First Day of Winter

The 2024 winter solstice, the shortest day of the year, happens on Saturday, Dec. 21, in the Northern Hemisphere. The celestial event signifies the first day of winter. After this, the days slowly grow longer.

Powered flight

December 17, 1903 101st anniversary of powered flight Orville and Wilbur Wright After extensive experimentation with wing structures, motor control, propellers, and various mechanical systems, the brothers left Dayton, Ohio, for Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, to test their aircraft in the consistently windy conditions along the coast. On December 17, 1903, with Orville at the controls, their flying machine flew 120 feet in 12 seconds. Two additional flights that day covered 175 and 200 feet, reaching an altitude of 10 feet. Image from: Encyclopædia Britannica

After thinking back

After posting about Auther Godfrie I thought of other famous people via radio I have talked to. King husain JY1, Ronnie Milsap WB4KCG , Art Bell W6OBB
and others. Amiture Radio is like fishing, You cast out and hope you catch the big one and sometimes you do !

Arthur Godfrey K4LIB

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arthur_Godfrey
I never worked K4LIB over Ham Radio, but I remember the TV show...... Jack WB9OTX

Peal Harber

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor

Amateur_radio

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amateur_radio
The photo here is my 1st station back in the early 70s.
WB9OTX

John Wayne

https://www.johnwayne.com/

COX of Ripley County

Where is Joe Mann when you need him

I just like this

Walter Winchell show

https://youtu.be/5P2yTfJ7nGI?si=u9l-9FHK6pJ3r0JS Lets go to press !

A virtual vacation

You see I am a Ham radio operator and having this privilege I can travel around the world with the turn of a few dials on my radio. Today I took a virtual vacation to some very exotic countries such as China, Argentina, Canada, Japan, Italy, Scotland, S. Korea, and of course several cities here in the USA. And now I think its time for bed, I'm worn out after all that travailing.

Feb 2

Origami

This is a Ham Radio opperater (GJ0KYZ) from the Island of Jersey. His hobby other than radio is Origami. You can see other paper folding:
here.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/gj0kyz

Pearl Harbor Day Dec. 7th

https://www.history.com/topics/world-war-ii/pearl-harbor

Where have you talked

I get ask all the time where can you talk with the big antennas in your yard ? A picture is woth a thousand words:

Radio station WB9OTX

Click to inlarge

Chaffee Kid - Play By The Rules

dont-let-pipes-freeze-and-steps-to-take-if-they-do

https://www.statefarm.com/simple-insights/residence/dont-let-pipes-freeze-and-steps-to-take-if-they-do

EMP ??? What is it

Can Humans Eat Dog Food in an Emergency?

https://www.primalsurvivor.net/can-humans-eat-dog-food/

A QSL from 50 Yrs ago (Ham Radio)

Yesterday in the mail I received a gift from WN0FAM Danny Lang A fellow Ham that I met some 50 years ago on the air. The gift was a QSL card that I sent to him. We were both Novice operators and we both had just been on the air just a few weeks. We were using Morris code at about 5 words per minute and at a frequency on the 75 meter band of 3.730 Mhz. My antenna was an inverted "V" dipole at 30 foot, I was running 75 watts, the legal power allowed by a Novice license. I'm sure our sending was pretty bad at least mine was. This QSL card was a very welcome gift and meant the world to me. Thank you so much Danny KF0INL. 73, Jack WB9OTX/WN9GOA

Just what is this HAM RADIO

End Fed Antenna

The antenna behaves like the common dipole but fed at one end. I have installed just about all the antennas, You name it I have had it up. Now please do not get me wrong, The resent end fed will not be as good as a tribander. It will be an antenna for a small yard, an antenna that you will not need an antenna switch, It will work fairly good low to the grown and very easy to install. Most internal tuners will tune it. I have one for 40 20 and 10 meters. After trimming the 40 meter band it has a 2:1 SWR but the 20 and 10 are almost flat and 40 will work fine with the radio's tuner. If you have an external tuner you will be able to work it on all bands 40 up to 10.  40 meters is very good at about 300 miles. I have worked lots of DX stations also, like VK, ZL, YB and tons of Europe. You can build or buy one that will even take 1.5 kilowatt. Mine is a 300 watter and I can run 100 watts on SSB or 50 watts on FT8. All day long. Now everything affects everything when it comes to antennas so try a few ways to hang it, inverted L, vertical, or flat top. Mine tunes best as an inverted Vee at 20 foot. As always higher is better. Just sling it in a tree when operating portable. You can get one for 80 / 10 also.

