A month of QSOs

I’ve finished a month of QSOs and thought it’d be fun to look at the results. Early (5pm) in the evening, I can hear activity along the east coast, Mexico, and Cuba(!), but I am unable to get through.  Not surprisingly, most of my contacts have been between 7pm and 10pm (02 – 05 UTC), when […]

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Fun with FT8

(For setting up FT8, go here.) Setting up WSPR (Weak Signal Propagation Reporting) was done in preparation for playing with the two-way digital communication modes. The set I was initially aiming for is JT9/JT65, named after Joe Taylor, for very short messages that can be received far away, in noisy conditions. What makes this work

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Colonoscopy

You are standing in an open field west of a white house, with a boarded front door.  There is a small mailbox here. <tl;dr>It wasn’t that bad.</tl;dr> (These are notes are mostly for myself for next time.) Beware of shark T – 10+ days: Pick up The Kit.  The kit is a 4L container with

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Mid-Atlantic Countryside

Well that was an enjoyable week!   88 geocaches in 6 states (DC, DE, MD, NJ, PA, WV) with 375 miles of biking (and some Ubering) over 9 days.  Highlights were the guided tours of Gettysburg, PA (by a professional guide) and Washington, DC monuments (local, at night). Pre-trip: This was about as bad shape as

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The Mintern

In retrospect, there were signs that The Intern might not work out: The child of a friend of the family of a Senior Executive … touted as an upperclassman from a well-known engineering school, but was just starting a search for an internship in mid-June … hasn’t been vetted or spoken with the hiring manager, but was slated to

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Geobiking Philly to DC

The excitement of visiting colleges with my daughter, her applying to the short list, and waiting on the results has is over and I’m seriously craving a week unplugged from work.   I’ll be taking an organized ride in October from Philadelphia to Washington, DC.  Since these trips are as much about seeing different things as the Zen of

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