It’s all “Morse” to me!

We don’t see my Dad near enough. But, we got to spend  a day and a half with him earlier this week when he came to stay over, and it was wonderful! The boys adore him, and having all that 1:1 time with him was great!

Dad has been a HAM radio operator for many  years ( KM5K ), though not active now. He helped us set up our Morse code key switch rig – so that we could practice giving and receiving Morse code on our way to our ham radio licenses. It’s Connor’s big science project for the year. Our Tae Kwon Do Grand Master is also a HAM radio operator and drew the plans for us for a dual rig, that we modified to be single for our space  (he also took the radio Dad had given us that had been in storage many years and cleaned it up for us and tested it out to make sure it still works, and is mentoring us through this). We still need to mount these parts onto a piece of plywood to make them sturdier and easier to move from the table to its storage area, but that’s easy-peasy for me to do this weekend.

Testing out the buzzer

 

testing the switch

 

The final rig

This is a 9v battery attached to a doorbell buzzer, attached to a  hacksaw blade that is sitting on a ‘ledge (or a Lego piece) to make it spring, attached to a drawer nob connected by a screw, and a screw is mounted into the wood base, connected back to the battery. When the circuit is closed between the two screws, you get  a buzz. So you now have a key rig to practice Morse Code. We made this for about  $15. We already had the wood scraps on hand, and the Home Depot Electric Department manager gave us the wire for free when we told him that it was Connor’s science project for this semester – he was pretty impressed with the project.

 

Tuning in the HAM Radio

Once we got the rig set up and began working through our first group of letters, it was time to get the radio set up and tuned up. Dad taught us how to work through the bands, listening for other CW (morse code operators), and how to find where they are located. We’ll have a map available to begin marking our contacts (just listening in now until we get our licenses). We’ll probably set this up more permanently in our office so that we can have a full space to write, code and have our microphone available, and mount the map to the wall.

Aiden finally got to have his own 1:1 time with Dad later in the afternoon to go out and show off his sling shot skills:

See what I can do?

 

Some advice

 

WOW! That really worked, Grandpa!

These are moments I treasure watching the boys with their grandparents, learning from them, making memories with them, and seeing all of our parents showering the boys with unconditional love and watching the boys radiate in that love. It’s a wonderful gift from God that we can still have these kinds of moments.