Jesus Plaque

This is a picture that I did way back in 2005 when I first started to do scroll work. I gave it to family members but eventually, it came back to me. 

Anniversary Plaque

Last June 16 me and my wife Desiree celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary. So I made this little plaque for her. The wood in the background is Purpleheart and that is its natural color, the foreground wood is oak. 

Rose Rock of Oklahoma

 I feel very lucky that I was born and raised in the U.S. state of Oklahoma. Mile for mile it is one of the most diverse areas for its size in the world. South-East Oklahoma you have humidity, rain, mountains, rivers, and lakes. Walk along a river's edge or a creek and you can find bamboo growing, we call it cane and it makes some great fishing poles. In the heat of the day you can jump in the river and swim with alligator gar and American alligators. Go up to the Northwest part, the panhandle, a.k.a. no-mans land, is flatter than a calm lake. It gets hot and cold, lot of ice storms and out west you can climb the mesas. Hike u Black Mesa, the state's highest point and you will be gifted with the site of 5 states, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico, Colorado, and Kansas. Oklahoma is home to the Great Salt Planes and Little Saraha State Park. To best describe Oklahoma listen to this song by Oklahoma native Vince Gill, which he wrote for Oklahoma's Centennial celebration in 2007. 

One of the most unique things about Oklahoma is the  Rose Rock 

The Rose Rock is a naturally forming rock shape that is found only in Oklahoma and the mighty Sarah Desert of Africa. As you can see by the picture above it is a very unique shape for a rock. The current theory is that they were formed over 200 million years ago when a shallow sea existed over what is now Oklahoma. To me the formation of rose rocks is simple. God wanted to make a rock that looked like a rose and so there was. The rose rock is the official rock of Oklahoma. Isn't that cool!

My mom loved all things rose. She even liked Texas because of the Yellow Rose of Texas. Well no one is perfect and I forgave her for that deviance. When she had her farm in Choctaw, OK she had a really nice rose garden. That is where the majority of the garden stuff in the Rose Rock Observatory came from.  Unfortunately, I do not have any of her roses, but I have two aunts that do and they are working on getting me some cuttings. 

To go with her rose garden she also collected rose rocks. When she passed I inherited her collection of rose rocks. It is from her collection that the Rose Rock Observatory was built around. 

It still hurts me badly that I can't pick up the phone and talk to my mom. I miss her a lot. I am very lucky that when I am missing her, I can go out to her rose rocks, her other plants, and her statuary and it makes me feel better. Yeah, she is still watching over me.  

I miss you mom

For Mom- 1952-2021

Email Me Aaron@K5ATG.com

Painted Rock

 There isn't much of a nightlife on Ascension Island, there isn't much of a social life on Ascension Island. People live there but that is about it. However, they do have a pretty cool tradition with a rock that has been named Lizard Rock.

The tradition goes that if you are to go out on the night before you leave and throw some paint on Lizard Rock, then you will never ever return to Ascension Island. It sounds kind of odd that the biggest tradition for the island is a ritual that once performed will make sure that you never return. Guess they are not big on repeat business. So that is where I blatantly stole the idea. 

I decided to change it up a bit. The last few years have been devastating to this planet. COVID has taken so many of the loved ones that all of us Earthicans are wailing out in sorrow. In the past few years, I have lost:

My mother

an Aunt who was like a mother

2 uncles who were like fathers

A nice

Our time on this rock is limited. So here is how I changed up the tradition of the Lizard Rock and the goal is to make it more loving. When a person's birthday comes up they can pick any color of paint that they wish and paint the rock with it. By doing so you are saying "Hey I'm gonna paint this little rock for my birthday but by putting my layer of paint on it, I'm saying that I will do everything that I can to come and put another layer on it next year" People will come and go but the layers of paint that they put on this rock will last far beyond the years of a lifetime. 

So let me introduce the famous Painted Rock of the Rose Rock Observatory!

