Review: War Games: The Dead Code (spoiler)

I was scrolling through the digital cable guide and spotted the words “War Games” so I had to check it out. It was a new movie, 2008 called War Games: The Dead Code starring Matt Lanter and Amanda Walsh. The description in the guide said:

In 1983, a teen computer hacker played a doomsday game against a government computer. In this thrilling sequel, another high school online whiz wreaks havoc when he hacks into a secret government program.

I went into it expecting that it wouldn’t be the greatest move ever, and nowhere near as good as the original. It is a good thing that I set my expectations low, because, well, it just wasn’t a blockbuster. But here is the reason I’m not a movie reviewer, because, I enjoyed watching it anyway!

Now, for some plot. Basically, instead of playing global thermonuclear war, there was something else that I can’t quite remember. Global thermonuclear war made a cameo, of course, it was on the list of games, they pointed to it with the mouse and acknowledged it, but went on to the other game. Basically, the computer, R.I.P.L.E.Y. is some sort of automated anti-terrorist computer that is supposed to automatically find terrorists based on computer algorithms and kill them. Of course, through a series of mostly innocent actions, the teen gets flagged by the computer as a terrorist, and the chase is on.

Guess who is back? Dr. Stephen Falken, back from the dead, again. Not played by John Wood this time, but Gary Reineke makes a good older Falken. An even more important returning character from 1983 is Joshua, AKA the W.O.P.R., which has been running a power grid somewhere up in Canada. The plan is to use Joshua to fight against R.I.P.L.E.Y. There is a lot of cheesy action, this time, instead of tic – tac – toe they teach R.I.P.L.E.Y. that the only winning move is not to play with antichess, which they call suicide chess.

Yes, its cheesy, but I still enjoyed it.

Left wallet home, nearly ran out of gas, and other things that went wrong today

What a crazy afternoon I had. It started this morning, or, actually last night. When I got out of the van, I dropped my wallet and it was on the ground all night in the rain, soaked through and through. Thankfully, it was still there. After I dropped Alex off to faith formation I returned to wait in the car for a while because I had a meeting with the Director of Elementary & Family Catechesis. While in the car, I emptied my wallet of all the various things that were inside and ran the heat on high to dry things out. I put the credit cards in my jacket pocket because I didn't want to leave them in the car while parked on the street while I went to my meeting.

Fast forward to later today. The Ravens game was starting to get good as I was about to leave to take Andrew home. So, trying to get out the door while catching the game, I forgot some things. Andrew's overnight bag for one, and I didn't put on my jacket, which is where the credit cards were. I'm about two thirds of the way when I realized that I wouldn't have enough gas to make it all the way, then realized that I didn't have any cash or credit cards on me. I didn't have enough gas to make it home either. So I was in trouble.

Fortunately, there was six dollars in change in the van's little coin holder, whew. That was enough to get Andrew home, but not quite enough to get back home so I called my mom and she met me at a gas station and gave me a little more. Thanks mom!

Alex's Cub Scout Fundraiser

Alex is selling popcorn to support his Cub Scout activities. Most folks that know me know that I'm not a big fan of fundraisers. Last year we bought popcorn from others and just wrote some big checks. This year my check writing ability isn't what it was, so, I figured I'd have Alex participate in the fundraiser.



Alex's online popcorn link: http://bit.ly/hAudI

The online ordering is great since friends and family who aren't local can order from Alex too! We'll add that to going door to door in the neighborhood (competing with all of the other scouts in the neighborhood) and selling to other friends, co-workers, and family (competing with Aaron of course).

The Scout popcorn fundraiser is interesting in that you have the option to "Send popcorn to the troops" as in, send popcorn to military service members. There is a $25 & $40 level to do that. I'm not sure exactly how that works though. I know that in fundraisers I've done in the past many folks just preferred to give a donation, maybe this is aimed at that crowd.

Our biggest disadvantage is that our pack meets on the last Tuesday of the month and a lot of other popcorn selling boys, including Aaron have a head start on us. We'll see how we do!

Philmont 1993

I happened to see a local troop's Philmont group photo on the web the other day and I've been wanting to get mine scanned. Here it is:



Top Row:
Andy Greib, Paul Thomas, Larry Thomas, Shawn Mitchell, and Mike Stumpfoil (Stumpy)

Bottom Row:
Jeremiah (the messiah) Cheipellie, Joseph Durnal (me), Bob (the Ranger), Dave Leasure (McLeasure), Ian Hays.

