Ashby Contacts Santa

I guess I've been living in a hole for a few years, but apparently Santa has a ham station, a live web cam, and talks to kids on the HF bands. A few people had mentioned that he would be on, and I've been watching for him. Tim called today and said he'd been spotted on the DX Watch, and I promptly called Dad for affirmation that we could hear Santa. Dad called back a few minutes later with Santa booming in, told me he was powering up the amp - and I responded that we were on our way.

Ashby (KJ4EGJ) and I finished up getting ready, and went over to contact Santa. She threw her call out, and Santa picked her up first thing - although he put her on standby to talk to another little girl first. She waited patiently, while watching Santa on his webcam and then he asked for her.

She had a very interesting conversation with Santa, including such topics as Purple and Yellow striped salmon, sucking the heads of mudbugs (crawdads), the new "Santa Diet" - mentioning that Santa would rather fruit than cookies, and naming all the reindeer. After a good 10 minutes, Santa wished Ashby a Merry Christmas and went for a late lunch break.

I'm really glad she got in to speak with him... she may be "too old" for that next year.

Thanks to W6S (WO6T) - Santa Claus.

Hi Hi Hi Cake??

Well... I think this was supposed to be a Christmas cake?? A Santa cake?? A "Ho Ho Ho" cake?? But those little skinny O's made me think this cupcake cake was designed to cater to Hams instead... Hi Hi Hi

Seen this on Cake Wrecks... Absolutely HILARIOUS blog.

A Wonderful Christmas *Gift* & Letter to Santa

Tim and I have been wishing and hoping for our very own HF rig for ... well.. since we got the bug. Things are starting to look up on the matter. I'm going this evening to get a 756Pro to try out. The nice OM is offering us a wonderful deal on this radio, and wants me to try it out a few days before I commit.

I, personally, can already tell you that I'm dead set on that radio. I know the man, he's a good guy, and he wouldn't offer anything that wasn't up to his standards... which happen to be very high. I'm not going to post the price, his name, or any information, but let's just say, it's a steal.

I've also got my heart set on a Lenovo IdeaPad... a netbook to run all the digital modes on. I don't know if I'll get it *really, I highly doubt it* but a girl can dream can't she!?!?

So... if we do purchase the radio... I'll have to further my Christmas List. So...

Santa, I hope you are doing well. I've been a very good girl this year, or at least I've tried to be. I would like to have the following, if you can find it in your bag:

~~ 100+ feet of 450 ohm Ladder Line
~~ 50+ feet of LMR400 UltraFlex (or the equivalent)
~~ Some wire for a couple dipoles
~~ A couple baluns -- or a good idea on how to build one that isn't too horribly hideous
~~ Some PL-259 connectors... if we don't already have some lying around
~~ Some insulators -- not necessary, just nice
~~ 2 Ice Lightning Arrestors
~~ 1 Cable (I don't even know what kind) to run the TigerTronics
~~ That Netbook previously mentioned
~~ A wireless fullsize keyboard & mouse - for typing *the netbook has wonderful portability, but I may need a full size keyboard so I don't "fat finger" everything I type*
~~ The nice Mission-Style desk and hutch I seen at Target :)
~~ And lastly -- If you could pull my daddy out the bag and have him teach me how to SUCCESSFULLY *and DON'T laugh!!* wire my speaker... Because, in all of this, you have to be bad at something. :)

In Response...

In Response to this post by XOM: 2008 Skywarn Recognition Day...

All I got was a rock... er, uh... one: WX4MRX.

Update to Olivia Post

Well, the dressing is in the oven, and it's almost time to start the 'Bird.' The pre-cooking is done, and the house smells of Pumpkin Pie, Apple Pie, and poultry seasoning. And all the while, I still wish I had an HF radio to sit down to this morning and wish everyone I can speak with (whether they celebrate it or not) a Happy Thanksgiving! This will have to do for now.

