The plastic belt clips are notorious for breaking. There is a solution. Buy a cellphone clip for Nokia phones. I found mine at Amazon:

Nokia Belt Clip for Nokia 5100, 6100, and 7100 Series Phones

Remove the old broken clip by unscrewing:

There is a small hook-shaped metal clip on the end of the Nokia button whcih is designed to slip under the battery cover on the phone. It is held in place by a rivet. We don’t need it for the Yaesu, so use a drill bit slightly larger than the hole in the rivet and drill it out.

Now the screw for the clip will fit easily into the hole. Attach the new button clip to the Yaesu:

Voila! A new, sturdy, easy to use belt clip holder for the Yaesu HT.

Big tip of the hat to KB2LJJ for this idea. His technique suggests cutting off the clip, I think drilling out the rivet is a neater solution.

The radio is repaired and on the way back, and I’ll be disconnecting the antenna (and maybe the power) from now on when storms are in the area. Live and learn.

I worked 3 new countries in the contest, Peru, Bolivia, and Anguilla. Two have confirmed so far and my LOTW DXCC count is at 96.

I saw VP8NO in the Falklands spotted on 10 meter RTTY and got all set up to have a try, only to find this:

If you listen closely, you can hear VP8NO’s rtty signal underneath the chatter. He was 599 here, but couldn’t compete with that.

But with ten’s decline, 15 has come into its own. 21 MHz has given me Niue, New Zealand, Italy, Ecuador, Kamchatka, Poland, El Salvador, Brazil, Croatia, and for a new one, J88DR in Saint Vincent, all in the last two weeks. I’m getting a card out to Dave for Saint Voncent ASAP. (Boo to the post office for increasing the European postage rates, from 98 cents to $1.05. No 7 cent stamps and I still have most of a sheet of 98 centers left.)

I am also watching the 6-meter propagation maps for sporadic-E opportunities. I have 66 grids confirmed and would like to complete VUCC this year. I recently bought an M2 6-meter HO Loop antenna to try out during openings, and would like to log a few using it.

I now have enough countries confirmed in LOTW and with cards to qualify for basic DXCC, as soon as I can get the cards entered into my DXCC account at ARRL. So I will be growing my wallpaper collection this year too.

After 48 years and 4 months as a ham, I have completed my WAS.

The third card is going out to DL7DF for my QSO with 3XY1D, a new country for me.

Fingers crossed on that one.

(Update: Card came today, 2/13/12)

GoDaddy, probably seeking to curry favor with the big media companies, had themselves listed as a sponsor of the SOPA legislation, a law which would give the government total control over what content can be placed on the internet. Intended for control of sites that disseminate copyrighted works, just how long do you think it will take before sites that don’t hew to the Washington approved version of things get included?

This legislation is the most serious challenge to free speech on the internet to ever come down the pike. If it is not defeated, the days of free information on the net are over.

It is regrettable that the internet has proven to be a ready made conduit for distributing copyrighted material without proper license, but at least some of the blame for that sits squarely on the media companies that insist on maintaining an archaic business model that does not address the reality of an interconnected world, charging prices that are far out of line with the perceived value of the works. I can understand their frustration that the internet has made it more difficult for them to maintain their supply of girls and white powder nose candy.

But SOPA goes far beyond simple regulation of copyright. The methods it authorizes are equivalent to tearing out the road that may lead past a drug house. If one site on my hosting company is suspected, not proven but just suspected, of hosting copyrighted works the entire server can be taken down, along with the hundreds or thousands of innocent sites that have the misfortune of being hosted in that server.

Please tell your congressman and senators to oppose this legislation, and if you are registered with GoDaddy, consider moving to a registrar that doesn’t want to stab the internet in the back.

For more information on SOPA and the danger it poses, see this page at the Electronic Frontier Foundation. If you agree that this bill, and its companion bill in the Senate, pose a danger to the free exchange of ideas on the internet, take a moment to send your representatives an email through their contact form.

If they can take away the internet, they can take away your radio, so act soon and act often.

Would the person or persons who took 10 meter propagation away please return it? Also 12 meters, if you also have that. That is all.