This and the troop sailing trip the year later are some of the best memories of my teen years.

Difficulty with IIS and port binding

I was having a problem when trying to use the same server for the Exchange 2007 server with the client access role and Office Communications Server edge server role. I know that this is far from best practice, but when you work with small businesses, sometimes the functionality desired exceeds the number of servers the budget can support, especially when they just bought a brand new 64 bit server with a 16 gigabytes of ram which is clearly underutilized.

The problem was with binding port 443 for both Outlook Web Access and the Web Conferencing edge service. Even though I had configured IIS to use one IP address and the OCS edge to use another.

netstat -a showed port 443 listening on the IP that I had assigned in IIS, but when I tried to start the OCS Web Conferencing edge, it would fail, with the event log indicating that it couldn't bind to the port because it was in use. netstat -a also showed 0.0.0.0:443 and [::]:443, meaning that it was still listening on all assigned IP addresses, including IPV6 even though it wasn't enabled. I verified that the OWA site was the problem by stopping the default web site, and starting the OCS Web Conferencing edge service, which worked.

The solution presented itself through the netsh command, which has saved me several times. From a command prompt:

C:\netsh
netsh>http
netsh http>sho iplisten (blank by default)
netsh http>add iplisten ipaddress=xxx.xxx.xxx.xxx
netsh http>sho iplisten (shows the OWA IP address)
netsh http>exit

I verified that it worked by typing netstat -a, and it wasn't listening on 0.0.0.0:443 or [::]:443 anymore. Even more convincing was that with IIS and the default website running, I was able to start the OCS Web Conferencing edge service.

Cub World at Camp William B. Snyder Day Three

I managed to wake up late again, so we missed the religious service, but using the coffee delivered to camp before I woke I was able to get Alex to the morning assembly and breakfast. After the morning assembly clue, I had a good idea who Ripley was, and the rest of the clues just confirmed it.

The first activity was Archery, and Alex is good at Archery, he was the best boy in the group, getting one bull’s eye and getting most of his arrows in the target. I did have to remind him several times not to grab the bowstring with all four fingers. There was plenty of space for Adults to shoot as well, so, I took the chance, as I like Archery too. I happened to be the best adult there, aside from the staff member running the station, Archery has always come naturally to me, I should probably do it more often.

It was a long walk to handicraft, and it had started to rain again. The boys didn’t seem to mind. While they were playing hide and seek in Akela’s village, I sat under the pavilion with a Scouter from pack 570 in Frederick Maryland. After talking to him for just a little bit, I thought to myself, I hope I can eventually get to the point of being as dedicated to scouting as he. After their game, the boys made leather arrowhead neckerchief slides. Alex did really well, he got a couple of twists in his wrap that I caught early enough for him to fix, and I helped him with the knots and a few tough parts, but it is mostly boy made.

The sun had come out again, just in time for lunch. I was hoping that they would put the flags up again, but they didn’t. Immediately following lunch we went back to camp and packed up our gear and put it in the car. It was quite a walk from camp to the car; fortunately, our stuff got a ride, so we didn’t have to carry it the whole way.

It was time for the pool again, which Alex has said several times was his favorite part. I was able to get him to focus on some actual swimming this time. He sinks like a rock, but then again, I think all kids do! Despite his lack of buoyancy, once we started working on swimming, he showed some promise. To try and give him something to look forward to, I took a couple of trips down the water slide, where you have to be a swimmer to go. Hopefully he’ll remember this when I’m trying to teach him to swim in the future. The water slides were a ton of fun!

Our final scheduled station was the fort, which is where BB shooting took place. Before BB shooting, the boys learned a bit about branding, and got to pick out a brand and see it put on a piece of leather. They seemed to enjoy this part, but were anxious to go and shoot BBs. But before that, they visited the fort saloon for some finger printing, which left them with black fingers. We had lost a couple of boys from our group that went home early by this time, something we found to be a shame, but it was a long weekend to this point, and part of me wanted to get home too. Finally, they got to go on the BB range. This time, Alex wore the safety goggles over his glasses, and shot very well, again, I think he was the best shooter in the group.



