[aprssig] A few thoughts from the road

[Earl Needham]

	Hey, I'm in Clovis, New Mexico -- that's about 200 miles east of 
Albuquerque and only 100 miles northwest of Lubbock, Texas, in DM84jk.

	I just got home from a week on the road.  Had a lot of time to think about 
things and listen to the actual audio on 144.39 around the country.  It was 
pretty busy in Salt Lake city, not quite so busy near Albuquerque, and 
absolutely SILENT across Nebraska.  (It was also extremely COLD up 
there!  Brr!!!!!)  Light traffic in Wyoming and Kansas, at least the part 
of those states where I was.

	I understand (and this is only hearsay, not confirmed by me) that the 
digis around Lubbock no longer do WIDEn-N and don't respond to RELAY 
either.  Too bad, my dumb tracker uses both and I have no way to change the 
path, it's all burned into the chip.  It also is going to totally kill any 
path we ever might have had between Clovis and Lubbock.  With my ALOHA 
circle averaging 250-300 miles, such a path shouldn't be a bad thing, but I 
guess that's over now.

	Which brings up another thought I had -- why such a rush to move away from 
WIDEn-N everywhere?  Oh, I understand what conditions are like all up and 
down the east coast, but I don't think we have anything like that here.  It 
looks to me as if we have taken out fledgling network and killed it.  I 
sure don't understand why there is such a mad rush to do that out here.

	Why do people refuse to acknowledge that conditions vary across the country?

	In looking over the hundreds of email messages that were waiting for me, I 
see some people trying to eradicate UI-View.  I sure don't understand that, 
either -- UI-View is one of the most EXPANDABLE programs around.  Addons 
are always turning up for that program.

	Lots of questions, but one thing's for certain -- it's almost 1 AM and I'm 
off to bed.  Nice to be back -- I think!  <G>

	7 3
	Earl

Earl Needham, KD5XB, Clovis, New Mexico DM84jk
http://kd5xb-2.no-ip.info