Seek and you shall find.

 

If you’ve been visiting my blog, you might have noticed that my sidebar "Blogs I follow"  list has stopped updating with the most recent posts. I have been doing some reading and checking with other Blogger who use Blogger and they has the same issue. It seems to be an issue at Bloggers end and they are very slow to fix it. 

I was getting very tired of seeing the blogs I follow just sit there without updating. It can be frustrating for those who visit my blog and like to read the blogs that I also follow. 

I finally took some time behind the scenes to revamp my sidebar widget! It turns out it is possible to fix those stuck Blogger posts I follow and get fresh feeds flowing again using a few layout tweaks. Along side AI's  help I was able to use the blogger HTML/JAVA widget to assemble some HTML coding that gets the job done. 

Now, whenever you visit, you can check out the sidebar to see the latest posts and active updates from the blogs I follow. It may not be as fancy as the Blogger widget but its now updating. Once blogger fixes the issue I can go back to the Blogger widget for following blogs as at this time it is just turned off. 

 

"Jim I'm only a doctor"

 

When I opened up HamClock today I was reminded that September 8th is Star Trek day. I had the USS Enterprise NCC 1701 slowly moving across my screen on HamClock. Hats off to those at Open HamClock Back-end for making this happen. 

Time for antenna work.

 

Before the DX Engineering radial plate

The vertical antenna I have is the Hustler 4BTV, which gives me 10–40m, and I am very happy with its performance. One shortfall for me is the method this antenna uses to fasten the ground radials. At the base of the antenna, there are two stainless steel nuts and bolts. All the radials are bunched together and fastened to one of the two nuts and bolts. The antenna works just fine this way, but for me, I wanted something better.

Part 2 of..... Antenna solve one problem to only create another.

 

If you have not read Part 1 of this post, go HERE and then make your way back.

To recap, I was having an issue with my Hustler 4BTV vertical antenna, and I discovered that water was making its way into the 15m trap. Once I had the antenna reassembled and back in the upright position, I went into the house to check the SWR. I like to do this whenever I work on the antenna.

To my surprise, the minimum SWR was 2.4:1 on 15m, but10m, 20m, and 40m were all ok. I had taken my time putting the antenna back together, so I really wasn't sure what had happened.

My new SWR on 15M