Field Day is this weekend. I have operated the event from my backyard using battery power for many years, but this time around I’ll be operating from inside the house attempting to make a hundred phone contacts. I’m not even going to maintain a log so this should be a piece of cake. When it comes to the age-old argument about whether Field Day is a contest or an emergency preparedness exercise, I come down on the side of “contest” because everything in ham radio is some kind of contest…

Now that LoTW has been down and out for as many days and nights as Moses spent on Mount Sinai, a curious thing is evolving; no one cares. The online commentary has gone from outrage to mocking humor to crickets in just 40 days and nights. The ARRL doesn’t mention it. I was surprised to see the agenda for the most recent ARRL Board meeting didn’t include the topic listed, and there wasn’t a peep about it in the most recent ARRL Letter. It’s as though LoTW never existed. Mass Delusion?

Early Solstice. The summer solstice arrived in the northern hemisphere yesterday and almost no one noticed it was early to the party. In fact, it was the earliest solstice since 1796 when George Washington issued his farewell address. The reason for the retrograde dates is purely human, blame the Gregorian calendar. Still, the solstice is set to get progressively earlier, creeping forward every leap year for the next 72 years and I don’t like it.