All posts by Vince VE6LK

Guest Posts, New Products, News, QRP, QRP Radios, Reviews

First Look at the HF Signals zBitx QRP Transceiver

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When life gives you lemons, you make lemonade!

by Vince (VE6LK)

Dear readers, it’s been a hot minute since I’ve had time to activate POTA and write about it, and today I tried to activate a park, but a combination of equipment issues and nobody responding to my calls ended my activation. Anyways … when life gives you lemons you make lemonade, and accordingly the activation article is now a radio review article instead! <grin>

That radio is the HF Signals zBitx. An SDR radio, it was spoken about at 2024 Four Days In May and it opened up for orders on December 25 2024 – a Christmas present, if you will. Thomas and I both jumped on the ordering queue (two numbers apart, no less) as well as 248 others around the world. I thought to myself “an all-mode 80-10m QRP radio with a waterfall and weighing under 1 pound for under $200USD shipped? SIGN ME UP!” and pressed the order button. Honestly I thought about it for less than 45 seconds once I read the specs. I also thought to myself that it was an “experimenter’s radio” and not a fully finished product, meaning you can tweak it if you wish to dig into the bowels of the code on the built-in Raspberry Pi.

The 250 original orders were snapped up in two days and then the purchase button was turned off on the website. There were some shipping delays from the original date, as HF Signals discovered the Chinese New Year holiday of 3 weeks where, it seems, everything is shut down. I also discovered this with the Morse Tutor Kits my buddy and I sell, and we couldn’t ship product for a month as we could not get parts.

Showing the on-screen keyboard. It also shows the fit and finish of the shipped product. Photo credit: HF Signals

The radio arrived on March 31, about 4 weeks beyond the original estimate, and I was excited to open it up. I mean, who doesn’t like new radio day after all? I was so excited that I did an unboxing and first look video on YouTube and showed off a few quick things about the radio. TOP SECRET – it took me 5 takes to shoot, so it wasn’t quite a first look!

The radio promises much and delivers a lot. It transmits on 80 through 10 meters at around 5 watts driven by a pair of 18650 cells, or your 6 to 9V four amp power supply. It has two microprocessors, one is a Raspberry Pi Zero W and one is a Pi Pico to drive the display. It has integrated AM, SSB, CW, FT8, touch screen, built-in electret mic, built in CW keyer and keyboard, and weighing just 460g / 1 pound including the batteries. This radio seriously has lots to offer especially at the price point.

The author’s radio with a customized faceplate and VFO knob. The triangular slice in the waterfall display is a photographic artifact.

The source code, schematics and 3D print files are all available on a Github, and indeed I customized the front panel and replaced the knob with one that has a dimple on it, if only to spin the VFO more easily.

You must be made aware that I was really excited to get this radio. It has a history of many other Bitx radios before it. But I’m also aware that there’s the old axiom about “too good to be true” so I tempered my expectations. You must also be made aware that I really want this radio to work as its small form factor, low cost and integrated waterfall make it exciting an exciting prospect in my limited fleet of QRP rigs. And, for the record, I have nowhere near the QRP rig count that our gracious host has, nor are they individually named.

Besides all of that, it is the only HF radio I plan to pack for Hamvention 2025 so it’s gotta be right for that trip.

However, the zBitx may be best described as an early release and/or a work in progress. Continue reading First Look at the HF Signals zBitx QRP Transceiver →

Field Reports, Guest Posts, Morse Code, POTA, Travel

Busted Antenna in Jasper Alberta

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As always there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things! ?

by Vince (VE6LK)

Ahhhh, the midwinter get-a-way. Everyone does it a bit differently, but for most of us, when you have only a few days and a couple of nights you don’t venture too far from home. And that’s how I landed in Jasper, Alberta, to stay for a couple of nights and sample the very awesome local restaurants, and of course to do some Parks On The Air.

