Category: Uncategorized

Holy Resurrection, Batman!

First post in far too long. In all my sites I occasionally threaten to “be back” but maybe, just maybe, I’ll follow through here. Updates:

  • I am no longer a trustee of an amateur radio club. That was torn from me along with my evacuation from academia. The club K3GCC is now (and has been for several years) completely defunct.
  • My GAP Titan DX antenna was all but destroyed by strong winter storms and neglect in the past few winters.
  • My “shack” was my house’s spare bedroom. My son, Connor, was born August 8, 2019. The spare room became the nursery and my radio equipment swiftly evicted by my own hand.

Coming soon..?

  • Well, I have become the godfather of amateur radio at my new employer. Want to know who that employer is? Fuck you.
  • I have ordered and received a new GAP Titan and quick mount kit. I will be replacing the 80M capacitor with one that aims to provide coverage away from the crazy asshole SSB range in the 75M part of the band. I will instead be focusing on other phone frequencies as well as digital modes.
  • I am evaluating possible ways to lay the new cable from the new antenna into my home’s basement. My ham shack will have to share space with my home office and (because I’m country enough) ammo reloading center.
  • I attended Dayton’s Hamvention in 2022. I was underwhelmed but maybe that was my fault.
  • My second antenna, pending NVIS specs, could be detailed “soon”
  • I do have a vision for my new ham shack once the feed line(s) has(have) made it into my house’s superstructure.
  • I have installed a 24kW whole-home backup generator. I could, on paper, run my home on emergency power for various ham drills and maybe even field day (though I hope to return to K3LR for the bulk of such days)
  • I am sure that ARRL’s LOTW has reset due to my lack of activity. Eh. Their shitty perforated certificates mean very little to me. I will rebuild.
  • It has been several years since I ordered my first QSL cards. I have many, many in reserve. However, over the years I may have lost my files for my family’s legit (awarded by Henry VI) coat-of-arms. That could be awkward.

Site Upgrades

I have taken some initiative today in adding new features to the site. The first, and most major from a “proper conventions” standpoint is that I have installed an SSL certificate on the server. This means that if you make an account to subscribe to my posts, your login info is perfectly safe. It’s really just about bringing things up to industry standard. A big shout-out to the people at Let’s Encrypt who are a free-to-use certificate authority, compared to the ludicrous $70+ a year other services want to charge.

The other new features are the front page’s propagation and maximum usable frequency infographics. Thanks goes to Paul Herrman, N0NBH for providing a technique to embed these graphics such that they update as new data comes in.  The only downside to the images are that the default means of delivery leads to browsers giving security warnings on an HTTPS site such as mine.  Some extra scripting fixed the problem, so I hope folks find the new resources a useful addition to my website.