W3BNY...Bunneh Amateur Radio!

2010-02-20T12:52:00.001-05:00

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Bunneh may have been born at night....

2010-01-28T21:49:00.008-05:00

But not last night!

Check out what I got in the mail.

Online Refund Form After the last annual calculation of your fiscal activity we have determined that you are eligible to receive a tax refund of 820.50 Rupees. Please submit the tax refund and allow us 3-5 days in order to process it. A refund can be delayed for a variety of reasons. For example submitting invalid records or applying after the deadline. To access the form for your tax refund, please click here (edit...stupid link removed) Copyright © Some stupid frellin spammer! All rights reserved. (yeah right!)

Ok pop quiz time kiddies...what did you notice about the email. Other than its spam! look again.... see it? 820.50 INDIAN RUPEES Anyone care to guess how much that is? Anyone...Bueller....Bueller.. Anyhow here is a link to a nifty currency converter.

So. 820.50 Indian Rupees is an astronomical....

$17.73 USD

Y.G.B.S.M! You want me....bunneh...to give you all my personal info and bank account goodies for a measly 17.73? Here's your sign.

And with that..I'm off to bed...to dream perchance...of mah $17.73!

This is Ren...Ahm rich beehatch...W3BNY....Out!

Maryland Drivers

2010-01-28T09:39:00.003-05:00

Two simple words describe native Maryland drivers....

YOU SUCK!

Do they not teach you about...

Turn signals...PLEASE
Entering the highway? Really, the flow of traffic is going 65+ and you creep on at 15mph! Then you get all huffy and wanna flip me the bird because I flash my high beams at you and lay on my horn. MFP! Let you in on a neat-o-item in your car. ITS THE ACCELERATOR PEDAL! Get on it and MERGE!
You may like NASCAR....You may think your "Dale"...YOUR NOT! Stop weaving thru traffic (IE the beltway) like you're at Talladega!
You see the lane is exit only...you know its gonna exit. Why then in the name of Rotella-T do you decide "oh, I need to hit the brakes and get over a lane" right at the exit...when I'm right behind you at 60 freekin miles an hour! STOOPIT! Again, you all get huffy when I flash the highs and lay on the horn. (You reading this you New Hampshire Avenue exit dorks! get the hell over like..I dunno... half a mile before the exit not 10 yards from the sand drums! Idiots)

Anyhow, I look forward to this every day. Gurr...

Ren...the guy behind you in the 10,000lb truck when you just decided your not in the correct lane and this is a good place to stop, have a McBiskit, and wait for an opening...W3BNY!

Somewhere in the ether.....

2010-01-27T18:58:00.005-05:00

That is 60m (chan. 4) to be exact. And in-between overs I get this from another station.

"So, are you part of the Rodent Revolution?"

HAH! For those that dont know what the "Rodent Revolution" is... here is the basics with some MP3's as well! So yeah...you caught me. I knew about WBNY and the R.R but never heard an on air broadcast. So I decided to legitimize the call by adding the "3" and it was available. If not, I would have been K3BNY but I really do like W3BNY and glad that it was available.

So officially.... NO, I am not THE WBNY nor am I the voice of the rodent revolution. Do I support same...well...SQUIRREL!!!

Have a good evening and wear your ears...PROUDLY!

Ren...Bunneh...but not THAT bunneh....W3BNY...out!

Shelters

2010-01-27T10:32:00.003-05:00

Going thru one of my forums this morning. there was a topic about something called SHELTER BOX. I thought it was really neat and thought I would pass the link along for others to look at as well.

Along with that and closer to home,

Another person posted about EDAR or Everyone Deserves A Roof! Its a portable system to provide temporary shelter to a homeless person. Neat idea and another link for you to take a look at!

Something else I thought of especially with the Shelter Box is what would I need to live outside of my home on the street or on my property in case of a major catastrophe and I wasn't evacuated yet (think Katrina). Look at that Shelter box and see what you have around the house and consider making your own just in case you become homeless after a disaster. Even if you stay on your property to guard whats left of your home. Because you can pretty much figure if a major disaster happens, you are going to be on your own for about 5 days at the least before responders arrive. Again, take Katrina as an example!

Big day at work...so will cut short.

Have fun!

(P.S. Pics here are screwy...will neaten it up later.)