I was accompanied by my wife and Wrangler, our Shiba Inu, for this trip and thus my activations needed to be family-friendly (ie. short!) and in scenic locations. They had to be parks I’d never done before and, at this time of year, be done from the comfort of my truck. But most importantly they needed to fit in among the restauranting we wanted to do.

The Athabasca Glacier is the most public of all the glaciers in the Columbia Icefield
North of the Columbia Icefield looking south. Columbia Icefields Skywalk is on the left
Looking north from the same spot as the photo immediately above

Travel from home to Jasper is 4.5 hours along the Trans-Canada Highway and then Highway 93, the Icefields Parkway, so named due to the large number of glaciers that come within close range of the highway. For the adventurous among you, there are two tours, one takes you onto the glacier via a specially-designed tour bus with 60″ 3PSI tires, and the other is a glass walkway that overlooks the deep valley that is the start of the Athabasca River. My basophobia tells me that walking on glass floors overlooking a really deep canyon is a bad idea, and I’m told that it is spectacular nonetheless.

Jasper was the subject of an insane wildfire last Summer. 40% of the town’s structures and homes were destroyed overnight. This town runs on tourism and we were welcomed with open arms for our mid-week trip. Sadly, everyone has a story of loss in one way or another. I’ve been to Jasper several times before before, but the losses I saw – blocks-wide swaths of homes – caught me off guard emotionally. I took no photos out of respect to those that have lost everything; if you are really curious you can search for them via news sources. The landscape is changed, for now, as you can see through the trees and see the valleys around you due to the denuded or fallen timbers.

On Thursday morning my HamAlert went off as K4SWL was out at Pisgah National Forest, so I jumped into the truck for a quick P2P sortie and drove to the edge of town where electrical noise would be less. Upon my arrival my trusty screwdriver antenna would not move and, with my plan to contact Thomas scuttled, I headed back to the hotel.

Tools laid out and ready to go on the bed in the hotel
A completed field repair

Fortunately I had packed an iFixit brand Pro Tech toolkit with me, and, along with my Leatherman ES4 and Victorinox knife -and a Breathe-Right strip in place of electrical tape- I was able to repair the motor drive wire where a previous repair had vibrated apart over the 15 years I’ve owned the antenna. That successful repair set me up well for my activations for the rest of the day.

And, yes, I did a proper repair along with a bit of preventative maintenance shortly after I returned home.

Yellowhead Pass National Historic Site

Once the repair was complete, I headed out to the Yellowhead Pass National Historic Site about 28km west of Jasper. The site is pretty much a roadside pull-out at the Alberta/British Columbia border and is adorned with historical plaques. Truck traffic was rumbling by not too far away from me so the local QRM proved to be a challenge. This park is a 2fer, and I had planned on turning around and going back to town until I saw a sign just 100 yards ahead advertising Mount Robson Provincial Park – and this is another POTA entity. Beside that sign was one advertising a truck pull-out 250 yards up the road… so a quick plan was hatched to add Mt. Robson to my day’s activities.

I completed both of those activations without too much difficulty on 10, 15 and 20m CW and packed up to head back to town to get a bite of lunch at the De’d Dog Bar and Grill as it had been recommended to us. Suffice it to say that I could not finish the bowl of bison chili and I want to eat again there on a future trip.

Maligne Mountain reflecting off the still water of Maligne Lake

With our bellies full, we headed towards our final stop of the day, the Maligne Lake Chalet and Guest House National Historic Site. It’s a 45km trip through some stunning scenery along the valley floor, and climbs 500m in only the last few kilometres of the road.

For this activation I was on 20m CW and then 20m SSB. The noise floor was zero, save for when I needed to run the engine to stay warm in the -8C weather. My wife took Wrangler out for a walk thus I had time to accrue 30 contacts. But it was late in the day and we couldn’t stay forever as the sun sets fast in the mountains -so it seems anyways- and we headed back to town.

