It has been several years since my last post, I hope to change that as we move forward. I have been keeping pretty busy at this stage of life with everything but hobbies. Family matters, work, a new GSD puppy “HAVOC” and school have kept me busy. Some things have slowed down and I intend to “live” a little more than I have been.
For the past year or so I have had some sever power line RFI, 20db over 9 for most of the bands. At any given time AM- FM and everything between was all most unusable. Even the Big AM stations were drowned out. I would get intermittent breaks in heavy rain or power outages to hear clearly. I had contacted AES without resolution or even a response, it was very disheartening. However, the most recent winter storm brought me the resolution, a phone call letting me know AES was shutting down power for repairs. I was coming home from clearing snow at Grannies and past them just down the road in the direction I thought the noise was coming from. Shortly the power was out and the bands were so quiet, the noise floor was S1-S2. The power was out for about 20 minutes, the moment of truth, S5-S7 noise floor on the worst offenders. I can once again hear people again. Could it be better yes, but at least it’s useable now.
I have started my morse code goals again, that has waned a little as I started classes again this fall. I still haven’t forced myself to get on the air. I really think I could, I have before. I want to go do more quick POTA operations with my tiny little QRP radios.
I have started changes in the radio room, starting with the purge. It has just became to cluttered with all my hobbies in one room. So I built some organizational shelves for totes and stored everything I didn’t need right now.
I was able to re-flash my MMDVM and get it working again, right before many of the Ohio reflectors went down with an unexpected death of the operator. I built a duplex MMDVM for DMR, it is programmed and ready for use, I think. I have a Anytone 168UV on the way so I will soon find out. I need to look at what repeaters I have programmed for FM as I don’t hear much activity, part of the reason for the MMDVM’s.
For some reason I have become interested in packet again, there does appear to be a pick up in activity in Ohio, not a lot local. I started with the DigiPi software, it is plug and play iso for raspberry pi’s. It worked ok for some things but it lacks BBS or I lack the ability to make it work, Im not sure. So I purchased a raspberry pi 5, SMT TNC Nino, a DB25 to USB C and found my Pakrat 232 and decided to go down the path of old. It has been an experience to try and get things to work on the PI 5, it is Linux and I do not know how to do all the command line, I rely on others information to get it done. I have most recently downloaded linux73, that seems to have me in a better starting place. Since I haven’t received the TNC yet I am waiting to try and configure Linbpq. I am working on the config file and anything else I can. I want to set up a BBS on VHF and may be HF later on if for nothing else other than to try it. I can’t see a reason right now to have one full time. I am working on figuring out winlink, and how it works. It’s unclear to me if that will operate along side my packet node or if I have to set something else up. I really don’t have a purpose for that with the internet being so widely available. but who knows maybe I’ll find a reason. I also want to get an APRS digi up, it won’t be high profile but it could provide a good fill in.
I have been working on my typing skills a little bit, I defiantly not put enough time into it lol. I do most of my journaling on my typewriters yes that plural. Even that has been pretty sparce latley.
Well this is my not so quick update, scattered thought and all.
P.S.
I am also changing my website around and will probably sunset my photography site moving some photos here.
NM8B Radio Room. 