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Thursday, February 29, 2024

If you don't like the weather

in New Jersey, just wait a few hours. I guess everyone says that about their QTH, but when I went horizontal last night, the temperature outside was 59F (15C). When I woke up this morning, it was 30F (1C). If we had any thunderstorms last night, I slept through them. This burst of cold air is not to last, though. We should be back to "seasonable" temperatures tomorrow, with the next week or so promising high temps in the 50s F each day and lows each evening in the 30s F. Spring is coming closer and closer, and as John K3WWP is so fond of saying, tomorrow March 1st is the beginning of meteorological Spring.

I did notice some small branches and twigs laying in the front yard that had come down off the maple tree during the night. According to my weather station, we had some gusts as high as 23 MPH come through the neighborhood. I was able to hear the wind chimes singing pretty much the entire evening before I turned in.

We had a South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club meeting on Zoom last night, because of the forecast for heavy rain and thunderstorms (which never really materialized). Planning for Field Day was discussed in earnest for quite a bit of the time. We lost our Putnam Park venue, which we had held the last two years. Our Field Day site is now covered by brand new pickle ball courts, as a major park improvement program is underway. There is actually a lot of space available at the other end of the park, but it's a longer walk to the restroom facilities and I guess some folks felt that is too much for the middle of the night.

So we're going to try and get permission to go back to our original site - Spring Lake Park, which is a county park, unfortunately. Lots more hoops to jump through, and lots more angst involved  Since our radio club is actively involved in CERT all we had to do to get Putnam Park was to ask the Boro for permission and we always got an enthusiastic "Yes!". The last time we tried to get use of Spring Lake Park, we were granted permission the day before Field Day! That was unacceptable as we used to rent a tent and we needed a day or two ahead of Field Day for the company to come and set that up. That's why we moved for the last two years.

Spring Lake Park offers a lot more pedestrian traffic, which makes for more visitors for Field Day, which is a good thing. The other side of the coin is that I'm not so sure about antenna placement. We've been using two MFJ 80-10 Meter end fed antennas - one pointing North/South and the other pointing East/West. They are erected as Inverted Vees, needing about (roughly) 130 feet or so of real estate, each. That was a cinch to make happen at Putnam Park. There are way more pedestrian walkways at Spring Lake Park and I'm concerned that antenna placement may get compromised in order to avoid any contacts with park patrons. That would be very unfortunate because the two antennas need to be placed at right angles to each other in order to minimize interference between stations.

If our application to use Spring Lake Park gets denied, we'll have to use one of the other Boro Parks. Getting permission would be a snap, but the other parks in town are less centrally located and do not get as much pedestrian traffic as either Putnam or Spring Lake. Things are never easy - are they?

Not sure what's going on with Facebook.  I have a page there that generally mirrors the content here, as I mention in the little text box at the top right hand corner of this page. I've had that notice up for years and every now and then I'd get an occasional notice from Facebook that someone "liked" the page. Over the last week or few weeks, I've been getting 3, 4 or 5 notices a day like that. Either people were always visiting and Facebook just adjusted their notification system, or for some reason I'm getting more visits there than I used to. In either case, it's good exposure for Amateur Radio and QRP and CW.

Oh, and by they way - Happy Leap Day! Anybody celebrating their birthday today?


72 de Larry W2LJ

QRP - When you care to send the very least!

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