Little Projects

Up on Washington Island.  Great super smooth ride across on the newest of the ferries.

Had trouble getting to sleep as the solar storm’s Aurora was quite bright.

Alison’s Citroen 2CV6 ended up with a broken front grill over the winter. Thought something hit it, but investigating glued repairs found the plastic grill had simply become brittle. So I replaced it with a new part from French Parts Service – https://www.2cvsource.com Took longer to find my 8mm socket then to change the grill. Looks good as new.

Before

After

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Measured up for the underground conduit between my Island Garage and the tower. Hired an islander to dig the trench and sure glad I did.  Lots of rocks and barely 16-18 inches before hitting bedrock.   Need 110 LF of xx diameter conduit plus the two vertical runs, elbow where turning vertical, pull boxes (two), the couplers at the pull boxes, duct sealer, and the use of a conduit heater type bender.

A few views  of the trench.

Along side the garage. Other conduit is to house.

 

And of course it started raining – Manlift arrived

Today the boom manlift was delivered.

And of course it promptly started raining.

In past when rental lifts were delivered my local weather went bad at delivery as well.

Project work will start soon.  But not in the rain!

73

Steve
K9ZW

My Citroen CX Trio

Presently I have three Citroen CX cars.

• 1981 CX Athena 5-speed 2.0L car with the later CX engine design, with about 27,000 miles on the clock
• 1981 CX 2400 Pallas Automatic with A/C and about 47,000 miles on it’s clock
• 1978 CX 2400 Prestige Cmatic with dual-A/C and only about 14,000 miles on it

Most amazingly is all three are here in Northeastern Wisconsin, where seeing any Citroen is a rare occasion.

Athena, Pallas and Prestige

Another view of the trio:

Is University Worth It?

Would say that unless you need:

• Specific Training ONLY available at University (like STEM)
• Access to Networking Opportunities ONLY available at University

That University is wasted time and money.

To be transparent I have at least three University Degrees (an Associates, a Bachelor’s in Business Administration & Computer Science, and an Masters in Business Administration). Technically somehow I got a second Associates and the two-year MBA program said we had our DipBA (Diploma in Business Administration) after the first year in case we needed it for resume purposes. So maybe I have five degrees?  I don’t really care, but I mention this so we’re clear that I have done the path attending University.

Back in the day I wasn’t going to get significant computer, much less mainframe time, without University access, and I was pretty aware that skipping the MBA was going to set my management career back 10-15 years in the end.

That doesn’t seem to be the case on either point in today’s world.

DX Ruminations

A couple ponderings about DXing:

DX Clubs

Attended our area DX Club meeting last Saturday. Very interesting presentation by Mike W9MK about the T42T Cuba event. That presentation was done by Zoom and other than the specific Q&A of our specific day’s presentation, you can actually find the presentation as a YouTube available on demand.

The rest of the meeting was ritual recanting of upcoming DXpeditions, selection of two of these DXpenditions to send $200 each as a gesture of support, a 50/50 raffle which raised less than 10% of the meager monies we will be sending off, and a discussion about discussing possibly sourcing of club polo shirts.

I’m thinking most of the attendees (there were just ten) would have in their pockets many times the $40/head we just sent to DXpeditions, especially in light that everyone bought themselves breakfast and drove (in many cases some distance) to be there.

Sending $200 to a major DXpedition when projected costs are known to be six-digit seems weak. Having to raid the club treasury for each $200 seems doubly weak.

Some realities are we don’t have much for a club resource, having sold many members a Life Membership which cut off future dues income, and were approaching our spend with yesterday’s prices in our heads.

As a club we were being cheap-Charlies with our meager sponsorships.

I’d thought of offering to match the donations pledged, but knowing that might be felt as a shaming held me back.

And why donate indirectly rather than directly as a K9ZW donation?

DXpeditions cost more than money

There are a lot of risks.

Risks to body & health.  Being someplace pretty much “the end of the earth” decreases one’s odds if something bad comes up.

There there is the toll from being away so long.

One guy recounted coming back from a DXpedition to find his wife had moved out.  Doubt DXpeditioning was the only cause, though also doubt it helped the situation either.

A lot of the DXpedition are physical marathons being run by the few old timers who somehow have escaped their Canes & Walkers.  Is it a young person’s pursuit being taken up by the retired?

RIBS and other Remotes Muddy the Waters

Did you work that DX operator ?  Or did you work just some hardware that happens to be at the DX site with the operator somewhere else?  Was that DX operator out there, or out there nearby on the boat, or linked by satellite to their home country?

Have we let clever Technology drain the soul out of DXpeditions?

Not to be a spoil sport, but a Remote Operator claiming to be the DX is not a bonafide DX Operator any more than the guy I work by Satellite is a real Astronaut.

The MFJ Transition

Most of the ham world has seen the MFJ shuttering domestic production announcement:
https://mailchi.mp/62e24f2ccc99/a-heavy-sad-heart

Some backstory about MFJ:
https://mfjenterprises.com/pages/the-story-of-mfj-enterprises-inc

Martin F. Jue, K5FLU was a friend of George W9EVT, and when I take George the Dayton Hamvention we usually had a meet & greet with Martin K5FLU.

I cannot say Martin would remember me beyond being George W9EVT’s buddy.  Nor have I used MFJ’s products much (neither did George W9EVT).

Some things I picked out is “domestic production”  phrase suggesting that MFJ will continue or will develop non-domestic production.

And that the company will remain open to sell from inventory and provide service.