The ultimate objective…
Now for another edition of Ham Radio Saturday.
I created a page for the List of YOUR callsigns. HERE Chime in or drop me a note if your call doesn’t appear in the list.
The first Ham Radio news of global importance is that …
… my call sign changed!
KC9ZJN is now…
The new card. So, you reader hams, we need some contacts so I can send a few of these.
I haven’t made many contacts with the new call sign yet, since I wanted to wait until it also got into QRZ.com.
When I was notified by the FCC, I switched on the rig and made a DX contact saying “Whiskey Nine Foxtrot…” which cuts through better than “Kilo Charlies Nine…”.
So… that’s done.
The next item involves the possibility of setting up a station and shack here in the Diocese of Madison with a club. At a local parish where I say Mass on Sundays there is an old school that has some storage space that can – and will – be reallocated. My local Elmer and I met the pastor and scoped out the place. We also looked at where antennas could go and of what sort. It’l take some elbow grease, but it can be done. Furthermore, I have found at least four hams from the parish who are interested in forming the core of the club, so that we can get a call sign.
Brick by brick.
Another bit: thanks to WB0YLE who gave me a gift of credit at Ham Radio Outlet. They assign credit to your call sign and you can use it at any of their stores. You have to call in your order, but that’s not a big deal. I used some credit to buy a 100′ long high quality cable so that I can get my antenna down on the ground rather that on my re-rod reinforced balcony.
Look how thick this stuff is. Whew.
Also, I solved an intermittent SWR problem that I was having with my portable SuperAntenna. There is a whip antenna on the top of the coil. The whip is to be extended all the way. However, there is a little hitch in one of the tubes of the antenna that made me think that it was extended all the way… when it wasn’t. Once I discovered that, and I powered by the little sticky part, and got it correctly extended, the SWR dropped.
Anyway, my Saturday looks pretty flexible and it looks like it’ll be a sunny day. I may give myself a field day and go to the parish cemetery again (HERE and HERE) and – after praying for the dead to gain an indulgence (hopefully plenary) – see what happens.
That’s the update for this week.
W9FRZ (olim KC9ZJN)
73
