Fr. Z's Blog

I set up on Twitter FrZ_HamRadio so we might more easily make contacts on the fly.  I believe KD8ZFF also set something up.  He can chime in with details.

During my recent too brief trip to New York City I was able to make contacts using Echolink via iPhone while sitting outside of the Metropolitan Museum of Art while waiting to meet someone (another kind of QSO) and also in Bryant Park.  Next, I used Echolink aboard an airplane and made a contact with someone on a train!

Thanks to WB0YLE for being so generous.  More on him below.

I went to the only ham radio store in Manhattan, which is a stone’s throw away from Holy Innocents Church.  There isn’t much to report about this place, except that the fellow who runs it is both friendly and chatty… when he is there.  I ran into a closed door the first time I tried to visit.

But the next day I had more success…

You should probably call first.

Next, I am getting feedback about the QSL cards I sent.  They are arriving.  I am trying to figure out the best timing for me to get that vanity call.  I suppose I should just pull the trigger.  Or did I just commit a micro-aggression?  Sorry… I intended a hyper-macro aggression.

Meanwhile, also through the kindness of WB0YLE some possibilities are opening up about a Catholic Net.  He sent me a few mails about technical things.  I imagine that this is how some readers might react when I write about Latin.  For example:

building these up; full asterisk and echolink node with a radio adapter on top; have it working with a wouxun in simplex right now.  Raspberry pi computer, etc.  can also hang a wifi dongle on it, and pair to a phone hotspot…to get on the net Just In Case with an RF link.

I believe this has to do with remote operation of a station.

But of my living situation – which is suboptimal at best for good antenna placement and a place to work – I would like to find a way to work a station remotely.  Right now, where I have my antenna is sort of like a Faraday cage.  Not good.  I can still get out, but…

And now a happy conjunction of Traditional Liturgy and Ham Radio….

I received an email from the head of the newly formed Una Voce chapter in La Crosse, WI.  They had their first event recently.    You can see some pictures at their web site, www.unavocelacrosse.org.  They want me to attend an event sometime.  HA! Say I.  Invite me to sing a Mass for you. I generally can’t drive across the state only to sit in choir.

As it turns out, the nice fellow who wrote is a Ham, as are his chilluns’.  He wrote (I’ll for now blank the callsigns unless he wants to make them visible himself):

On an unrelated note, my son ___ (currently a junior in chemical engineering at ___) mentioned to me that you are a ham.

We’re a ham radio family — I’m W9HQ, my son is _____, wife _____ is ____, and eldest daughter is _____.  We’re prodding the younger two girls to start studying for the Technician exam.  I am very active in VHF-UHF weak-signal work and host a modest blog, Standing Waves. It would be great to connect on the air sometime.  We don’t have an Echolink node here in La Crosse, but perhaps when I get my new gain vertical antenna for 2 meters on the roof I’ll be able to hit a repeater in Madison and we coull chat.  Or if you ever get on 160 or 80 meters, all the better.  And having you on 144 MHz single side band would ice the cake.

That would be icing indeed.  Let’s try to make that work.

And, sincerely, I’d like some cooperation of that chapter with my own Tridentine Mass Society of Madison (which accepts tax deductible donations).

Also, check out his cool Ham Radio blog.  HERE  Kudos.

Remember: More than one person can connect via Echolink to WB0YLE-R.  Use it!

Ham Radio and Traditional Latin Mass.  Non plus ultra.

KC9ZJN (for a little while longer)
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