There are as many ways to enjoy this hobby as there are people enjoying it. Plenty of categories for one to assign to one’s self. There are contesters. There are DXers. There are experimenters and kit builders. There are CW only operators. There are paper chasers. Some are rag chewers. There are the microwave operators…
Last week was big for my family. My wife and daughter were at camp while my son and I held down the fort and fed the dogs. With the ladies home safe and sound, and knowing that it was Support Your Parks Weekend, I angled for a time to get out to Cuyahoga Valley National…
With all of the fun and adventure of our week plus in the U.P. I was afraid that it would be a bit of a downer coming back to the same old, same old. Happy to report that is not the case. After using rental bikes on the trails in Copper Harbor, we took our…
The Plan This year, we decided to do a similar trip to what we did last year. We packed up the camper and headed to the Upper Peninsula of Michigan for some time close to Lake Superior. We had a great trip last year and got some idea of what’s available. It’s a lot of…
Monday evenings around our house are usually busy. My family has a standing activity and I use that time to get things done or sometimes to read in the quiet for a moment. Last night, however, I decided that since the weather over the weekend got the best of me, I’d head out to Cuyahoga…
Making My Own Problems On an average spring to fall weekend in NE Ohio what I want to do is get on my bike, ride to the park, and get on the air. I’ve done that for about a year now and it’s been very, very rewarding. Mixing hobbies is great! More people should try…
Support Your Parks Weekend is a seasonal event run by the folks at Parks On The Air. Since getting into POTA, I’ve been trying to activate and hunt for each of the events as they pass. More than anything, events like this are an excuse to get out into the field and do what I…
It took a minute, but it works. The last week or so has been a lot of fun diving into some software and tweaking things to get them where I need them to be. There are some really great free options out there for radio communications that do not involve MS Windows or any proprietary…
After all of the work in getting my computer setup for field work again, I was itching to get outside. Easter Sunday presented a very nice opportunity. The weather was stunning. It was in the mid-50dF range with light breezes and perfectly blue skies. It was a great weekend in general and my wife and…
There are plenty of jokes about POTA devotees checking maps before going on vaction for new parks to activate along the way. In this case, my family decided that we’d spend spring break at Mammoth Cave National Park – K-0050 which meant that I didn’t even need to play any weird games to land a…