Big Island ARRL News, 17 July 2017, 21:00 hrs, UTC, Post #261.
Source:
https://oahuarrlnews.wordpress.com
Accessed on 17 July 2017, 21:00 hrs, UTC.
Author: Stacy Holbrook (KH6OWL), ARRL PIO-Honolulu.
Please click link to read the complete story.
Comment:
This story will bring a tear to your eye, since it describes one of the heartbreaking facts of life in Hawaii–the rising number of homeless in our island paradise. Among the 7,900 homeless in Hawaii is Alex (KH7CX), who survives on handyman jobs, “mainly on boats”, where “some of the boat owners trade his work for a bed on the boat or either money or a boat.” Despite the problems of daily survival and laws prohibiting the use of cars for night time sleeping, Alex manages to eek out a living and enjoy Amateur Radio.
Stacy has known Alex for few years and says he’s done a lot of operating under difficult circumstances:
“He doesn’t have a cell phone and uses the public library computers to update his QRZ log and to look at the solar weather data. Alex recently educated me on the sun spot reports on QRZ. He looks at the K index and the Signal Noise Level Readings. He wants the K index as low as possible and the noise level low. He doesn’t care about the A index. It seems to work for him, he has worked all the continents. He even finds time to keep his QRZ’d logbook up to date.”
“As Alex says on his QRZ’d Page, “I operate exclusively open-air portable-QRP from a local Beach-Park using a Yaesu FT-817ND – Powered by an external 9 A/h 12.8 V Litium Battery Running 5 watts into my selfmade resonant monobander “New Carolina Windom” antennas for 20m , 40m or 10m – ( performing just great without any tuner ! ): “.
“The antenna is set-up in a flat -” Inverted V ” configuration with the apex at about 7m to 15m (22 to 49 feet) above the ground/sea level. Mainly beaming South and North, hung up between 3 coconut palm-trees.”
“He has managed to work all 7 continents with his setup ( in SSB ) ….with zero, or just a few, sunspots most of the time.”
“Alex says that he wants real QSL’s only and he doesn’t use a bureau. He says we are losing that feel of a card in our hand and have something to hold, feel, and look back on to remember the contact. He is homeless but still takes the time to send a QSL card, maybe a lesson for us all.”
Thanks, Stacy, for this story–we can learn a lot from our homeless friend Alex (KH7CX).
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Thanks for joining us today.
Aloha es 73 de
Russell Roberts (KH6JRM)
Public Information Coordinator
Hawaii Island, ARRL Pacific Section