Today is March 24th, 2018...the fourth day of Spring...unless you live in Indiana, and the High School Basketball Finals are this weekend. It started snowing here at about 6AM and has been non-stop for the last 14 hours. Weather experts predicts the snowing will cease around 2AM, and right now we have 8 very wet inches of snow with plenty more coming down. So today I made a dutch oven full of beef stew, watched three movies, took two naps, and started wondering if my attic dipole could work through all the snow on the roof.
So I fired up the K2, running from a battery and turn up the power to 10 watts. Tuned to 7118, my favorite 40m frequency, and threw out a few CQs. My first contact was a new state for 2018, Dave KD0DK out west in Waterloo Iowa. Dave is SKCC 12635S, which is cool because the last time I worked him he was 12635T. This means he has earned the rank of "Senator" which takes about a gazillion SKCC contacts to earn. He is also a FIST, and a member of the NAQCC, and has been working CW since 2014.
The name "Waterloo" supplanted the original name, "Prairie Rapids Crossing," shortly after Charles Mullan petitioned for a post office in the town. Since the signed petition did not include the name of the proposed post office location, Mullan was charged with selecting the name when he submitted the petition. Tradition has it that as he flipped through a list of other post offices in the United States, he came upon the name "Waterloo." The name struck his fancy, and on December 29, 1851, a post office was established under that name. The town was later called the same, and Mullan served as the first postmaster from December 29, 1851 until August 11, 1854. Waterloo is in Black Hawk County and hone to the Hawkeye Community College. Thanks for the SKCC contact Dave!
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| Waterloo IA on the Cedar River |
The next one in the logbook was Tom N2KPJ up in Clayton NY. Tom was also another SKCC contact and we traded numbers, his being SKCC 16569T. Tom and I are both impatiently waiting the arrival of SPRING TIME. Clayton NY is the home of Blue Oyster Cult founders, Albert and Joe Bouchard. They are a small town with a population of about 5200 and is situated along the banks of the St. Lawrence River...you can see Canada from here!
The next contact was Randy KK4BNC from down in Cataula, GA. Another new state for 2018! I think Randy has a pretty neat call sign, and was also a SKCC member with number 8054. He did mention it was 70F there and the flowers were blooming. I told him my flowers were too...but now they are buried under almost a foot of snow. Cataula is in western Georgia almost on the Alabama state line, and has a population of about 5800 people. Thanks for the QSO Randy!
That's it for today!
Best 73 de KB9BVN
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