good, Ron.

And yeah, I can't see any reason why we wouldn't put it on there.

The big challenge is, I forget what I was looking at the other day, something Joe had mentioned.

And I wondered where it was, and it wasn't on the kind of, well, it's a word I'm looking for.

The kind of account we have and the kind of system that that has done is, it's basically set up for blogging.

You know, where you put on blogs every day and people read them and stuff.

You know, you also have static pages and things like that that stay the same.

But whatever Joe was referring to was on one of the, they don't call it a blog.

Maybe it's, no, not a post.

I forget what they're called right now.

But anyway, I looked down the list and there it was on one of those, you know, sort of a blog entry type things.

And it wasn't on one of the pages as such.

So sometimes it's hard to figure out.

Well, you see, it's a search.

That's the way I found it.

You can use search and find stuff on there.

I'm curious, and I don't know if you know this one, but I know, well, it's like with the weather forecast.

I've gotten up in the morning and said no chance of rain.

And then, you know, there's a deluge around noon.

To what degree can you get real-time numbers on that stuff?

Do you know that?

Is there other sites that sort of show you what they are right now?

AF3-Z.

Over to QRZ, there's a panel that you'll see on there.

In fact, I'll tell you exactly where it is.

Hold on.

Bring it right up.

Okay.

Right now, that panel, if you go on QRZ.com,

that panel is the second from the right and the fourth from the left.

It has all those different numbers in it.

It looks like right now, and this is pretty, this is pretty, I found this to be pretty up-to-date.

And it says, for instance, it's hard to read, actually.

It's small.

It's so small.

Here it is.

Oh, it's much better.

It's taken from what's called HAMQSL.

And it's basically their solar sub-website.

And basically, it says solar data propagation.

And it says here, you know, VHF conditions.

It'll say HF conditions.

For instance, right now, and this is fairly, fairly, I would presume it's fairly real time.

80 meters, 40 meters, nighttime right now is good.

30 meters, 20 meters is good.

17, 15, fair.

And 12 and 10 are closed, or poor.

So, I haven't really actually, I don't think there is really, yes, there is a time stamp.

Exactly.

It says, yeah, 16 December, 0200 GMT.

So, that's like right now, pretty much.

So, it seems to be, seems to be pretty much up-to-date.

Go ahead.

That's one of those things, Ron, I've seen it there numerous, many times of numerous times,

and never really paid attention to it, had to look at that.

And I didn't realize it was, you know, real time.

A number of places you could go, and again, I've never really gotten serious about it.

And I imagine it's like a lot of other stuff.

If you use it on a regular basis, you're going to start to see, you know,

comparing the numbers to what you actually find on the bands,

and it'll become much more helpful than reading over the information once

and then trying to look at it and figure it out probably isn't as productive.

There we go.

We used that word.

Very good.

And I'll have to check, yeah, get that stuff up on the website.

So, that would be good.

Something else I was thinking of there, but I forget what now.

But, yeah, I've said this before in other places.

I like sort of the egg hunt style of ham radio operating.

Not going on the DX websites.

You know, like a...

Boy, my brain isn't working.

You know, not one of the...

Oh, my goodness.

Anyway, one of the sites that tells you, you know, what's on the bands right now,

like going on RBN and seeing who has been spotted in recent history.

Seeing a spot or something, then going to that and working.

I prefer to just turn on the band and see what I can find and be surprised.

So, that's the egg hunt theory of ham radio operation and other things, too.

Just get on there and see what you can find.

But I'm not saying that's for everybody.

That's my style.

So, very good on that.

I hope the cats are doing all right there.

Trying to think.

Sometime recently, I ran into a cat.

It was very nice.

But I can't think of where the cat was.

Anyway, AF3 is it.

3MFT for the comment.

Good, Mike.

I'll turn it over to you here in a second.

And, JT, it is on its way right now to you.

There we go.

So, it sent right off to you.

And, yes.

Hopefully, as Jim indicated, it should be on the website for sure.

But, yeah.

It's all pretty good.

Excellent.

Go ahead, Mike.

Pick it up.

W3MFB in the group.

W-A-3-V-E-E-E.

Sorry about the interruption, gentlemen.

But it's on topic completely.

And I'm going to email this because I had to look for it.

Tip all to you.

It's a website.

Solar.

Whiskey5.

Mike, Mike, whiskey.

Dot net.

It says, easier than that.

