Checking in...

[N7YA]

Hi all,

I have been trying to pop in a bit more often these days. Nothing too exciting on this end. Still in Maine, likely going to stay in Maine. The folks here are...interesting but harmless, we just love the state. There is nothing like farm fresh food every day, clean air most of the time (Montreal or Boston permitting, depending on the wind), trees and the sea. In Vegas, as you all know, I was wound up pretty tightly. This move saved my sanity and heart health. I was a different person 4 years ago, i'm much happier and tuned in these days.
Devi and I are about to celebrate 10 years of her putting up with my shit, and an extra year, this last one, for us finally understanding one another. We come from two completely different cultures. But I truly appreciate my life now and what I have. We are also about to celebrate our 3rd year of working at Athenahealth. Devi and I started on the payment extraction floor in a secured facility on the Athena campus. About 1 1/2 years ago I moved to the Print department where I work with claims and EOB's, as well as operating a pair of Xerox Nuvera industrial printers and a very tempermental asshole of a machine called the Bell & Howell BH4000 inserter. I just call it The Kraken. I spend most of my time inside the machines with weird tools trying to keep them running so i can make my shipment deadlines. I also run several computers and related ops programs, but I kind of like the pressure because I am a masochist. Figuratively speaking, of course. Devi is still out on the main floor at her desk where she is most happy. Its good for now.

As for music, i still have all my gear, but I am in no hurry to deal with musicians personalities at 53. I do have a small home studio and plan to fiddle around with that. The last actual work i did was with a jazz pianist named Tom Luther up here in Union who needed a guitarist for a project a few years ago. Aside from that, nah. We may be moving toward Portland in the next couple of years once all of our debts are paid off, maybe i'll play again down there. We plan on buying a new home on a couple of acres and digging in for the long haul. Belfast is absolutely beautiful, but the options are very limited outside of Athena here. We may stay, we may move, but either way, we will be getting some land and a home of our own. That means antennas and a proper shack for papa! We'll see how it goes. :icon_smile:

What else? Got some new fillings. Our cats are all doing very well. We moved from the downstairs to the upstairs and love it, we really overlook the harbor now. Im closing in on 300 DXCC on "100 watts and a wire", just collecting the cards now. We are pushing toward zero waste as much as possible and trying to reduce our footprint on the earth wherever we can, its just a good thing to do and a better way to live...cheaper too! Im finally designing my own QSL cards, i'll post them if you are curious.

Anyway, i'm sure i forgot some stuff, but I think this is a good start. How have you all been?

[kb2vxa]

First of all you damn Yankee, it's y'all, one word, not two! (;->) I've been surviving as a paper ham, rather like Schrodinger's cat, both dead and alive at the same time. Belfast, ME is a lovely place with some rather odd but harmless people, however memory of the place name was trashed and utterly ruined by Glen Bastard K1MAN. Speaking of odd but harmless people, you stand a good chance of being in ground wave range of the infamous Timtron WA1 Henry Yell Arr. He's the ringleader of The AM Gangstas (we have one) usually around 3885 although when operating K2PG when I lived in West Creek I had a nice QSO with him in the 40M AM window.

I'm quite sure after getting your brain scrambled in Vegas, and I know the place by remote viewing (not psychic, TV) the "world famous" Gold And Silver Pawn Shop stocked with weirdos, I'm sure letting your hair down in Maine is a welcome change! Then there is the Maine Coon, not a kind of raccoon, not one named Rocky either, a rather large felis domesticus.

I'm familiar with climbing under machines with strange tools, I used to do plant maintenance in a woodworking shop. The "carpenters" (not Karen & Richard) hated Monday, they sabotaged the machines thinking they wouldn't have to work. Come Friday, same shit, they thought they could go home early. I put a quick end to that nonsense, the plant manager gave me authority to put them on old ballbuster machines when they damaged the new ones. At first they gave me static, I got nose to nose, eye to eye and told them "If you don't like it go tell the plant manager!" The next week the sabotage ended.

Strange tools Hiram P. Maxim W1AW used to discipline lids... "A Squirt who was a band-jumper, or who failed to maintain an intimate acquaintance with a reliable wavemeter, was politely knocked on the head with a baseball bat, dragged out into the nearest sand lot, and subjected to a surgical operation with a thing called a Rettysnitch. . . .

"Last but by no means least, a Squirt who even thought of using a false call, let alone actually using one, or used profane language on the air or who willfully broke up other legitimate amateur traffic, was taken for a certain kind of ride during which an instrument of torture known as a Wouff-Hong figured very prominently. No Young Squirt ever returned from one of those rides. There were three gadgets that were devised by the amateurs of those early days to keep Young Squirts constantly reminded of these three important don'ts of amateur radio. A Squirt who used too much of what we used to call "Lake Erie Swing," or sent with a slobbery fist, or cluttered up the air with too many CQ's, or garbled his call letters so that they had to be guessed at, was called upon by a committee, the chairman of which was a big brute with a positive manner and who exhibited and explained the workings of an instrument known as an Uggerumph."

16461

This mysterious object was made shortly after Hiram Percy Maxim wrote his story "Rotten QRM" in 1917. Whether the device was symbolic of QRM in those days or was supposed to cure its evils is left to the imagination, although strong hints were given by "The Old Man."
The "editorial" was reprinted in the December 1940 issue of QST. The word "ugerumf"--while mentioned in this writing, was actually part of poorly sent exchange by a "poor gink." A portion of the text reads: "BIRRGRMP BRU ROTARY GE GE UGERUMF OM WITH MY SET RETTYSNITCH SPITTY TONE HIT IN POTIMUS? Now what do you suppose the poor gink was trying to say when he unreeled that? You have to guess a lot in wireless, and how would you guess this?" (T. O. M.) A common "trick" utilized by radio amateurs when sending "30" (di-di-di-dah-di-dahhhhhh) at the close of a QSO was to open the "transmit/receive" switch (usually a big knife witch), allowing the spark to die during this last prosign. The result was an unusual "growl." Likewise, an improperly adjusted rotary gap or an inexpensive "straight" gap typically had a rough, unpleasant note in the receiving operators headphones. Therefore, I suspect, the term "Uggerumph."

[X-Rated]

Trying to move myself. About 25 miles to Sterling Illinois. Good to see YA here.