Then it was back to the dining hall dinner and the final flag ceremony. I noticed that they had put the flags back up while we were at the fort. First we stopped at the car so Alex could change into his uniform. We used his freshly made neckerchief slide, which Alex seemed to like, realizing that he had made it himself and it looked good and was useful too. I’m sure Alex will, as I did when I was a cub scout, make many neckerchief slides.



Following dinner was the closing campfire. We lost another member from our group, and Alex and I were the only ones left from our camp site. Several of the packs did skits, most of which were quite good. Several involved the boys playing the parts of some of the camp staff. One involved a boy sitting down reading the paper, with other boys coming to him with all sorts of camp problems only to be blown off, then the final boy says “hey Eric, there is a basketball game in the pool” and he gets up, drops the paper, and runs off stage! It was great! Then the staff did a very good skit! Then came the moment we had been waiting for, the identity of Ripley Jebediah Hemingway was revealed. I was right, and though that whole theme was a little over Alex’s head, he still seemed to enjoy it. After the staff sung Scout vespers the final time, we departed. I said to the camp director “We’ll be back”.

What a great Cub Scout program.

Cub World at Camp William B. Snyder Day Two

I slept in a little, so Alex and I had to rush to breakfast, just making it to assembly before. The best part was that coffee was delivered to camp, so, I was able to fuel up for the walk to the dining hall! Alex was at a loss for words for the pack check in procedure, so, he just said “Pack 285 is here”. Other packs, most with a lot more boys, had nifty little cheers, like “Pack 35 is alive” etc. Some simply said “Pack ### all present and accounted for, sir”, mimicking the staff patrols.

After breakfast was the big dig. The boys really seemed to enjoy it, the setup was that Ripley had hidden clues in the sand, and the boys had to find them. They really liked entering through the tunnel. After finding all the buried clues, which added up to look in the tower, the staff climbed into the tower and retrieved the clue box.



After the big dig, the group moved on to nature, but instead, I took Alex to the pool for his swim test. I didn’t expect him to even make beginner, but he wanted to try, and I knew that it would be good for him to try, so, he jumped into water over his head, freaked a little, kicked himself up and grabbed the wall, end of swim test. As they were filling out our buddy tags, I mentioned that there was no need for me to pass the swim test if Alex was a non swimmer, but they told me that I would need to be a swimmer to take Alex, a non swimmer on a boat. I didn’t want to miss nature, so I didn’t take the swim test right away. Alex missed some of nature, but he enjoyed what he saw, he liked looking at all the insects in bottles. They talked about geology, something Alex had already done, and used a baking soda and vinegar volcano to learn about the scientific method. We got a great clue at nature! That Ripley had earned a congressional award. Now, these aren’t your ordinary summer camp staff people, they are some of the best and brightest that the Boy Scouts of America has to offer, and several had earned congressional medals.



Next came lunch and siesta. We didn’t really use the siesta time for taking a nap, we worked on the scavenger hunt with others from our camp instead. Alex wasn’t liking that too much unfortunately. I guess, not everything that seems fun to adults works for kids, at least not all the time. We did pass a neat looking caterpillar though, that held his attention for a bit.



After lunch and siesta was the pool session. Alex didn’t seem to mind being limited to the non-swimmer section of the pool. While he was with his buddy, I took my swim test, which consisted of swimming the length of the pool four times, three face down, and one on your back. The first three lengths were no trouble, but when I was on my back, I could not swim straight at all, I think I covered two lengths zigzagging. I got my buddy tag updated as a swimmer and joined Alex in the shallow end.



The final scheduled session of the day was the ship. On the ship they learned about port, starboard, bow, and stern. They all got to raise some flags, followed by a life jacket drill where they all had 20 seconds to get their life jackets on. With their life jackets on, they climbed down the cargo net for some more activities inside the ship. They had to figure out a code to open the ammunition boxes filled with water bombs, which culminated in a water bomb battle, where Captain Shea got the worst of it I think.



They encourage the boys to wear their uniforms for dinner, and Alex wore his for all three. While not all of the boys wear them, I like the uniform and I encourage (ok, sometimes force) Alex to wear it whenever he has the opportunity. The ham for dinner Saturday night was great! Alex didn’t eat his, so, I ate it for him!

