Enjoying a steaming cup of Earl Grey with a splash of milk along with a bowl of danish cherry tobacco in a Peterson free-hand pipe this morning. I’ve made an appointment to have the furnace people out for annual maintenance. They can’t get here until November 20th which is okay, the furnace is only two years old. I just like to stay on top of routine maintenance in hopes of avoiding surprises during cold weather. Speaking of, there is a freeze warning here for tonight as the prognosticators are talking about 33F for a low temp. In the meantime, it was only 41F when I got up this morning so the furnace is running.

I failed to mention that among the handful of AZQP contacts made this weekend was one with K7UGA. Senator Goldwater’s call sign is managed by the Central Arizona DX Association (CADXA) and is on the air frequently. This wasn’t the first time I’ve put K7UGA into the log, but I’m always pleased to help keep it alive. By the way, there is a 50th Anniversary K7UGA Special Event scheduled to take place the week of Wednesday, January 1, 2025 through Tuesday, January 7, 2025. Watch the QRZ page for specific details as we get closer to the date.

One particular goal of mine has been working 1,000 unique parks in the POTA program before I quit hunting POTA activators. I mean, enough is enough, right? I’m up to 783 as of today, nearly all of those via CW and I’m getting a little bored with that chase and might not make it to 1,000 after all. Activating parks has become as popular as FT8. Ask any CW op and they will tell you that these park activators and hunters signals comprise at least half of all the Morse on our airwaves. Given that there are so many activators coupled with the wham, bam, thank-you Ma’am nature of the contacts, the fun is quickly fading.

Needing a diversion from that, I’m going back to SKCC for more straight key action. I’d like to be more involved with QRP activities, but these are increasingly few and far between and, do you mind if I whine for a moment? Most QRP clubs have their own mailing lists and I subscribe to several of them, and the increase in traffic about things other than traditional QRP discussions are depressing to me. I die a little inside each time I see a message about a net via DMR and how to set that up, or FT8, FT4, or JS8… I’m a longtime member of one of these clubs and love it dearly, but I muted all messages with any one of those topics and now very rarely receive mail from that list…

That’s why I’m going back to the watering holes where there are still a hundred things yet to be accomplished with manually generated Morse. One of my New Year’s resolutions for ‘25 is going to be learning to use a bug. I have a beautifully restored old Vibroplex bug that’s begging to be put into service, but all previous efforts to master it have failed. To be fair, I never gave it much effort.

Next year will be different.