A member of the local welcoming committee greets us on the road at Medicine Lake while some other members are seen grazing on the flats in the distance (at left, centre)
Looking northward beside Medicine Lake. The fire damage is evident on the right-hand side of the valley and is about 10km north of the Jasper townsite.

We were reminded of the power of nature with the burned out forests that suddenly greeted us as we moved closer to town. It also reminds me that wildfires don’t discriminate and sometimes level one area and leave another, immediately adjacent, untouched. As we all do, I hope I never face that adversity.

What I’ve learned along the way

I was reminded of not only the awesome power of nature, but of the need to maintain our equipment. In this climate, a screwdriver antenna should be torn down and inspected at least annually, and I had not done this for a few years. I mean, after all, it has been working so why bother, right? Wrong – like all bits of our kit, maintenance is essential to trouble-free operations when you need it. I’m thankful I had a small toolkit along on this trip or there would have been activations on only 10m – the band the antenna was locked upon pre-repair.

List of gear used for these activations:

73 and dit dit,
…Vince

First introduced to the magic of radio by a family member in 1969, Vince has been active in the hobby since 2002. He is an Accredited examiner in Canada and the USA, operates on almost all of the modes, and is continually working on making his CW proficiency suck less. He participates in public service events around Western Canada and is active on the air while glamping, mobile, at home or doing a POTA activation. You can hear him on the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, follow him on Twitter @VE6LK, check out his YouTube channel, and view the projects and articles on his website.

Articles, Field Reports, Mobile, Morse Code, POTA, Travel

Sometimes you need a little cryptaesthesia

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As always, there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things!

by Vince (VE6LK)

It’s time for another return trip to the correctional institution that I spoke about in my last post. And that means only one important detail: more time to POTA en route. This trip will carry me, via a ‘short’ 325km detour from the direct route, into Castle Provincial Park and Castle Wilderness Provincial Park, with a stop or two along the way.

The Research and planning

Castle Provincial Park CA-2971 is within the larger Waterton Biosphere Reserve CA-0109, so any activation I can do is automatically a 2fer. Looking more closely at the map, I see Castle Falls CA-2969 is within Castle PP, and that makes it a 3fer. I printed off the park info sheets from POTA.app, studied some satellite imagery, printed some, and bundled it all together. I have been in this area once before, camping in August (and the bugs were awful, yuck!), so at least I knew three things…where I was going, an expectation of cell service (not great off the main roads) and bugs would be minimal to non-existent, given it’s mid-November.

In thinking about a route that needs to get me closer to my hotel and one that increases the number of unique parks I’ve activated, I decided upon Beauvais Lake Provincial Park CA-0632, another 2fer with CA-0109. A satellite view shows easy-peasy road access, and even if the main gates are closed, I’m still on the property, so it will be a valid attempt/activation.

But I also really want to get to the Castle Wildland Provincial Park CA-2972, as it’s never been activated before. And while there is road access through the entire Castle area, I opt to take paved roads as winter driving and gravel (and no cell service) can be unpredictable at best. I’ve also never been to Castle Wildland, but in my mind, I’m imagining views reminiscent of Waterton Lakes or Glacier National Park, given the very close proximity. As it turned out, I wasn’t too far wrong.

I also tacked on one park at the last minute and was happy I did so, even if I could not activate it.

Continue reading Sometimes you need a little cryptaesthesia →

Articles, Field Reports, Mobile, Morse Code, POTA, Travel

Vince gets out of jail long enough to do a handful of activations

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As always there are lots of links within the article. Click one! Click them all! Learn all the things!

Dear readers, admittedly the title is clickbait, but I assure you that there is truth behind it. As you already know, I occasionally travel for work and lately I’ve been working inside a correctional institution for my primary employer.

And, as you’ve seen before, while traveling usually I make a detour to go activate a site in the area or along the route, and to get a break from the drive. Usually that detour is only 10 or 20 kilometres. I enjoy the driving and the travel, and I’m always on the hunt for parks I’ve not yet activated and especially the elusive ATNO -All Time New One- or phrased another way, not yet activated at all or with one of the common modes of Phone, Digital or CW.

