Another break

Picked up a couple of hand tools and one antenna (one of these: Elk Antennas 2M/440L5 Dual-Band Antenna)

I know that every time you buy an antenna, the ashes of Nikola Tesla spin a little faster but getting a Log Periodic antenna to work right - especially on two different ranges of frequencies - is a black art so I would rather pay the premium to have someone else work their magic. This is for my two-meter rigs - the ones I use for local and emergency communications and it offers nice directionality - I can aim my signal to hit my target instead of radiating it evenly around 360° and wasting 80% of it.

Also, picked up a small transmitter designed specifically to operate as a WSPR beacon (pronounced as whisper).  $30 it was a zero brainer and this way, I do not have to tie up my rig for this. WSPR is fascinating - it is an outgrowth of the signal processing developed by K1JT (Joe Taylor) at Princeton University for receiving very faint signals from spacecraft. You can reliably work around the world on one or two watts of power - traditional ham radio systems need 100 watts on up. Needless to say, it is digital only and the throughput is very very slow - on the order of character or two per second but...  it will go through.

Heading back over to pick up a few more items - some tee shirts and some additional small stuff. The banquet is tonight but it is in the main hall which is not air conditioned so I am seriously thinking of bailing out. It was really muggy in there - the New Garden is calling to me again...