follow that qar!

fyee-byoh (how would you say it?) fee-bee-o (is RTP's any easier?) rreeBEEa  (why not? it's sibley) Alder Flycatcher singing from the wet spot a few hundred feet to the west of the deck late this afternoon. Ten years to the day since the first one heard here. Just a dozen "in the yard" all that time, with none in '02, '07, or '08, but otherwise reasonably predictable: 5/27 X 5/28 XX 5/29 XXX 5/30 5/31 X 6/01 6/02 6/03 XX .. 6/11 X 6/13 X 7/04 X Always a pleasure.

A pass. Bikes. S is for stegosaurus. Red-bellied woodpecker. Tuna. Locomotion. Selected timeworn beach stones. Sup. Tick. Night.

With 37 sounds and 4 tones, Mandarin is beyond my imminent learning, but I have this start: Xi Wàng (to hope, to wish for, to desire). Hope OSCAR 68 is the designated name for XW-1, the Chinese satellite that launched December 14 and soon began supporting communications by amateur radio. The first North American pass with the FM transponder activated was immensely crowded, hampering almost everyone's ability to make a contact or upload a packet. Mostly I listened to chaos. Occasionally, I would transmit a partial syllable and quickly determine I was having no luck with low power and an indoor Arrow antenna. A day or two later, I managed to get in "1AIA" while the satellite was coming over from the north, prompting a persistent KC9ELU to try an exchange . But no go. Finally, on January first, I made my first HO-68 contact. KB2M. I followed that one with three more before the bird slipped below my radio horizon. Welcome, 2010! Thanks and congratulations to AMSAT-...