Intros

[kb2vxa]

Careful Charles, you're getting free and easy with our Tiki god, one day he'll bite you. Bad enough you fill his head with ice giving him a splitting headache, now you put a green thing that looks like something I scraped off my windscreen in it. It's too big to be a grasshopper, it looks like a splattered preying mantis. He looks like he's in worse pain than ever, that bug has a fierce bite!

That having been said...
Welcome to Ham Island, Tom. Once upon a time it was The Island Of Misfits With Toys because of our toys that emit radio waves, now its The Island Of Misfit Hams because our toys aren't the only misfits here. Due to a more or less recent quake in the space-time continuum, ripples in the River Thames formed the New Cut and Ham Island https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ham_Island Not wishing everyone coming and going to get soaked swimming we built The Ham Island Bridge. There are weirs at the north and south ends of the cut, so we can say we're weird and be believed. That's an introduction to the island, you'll get to know us better As Time Goes By. Play it again Sam. Lest I forget, you'll soon find out why they call me the grumpy old bastid.

Ham Island Bridge.jpg

[KG4CGC]

That's THE Island tiki drink! Yours gets extra celery and bitters!

[WZ7U]

That's THE Island tiki drink! Yours gets extra celery and bitters!

Could partially explain away the grumpy part...

[KG4CGC]

Could partially explain away the grumpy part...

Nah. By his own admission, he was made grumpy at birth. The doctor used cold forceps.

[N8YX]

There have been a few bannings...usually for very egregious and continual personal attacks against fellow members, the site owner(s), what have you. By and large the place self-polices: We're not afraid to call each other out on something. Of course, that sword cuts both ways at times.

Welcome, Tom. If you're into contesting you may have bumped into Jim, '3N on the air a time or two.

[kb2vxa]

Not quite.

On the day I was born, the nurses all gathered 'round
And they gazed in wide wonder at the joy they had found
The head nurse spoke up, said "Leave this one alone."
She could tell right away that I was bad to the bone.

That's celery? Like I said that looks like a splat preying mantis. I don't like celery, but I like a live preying mantis, they fight back when I eat them. Well, not all of them, take note of this:
I walked forty-seven miles of barbed wire
I got a cobra snake for a necktie
Etc. etc. etc.
Once in a while I must feed the cobra, and for a special treat, a nice juicy rat... THIS rat.

WRAT logo.jpg

I think I better cool it before I scare poor Tom away. Don't worry Tom, I don't bite and neither does my Cobra, it's a CB set, or it was until I sold all the CB crap and took One Step Beyond. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcoa_...ne_Step_Beyond

[N8YX]

If you're channeling Thorogood, the only song worth quoting is "Gear Jammer".

Just sayin'.

[N2SR]

There have been a few bannings...usually for very egregious and continual personal attacks against fellow members, the site owner(s), what have you. By and large the place self-polices: We're not afraid to call each other out on something. Of course, that sword cuts both ways at times.

Welcome, Tom. If you're into contesting you may have bumped into Jim, '3N on the air a time or two.

KJ3N ? Call sounds familiar, but I don't know him personally.

I know that contesting isn't for everyone. Some people like to chat with others on the air, and that's great.

As a colleague in work commented to me a few weeks ago, "So you don't operate casually?" "Nope. I have a logging/DX program running continuously, and I'm connected to the spotting cluster. If something is spotted that I need, on a band or mode, and I'm in the shack, then I will try and work it. Otherwise, I'm doing something else."

Different strokes for different folks. Nothing wrong with either.

[kb2vxa]

Sorry 'bout the late entry, but there is something to say about DX spotting cluster f___s. During the last decent sunspot maximum I spent many days at an Extra Class DC to light QRP to QRO station. I was his DX magnet, not by monitoring clusters, but only noting that once a spot is posted the dog pile is well underway. Not wishing to fight it out with the blind callers stepping all over each other and kilohertz kops clobbering the DX station I casually tuned the band listening for CQs. When I heard one I listened for a moment, then if it went unanswered I'd answer the second call and I scored a hit every time. Since I went for rare DX and looking for new countries (and they piled in daily) I checked the log to see if the country I heard was already there, if it was I kept on tuning until I heard a new one. It was one helluva cycle, I filled a page every day with a 120W PEP peanut whistle.

I should mention that one time I heard a really really rare one working split with a dog pile, so I switched from the Drake to the Collins station and fired up the KWS-1. Since I had to compete with a dog pile I used the "tailing" trick, find and tune the transmit VFO to the station working him and as he clears step on his tail with a full gallon of sheer power. That proved then and there there's no way in hell to bust the Kalifornia Kilowatt Kurtain any more than sanity can bust the Ku Klux Klan, switch off Collins wasted 230V power, back to the Drake TR-7.

"Different strokes for different folks."
Were you a fan of Muhammad Ali or Gary Coleman? (;->)

[VK1EA]

Hi !

VK1EA here, from Canberra. I joined some time ago, it was time to come in and say hi.

Previous callsigns were VK2TY (Sydney), EC4DIL (Spanish mainland) and EB8CLB (Canary Islands)


My radio time goes 99% into tinkering (mostly Ten-Tec) but every now and then I like having a chat as well.

73,
Carlos