VE1BC Spud Roscoe


The 2011 Trip
Part 82 – A dreary Saturday

Saturday, February 19th, 2011 The temperature at the Gold Canyon Weather Station at 12:30 AM was 64.9F and at 10 AM was 65.9F. This is from their weather site on the Internet via Google. They no longer place the Apache Junction temperature on the tool bar across the top of the computer. The temperature had crept up to 67.0F by 11 AM and we received a few drops of rain at 11:02 AM. The wind picked up a bit at 11:06 AM. The temperature at 12:30 PM was 68.6F and still quite windy. There are a few breaks in the clouds and the sun manages to shine briefly now and then. 14023 kilohertz was hopping this morning with a contest of some description. All you hear is the one call sign, the call sign of the calling station, then that call sign and 5NN and they are gone. You hear no more. You have no idea who they are working or where the station is on the band that they are working. It sure does not do anything for me. There were a lot of stations in British Columbia on there this morning. In other words apparently all you need to be able to send is your call the figure five and the letter N at around 30 words per minute. You will need to be able to copy the receiving station and know where to receive and transmit. There does not appear to be much to it. The sky was overcast cumulus all morning. The sunrise was quite pretty for a few minutes. They are forecasting possible thunder showers but we heard no static crashes to indicate that on the radio. We disconnected the HF antenna just before 11 AM to be safe rather than sorry. There is nothing on the radio we want to listen to. The low cloud is like a reddish haze with this wind. This is the red dust from the desert. Everything is dusty most of the time including this computer from this dust. This reddish haze continued during the heaviest of the rain. Joan and Karen did laundry this morning along with every one else in the park. They claim the laundry was so packed it was a nut house. We received another small rain shower at 1:45 PM and the temperature had dropped to 66.9F. By 2 PM we had a half decent shower going and still going at 4 PM at which time the temperature had dropped to 47.1F. Our furnace came on a couple of times during that period. A thermometer is kept busy in this country. At 5:45 PM it was still raining and the temperature was up to 48.1F. By 6:30 PM the rain had stopped so I went out and changed the propane bottles over so I would not have to do it at 5 AM. Joan had put my lawn chair under the trailer but it got a bit wet. I have to use it in order to reach the back propane bottle with this sore knee. I put the lawn chair in the baggage compartment. The temperature at 6:30 PM was 48.3F so it crept up slightly. There is a clear spot in the cloud cover over towards the northwest and that probably means nothing. I could hear a large jet aircraft coming in but could not see it. The dehumidifier has been working steady keeping the windows in the trailer defogged. We are glad we brought it because we did not know whether we should. We did not expect it to get as much use as it has. We found a couple more movies that we forgot we had so toady ended when another movie ended. We had a fairly heavy rain shower shortly after 8 PM that did not last long. The temperature when the movie ended was 47.4F and that was the day.

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Saturday, February 19th, 2011

The temperature at the Gold Canyon Weather Station at 12:30 AM was 64.9F and at 10 AM was 65.9F. This is from their weather site on the Internet via Google. They no longer place the Apache Junction temperature on the tool bar across the top of the computer. The temperature had crept up to 67.0F by 11 AM and we received a few drops of rain at 11:02 AM. The wind picked up a bit at 11:06 AM. The temperature at 12:30 PM was 68.6F and still quite windy. There are a few breaks in the clouds and the sun manages to shine briefly now and then.

14023 kilohertz was hopping this morning with a contest of some description. All you hear is the one call sign, the call sign of the calling station, then that call sign and 5NN and they are gone. You hear no more. You have no idea who they are working or where the station is on the band that they are working. It sure does not do anything for me. There were a lot of stations in British Columbia on there this morning. In other words apparently all you need to be able to send is your call the figure five and the letter N at around 30 words per minute. You will need to be able to copy the receiving station and know where to receive and transmit. There does not appear to be much to it.

The sky was overcast cumulus all morning. The sunrise was quite pretty for a few minutes. They are forecasting possible thunder showers but we heard no static crashes to indicate that on the radio. We disconnected the HF antenna just before 11 AM to be safe rather than sorry. There is nothing on the radio we want to listen to. The low cloud is like a reddish haze with this wind. This is the red dust from the desert. Everything is dusty most of the time including this computer from this dust. This reddish haze continued during the heaviest of the rain.

Joan and Karen did laundry this morning along with every one else in the park. They claim the laundry was so packed it was a nut house.

We received another small rain shower at 1:45 PM and the temperature had dropped to 66.9F. By 2 PM we had a half decent shower going and still going at 4 PM at which time the temperature had dropped to 47.1F. Our furnace came on a couple of times during that period. A thermometer is kept busy in this country. At 5:45 PM it was still raining and the temperature was up to 48.1F. By 6:30 PM the rain had stopped so I went out and changed the propane bottles over so I would not have to do it at 5 AM. Joan had put my lawn chair under the trailer but it got a bit wet. I have to use it in order to reach the back propane bottle with this sore knee. I put the lawn chair in the baggage compartment. The temperature at 6:30 PM was 48.3F so it crept up slightly. There is a clear spot in the cloud cover over towards the northwest and that probably means nothing. I could hear a large jet aircraft coming in but could not see it. The dehumidifier has been working steady keeping the windows in the trailer defogged. We are glad we brought it because we did not know whether we should. We did not expect it to get as much use as it has.

We found a couple more movies that we forgot we had so toady ended when another movie ended. We had a fairly heavy rain shower shortly after 8 PM that did not last long. The temperature when the movie ended was 47.4F and that was the day.