Wire Antenna Calculator

http://www.ccdxc.org/ant_calc.htm

Yep, Ham Radio is fun

Perth - click to enlarge

At 8:30am this morning I checked into the Indiana Traffic Net on 75 meters.
At 9:00am I talked to a station near Detroit Mich. on 2 meter ssb and a station 50 miles East of Cincinitti also using ssb.
I just put up a 10 element Yagi beam antenna for 2 meters and it is working great.
After that I seen a station calling CQ on 40 meters with the digital mode JT9. I gave him a call using only 10 watts of power and contact was made. The station was in Perth Australia. Perth is almost 12,000 miles from Indiana. This is a fantastic achievement with this low of power on 40 meters - (just so you belt clippers know.)
Then on the local scene a nice FM simplex QSO on 2 meters was had with my good friend Sam at New Marion, Indiana.

Click to enlarge 

All and all a short distance to a long DX contact was had this morning. Fun, but now I have to get to work my wife tells me. I could only say "Yes Dear".
................. Jack WB9OTX.

First flight across the English Channel - 7/25/1920

Louis Charles Joseph Blériot (1 July 1872 – 1 August 1936) was a French aviator, inventor and engineer. He developed the first practical headlamp for cars and established a profitable business manufacturing them, using much of the money he made to finance his attempts to build a successful aircraft. In 1909 he became world famous for making the first flight across the English Channel in a heavier than air aircraft, [N 1] winning the prize of $5,000 offered by the Daily Mail newspaper.Blériot was also the first to make a working, powered, piloted monoplane. and the founder of a success ful aircraft manufacturing company.
Read the full story

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Modern day Amelia

Amelia Earhart was born 117 years ago today. She disappeared in July 1937 over the South Pacific, attempting to fly solo around the globe. Earlier this month, another Amelia Earhart — no relation — completed a similar flight, and became the youngest woman to fly a single-engine aircraft around the world. This Earhart’s journey was slightly different from that of her namesake, as she avoided conflicts in the Middle East, monsoon season in India, and locations where she couldn’t land as an American citizen. But in the end, ten stops overlapped between the two flight plans. Here & Now’s Jeremy Hobson spoke to Amelia Rose Earhart in June, before she took off, and checked back in with her today about the successful completion of her longtime dream.
See the pre-trip interview with Amelia Rose Earhart

copied from http://hereandnow.wbur.org/2014/07/24/amelia-earhart-circumnavigation

Rah for Wal-Mart

I fly a flag (weather permitting) every day. One of the The last flags I perchested was made in China, sadly the color faded and the wind tore it very quickly. I told my wife to pick me up another 3x5 flag on her next trip to Wal-Mart and see if you can find one made in the USA. A few days later she handed me a plastic bagged flag and in large bold letters was "Proudly Made in the USA". I opened the package and installed it on my flag pole. I noticed the weight was much heavier and the color was much brighter. I'll have a little smile on my face each morning when the flag is put out for display.
By the way, you can dispose of your old fag honorably by taking it to the nearest American Legion Post.

photo curtsey of Gordon Dean ii

Air Force One - Over 1,000,000 per flight

I just did a search on the net to get a cost per trip to fly Obama to fund raisers. I found several estaments, but all were one million dollars plus.
Now, at a typical fund raising trip the president raises less than a million dollars for the democratic party.
I only took general math in my schooling, but I can see in an instant that something is wrong with this picture. Why don't we (the tax payers) just donate $1,000,000  and make Obama stay in the white house......
http://washingtonexaminer.com/under-obama-air-force-one-cost-per-hour-jumps-27-to-228288/article/2544831
  

WWII Battle of Guam 21 July 1944

Guam has a very special place in my past, I ran hundreds of phone patches for the troops on this small island in the seventies...... Jack

The Second Battle of Guam (21 July – 10 August 1944) was the American capture of the Japanese held island of Guam, a United States territory (in the Mariana Islands) during the Pacific campaign of World War II.

Two U.S. Marines (on the left is Captain Paul S. O'Neal of Brighton, Mass., and on the right is Captain Milton F. Thompson of Upper Montclair, N.J.) plant the American flag on Guam eight minutes after U.S. Marines and Army assault troops landed.

