Lee will huff and puff.....

 

Greetings from Atlantic Canada, seems we are in for our first major storm this summer from the unfolding hurricane season. We moved to the Maritimes almost 5 years ago and before that time I only had seen reporting on the news regarding hurricanes. Since we have lived here we have had 2 and the first one was only after 2 weeks of living here.......that should have been our sign! But we love it here, the lifestyle, the ocean, the clean air and so on. We are gearing up here for Sunday's arrival of Hurricane Lee, the winds in this area are now forecast around 100 km. That is enough for me to remove the Hustler 4BTV and store it in the shed, put away the patio furniture, take down all hanging plants and anything else that may blow around. We have a generator back up at our home so a power interruption will only be temporary. As you know I am a big CW contesting fan and thank goodness there is no major CW contest this weekend....BUT.......if there was I still have the EndFed ready to go and that would give me my contest fix!

Been there done that but it seems I am now doing it again!

 

 In quest to be frugal and when ham bucks are needed for a purchase I have in the past taken a look around the shack and put up for sale items that I just were not using or felt I would no long need. Way to often I have found this practice has bitten me more than one time. How many of you have sold a piece of equipment to later find you need it!
I have done that with too many items and it can get very frustrating but I do have to understand that in some cases the new piece of gear that was purchased would never had happened if I did not liquidate some gear. Here are some of the items I have sold and turned around to only purchase the same item later on down the line. LG auto tuner, external SWR meter, noise cancelling unit, antenna switch, Asus Xonar U7 external sound card and the list goes on. Actually it goes on to my most recent purchase the K1EL Winusb keyer, yup had one and sold it and now I need it.
How many of you out there have done the same thing? I have now learned my lesson as I am keeping on my self the external SWR meter, antenna switch and Astron power supply just in case I need them. I have become a ham horder.

Hold on folks!

 

 Now that I am retired long weekends seem to sneak up on me as when I was working it seemed they never could come fast enough. As with CW contesting they just don't seem to come fast enough  but space weather has a way of sneaking up and spoiling the contest....well that is what I used to think anyway. In the past, I would faithfully check out the space weather to get a sniff of upcoming conditions for a weekend contest. If things looked rough I would either skip the contest or dip my toes in it just to see how the ride would go. 

Blogger issue solved I can now add followers.

Here are the steps I followed

 

Way back on August 15, I asked my readers a question regarding my blog not being able to add new blogs to follow. From the comments, some had the same issue as well when trying to add a new blog to follow. My blog is also re-posted on Amateurradio.com and on this site, Rick KE6LL wondered if somehow the blog was limited to how my blogs I could follow. I have seen other Blogger blogs that did have more followed blogs than me and it got me thinking about his question.