wy0mn

I'd like to get my Dad into HAM, but he's shown no interest at all, sigh... he's 75 and still chasing the "ol' gray mares" around the pasture! KCQ2979, lol. I wonder if there is still a registry for old licensed CB'ers somewhere. 73-wy0mn aka Lex

This group definately isn't as bad off as some are, still, we can do better. Maybe a new years challenge. As a resolution for 2009, add a valued skill to your personal accomplishments. I know I'm disgustingly weak in the medical arts. Basic 1st Aid/CPR is better than nothing. My brain isn't too calcified yet to learn more. Earlier this year I bought a wood cookstove for the cabin. Then I had to teach myself how to use it properly. I grew up with those things, but a lot is forgotten over time, and the ladies usually crafted our meals. Just planning things so that they all arrived at the table hot was a challenge! Campfire cooking is simple, you lower the bar, and set your meal quality down to what you & an open fire are capable of. With a wood cookstove you can prepare anything that a regular stove can. But it requires more diligent observation & temperature control. There is no setting the timer and walking away, anything left on the surface as though it were a slow crock... adios. I have to learn to use a canner on this beast next. Perhaps I should learn an oft overlooked type of woodworking. Warping & bending. Useful not only for bent wood rocking chairs but snowshoes, sleds, wagon wheels, barrel staves, etc.

Farming is all I knew as a kid, in Alabama as a matter of fact. As a youth we butchered our own stock & game. Dad cured hams, Mom & Granny canned or dried everything imaginable, and made butter from our own milk. It was too warm for root cellars, although one Grandpa (from CZ) always tried. I grew a varied orchard when I lived in TN & am attempting the beginnings of one here (WY). This week I'm relearning how to make jelly & cider vinegar from the last of the crab apples. Next week I'll try to make some tallow candles from sheep tallow I scrounged. Took Hussy, my wife, on a roadtrip to see a reed bed near a lake the other day. She said she can weave baskets from them if the sap hasn't fallen too far yet. My pottery skills are crude but functional, & I'm an average farrier.

My personal belief in preparedness requires a balanced yet broad ranged knowledge & experiennce foundation. We stockpile foodstuffs, garden, orchard, hunt/fish/trap among many other acts & skills. Just curious how many others have skills besides simply hiding things bought from the store... Any blacksmiths? Tanners? Weavers? Potters? Any skill at all, I'm really curious to know.

There are license study materials available for download (free, I think) on the QRZ website and online sample tests on the EHAM website. I hope you choose to join us. Ham radio is a truly rewarding hobby. Since '91 I've only been of emergency assistance in three circumstances, but my help was invaluable all three times. Membership in emergency groups & clubs isn't a prequesite for being a ham, but once you get to know a few hams... you'll probably want to! Dale, I get nostalgic too. But not back to tube days. My dad was/is an illegal over-powered CB operator. Finding some tubes is getting difficult/expensive. My nostalgia comes in building esoteric antennas, trans-matches, and true tuners. Building site specific antennas thrills me, whether it be wire or tubular. Although I must admit that a Smith Chart reeks of black magic & voodoo to me. hihi. I have to build spreadsheets to use most complicated formulas, too many years of too many beers. ( Sober for the last two.) The most fun I had with ham radio was was a MFJ 30m rig and a wire Zepp that lit up with NE-2's when I keyed the straight key! Confused the heck outta mating fireflies. I still bemoan the loss of CW, and the day that the Navy/Coast Guard stopped monitoring Morse emergency frequencies. One of the three emergencies I aided, was in CW on 10m, sideband wasn't reliable enough for coherent communication. CW is "cleaner" too, although we're a nice crowd anyway, few ops take the effort to curse in CW!

Today is Sunday, althought I'm opinionated 24/7, today I will be nice to my christian friends and not be myself.