After dinner was free time, there were several activities available. Alex chose the planetarium, boating (paddle boats), and BB shooting. All good choices, except the planetarium was very hot inside. We enjoyed learning about constellations, and the boys got a good demonstration on how and why Polaris stays in the same spot in the sky, and how to find it. The most anticipated activity of the evening for Alex was the boats, which is why I took the swim test! I think this may have been Alex’s first time ever on a boat of any kind and it was very exciting for him. My camera batteries died while taking pictures at boating, but I got a few. Our final free time event was BB shooting, which Alex enjoyed, even though he didn’t hit the target at all. He had taken his glasses off to put on the safety goggles, and it was starting to get dark. It is amazing how much fun a boy can have missing a target five times!



Back at camp we started a fire. I pretty much left that up to the other dads that were there, mainly because I forgot my matches, but I am one heck of a fire maker and couldn’t help but help keep their flame growing after they used up about three quarters of a Washington post. We roasted some marshmallows and turned in for the night, well, Alex turned in and I took a shower. Overnight we had heavy rain for a considerable period of time, starting with some strong thunder storms, with the thunder coming basically the same time as the lightning a few times. We didn’t get too wet, so that was good, and Alex slept through the whole thing!

Cub World at Camp William B. Snyder Day One

Alex and I left for camp at about three o’clock in the afternoon on Friday. After driving for about one and one half hours we arrived at Camp William B. Snyder in Haymarket, Virginia. We were late, check in was supposed to start at one o’clock, so, we had to do a little rushing around getting our stuff to camp and getting ready for the first assembly and dinner and we missed all of the orientations, including the swim test.

Just before each meal, was an assembly outside of the dining hall where all of the scouts and staff would gather report in. Before breakfast and dinner were flag ceremonies performed by the camp staff who set an excellent example for the boys. There were four staff patrols, each would do a little skit before the flag ceremony, and some of them were great, getting good laughs from both the boys and their parents. Dinner was great, but the process was even better. Having missed most of the orientation, it was a little confusing at first. Basically, before the assembly, we would set up the table, putting the chairs down, and getting dishes and silver ware placed, but most importantly, selecting a totem. While we were outside at assembly, the kitchen staff would deliver the meals to each table on platters and in serving bowls. After eating, the (staff person, Kirby, whose title I can’t remember, but sort of in charge) would give a few announcements and say “What time is it?” to which all would reply, “Song Time!” and then they would spin the “wheel of song” that would choose the staff group that would lead that meal’s song. Clean up was interesting too, after singing, the kitchen staff person would ask us to throw away all of our trash and uneaten food, clearing it from all the dishes. Then they’d call for specific items to be brought to the dish washing area. This was also a little confusing at first, but we got the hang of it.



After cleaning up following dinner we again assembled for the opening campfire. This is where the fun really started. The staff had some great skits, really great skits, all setting up for the weekend’s theme: The Cub World Detective Agency with a mission to find out which staff member was Ripley Jebediah Hemingway, an ‘enemy’ secret agent. For each camp session, the camp director draws a name from a list of staff members and puts it in a box, and then places several clues in boxes for each station and saves some clues to be given out at assembly before meals. At the end of the campfire, the staff sung Scout vespers and we returned to camp for lights out.

Ham Radio PSK31 Digital Operators

This started as a post on a message board, but I thought I would clean it up and turn it into a blog post. First, some background. PSK31 is a digital radio modulation mode, used by amateur radio operators for real-time informal text chatting. On the radio, I do a lot of listening, so, if there is a station on the air chatting with several other stations, I probably know what was said.

When the station calls for another contact (calls CQ) and I answer, I hate it when this happens


***XXNXXX transmitting to KJ4JGD with me listening***
KJ4JGD DE XXNXXX
HI NAME IS XXX
QTH IS XXXXXXXX
YOUR SIGNAL IS 599
MY RIG IS: XXXXXX, ANT XXXX, ETC. ETC.
thank you for the qso
qsl direct
73 KJ4JGD DE XXNXXX sk sk

CQ CQ CQ DE XXNXXX XXNXXX PSE K

****NE3R (me) transmitting to XXNXXX****
xxnxxx de ne3r ne3r kn

***XXNXXX transmitting to NE3R (me)***
NE3R DE XXNXXX KN

****NE3R (me) transmitting to XXNXXX****
xxnxxx de ne3r Hello my name is Joe from Frederick Maryland. How is the weather in XXXXXX? I see the radio you are using is an XXXXX how do you like it and are you using any add on filters? xxnxxx de ne3r kn

***XXNXXX transmitting to NE3R (me)***
NE3R DE XXNXXX
HI NAME IS XXX
QTH IS XXXXXXXX
YOUR SIGNAL IS 599
MY RIG IS: XXXXXX, ANT XXXX, ETC. ETC.
thank you for the qso
qsl direct
73 NE3R DE XXNXXX sk sk

...

