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…

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. 

Centralia, WA and Newport, OR

Sunday - I packed up the ham radio gear as tomorrow is a travel day. Otherwise, it was a quiet day,

Monday - A modest travel day to the Oregon coast. The gps routed us through Corvallis to Newport, OR. The weather app calls this location South Beach but it’s only a couple miles south of Newport. It is much cooler, which feels nice.

Tuesday - I drove back to Corvallis to pick up an Amazon package. One of the taillights on the RV has a bunch of dead leds. Plus, one of the led marker lights has burned out. Both are easy fixes. 

I set up the JPC-12 antenna to try Winlink on 40m. I was amazed how well it worked even with all of the trees.

Wednesday - After the morning test session, we went into the touristy part of Newport to look around and find some seafood for lunch. I had some local oysters. Can’t say that they were the best I’ve had but not bad. 

I replaced both taillights on the class C and the Amazon replacements were easily swapped in. No wiring sheet but it was pretty easy to guess the right colors. The rear marker lights are red and I had ordered amber. I’m not going to return them as they are identical to the installed marker lights. 

Day 28 - 29 - Mt Vernon, WA

Friday - We drove north to Mt Vernon this afternoon with Dave and Ginny to go to the Seder-Woolley PRCA Rodeo where their daughter was singing the national anthem. There was quite a bit of traffic after going through Seattle. 

I haven’t been to a rodeo in quite a while. There was a lot of pageantry and celebration of the semiquincentennial (I think that’s the correct term). It wasn’t a huge rodeo but did have all of the standard events. 

I only took s handful of pictures as we weren’t really close to the action. But, it was entertaining. 

Saturday - It was a quiet, uneventful drive back to Centralia. Unlike yesterday, there was light traffic through Everett, Seattle, Tacoma, and Olympia. I guess people are where they want to be for the Fourth of July.

We made a chicken paella for dinner. Dave is a master with plenty of experience. Chicken thighs, peppers, cauliflower, tomatoes, green beans, and lots of garlic.