Fat and Lazy, Nearly Crazy.

That is me! I have hardly ridden my bike so far this winter, which certainly doesn't bode well for the coming summer cycling season. There are still the die hard commuters posting about their winter cycling adventures, and that makes me just a tiny bit jealous but I have no one but myself to blame. I haven't even put the studded snow tires on the mountain bike yet!

I have worked on the snow blower though. Had to buy a new drive belt, and thanks to my buddy Mr. Scott for giving me the tip, found one at O'Reilly auto parts for only $26 shipped to the store next day!!! I have to stop at Campbell Supply and get some more sheer bolts for the auger part, since I have gone through three of them already!

On another note, I have once again become radio active.
The sunspot activity is finally starting to pick up and Yaesu came out with a new model of their little FT-450 radio which meant they discounted the old model. So, I bought one of the old models. Brand new in the box of course, and saved about $450 over the original retail cost. I also sprang for a new Ameritron AL 811H amplifier so I am putting about 700-800 watts into the homemade G5RV antenna hanging off the tower. So far I have been getting very good reports on that setup. I also have a 1/4 wave ground plane vertical on the little tower for ten meters, and worked a California station on 12 meters with it for over 20 minutes the other day on it by going through the internal tuner on the 450. Here is a picture of my little Hooterville Ham Shack;

The amplifier is on the left, antenna tuner in the middle, and radio on the right.

Nothing much else going on here besides moving snow around with the help of my sweet baby puppies.


So after the last snowfall, and wind the next day, comes the cold front. Gee, thanks Canada!!! Lows in the single digits below zero only so far!!!

That's all for now, stay safe, healthy, and WARM!!!