Last Day in Corvallis, OR

Tuesday - Today may be a prep day. We had unloaded a lot of stuff at my sister’s home sine we made use of the kitchen, laundry, showers, etc. while we were here. It’s already 91°F and still before noon. I have the A/C running at 50% to keep it from getting too hot during the afternoon. 

I checked my Winlink email on 40m this morning and will be sending my weekly check-in just after 9 PM PDT which meets the criteria of after midnight EDT. Then I can pack up the radio, computer, and antenna into the RV. 

Tomorrow is a modest travel day around 120 miles. I plan to stop at an oil change place here in Corvallis. I stopped by a couple of days ago to make sure they were willing. Last summer, I had a heck of a time finding a place willing to work on an RV even though it’s basically a Ford Econoline. The Circle K on the way out of town sells propane. 

We had lunch with my mom and then stopped at a couple of stores including the Asian grocery store. I picked up a few items including some odd things that a new favorite cabbage dish called for. Salted kelp and dashi powder. And I picked up a small squeeze bottle of okinomiyaki sauce. The last time I found some, the bottle was huge. 

Almost triple digits around here! Time to move on.

Corvallis, OR

Friday - I was having a hard time keeping track of which day on this road trip, so I stopped including that in the blog post title. Yesterday, we had a short travel day back to Corvallis, and we are mooch-docking at my sister's home. Actually, a bit more than that, as we are staying in their guest room, using their Internet, and cooking in their kitchen. The RV is parked and plugged in to keep the refrigerator cold and the batteries charged. 

Saturday - I tried both the JPC-12 and the ATAS-120a antennas on the deck, and both performed poorly. The radials were not, obviously, resting on the ground. As I understand it, if the radials are elevated, then they need to be adjusted to a different length every time you change frequencies. This morning, I moved the JPC-12 to the ground since I brought plenty of coax. It works great now.

Monday - Today's "excursion" was Costco in Albany, which is only about 12 miles north of Corvallis. We will be heading out in a couple of days, and we're not sure where the next Costco opportunity will be. Google Maps always tries to route us on the interstate because it is a minute or so faster even though it's further. There must be a setting for that somewhere.

It is hot but not humid. I ran the A/C in the class C for a while as I was breaking down the Costco chicken. It cooled down pretty quickly. 

The Jeep needed washed so that was my afternoon chore. It now looks better but the quick wash/dry in the sun shows. Good enough.

South Beach - TT

Tuesday - Another beautiful day. Around 70°F for a high temperature with clear skies. I tried Winlink on both VHF and HF and it worked great. No concerns with Winlink Wednesday tomorrow. 

BTW, all this means is I send out a specific email to a handful of email addresses using the Winlink program (Windows only!) and relay the message through a RMS (Radio Mail Service) between midnight to midnight Easter time on Wednesday. They’ll send me an acknowledgment on Thursday. And I’ll show up on their map. My call sign, AL6T, near the center of the map just south of Newport. The purpose is just to use the technology often enough for it to stay familiar. 

The pool and hot tub here at the park is still closed. I don’t know why TT has trouble keeping these maintained. Lack of staff expertise, lack of funding, or just lack of desire. Kind of annoying.

Wednesday - I was able to send an Winlink email last night just after 0000 EDT on both HF and VHF. I used the HF RMS station in, I think, La Grande, OR, and the VHF station here at the Newport airport. I initially connected to the Eugene, OR, RMS on 40m but throughput was dismal. I switched to the La Grande RMS, also on 40m, and got significantly better throughput. The local VHF station was significantly faster at 1200baud. 

Just out of curiosity, I tried the Las Vegas RMS and had no problem connecting though I didn’t have anything to send or receive. 

Things don’t look too good back in TX. These are the texts I received just last night with over a foot of rain yesterday and up to 20” of rain still in the forecast. On top of that, tornado warnings! The news reported that a tornado touched down near Six Flags west of San Antonio. Not good…

Later - The pool and hot tub were open again! 

My chore of the day was to regenerate the water softener. I really like the new much simpler process using the filter housing. Remove the filter element, put in the adapter ,fill the housing with rock salt, and run a trickle of water through the softener for 30 min. Then rinse for 6 minutes. Reassemble. 

South Beach, OR - TT

Thursday - I tried the Mobilink TNC with the dual-band Anytone radio since I noticed that there was an RMS on VHF only a mile from the RV park. I was able to make a connection and retrieve the messages, but was unable to make a connection later on in the day. I probably need to connect a better antenna. The upper frequency limit of the JPC-12 6m so I would need to dig out a different antenna.

Friday - There was a morning test session today (he passed!), and I set up the HF antenna again to fetch my Winmail again, as I was expecting the confirmation email from Winlink Wednesday. It worked on 40m through the RMS in eastern OR. I tried the Mobilink and Anytone to the local VHF station at the airport, and it worked great. I’m not sure what the issue was yesterday, as the station is only a mile or two away. I may try that for the next Winlink Wednesday. I also tried it in the evening. If the antenna was in the window, it was able to make a connection.

A rear marker light that I thought was dead turned out to be intermittent. I cleaned the connector, and now it seems to work. I couldn't find anything wrong with the wiring and the light is a sealed unit.

Sunday - We walked to the beach and it was almost deserted. It was also windy and kind of cold. We didn’t stay long. 

I tried the VHF RMS station from outside the RV and got connected almost immediately. I will definitely be trying that for Winlink Wednesday this week. Though, I still plan to leave the 40m antenna set up as a backup.