Worse than trying to bust a pileup to North Korea

Can you imagine that? Can you imagine when someday, North Korea joins the rest of the world and finally allows its citizens to have access to Amateur Radio? Can you imagine what that pileup will be like?  All the Honor Roll guys who will finally have the chance to "have 'em all"? Can you imagine that headache?

I can.

Last night I attended a workshop for "Financial Aid for College" put on for the parents of Juniors at my son's high school. I came home with a headache about the same that I imagine I would have gotten from trying to bust a P5 pileup.  Deadlines, forms, EFCs, FAFSA, merit scholarships, etc, etc, etc,  Oy! It's enough to make my head spin!

When I finally got home around 9:00 PM, I was in no mood to head down the basement to tackle the completion of my 4 States QRP Group antenna tuner.  Hopefully, I'll get to that tonight after dinner and mowing the lawn. Once that's done, I'll put my HW8 on the air for a bit to give the new tuner a workout.  The HW8 takes a 1/4" mono headphone jack for the key input, so I'll have to make up a cable so that I can use my AA0ZZ EZKeyer with it. Maybe I can use that combo for the NAQCC Sprint, which is tomorrow (Wednesday) night. Oh yes, I forgot, the NAQCC Sprint requires a straight key for a better multiplier.  OK, one less cable to make.

At a time when folks are leaping into SDRs and panadapters and other hi-tech goodies, I seem to be going "retro".  Hey, whatever floats your boat, right?

That's another thing - I have to get out the "publicity e-mail" for the Sprint tonight, as well. Sometimes I feel like I have too many irons in the fire, or that I'm burning the candle at both ends AND the middle.

On the "feeling good" side of the coin ....... a few months ago, I lost a 32 GB USB Flash Drive.  I had blog photos, Web site HTML files, Tech class material, Skeeter Hunt stuff - just about everything that was near and dear to me regarding Amateur Radio on it, in one convenient place.  It had fallen out of my pocket and I thought it was lost forever.  Nothing was irreplaceable, as all the content exists on various other computer hard drives at home.  It was a pain in the you-know-where to try and re-assemble all of that, though.

Last night, while getting out of the car, I stooped down to pick up my work backpack, which had fallen off the rear seat and onto the rear floor during the drive home.  As I was looking down, out of the corner of my eye, I noticed the Flash Drive in that little space on the floor betwixt the driver's seat and the driver's door. Hallelujah!  What a great feeling to have all that information back. Tonight I am going to copy the contents of this USB stick onto my wife's 3 TB external hard drive for insurance sake.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!