Why?

What is the purpose of this site? This is mainly a place to dump info about my hobbies. I am NOT a workaholic, I need to have a little fun in my life to keep sane. This site is about those things that I find fun.

Ham Radio

I got my ham radio license in 1991. Over the years, I’ve been hot/cool in and out of the hobby. It’s not like I ever turned my back on ham radio, just other interests have moved to the front, and then back out again.

Even after all these years, it still seems a bit magical that we can communicate all the way around the world with a radio and a piece of wire in a tree.

Most recently, I was playing a multiplayer game called “World Of Tanks”. I would come home from work, grab the laptop, and play for an hour or two. That didn’t leave much room for other hobbies. I eventually got fed up with the way the game developers are controlling the wins/losses of the matches so I quit playing, and focused back on radio again.

I’m not one with much of a “gift of gab” so I do better if I have a “reason” to get on the air. I have found fun in “hunting” POTA activations, and POTA gives me good reason to get on the air. POTA stands for “Parks On The Air”. POTA is an organization that has an approved list of mostly state and national parks that hams can visit and set up portable radio stations to contact other hams known as “hunters”. Local parks do not qualify, and are not approved as POTA parks.

An insert below shows my most recent POTA stats.

I also enjoy the SKCC group. SKCC is the “Straight Key Century Club”. It is an organization that is all about using manual morse code keying methods to communicate. Every member has a unique number and we exchange those numbers. The main purpose is to get on the air and just make contacts, but collecting the numbers and moving up the ranks is also part of the interest.

Kites

I’ve had an interest in kites for as long as I can remember.

A couple years after moving back “home” here, I went to Callaway NE to the “Callaway Kite Flight”. I remember one guy flying one particular kite that was just like “OK, that is cool, I want to do that!” So, I ordered the same kite and learned how to fly it… and I was hooked.

When I started flying as an adult, I was all about stunt kites. Single line kites were boring (I thought), I wanted to actively fly, not just watch them float around. Over the years, my interest has changed from the stunt kites to LARGE single line kites. As I’ve gotten older, I can say that sitting a comfortable chair watching the kites fly is ok too. I still find it so cool to watch the wind ripple down a long kite tail. No batteries, no electricity, no motors, just the wind doing the work.

 

More details can be found in the hobby links.

Thanks for stopping by!
Scott