I also want to mention something that I... quite literally... stumbled upon. I was taking off my tennis shoes the other day, when I lost my balance, caught myself by placing my hand on the counter top, and as I did, I looked down. I had placed my hand upon December's QST magazine, which just so happened to be opened to the Olivia article I spoke about previously. And as coincidence seems to happen, my finger was pointing right at a name and callsign that I was familiar with. Gary L. Robinson, it said.... WB8ROL, it said... I stood in astonishment for a moment, then picked up the magazine to look. Sure enough, Gary had written the article about Olivia... the one that had us anxious to use it. Why is this important??? Gary was the nice OM I spoke with for my first Olivia contact! I couldn't believe my eyes....

I ran to living room, stumbling over the shoes again, and pointed out this anomaly to Tim. Now, it's either a very small world, or I'm one of the luckiest Ham women around... 'cause these coincidences keep happening to me!

Well, Gary -- I'm sorry I didn't realize before. I'm glad we had the conversation that we did, and the article (in my opinion) was great! Very informative, well written, and captivating. Thanks again, for the contact -- and another chance happening to add to my growing log of flukes!

To OLIVIA, With Love

I just love dabbling in digital modes. Some I find to be boring, some too fast for my hand, and some just utterly confusing. Last night, I tried OLIVIA for the first time. We went over to visit Daddy, and he was playing around with DM780 and had OLIVIA all set up. He was really wanting someone to try it, and being the brave soul that I am... I gave it a shot.

I probably called CQ for nearly 45 minutes before anyone came back. Apparently, there's not a lot of Hams working it -- or maybe it was just a bad night for it. I was on 80m around 3.577 and, FINALLY, I got a response. Thanks goes out to Gary, WB8ROL, for making that my first OLIVIA contact. Gary was very nice, and taught me a few things I needed to know. Being as slow as it is, it took us nearly an hour to complete our conversation, but I had fun nonetheless!

I really really like how I can type everything out (I'm a quick typer -- nearly 70 wpm) while I'm reading their response back to me, and then hit Auto-Send and get up -- stretch, have a break, go to see "John", etc... all the while, transmitting my response. I really had fun "talking" with OLIVIA.

Tim gave it a try, too. I'm sure he'll blog about it over in his neck of the woods, if you're curious. He's usually more thorough and technical about things than I am. HAHA I hear there is a nice article about OLIVIA in December's QST magazine. So, if you're interested, check it out!

It's slow, but it's tons of fun!

New Dances and W4H Update

If you read this blog, then you know, each and every personal achievement deserves a special dance.

This weekend, I was finally able to sport the "I Contacted Japan!" dance -- not once, but twice. I just hope I can get confirmation, since they were both contesters. Thanks to JR5VHU and JH4UYB (btw, that's a station!) for the excellent signal reports and the contact on 20m!

Additionally, I hit another milestone, requiring another dance: the "I'm over 1,000 lookups" dance!
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We did some work on the dipoles this past weekend. Now that the leaves were falling off the trees, we could see where the wind had blown the balun around and got it all stuck in a branch -- a branch that Tim hacked down...

He's so good, he can cut down that limb with his eyes closed!

We also did some W4H Special Event cq'ing on 80m. I worked it for almost an hour, had a pile-up that sounded like a hornet's nest, got spotted on the DX Cluster, and made 46 speedy contacts. I was starting to lose my voice though, and had to pass it to Tim. I did make one very interesting contact... I pulled out a call at one point, N3FJP, and as I was writing it down I was thinking to myself how familiar that call sounded... you know that feeling when you hear a call and you know you've seen it before but can't place it. About that time, Tim piped up, "Hey, He's the guy that wrote this program." That's right folks. Another example of how small this world is. Scott, N3FJP, wrote the logging program that we use, the Amateur Contact Log. We've only been using it for about 2 weeks, but it is AWESOME! We're going to be sending him a check soon... this one is well worth paying $19.00 for folks!

Lastly, I just want to remind everyone that may have contacted me during the W4H special event. Since there are multiple operators in many places, we are all doing our own QSL'ing. We have had special QSL cards printed for this event, and if you want one, send your S.A.S.E. (or S.A.E. & 1 green stamp/1 IRC) to me directly. I'm good on QRZ.

Anyway... just thought I'd post that brief little update. Take care everyone and I'll "see" you down the log!