What's on QRZ, Jim.

This is for you.

But, Ron, you can see it, too.

But I've used this.

And I post it on my page every once in a while.

And it just makes it easy for everybody to understand.

It gives you a little explanation, as well, on the solar data currently.

So, let me email this to you.

I'll let you guys get back to it.

And I'll sit on the side.

Over to Ron.

W-A-3-V-E-E-W-3-M-F-B.

Good, Mike.

What was that site again?

Solar.

Whiskey5.

Who?

Solar.

Whiskey5.

Mike.

Whiskey.

Dot net.

Got it.

QSL all the way around.

Excellent.

Very good.

There's also one that I referenced in that presentation called Solar Ham.

And, yeah, you're right, Jim.

I looked at that panel a million times.

And Melody Bowers, who you may have met back in the summertime field day up at the field day site,

she's the secretary up there at Pottstown.

And she was looking for presentations back in the spring.

And so early spring.

And I said, you know what, I'm going to do one on solar weather.

And she says, oh, that's great.

What do you know about it?

And I said, absolutely nothing.

And she got it right away.

And she said, okay, cool.

And that's exactly, as I mentioned several times, that's why I decided to do it.

So it's really handy.

And like I said, you'll find a couple interesting references.

Here's the thing with that presentation.

I only really did the first handful of slides because the rest of it is pretty much reference material.

There's a lot of sites that talk about solar weather and so on and so forth.

There's things that are relevant to Pennsylvania.

There's things that are national.

There's things to ban stuff and all that.

That's all the back end of the presentation.

And all I did there was I said, okay, folks, we're not going to talk about this stuff,

but it's here in the presentation for your reference if you feel so inclined.

So there's more information than I talked about in the actual presentation for sure.

So don't fret that there's 643,000 slides there that you have to go through for sure.

AF3Z and the group to take it, WA3VE.

And AF3Z here.

Yeah, I sort of chuckled myself.

One of the best ways to learn something is to teach it.

You know that too, I'm sure.

Because teaching it, to be able to speak halfway coherently, you have to more than just sort of know about it.

You've got to understand what you're talking about and everything.

And that's a good way to learn stuff.

And it's a fun thing too.

Like you, I enjoy digging into something like that, putting something together,

and trying to share it with people.

I did one at the...

And it hit me at a bad time and I didn't realize...

I don't know how.

Anyway, it was not a good time for me and I probably should have said, no, not yet.

But anyway, it was talking about...

Oh, the coax stub type filters, you know, for bandpass or unbandpass.

And the quarter weight stubs.

And I just... I didn't do a good job of presenting it.

And I realized later it was a time when my brain was fried anyway.

I should have tried it.

But I learned a lot in doing it nonetheless.

I got a little confused.

You know, when you have...

Now, I've got to remember myself.

I... yeah.

When...

I'll forget it.

I can't get it out of my head now.

But the point is I got confused and we had another problem going on trying to demonstrate it in the meeting.

And the problem was not...

You know, the stubs are meant to, like, if you're on 20 meters, the stub for 40 meters was supposed to, you know, short out, so to speak, the 40 meter frequencies.

So you don't hear them on 20.

But trying to do this in the same room, the problem wasn't that.

It was getting over... you know, overloading the receiver.

So anyway, I had the wrong thing in my mind and it got all jumbled up.

So I probably confused everybody more than it helped.

But besides that, it was an interesting one to do.

And I was learning as I was trying to do it anyway.

So there you go.

What day of time is it?

Oh, 921.

The night is young.

Tomorrow's my dishwashing thing.

I've got to pick somebody up on the way.

So I'll be trying to get horizontal before too long anyway.

And this is one of those nights, Ron.

And fortunately with cats, you don't have to walk them at night.

That's good too.

But on a night like this, it's so cold, I'm glad I don't have to walk the dog.

AF3 is it.

Very good.

Mike, I'll send it over to you here in a second.

But yeah, you're absolutely right.

And to answer your question, you're doing just great.

I've got to rearrange things here on the console because they're taking up about 30 inches of it on the left, which used to be reserved for my reference materials.

You know, my band plans and the frequency lists and all that kind of stuff that I have programmed into the radios and all that.

So I have to rearrange some things here.

But nonetheless, they're all nice and happy.

There's two of them.

Two of them are here and one is in the other room just next to the station here, sleeping in an old chair that is very, very comfy that is almost flaking off.

