Some Reasons Why I am Staying Closer to Home – Ham Super Spreader Events?

There seems to be a maelstrom out there, and I for one am at the moment prone to sit tight.

After hearing that the Contest University (CTU) folks at Hamvention 2022 had significant numbers came down with COVID I was a bit skeptical how large group meetings were going to turn out.

Now that I am hearing reports that the Central State VHF Conference also became a spreader-event, along with reports from industry trade association attendees of similar spreader events outside of the ham world, I am doubly cautious.

When my XYL came down traveling to help her elderly parents move to assisted living, spending quarantine time in a dorm room sized suite on her own in Europe, my caution went up another notch. She reports isolating was more than worrisome, expensive and inconvenient, it was emotionally difficult.

When I came down with a second bout of the virus, with no traceable point of exposure unless you are willing to presume that some vaccinated people can be symptomless carriers, it further became time to rethink things.

The virus is not gone, and if you catch it you lose a couple weeks and maybe much more if your are unlucky.

The protective injections fail to actually protect us, and the mutating virus walks around acquired immunity.

So there is a new calculus in my life – will potential increased exposure of an activity be worth the risk of a couple weeks of sick and down time?

An awful lot of events are coming up short in the evaluation, as the benefits of participation are overwhelmed by the risk of more virus exposure.

I should mention that I really want to avoid becoming a typhoid-Mary, in that we assist those who are elderly and I exercise a two different places that some of the others exercising there have a greater virus risk.

I have canceled plans to travel to Dallas and St Louis for two separate business conferences that fall into the “nice to go, but not critical” category.

Decided to not plan on attending the W9DXCC, especially as one can bet that Illinois will return to requiring masks – adding insult to the exposure risk.

My scheduled Canadian hunting trip has been canceled, less so over the exposure risk once I am there, but more about the very slow recovery so far from my second virus sickness. I am certain I will not be fit enough by final go/no-go decision time to consider the hunt.

Now what AM I going to do instead?

Station time will figure into replacement activities, of course.

I had my little fishing boat updated with a new outboard motor, and there are plenty of fishing challenges to do!

With that same little boat, I think I will try my hand at doing some US Island activations with the KX-3 setup I bought from a cousin.

Both home and island QTH have antenna projects to be finished up.

I may do some actual travel, but for something much higher in value than conferences or ham events – as we may go to visit relatives/friends. Some of the visits we can drive, but one to England does have a lot more travel exposure to seriously reflect upon.

And otherwise I can shuttle between home QTH and island QTH, with minimal exposure.

73

Steve
K9ZW

Back on the Air after 12 days of Covid Virus

“Thank you!” to Vincent KX4SR for the 20m FT8 QSO that marked my return to the airwaves after a 12 day absence due to Covid.

When back on July 15th after a 20m QSO with Joseph KF0EIR I shut down, I didn’t expect it would be 1-1/2 weeks before I would be back on the air.

While I could have remoted into my station while in isolation, I really wasn’t up to it. SSB/Phone wasn’t in the cards given the deep cough and sore throat combined with sleeping most of the time. Doing FT8 when awake would have been possible, but I was motivated with a focus on getting well.

It is good to get back on the air, even if it will be just digital mode for a few more days until the random coughing episodes abate.

73

Steve
K9ZW

Behind Bars, in Isolation

Yup, I am in isolation for society’s benefit!

Not the sort of bars you might have first thought though.

Felt lackluster Saturday and by the end of the afternoon I had faded. My electric screw runner felt like I was trying to lift and run a 30 pound construction impact hammer drill rather than my 2 pound battery unit

Broached whether we should quickly pack to catch the last ferry off of the island that day?

As I tend to not show that I am not well – I’ve driven myself to the ER a few times to have the admin staff at the ER ask who was I there to see, only to be in surgery myself an hour later – so with great optimism we “pretended that I would be fine in the morning” and stayed.

Morning it was obvious I had something and I faced a good chance of ending up in isolation quarantine. I didn’t want to stay on island, as our small place makes mockery of one person isolating, and we knew the isolation drill worked before at our main house

So we head off island and homeward, where I had a stash of rapid tests available.

The “bars” of my health sentence came up right away, but I did wait the full fifteen minutes with my fingers crossed with the idea that the positive would go away.

I live fairly healthily, with an XYL who makes sure our diets are sound, and doctors who figured out that my taking a vitamin regimen would deeply aid my health.

Being that many of the symptoms have lessened quickly, and that I didn’t have access to my CCP-19 Virus Protocol supplements until I returned home, I’ve simply added more fruit and honey tea to my established vitamin regimen.

That plus oodles of sleep.

The worst of the brain fog has retreated, as at one point I found myself tapping the right edge of a paperback I was reading, expecting it to advance a page like my Kindle.

Regular postings likely to return in a day or so, as I will be crawling the walls by then. I did the first quarantine when I had the CCP-19 virus early on.

