Thursday, March 26, 2015, 11:55 p.m. — Just a quick note to let those who follow my blog that yes, I’m still alive, and yes, I’m still collecting keys (though I haven’t added one to my collection since October).
My wife is off work again, another surgery and recovery … it isn’t cancer, but it was an operation made necessary by the chemo. So she’s home six weeks and we’re trying not to kill one another (hi hi).
And yes, apparently sometime in the last couple of weeks, this site was hacked, or attacked by some malware. Its fixed for now and I hope it stays that way … I have some more things to do to upgrade security in the near term.
I have not been a very active ham in the last six or eight months. I don’t want to blame my volunteer work as section manager, but it seems to be something that happens to a lot of league officials — getting on the air less the more you volunteer. My final day as section manager is March 31, and I’m looking forward to being able once again to go to a hamfest and sell. My wife reminds me I have 8 years worth of accumulated radio gear I could thin out, hi hi.
My goal however is to get back on the air more. None of my vehicles are equipped with any ham gear. I don’t even monitor the local repeater. I haves stuff piled in the chair at the operating position, can’t even find a seat to operate without bulldozing a path.
That’s all temporary, however. I think for a time now, ham radio has been a “duty” rather than a hobby. I’ve enjoyed my work, don’t get me wrong. But my enjoyment of the hobby is less because I don’t mess with it as much as I once did. It isn’t all ham radio’s fault, of course.
I’m just a busier guy these days. With the uptick in newswriting I do, it seems that ham radio just isn’t as an important blip on life’s radar right now. But I have a sizeable collection of code keys, and it is truly CW that’s calling my name right now. I want to work CW, plain and simple.
So maybe I can get the shack straightened up in a little Spring cleaning, and get get back on the air with my wonderful old Tempo 2020 even my HW-8. I’ve got several rigs I’ve never made a contact with … a Yaesu FT-817 and the Alinco DX-SR8T among them. I also have a discontinued YouKits transceiver that I’ve only tested briefly. I also have a Drake TR-7 and an SB-102 to test. No shortage of project, eh??
Well, enough for now. I’ll try to visit the site more frequently …. had I not received a query today about a code key, I wouldn’t have realized the site was down!
73 es GUD DX
de KY4Z SK dit dit