FCC Report and Order

The FCC has issued a Report and Order concerning several issues in amateur radio. A link to it is below. I haven’t read it yet, but there are a number of changes that, hopefully, will be mostly for the better.

FCC Report and Order

Entry for October 11, 2006

I’ve had an unusual couple of days.

I left the office Tuesday and drove straight to Shelbyville, arriving at Bonnie’s office as she got off work. We then had dinner at The Bistro, a very nice local restaurant.

After dinner, I drove to the WHAS transmitter site where the engineers were conducting an open house for members of the Society of Broadcast Engineers, and others who were interested. I can’t recall ever seeing the transmitting side of an AM station before, especially not one running 50,000 watts. The WHAS building is practically a museum, as there is considerable equipment that was used many decades ago that is still there.

I stayed in a hotel on the east side of Louisville Tuesday night, then got up and drove back to Shelbyville. One of Bonnie’s brothers had a custody hearing in the Shelby County courthouse, and Bonnie wanted as many family members as possible to be there. Not much happened at the hearing, but a Custodian Ad Litem will be appointed to evaluate the situation, and report back to the judge.

After the hearing ended at 9:00, I drove to the office to get the workday started.

Entry for October 09, 2006

The “Year of the Missed Extra Point” seems to be continuing. Saw some nice flub-ups Saturday. I watched a lot of football, as there seemed to be an unusually large number of interesting games, and strange finishes.

The Blue Jackets opened the season collecting 3 points in two games. Not a bad start, but the boys didn’t play 60 minutes of good hockey in either game. The talent is all there, but the consistent effort hasn’t quite arrived yet. Columbus has some key injuries, but should have most everybody healthy pretty soon.

My 51st birthday was Thursday. Bonnie came over Friday and fixed beef-and-noodles for me, my favorite dish.

With quite a bit of vacation time remaining to be taken this year, I have been leaving the office early on nice afternoons. Have had plenty of chores to do around the house to occupy the time.

I put my new Yaesu FT-817 on the HF bands yesterday for the first time. The California QSO Party was on, and I made several contacts running 5 watts. It is fun to do that, as many stations hear me easily, and some not at all. You get a good feel for who is a good operator, and who isn’t.