Michael Kramer wrote:
> Please do continue your efforts to get a Ham General license. There is a
> WHOLE lot of useful weather and tracking-while-cruising benefits from
> that (as well as free email) that make it worth the effort. Bite the
> bullet and get thru the idiotic code requirement. The amatuer radio
> system is better than any other system we have encountered. Sorry to
> have missed you on the SSB nets (Amigo? Southbound?) but we were away in
> Tucson this last week.

We checked into both Amiga and Southbound. We had better luck with the
Southbound net. There seemed to be time of day issues - or maybe the
Amiga net control was farther away. We also found that the weather was a
factor, with Santa Ana conditions providing the best propagation. We
felt a bit like interlopers calling in from our "vacation cruise" to
folks who are really out cruising. We can't hear anything from our
marina because of all the interference, so listening to the reports from
around Mexico and to Don Anderson's weather was quite a thrill. Getting
radio checks from Puerto Escondido and Bahia De Los Angeles and then
having one of the guys want to chat about his last trip to Catalina
completely blew me away!!

We both have technician licenses (I'm KG6UIM) and plan on getting our
generals as soon as things settle down a bit. Our experience on this
trip has really made this much more of a priority. We'll probably shoot
for the next time Gordon West offers his class in our area.

> For celestial navigation: we got a video done by, of all people, William
> F. Buckley, Jr., which actually made the entire process intelligable.
> Don't have a title for you, but definately check it out. Amusing and
> informative.

I've seen that video! It's amazing!

I have a book called "Basic and Intermediate Celestial Navigation" by
William Paulk. A friend of ours teaches a class and this is the text he
uses. I took a bunch of sites mostly just to learn to use the sextant to
bring down the sun, but I recorded everything and I hope to reduce them
this weekend. I'll let you know how well I do.

I have no illusions that I'll ever need to use celestial for real, but I
think it's good for my brain and it gives me a nice feeling of being
part of the universe that I don't get from the GPS.

Cindy
s/v Mandisa
Baba 30 #218

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Received on Wed Sep 27 21:15:11 2006