For this series of trips over the month of November, they were the first real road trips with my new-to-me 2023 F-150 PowerBoost hybrid. In the month leading up to this trip I was a busy beaver getting the radios installed in the truck to help pass the many hours on the road. Frankly I was excited to set up a new mobile installation and correct some major shortcomings with my last; experience is an excellent teacher if you are willing to listen. The video link below summarizes my mobile installation and is complete with chapters so you can jump to the section that interests you the most.

With all of that background and with an unseasonably warm November, I wanted to visit Waterton Lakes National Park which hosts several POTA entities, namely First Oil Well in Canada NHS CA-4776, Prince of Wales Hotel NHS CA-6101, Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park CA-3157, and all of those (and many others) are encompassed within the Waterton Biosphere Reserve CA-0109.

Waterton-Glacier is a Unesco World Heritage site and the second such I’d visit in this series of road trips. On a prior week I twice activated Head Smashed-in Buffalo Jump CA-6093.

Waterton-Glacier International Peace Park encompasses both the Waterton National Park in Alberta, Canada and Glacier National Park in Montana, USA. It’s the first international designation of a park anywhere, ever. You’ve seen me write about Glacier National Park here on QRPer last year, and now I’d get a chance to complete that entity activating within the Canadian side. Needless to say I was pretty excited about the detour and hopeful that weather would be on my side for some spectacular photos.

Continue reading Vince gets out of jail long enough to do a handful of activations →

Guest Posts, POTA, Travel

Cool Radio in the Hot Tropics – St. Kitts & Nevis October 2024

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Many thanks to Bob K4RLC who shares this report on mixing vacation with ham radio with us.  If you have an article in your head and want to have it posted here, let’s keep this community going while our friend Thomas continues to help his neighbours in the wake of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. Draft up your story in an email with reference points to the pictures you want embedded and their captions, attach photos to the note and send it my way to vincedeon at gmail dot com and note QRPer in the subject line to get my attention.

By Bob Conder K4RLC and V4/K4RLC

Our interest in a trip to Saint Kitts began pre COVID, after my buddy Dale W4AUV and I saw an ad in the back of QST magazine by W5JON, John, for his rental villa with a complete ham radio station on this Caribbean island. What could be wrong with this scenario? Being on a beautiful Caribbean island with a complete ham radio station?

Fast forward almost five years later, when Dale and I, along with our spouses, leave Raleigh for St. Kitts.  The timing was really bad for me, as at the same time Western North Carolina was devastated from Hurricane Helene. In the past, I worked with the American Red Cross Disaster Services after hurricanes and tornadoes in my home state, as well as being deployed to the Gulf Coast of Mississippi and Louisiana immediately after Hurricane Katrina. We have friends and family who live in upstate South Carolina and Western North Carolina Including my best friend from high school and his family. All we could do was reach out to them with support, and donate money through reputable organizations such as Samaritan’s Purse Disaster Relief and the American Red Cross.

St. Kitts only has three POTA sites and no SOTA sites.  I had hoped to activate at least two of the POTA sites. CW is my preferred modality. These POTA sites had only been activated by phone and dubious digital.

Saint Kitts is an unquestionably beautiful tropical island, but it is still a third world nation. The driving is British style, further complicated by having only three stoplights on the island and roundabouts every few miles. We rented a Honda CRV from Bullseye Rentals, recommended by John W5JON, the owner of the villa. Given the ancient small roads where everybody drives like your drunken old aunt with dementia, this was a good vehicle choice. Since my first and primary activation was to be  Brimstone Hill Fortress National Park, a UNESCO site built starting in 1690 with guarded entryways made to fit horse drawn wagons in the 1700’s, we were relieved to have passed up the large Ford Explorer rental in favor of our little Honda SUV that barely made the entryway.

