Day off today

I am lucky enough to find myself with a day off from work - as the firm is closed to honor the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr..  It will not be an idle day however, as there is always much to do around the house. But as I sit here with a morning cup of coffee, I am glad to be inside as it's only 13F (-10C) here. Now I know a lot of you out there experience much colder temps on a routine basis throughout the Winter; and that you chuckle to yourselves when I mention how cold this seems to us around here.

But keep in mind, only about 25 miles due East of here is that Big Puddle that most folks call the Atlantic Ocean.  It's relatively warm waters tend to keep us pretty warm during the Winter.  For us, going down into or near the single digits is the same as when you get hit with deep minus F temperatures.  In fact, in my 55 years on this big blue marble that we call home, I can only remember a handful of times (if that many) that it actually went below 0F (-17C)

As I mentioned there is plenty do around here; but I still hope to get on for a little this afternoon.  The shack is probably a little to chilly to sit in right now anyway.  When I left the shack at the end of RFTB last night, it was 58F (14C) down there.  Nothing a T-shirt and sweatshirt can't handle; but after a night of frigid temps, it might even be a bit lower.  That will moderate as the day continues and the house warms up - I do have to get a fire going in the fireplace soon - next chore.

I noticed this morning that last night, Doug Hendricks announced a new kit at QRPKits.com - a 41dB Step RF Attenuator.

 

This looks like a really nice unit.  A lot more elegant than the mish-mosh attenuators that I used to jury rig back in the day.  All the details can be found here.

If any of you get QST, you may have noticed in the February 2012 edition that one of our own has an article in it.  Par excellant QRPer, Mert Nellis WØUFO (fellow Flying Piggie) has a very FB article entitled "Characterizing Solar Panels for Amateur Radio Applications".  Mert appears on many lines in my log book, as I have worked him in many QRP Sprints.  I always get a kick when someone in the QRP community gets good mention in any of the Amateur Radio publications.  It's kind of like "knowing the celebrity" if you know what I mean - how cool is that?

You might be thinking to yourself, "Hey Larry, that's old news, I've had my QST for weeks now".  That's another thing I wanted to mention.  I always seems to be the last person, out of the folks that I know, that gets their copy of QST.  I wonder if that's strictly a zip code issue, or as a Life Member, the League feels that I'm not going anywhere - so we get ours last?   ...... Strange things that go through my mind while the coffee kicks in.

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!