As you can see, XXNXXX sent me the same text that was sent to the station he was talking to before I called. In my response, I asked some specific questions based on that information, but got the same thing back, with the last line indicating that XXNXXX wanted to end the contact (sk).

Why does this happen? I think the problem is because many operators simply use macros to send canned information instead of having to type and engage in a real conversation. Sure, macros are good during contests, when you want to knock out QSOs as fast as possible, but for general day to day contacts, they should be used sparingly. Seriously, how interesting could a conversation between two operators using macros be?

I also have issues with people using capital letters on PSK31. Not that capital letters are bad, but they should be used sparingly. PSK31 uses a variable byte length for each character, with more common lower case letters being shorter than less common upper case letters. Sure, capital letters are fine for proper names and the beginning of a sentence, but every where else, lower case is fine.

Durnal Family Reunion, Philippi WV, Day 2

Ok, there were so many other folks there who I don't know their names.

Bill Durnal
Ashley Durnal
Bill's girlfriend
Connie Stout
Allen Stout
Scottie
Wendy's sister & her SO

And several older people that I don't really know. Since BJ & Bill don't mix, he didn't come over but I brought his children, Chloe and Calin (I guess that is how it is spelled).

I know that the highlight of Harmony's day was coming to the hotel for a few minutes and getting on the internet. She also really enjoyed holding sleepy Zoe.

The family fireworks were awesome this year. We started a little early because it was starting to rain.

As always, it was great catching up with everyone.

Durnal Family Reunion, Philippi WV, Day 1

It was great to see everyone again, well, almost everyone. Lets see if I can list the attendees, and no, I don't know all of their last names, but I'll give it a guess.

Robert G. Durnal
Wilma Durnal
Joseph Martin Durnal (that's an easy one)
Amy Lynn Durnal
Alexander Hamilton Durnal
Aidan Joseph Durnal
Zoe Lynn Durnal
Tammy Vreeland
Harmony Stout
Kirsten Vreeland
Brooke Vreeland
Robin Mallory
Kris Mallory
Aaron Mallory
Sonny Durnal
Rebbecca Durnal
Kaleb Durnal
Nathan Durnal
Either Kaleb or Nathan's girlfriend
Diane Zentgraf
Joyce Haggins
Gloria Welsh
Jim Durnal
Diena Durnal
Rachel Durnal
Robby Durnal the elder
Wendy Durnal
Robby Durnal the junior
BJ Bolton
Chloe Bolton
OMG I forgot the baby's name Carlie? Bolton
Joe Sidel
Teddy Sidel

I wonder if I forgot anyone. I bet Robin would have expected me to include Bear, but if I included Bear, there are like 50 other dogs I'd have to include! And maybe some goats and chickens.

Adults did a lot of talking and kids did a lot of playing. Around 9, Amy and I packed up our three, Aaron, Kirsten, and Brooke to go see the fireworks. We always forget that they don't start until 10, but it wasn't bad, we got a decent parking spot.

An example text radiogram

Here is an example NTS radiogram that I received over the air today. I received it via voice, but I'm going to save it in a file.


14 R HXG KK3F ARL 10 FROSTBURG MD Jun 30
BT
JOSEPH DURNAL NE3R
123 STREET ADDRESS
FREDERICK MD 21703
### ### ####
BT
ARL FIFTY THREE 70 HAD
A GREAT FIELD DAY 73
BT
PAT KK3F
/EX


The BT is a Morse code prosign for break and the /EX is what a digital text formatted message has to have at the end so that the system knows where it ends.

This message uses a format known as ARRL numbered radiograms. The FIFTY THREE stands for Received your _____. It's appreciated; many thanks. In this case, the 70 fills in the blank, which is the message number I used when sending Pat a message on ARRL Field Day.

Alex's Cub Scout Day Camp Achievements

I figured that Alex would do a few requirements and earn a few belt loops at Cub Scout Day Camp, but I was a little surprised at just how much he had done. I remember a little about being in day camp, but I don't remember earning so much.