Ren...Bunneh...hoping not to have to live in an emergency hutch....W3BNY!

QRZ bannanation...Update

2010-01-24T11:30:00.002-05:00

Yawn...Good morning everyone. I slept late. Must have been tired from yesterdays ride witht he COG group. (more on the at later.)

What I want to talk about this morning is...sigh...QRZ and what happened there. I have gotten some emails of support from various folks and even a comment on a post here. (YEA!!! Someone reads this thing other than me.) To you all....

Thank You all!

But...this morning I decided to go view the carnage.... And read this.

I heard that bunnies don't make a sound until they get slaughtered. Then they make the most bloodcurdling noise.

Having never seen or heard a rabbit put to the butcher's knife, I would not know personally.

To all of you following along on this bit of drama. I assure you, that this bunnie is not...IS NOT...making a blood curdling sound. Nor whine, nor send drunk email to staff...nor NOTHING. This post...THIS ONE HERE is about as public as I am going to get. Its done. Well not really.

OK guys, lighten up a little.

Ren got a 30 day ban, which he pretty much asked for, and received.

Follow the "Rules of the Road," and you won't have a problem.

No, you're wrong! I did not ask for it. I did follow the "rules of the road" as it applies to the other than racist/anti-religion/right-wign nut vitriol spewing bigots that occupy that place.

So there...that's my venom! Hope that makes you all happy because that's all there is going to be in a public forum.

Anyhow, Im hungry. Will post updates on yesterdays club ride in a few.

Ren....W3BNY...the venomous hungry bunneh.

Feed the bunneh!!

2010-01-23T13:33:00.000-05:00

Matthews Va....Seabreeze restaurant. Gonna try the flounder sammich special

Ren...hungeh bunneh

The ride

2010-01-23T10:00:00.000-05:00

Maybe you can read it...

Ren

Brekkie...

2010-01-23T09:45:00.000-05:00

Waiting at Hornes. Always wanted to stop now I know why I havent...meh. Ecclectic junque.

Ren...

2010-01-23T09:19:00.001-05:00

Note from the road.

Don't have a bike club meeting at Hornes in VA...service not..uhhh..welll.

Ren...

On the road

2010-01-23T08:11:00.000-05:00

Big ride today....fuel & a red bull and I got a new set of ears.. Yea!!!!

Cya..

Ren...the banninated

TADA!!!

2010-01-22T20:49:00.001-05:00

You have been banned for the following reason:
Pattern of insulting and/or instigating behavior with other members

Date the ban will be lifted: 02-22-2010, 09:00 PM

Eh.... More later. Getting ready for a ride tomorrow.

April Fools!

2010-01-22T12:08:00.002-05:00

In January no less. I...HAHAHAhA....couldnt stop laughing. Here is an excerpt. (I have to protect....HAHAHHAHAHA...) just go there...before they kill the thread. If they do kill it. I have the pretty much the whole post saved.

"I proposed to the ARRL a program to cross train American radio operators with portable HF equipment as sky divers, so they could be inserted from fixed wing aircraft in remote areas. I never got a response, after several long detailed emails, and several calls. I carefully researched the optimum equipment, including an ultra light weight dirt bike that could be air dropped to provide transportation and radio battery charging."

I gotta go pee...BAD...HAHAHAHAHAHA

Helmet fun

2010-01-21T08:45:00.005-05:00

Good morning....traffic sucked this AM!

Last summer I went down to North Carolina to take a motorcycle skills course call Ride Like A Pro. In short...WORTH EVERY PENNY! Take it if you can! Anyhow I bought something from Aerostitch and decided to give it a shot. HELMET EARS! They do hold on except in the rain! I wore them from work here in the DC area down to Durham, NC. The smiles, laughs, and kids pointing out the ears makes the price worth it. That and you dont get to take life too seriously when you are wearing them. The kitty and Tiggy ears are just horribly cute. That and they have a tail (squee!) Anyhow.... take a look at big bad bunneh on a bike

Anyhow, that's me. Not much more today. Trying to figure out some numbers for another antenna project.

CYA.

Ren....

