The rain continues and the big story in this area is local flooding which is pretty typical for this time of year. I haven’t seen any neighbors building an ark, yet, but the ground is totally saturated and not accepting more moisture. Watching the rain pour out of the gutters for four straight days got me thinking about adding extensions to the ends of the downspouts in an effort to move the water further from the house. That’s a pain when it comes time to mow as these have to be moved, but it beats foundation damage.

We’re supposed to get a few days break from the April showers after today, but temperatures are going to be near 80F and the combination of warm and moist is bound to supercharge the grass growing. I can see hours of trudging the mower through tall grass in my future and I’m not even psychic.

The IC-7610 must surely be feeling neglected by now? It’s been in storage since the end of February when I started using the IC-705 with its whopping ten-watts exclusively. I’m just doing the low-power CW thing and logging on paper. When done that way a few contacts a day seems like a full schedule and I haven’t wanted for more. Today is the K1USN SST and I’ve thought about jumping into that fray though I have become less a fan of the perpetual CW practice sessions.

Of course CW is an art and skill deserving of practice, it just seems these days everything is a reason to turn CW practice into more “contest” scores and leaderboards and all that jazz. I’m pretty sure a single daily 30 minute CW QSO would sharpen most anyone’s CW skills with the added bonus of enjoying a short chat. Besides, isn’t that what all the “practice” is for – or is it actually an attempt to create an army of CW contest operators?

I’ve gotten a little closer to my goal of 1,000 POTA QSO’s as a hunter. The log shows 855 QSOs across 652 parks. Once I reach a thousand QSO’s I intend to quit chasing POTA. It’s been fun, but all good things should end. Can you tell I get bored of doing the same things over and over again?

Just in time: The KiwiSDR2 that I ordered has arrived. So did the new Leo Bodnar Electronics GPS locked clock source, both on the same day. I felt special receiving shipments from New Zealand and the UK in a single afternoon! With improving weather I’m getting closer to the antenna work needed to get all my VHF/UHF and (much) higher gear on the air and I’m getting anxious to begin exploring all sorts of new and interesting things in more rarified ether.