CQ CQ CQ!

Hi Everyone!
Its been a while since my last post. I hope everyone has had a very good start to the new year. There have been several new ham's licensed in the area over the past year and it seems to me that we have been getting more activity on the air. On January 10th I attended a "no host" breakfast in Springfield on South 6th street at the new Golden Corral. There were over 50 that attended. The food was great but the best thing about it was getting to meet with old friends and meeting some new ones. It was fun to have a social type gathering just to get to know some of our fellow amateurs. Maybe we should "not host" one over this way too. Even if the turnout is not as big it would still be a fun time!
I hope that all of your hard antenna work is making it though the winter well. I am still working off of dipole antennas that I had to rework over the summer because of the ice storm last winter. I have moved my radio equipment upstairs so I can be more active on the bands without making time to just work the radio. It has not come with some setbacks though. Interfacing the radio around the main computer here along with the two meter gear has been a challenge. Another disappointment so far has been getting the old packet controller to interface with the computer. Getting it connected with the computer was not the difficult part, even though the computer had no serial port. That was fixed with a USB serial port converter. The difficult part was the radio connections that had worked before many years ago. For some odd reason connecting the mic connector to either the HF or 2 meter rig produced a bad hum, unless I used the MFJ microphone switch. I still have not figgured out why.
Remeber that the JARS meets on the first Friday of the month at the Red Cross office in Jacksonville, IL at 7 PM.
73
Tim, KB9FBI