Stormy weather, careless wife creates antenna repair work …

I‘ve been enjoying HF operation a great deal here in our library now that my main PC can be powered up and not cause RF hash all across several ham bands.

I’ve just not found much — code key wise — that’s interested me very much. I have some antenna work to do when it quits raining. A windstorm we had several weeks ago broke one end of my primary HF dipole at the point where it was last repaired. Then to add insult to injury, my wife drove around that side of the house (which she normally NEVER does), and her bumper caught my twinlead feedline coming down from the apex of my inverted vee. She pulled it in two — again, at a prior repair point. So yeah, I have some repair work to do once the rain quits.

I’ve also got some tractor work to do; I finally tired of carb issues with the carburetor on my Massey-Ferguson 135 and ordered a new one. It should arrive Saturday.

Meanwhile, my old (and quite decayed) finish mower needs some major repairs to holes and splits in the mower deck where the 3-point mounts attach. The deck has rusted so much I’m not sure there’s enough good metal to weld to but I have to try. I just bought a $50 belt for the damn thing, I have to see if I can get it running and get some use out of it.

TEN-TEC IN, TEN-TEC OUT. I have wanted to do more operating on my Ten-Tec Paragon that’s in the shack. I bought mine dirt-freakin‘-cheap because the logic board (or whatever board the memory back-up battery sits above) was damaged by a leaking battery.

However, the rig works fine on all bands. The “damage” affects its memories (none work) and the clock and a couple of other minor display functions. Well, I recently picked up a second Ten-Tec Paragon in excellent condition, and without the board damage caused by a leaking backup battery. I’m not going to keep both Paragons, but my plan is to sell the one I have been using and keep the better of the two.

One of the things I really miss with the Paragon is the lack of a built-in CW keyer. I could probably add one, that might be worth looking into nothing fancy, no memories, just basic keyer function.

DAVID CLARK SNAG. I am a BIG fan of David Clark aviation headsets. I have a couple of them, one of which was modified with the removal of the mic boom and converted for mono use.

That works ok, but not so well when your rig has a stereo jack. I ran across a headset I hadn’t seen before — a David Clark stereo headset that was just for listening, no mic boom. Obviously it was not an aviation headset, but it was priced low enough to peak my interest, and apparently, no one else’s.

I’m expecting the headset to arrive next week.

I may sound antisocial, but when I want to listen to ham radio, I prefer David Clark type headset that do a good job blocking out other noise in the room. I don’t want to hear the narrator on “Ancient Aliens” say “according to ancient astronaut theorists, .…” when I’m listening to 75 meters!

73 es CUL de KY4Z SK …. dit dit