I wish I could be as magnanimous, but I'm truly not. My low opinion of mankind has always been reinforced thru experience. "Don't Feed the Bears", the sign says. Why? Because they will keep coming back time & time again, even turning violent when you try to convince them that there is nothing else left to eat.

I wish they'd left things the way they were, but since they didn't, I took advantage of it. My first call was KD4ZSO, then I got KS4YL as an Advanced. When they offered the vanity calls I jumped at the chance to free up the "YL" call to one of the ladies on a YL net! I was an 'honorary' lady with that call lemme tell ya!

To insure the security & welfare of MY loved ones... I'd even make a pre-emptive strike. I had to do a load of soul searching back in '99 with the Y2K scare. I had several families of 'no good' welfare bums down the street from me. They were perfectly able to work but chose to be a burden on society ie: me. If things had gotten bad I'd have not been able to leave the house to garden, tend the stock, nor collect firewood for fear that they would have taken all I owned & burned the rest in my absence. Imagine a den of snakes near your childrens playground, do you leave them alone until they strike? Certainly not! To even imply otherwise would show a decided lack of judgement. When men behave in a feral manner, it becomes the duty of civilized people to put an end to their predations. Any thief allowed to escape with that can~of~beans may resort to murder of an innocent party to get the next meal. The person who allowed him to get away is just as guilty as he is in my eyes.

"And may i also add, the more people with guns in their homes would also encourage more criminals to carry guns into the victims homes, whilst doing their dastardly deeds." Thats funny, & shows the difference in conditioned thinking between the US & the UK. Here intruders are armed because even Granny may attack them with a cane, we aren't conditioned to pacifism.

Screen name & FCC vanity callsign. Got it 'cause it looked like the name 'Wyoming'. Just gotta remember to append /7 in CW mode. How'ja get the 6 callsign? Buried the bottom 3' of the lower section of each Rohn 25G tower in 360# of mud each. Odd length due to using used (cannabalized) tower sections as base sections. Chose to erect vertically rather than lever up entire tower. Swaying at 16' convinced me to guy! Even with stubby towers I have more than enough wind to run my AIR403 turbine almost continuously at peak output. Building the cabin, 12x20, I had to jack out a short wall & add extra bracing due to wind damage during construction. Only place I've ever been where you gotta accelerate downhill with a load of concrete just to maintain speed against the wind (true story). Wifes job lets her travel occasionally, shes been to most of the larger 'cities' (hihi). Me, I'm content with my 40ac of cactus & wind. Sampling other trout streams is the only valid expenditure of fuel in my mind. PS: Just had my dog fixed, they put one of those plastic cones on him to prevent licking... now he's a hairy wind vane!

Glad you caught that, lol. I want a bodaceous vertical. Horizontals & wires don't last long here. Ice/snow/eagles plus WIND take their toll. I've lost one rigid dipole & two homebrew wire aerials in less than 3yrs. DX Engineering has a few ground mounted monobander verts that seem as if they would answer my prayers. I get so much wind here that I was forced to guy my stubby 26' Rohn towers! Thats with 36"/320# Sakrete in the base!

It is a sad story, but far from a solitary attitude. I've abandoned many forums because of that testosterone brained concept. (When I get exposed to that stuff I rear up on my hind legs and show my butt too, I hate that.) Many jocks (pronounced 'jerks') think preparedness is strictly a matter of having the most guns and ammo. That system is a lopsided as one that relies heavily on stockpiling supplies with NO guns. There has to be a balance. I don't want to be a 'wolf', shot at out of fear; nor a 'sheep', easy meat for all takers. Rather think of me as a skunk or porcupine, simply better left alone.

Hussy & I are hunter/gatherers, we own far TOO many guns! lol

Hey, now. I like CW, and I worked most of north & latin America with 3w on 10MHz! Besides, there are several ways to get reduced voltage from an auto battery. One of them is as simple as coiling a wire around a pencil... But all hams know that, right? hihi 73 wy0mn