Wolf Badge Requirements:
1a, Play catch with someone 10 steps away. Play until you can throw and catch.
1b, Walk a line back and forth. Do it sideways too. Then walk the edge of a board six steps each way.
1c, Do a front roll.
1d, Do a back roll.
1e, Do a falling forward roll.
1f, See how high you can jump.
2e, Learn how to raise a U.S. flag properly for an outdoor ceremony.
2f, Participate in an outdoor flag ceremony.
2g, With the help of another person, fold the U.S. flag.
5d, Show how to use a hammer.

Wolf Electives:
4c, Play Ring Toss.
4f, Play a wide-area or large group game with your den or pack.
11e, Learn and sing a song that would be sung as a grace before meals. Write the words in the space below.
11f, Sing a song with your den at a pack meeting. (he already did this one)
17a, Learn to tie an overhand knot and a square knot.
18f (1 event), Take part in two summertime pack events with your den.
19a, Identify five different kinds of fish.
19b, Rig a pole with the right kind of line and hook. Attach a bobber and sinker, if you need them. Then go fishing.
19c, Fish with members of your family or an adult. Bait your hook and do your best to catch a fish.
19d, Know the rules of safe fishing.
19e, Tell about some of the fishing laws where you live.
19f, Show how to use a rod and reel.
20a, Play a game of tennis, table tennis, or badminton.
20c, Earn the Cub Scouting shooting sports Archery belt loop.
20k, Show how to dribble and kick a soccer ball. Take part in a game.
20n, Earn the Cub Scouting shooting sports BB-gun shooting belt loop.
20o, With your den, participate in four outdoor physical fitness-related activities.
23e, Attend day camp in your area.

He earned the following:
Fishing belt loop

Weather belt loop

Astronomy belt loop
BB Gun Shooting belt loop
Archery belt loop
Archery Pin
Soccer belt loop
Badmitten belt loop
Golf belt loop

Completed some requirements for the following:
Fishing Pin – # 3, 4, and 11 (4 of the 5 times fishing)
Wildlife Conservations belt loop – number 1
Weather Pin requirements 1 and 2.
Astronomy Pin requirements 2 and 4.
Outdoor Activity Award – 1, 2, 11, and 13
Leave No Trace Pledge and 1, 4, 5
World Conservation Award – #2 – 1 of 2 parts

K8DSJ SK

Don Jones is someone who probably would never been an acquaintance of mine had it not been for Amateur Radio. Outside of radio, we couldn't have been more different, but through our common interest, we shared common goals. Both Don and I were active in our respective county's Amateur Radio clubs and the Amateur Radio Emergency Service.

Our paths first crossed during Field Day in 2006. Even there, our stations couldn't have been more different. Don had set up the 75 meter station (3.5 MHz) while I had set up the 2 meter and 70 centimeter station (144 & 432 MHz). That year, VHF / UHF propagation was awful while the low bands were hot. Consequently, my station made the fewest, and his made the most. I was so happy to hear that Don was operating in West Virginia during this year's field day, most certainly doing something he enjoyed in his last hours.

One of the biggest ARES public service events in our area, the Hike Across Maryland, occurs every two years, and Don was a key part of the 2007 operation, and I was a first timer. My role was tough in one way, and Don's another. I only had to worry about operating for a short time, but in an area where radio signals are difficult to get out, while Don didn't have to worry much about his signal coverage, but had to be on the air for more than half the day having to bring his power source with him.

As his health declined, I we didn't see him as much, but he still made it to the occasional hamfest, and dinner meeting. The last big thing in my memory was when I took the FCC Amateur Radio Extra Class exam. He was part of the volunteer examiner team that gave me the test. I had taken one of the last exams before the Morse Code proficiency requirements were eliminated. Even though it wouldn't be required in less than a week, the VE team still brought the code testing equipment with them. I almost wanted to take it, but, well, I'd already passed it, and only needed the written exam to upgrade.

Those who don't know some of the traditions of Amateur Radio might not understand the title, Amateur Radio operators often refer to those who have passed away as silent keys, abbreviated SK. The prosign (a Morse Code thing) SK di di di dah di dah also means end of contact. Hams, as we are also known are issued licenses and call signs by the FCC, similar to that of your favorite TV station IE: WJZ, and Don's call sign was K8DSJ, with the DSJ being his initials.

