Some changes for my Cootie, Flex 6400 update, New rope for my Antenna, HNY and K3Y!

 

Slipping and sliding

Trying something different for anchoring my cootie key. I have been using a piece of anti-slip rug material but it has the annoying habit of slipping at the most inopportune moment. I have some Quake Hold Museum putty that I used for anchoring pictures and such that seems to work pretty well. I placed a small piece on each foot of the key and pressed it down on my desk. Seems to be holding nicely.

using anti-slip material

Key now anchored with Quake Hold.

6400 Bug

The latest software update, v3.8.20,  for my Flex 6400 has a subtle bug. The CAT interface sometimes stops sending the correct frequency. Flex is working on it but no fix as of yet. My work around is to close the CAT and restart it. Most of the time this works.  Sometimes I have to do it twice.

New Antenna rope

A couple of years ago (2021) while I was trying out my 160-6m OCF dipole, the rope on one end of my setup broke. I tried to shoot a new line but lost the projectiles and ended up with a much lower antenna height on one end then I wanted. ( see posts 5/16/2021 and 5/20/2021 Note: click on dates in the right panel to see those posts.)

I have never been happy using monofilament fishing line with my antenna launcher. I always felt the line was too light and it got tangled in the trees too easily. So I have been procrastinating on shooting another line until I come with a better solution. Well, finial I got a solution. I am using some Micro paracord. It is only 3/64 in diameter but is 100 lbs. test and is small enough to slide easily into into my antenna launcher. The only minus to this is I had to spool out 250 ft. of paracord on my lawn and hope it doesn't tangle. 

Well all went without a hitch and I got a new rope over a big tree in the back yard.

Position of antenna now compared to old position

old antenna position.

Operating

Basically from the beginning of May until the end of September I really didn't do much operating.

I only made 11 CW contacts during that period. I was off doing other things. Weather was good and I was playing a lot of golf. But since then I have had 174 CW contacts. 148 of those came in Dec.

Well, it is Jan 1 2025 now and time for K3Y. This is my favorite event. I really like filling in the band slots and contacting as many unique K3Y operators as possible. BTW I am also the Brag Bonus Station for January.

All for now. 73!!