READ MORE

Man lands on the moon - July 20, 1969

Apollo 11 was the spaceflight that landed the first humans on the Moon, Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin, on July 20, 1969, at 20:18 UTC. Armstrong became the first to step onto the lunar surface six hours later on July 21 at 02:56 UTC. Armstrong spent about two and a half hours outside the spacecraft, Aldrin slightly less, and together they collected 47.5 pounds (21.5 kg) of lunar material for return to Earth. A third member of the mission, Michael Collins, piloted the command spacecraft alone in lunar orbit until Armstrong and Aldrin returned to it just under a day later for the trip back to Earth.
Read the full article
See the TV that was sent from the moon

Versailles gets new gas station

Each week or so I take a few photos of the progress in the construction.

Keep checking back to see the changes.
Bookmark the page so you can return.
https://picasaweb.google.com/105974274631821525519/VeraillesNewGasStation?authuser=0&feat=directlink

54' Team Talk Milan Indiana

Flux: 89 A-index: 5 K-Index: 1

Last week I posted a high above 200 for the solar flux. Today the solar flux is 89, this is the lowest I have observed in the past 45 years. What's going on ol' Sol ??
http://www.wm7d.net/hamradio/solar/index.shtml

Vietnam War: July 15, 1966

Click to enlarge

The United States and South Vietnam began Operation "Hastings" to push the North Vietnamese out of the Vietnamese Demilitarized Zone.
Operation Hastings was an American military operation in the Vietnam War. The operation was a qualified success in that it pushed the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) forces back across the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). As the NVA clearly did not feel constrained by the "demilitarized" nature of the DMZ, US military leadership ordered a steady build-up of U.S. Marines near the DMZ from 1966 to 1968.
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USS Nevada - Launched 11 July 1914

USS Nevada (BB-36), the second United States Navy ship to be named after the 36th state, was the lead ship of the two Nevada-class battleships; her sister ship was Oklahoma. Launched in 1914, the Nevada was a leap forward in dreadnought technology; three of her new features would be included on almost every subsequent US battleship: triple gun turrets,[c] oil in place of coal for fuel, geared steam turbines for greater range, and the "all or nothing" armor principle. These features made Nevada the first US Navy "super-dreadnought".
Nevada served in both World Wars: during the last few months of World War I, Nevada was based in Bantry Bay, Ireland, to protect the supply convoys that were sailing to and from Great Britain. In World War II, she was one of the battleships trapped when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. She was the only battleship to get underway during the attack, making the ship "the only bright spot in an otherwise dismal and depressing morning" for the United States.[13] Still, she was hit by one torpedo and at least six bombs while steaming away from Battleship Row, forcing her to be beached. Subsequently salvaged and modernized at Puget Sound Navy Yard, Nevada served as a convoy escort in the Atlantic and as a fire-support ship in four amphibious assaults: the Normandy Landings and the invasions of Southern France, Iwo Jima, and Okinawa.
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Howard Hughes Flight Around the World - July 10, 1938

Read the full story

Howard Robard Hughes, Jr. from wikipedia.org

Amateur radio (also called ham radio)

My Radio Station WB9OTX

Today (July 6,2014) was a date to remember in the Ham Radio world. The solar flux peaked at 201 and communications was reachable around the world. This was a Sunday so most operators were off work and playing with the radios in everry part of the world. I worked several stations on the 6 meter band (50 Mhz.) and I think several state side stations worked Europe, this is a rare feat. I used a digital mode called JT9 to work all over Europe, North America, and Japan using just 5 watts of power. This solar cycle has been slow to peak but it has finally done so. The propagation for radio waves is determined by the sun's solar cycle that peaks every eleven years or so.
Read more at wikipedia.org

Read all the Radio Posts from this Blog

Versailles State Park Photos

http://www.stateparks.com/versailles_state_park_in_indiana.html
and

Click this image to see more photos

Versailles State Park

Amelia Earhart , Where are you

She was lost July 2, 1937

http://wb9otx.blogspot.com/search?q=amelia
Click above link for all of my past posts about her.