Monday Dec. 29 BCEN changed it’s Net time to 5 PM PST until band condx get better. Please pass the info on to others.


The Canadian Amateurs may use a special prefix January 1 thru Feb 27, 2009. This commemorates Galileo’s first look through an optical instrument called the telescope. Special Canadian Prefixes are as follows.

 

                                    VE changes to CG

                                    VA changes to CF

                                    VO changes to CH

                                    VY changes to CI

 

            Many thanks to Dave VE7DWG for the news!

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Carol’s health has stabilized, and she is talking discernably better now than she did last year at this time. Unfortunately, we think the reason for that is the fact that she’s had two grand mal seizures this year, one in July and one eight days ago. Her brain is still healing from her five brain surgeries four and a half years ago, and major synapses are being reconnected. Picture lifting up a major input-output line of the Central
 
Processing Unit of the computer you are using now and reconnecting it with the power on! Yeah, it’s gonna reboot. That’s what happens to Carol, three times in the past seventeen months. Kicks her butt, too, she’s just now getting over the one that happened eight days ago. Her neurologist says the seizures could just quit as quickly as they started, they can’t determine how long they will last. Real life is like that.

Other than that, she’s fine. Her weight has stabilized, she folds the laundry and does all the dishes, and gets around the house just fine. Her sense of balance is tenuous at best however, that’s an after-effect of one of her surgeries. She only fell three times last year. No broken bones at least.

Me? Keeping busy. I’ve entered fifteen ham radio contests this year, walked over 2000 miles so far, do all the cooking, and take care of all the vehicular running around necessary to run the household Yeah that keeps me busy.

I got a treadmill for Christmas. I was tired of getting attacked by dogs and other animals while walking the neighborhood here, and it is safer to just use the treadmill. Nicer while it’s raining outside, too. I still go hiking by Mount Rainier and its foothills occasionally, and have been orienteering in the parks up north probably half a dozen times so far this year.

As to ham radio, as a matter of fact, I have been typing on this Christmas letter the weekend before posting it on the web Monday, and right now as I add to the letter I am giving out a general call to all ham radio operators on 28.02 megahertz. That’s about 50 kilohertz above the CB band for you non-radio types. I have done real well on this contest, contacting 81 stations since the contest started Friday afternoon. That’s the most I have ever amassed in this contest, and it is my fifth try.

Both Carol and I also enjoy spending time with our son and daughter-in-law, James and Wendy, and our granddaughter Erica, who live up here in Eatonville, WA, just a half hour drive away. This year I had also gone on several orienteering meets and ham radio mobile contests with our grandson Allan, but he joined the Navy in September and is now going through Engineman school in Chicago, and, I might add, freezing his ass off!

So we are looking forward to spending Christmas with them when they all get into town, and hope everyone has a good holiday season. Thanks in advance for all your Christmas cards, and I’ll do this again every year like I always do.

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!
Leroy N7EIE and Carol Smith

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We started 2008 with some of the best snow we've seen at Sun Mountain resort; a good solid base, fresh power and temp in the 20s. The X-C skiing was excellent. In late January we started our bathroom remodel project. Everything came out, including the entire floor and the wall around the tub. The plywood subfloor had become separated and rotted in places. We replaced the floor and tub walls with concrete board. Jennifer's husband Dan is skilled at construction and he did most of the work, including tiling the floor and tub walls. Cynthia painted the other walls. Cynthia, Donna and Jerry refurbished the vanity. Don got the new sink to work and did the electrical fixtures. We were both the disposal team. The basement bathroom was put to good use for 2 months and we developed strong leg muscles.
On June 7th we had a,our 45th anniversary party at which our son Brad's Irish band played for every friend and family member we could think to invite. Everyone had a wonderful time.

Don's high school in NJ had an all-class reunion on July 4th weekend. Rather than fly in and out, we decided to take a month-long car trip. We left on June 14th, traveling about 400 miles a day. On the first day we overnighted in Boise and had a nice visit with Cynthia's Aunt Maryon and cousins Roger and Gary. Further down the road and 3 days later we had a nice visit with Cynthia's HS classmate Beth Cook Jantzen in Lincoln, Nebraska. Our next visit was 3 days later with Don's HS schoolmates Dave and Bev Hilty in Bethel Park, Pa. While there, Dave and Bev took us on a grand tour of Pittsburgh plus a visit with Don's high school choir director, Miss Christ. She's 95 and sharp as a tack. Now you understand why we drove!

