Interim Report

Interim report:

Alright, I know I promised a review on Rune Scape, but I have had to put that on hold, mostly because I am camping.

Why?

Mostly because I can, and mostly because of my hobby. What is my hobby? Amateur Radio.

My family lives in a motor home, so we can literally bring our home with us if we go anywhere, so we brought it with us to the beach. My father rented out a pavilion over by the Eliot Museum on Hutchinson Island, so we took our motor home with us.

Our rig.

So how did Amateur Radio bring us to the beach? This weekend was a contest called "Islands on the Air," so we decided to arrive Friday night for a dry run, and the contest started on Saturday, at about 8:00 A.M EST.

Saturday:

I woke up earlier with my dad to start getting everything ready to get on the air.

A blurry picture of our radio and my laptop.

We had no issues setting up the radio and my laptop (for logging), but when we finally started operating we found that we could hear other people, but they could not hear us. There was an electro-magnetic storm that knocked out all  HF bands pretty much. I spent about two hours of so going up and down the 10 meter band trying to make some contacts, and did get a few. My dad (N4BKT) and I traded off and on with the radio, and even had some visitors who showed up and worked the station.

Now I did take some time to go swimming too, because, well, it was the beach after all, so you really can't not go swimming; so I did. That's about the time my younger sister showed up with her baby: Oliver.

Left: Oliver sleeping after swimming in ocean for the first time. Right: My sister, Kate.

My sister, myself, Oliver, and my mom(KI4RHM) all walked down to the beach together, where we set up an umbrella to put all our things under. It was a blast too, my sister asked me to watch Oli (my nickname for Oliver) while her and my mom swam, so him and I hung out under the umbrella, where he proceeded to do what most babies do; be cute (at least in my biased kind of view, because you know not EVERY kid is cute).

Not that I was doubting his relation to my family, but I knew right away he was one of us when he's not even talking yet and he's putting his foot in his mouth (A common trait among males in my family, both literally, and figuratively).

The swimming took up about an hour or so of the day, and by the time the sun went down I realized that I had a sun burn on my head (I recently shaved about 90% of the hair on my head, because I was tired of dealing with my long messy hair) which really kind of sucked.

Our visitors were people like Kevin Jackson (W4JKJ and president of JTRG) who stopped by to operate for a bit, Norm Alexander (W4QN), Dick Lambert (KK4FOA, did not operate), Joe Sawyer (KI4OXP) Pual (N7JQN) Doug Shields (W4DAS and president of MCARA) and Ray Strickland (K4TCJ who showed up after hearing me on the local repeater Sunday morning).

A picture of me operating, like a boss.

As the day progressed into night and the bugs came out to say "hello," it came down to my dad and I operating again, which was fine with me because I got to play around on the 40 meter band (As a technician I do not have any phone privileges on 40 meters, but because I was under the blanket of my dad's extra I got to scan around and make some contacts) which turned out to be a very interesting band .

As I was going through 40 meters, I happened by a net of people holding an "interesting," conversation...

At around 10 o'clock at night after fighting the bad conditions all day, we finally decided to call it in. My parents were bushed (so was I), but they needed me to baby sit everything out side while they napped in side, which really was not so bad, I just went through a can or two of bug spray is all. During my time out side I did make some contacts, got a few people in Europe (Poland is about the furthest contact I have made as of yet, because I mostly stick to local repeaters) and the United States, mostly. I hit the hey at about 11 o'clock and that brings us to Sunday.

Sunday:

Got up early again, and tried to make a few contacts before the contest ended at 8 o'clock, but that did not go to well.  After the contest was over I listened to the Treasure Coaster's net, and went inside and heard some club members on the repeater so I picked up an HD that was lying around and called in to see if anyone could hear me. I made a contact with someone whom I cannot recall their call sign or name, he was in Port St Lucie. After hearing me on the air that's when Ray came and he asked us about how the contest went for us and how many contacts we made. He stayed for a bit, and by about noon we were ready to go home.

Summary:

I had a fun weekend, but I was also not on the internet, so that's mostly why I have no posted anything, well that, and because I am kind of lazy put off posting this entry.

I encourage comments and question by the way, I know my post may be a bit sporadic and out there, but if you need me to clarify anything, or give more detail, let me know and I'll try to expand on it.