So I've got to get a cheap slip cover and put on it because the chair is too soft to get rid of, if you know.

But the cat likes it a lot.

And it's very comfy for somebody if they're visiting the shack over here, which hasn't happened and will not happen until I get this straightened out.

I'm not very close to that, actually.

But nonetheless, that's where the other one is.

So, yeah, the one thing that is very nice is that they are very low maintenance.

I see who my sister-in-law has to go through in the morning with two little hounds.

And basically, one is a Pomeranian.

She's like a jar of coiled-up springs, basically.

And she gets started in the morning.

It's like just all over the place.

And she's got to, regardless of the weather, and come right out of bed, come downstairs to the kitchen before my sister-in-law even gets any breakfast.

Got to get out in the cold weather and walk the dogs.

There are four cats.

And it's very, very low maintenance.

Most I have to do is keep the litter box clean.

That's very, very low price to pay for having very, very lovable and very affectionate animals in the house, for sure.

And having a very warm bed, too, at night with the cats.

So that's all very good.

So anyway, Mike, nice site here.

Solar.whiskey5.

Mikelikewhiskey.net.

Really nice site.

I like what's being presented here for sure and how it's being presented.

Over to you.

W3MFB and the group WA3VE.

W3MFB.

Now you got me thinking of cats.

And I got three of those putties right here.

But yeah, you were saying about stuff in the shack and I was staring at all the maps.

I have two amateur radio world maps and country lists.

The Yesu one that they give you when you get your radio.

And then another one that Bride got me that's a little more extensive.

And it has all the DITU, common amateur country prefixes on the bottom.

Which is nice.

And then I also have the band playing that I got at the Kimberton Hamfest.

And on the back has also the country prefixes.

That's right in front of me.

So if you recall, I could just look.

If I don't have the computer on for QRZ or something of that nature.

The standard time zone of the world map in front of me as well to help out with that.

And then the amateur band playing is dead center in front of me.

In case I forget.

I always forget 15 because I'm never.

It's not that I'm never on 15.

There's just hardly ever anybody on.

I guess when I'm on unless there's a contest going on I noticed.

At least in the voice portion.

But yeah, 15 is great for if you're staying up late and you want to talk to Japan or Australia.

And then a United States map and a Pennsylvania map.

And I got four clocks on the wall.

New York, Los Angeles, London, and Tokyo.

I'm sorry.

I don't know if you mentioned it, but you were talking about your shack there.

And I was just staring at all the QSL cards.

I got yours on there, Ron, and Joe's, and Barry's, and a couple other people.

And yeah, just staring at the wall.

Don't mind me.

So back to Mr. Jim plucking on his guitar like Robbie Crager from the doors.

I might have said his last name wrong.

AF3Z in the group.

W3MFB.

Hey, Mike.

Very good.

And sorry, I didn't mean to leave you out of the loop there.

Yeah, I'm still plucking on the guitar though.

My left hand fingers are getting a little sore.

So it's time to quit.

But Saturday, yeah, this was Monday, isn't it?

My daughter was selling some of her pictures.

She does photography.

She does some neat stuff.

But she was at this, up in Linglestown, Linglestown.

They had a, sort of an outdoor Christmas market.

It was in the 20s there.

Cold, but a good crowd came out.

So she had her stand set up.

And I went up and was just checking in with her and giving her a break so she could get away from the stand for a few minutes.

That kind of thing.

But ran into a guy that had a pack on his back.

But not with a child in it.

It was a small dog.

And I don't know what kind of dog it was.

But this pack was sort of like a tube, a vertical tube hanging on his back.

And this little dog was tightly in there with just two paws and his head sticking out the top.

And I asked the guy if the dog bites him when he wants to, you know, bites him in the back of the neck when he wants to get out of there.

But he said, I don't know where he came from, but he walked.

And he said, oh, he was really glad to get in there.

He likes it in there.

And he is tired of walking.

But Kiz's dog and talking to the dog and he gave me a little lick in the face, which is always a sign of affection from a dog like that.

But anyway, critters are fun.

But I'm glad not to have my own when it comes to walking early in the morning or late at night or even other times of day.

I'm getting lazy.

So, yeah, I'll have to look up that Mike, Mike Whiskey guy and check out that site.

There's so much to learn.

You notice that?

So much to get up to date on.

I was down to Longwood today, so I wasn't too far away from you, Ron.

Some friends that go back to the good old days as in high school.