OO update

2010-01-20T08:56:00.003-05:00

Yesterday I put up an entry about how I got reminded of the 10 minute ID rule. Well...I screwed up and posted to QRZ.com last night after I got done here and right before bed. I didnt want to repeat myself. Just wanted to throw the post up, and have folks read the entry (that and get someone to read this thing...). Woke up and ZOMG!!! Three pages of entries! wow! A whopping percentage of them got the point and I got back some humorous entries...Steak knives...LOL! Then there were the "winners"

"So you are proud of the fact that you are operating a station and not complying with the FCC Regs?????? If so I assume you would be proud if you were operating out of band. Hey, if you were only a few Khz out of band what's the big deal? You know all those pesky little rules are for guys who don't know how to operate like you do! You are special and we should all take a lesson from your swell way of operating! NOT!"

Sheez...Like I shot his cat or something. Never fear. I left OF a tasty tidbit for him to chew on. Anyway, isn't life like that. Share something with people and most of them get the point and then there are others....

Back to work with me.

Ren...Teh Bunneh...aka W3BNY. Have a good morning...Out!

Guess what bunneh got in the mail today....

2010-01-19T22:13:00.004-05:00

Mah first Offical Observer "OO" Cards...or OOPS!!

Seems that I went a leeetle bit over my allotted ten minute window for ID. Honestly, when I looked at the mail I said "COOL!!! NEW QSL CARD"..Then I opened it...BWEH?!?! How did I feel. Dunno. Kinda upset? Maybe for a little bit. Miffed? maybe for a little bit too. But I did get a great signal report from the OO. Just was a bit long winded. At least equipment blocks weren't checked. My stuff works! I did take the time to send him a nice email. Really, no sarcasm, I sent him a very nice thank you email for giving me a heads up and for the "flowers" Guess it beats getting that pink envelope from Gettysburg!

Anyhoo...I'm going to bed. CYA all tomorrow.

This is Whisky-Three-Bravo-November-Yankee....BuNnY Amateur Radio... OOUT

More on vertical antenna radials.

2010-01-19T12:58:00.004-05:00

Just thought I would cite a few of my sources that I used to re-think the radial system that I had for my vertical antenna.

Good information from the University of Hawai'i amateur radio club. Look around. Other neat information here too! Clicky
Very informative document from SteppIR antennas about vertical antenna radial systems. PDF clicky
Butternut/Bencher antennas document about vertical antennas. PDF Clicky
"The Ground Image Vertical Antenna" Dr. Jerry Sevic W2FMI(SK) QST Magazine July 1971
K9JY put down a nice system for his Zero Five antenna! Clicky to see his blog

Just a few that I used. You can also use "vertical antenna radials" or words to that effect as a Google search term to help you out.

Coming soon....Mah at-1011 antenna and mount system.

DE W3BNY...Bunneh Amateur radio....out!

Why do I put myself thru this...

2010-01-19T08:16:00.008-05:00

Yesterday over on QRZ.com, there was a thread about "The Catholic Church in Haiti" (note: Don't bother clicking the link. Thread has been deleted!) Frankly, I was offended. Normally I am pretty thick skinned and very few things offend me. This is one of them. (I wont mention the others..no sense divulging my vulnerabilities.)

WARNING! SLIGHT RELIGIOUS RANT FOLLOWS...

You know, The Church has her problems. We are human. We have done some pretty wrong things in the past but all in all it is still the Church of Jesus Christ. I fell away from Jesus and the Church 20 some odd years ago. But the incredible thing is that thru all the crap that I did, Jesus and the Church never left me. I left them! I decided that my life without either of them was...well I wasn't were I wanted to be. I made a call the local Parrish, made an appointment with the Pastor, went to confession and I was back. That simple. Forgiven and forgotten. Yeah I will still have some 'splainin to do and some things I need to work on but I feel "whole" again.

I am not an apologist for the Church. Wont even pretend to be one. But what gets me is the "how horrible We are" bit. Even from my wife. No one seems to remember the schools, the hospitals, everything else good that was done in the name of Christ. Just all the crap that we as fallible humans did. And yes, I agree, some of it very bad! (I am not going into it...period! Anybody posts something...I will delete it!). But then again, "no other religion has ever done anything wrong in its entire history...ever" Just us Catholics. PEH!!!

