Rain, Anetnnas Set Right, NaNoWriMo, New Ham Radio - Wednesday

in GEMS3 years ago

It happens every time we leave the farm now, the chickens find their way onto the deck and shit all over it. When I am here I keep them off of it but after the weekend I needed to clear their effluent off from under the pergola. The cover keeps the rains from washing it all off so I cleared off the various things strew around it then sprayed it down and scrubbed it with the broom. I love the Trex type decking since it cleans so much easier than wood.

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The rains began just after noon as I was on the top of the house moving the tv antenna lower on the mast. I had to first remove the bracket from the top of the mast, then I was able to raise the mast into the full position. On top I have our wifi point and the cb antenna. This was with the mast down before lifting it back up.

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The tv antenna is now fixed to the top of the pvc mast base with a pair of super thick zip-ties and a piece of wood to raise it off the bracket. I had to slide the bracket around the front of the mast to get the plane of the antenna forward of the metal mast for better reception. Before I put the metal mast section in I had the tv antenna atop the mast base and was able to pull the upper channels, 34.1+ but after the changes I am not. It's not a horrible thing since we haven't had them for a couple of years while the antenna was elsewhere in the yard, but it was worth a try.

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Then the rains really hit and it rained the rest of the afternoon. At times it dumped hard and it was a roar of rain hitting the metal roof of the house and the pergola sounded like a drum.

While it rained I got a stew going to cook for the afternoon then spent some time writing. I had gotten myself behind a bit, behind my goal of staying ahead of the word count, and wanted to catch up. After some word sprints mid day I was able to get the rest of the 2400 words for the day while it rained.

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UPS finally delivered after dark around 5:00 pm and I ran out to get my new UV-5X3 ham radio. I am amazed at how small the thing is. The antenna I got for it is 4 times as long as the radio is tall. I plugged it into the computer and used Chirp to setup the NOAA weather channels first thing. I will be going and getting the entire list of local repeaters that I can hit and get them loaded into the memory. I have 128 channels I can store and we don't have near that many within 30 miles of the farm. For now I am going to be using the radio for listening and scanning channels until I can take my test. This will give me a chance to learn to use it and program it.

I found I can listen to the frequency of my little Motorola two way radios but I can not figure out if I can transmit to it or not. It sits in the just out of 70cm region. Not really necessary I was just trying it since I have the frequency list for the little two ways.

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Tomorrow is J's 7th birthday and luckily the weather will be okay. Not sure what all we will be doing yet but we have the weekend for that.


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I don't know much about ham radios, but my Dad was into them big time. When I first joined steem back in May 2018 I decided to use his Handel (thebigsweed ) as my name.
Enjoy your new radio.

My grandfather was big into them as well. I wish I could get his call sign but it is region specific to California.

I've taken the dive into the ham world and can already see the money flying from my pockets... 😅

Well, with the price of Hive, just cash is several million and you'll have the money you need. 😁

Ooh, ham radios are excellent. My hubs took his technician test a few years ago and is going to take the general test at some point, I remember helping him study for the last one, hello math lol!

I have a request: What is your favorite bush bean variety? I’ve grown lots, but I figure as you are the bean expert I could pick your brain!

Also, Happy Birthday to J!!!!

My favorite bush bean is the Jade/Jade 2. They give big fat juicy beans that are nice and full of water and are the most refreshing in summer when nice and cold from the fridge. The next best is Roc D'Or a yellow wax type bean that grow amazingly, produce really well and taste great.

A lot of what I have grown is Haricot Vert and are a pain in the ass for long term harvesting since they are french fillet.

The technician license seems super mellow as I have gone through the question pool a few times now in preparation. I remember a lot of it still from years ago. If only I could get a test scheduled I would be golden.

Ahhh!! Thank you! I made a note lol:)

Oh gravy, with everything all bananas everywhere getting testing appointments Is definitely going to be a challenge, and I had to laugh, when T first went in the Army Before he went Recon, he was in communications and they still used crystal radios, so there was some memory left too. It’s amazing what a trained person can remember even after a lot of time elapses.

Hope your day’s progressing nicely, I got all my outdoor chores done before it started raining again so I’m all smiles.

Yeah I am not wanting to do an online test as they make you setup with a live stream camera and a bunch of rules to make it a real test environment but if the in person isn't going to happen till next month I may have to bite the bullet and do the online. I'd rather get the test done sooner than later.

I stepped outside for the rain gauge, felt it raining and immediately went to the doppler to see it was just the little band blowing through. Actually feels like fall rather than the middle of Winter.

Oof, that’s a lot of hoops. I hope you can take the test in person too, but I have a feeling your state’s gonna stay on the down low for quite a while.

It has been almost tropical for the last few days, I barely have any snow left which makes it seem like March instead of mid November. It almost makes me want to outside and get some projects done, almost, but there’s currently a cat in my lap and two dogs on my feet so I think I’ll just chill lol.

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