Sunday PM / Monday AM rain
The big rain & storm event did not mean much for our location. .4" in the rain gauge.
Saturday AM Rain
We had .75" in our rain gauge first thing Saturday morning. Then the sun came out to make it a humid cooker of a day.
Lake Winnie wild flowers
The wild flowers are pretty impressive in northern Minnesota right now if you can deal with the bugs and hold your camera at the same time. Look at the neat white spider crawling on the flower.
Camping on Winnie
We spent Friday through Monday camping up at Lake Winnibigoshish or Winnie if you are a local.
We chose to stay at one of Army Corp of Engineer sites near the dam on the northeast side of the lake. Big pine trees & bigger bugs... aka: northern Minnesota in the summer near the water.
Besides some swimming we also spent some time hunting for some local geocaches. The boys are going in circles looking for the hidden info needed to find the next stage of this geocache.
We cooked some burgers, stuffed pork chops, steak smothered in tomato sauce with peppers and onions + baked potatoes.
Here is the mandatory picture of the boys near the campfire.
It was pretty darn warm & humid during our trip. We were pretty luck because we managed to dodge some severe weather a couple of times and never got more than a few minutes of wind and light rain. This would be a nice a site (#19) to revisit in the fall once the temp drops a bit and the bugs die down. At $20 per night for the site it is an ideal spot if you don't need a shower house.
We chose to stay at one of Army Corp of Engineer sites near the dam on the northeast side of the lake. Big pine trees & bigger bugs... aka: northern Minnesota in the summer near the water.
Besides some swimming we also spent some time hunting for some local geocaches. The boys are going in circles looking for the hidden info needed to find the next stage of this geocache.
We cooked some burgers, stuffed pork chops, steak smothered in tomato sauce with peppers and onions + baked potatoes.
Here is the mandatory picture of the boys near the campfire.
It was pretty darn warm & humid during our trip. We were pretty luck because we managed to dodge some severe weather a couple of times and never got more than a few minutes of wind and light rain. This would be a nice a site (#19) to revisit in the fall once the temp drops a bit and the bugs die down. At $20 per night for the site it is an ideal spot if you don't need a shower house.
Rain for Friday morning
We received 3.75 inches of rain in 3 strong waves this morning.
Rain for Sunday 7/10/11
Our rain gauge had .5 inches of rain from the Sunday night event. The heavier rains were to our north and west. A largely uneventful skywarn outing.
N7KA on 6m from DM65
I was working downstairs (putting the flooring into my new office/shack) and I heard some one calling CQ on 50.125 on my rig in the other room. I walked over to the shack, turned the beam and was then able to put N7KA into the log.
6m has been open off & on all weekend.
When I am home I am trying to be better about leaving a rig on and trying to put the occasional Q into the log.
73 de NG0
WSJT at ARS NG0R
Tonight after dinner while the family was watching a show I disappeared into the man cave. I setup WSJT on my Ubuntu machine in the shack so that I could start working FSK441 and JT65 again.
I had some partials with KO9A but we never did complete.
I then attempted to work KF6A, Dan in Michigan. I heard something on every exchange and we completed our entire meteor scatter Q in less than 10 minutes.
It is amazing how many meteors, jets, and other debris are passing overhead that you can bounce a radio signal off of.
PS... I just got a message from W3ZUP, Ben in MD who was able to copy part of the meteor scatter QSO as well. --Neat stuff!
73 de NG0R
I had some partials with KO9A but we never did complete.
I then attempted to work KF6A, Dan in Michigan. I heard something on every exchange and we completed our entire meteor scatter Q in less than 10 minutes.
It is amazing how many meteors, jets, and other debris are passing overhead that you can bounce a radio signal off of.
PS... I just got a message from W3ZUP, Ben in MD who was able to copy part of the meteor scatter QSO as well. --Neat stuff!
73 de NG0R
BNSF on a nice Friday afternoon
Since I had the day off the boys thought a short road trip would be fun. (They like to listen to audio books during our road trips.)
On the ATCS map we noticed a BNSF train headed west bound from the Twin Cities. We drove over to nearby Dassel and worked out a nice shot with the town name next to the tracks and waited for 5129 to arrive.
We then drove west and stopped at a nice overpass on Minnesota Highway 12 (halfway between Litchfield and Willmar) to get the next image.
We then decided to drive south from Willmar to see what the traffic was like on the Marshall Sub. We got as far as Clara City and stumbled across the Marshall Local getting a track warrant to go north towards Willmar.
I enjoyed watching 779 nose out of the trees as it left Clara City.
As we headed home we got another shot of 779 working as the Marshall Local as we got closer to Willmar.
While I would have liked better light (early or late day sun) you take what you can get when you have time to venture out. It was an enjoyable afternoon riding in the truck listening to Mitch Rapp, shooting a few photos, and making a DQ stop with the boys.
On the ATCS map we noticed a BNSF train headed west bound from the Twin Cities. We drove over to nearby Dassel and worked out a nice shot with the town name next to the tracks and waited for 5129 to arrive.
We then drove west and stopped at a nice overpass on Minnesota Highway 12 (halfway between Litchfield and Willmar) to get the next image.
We then decided to drive south from Willmar to see what the traffic was like on the Marshall Sub. We got as far as Clara City and stumbled across the Marshall Local getting a track warrant to go north towards Willmar.
I enjoyed watching 779 nose out of the trees as it left Clara City.
As we headed home we got another shot of 779 working as the Marshall Local as we got closer to Willmar.
While I would have liked better light (early or late day sun) you take what you can get when you have time to venture out. It was an enjoyable afternoon riding in the truck listening to Mitch Rapp, shooting a few photos, and making a DQ stop with the boys.
Wild Flowers
Deb & Jim's home near Iron River, Wi