I sprayed a little bit of blue spray paint on it because I did all of the work and I wanted to start the tradition. So if your birthday is coming up feel free to stop by and add your paint to the rock. This is not limited to just birthdays, any special event will work. 

Any comments are welcome and as always feel free to email me at Aaron@K5ATG.com

'72

Aaron K5ATG

Product Review- Microphone Flag

I found a good little deal and decided to splurge and get a little bit of bling for my ham shack. If you live in the modern world, and you should or you wouldn't be reading this blog on the internet, then you have seen these little microphone flags. These are usually little plastic boxes, they do come in different shapes, and display a logo, typically a TV network and such. This is something that I looked into but the usual price is $100 and up, I learned to live with the possibility of never getting one with my callsign on it.    

Then one day I was cruising around aliexpress and came across this amazing seller, Blue Mantis 01 Store They offered a custom microphone flag for less than $15. You send them an image when you make your purchase and a day or two later you get an email showing your new microphone flag. They do this for you to confirm how it turned out and if you like it or not. 

I was not expecting this kind of customer service for a product that had such a low cost. Let me tell you that after getting this microphone flag in my own hands, it may have a low price, but it is not cheap. The K5ATG logo that is on the microphone flag is one that I made up myself., the finished logo is a full-color sticker that was professionally printed. The colors on the logo matched the colors displayed in Microsoft Paint where I made the logo.  The plastic that makes the main body is a hefty 2 mm thick. 

As you can see in the photo above, the interior foam that protects the microphone from coming into contact with the body of the flag is a pretty dense foam but it is not dense enough to put unwanted pressure on the microphone. 

I'm really impressed with the quality of this microphone flag. I will be giving Blue Mantis 01 Store my future business. 

Once again feel free to leave any comments that you have in the comments section below or you my email me at Aaron@K5ATG.com

Lose the hate, Love all

'72

Aaron K5ATG

Rose Rock Observatory

In case you are just now getting to know my greatness 🤣 I truly enjoy the subject of astronomy. In 2007 I got my dream telescope, a 12" Dobsonian telescope. I used this scope so much that my wife named it "The Other Woman" because if I wasn't spending the night with my wife, then I must be with The Other Woman. Every weekend that didn't have a full Moon, you could find me half-frozen in a cow pasture somewhere in Western or Northern Oklahoma exploring the universe. The size of my Silverado was picked so that it would have enough room in the bed to haul around The Other Woman. 

Fast forward to today and I still have the Other Woman and I still have the Silverado. However because of my back,  can no longer drive, and I can't haul the Other Woman to enjoy celestial adventures under a star-filled night. Instead, she has to experience the challenge of seeking the stars in a light-polluted suburban sky that is just seven miles distant from the skyscrapers of downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. 

Like most amateur astronomers, I have dreams of having my own backyard observatory. Actually, the ultimate dream is to build a 10'X10' roll-off roof observatory that has a 10'X10' warm room. The warm room will be pretty much a man cave for me and my son Dakota. There are a few things preventing me from this. One of course is money and two is I have three of the most evil pecan trees in the known universe. My backyard is 60'X90' and the pecan trees shade about 80% of it. So that leaves me with a patch of sky that is about 30 degrees wide east to west and 90 degrees north to south. So as the saying goes, when life gives you a lemon, you bean somebody in the head with it, or something like that. 

Then in 2021, my mother passed away. It was somewhat expected but it hurt me a lot. Now all of my parents are got, my mother, my father, two step-dads, and my mom's long-term boyfriend who saw me as his own when he didn't have to. My mom really loved her flower and rose gardens. When she passed I was blessed with some of her flowers and roses along with some of her garden statuary. Hidden among some of the overgrown flowerpots was her collection of Rose Rocks. 

