I stumbled on a string of videos I’d put together a little over a year ago, I’d recorded most of my January 2024 VHF Contest. After skimming through what I’d narrowed down to be final cuts though, I really didn’t like a lot of what I had but that started me puttering around with YouTube a bit. After making a few shorts I found it’s a lot like here… You have a string of things to post that can run from days to months, and then run out of ideas or fall short on time, and start leaving gaps of nothing for a little while. Lately, I’ll start a project and have lots of ideas for things to write about it, or a video I’d like to make on it, but then I’m just too into the project itself and don’t really feel like documenting it as I just want to do it. I outlined some ideas for videos/posts, but just haven’t taken any time to get out and do anything with them.
In the last couple of months I’ve really gotten back into Trap Shooting, something I used to do copious amounts of when I was younger, and was still participating in through 2020, in fact during COVID it was one of the few activities that could stay open because it’s all outside, so my Thursday night shoots were a nice sense of normalcy while everything was still closed down. I’d really been missing that lately, and back in February someone from our radio club talked me into signing up for a house league over the winter, and now I’m back signed up for a traveling league I used to do every year, and a member of my old club again. This was something that I considered putting together a few videos on as there’s not a ton of clays content out there.
What’s funny is how much that’s been like riding a bike – I still use the same over/under I’ve had for somewhere between 15-20 years. My first week back out I shot a 21 and a 19, not great, but it was the first time since September 2020 I’d even shouldered that Shotgun, so I was pretty happy with it. In the following weeks I was back up to 23s and 24s consistently, with the occasional 25. For me, it’s always been a borderline addicting hobby – years ago there were times we were out 2 and 3 nights a week doing a shoot somewhere. Now it’s a little different, and a bit more expensive than it used to be, the targets/league costs are about the same as they used to be, however shells have skyrocketed. This is partly due to availability and the rise in component costs, but also legislative changes in NY have contributed to this. For example, we’re now required to complete a background check for any ammunition transaction in addition to the standard firearm transaction check, meaning that there is no more ‘I’m just going to grab some shells on the way real quick’ – last week for example, prior to a shoot I stopped for a case of shells on my way home from work, and I waited well over an hour as my check was on delay. Unfortunately they were about to close the store and the check hadn’t come back, so I had to make sure to leave a bit early the next day and head in and hope that the check was finished. Still a fun sport, but it’s made increasingly more difficult to participate in here.
On the radio front, I’m beginning to prep a little for the June VHF contest – with not being able to attend Dayton this year, I’m hoping to spend those evenings focused on getting the rack put back together and sorting out as much as possible, as early as possible. I did enjoy operating from home during the January contest – while my score was much lower than I’m used to during these, the effort was more casual, and my setup is fairly modest at home. I really was surprised how well I was able to do with nothing more than a quad band vertical on the roof, occasionally tuning my HF vertical which helped on a few contacts, the little circuit board LPDAs for some of the uWaves (902, 2304, 3400), and my dish only shooting one direction (North) for 10ghz; though if you saw any of my videos, you got to see that we had some decent snowscatter to work with. We live half way down a hill with trees on one side and houses on all three others, so not an ideal location for VHF/UHF, but it’s surprising what’ll work in some scenarios.
I’m not planning on making any real changes other than organization to this June’s setup – I need to head to Home Depot for some new U-Bolts as I sort of hulked a few of them off and broke them after last June’s operation, and if I have time, I may re-drill the rack and opt out of the basket if I can, not necessary, but a nice to have if I can get to it. I’m going to keep with the existing antenna setup for the time being, though I may add a vertical for 6m in addition to the Halo as I have one sitting around, and we have a few stations trying FM, so that’ll alleviate some of the cross polarization on some of them.
I do have a new MacBook, so I’m torn whether or not I’m going to try and get all of my software setup on there and run that, or if I’m going to stick with the Windows PC for any digital I run, which will hopefully be minimal. I ran a Mac for years out of the Rover, and my only complaint ever was regarding my logging software. I was essentially pigeonholed into using RoverLog as it really was the best contest logger for OSX. It made for a little bit of a pain in the neck when importing digital contacts, as N3FJP runs so much better and is more integrated, but I try to run analog modes as much as possible so it usually only winds up being between 20-30 contacts on 6m I try to force in.
I’m hoping to get back into the weekly drops of something here soon, it’s always been a nice project to have on the side. With the weather turning I may be doing more photography stuff soon, it’s about time for one of my annual ‘go take a walk with the camera’ days that I always post here.
Roving On 