In and Out Bureau

I received an email today from a Ham Radio operator from Germany requesting a QSL reply to a card He had sent Me.I looked thru My log and seen a QSO I had logged but no indication of a received QSL. I started several years ago to log any and all QSL's received or sent . This process is otherwise very difficult to keep track of.Either the card was lost enroute or as is typical with Bureau transactions--still in transit from the year 2012!
I was aquireing a stack of cards to send to the ARRL outgoing QSL service so I added one more and sent the works.I also sent money to My incoming W0 Qsl service since its been awhile. That wraps up My QSL obligations for awhile--good feeling.Its still fun to receive QSL cards!
73--Tim

St Lucia for # 126 and NPOTA

Before Christmas on the 10m band ,J68HZ, Joel on the Island of St. Lucia was operating Voice. Looking at My DXCC worked I realized St. Lucia was not confirmed although I had worked several stations over the years from that QTH. J68HZ happens to be a LOTW user and confirmation happened on January 6th for DXCC # 126. A nice QSO but short which is real typical. Our Family vacation in March of last Year was a cruise and one of the Islands was St. Lucia.We had a nice tour of the Island and I remember it fondly.
I also took some time recently to try contacting some National Parks on the air activation and did have some success. These Activation I think will be a little more challenging than the Centennial celebration of 2014 because of the locations from remote areas at times. Antennas and rig setup might not be as robust as a station activating their QTH. Possibly its just changing conditions but I suspect its more to do with low power and less than optimum antenna set ups! Still will be fun to chase.
73---Tim

ARRL RU 2016

I've participated in this contest for several years and have a good time always.Usually its very cold out and its nice to be inside contesting. Solar conditions looked to be iffy with a solar event during contest time but I found conditions to be good. Fact is at the start at 1800 UTC if I could have continued the rate per hour I would have really ran up the totals. It didn't last but first hour doing S&P I was able to do 50 Q's per hour which for Me is smoking! A 25-30 per hour rate is more typical and for most of the contest that was My rate or lower on 40 and 80m.
I was very pleased with openings on all the bands from 10m to 80m. Fact is 40 and 80m were fair and I did make numerous contacts on both bands although 15 and 20m were the best through both days. Sunday did seem to have less activity and many, many gray call signs printing in the N1MM program indicating a previous contact.
My participation last year yielded 250 QSO's and early Sunday I decided to try and exceed that amount this Year. It was a scramble at the end- Dinner "bell" rang it was close but I managed 256 Q's--Yeah! Although I had less multipliers so My score was actually less than last years!
Very fun contest with lots of familiar call signs logged and many new ones too!
Murphy stayed away and PC,radio and software ran excellant
till next time--73--Tim

PS-finished this post then realized the title was wrong. I had put a date of 2015--duh!!

The last chicken

Our last chicken is gone. She was a white speckled Sussex named Marshmellow and was about eight years old. She had been the lone bird left since July and during the warmer months followed Me around when I was outside doing chores. She would even enter the pole building looking for Me thru the small service door. Towards evening when it was time to roost I would whistle and She would come running to the coop.We had talked about finding a place for Her since We believed loneliness would be a problem but She didn't seem too bothered by lack of companionship.
We have always enjoyed watching Our flock roam the yard catching bugs and just generally being care free birds. I suppose keeping them exclusively in the protection of the fenced chicken run would have kept all of them safe but would have detracted from Our and their enjoyment. Predators have been a huge problem at our rural location and have been bad enough at times to force Us to keep the remaining birds lock up for many weeks.We have been lucky not to lose a single bird inside the protection of the fenced in run until now! Several days ago a weasel managed to get inside and our last bird is now history.
It has been an experience good and bad raising birds. Loved the fresh eggs! Hated losing our pets to predators and old age. A good experience for the sturdy of heart ! :) I will say the birds antics made Me laugh many times and a chicken allowed to be semi free will exhibit a surprising personality and intelligence most people say they don't have! They be wrong!
73 and Happy New Year
I pray for peace but that seems
impossible for the Human race!
Tim