After I and my bride Desi bought our house in 2003 (It is hard to believe that we have been here for 20 years and we have just 10 more years left on the mortgage! )  I got myself into gardening and landscaping. Oh yeah, I had this really awesome backyard. I had a 10X20 foot goldfish pond which had underwater lighting and featured a four-tiered waterfall. Behind each tier of the waterfall were a light and an echo chamber that slightly magnified the waterfall's sound. It wasn't annoyingly loud like a politician during campaign season, but you could hear it softly in the background all over the backyard. Many wonderful hours were enjoyed sitting there reading and napping to the sound of the waterfall. Soaking in the sight of the flowers of the lily pads. During the thousands of tadpoles enjoyed swimming with the goldfish. 

Then my back grew into some really bad shape. I could no longer do the maintenance on my pond my days of building and maintaining my flowerbeds were over. Since I no longer could do those things that I love, I took up growing bonsai trees to satisfy my desire for gardening. By 2022 my once beautiful pond ad filled up with leaves from those vile pecan trees and the goldfish and tadpoles had disappeared. It became both an eyesore and a health hazard. I was limping around the backyard looking at my bonsai trees and my mom's flowers. I was missing my mom pretty bad. I still do to this day and I will until I become a silent key (In the world of amateur radio when a radio operator passes away, they become a silent key.) I wandered over to the rotting carcass that was once a magnificent pond wishing that I could restore it to its former glory. Sadly the 15'X30' pond liner was full of holes. Its days of retaining water had long since passed. Then somehow an idea formed in the vast empty expanse of real estate that has its address of being between my ear drums. The pond liner could no longer work as a pond liner for it was full of holes. However, it could have a second life as a really big weed blocker. 

It took me about three months to clean out the debris that had filled up the pond over the years. Before I hurt my back I could have done it in a few hours. Now I could get one shovel full of junk then have to go lay down for a couple of hours to recover. It was a really painful process. 

Eventually, I got the liner out and cleaned it up as best as I could. 

Here is the idea. I would make a garden that measured 15 feet wide and 30 feet long. That size was determined because it is the size of the pond liner. It would be divided in half into 2 parts each 15'X15'. The western half is to be the garden area. This will display my bonsai trees and my mom's flowers and such. The eastern half would become an open-air observatory.  Throughout 2022 I worked on it as best as I could. 

In the photo above you can see the garden/ observatory at its full length. The near end is where the majority of flowers and bonsai will be displayed. The "mulch" that is covering the pond liner is nothing more than shredded leaves.  I would like to get proper mulch but finances will not allow it. The city of Midwest City will give me a tree truckload of much for free. It is the mulch that the city gets when they shred the limbs and trees that they acquire from damaged trees and such when a storm rolls through. The city doing this actually saves hundreds of tons of tree limbs and such from going into the landfill every year. I do wonder why the city ends up with tons and tons of free mulch yet they turn around and spend tax dollars to buy mulch for their own landscaping. Ok, I'm not going to get started on the city. Let's move on, shall we? 

This is a little garden bench that we made. The red landscape blocks are from my mom's rose garden that she had at her farm out in Choctaw, Oklahoma. The big red rock was from my sister Tammy's house when she lived in Del City, OK. My son Dakota and his friend Jace put it all together for me. Thanks, everyone for the materials and muscle power for this garden bench. I would like to get the top of the bench flattened to make it more comfortable but I don't know how to do that. 

Of course, you have to display the most beautifully designed flag in history. The flag pole is something that I got off the internet and it turns to allow the flag to rotate for the wind. You can just see one at the lower left corner of the picture, but I have two solar-powered garden walkway lights aimed up at the flag so that it is lit up at night as proper flag etiquette demands.  

Here is the little bench that displays some of my bonsai trees. The garden statues are from my mom, so I am really proud to have them. 

This is the far eastern end of the observatory garden. At this end, I will put some sort of pad so I will have something solid to put my telescope on. 

Not pictured yet are the rose rocks. My mom collected rose rocks and I was lucky enough to get her collection. I'm working on a way to display them in the garden. Another item is the Painted Rock. It is just a simple rock that is in its own little bed. The idea is that when someone has a birthday, then they can get some paint of any color that they want and dump it on the rock. Over time the layers of people will build up. 

