November 24, 2009 by kb8sfc.

The meeting to as I understand it to lay the ground work for a new ham radio club in the valley is tonight 6pm at the Pottery Addition fire dept. I will be attending.

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November 9, 2009 by kb8sfc.

I stumbled upon this blog from KB9MWR today and I found it quite interesting. But then again I’ve been interested in digtal voice for years starting out running an Alinco on 222mhz about six years ago. Currently I have a Motorola Astro Saber on 2 meters running project 25. Since there is zero P25 activity locally on 2 meters I primarily use this radio at Dayton and a few other hamfests.

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November 7, 2009 by kb8sfc.

I haven’t posted here in quite a while since I’ve did almost nothing with ham radio. This may prove to be interesting. I’m cautiously optimistic, I tried to do something similar to this over 10 years ago that didn’t turn out very well. I like the use of the world “lax” this may be the understatement of the year. Amateur radio in the area has been dismal at best in recent years. I’ve gotten to the point where I rarely turn the radio on. But then what do you expect when the local club is mostly in their 70’s and 80’s and meet at 5pm on a weekday. I intend on finding more out about this group and who knows I might even attend the meeting. I personally would like to see more ham activity in the area. The letter is below. More to come as I know it…
CLICK HERE to see the letter

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September 23, 2008 by kb8sfc.

Here is a classic video I’ve been wanting to see again, I think it speaks for itself…

Thanks to Shawn KB8UDE for the clip.

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September 17, 2008 by kb8sfc.

If Mr. Hosfelt were no longer with us I’d say he would be spinning in his grave. But as far as I know he is alive, well, and retired. Hosfelt Electronics is a shadow of it’s former self. Is this another case of children of a founder running the business in to the ground?

Today was not my first trip there in the last year but the results seem to get worse each time. I was ignored by the woman behind the glass for at least 15 minutes, which is a real change from the way they used to practically jump you as soon as you walked in the door. I finally decided to fill out the order form myself using the only catalog I could find which was without an index or a cover. After I filled out the order form, I finally got the attention of the woman behind the glass and was greeted with “oh are you ready now?” After I gave he my order form she advised me they “discontinued” their mini din connectors (which was the reason I stopped in today in the first place) and they haven’t had PL-259’s “in quite some time”. Half of the items I wanted were “discontinued” or out.

The store was full of mostly junk, maybe they should consider a name change to Hosfelt Junk Electronics. Maybe even “discontinue” using the word electronics in their name completely. They haven’t put out a catalog in years. It’s been all down hill, figuratively and literately since they moved downtown. It took nearly two years from when they closed the “show room” on Sunset Blvd until they open this pitiful excuse on 3rd street. Now I know paper catalogs may be old hat to some of you out there and E commence sites are the thing, even I prefer them. But the Hosfelt website is terrible it’s not even close to any other electronics dealer on the web. If you didn’t know better just by looking at their website you would think they were out of business. Most items on the site are listed “out of stock” or “temp out”. So I guess If you can’t make it to their showroom you can have a similar experience on their website.

The only redeeming quality to this visit was that a cat had a litter of kittens in the alley behind the building and they were letting them live in the store. The mother cat is extremely friendly and sat in my lap twice and since I’m a cat person this didn’t bother me. Now some of you may know that Universal Radio near Columbus, Ohio has cats in their store, well Hosfelt is defiantly not Universal radio, not even close.

I’ve been a customer and fan of Hosfelt Electronics for about the last 15 years, it saddens and sickens me to see what has become of it.

More pictures from my visit are now on flikr

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September 16, 2008 by kb8sfc.

After a billing snafu and 3 weeks in 404 land, along with many calls to 1&1, my blog is back, I’ll leave out the details for now until this gets fully resolved. Below you may find some “lost entires” from while my blog was in 404 land.

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September 7, 2008 by kb8sfc.

I attended the 1st annual Butler Swapfest today and I have to give it a good review. The Butler Hamfest was greatly missed last year and I was more than willing to attend this year.
It wasn’t without it’s problems but for the first year of an event in a new venue it went rather well. The area for tailgating was entirely too small and a lot of us were forced to tailgate in the parking area but at least the tailgating was free.

Of course it wasn’t without the usual cheapskates the worst was of course “Disco Stu” (as far as I know not his real name). He offered me $35 less than asking price on an antenna I was selling and when I tried to meet him $10 above his offer he just barked his bid at me again. Needless to say after going back and forth like that 2 times I told him “NO!”. Good thing he left the next thing out of my mouth would be to get away from me and quit wasting my time. This isn’t my first encounter with “Disco Stu” . He dresses like someone out of the late mid 70’s , some times with gold chains , shirt unbuttoned and chest hair showing. He wants to pay 1970’s prices and I can’t tell if he is wearing a hair piece or a bad comb over. I’ve never sold anything to this guy and probally never will. I doubt next time I’ll even bother to waste my time with him other than to tell him to move along and I know he is a HUGE cheapskate and not worth the time.

