By:
Category:
Comments Off

CQWW SSB Contest from W0AIH


I spent most of the weekend (other than during my son's birthday party) at W0AIH working
the contest. As usual I had a blast working from the FARM. Paul is
a great host and I really enjoy working from his multi-op station.



We had a huge storm roll through Friday night which killed the low bands. The low
bands were pretty poor all weekend and will negatively affect our final score. 10m
and 15m were very busy which was a positive for us. Our rates on 10m & 15m were
better than our rates on 20m for most of the contest. We were short a couple of warm
bodies as well. We normally like to have a run and spotting station for each of the
low bands which we did in limited fashion due to the amount of operators that we had.



Go MWA!             Here
is a slideshow of pictures from the FARM.



  






By:
Category:
Comments Off

SPYBOT Search & Destroy


I spent a bit of time last night working getting SPYBOT setup
on one of laptops and my wife/kid's computer. Overall I am pretty happy with the application.
I had been using the free version of Ad-Aware.
This is also tied to project at work so I thought that I would try to get some more
exposure and figure out what seems to work & what does not.



I am still trying to get SPYBOT tweaked and I am not sure that I have the ideal
configuration yet. I am not clear if it is supposed to stay loaded and resident or
close out when it is done. I have it scheduled for nightly scans on two computers
so far. I think that I am going to watch it for a couple more days before I put
it on any more computers.



Some observations so far:




  • Easy to install.


  • It is does a good good scanning the computer & finding potential items.


  • It really needs to be used in the advanced mode.


  • You really need to download all of the "add-in's" for it to get the full functionality
    and protection.


  • It has a nice tool to see & adjust what applications are in your first-run registry
    key. This is a great way to remove applications that try to get into your system tray
    every time that your computer boots up.


  • I also like the ability to be able to remove IE Active-X controls that are no longer
    being used.



Overall my systems were pretty clean other than a few cookies. I did unload some Active-X
controls and some items that were in my first-run key. Overall the one laptop runs
faster, uses less RAM, and IE is much faster.





By:
Category:
Comments Off

New one - FP/VE7SV


I spent a little bit time tonight working in the shack. While Jacob and Ben worked
on the "Freddy the Fish" preschool game I worked on setting up the VE7CC
packet application and XMLog.
I was able to finally get everything integrated with the radio. To test things out
I worked FP/VE7SV on
a 40m split running CW. 



St.
Pierre & Miquelon is a little island out in the Atlantic someplace east of Canada.
It is not a really long haul.... but it is a new one in the log and it is even a CW contact.
It will count towards my DXCC.






PS... A quick follow up.  (Posted at 10:22pm)




  • I also got them on 80m (CW.)


  • I can hear them on 30m (CW) but they are not hearing me.


  • It appears that I have a coax problem on 40m that I will need address later this week. 



73 DE NG0R


By:
Category:
Comments Off

Electoral Vote Predictor


I am sure that quite a few people have seen the Electoral
Vote Predictor website. It is kind of interesting. I first saw this a couple of
months ago on someone's weblog. (I don't remember who.) Then I heard about it again
on the Minnesota Public Radio about
a week ago.



I think that Bush will win the Electoral
College which is the important part of the election. I think that the election
is Bush's to win or lose much like his father a couple of years ago.



Maybe it is time to go visit JibJab to
remind me how much I dislike our two main candidates. I have already cast my vote
via absentee ballot. (I wanted to make sure that my vote got cast in the event that
I was out of town working on a migration.)