2m Simplex (146.520 MHz) recordings for 2026-02-01

N6wip. Kn6mgk. You must be out there by now. N6wip. Kn6mgk.

Speaker A: Well, been waiting patiently. Even put my call out a couple times. It's a great Sunday morning. Kilo.
Speaker B: November 6th. Mike, golf. Kilo. Yeah, good morning. Yeah,
Speaker A: I was gonna ask you a question about FT8, but I don't know, the question kind of went away. I guess the waterfall all of a sudden turned, like, black at the top. Like, what the heck? So I just went in and changed the colors back. But I don't see how
Speaker B: come it would do that all by itself. Yeah.
Speaker A: Well, I got
Speaker B: myself
Speaker A: a beautiful cup of Peruvian coffee. I just put my mushrooms in it. The mushroom powder I put in it, collagen powder. So in the second cup here. So I'm doing pretty nice this morning. But I did wake up a bit earlier than I wanted to, but I made use of it. Was
Speaker B: working some FT8, See? I
Speaker A: mean, anything other than the stuff I probably ought to be doing, huh?
Speaker B: Yeah. So,
Speaker A: yeah, I got a couple of new connectors to put on some cable, some coax, stuff like that. So I probably ought to do that too. But, no, I got plenty of stuff around here to do. You guys were talking about batteries the other day. I got two packs of batteries, one Cs and one D has been in the package here for a month probably, and I haven't put them away yet. I have a battery doctor, I think they call it. You buy these cases over at Costco before, they're $15 a case. I don't know if you've seen them. I don't think they have them anymore, but they did for quite a while. And it just put slots for all the batteries. And I have one of those that I fill up.

Yeah, I did that before too. But then I also have lithium iron. Lithium ion. Not lithium ion. Lithium ion batteries too. Like the 18, 650s. I've got about 30 or 40 of those. And so those I kind of keep up on top. But I have another little drawer for those. But yeah, you know, nine volts. I don't really have much purpose in nine volts anymore, do you? I mean, I have some still here, but I bet you they're getting awesome. Look at them. But I ought to give them to you. I haven't had a use for a 9 volt in quite some time. Maybe I have a stud finder. A stud finder that takes a 9 volt.

Speaker A: Yeah, you know, I don't, I don't think any of my volt meters take nine volt. I don't know. But what I used to use the smoke detectors, but those all. Now I just throw them away, the whole thing because they're a ten year thing now. And really you shouldn't, you shouldn't wait 10 years to be honest. So probably five. It's probably realistic thing. But anyway that's here nor there. But yeah, now they all have like batteries that are supposed to be good for 10 years. So I tossed I think last year my carbon monoxide meter and put a new one in. So. Yeah, but those are what used to take them. So I just can't think of much else anymore that might take a 9 volt. But I do have a couple sitting around here now. Funny, funny thing is KB9VBR, that Michael Martin, he was using a 9 volt battery. So it's a great idea. I might have to do that. When you put a snap on it comes off to that and goes to his external tuner to power it up and it works fine. Even though you can put batteries inside the external LDG tuner. Same one I just bought. You can power it up
Speaker B: with a 9 volt battery too. Yeah, so
Speaker A: you know that I bought the Z11, whatever it is, an LT, you know, whatever you call it an LG or whatever. Yeah, so LT, whatever. I don't know why I'm blanking on it too. But it's the same brand that you have. I have a different model, but I think it's the same principle. So you can open up a case and you can put batteries in it. Well, you could, you know, instead use the cable that goes to the back of it. The same way that you would say hook into you know, Anderson's whatever. But you could just put a 9 volt battery on it with the snaps and it would work too. Now I couldn't tell you how long the 9 volt battery is going to last. But you know those in standby, those tuners don't take nothing hardly. In standby it was when you hit the tune button they do anything and that's what they activate their relays and all that stuff. And that takes a little bit of power. But I mean, I know he gets, he gets some time out of the nine volt batteries.

Okay. Yeah. Well, we just go to Costco and get the either. Well, most of the time it's the Duracell brand that we get from there. But I have gotten some of their Kirkland brand ones that are made probably by Duracell as well. And I know you guys were talking about them leaking, leaking or something like that. I've never had that problem. But I've never really kept them in the packaging they've come in either, maybe for a short period of time. And I also do the same thing that you do when they have that little plastic sleeve that they set on. I just leave them on that sometimes in another type of a container, so same idea.

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And Duracell's been a tried and true brand for a long time imagining that they make them for Kirkland as well. So I just wonder if Kirkland has a little bit different standards. In other words, like let's say it's the reject, right? So like beer, I don't drink beer. But if you get something like Keystone, well you're just getting weaker part of the batch like Coors and so forth. And it goes down the line. Like for Miller if you wanted to get like Genuine Draft or something like that or Michelob, you're getting the top of the line beer. But then as it goes down downhill from there, you know, you start getting a little bit cheaper beers. My dad used to drink a lot of Micheloba and I liked it, okay, but it wasn't my favorite at the time. I was a Miller Genuine Draft kind of a guy back then.

Yeah, Old Milwaukee. My. My grandpa used to drink some of that pretty weak stuff, but it felt like a lager. So people like that, I don't know around here in this area. Feather Falls Brewing. I used to really like their beer when I was drinking some. And they had Soaring Eagle. A Soaring Eagle was a lager. Lager, whatever, you know, and very, very like a smooth deer. And I used to really like that one a lot and get a nice like a 20 ounce version of that. Used to get them for like three bucks. And I could have a couple of those and be pretty happy. Have that with a nice 12 ounce prime rib dinner. Oh, man, that was good times. Prime rib dinner back then was like $14.95. Yeah. So that and the beer, about 20 bucks. I was set. You know, those were the happy days, man. Then I started drinking some of the more cloudier type beers, you know, a little stronger. But not IPAs. I've never been an IPA fan. So they have one called the Dancing Trees. Dancing Trees. And you serve that with a couple wedges of orange and it's real nice. It's a wheat beer. Anyway, all that stuff started to really bother my stomach. I'd go in there and have one Dancing Trees. And by the time I got home, my whole stomach was just going crazy and had to use the restroom and stuff like that for a couple hours. Just all that. I think I have some IBS or whatever you want to call it, but the wheat really makes it makes it worse. Yeah.Kn6NGK. Probably too much information, but yeah, we all have our issues that I tend to have. That's why I don't like to leave too early in the morning. I tend to have some issues in the morning with using the restroom. Yep. So that's why I stay away from a lot of wheat if I can. Yeah, I'll get it in the hot dog bun or whatever, but. But yeah, my wife makes like this nice persimmon bread or zucchini bread or anything like that. Right now it's persimmon bread because we have a huge, huge persimmon harvest this year. So pretty much everything is persimmon this year. And then so she'll make that bread fairly dense and remind you of the consistency of a muffin anyway. And she doesn't put very much wheat in it at all. So I respond much better to that. She puts a lot of good things in it, like our own raisins and nuts and things like that. So makes it really, really hardy. I'd like to have a slice of that every now and again.

Speaker A: What'd you say it was? $3.
Speaker B: Oh, yeah.
Speaker A: Yeah. So they want to go into the extra portion. Yeah, I can go in there. Yeah. I don't. I don't see why you don't
Speaker B: want to get it. You can get it so easy. I'm sure. So I'd be happy to help you. Not that I'm smart. I'm not. But just like, flashcards kind of help you, you know, and then we can pick a couple of subjects or whatever the stuff. A lot of the questions are so simple that, you know. Yeah, there's maybe two sections, maybe there's nine sections, something like that. Maybe 10 sections. There might be two or three sections that are a little bit more difficult, but the rest of them are simple stuff.

Yeah, I didn't use any of that stuff, but if you've invested in it, that's fine. The other friends of mine have done that stuff too. I think it just takes too much time. There was a big. Not a big one, but there's a live stream yesterday. Ham radio crash course. Supposed to be about Linux, Linux 73 and Dragon OS. Right up my alley. I started to watch it and they kept talking about everything else but the subject matter that we're supposed to be talking about in the live stream, which. That really bugs me. But anyway, they were talking a lot about people getting their extras without knowing anything about radio. You know, they don't even have a technician license. They don't know nothing about radio. They just study all the tests, memorize the answers, take the test and get their extra right from the start. And there's a lot of people doing that. So yeah, I came in. I'm kind of more of a hybrid myself. I was probably getting like 60% right without doing anything extra. And then I started to study a couple of other subject matters that are in there, like more about semiconductors and stuff. That's what I'm real weak on. And that brought me up a little bit more, but still really not passing. And then I started memorizing some of the stuff too. So that's how I got it. I missed like four questions or something out of 50. I think you can miss like 13. So it's not that big a deal. So I don't know that you really need all that ham radio prep stuff. Not a guy like you who's pretty intelligent on all this other stuff already. Like for example, one of the questions that usually has to do with all these digital modes, like essentially how many seconds is it transmit and receive on FTEs, right? You probably know the answer to that already. Yeah, so that's some things that you would know that I knew some of that stuff too. Like. So you'll know. You'll have to. Just some of the things you have to memorize anyway. So like example, what's the bandwidth on the FT8? What's the bandwidth on CW? A few bandwidths of a few different digital modes that I'm already forgetting. You know, you have to kind of memorize that anyway because you'll probably never use those modes like Pactor. You may have used Pactor way back when, but I don't think anyone uses that now. Everyone uses like Vera hf, right? Yeah, I mean, so one of the guys that Gears that talked about all the tests are getting Harder and harder. It's only because he's like 80 years old and he doesn't think that digital modes are ham radio and anyway. But everyone else like us that has been messing with digital modes, we don't think that's tougher. We think sometimes it's a little bit simpler anyway. But yeah, I mean, I guess I'll drop it. But you know, it'd be fun if you. If you got. Got it because more of just like a bucket list thing. Not that you really use it that much, to be honest. There is some spots, however, like you just talked about one of them right there, the 80. 80 meters. But there's also others like, you know, you start getting into the. I had to look it up the other day on 15. 15 meters? Yeah, 15 meters. I had to look it up as to where I needed to be so I could be in the general section on sideband. I don't. I forget about all that stuff because I don't care. I can operate anywhere that other people are operating right now and I have to look it up. But. But when it comes to like winter field day and stuff, if you want the most people to be able to get back to you, then you got to be in the general section, if you can. Although people do get into the advanced and extra sections so that they can weed out some of the others, I guess. But that's all part of it. But yeah, there's some. There's some other things that XTRA gives you. Just like you get some more international abilities too. KN6NGK. Yeah, like some of the Canadian frequencies, like even on 40 meters they don't go up, as you know. Where do you start? Like 71, 78. Well, anyway, I think they only go up to like 7,000, 190 or something like that. Or maybe 7,200. Anyway, so if you want any Canadians to respond to any side band on 40 meters, you have to keep it within that range, otherwise they can't talk to us.

Yeah, well, there's already equipment out there. A lot of us have that have that in it. We just not supposed to use it, you know, I said it, right, not supposed to use it. I said, well, that would make some sense as some of us already have equipment that does that and we're not supposed to use it. Right. But anyway, some of that equipment, especially made in China, has that capability already. So a real simple thing versus equipment having 220. There's actually less of that around these days. So they kind of quit because nobody was using it. But since other parts of the world use four, they supply equipment that have that ability. They just might turn it off in the software type of a thing or put a resistor in place or whatever. You have to snip that type of thing. But anyway, yeah, it's fun anyway. Yeah. So what you got going on today? Yeah, there's a net coming on and about maybe. Well, so probably already people talking on it. Actually at 38, 55 emergency net that I sometimes get involved in at least. I just, you know, it starts, well, 8 o' clock is the net time, but people start talking about now anyway from around this area. I'll probably do that. But I think that'll be about it for Radia up until maybe this afternoon if my wife allows me. She wants to leave at about 2 o' clock for a short time, but might get a chance to do a PODA or something this afternoon is what I'm saying. So we'll see. Getting the lights stand a little bit, you know, longer now. So might be able to go out and get a little something in in the afternoon. We'll see. May do something tomorrow too, the morning we'll see. But other than that, I got. I got to change my oil. I got to do some gardening type stuff and working on my lawn here. I don't know, this is some of the busiest time of the year for me in February, March. There's so much to try to get done before it gets hot. Oh yeah, Yeah. I just sprayed about 8 gallons yesterday. Caught the electric. I got a sprayer from Amazon that another gardening channel recommended that has a lithium ion battery in it. And yeah, it took about 20 minutes to get it primed. But anyway, I mixed up about 5 gallons of Roundup in there and I think it probably took a half a gallon to prime the dang thing anyway. Sprayed that out and mixed up another four or five gallons and sprayed that out. Now I gotta wait a week, see what happens. Now. I don't. I don't buy Roundup. I buy the stuff from tractor Supply. Same thing. Basically, you know their brand. It's like 50 bucks for. I don't know, what is that? Maybe it's a half a gallon or something like that of concentrate. 41% by glycostophate or whatever, the bad stuff. But I don't care for weeds, man. It's not for my garden. Oh, yeah, Yeah. I don't know. When he goes, there's certain ones that work and certain ones that don't, but yeah, you need the 41% at least. You don't buy. I don't buy the stuff that's already like pre mixed in the little jug or something like that. No, I buy the concentrate. So that's how you got to get it. And you got to mix it like 3 ounces to the gallon for that 41%. Then I'll knock things down pretty good. So, yeah, so seriously, like, if I mix up 5 gallons, then I gotta put 15 ounces of stuff in there to really get it, you know, get it good.