Brimstone Hill Fortress
“Stairway to Heaven” at Brimstone Fortress

Brimstone Hill Fortress, also known as the Gibraltar of the Caribbean, is an expansive stone fort originally built by the British in 1690 with African slaves. It has been through many modifications over the years, and different owners, but is essentially British. In fact, its construction reminded me of Edinburgh Castle in Scotland.  (I was later told that Brimstone was designed and built by the Royal Engineers from the UK). Now, it is a National Park, a POTA site (KN-0003), and a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

Continue reading Cool Radio in the Hot Tropics – St. Kitts & Nevis October 2024 →

Guest Posts, Mobile, Morse Code, POTA, QRP, Travel

Five Park POTA Rove by Bicycle

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Many thanks to Rod VA3MZD who shares this five park POTA bicycle rove report with us.  If you have an article in your head and want to have it posted here, let’s keep this community going while our friend Thomas continues to help his neighbours in the wake of Hurricane Helene in Western North Carolina. Draft up your story in an email with reference points to the pictures you want embedded and their captions, attach photos to the note and send it my way to vincedeon at gmail dot com and note QRPer in the subject line to get my attention.

By Rod Murray VA3MZD

Last year I reported, in a guest post here on QRPer, on the five POTA parks near my QTH that are linked by the Elora-Cataract Trailway, a rail trail that runs east from the quaint tourist village of Elora, Ontario, through the town of Fergus, where I live, through Belwood Lake Conservation Area and continues for approximately 45 km to the village of Cataract, on the Niagara Escarpment, well to the east. The trail passes through or near four POTA parks in my immediate vicinity, made easily accessible by foot, bicycle or vehicle, as one chooses. The Trailway is also part of the Great Trail of Canada CA-5082. In one of these nearby parks, Belwood Lake, it’s a 2-fer, making 5 parks in total.

POTA Map showing the location of the four nearby POTA parks near my QTH
The All Trails Map of the Elora-Cataract Trail/Great Trail of Canada from Elora to Belwood Lake

In my original report I had also set a goal of one day activating the one nearby park I had yet to visit, and also to activate all five local parks in one day. With the summer quickly coming to a close here in South Western Ontario, and the fact that the one park I had yet to visit would close for the season in just a few days, it was time to attack my two goals with a rove! So I made plans to rise early, hope for cooperative weather and complete my 5 park cycle trip. Could I do it?

Continue reading Five Park POTA Rove by Bicycle →

Articles, Field Radio Kits, Guest Posts, Kits, Morse Code, POTA, QRP, SOTA

The Design Philosophy of the CFT1: From concept to product

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Many thanks to Jonathan KM4CFT who shares this article with us.  If you have an article in your head and want to have it posted here, let’s keep this community going while our friend Thomas continues to help his neighbours. Draft up your story in an email with reference points to the pictures you want embedded and their captions, attach photos to the note and send it my way to vincedeon at gmail dot com and note QRPer in the subject line to get my attention.

By: Jonathan Kayne, KM4CFT

About 10 months ago, I took the plunge to design my own Morse Code transceiver. It was a crazy idea, and this was certainly a massive undertaking, but somehow, I managed to pull off this monumental task. The result of the project was the CFT1, a 5 Band CW Field Transceiver specifically tailored for POTA and SOTA operations. Doing this project was a great learning experience and despite the monumental effort and work I put into it, I really enjoyed getting to design a new product. There is something special when you see something you love and put effort into appear in the hands of others and seeing them enjoy using said product.

The purpose of this article is to outline some of the thoughts I put into when I designed the CFT1. It is not meant to go into the meat and potatoes of RF design work as there are plenty of resources out there that go over that stuff. I have yet to see much discussed on design philosophy of a transceiver so I thought it prudent to document these things. That is; what I took into consideration when putting together the radio. And as I learned in this project, when pulled off correctly, can result in a great product.

