Busy time of the year!

 I don't know about the rest of you, but for me, June always seems to be one of the busiest months of the year, particularly where Amateur Radio is involved.

As a CERT Member who is also an Amateur Radio Op, we had three call outs (actually, maybe 4) this month. First there were the NJSIAA High School Track Meets where we performed traffic and pedestrian control duties the first weekend in June. Later, in the same week we reprised that role for the Feast of St. Anthony, a carnival hosted by Our Lady of Czestochowa Church in town. Next week is High School graduation and possibly Middle School graduation as well.

This Saturday is the Raritan Valley W2QW Hamfest. I'll be there at 'O-Dark Thirty in the morning, helping vendors drive to their allotted parking spaces, and then conducting the VE Session at 9:00 AM. We have 10 candidates signed up so far, but fortunately a lot of the local VEs have agreed to come out and help. I hope that between those two functions and helping to man the club selling table that I actually get time to walk around and look at "stuff".

This coming Sunday, I'd like to drive over to Home Depot and buy a couple driveway reflectors.

Not for my driveway, but for next weekend - Field Day.  Their purpose being to serve as tie off anchors for the ends of my MFJ-1982LP end fed. The idea is that these will make the ends more visible to "traffic", especially at night. I hope to find something like the one in the picture at either Home Depot or Lowe's. The little hole at the top would be ideal for threading through the mason's twine that I use for tying down and securing the end insulators.

And of course, next weekend is the big event itself, Field Day. I plan to be there for almost the entire 24 hours. I'll have to leave Sunday morning for a couple hours for Mass and then return, but other than that, I plan to while away the hours listening to and sending Morse Code. As a wise man once said, "Those QSOs ain't going to make themselves!"

I know it can change, and probably will (fingers crossed), but the long range 10 day forecast is a bit "iffy"., with a chance for thunderstorms for Field Day Saturday.  I can deal with rain, we should be amply covered, but we all know that radio and thunderstorms do not mix well. I particularly remember a Piscataway Amateur Radio Club Field Day many years ago. We were in Rich W2PQ's pop up camper which served as the 40 Meter shack. A thunderstorm blew in and we quickly unplugged the coax from the radio and dropped it to the floor. While we were sitting there waiting out the storm and kibitzing, we kept hearing a little "tic-tic" kind of noise. That's when one of our club members happened to look at the PL-259 laying on the camper floor and saw a little blue spark occasionally fly between the center pin and shield connections of the coax! It reminded me of those old Frankenstein type movies that we watched as kids that had those giant Tesla coils in the "laboratory".

72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!