I promise I'm not going CB on you (not that there's anything wrong with that....)  

     Okay, now that I have both a teasing jab at CB, and a reference to a very popular 90's sitcom out of the way, I'll get down to the real business at hand - fun with Ham radio!
     The real reason for this post being titled "Breaker Breaker" is not because I'm trying to jump in with emergency traffic, or talk to truckers on channel 19 - it's because I just took delivery of a bunch of (6) actual breakers today....

     Apparently there were a lot arc fault breakers manufactured that were RF sensitive, and they can end up tripping from the RF produced by our Ham radio stations.  For a lot of people this is old news, but for new hams like me, it is new old news, if that makes sense.  The ARRL has a pretty good write up on it here, which includes contact info for whom to call if you have the variety in question, like I do.    

     The station works well considering that the antenna is the downspout and rain gutter, and the ground connection is a piece of steel re-bar (should we take bets on how long it takes to rust out?)  The radio is just my mobile rig that I pull out of the car when I want to operate from the house.  Anyway, while playing radio this winter, a week or so before Winter Field Day, I tripped the breakers and was reminded about the issue.  They even tripped when doing some digital stuff at 20 watts.  The big problem was that the breakers it was tripping included one of the circuits that includes one of our two pellet stoves that heat the house.  If I am forced to choose between playing radio and having a warm house, the YL will let you know in no uncertain terms that having a warm house is more important (I can't argue with that since we have 2 young kids.....)
     So, last week I finally got around to e-mailing the two gentlemen listed in the ARRL article, and within a week I had my new breakers, free of charge, sitting on my doorstep.  Now I just have to find time to...  *Ahem*  Now "my certified electrician" has to find time to replace these breakers (all kidding aside - changing breakers isn't a DIY project if you don't know what you are doing - consider yourself warned!) Once that's done, I'll be good as new, playing radio AND being warm!

     Good evening all!  As I write this post I am sitting in what serves as both my temporary office, and my temporary shack, listening to some DX talking on 7.156.  The thing that stinks, is that I can't really join the fray - my rain gutters, which are doing double duty as my antenna just aren't up to the task [ed. read more about my gutter antenna here].  That will eventually change!  We recently did an addition on our house, and the room that used to be our basement catch-all storage room / cat litter box area (gross!) will be turning into my new office, and my new shack!  Additionally, I am finally going to pick up my new car tomorrow, so my radio equipment that has been patiently waiting since being removed from the old car will finally get pressed back into service.  I've been talking with a number of the local hams about the status of these things (or really the lack of status) so I decided to start this blog while things are in the early stages, so that everyone can play along, give a newbie feedback and advice, and hopefully have some fun!
     As I make progress on these projects, I'll post info and pictures about what I'm doing here [ed. there are a bunch of pictures in the gallery too!].  While the two main ongoing projects will be the vehicle install and the shack build, if other things pop up, I might just slip them in here as well. ​