WICHITA FALLS MAN
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07-16-2024 - The Clay County Amateur Radio Club conducts a weekly Skywarn practice net on Tuesdays at 8:00 PM on the 146.800 MHz repeater. Tune in with your scanner radio.
07-16-2024 - The elusive Vermont is on the air again, in the form of Elmore State Park in the Parks on the Air® program and I can barely hear the station. I'll listen for a few more minutes to see if conditions improve.
07-16-2024 - FEMA National Current Ops / Monitoring for July 15 – 16, 2024
New Significant Incidents / Ongoing Ops:
• No significant incidents / operations
Hazard Monitoring:
• Severe thunderstorms / excessive rainfall – Central Plains to the Northeast
• Excessive heat – Southwest, and Southern Plains to New England
• Tropical Activity:
Eastern Pacific:
• Disturbance 1: Med (40%)
Disaster Declaration Activity:
• Major Disaster Declaration Approval – KS
• One amendment issued – TX
Event Monitoring:
• Republican National Convention – Milwaukee, WI
07-16-2024 - All the usual suspects are up and running this morning - Walmart (154.570 MHz), Allred Unit (153.815 MHz), the County Jail (155.520 MHz), State Hospital (154.800 MHz) city transit buses (453.5375 MHz), and the BNSF Railroad (160.920 MHz) are active! Tune in with your scanner radio. School is still out for summer so no school buses (152.360 MHz) or school handheld radios (151.940 MHz) today. The FRS/GMRS frequency of 462.5875 MHz has been very active lately. Get a scanner radio and tune in. You can't survive on Netflix, Disney, Peacock, and Hulu alone!
07-16-2024 - One of the things I regret not getting a chance to do back in my flying days is piloting an airplane with a stick instead of the more common yoke. That, and flying a taildragger as opposed to the more common tricycle landing gear. I have 30 seconds of stick time in a Bell Jet Ranger helicopter. A helicopter is an airplane, one with a rotary wing. But there, I only got the cyclic, no pedals or collective. Not really the same.
07-16-2024 - NWS Forecast - Today: Sunny and hot, with a high near 104. South wind 10 to 13 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Tonight: A 20 percent chance of showers and thunderstorms after 1am. Increasing clouds, with a low around 80. South wind around 10 mph becoming northeast after midnight.
07-16-2024 - 6:08 AM - NOAA SPACE WEATHER - Last 24 Hours - Radio Blackouts (Minor) Solar Radiation Storms (None) Geomagnetic Storms (None) - Solar Wind Speed: 351 km/sec Solar Wind Magnetic Fields: Bt 15 nT, Bz 13 nT Noon 10.7cm Radio Flux: 233 sfu
07-16-2024 - 6:08 AM - According to Water Data for Texas, Wichita Falls water supply reservoirs are: Arrowhead: 74.9 Kemp: 100.0% Kickapoo 78.4%. The City of Wichita Falls uses the combined levels of Arrowhead and Kickapoo to determine drought stage.
07-16-2024 - 6:07 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 10,947 Megawatts.
07-16-2024 - Good Morning! It will be hot today, but you probably already know that. Yesterday, I drove by the still-under-construction Luxury RV Park at Loop 11 (the loop that doesn't loop) and U.S. 287. There, I saw what looked like three tennis courts. Or, they could have been for Pickleball. They looked kind of small, so I'm thinking Pickleball. What's not small is this cup of Folgers Black Silk Coffee I am about to consume!
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07-15-2024 - I hear a Parks on the Air® station at Cheyenne Mountain State Park on CW (Morse code) at 14.550 MHz. He's very weak. There's nothing like picnicking or ham-radioing near a nuclear target like Norad. Maybe his signal will improve soon.
07-15-2024 - Good Morning! I'll be mowing the backyard in a short while. After that, I might continue on my storm cellar rehab. The original owner of my home didn't know squat about concrete, and it leaks from the sides. After that, I might seek some Parks on the Air® activity. Right now, it's coffee time!
07-14-2024 - I made contact with KD3D at PA 146 State Game Land (US-8844) in Pennsylvania on 20 meters (14 MHz) CW (Morse code) in the Amateur (ham) Radio Parks on the Air® program.
07-14-2024 - I went outside to do a little yard work. When I returned at 9:10 AM, I saw Vermont (Allis State Park) on the Parks on the Air® spotter page. I need Vermont (and Hawaii and Alaska) to have worked a state or federal park in all 50 U.S. states on 20 meters on CW (Morse code). I seek no awards. I want to do it for my satisfaction. But the station in Vermont is barely audible at my location. There must be a Vermont-repelling dome over my location!
07-14-2024 - At 8:20 AM, three Parks on the Air® stations are active on 20 meters, according to the POTA spotter page. Sadly, 20 meters is still asleep here in North Texas. I'll check back later. This might be a good time to check the pulse of CB Radio! I did check and it's very quiet, also.
07-14-2024 - According to the American Radio Relay League, there are 264 ARRL-affiliated Amateur (ham) Radio clubs in California and 186 in Texas. The number of non-affiliated clubs is unknown. That's a lot of clubs.
07-14-2024 - Good Morning! It's 6:00 AM and, according to the Amateur (ham) Radio 40-meter band, a contest is ongoing. I'm listening to the CW (Morse code) segment of the band while I enjoy my first cup of Folgers Black Silk coffee. Okay, maybe it's my second cup of coffee!
07-10-2024 - It's time to give my Briggs & Stratton Q6500 generator its regular exercise run. The Q6500 kept our house warm, the lights on, and the refrigerator running during the 15 hours we were without power during the Great Texas Freeze of February 2021. We were lucky not only to have the generator but that we only needed it for a total of 15 hours. Many people were without power for over a week. I highly recommend getting as big a generator as you can afford. The peace of mind of having it on standby is priceless.
07-10-2024 - Will Amateur (ham) Radio QRP CW (Morse code) operators be the last communicators standing during the apocalypse? Our radios are tiny, and so are their power requirements. Some operate on 9-volt or AA batteries, easily recharged with solar cells. A CW signal breaks through the noise, whereas SSB might not. Some say digital communications - at least one mode - might beat CW in that respect, but then there's that extra luggage in the form of a computer. Will a phone app work for digital? I don't know since I don't do digital.
07-09-2024 - I heard an Amateur (ham) Radio Parks on the Air® station at Mackinac Island State Park in Michigan. You might remember that this is the location of the hotel featured in the movie Somewhere in Time. The station was very weak, and I didn't make contact. Another one of interest was My Old Kentucky Home State Park. That station also had a weak signal into Wichita Falls. Maybe next time.