Probably the main goal of this trip was to ''touch base" with Don's brother Vin's families, all of whom live in the east. We had never met any ofVin's grandchildren. We stayed at nephew Max's in Summit and met his wife Emelie, sons Andrew (17), Peter (16) and Ted (13). They left on a trip to Israel a couple days after we arrived so we "house sat" while they were gone. We drove to the Boston area and had a nice visit with niece Martha, husband Gary and daughter Dorian. Their son Jason was away at summer camp in Maine. On our way back to NJ we lunched & visited with nephew Joe's wife Adele. Joe and son Dan were off surfing in Mexico. Even though we didn't get to see everyone, these visits meant a lot to us.
After the family visits, we embarked on another journey. Don's classmate, Dan Vernon and wife Donna planned and coordinated a 5-day cruise to St. John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia. We took the train into Penn Station in NYC, then walked over to the Carnival Victory cruise ship for boarding. We had never been on a cruise or to the Maritime Provinces and enjoyed it very much. The highlight was the Tattoo concert in Halifax celebrating the bond between military and civilian communities on Canada bay. There were 10-00 performers, including many bands, marching units, dance and song groups from seven countries. It was very impressive indeed.

Next came the reunion in Chatham, NJ, during which there were a lot of activities, including the "grand fmale", a buffet dinner for 1400, all under a huge tent on the athletic field. It's always nice to visit with HS classmates plus folks from other classes and during this one, Don got to visit with Vin's high school pal George Becker, Class of '47, and Don's HS ham radio friend, Ron Day, class of '54
On our way home, thanks to GPS "Jill", we found Dave Hilty's .We can't rave enough about the GPS! Time was pressing so we wasted no time in getting past Chicago and up into Wisconsin (650 miles in one day). We headed north to visit Jerry and Sharon Caple at Gunflint Lake in NE Minnesota. Jerry took us a tour of this beautiful area of Minnesota, including a hike to waterfalls in Canada (no passport necessary!) From here it was down to Anoka, Minn. to visit George and Marianne Nold whom we hadn't seen in 40+ years. It was Marianne's birthday and we got to meet several of their family. They live at the confluence of the Rum and Mississippi Rivers and took us out a pontoon boat ride. It was a "first" for us!

We had to be home in 3 days so we pointed the Accord down 1-94 across North Dakota, which included a stop at Teddy Roosevelt National Park, and 1-90 across Montana, Idaho and home. A car trip is still Don's way to go, what with AlC, the XM radio tuned to the old songs on channels 4 & 73, and GPS Jill to guide us along.
In September we took two trips to Oregon: One for brother-in-law Gene's 80th birthday plus Dixieland in LaPine, The other to Beaverton and Portland for the Hardy Plant Society plant sale and the Race for the Cure.

Late in October, Don woke up with chest pains. The doctor helicoptered him to Spokane. Two 90% blockages required stents to be installed. He is home now, going slow and doing fine. Having never had any ongoing medication for anything, his body is trying to get acclimated to change.

During this year we each got an award. Cynthia was named as Master Gardener of the Year for her work on the drought tolerant garden in Moses Lake. Don from Audubon as Volunteer of the Year for taking all those 4th & 5th graders out for tours of the Columbia Wildlife refuge.

The holiday season is here and we hope that it will be a joyous one for you and your family.

Merry Christmas, Don and Cynthia Calbick

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Many  years ago I learned of a new (to me) process to learn the morse code.    My friend Jim Voyles (WB7QEI, now K7VV) had just received his General class license.   He was anxious to quickly increase his cw speed to over 20 wpm so he could get his Extra Class license.    During one of his QSO's he hooked up with Mac (I think his call was K7CD) in Hayden, Idaho.   Mac learned of Jim's desire to increase his code speed and offered to help in a unique (to Jim and me) way.

Mac sent a short (2 letter) word, with his Keyer speed set at over 20 wpm,  to Jim....
Jim would repeat the word back to Mac....

If Jim did not send the word back correctly, Mac would send it again....until Jim got it right....

over and over and over...different words...

Mac would send a longer longer (3-4 letter) words to Jim...
Jim would repeat the word back to Jim....

Eventually Jim had mastered very long words, "parroting" them back to Mac.  

Next came two words at a time.....then three words at a time.....etc.

In a very short time Jim has mastered the art of receiving cw at a fast speed; primarily because he heard the "word" as a uniquie sound. 

I have used this process to help several new hams.    It seems to work!

During recent sessions with Heidi, KC7CCL we have used the single word "parroting" process to enable her to receive a radiogram, sent by me.  Using this method I am very confident that when she sends QSL, I KNOW that she got the entire radiogram with 100% accuracy (or at least exactly like I sent it).    Have any of you  had  any similar experiences with "parroting"?     Is there some way that two stations could indicate to each other that they would go into the "parrot" mode to more easily facilitate the accurate transmission and reception of words?

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