Keep healthy and safe!

73

Steve
K9ZW

Non-Radio – Travel to England Virus Rules (August 2021)

An atypical post for With Varying Frequency, as the XYL made a priority Elder-care trip to England, which was booked immediately when the British Government announced elimination of the ten-day isolation quarantine when arriving in England from the USA.  What follows was my running notes as posted in a travel forum.  Despite the forum’s claimed large traveler participation, as the XYL left immediately on the rule change, we were the first timers in the process.  

As the rules, apps, and experience will evolve, they are offered as an accounting of the XYL’s August 2021 trip alone.   I am offering this here as many of us travel, and some might be contemplating travel for radio opportunities or DXpedition reasons.  Worth thinking about – and knowing if you break the rules or mess it up, you can be fined in the English case some thing like $7,000/person, put into quarantine until you can be sent home and have your future UK access put into question.  

This trip was a success though worrisome, and required a couple extra tests at the end as the XYL’s host was Pinged by the NHS (National Health Service) App during the period they were working together to help the XYL’s parents.  So out of caution a couple extra tests were taken.  

73

Steve
K9ZW

Navigating the UK Gov website, Airline Website and juggling all the documents is a bit of a tricky deal.

Not all are properly updated as of Monday August 2nd 2021, the selfie photograph taking part of the UK Gov site has a mind of its
own, and it is hard to answer some of the questions as they are already outdated.

Expect this will get better as the updates to websites are completed/harmonized.

Some really silly stuff like the email from the UK Gov has a pdf attachment that cannot be opened on latest iOS USA configured
phones, but can be opened once to save it to a desktop computer and then resend it back to yourself. I simply don’t have time to dig
into that error, as the workaround takes longer to write up to share than do for yourself.

Current rule extra costs up to the point of travel (so far):

• About 14 hours of extra time spent.
• Local C-19 test (out of pocket unknown)
• Day-2 C-19 test – best deal found about UKP 85 (uses DHL delivery)
• Extra Insurance (our choice, again we use EA+) – $105/pp

Expected additional costs:

• Less than 4 hours anticipated for test and games
• Pre-Return C-19 test – another UKP 85 (unless a better deal is found)

That is if everything goes well.

Summary – about an extra $400-500 per person C-19 “drag” for 3 tests and extra insurance.

Next post:

The Dawn of a New Era? How after the ChiCom Plague we will never go back again. Part 5 – Full Ham Edition

The Dawn of a New Era?  How after the ChiCom Plague we will never go back again – Part 5 – Full Ham Edition

My last post in this series discussing the paradigm shifts in our lives brought on by the ChiCom Plague, but with a particular focus on Amateur Radio.

The paradigm shifts I covered in posts 1, 2, 3 and 4, that appear they will stay with us once the ChiCom Plague virus is thwarted are (in italic to show they were already covered):

• Accelerated Change on multiple Axis
• Risk Analysis of Social Contacts
• Risk Analysis of Group Meetings (Starving the Monkeys)
• Travel vs Teleconference
• Supply Chain Robustness
• Distrust of the MSM and other public voices with an agenda
• Increase in Personal Preparedness
• Two-is-One, One-is-None mentality as the new norm
• Unmaintainable generics vs Sustainable Brand options
• Exotics vs Field-Maintainable Equipment
• The Death of JIT (Just in Time) logistics
• Education Reform
• The Kennedy Reality (Ask not..)

But what about ham radio? (Listed in Bold to match the other posts):

• The Hamfest has taken a forever hit
• Boat Anchors and Used Gear will have polarized values
• One-Man-Band Equipment Providers will be Challenged
• Did Big Group Field Day just die for 2020 or did it go the way of the Dodo?
• What happens to Club Meetings?
• Supply Chain Issues Favor Domestic Production

Delving into these issues:

The Dawn of a New Era? How after the ChiCom Plague we will never go back again. Part 4

The Dawn of a New Era?  How after the ChiCom Plague we will never go back again – Part 4

This is the last in my series to discuss the paradigm shifts in our lives brought on by the ChiCom Plague.  (Please see Parts 1, 2 and 3 for more background).

Some of the paradigm shifts appear they will stay with us once the ChiCom Plague virus is thwarted (the ones in Bold are the ones I will address in this post, italic were already covered):

• Accelerated Change on multiple Axis
• Risk Analysis of Social Contacts
• Risk Analysis of Group Meetings (Starving the Monkeys)
• Travel vs Teleconference
• Supply Chain Robustness
• Distrust of the MSM and other public voices with an agenda
• Increase in Personal Preparedness
• Two-is-One, One-is-None mentality as the new norm
• Unmaintainable generics vs Sustainable Brand options
• Exotics vs Field-Maintainable Equipment
• The Death of JIT (Just in Time) logistics
• Education Reform
• The Kennedy Reality (Ask not..)

Let’s do a final dig into the list: