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Radio Field Day at Hamilton Airport

Amateur radio’s biggest event of the year is this weekend all across the USofA.

The main event is to encourage individuals, groups, clubs and teams to deploy their radios into “field locations” – that is, to set up and practice the use of mobile, temporary radio communication centers.

Part of the game is to contest and see how many contacts each unit can make across the nation. That particular aspect of the program runs from noon Saturday to noon Sunday.

The Bitterroot Amateur Radio Club (BARC) typically will share contact information with other temporary field stations in […]

find your puppy’s adult weight

www.puppychart.com is a website for estimating how much your puppy will weigh as it grows into an adult dog.

I’m tracking our mixed-breed puppy as he grows. Their estimates certainly seem reasonable. Our big-footed, lanky 4 1/2 month-old Shepherd/Pit is apparently headed to crest 90 pounds. The trajectory shifts a few pounds either way as I weigh him on his weekly birthday anniversaries.

In his case it does not change the estimate whether I list him as a German Shepherd Dog or an American Pit Bull. There is actually little difference between those two breeds according to puppychart’s weight […]

semi-auto mousetrap, Gen III

In response to what I have experienced as a chicken rancher, I just built my third semi-auto mousetrap.

The first one had to be inside a chicken coop that had baby chicks along with adult chickens and roosters. I had to study up to figure out a way to eliminate a major community of mice who were eating chicken feed, drinking their water and, most importantly depositing mouse poop all over everything.

The odds on their creating an unhealthy environment were very high.

While the essence of this device came from other people, I adapted, adjust […]

BEARS in the air

BEARS Bitterroot Emergency Amateur Radio Services —————————– When normal communications systems – phone lines, cell phones, internet, 911-call-centers, broadcast TV & radio – are unavailable or overtaxed, amateur radio can provide flexible communications resources.

MISSION

Provide our neighborhoods and communities with a pool of trained radio operators, technicians and resources to deliver essential communications during emergencies.

———————————————————- BEARS is an organization dedicated to preparing, practicing for, and being able to provide radio communications via amateur radio whenever requested , whether for emergencies or planned events throughout and beyond the Bitterroot whenever radio is superior, or other means of […]

my website security and reliability

In February I changed hosting services. That took a lot more learning than I expected. It also had a large number of failures before my perseverance finally resolved the myriad details that had to be addressed exactly so.

Even before I finally achieved the reliability in presentation and fluid ability to post new articles to my sites, I began getting messages suggesting I really, really ought to convert to the more secure access offered by “HTTPS”, as opposed to unsecured plain HTTP.

Enter, once again, more details that I did not know and had to learn about.

Today I […]