This is an interesting night.

I am on a PRC-320 group and I got an email from a newly licensed ham in Australia asking me if I would like to do a PRC-320 to PRC 320 QSO and I said I would.

There are a few problems that had to be dealt with and the first one was time. SImple fix. All times in UTC which is also known as GMT. It is the time of Greenwich, England.

We agreed on 0530Z, meaning 0530 UTC and that soleve that problem. For me it means 0130 in Pittsburgh and it doesn't really matter what time it is in Australia because I will be where I am supposed to be and he will be where he is supposed to be and that is good.

The next question was what frequency to use and we both agreed that instead of posting what the real frequency was going to be we decided simply to use the PRC-320 knob settings. We are both setting our knobs to 14.332 which in reality is 14.320 because for some reason the Brits mad thses rigs with a 2Khz offset on Upper Single Sideband.

I am as I write standing by on 14.320 Mhz (actual, 14.322 on the setting knobs) and I guess I have an hour to kill which why I am writing this now.

I really hate late nights but that is the way it is. If I want to try and bag me a Digger for my QSL collection then I generally have to work around either propogation or work around someone else's schedule.

The guy on the other end says that he gets pretty good reception on 20 meters at whatever time it is in Australia and here the band is pretty dead for the most part, but I am starting to hear a few DX stations on it from time to time.

I posted what I am up to on another web site and one of the guys tried to raise me and I got him with a 2x2 and he said I busted through his noise level and got him 5x5 which is wierd as the PRC-320 is only 30 watts.

Earlier today (yesterday by the time you read this) I broke out the charcoal grille and whipped up a bunch of ribs that wwere pretty good considering I didn't parboil or bake them first. The old Weber kettle did a good job and I think that I am going to experiment.

Tomorrow I am going to try and make a pizza on it.

It's been a while since I have cooked on charcoal and I used to be
pretty damned good with both the Weber and a Dutch oven. My plan is to put a pizza stone on the grate and preheat it and then plop a frozen pie on it and see what happens. If I can get a pizza to cook well I'm going to try 'whomp 'em' biscuits. Whomp 'em are the kind you whomp on the counter to get to open. Pillsbury makes them.

If the whomp 'ems come out OK I suppose when I go to Perry I will be able to make biscuits and gravy for breakfast but I'm going to have to scrounge up a pan of some type somewhere as I won't bring my well seasoned cast iron skillets out of the house.

Kitty seems fine and I suppose over time I will see him get over his fear of daylight. He's been out and peed for the first time today and as is his custom it was well after dark.

Incidentally Mrs Pic told me to try and use this new kind of litter made out of ground up corn cobs and it works well. It clumps nicely and is easy to scoop. She put one in the X-ring when she told me to try that stuff.

I just checked my email and the guy in Australia got on early. He emailed me that 14.320 is full of Russians and he's right because I heard them here, but figured they'd be off by the time we were scheduled to connect. I simply told him to go up 5 khz and we will soon see what happens. Maybe we will QSO. I hear someone tuning an antenna.

So far no dice. If I get him I will add it to this post.

later,
Pic

my other blog is: http://officerpiccolo.blogspot.com/ http://piccolosbutler.blogspot.com/