Speaker A: Yeah. The
Speaker B: questions
Speaker A: tend to be like, okay,
Speaker B: what mode would you use for meteor scatter? Do you know? Well, yeah, the answer to the question is right,
Speaker A: actually, in the. In the mode, it starts out with like msk. So it's a simple thing, you know, it's like meteor scatter, MSK something 31 or whatever it is, MSK. Anyway,
Speaker B: probably a
Speaker A: mode
Speaker B: on there.
Speaker A: So.
Speaker B: Yep. So a question like that. The other memorization questions would be
Speaker A: like, what kind of certificate? Or what. What do you need, like, to. What are the rules for, like, going to another country? Like, like, say you were going to go and want to work in Europe. So what are the rules? Being able to. Reciprocally, what are the rules that you have to abide by when you're in other countries? Those are memorization questions. I forget. But there's a certain certificate you might need to get before you go
Speaker B: so you can operate in another country. Yeah. Not forget, because I have no plans of doing that.
Speaker A: But another friend of mine, he got his extra just because a certain country, I think he was going to Norway or Hungary, I can't remember which one. His wife's from one of those two countries. I can't recall. But anyway, he was going there and he goes there like once every couple years. And anyway, he had to get his extra because he wanted to be able to operate within the band range that they had over there. So that's another reason to get an extra, actually. But, you know, probably you and I don't really intend on going out of country, so that doesn't really bother us too much. But you still have to know the stupid answer to the stupid question.

Yeah. See, one thing that I find real interesting that, you know, an out of resonant dipole for me is way better listening than one that's more resonant. So, example, I've got two antennas going right now and one's got a S9 noise level. The other one's my off center fed that I have set for 40 meters. Its noise level is like S1. So the listening is way better on that one. There's the sound there, I turn that one down and here's the sound of the other one. To me it's a big difference, just noise.

Speaker A: Yeah. I hit the tune button just to see
Speaker B: what would happen, and it just immediately goes high swr and then backs off. No, thanks.
Speaker A: Yeah, maybe the tuner on the 9918 is slightly better. I don't know. But the end, you know, so that's the way it goes. One of these times I need to try. Try it vertical on 80 meters. I think I should be able to do it. I have to get a wire way up there in that tree, bring it straight down, maybe.

Oh, yeah, big difference. Trying to tell Dennis about that, too, because he wants to run his little Compromise vertical on 80. So you see how big you're dropping, like 30 decibels. NVIs. It's a big deal. You want to have a horizontal if you can. So I was trying to get him to, like, maybe put a wire horizontally off this vertical to work the difference. Give you a little bit of a vertical component. I'm sorry, a horizontal component to his vertical.

Anyway. Yeah, but this particular net, it only lasts maybe like eight minutes when it starts at 8:00'. Clock. It's just some rag chewers that are from the local area around here, around Humboldt county and so forth. There's a guy in Oroville that checks in and a few people around different areas, but I think they were a bunch of old buddies back in the day. This guy that's the net control guy is like in his 90s anyway, but they're just really kind of checking in vis really once a week, so pretty good. And sometimes there's guys there that only try 5 watts.

