First a short update as I have been very lax in daily posts in. Friday we had to make another trip out to the county fair to pick up the wife’s’ prize… she won first in her group and Champion for the class. not bad for first time ever to enter… since we had to be there at 6 and I stopped at the Ham booth again we decided it was time to have some “fair food”. We had been eyeing that fresh pie for the past 3 days and it finally got the better of us… we don’t get pie here but once a year or less, especially since my mom is gone… she made some of the best pies… so we had a dinner of “fair food”… she got a stuffed Baked Potato and I got the Ham and Beans… and I got Lemon pie and she had the coconut cream… damn good stuff as it is made by the volunteer women… most of them a bit older than us and cooking some real old home food…
Tell me that the $3 ham and beans aren’t good … a really big bowl for $3 bucks…
Earlier that day I saw some idiots on the road…
Now I was a bit slow to get a real picture but the pickup in the left turning left past the white pickup…. he came through the turn where the little black car was and shot between the two marker posts (there used to be 3 there and only have been for about 3 weeks and the middle one is already been run over so many times it is gone… people take that far turn lane… then cross 3 lanes to make a left at the Braums down the street… they could , under proper driving rules, pull up to the corner in the right lane and turn into the middle lane and then be in the proper position to make the left at the Braums but no they zip across the lanes… I would assume that the highway department put the roll over post up to indicate that people should stay in that turn lane until the “solid white line” is gone them pull over, but hell they would miss the Braums by doing that so they endanger multiple others by whipping across and face on-coming traffic in the turn lane to get over there… makes you wonder how they got a license?
Today was another great day. started out like it was going to get pretty hot… but the cool front hit about 11:00 AM and then the temps pretty much never got above low 90’s . We did get up and around and made it to church, something we should do more of but always seem to find reasons that we don’t. As we left the wind picked up front form the North and the front was here. Once home we set and read the papers… On Sunday I get two so I had a lot of garbage to go through. Seems that it was the same old stuff… although had to read upon the football games from yesterday that I didn’t watch or check on… strange seeing K-State getting taken out by ND State?… one is much better than we thought or one is much worse?
After the papers I had it in my mind that I needed to get back on the projects in the shop. I had started the Automatic Power Control unit from the November QST. back in February of this year… that sucks that I have let is set so long with out finishing it up… but when the temps get good I am outside doing yard work and of course the real job of being gone at least 2 weeks every month has gotten in the way as well… but today I got it finished up… not sure it is exactly right but it turns on at the right voltage and shuts down at the right time… it was just cycling the relay a lot? More testing and maybe more load or ? will fix that little problem… As I wrote back then (Active Therapy) I have not yet fixed the variable power supply …? that is another project that needs to be finished up. I did order a schematic for it as I seemed to have lost mine… I am sure it is in the piles around here somewhere but damned if I could find it. The final product not much different than the article pic…
So there is is all in the box…. not as neat as I had hoped but I have enough parts to make 2 more and maybe by the last one I will have cleaned up all the bad solder joints and connections… I do good on the circuit board when it is out of the box but in the cramped area I have a hard time getting all the leads in the right spots with out over doing some…
We also today, sent off “Dovie” or what ever the kids called the Blue bomb VW… it is pretty sure that it has a wiring problem that is preventing it from starting… not too hard to start by pushing but the key just doesn’t get consistent spark to the plugs… could be a broken wire, or bad starter switch or ? but for sure is something in the power supplied to the distributor and it not being strong and consistent… the mechanic drove it home and will spend some time tracing out the wiring to see what is not working properly and maybe they will get it sold next week? I understand it is a classic VW… in a very rare color and the interior is in really good condition for it’s age… just so much wiring that needs to be fixed and redone? Way more project than poor / working folks need.
To end the day I had a really nice QSO with a friend in Ohio… we have a schedule to work PSK31 on 40 meters , Sunday evenings but it is really hard for me to make it on time… we pushed tonight back one hour and I hope to keep it that way as the later hour works much better for me… tonight there were a ton of signals on 40 meters doing PSK and we were crowded almost off then once we quit… everyone quit and it just got quiet? what a crock. had signals all over us and beside us and then within 5 minutes after we got off, everyone else got off? or the band totally died? I stuck around for a little while and made two more contacts so it was not a dead band, just everyone quit at the same time?
Well that was the day… very limited on excitement but high on enjoyment… at least for me.
WD0AJG