It’s been a week, since I got on the air. I’ve stumbled through a couple QSOs during the week, and there’s still a lot I have to learn. I got my Alinco rig set up and running. Although, I am a little worried about the audio equipment in my apartment and neighboring apartments, since when I powered it up for the first time, I left my desktop speakers powered on and they screeched loudly with noise when I tried to transmit. I’ve since moved my antenna, however there is a hiss when I transmit. I’m not too worried about damaging anything since I moved the antenna, but I hope I’m not annoying anyone around me.

Last night was the first night of Winter Carnival here at Michigan Tech. While my friends and I were busy away building an 8 ft Companion Cube snow sculpture, a number of us were carrying our handy talkies. And with three feet to go in the mold, a friend of mine stops the operation announcing that he cannot find his radio. I pulled out mine and sent out a test message over a local repeater he was last tuned into. And we mix of relief and concern, when a slight sound could be heard coming from beneath the snow. I kept transmitting for a little while to help out, and after some digging, the radio was recovered.