Simple Ham Radio Antennas

Another busy week at the radio station news room. Most of my time on the home rig was spent listening and working a bit of cw on the lower portion of 40 meters.  I spent some of my leisure time (what there is of it after a long day in the news room), checking out some interesting articles I found on the ARRL website.  Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, has a general interest column that always has a few gems to offer. If you're into QRP like I am, you'll find Stan's review of the following worth a visit:  "Amateur Radio on it's (sic) Edge blog " by Tobias Wellnitz, DH1TW; "The Garage Shoppe" by Pete Goodmann, NI9N; and , on http://www.eham.net/ , an article by Charles Cohen, VA7CPU, entitled "How to QRP--Operating Strategies for the Power Challenged".  All of these articles offer some excellent advice on how to pursue your QRP interest. Until next time, Aloha, 73, KH6JRM.

Mother Nature has put a damper on this weekend's Drag Race at the Hilo Drag Strip...a wet track means no fast cars.  As a former racer, the heavy clouds were a disappointment, but safety outweighs other concerns. So, it's back to the QTH after I make my media reports to the newspapers and various racing websites.  I enjoy my "other" self at the race track--I don't race anymore, but I manage to keep my hand in by serving as the tower annoucer.  This is something that complements my job as a news director.  Nothing solid here...just a welcome es- cape from the real world.  In many ways, my artificial world on the weekends gives me a chance to relax and reduce the stress.  Amateur Radio serves a similar function. Of course, all of this changes when a natural or man-made emergency converts many hams to on-call communicators for various public service agencies  All told, I wouldn't have it any other way.  Fun and public service are...

Well, after a few glitches and computer operator problems, the blog is up and running again.  I took a brief break to work on a few workplace projects while whatever was causing my blog to redirect to some weird sites passed through.  I suppose my inattention to detail had a lot to do with this. Multi- tasking can be a problem sometimes.  Between all of this, I did manage to work some nice cw on 40 meters, restring the vertical on my new Jackite fiber- glass mast (nice piece of work), and generally re- laxed at the rig.  The news department at the radio station has been a busy place with a tsunami warning last month (we did get a few small waves in Hilo Bay), a few moderate earthquakes in the Puna District, and drought induced brushfires in the Waikoloa area.  Big Island Amateurs were available for each of these situ- ations, and provided timely tidal information during the 27 February tsunami warning.  All told, we have been busy.  O...