I'm starting to understand something

When I mentioned to a few people that Amy and I were going to take in her four month old (at the time) sister, the response I received was shocking to me. It was as if we were saints, seriously, the praise was over the top. I didn't understand it. There is a child that needs parents, we are parents, and I think we are pretty good parents, so what else were we going to do? And wouldn't anybody who could do the same, do the same?

I'm starting to get it, this has been a pretty painful period in our life, something I never expected, at least not so much so fast. To make a long story short, she was taken into Social Services before we were ready. I never once thought that that was going to happen, as far as I knew she was being well taken care of (and she was, but what happened is a totally different story), living the quiet country life. The worst of it was that one telephone call to me or Amy and the baby would be with us instead of in the system. Not that we were completely ready but in that situation, a stop at Wal-Mart on the way home would have been all we needed to get through the first few days.

Maybe some of that praise was because others knew what we were about to get involved in. I was oblivious, and I put my heart into it, and I'm paying the price, and I'll continue to do so as long as there is hope. And that is what I think folks were so praising of.

NE3R 1B MDC : ARRL Field Day 2009

ARRL Field Day 2009 was much different for me this year than it has been in the past. It is the first time I operated as a single operator five watt portable station and handled everything myself. I didn’t do a ton of preparation either, mainly just analyzing the bonus points that I thought I would be able to earn during my operation and making a quick list of the things I needed to bring with me.

Before setting out on my own Field Day operation, I answered a call to help set up one of the largest Field Day operations in the country, W3AO in Howard County, Maryland run by the Columbia Amateur Radio Association, and the Potomac Valley Radio Club. I should have taken the time to count all of the towers, but there were at least nine, probably more. Their operation uses over one mile of coax, and not the cheap stuff either, the thick low loss coax, which is probably a little overkill, but I guess you can say that about a Field Day operation with a class of 20A, which means they’ll have up to 20 transmitters operating at the same time.

Saturday morning, I started packing for my Field Day operation. I did forget a few things, like the antenna analyzer, which I didn’t really have time to use anyway. It took me about 3 hours to setup, which consisted of getting the HF antenna strung between two tall trees, putting the VHF antenna on a mast, erecting the large operating tent, and setting up the batteries, radios, and computer. I would have had things setup much faster if I hadn’t messed up my first two attempts of getting the line in the tree. I used a bow and arrow to fire a fishing line over a tree, then pull the antenna support line over. The first time, I had a perfect shot over the tree, but my knot slipped and the second time, I pulled the antenna support line too far and I couldn’t reach it. Then I couldn’t get a good shot over the tree for a while, but eventually, I got one that worked out OK. Getting the line over the second tree was a breeze, first shot and all was well.

I got a little bit of a late start operating, and I found that operating 5 watts was going to be a little harder than I’m used to as many stations I tried to contact didn’t seem to hear me. I was using CW (Morse code) most of the time, which is a good low power mode, but my code skills are not what they should be as I have to search the band for a signal, listen to them for a while, getting bits and pieces of what they are sending until I am sure I have it all, then I call them. This has worked out well in past field days running 100 watts, because just about everyone would come back after one or two calls, but with 5 watts, I’d go to four, five, six, or more calls before giving up and searching for a new station. I made a few contacts using the digital mode PSK31, which was interesting. I suspect that many stations operating PSK31 were not experienced contesters (not that I am either) but they seemed to be a little slow, especially compared to the CW operators. I also made a few voice contacts near the end. CW and digital contacts were worth two points each, while voice contacts are only worth one. I guess the big question is would I have made at least two voice contacts for every CW and digital contact I made. Since I was only operating 5 watts, I’m thinking no. My antenna was a multi-band parallel dipole which was oriented to have most of the signal going north and south, so I worked a lot of stations in Florida, the South, New England, and Canada, but fewer from the west. If I had more than one antenna or could have changed the direction of the one I had, I probably would have done a little better. My 193 contacts were worth 360 points multiplied by 5 based on my operating class for 1800!

