Very much under construction! This info is cut and paste and there is a lot of work to do to get embeds corrected from straight rendered HTML.
Yes, normally you would find information about what radios and antennas an amateur radio operator uses. I don’t suppose I will ever have the dream ham shack filled with pricey equipment, but I am pretty pleased with my modest equipment and antennas. After all, if I can talk to Europe, South and Central America, and foreign nations such as California (LOL!) what more do I need. I run a nearly new IC-7300, an IC-7100, and a perfectly fine IC-706 MKIIG. Since I recently moved to a different location I have been experimenting with a few antenna options. In early July of 2021 I tried an end fed with a wire going up into a tree. Mediocre results. I just didn’t have it high enough, I think. Then I put up an off-center fed dipole at still wasn’t high enough, but did a bit better. The problem with putting up a wire in my trees was that they were all coming down! They ranged from 60′ to nearly 100′ tall with massive trunks, but they were right on the property line where I needed to put up a fence. I just had the trees taken down and stumps ground and I just finished putting up the fence to keep our pets contained.
So what do I use now for an antenna, and is it effective? Well, I purchased a 12 meter Spiderbeam fiberglass telescoping mast. I slid it over a 6 foot existing post in the yard and ran about 94 feet of 14 gauge Flexweave wire from my Icom AH-4 tuner in an inverted V configuration and gave it a shot. Propagation has been pretty good, but now if I can hear them I can most like be heard as well. I have made contacts to Austria, Ireland, England and Italy, and I can add Brazil, Argentina, Mexico, Puerto Rico and Panama. I have made contacts from the Atlantic to the Pacific in the US and Canada, all on 100 watts.
I just resurrected my old copper cactus J-pole that was damaged in the move and while it needs to go up higher in the air I can finally use VHF-UHF as well as my favorite HF. I have almost exclusively been only using SSB, but will be getting the radios set up for digital as well.
It is amazing that I have been able to squeeze any time out for radio as I have been doing the changes in the yard, laying new flooring throughout the house and doing a kitchen remodel which includes building a pantry, adding an island and adding cabinets. And then there are the shelving units and unpacking. The garage has been waiting it’s turn, but I did replace axle shafts and bearings on my pickup. Not too shabby for a 72 year old geezer. I am thankful to be so healthy and strong, and that I have been able to develop many skills through the years. Another thing for which I am truly thankful for is the love for good hard work. I love hard physical labor. I retired as IT director for a city and have done my share of working in an office environment and using my brain muscle, but I still like to use the rest of my body too!
I recently moved from the desert climate of Twin Falls, Idaho to Sunrise Summit, West Virginia, which is substantially different! More rain, and much higher humidity. Trees are everywhere, and I love how beautiful it is. Now, don’t get me wrong, I love the beauty of the irrigated farm fields as well as the other facets of the desert environment too.
Life is good!,
The picture below is of the Perrine bridge over the Snake River at Twin Falls, Idaho. Believe it or not, it is legal to base jump from that bridge year around and jumpers come from all over the world to experience that thrill. It is amazing to watch, but not something that I would even think of doing myself! I have a friend that jumps multiple times a day when it is not too windy.
Yes, a few have burned in (the parachute doesn’t open properly ending in death) and now and then the wind will blow a jumper into the rocks. The local search and rescue gets practice with picking them off the cliffs.
Shoshone Falls, one of the twin falls, I am told is larger than Niagara Falls! It is quite impressive in the Spring. You can get soaked with the spray up to a quarter mile away. So beautiful! These two features make it worth a detour from I-84 when passing by.
Check This Out!
How to get your video embedded from Google Drive.
It wasn’t that easy to figure this out, but after a few tries with Google searching, I finally found the key! Many web hosting programs limit the space, and equally as common is limiting the size of your uploads to the server. There are ways around the upload size limit by using FTP, but many are not familiar how to do that.
With Google Drive, of course you have to upload to the drive, then open the video from Google Drive. Click on the ellipsis in the upper right of the window and select Open in a new window. Crazy I know, but when the video opens click on the ellipsis in the upper right of that window. Select the Embed option. It will give you a link, but you MUST highlight to select and copy the link, then click on the OK button.
Then, in your HTML editor, add the embed code where you want it to be on your page.
Whew!
I use Elementor on some of my pages, CloudFunnels. I have also done this in other editors.
I prefer this method far better than uploading the video to my web host server. By the way, it works equally as well with images and documents.
That is how I embedded the document following the video.
I chose the video above because it is important to me. I am as healthy as I am due in large part to the extremely high quality of the Isagenix products. Prior to starting to use Isagenix I could hardly walk 100 meters, and that was with a cane. I had to use the elevator as stairs caused so much pain and I didn’t have the energy.
And that is the 100% truth!
Now I can ride my bike for miles, and walk a couple of miles. Stairs are no longer a problem. I am a cancer survivor and have multiple health issues, at least on paper, but I feel great! If you want to feel like I do, take a look here.
Now, back to radio stuff!
A work in progress…