Continue reading The Design Philosophy of the CFT1: From concept to product →

FT4, FT8, Guest Posts, News, POTA

Conrad has a sunny and beautiful activation at Silver Sands State Park

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Editor note – Please enjoy this guest post from Conrad Troutmann N2YCH.

Thank you “deputy” Vince, VE6LK, for assisting in managing some guest contributor posts for QRPer.com. I’m so happy to hear Thomas and his family rode the storm out safely and send him my best wishes and hope things return to normal soon. Here’s my contribution to help keep QRPer.com going while Thomas gets his house back in order. 73, Conrad, N2YCH

 

September 22, 2024

Lately, the high frequency bands (15/12/10 meters) have been hit or miss, largely due to recent space weather events. Today, taking a look at WSPR beacon reception at my QTH on the Top Spotters web site, I noticed that 10 meters was open and I was spotting quite a few stations on the band.

Top Spotters Ranker – https://wspr.rocks/topspotters/

The weather here was sunny and beautiful and my batteries were all charged up, so it seemed like all signs were pointing to a POTA activation at Silver Sands State Park, US-1716. I usually activate on 20 meters, however with 10 open, I thought I’d try for some DX and give hunters that don’t normally hear me on 20 a chance to get the park. When I was trying for my Worked All States POTA award, I appreciated it when the Hawaii and Alaska activators activated on the higher bands so I had a chance to get them all the way from the East Coast. I like to return the favor when I can.

I decided to give my Elecraft KX2 a workout as well. Paired with my Buddipole vertical up 10’, I figured I would do well.

Buddipole Vertical with Elevated Counterpoise using Electric Fence Post
KX3, Samsung Computer and Bioenno Battery with a view looking towards Long Island Sound at Silver Sands State Park in Connecticut

I got set up, checked and adjusted my computer time using JTSync and started calling CQ POTA on FT8. I called and called and no one answered. I checked PSKReporter and I was being spotted, but still, no answers. I was receiving well, in fact, I was picking up stations as far away as South Africa. “Hello, is this thing working? Can you hear me now?”

Just to be sure my equipment was working, I shifted to “hunt and pounce” mode. Rather than call CQ, I started answering stations who were calling CQ. It’s not my preferred way to get the QSO’s needed to officially activate the park, but sometimes that’s what you need to do. I have JTAlert set to sort received stations from strongest received signals to weakest. I’ve found based on prior experience that my chances of completing a QSO are much higher with stations that I’m receiving with strong signals. So, I answered a CQ for a station in Texas coming in at +19 and he answered right away. One in the log.

I did this for the next 30 minutes or so and managed to get six stations, about half I called and the other half answered my CQ. I moved around the waterfall looking for openings, but it was busy and challenging. Just for grins, I decided to see if FT4 was active. Sure enough, I was receiving many stations there as well. I called CQ and immediately had stations answering. I did the rest of the activation on FT4 and had a steady stream of callers. I completed the activation with 17 total QSO’s, my map is below.  I make these maps using the Adventure Radio log analyzer. You can import the same log you upload to the POTA page and put the grid square in and it generates the map.

Activation QSO Map made with the Adventure Radio Log analyzer

Interestingly, all of the USA contacts were on FT8 and when I moved to FT4, I picked up all of the EU ones. I was happy to see after I uploaded my log to the POTA site that almost all of the hunters who got me were active POTA hunters and had accounts at the POTA web site. In fact, one was actually a park-to-park QSO. PA4PA was at the Sluiswaai Nature Reserve, NL-0219 in the Netherlands.

Equipment I used for this activation included:

 

Mission accomplished!

73 de N2YCH

Field Reports, POTA, QRP, Travel

K3ES’ Unplanned activation of Yellowstone National Park

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Many thanks to Brian K3ES who submits this awesome report.