I mean, listen to that beautiful FPDX 10 sound on 80 meters. Boy, I tell you, there's no white noise in it at all when you take that attenuator and do all you got to do to filter it out. Pretty nice.

Speaker A: Okay. And six mgk. So, Jay, if you get African stations, how have you been best getting African stations? I'd sure
Speaker B: like to get into Africa a little bit better. Yeah, I'm talking about FP8.
Speaker A: Anyway, right now. So, like, is there a particular band that's worked better for you on
Speaker B: for Africa?
Speaker A: Yeah. Like
Speaker B: Hawaii,
Speaker A: for instance. A lot more guys hang out on 10 and 15 meters in Hawaii. I have gotten this one guy on 40 meters a couple times in Hawaii. But Hawaii is not the easiest for me either. I gotta get over to 10 or 15 meters.

Speaker A: Yeah.
Speaker B: What
Speaker A: kind of time of day?
Speaker B: That's interesting. So that's actually pretty early.
Speaker A: 1500s. Yeah. Because we're eight back, right? That's pretty early in the morning. Really? That's like eight in the morning or something, right? Eight, nine in the morning. Yeah, probably like eight in the morning.

Yeah. I'm still a long ways away from getting DX World Award 50% or something. Yeah, yeah. Mixed. Oh, boy. Just looking at my QRZ page for awards.

Speaker A: Well, for the 50 United States awards, I still have some work to do on phone. Let's see, I've gotten them for other things already.
Speaker B: Mississippi,
Speaker A: Rhode island, and Vermont. Vermont's
Speaker B: always a pain for a phone. Yep. I got Vermont
Speaker A: on On digital, and I got it on cw. But, yeah, getting on
Speaker B: phone is not the easiest. Mississippi, though. That's a joke. I should get that. No
Speaker A: problem. I'll have to keep my eyes open for Mississippi on phone. Just haven't been using phone too often.

Speaker A: Yep. CW's got some work to do also. Delaware, Hawaii, Vermont, West Virginia. Yeah, so I got some work to do. Those would be some good, good goals to have this year to
Speaker B: finish. Finish those. Oh, so you actually have
Speaker A: plaques? I don't know, I just have these things that, you know, show up on my, on my feet or whatever. Awards or whatever. So you actually have some sort of plaques. I don't think they even
Speaker B: sell those anymore, do they? Yep. Okay. Yeah, certificates.
Speaker A: You can definitely get those. Yeah. Anyway, yeah, I don't think I'd want to get one at all. If I did, I'd want to wait until I have like all, all modes finished so I could have the, so I could show, you know, hopefully it would say that, you know, all the different, you know, CW mix phone and so forth. I think there's four different possibilities, so that way they're all listed. What do they call that?
Speaker B: Endorsement? Yep. Yeah, that's just something else. Yeah, that's why it's
Speaker A: just something to play with it really. I mean, it doesn't matter, but yeah, you gotta have some good stuff. A good antennas like he's got for some of that.

Speaker A: Oh, there's a new one here. Did you see this? 250th anniversary of the United States of America. Oh, boy. We better work on that one. We better look, see what
Speaker B: that takes. Yeah. 250th
Speaker A: anniversary in the United States of America. So it looks like. Yep. I don't know what it takes, but it looks like I've only got 12% out of 250 entities.

Speaker A: So, Jay,
Speaker B: did you hear me on 80 meters at all? I know you were kind of listening there earlier anyway. Okay, so you didn't hear me because I was just checking in with those guys just now. Okay, well, that means you didn't hear me. Anyway, it's going to be starting to net here in a minute, so anyway, so hopefully we'll hear some other people
Speaker A: this morning.

Speaker A: Yeah, it's not like Lake Philbrook. It's Philbrook. I think it's spelled differently anyway. But
Speaker B: I got confused by that one before. Yeah, not surprised. Yep. Anyway, not surprised. Thank you, though.

Speaker A: All right. KN6MGK for ID. And, yep, my radios, or HF radios are off. So anyway, yeah, it's pretty short in that, huh, Jay? But just people
Speaker B: checking in from all around. So maybe jay disappeared. Kn6mgk. Good morning, everybody. Happy Sunday.