Surfin’: Tracking the Dead Zone

This week, Surfin' describes how hams can participate in an International Space Station experiment to test a spacecraft propulsion technology’s effects on RF.

Surfin’: Smörgåsbording

This week, revisit two recent installments of Surfin’ and learn all about ham radio in the 21st century.

Surfin: Going Galena

This week, your Surfin’ Contributing Editor did not have the remotest idea that he'd be building a do-it-yourself radio next week.

Surfin’: When One Thing (Music) Leads to Another (Radio)

This week, Surfin’ considers different way of assembling a software defined radio (SDR).

Lucky 13

For the past two years, I have kept a running total here of the amount of snow that falls at my home on Compounce Mountain. I start the count on December 1 and end it whenever the last snow falls in the spring.

So what do I do with the 13 inches that fell here October 29-30?

Although most of the leaves had fallen from the trees in my neck of the woods, that was not the case in the surrounding area. The heavy wet snow that landed on the trees still full of leaves caused tree branches, as well as whole trees to fall and damage the power infrastructure.

As a result, my house has had no power, no telephone, no Internet access, no weather station, and no ham radio since Sunday morning. My electricity pimp has not dared to estimate when it expects to restore power, so the prospects for a quick fix look bleak.

The little woman says that we should buy a generator. I wonder how well that will go over as her Christmas gift?

Probably not very well.