Shawn showed up around noon as I was getting ready to leave, it had started to rain and by 12:30 Des and I left and headed to Ci Ci’s Pizza Buffet in Butler.

I snapped a few pics on my way to drop off the tickets and posted them to flikr

I had fun and will be back next year.

73 DE KB8SFC

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June 26, 2008 by kb8sfc.

I received this email from Matt KA8YEZ and thought I’d post it …

from Matt KA8YEZ Koval
to Undisclosed-Recipient
date Wed, Jun 25, 2008 at 10:11 PM
subject Ham Radio Happenings In the Upper Ohio Valley 6-25-08

Hi all, here is what is going on in the Upper Ohio Valley (Northern Panhandle / Eastern Ohio) that I know of.

The July 4th holiday is fast approaching, turn those radios on, and listen to those repeaters. There will be people traveling through your area that might need assistance. Despite what the news says there WILL be people traveling and burning gas.

Below is from Bud W8GBH:

DO NOT FORGET THAT THIS SATURDAY IS FIELD DAY! WE (EASTERN OHIO AMATEUR WIRELESS ASSOC.) ARE COMBINING WITH THE NPARC (NORTHERN PANHANDLE ARC) TO HOLD IT AT THE BELMONT COUNTY EOC ON RT 331 WEST OF ST CLAIRSVILLE OHIO.

IT BEGINS AT 2:00 PM. WE WILL BE SETTING UP EARLIER. WE WILL HAVE AT LEAST 3 TRANSMITTERS SET UP. WE NEED PEOPLE WHO CAN OPERATE LATE INTO THE NIGHT!

REMEMBER FD IS NOT A CONTEST BUT A CHANCE TO GAIN SKILLS IN SENDING AND RECEIVING INFORMATION IN CASE OF AN EMERGENCY!

FD IS ALSO AN OPPORTUNITY TO MEET NEW HAMS. CHAT AND OPERATE.

HOT DOGS AND HAMBURGERS WILL BE AVAILABLE, PLUS SOFTDRINKS.

PLEASE COME OUT AND SUPPORT OUR EFFORTS.

(IF YOU NEED HELP WITH DIRECTIONS CALL ON THE 145.210 REPEATER)

BUD, EC AND PRES EOAWA, VP NPARC

Friday, June 27th is the Northern Panhandle ARC meeting. It will be held at 7:30 in the basement of the Wheeling City County building. All are welcome. Give a yell on the 146.760 repeater if you need directions.

Saturday and Sunday June 28th and 29th is Field Day.

Thursday July 10th is the Eastern Ohio AWA meeting. It will be held at 7:30 at the Belmont County EMA office on Rt. 331.

Saturday July 12th:

-The Faith In Action Caregivers Sprint Triathlon/Duathlon. I need a bunch of help with this event on the bike and run course. You will need to be on location by 7:15am and the bike portion should be done by 10:30. If you can help out please let me know.

-We have been having a non-club-denominational ham radio dinner at different restaurants in the area on the 2nd Saturday of the month. Last I heard it was to be held at Len’s (K2CDS) house at 5:00. Please let Len or John (K8JRG) know if you plan to attend so they can have enough food. ALL are welcome!!

Friday, July 25th is the Northern Panhandle ARC meeting. It will be held at 7:30 in the basement of the Wheeling City County building. All are welcome. Give a yell on the 146.760 repeater if you need directions. It is also the Wheeling Italian Heritage Festival. So you can fill your belly and then go take a nap with Harry K8EPR during the meeting.

Saturday August 2nd is the Debbie Green Race for a Cause. Like usuall we have not been asked to help, but usually do at the very last minute. If you can help out let John K9JRG ( compserv7 at comcast dot net ) know.

Thanks for taking the time to read this and helping out where you can. If you have anything you want added for next time let me know.

Very 73,

Matt KA8YEZ

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February 24, 2008 by kb8sfc.

This week we ate at the Dynasty Buffet which had some type of demo going on. I shot this quick video on my cellphone so the quality isn’t that good…

Although a bit on the expensive side it was an interesting place. I think all of us had a good time.

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February 16, 2008 by kb8sfc.

After about four weeks and a somewhat controversial start at the Villa, I’m happy to say Saturday night dinner is back on track. I had a great time a Panera bread it was just like the “good ole’ days”. So now we can all get back to enjoying ourselves and stop bickering.

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