Perturbation

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Catching up with Art Bell

Posted: 20 Mar 2016 12:32 PM PDT
http://ke9v.net/2016/03/20/catching-up-with-art-bell/


The most recent retirement of late night talk radio personality Art Bell,
W6OBB occurred a few months ago when he claimed a stalker was taking shots
at him in the dark desert nights around his home studio in Pahrump, Nevada.
Police reports and rumors abound but there’s no progress breaking that case
and Bell remains retired.

His program, Midnight in the Desert has continued in his absence with his
producer, Heather Wade assuming the duties of host. Art Bell has appeared a
time or two as a guest host and fans maintain hope that he might once again
host the program on a regular basis. But W6OBB is 70 years-old now and it
seems unlikely he would ever return as a full-time broadcaster.

He has remained active on the amateur bands, and has even taken up a new
hobby — drones. Have a look at this recent video shot from his drone while
on a three mile journey that took the craft from his home headed south
flying over a couple of brothels Â*the Chicken Ranch and Sheris Ranch —
before returning home again.


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Albin Eilir

Posted: 20 Mar 2016 06:03 AM PDT
http://ke9v.net/2016/03/20/albin-eilir/


The name for the festival of the Spring Equinox in Druidry is Alban Eilir,
which means The Light of the Earth. One of the inner mysteries of Druidry
is the Druids egg. Life-giving, it is the egg protected by the hare, which
is the symbol of Alban Eilir still celebrated by the giving of Easter eggs
by the Easter bunny.

It’s another ancient celebration hijacked by Christianity, and one that
doubtless has caused many of that persuasion to scratch their heads in
wonder at the bizarre connection between a resurrection and a rabbit
handing out colored eggs



As a practitioner of ancient Druidry, I spent much of my holiday weekend
celebrating the ionosphere by romancing the aether while avoiding
watching, hearing or reading any news. Had the world ended this weekend, I
would have found out about it in real time, 3D, high definition, living
color. It was wonderfully refreshing to unplug from the deadstream and jack
into the radio frequency spectrum.

Forty meters remains my favorite oasis despite best efforts to make 80
meters home. It hasn’t yet stopped amazing me that I can easily work
stations within 500 miles, and then run across other stations thousands of
miles distant on the same band at the same time of day.

The multiple paths taken by radio signals on 7MHz could be a science unto
itself.

I spent a few hours Saturday afternoon watching a livestream from the
MicroHAMS 2016 Digital Conference taking place in the Seattle area thanks
to heroic efforts of technical prowess by Kenny, KU7M and Dennis, K7DEN
(thanks guys!).

I particularly enjoyed the presentation on Ham Radio Now What? on the
future of the hobby presented by Ward Silver, N0AX who reminded us that
adoption of new technology by radio amateurs always begins slowly before
going completely vertical.

One example used to illustrate his point was Logbook of the World. In the
beginning, hams whined and cried and gnashed their teeth about the
complexity and difficulty of the process. And then suddenly, as if by
magic, everyone “got it� and its adoption has become nearly universal.

It’s a good lesson and one worth remembering.

Hamshield presented by Morgan Redfield, KG7OGM & Casey, KC7IBT introduced
us to their Kickstarter backed Arduino project to build a powerful,
flexible, VHF/UHF transceiver using open source hardware.

Those were but two of several presentations. I believe the archive of
conference videos will eventually be available on the MicroHAMS Web site if
you missed the live event.

Day and night won’t be exactly equal today, and you can’t balance an egg on
its end. But for those of us in the northern hemisphere, today marks the
beginning of Spring and as the Sun grows warmer, so life begins to show
through the soil its time for planting and renewal.

A time for eggs, bunnies, and 7MHz.

Happy Spring!