With just one week left until Christmas things are really beginning to ramp up here, probably at your house too. We still have shopping to finish and there will be parties to attend over the next week. And to make it all very seasonal, snow is in the forecast today. I like this time of year, but I’m convinced we will never be “done” with Christmas shopping before December. No matter how many times we proclaim to do it “next year”…

I was doing a little back of the napkin mathematics today after reading that Halley’s Comet has begun its long trek back toward Earth. Its orbit makes it visible in the sky here every 76 years or so and it last made an earthly appearance in 1986. The Great Comet will show up here again in 2061 and the math says my youngest grandchild would be 38 years old then. It will undoubtedly be a once in a lifetime event for me (I saw it in 1986) as I would be 102 years old for its next visit. I hope many of you live to tell that tale!

The IC-705 has been getting quite the workout this month as it replaces the 7610 that’s in the shop. I’ve made 262 contacts with it since December 1st. Just over half of those were made using FT4/FT8 with the rest being CW contacts from a few contests and sprints. It’s a good thing I’m not a phone operator, I can’t even find the 705 microphone and haven’t been motivated to look for it yet.

With less than two weeks remaining it looks like I’ll finish this year with about 2K contacts and 105 entities logged. That’s less than last year, but considering I was off the air for several months tending to family matters, then moved to a new home, I’m pretty well-pleased with these smaller, yet hard fought results.