What a busy month!

Happy thanksgiving to everyone!  I hope you all have a wonderful day and get to enjoy family and friends and the ability to take some time out to just be thankful for all your blessings.   We live in a great country, and we really appreciate the men and women that are serving our nation abroad and can't be home with loved ones today.  

This morning I fired up the K2 and the attic dipole, and made my second QSO of the month.  I was calling CQ on 7118 and was answered by Travis KJ4PCC from down in Bartlett Tennessee, which is way down there by Memphis...home of the King of Rock and Roll.  Travis is running a IC 7300 to a dipole at about 75 watts, I was on the K2 at a whopping 10 watts.  The band was a little noisy and we started out having some slow rolling QSB.  Travis has been a ham since 2009 but got started on CW back in 2014 when he was gifted a straight key as a Christmas present.  I can attest to his smooth and easy to copy fist, he is a fine example of armchair copy.  I had my original Vibrokeyer in action and we ended up ragchewing for a half hour.  We chewed the rag for so long that I had to issue the KB9BVN Ragchewer Certificate to Travis.  I will mail it and my QSL card out tomorrow.  Travis is spending the day with his family and enjoying a delicious feast. 

On another note, Chuck Adams K7QO has done it again. His qrp-tech group has been working with Wayne Burdick and they are now producing a new PC Board for the legendary Norcal 40 transceiver.  2018 is the 25th Anniversary of the Norcal 40 and there will be a year long event called "The Norcal 40 25th Anniversary Party" or NAP.   I will be operating my Norcal 40A that I built in 1998 under NAP #1777.  You can get a NAP number by following the instructions on the K7QO website.  It's very exciting.  I and several others in the Hoosier QRP Group have purchased the new boards and we are currently on a parts hunt.  We hope to have our new Norcal 40's running by January 1st.  In the parts hunt, Steve W9BRI,  found this really cool board holder on Amazon for $12,.00 - I do not know how I survived without one. 

Board Holder from Amazon 

It is so handy, and makes it so much easier to build out a board with lots of parts, this one is my 30m One Watter from http://kitsandparts.com  - it's adjustable and can handle most board sizes. It's a very cool tool. 

Also Chuck K7QO has created an entire series on building the Norcal 40, these can all be found on Youtube and links from his website.  It's one of Wayne's first designs and it has stood the test of time very well. 

Best 73 de KB9BVN