WB9OTX

Buy one:
https://myantennas.com/wp/product-category/antennas/efhw-multi-band/

Build it yourself :
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DxhT9uObigs

Read a review by QST:
 https://myantennas.com/wp/wp-content/uploads/2016/03/PROD-REV-MyAnt.pdf

Bad Antennas

It was rainy cold day but I did manage to take the trash out for pick up. I decided to play some Ham Radio. I started on 60 meters, the antenna was a 43 ft vertical. This antenna is way to short so a wide band large tuner was put to use. I sent out a few CQs at QRP (low power) 5 watts. That did not cut it I found very quickly, so I set the power up to 25 watts. This was much better as I contacted several stateside stations, but my signal reports were poor to very poor. Enough of that, I switched to a end fed 63 ft wire antenna that is only 10 foot high. This antenna worked about the same, a few stateside and one in Barbados (8P6).

Now for the faunally, I Stung a wire from the living room to a back bedroom. I started with 10 watts on the 20 meter band. When I transmitted the TV came on and off. I went to 15 meters and the antenna tuned very well and the TV liked it too. A few calls and again about 4 or 5 stations were worked. Not bad with a indoor set up. Now it all came to an end. I do not recommend this set up if you have a wife.

This just shows that a bad antenna is better than none, about anything can  work.

WB9OTX Jack

Radio Propagation Beacon

Being a Ham for over 50 years I have experimented with about all the perks of the hobby This included all digital modes such as SSTV, RITTY, JT65, Jt9, WEFAX, and more. I worked all over the world with QRO and QRP. I tried just about all the antennas  in the ARRL books. I even was successful bouncing signals off the moon (EME). One day I read an article about a 10 meter beacon  station, and wow a light bulb lit in the 'ol knogan. I had never tried that. There were lots of articles written on the web, I read about all I found and found out its not to costly or hard to get one on the air. I had a couple of tranceivrs  that I could use but I did not want to dedicate one of these to full time 24 - 7 use. Most beacon transmitters use the Radio Shack HTX100. This little rig is no longer produced, but many were sold and still going strong. You can find them on eBay, eHam, and Ham Fests. I bought mine from a wanted to buy ad on eHam. This is a 12 volt radio so you will need a power supply. I had a 12 amp that I used on it. This is a little over kill but it is what I had. Now you need some way to key the CW transmitter. I found an ID-O-Matic repeater IDer that was already put togeather and the Ham pre-programmed it for me. Now you need an antenna, I started out with a dipole but I wanted the antenna to be non-directional. I soon bout a 1/2 wave CB antenna and mounted it at ground level with 3 1/4 wave radials. I soon found the antenna worked just as well with out them, so they were removed. The coax I had on hand was RG58 and was berried from the house to the antenna, about 50 foot. Yes, I know RG8 would have had less loss but I knew several beacons were running only millowatts of power so my 5 watts at the transmitter and the gain of the antenna would do fine. Now for the fun part, getting the reports. The first month I only received reports from East and West. I was being heard almost daily in Europe and California, even in Japan, but never North and South like Canada or Florida. But as the season changed the E skip in November and December came to be and my little beacan with F2 & E prorogation became readable in all directions. I can tell you it became fun getting the mail and finding QSLs from the people that hears it. If you want to copy some beacons, listen from 28.1 to 28.3 most run about 10 WPM CW and on a good propagation day you will hear many - may be me at 28.2033.

Jack Demaree Versailles, Indiana WB9OTX/B  Grid EM79ib

10 Mhz Bragging

With the bands being good but not great this morning and

with 25 watts and a 43 Ft vertical antenna I contacted

VK6 (western Austraila),JA (Japan), and YB (Indonesia) in

a time period of about 15 minutes. I was using a digital

mode called FT8. Either one of these countries are not rare

but between 6000 to 11000 miles from Versailles, Indiana.

Very good for only 25 watts of power from my transmitter.

Isn't Amateur (ham) radio a fun hobby ?

Radio Station WB9OTX Jack Demaree

Live Space Station Tracking Map

 

Click the LINK

 Radio Station WB9OTX
Versailles Indiana

International Amateur Radio Month is celebrated in April. Hundreds of thousands of radio amateurs worldwide go on air to celebrate International Amateur Radio Month. Ham radio is useful and, in some cases, vital because you don’t need a cell phone network or the Internet to use it. Operators are especially important in a disaster when normal communication channels fail. Read MORE

Feb 02 Every Year

 Need I say more ?

Cpl. John C. Bishop Tribute

 

Cpl. John C. Bishop, 25, of Camp Lejeune, North Carolina passed away Wednesday, September 8, 2010. Cpl. Bishop was serving with the 2nd Battalion 9th Marines and was killed in Helmand Province, Afghanistan. John was a member of the American Legion Versailles, Indiana.

Please click the below link to view his Tribute via YouTube Tribute

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BqlDfrRBVaA

Please donate to

John Bishop's children fund

c/o Stratton Karsteter Funeral Home

P.O. Box 84

Versailles, In. 47042

Video Produced and edited by:
Jonathan (jack) Demaree

Winston Churchill

" Never was so much owed by so many to so few "

from:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Britain

Just a nice Photo