Mainly high school.

Well, even pre-high school.

We went to the same church and our families were close and that kind of stuff.

And so we had a little mini reunion of sorts.

There were seven of us, I think.

Or eight of us there, I guess.

So anyway, we had a nice lunch together.

And that was over near where the old, yeah, Valley Forge Music Ferry used to be many years ago.

Right along 202 near Valley Forge and all that.

And then the three of us went over to Longwood.

So I was by on Route 202.

But anyway, we had fun.

And it was cold, as you know.

But it wasn't too bad.

So anyway, that's what I was up to today down that way.

And I had the repeater on coming home, but I didn't hear anybody.

And I never put out a call either.

My brain was just sort of wherever.

So I guess I'm starting to run out of stuff to say because I'm talking too long.

Over to you, Ron, AF3Z.

Jim, excellent.

I know it's always good to talk to you.

And by the way, thanks for the card.

You should be getting one reciprocally from me in the next couple days.

Okay, very good.

I'm going to say 73.

I'm getting out of here.

I'm not only running out of things to say, but I'm running out of steam.

So it's time for me to go horizontally polarized, if you will, in the bed.

Get these guys up there as well.

These guys will follow me.

In fact, they're so attached, I think they'd follow me off a 300-foot cliff.

I'll tell you why.

I go upstairs, get a cup of coffee, and follow me up.

Come back down.

Go in the lab.

They're in the lab.

They're in the shop.

Until I start turning on loud equipment.

That kills that for a little while.

But they're right here in the shack otherwise.

So get these guys upstairs.

Get things squared away.

And then come back down here and continue to work on the lab and the shop and the shack tomorrow.

So just getting it straightened out.

It does feel good.

I think we have similar in this regard, at least, where, you know, organizationally challenged, I think, is the word that you used, Jim.

And that's true over here.

And my thing is I start cleaning, then find something of interest.

And it's like, oh, wow, look at this.

And an hour goes by.

Oh, well, are you supposed to be cleaning?

Find something else.

And another hour goes by and all of a sudden find out, gee, not much cleaning got done, but just have a lot of fun along the way playing with the stuff you find.

So that's the way it is over here.

Absolutely no discipline.

Mike, over to you.

I'm going to say 7-3.

You guys take care.

And you're doing good with the stuff you do there for the serving the food.

In fact, I contacted some folks down in Wilmington at the Sunday breakfast mission about ready to sign up right after the holidays when things settle down a bit.

Go down there and serve a couple meals to those folks down there as well.

Always good to remember folks a lot less fortunate than we are.

MFB and the group.

W-A-3-V-E-E.

W-A-3-M-F-B.

All right, gentlemen.

Well, good night.

It's been fun.

Good to hear you both.

And I'll say 7-3 as well.

Yeah, I've got to wind down and dim the lights and get off the screen and try to get to bed early.

So stay cozy, stay warm, and we'll talk again soon.

Oh, and I saw the email about the breakfast.

Jen's asking Joe and the boys and the girls to all show up or to be seated at 8.30.

So don't forget to check your email.

Maybe I just saw that now.

I'm not sure if it went out this morning or not.

But that's what's going on.

So pass in that traffic.

7-3, guys.

Have a good one.

God bless W-3-M-F-B, Claire.

Yeah, thanks, Mike.

No, I haven't seen that yet.

And I don't know what the weather's going to be like by then.

Today would have been chilly out in the parking lot anyway.

And, yeah, talking about the breakfast gig.

It is good to do that kind of stuff.

Somewhere recently I was reading a thing, a little word for the whatever, talking about one of the best ways to be happy is to forget about yourself and help somebody.

I think there's a lot of truth to that.

It gets you out of the truth to that.

It gets you out of yourself.

And going down there on these cold mornings and just, you know, trying to imagine what it's like for somebody that really doesn't have any place to get out.

I don't know how they survive.

There are some shelters and stuff they can go to.

But it's also like people that would come around asking for money.

And some of them, you know, you could tell it was a line they were giving you.

But still, my final conclusion, well, that's a hard way to earn a living.

I wouldn't want to have to earn a living that way myself.

All right.

Catch you guys later.

And thanks very much.

Enjoyed it here tonight.

AF3 is that clear?

Hey, Jim.

Yeah, I absolutely agree with you.

We'll say 73 and good night to all.

WA3 VEE QRT.

Thank you.

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