RadioMan763™
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05-28-2026 - 5:00 AM - Good Morning! It’s Thursday. When I turned out the lights last night, we had a small line of storms headed our way from Vernon, Texas. I see no evidence that it reached us with any moisture, but maybe it did. I have nothing on the schedule for today. As usual, I have CW (Morse code) running on the Yaesu 857D Amateur (ham) Radio. I didn’t attempt any contacts yesterday. The CB Radio was fairly active as well. Let’s see what happens today. My Folgers Black Silk coffee is ready.
--- 5:05 AM - NWS Forecast - Today: Mostly sunny, with a high near 86. Calm wind becoming northwest around 5 mph in the afternoon. Tonight: Mostly clear, with a low around 66. North northwest wind around 5 mph becoming light and variable after midnight.
--- 5:06 AM - ERCOT (Texas) snapshot of grid conditions - ERCOT reports that conditions are normal and there is enough power for current demand with an operating reserve of 12,814 Megawatts.
--- 5:10 AM - NWS Short Range Weather Discussion
--- 5:15 AM - NWS Extended Range Weather Discussion
--- 5:20 AM - According to Water Data for Texas, Wichita Falls reservoirs are: Arrowhead: 84.0% Kemp: 94.6% Kickapoo: 86.9%. Monitored Water Supply Reservoirs are 89.1% full. The City of Wichita Falls uses combined levels of Arrowhead and Kickapoo (85.45%) to determine drought stage.
--- 7:30 AM - The Economics Daily
--- 9:25 AM - We got some nice little rain showers this morning. My neighbor's yard guy got caught in it. I hope, as always, that our supply lakes got some of it. My lawn is green enough. I've had an explosion of "rescue grass" this year. Was my pre-emergent too early or too late? I don't know. I've been pulling a few every day. Everything lawn-wise should be okay in a month or so.
--- 9:50 AM - FEMA Daily Operations Briefing
--- 1:00 PM - I checked the 20-meter Amateur (ham) Radio band for Parks on the Air® and found nothing but weak stations. Other Ham Radio people might wonder why I only work 20 meters. Why don't I check out some of the other Amateur Radio HF (High Frequency) bands? There is no real reason other than I'm just not interested in those other bands. If I'm trying to make contacts in all modes on all HF bands, or a similar goal, I'll be on the radio all day. That's not going to happen. All I need is one HF band, and it's 20 meters. I do listen in on other HF bands and modes, but I have no interest in making contacts on those bands. I'm not talking about VHF-UHF or CB Radio. All I can say is do what makes you happy.
--- 1:25 PM - The Federal Communications Commission issued a Notice of Unlicensed Operation to a person in Bell, California for transmitting (making one-way transmissions) on 145.415 MHz, a frequency in the Amateur Radio Two-Meter band.
--- 3:00 PM - The RF Bomb. It's a tiny transmitter set to the frequency that someone is using to disrupt radio communications maliciously. It's dropped off near their antenna. In the old days, vigilantes would "pin the coax" of a violator. As both transmitters and drones continue to shrink in size, the delivery of such an RF bomb is becoming increasingly easier. It only takes a few milliwatts of power, so only the violator would hear it. Of course, it's illegal, so I'm not advocating its use, but I have heard of them. Unfortunately, its mention is often associated with CB Radio, but Ham Radio people aren't angels, either.
--- 3:30 PM - A Wichita Falls Amateur (ham) Radio Operator, now a Silent Key (deceased), once told me he and another Ham Radio Operator had a Lafayette Electronics store here in Wichita Falls. I don’t know if it was a full-blown store or just a small “authorized dealer” section in a non-related business. This would have been in the early 1970s. I don’t know how long it was open, but I’m guessing not very long. I can’t find any reference to it in any of my searches.
--- 4:10 PM - I'm hearing more Spanish on CB Radio Channel 19 since our government and social media have mentioned that all truckers need to be proficient in English. Some of this increased incidence of Spanish might be just a little trolling.
--- 5:00 PM - Sometime last year, a Texas law took effect requiring public school students to turn off and put away their cell phones during instructional periods. There was grumbling at that time. I don't attend school, teach in school, or have relatives in the education system, so I don't have a personal interest in this issue, but I wonder how it's working out.
--- 6:05 PM - The Local Group has, once again, taken center stage on CB Radio Channel 23 in Wichita Falls this evening. I have no idea what they're talking about because I'm watching the Cubs & Pirated on Peacock.
--- 6:50 PM - Someone, I didn’t catch their call sign, just announced their intention to call a net on 146.520 MHz FM simplex. He’s about half-scale on the S-meter, so I’m thinking he’s not local. Maybe atop Mount Scott, north of Lawton, Oklahoma? I’ll hang around and find out. UPDATE: It's W5KS, the Lawton-Fort Sill Amateur Radio Club.