As I write this report, we are currently visiting with my parents at their home near San Francisco, CA.  Getting here from our Pennsylvania home and back again is a continuing great adventure for my wife Becky, POTA Pup Molly, and me. You see, this is a grand road trip, complete with sight seeing, activating POTA parks in new-to-me states, and lots of driving.  While much of the trip has been planned, there have been frequent changes to the route and schedule, as better opportunities presented themselves.  One such opportunity was to deviate from interstate highway travel between Montana and Idaho, and divert to lesser-traveled highways.  This detour enabled us to fit in a drive through Yellowstone and Grand Teton National Parks.  Sadly, we were only able to take the time to see a small fraction of the natural splendor.  We did see enough to create the resolve to return for a proper exploration of the wonders that we had to miss.

The Welcoming Committee:  I had to stop again just after the entrance plaza leading into the park.  These elk, along with a number of their friends, were standing beside the road to greet us.
Mammoth Hot Springs.  To get this picture, Becky hiked along planked walkways and climbed a great number of steps.  Sadly we could only stop and look for a few minutes during our drive.

We made a handful of stops on our drive through Yellowstone, including a couple of hours at the Old Faithful geyser.  One challenge of traveling with Molly, is that dogs are not always welcome in interesting areas.  Another challenge is that, having been rescued from an abusive situation, she can respond unpredictably to other dogs.  So, Becky and I have often taken turns with one of us exploring the sights, while the other remained in the truck with Molly.  At this stop, Becky was the designated sight-seer for an impending eruption of Old Faithful (she takes better pictures), and I stayed in the truck with Molly.

*No explanation needed*
Becky got some great action shots Old Faithful!

Continue reading K3ES’ Unplanned activation of Yellowstone National Park →

News

Do you name your radios?

10 Comments

Thanks to those that have submitted stories of late. If you have an article in your head and want to have it posted here, let’s keep this community going while our friend continues to help his neighbours. Draft up your story in an email with reference points to the pictures you want embedded and their captions, and attach photos to the note and send it my way to vincedeon at gmail dot com and note QRPer in the subject line to get my attention.

I’ve often wondered if naming radios is just a Thomas thing or if others do this also. He mentions them so fondly in his articles here or when we are recording Ham Radio Workbench as we were last night.

Sort of top-secret: Thomas was our featured guest in last night’s recording and I think that episode will come out as an extra outside of our regular schedule.

A great time among friends

Thomas assured us that he and his family are doing well. He acknowledges that so many have sent him words of encouragement and reads every one of them. He’s apologetic that his limited internet time is managing completion of forms for FEMA and such instead of responding to you all, but wanted you to know that he appreciates your support from afar.

Greek philosopher Seneca said that “luck is what happens when preparation meets opportunity” and, from what I heard last night Thomas and family were not only well-prepared but quite fortunate. The luck part happened when he and his neighbours banded together to handle a mountain-load of tasks garnering praise from the FEMA representatives who visited them. One thing stuck out from the interview -and I’ve seen this first-hand– help will not be on the ground to you, in a disaster zone, for several days. We all need to be self-sufficient for at least that period of time.

The HT Fleet at Chez VE6LK

During the interview he spoke of passing out his HTs to neighbours and establishing a twice-daily schedule of check-ins among them, at 8am and 8pm. This is an indispensable tool in situations like this! I asked if he named his HTs as he does his HF gear.. it was a fun moment and you’ll have to listen for yourself. But I then, inspired, broke out the Dymo and did my own named on the gang from Peanuts. Lucy and Linus, the brother and sister, are both Yaesu VX-7s that were my workhorse HTs during the 2013 Southern Alberta Floods. Since that time they’ve been joined by Woodstock, the Alinco DJ-MD5XT, for logging road use (it’s type approved for both commerical and amateur), Schroeder, the TH-D74, as it can -I’m certain- play a symphony once I find that page in the manual, and last but not least, Snoopy, for it’s the carefree and fun to use FT-70DR.

So – back to the title of this post – Do you name your radios? Let me know in the comments.