Religious rant over

Anyhow, this is typical QRZ.com forum crap. Its ok to bash Hispanics, people speaking Spanish, Catholics, Democrats, Our President, as long as you don't fire up on someone for being an idiot or posting like one. Yes its a private forum and the owner makes the rules. Like it or leave...And seriously...I think I need to evaluate why I even go there in the first place. Some folks there are ok..well more than ok. But there are others that just plain piss me off. It shouldn't...I shouldn't let them get under my skin like that. But I can get...whats the word...emotional?...about it. Thats my fault. But still. There are quite a few people there that aren't on my Christmas card list.

Anyhow, I need to evaluate why I post at QRZ.com.

Have a good day and sorry for the religious rant.

DE W3BNY....OUT.

0932 am. ON EDIT...

This is a good example of what mentality is on QRZ.com. No callsign or posters name but..if you click on the ONLY link in this post...

"I'm not that sensitive for Homeless though. They should be DEPORTED to Tijuana! Homeless are not poor unfortunate people, they are CRIMINALS living on the lam to avoid being jailed. They STEAL and ROB people for a living.

People who had their houses destroyed in Katrina and Haiti are HOMELESS.
The Bums who panhandle you on the street by day and rob your house or hold you up by night are TRAMPS!

Ask the Police. Probably 90% of the calls are due to "homeless" doing what they do. Many are completely NUTS and need to be locked back up in the Funny Farms. The Liberals opened the Insane Asylum doors way back when, and the country has been RAVAGED ever since!"

How do you even respond to that. wow... Anyhow thats what you get to see on QRZ.com!
(Yeah...I responded. But what I said doesn't matter anymore. The thread is deleted. FINALLY! What I find irritating is the reason given for the post deletion by one of the moderators...

"Reason: Thread gone wrong from the first post. Religious bashing is not what QRZ is about."

Is that so. If it is, why then did it take 2 days and what...20 pages of posts for you folks to decide that the post isnt what "QRZ is about".)

Bunneh...OOOT

2,580 feet.

2010-01-18T14:34:00.008-05:00

Significance? Thats the total feet of #14 stranded that I have used to "re-make" my radials for my vertical antenna.

Couple of years ago....I purchased a ZERO FIVE 43 foot vertical antenna. Actually it has survived high winds...ice...snow...birds...you name it. Its built pretty tough. But me being the silly bunneh that I am. Didnt know crap about radials. Did a cursory search and decided that I should just cut some lenghts of wire to some different bands (one for 80, some 40m some 20 and some 10m wires) and be done with it (about 500' total). It never really was the best antenna I had...wasnt the worst. just..eh. Well. recently in QST Magazine, there was an article by a Gent named Phil Salas AD5X about matching problems with the 43ft vertical antennas and his solution to get better performance out of it on 160/80M bands. Great article!...some problems with it but lets table that for the time being. That article caused me to re-evaluate my radials. some better searches this time and yeah...I SUCK AT IT! I decided to redo the whole field with 60 43' radials. Why sixty? couple of reasons.

My DX engineering radial plate has sixty connection points
In reading an article by Al Christman K3LC sixty 43' radials is 2,580' of wire and should get me unity gain on that antenna, maybe even a smidge over unity as compared to the -1dbi gain that I was possibly seeing (or worse) with the current radial system I have. (yeah I should model it. But my NEC skillz are suck!)
#14 stranded aint cheep! Its oh....35 bucks at Lowes and I went thru 6 (ok about 5 1/2) spools of it!
Im a lazy bunneh.

So I went about cutting the radials. WHEEE!!! I took a dowel that I had in the shop, put it thru the spool and rested it on my legs. Took a 43' hank of double dacron line from the scrap bin and started measuring and cutting. After each cut, take a yellow #10 lug crimp and affix it to the end (no electrical connection. Just slide it over insulation and all and crimp it.) This is so I can take a 10d nail to hold down the end of the wire when I set up the radials. Wind each 43' cut up, a wrap of tape, into the box, pull next wire. Repeat fifty nine more times over the winter season. Now that I have all those things cut, time to fix the radial plate ends. Blue 1/4-20 post lugs, strip and crimp. Back in box. Again, repeat sixty times. Just this time be careful to pick up all the loose strip ends and copper trim bits. I have a kitteh that LOVES to eat plastic. And when he's finished eating his PVC treat, he just LOVES to HURK it all up afterwords. Super-yummy! That and stepping on a single strand of sharp copper would go over well here at chez lapin much less stepping in khat hurk! (ow and eww!) Radials now cut and crimped. Now for the final step. SOLDERING!