I did OK with bonus points, but I could have done better. I got one hundred points each for: operating 1 transmitter on emergency power, sending NTS message to the section emergency coordinator, handling ten NTS messages, alternate power contacts, and copying the special W1AW Field Day bulletin, plus fifty because I’ll submit the score via the web form. I’m sure I could have made a satellite contact for 100 points if I would have remembered, but I missed two good opportunities, and the media publicity 100 point bonus is easy, you only have to write a press release and send it out, it doesn’t actually have to get published! My QSO points added to my bonus points put my overall score to 2350.

I was tired, but when it all ended at two o’clock on Sunday, I had to take everything down and pack, which took about two hours. Taking everything down by myself, I had time to reflect on my operation, and how I enjoyed it, but definitely felt that something was missing from previous years, the people. Amy and the children had been with me for at least part of the last few Field Days, as well as an entire club of other ham radio operators. I also thought about some of the other aspects of Field Day, but mostly about the ability to set up a radio station anywhere and contact stations across the country. Also on my mind was weather the NTS traffic was a realistic part of the emergency communications aspect, especially with the method I used to send it called a book. Basically, I sent the same message to ten people, so I only had to give the common parts of the message once, then give a different message number and addressee. After some thought, I figured that that actually might be pretty common. For example, if you have ten shelters in the field and the command center wants to give them all the same message or many folks in the shelter wanting to send a welfare message to family saying that they are OK and where they are.

That was Field Day, in a nutshell. Since I was operating by myself, I didn’t think to bring the camera. I should have, because my setup was pretty neat, looking a little like the Field Day logo this year, without the tower and large yagi antenna.

WMATA aka DC Metro

The Metro board complains too much. They complain about the lack of funding, and blame everyone else for their failure to take cars out of service that the NTSB had said were no longer safe. I’m a semi-frequent metro rider on the red line, and I get annoyed with the higher fares and lower service, but what am I going to do about it? Well, it isn’t bad enough for me to do anything about it. Metro can take all of their older cars out of service today, and simply run fewer trains, and leave people on the platform, waiting for the next one, and the next one, and the next one. This would surely get their attention, and their frustration would be heard by the politicians for sure, and the funding would come. Instead, they keep these older cars in service, and risk lives, knowing that they can just blame congress, DC, Virginia, and Maryland when something goes wrong.

South Carolina Governor: Mark Sanford

So, I had a bit of a blog entry started about Mark Sanford, the South Carolina Governor who disappeared for a few days and his staff said he was hiking the Appalachian Trail. I had written a lot about the trail, but I’ll save that text for something else, but I’ll focus on the other part of what I wanted to say.

Everybody seems to be complaining that the governor didn’t leave anyone in charge while he was gone, to which my thought was, are the leaders of South Carolina that incompetent that they can’t made good decisions while the governor is away for a few days? I don’t know, all the hoopla over this (before we found out what he was really doing) seems so over the top. What could possibly happen that wouldn’t be taken care of by the appropriate person? Wait, they weren’t planning to secede again, were they? What this is, are politicians trying to find some fault where there really isn’t one.

Now that the truth is out, well, it’s going to be an even bigger circus, and unfortunately, they are going to use a silly argument that everyone in the state along with all the kittens and puppies could have died if X Y & Z had happened while the governor was away doing his affair thing.

Alex’s Archery Cease Fire

So, Amy was telling me the story of a parent that caused a bit of a ruckus at the archery range at Cub Scout day camp the other day. I was hoping Amy would blog it but she’s been so busy with school lately, blogging is about the last thing on her mind.

One of the rules on the archery range is that anyone can say “cease fire” if there is an emergency, but only in an emergency, and the boys were given instructions for what to do if they hear anyone at all say “cease fire”. So, the kids were winding up, most with only one or two arrows left, and a parent who was getting bored apparently said something to the effect of “cease fire already, isn’t it time to rotate”. Of course, a couple of the boys heard, and they put down their bows and arrows and put their hands in the air! Once a few boys did it, all the boys did it, because that is what they were supposed to do. The adults running the range and their Boy Scout helpers were a little confused, but then one of the boys that heard pointed out the parent that said it, who got a little talking too.
Alex hadn’t hit the target that day, the first day of Cub Scout day camp, but I’m happy to report improvement, he is hitting the target and hay bale now!

Frederick.Com Segway Video

Interesting:



It is sort of like a commercial, and sort of like a news report, but the content is the truth, people will get their information from the internet more than TV/Radio/Newspapers combined in the future, if not already. Frederick.Com is a great place to find information about businesses and other happenings in and around Frederick.