We’ve been enjoying typical March weather in Indiana, something different every few hours. Rain and 50F one minute, clear and 20F the next. It has snowed and rained and been incredibly sunny several times over just the last week. It’s certainly keeping weather forecasters on their toes like a Fox News reporter trying to keep track if today is a tariff “on” or tariff “pause” day.

There are several State QSO Parties this weekend, but I’m more interested in the AGCW QRP Contest that takes place tomorrow. Propagation has been decent of late and it should be a fun challenge to try and put a few in the log using just five watts.

Seen on a Blog

As I continue shaving paid things from my own budget, I have also considered dumping my Prime membership. We don’t buy nearly as much from Amazon as we did a few years ago and I, too, find the Prime Video offerings pretty weak.

Here’s how Tim Bray rationalized his decision to dump it:

I don’t see myself as an enemy of Amazon, particularly. I think the pressures of 21st-century capitalism have put every large company into a place where they really can’t afford to be ethical or the financial sector will rip them to shreds then replace the CEO someone who will maximize shareholder return at all costs, without any of that amateurish “ethics” stuff. To the extent that Amazon is objectionable, it’s a symptom of those circumstances.

We should all get a tattoo on our forehead that says that…

Amazon is an US corporation and the US is now hostile to Canada, repeatedly threatening to annex us. So I’m routing my shopping dollars away from there generally and to Canadian suppliers specifically. Dumping Prime is an easy way to help that along.

Then there was this from Doc Searls weblog about the continued enshittification of broadcast radio:

Not that most people are missing these stations, AM radio, or radio at all. (FM is on death row as well, but executions are still a decade or two away.) But I think what just happened in San Francisco is worth a bugle call.

Bonus link: H.R. 979, the AM Radio for Every Vehicle Act of 2025. It requires an AM radio in every new car. Note that no bill requires that new cars have Apple CarPlay or Android Auto. But the market wants those. Its younger demographics barely know that AM radio exists.

Reading

I received a short email from Goody, K3NG that simply said: It’s coming! He was talking about this new thriller from author Kelly Orchard:

Dead Air: The Day the Music Died is a psychological thriller that plunges into the world of broadcast radio in Los Angeles, offering a gripping modern twist on the classic “War of the Worlds.” Set in a single, tension-packed 24 hours, this novel chronicles the dramatic takeover of more than a hundred radio stations across five major U.S. cities by a mysterious group of pirates who hijack transmitter sites and unleash chaos.

Giddy Up!