Soldering each connector? Are you mad?!?! Perhaps. But these puppies are going to be outside...forever...rain...snow...sleet...raccoon pee...you name it! So why just trust them with a mechanical crimp that will allow water etc. to get into it and begin to do the thing that copper was born to do...corrode. (Yep corrosion or its more popular name verdigris...That is copper's job. To protect itself by forming verdigris. Good and stylish for roofs etc. but not for electrical connectors.) For that main reason I decided to solder each and every one of them. Took a small piece of plywood for a work area, some good old fashioned 60/40 RadioShack solder (.050 chunky stuff. No sense messing around with the thin stuff!) my portable vise and a neat-o portable torch from BernzOMatic! I like it much better than the usual hand held butane torch/cigar lighter/creme brulle burner. It hooks up to a propane tank and makes a nice flame! Cant wait to use it on PL-259's. One more word on that torch kit if I may. It comes with all sorts of "neat" accessories. Hot knife, soldering tip, blower, and a torch stand. Take the torch stand and put it aside. Take everything else and toss it into the waste bin (dont forget to recycle the plastic). The soldering tip lasts like 10 hours and then its poop! the other stuff? POOP! So save the problems and disappointment and throw it all away except for the stand.

Now, here is the procedure I used for making up the connector ends.

Pick up a radial
Mount it in the vise.
touch the flame to the lug. Watch for the tin on the lug to "run or sag"
touch your solder to copper. Pull off the flame. You dont want the plastic crimp to melt/catch fire (it will...and beware your smoke alarms!) Watch for the solder to flow.
keep touching the solder till the lug is full. (it will fill upon the top of the crimp) and a touch more flame if needed
Take a VERY DAMP paper towel. Quench the lug (yeah you may not like that quenching thing but in this case, dont fear it.)
remove from vice and throw into bucket.
Repeat 59 more times!

If you have done it right, The insulator will not have melted (much) or flamed/smoked and the ends are nice and flow soldered. Pretty much ready for service now. Here are the completed radials just waiting to be laid out in the back lawn.

I was going to do some more work today outside. Like removing the old radials and get them recycled. But....

IMA LAZY BUNNEH!

Anyhow, I got to post this. Oh and more on the vertical antenna and AD5X's match later.

Until then...thanks for reading and Remember Dr. King today!

DE W3BNY....OUT!

60 Meter mobile (back post)

2010-01-16T06:58:00.005-05:00

(Originally posted to another blog site....)

Greets... I normally take my motorcycle to work here in the College Park MD area but recently with the weather and snow/ice possibilities, have been taking the "bunlet" (my truck) to work. I was trying to check into the "Rooster Net" (3.990 Mhz) but I havent had much luck from the truck. Even though SGC says that my SG237 can tune up a 8.5' whip from 3.5Mhz and up it dosnt mean that it will be the worlds best radiator at that freq. Still a short antenna for that band! (more on that later...)

Back on track...One thing I have been doing is using 60m more from the truck. Specifically channel 4 (5.3715Mhz). Great group in the AM and in the afternoon as well. Apologies to everyone since I am BAD with call-signs at the mobile.

One thing I have heard that is interesting though is 5.450Mhz. Its the RAF VOLMET frequency. I was listening to a couple of guys talking about it and the one OM said that if you can hear this, you can pretty much hear DX coming from the UK on channel 5 (5.4035 Mhz)

Anyhow, getting used to this thing and will experiment with it later to get it "less bland".

W3BNY...out.

Funny

2010-01-15T16:08:00.001-05:00

Saw this at work and thought it would be funny if some guy was sitting on it with a HT (Handy-Talki) and wearing a vest/hard hat.

Eh..sometimes it don't take much to amuse me :P

--Ren...W3BNY---

Blink-Blink

2010-01-15T15:06:00.000-05:00

tap-tap-tap Is this thing working? Auuudio...Auuuudio...Testing1234554321...SWR looks ok...

Hello CQ CQ CQ This is W3BNY calling CQ.

I guess I will enter the blog-o-sphere world....I was using some other service and all the .CN bots started showing up so decided to move to a real blog. I guess this is to share all the stuff I have happen to me with amateur radio and other bits of information that I experience along the way.

Anyhow, first post and INB4USUCK

--Ren...W3BNY--