HoustonChronicle.com - Legislature OKs letting phone firms offer cable
More here. Just disgraceful. Not one of these pathetic losers deserves reelection.
Moving on from the BPL disaster, I am making plans to get an Icom IC-718 as an upgrade to all my QRP rigs. The 718 has been around long enough for all (most?) of the bugs to be fixed, or at least known. The reviews on this rig are all pretty good, and it is the most economical multi-band HF rig around.
The output power can be reduced to around 5 watts, so I can continue working QRP, and can be increased to 100 watts if needed. Built-in keyer, built-in digital modes, all the HF bands including WARC, nice compact size, I can't wait.
I visited several web sites that featured pictures of shacks today. Pretty much every one had, in addition to a half dozen or so expensive HF rigs, a nice shiny set of paddles on the desk. Several of them had more than one set of paddles. I love paddles, I'm not even sure where my old straight key has gotten to.
The little Whiterook paddles are fun to use, but I really want a nice heavy set of paddles like the ones in the pictures.
So I have gone back to Ebay one more time. I have bids in on an MFJ chrome base and a Bencher BY-1. I have always been outbid in the past, but maybe this time I'll have better luck.
Naurally, if I win one of these, I'll put its picture up here.
Update (Sep 2,2005) No joy, and no key. I'll keep watching for one, though.
I noted earlier that my sweet little DSW-20 had once again eaten its final transistor, so I am limited to 15 or 40 right now. So naturally, guess where all the activity is? 20 meters, of course. The band is alive 16 hours a day here, while 15 sounds like I am listening to a dummy load, and 40 sounds the same until the sun sets. After sunset is not the operating time I prefer right now, for various reasons (coughwifecough), so I really need the daylight operation.
So I guess I will have yet another shot at replacing the final in the DSW. Last time, I nearly burned the pads off, so it gets harder each time, and the final is about as rugged as a crystal butterfly. Any SWR over about 2.0, and it's history.
Once again I will stress this is the older model DSW-20, the new ones have a big power tab final that presumably can take more abuse.
Now where did I leave that soldering iron?
There is some speculation that Governor Perry might not sign the Telecom "Reform" bill, the one that, along with giving Southwestern Bell and Verizon the ranch, the herd, the outbuildings and the tractor, gives a great big green light to BPL operators. This is so he can pretend to be pissed at the legislature for lying down like a two dollar whore for SBC while getting absolutely nothing done on school finance, which was supposedly the reason for the two special sessions in the first place. Telecom "Reform" passed in the 2nd special.
But that won't make any difference, since the bill passed by a big enough margin (I think only one member of each house had enough integrity to vote "no") that the bill automatically becomes law 3 weeks after the lege adjourns. So he would have to veto the bill to stop it.
Rest assured, our dear governor's jockey shorts are not sufficiently roomy for him to go against the telcos on this. He will sit it out, allow the bill to automatically become law, and then claim he didn't do any favors for big business in the specials while the lege was reeling around like a drunken bum, holding pissing contests between the house and senate and getting nothing done on school finance. Sort of a butter the toast on both sides deal.
That way, he can claim to have been against the telco lobbyists while still collecting those fat campaign contributions from them for not having opposed the bill. Hypocritical? You bet.
Found this page today: G3VGR Portable Operations, with a nice picture of the DSW-20 in a backpack setup. He uses a Z-match tuner with it, and on this page
you can see that he is using the old style DSW with the fragile final. He says he had to replace the final with a tougher transistor, something I need to look into myself. My experience is that I can't tune fast enough to save the final if the initial SWR is over 2:1.
The bands are hopping this morning. On the drive to work, I heard Brad, FO/N6JA in Tahiti on 40 calling CQ and he was at least 59 here in Texas. I am running VE7CC dx cluster software now (shhh, don't tell) and there are 109 DX spots this morning, including 13 spots on 15 meters.
My drive time gets me to work at about 7AM, which is of course 6AM solar time, and listening to 40 meters around then is interesting. As the sun rises, the band shuts down as if a curtain was being dropped over it. Stations all over the world are coming in like gangbusters, and then they just fade to nothing, and you know the sun has made it over the horizon.
When I get my 718, that will be the cue to go to 30 meters, or 20.
Free Press : Call the Governor
This link will take you to an Action Alert page that details how to call Governor Perry's office to voice opposition to SB5, the execrable "Telecom Reform" (BPL) bill. This bill is bad for a lot of reasons besides its BPL provisions, so if you are reading this from Texas, why not give the Governor a call and tell him to veto this mess.
If you don't feel like clicking through to Free Press, here's the message:
Our courageous legislature passed this horrible bill with less than 15 minutes (15 minutes) of debate, during a session that was called for school finance, which they did not pass. So they couldn't get a school finance bill together but they found time to pass this piece of trash.
My opinion of Perry's likely stand hasn't changed from my comments below, but I called. Maybe he will surprise me. How's this: veto this bill and I'll vote for him next time around. Otherwise, maybe Chris Bell gets my vote.