HAM Radio - Necessity or just another Toy?

What do you do when you lose your job?  Why take a week off and spend it at exotically exciting Oscar Scherer State Park.  Bob takes a break from the job hunt and relaxes with his YASU-FT-817 Ultra Compact Transceiver that transmits from 70 cm to 160 meters in wave length.  It covers 95% of the ham radio bands.  The little red box in the clip is a linear amplifier.  It takes the 5 watts from the radio and increases the power of the radio to 300 watts.  After using it for about a half hour Bob talked with Belgium, the UK, Maine and Texas on a little, tiny antenna....all from our camp site among the palms.  What an exciting hobby!   And if there's ever an emergency and all phones are out, Bob can still communicate with his radio.  What a useful hobby!

I have other things to do...like riding the Legacy Bike Trail from one end to the other, making sure I said "Hi" to everyone I met...including a Florida Panther!  At the end of this post is a little movie that has a map of the trail.  The north end of the trail is little used...except for "highwaymen"... or cougars or mountain lions, as we call them out west.  He slunk across the trail without even a glance in my direction.  This is a great ride for seeing wildlife.  We also spent a bit of time investigating Osprey Lake for fish.   It was loaded with fish!.... fingerlings.

Oh, and of course we made the obligatory request for a camphost position.  This campground has more hosts per square foot than any park we've visited.  We found you have to work yourself in as a host at least a year in advance.

 

There were 4 hosts in a row in this section!  Pat and Tony are from Canada, near Ottawa, and got a camp hosting job much like we did.  They were at Bahia Honda when a couple couldn't get down to The Keys to host.  Pat had already been networking, so a volunteer coordinator recommended her.  Now she enjoys Oscar Scherer and The Keys while ignoring Canadian winters.

Emergency in the Florida Keys

 

Life is more than good at Bahia Honda..... for the mosquitoes.  We just completed our emergency evacuation.   This chair is in our "back yard" breeding ground at the Volunteers' RV parking. The camper in #20 emailed me today (Oct 28th) about their emergency evacuation, after vicious mosquito attacks. And we were informed of at least one other camper who had to get medical attention for their bites. Hurricane Rina is now a tropical storm, which chose The Keys as its dumping grounds for the moisture it's been scooping up in The Gulf. At first a lake rising around us was rather a novelty. Our neighbor, John, just got out his kayak to mock the flood. But then the police boat SANK, Buttonwood Campground vanished under water, and our RV sank ever deeper in the sodden mess.

The brown waters of the campground made islands of the restrooms.  The campers were very brave.  Here's Volunteer Andrew strolling in our front yard.  And the last pictures are of park rangers saving the police boat. 

So...what does one do?  There are better things to do with a life than offer your body as mosquito bait and live trapped in an RV to escape the bugs, mud and weather.  Let's go on an adventure!  We really are in Florida, and our youngest son and his darling family are in Orlando.  Where should we flee?    (2B continued....)