Well, that is all for now, feel free to leave any comments in the comments section below. You may reach me at Aaron@K5ATG.com 

Lose hate, Love all

'72

Aaron K5ATG

CPB S160 Silicone Soldering Mat Kit

 In the future, I would like to develop new skills and experience in making and repairing electronics.  Since I like to keep my workspace as organized as I can I decided to invest in something that would help with that. This is eventually what I came up with. 

This is an ESD (Electro Static Discharge) 17.8" X 11.8" high temp soldering mat. As you can see it has several storage compartments built in so that you have a convenient place to store tools and parts. You can check it out right here: CPB S160 Silicone Soldering Mat Kit. I paid $18 for it and it arrived on my doorstep the next afternoon. 

The soldering mat came with three pairs of tweezers so that you can get in and handle small parts like SMT components. In the not-too-distant future I plan on learning to work with tiny SMT parts so I am sure that these tweezers will defentally come in handy.   

An ESD bracelet came with the mat so that you will have a smaller chance at zapping your electronics with a static discharge. I have destroyed a couple of parts this way so I know first hand that you need to be careful. You don't want to let the magic smoke out of your parts. 

 

In the center of the mat is a nice flat area to work on your PSB projects. Here is an LPF and BPF for a uSDX SOTA Quad Band QRP Transceiver. Someday this will be creating some RF at a park near me. I might even do a POTA (Patio On The Air) activation or two with it. The future has yet to be written.  

Along the right side of the mat are several compartments that were molded in. There is three build in magnets to help you keep track of those screws that like to wonder around. 

Across the top is a large compartment that is just large enough to hold a few tools. The small holes across the top are for your precision screwdrivers. Just pop the tip in one of the holes and those important screwdrivers are always within easy reach and organized so that you don't have to look at all f your screwdrivers to find the one that you need. 

As you can see there are many compartments to keep you organized. There are places to keep all of the screws and tiny parts for the project that you are making. The mat turned out to be a bit thicker than I thought that it would be. In the top left corner, there are three part boxes with lids on them. The pic that I took there turned out to be very blurry, but I'm sure that I will show them in future projects. This mat is supposed to be heat resistant enough that you can hold a lighter to it and it will do no harm. Forgive me for not doing that, I don't want to burn a hole in a nice soldering mat. Just don't have the funds to destroy something just to test it. 

I give this mat a solid 5 stars. For the price, it is of good quality and you also get the ESD bracelet and the tweezers. I would recommend this to a friend which is what I am doing with this post. If you get one for yourself, tell me your thoughts about it. 

Drop a comment in the comment section below or email me at Aaron@K5ATG. 

Be Safe

72

Aaron K5ATG

April 19 2023 Tornadoes

 On 19 April 2023, Oklahoma was hit by yet another tragedy on that hallowed date. A series of supercell thunderstorms formed in southwestern Oklahoma and wreaked havoc as they moved northeast across the state. A total of 12 tornados have been confirmed that caused damage in the following cities/ towns:

• Cole
• Shawnee
• Tinker Air Force Base
• Etowah
• Pink
• Bethel Acres
• McLoud

A map of the paths that the different tornados took. 

The city of Shawnee and the town of Cole were hit the hardest and unfortunately, we lost three lives in Cole. At the time of this post the largest tornado is estimated to be an EF5. 

Damage at Oklahoma Baptist  University

What is left of the Shawnee High School Gym

Supercell forming over Oklahoma University in Norman

When tragedies strike you usually see catchy hashtags like #Boston Strong, #Paris Strong, and #Vegas Strong. That is a great way to show support for those affected by tragedy. In Oklahoma, it is called the Oklahoma Standard. I guess that you could say that it started on 22 April 1889, but it was not given a name until 19 April 1995 with the Oklahoma City Bombing. It isn't just the show of support but it is the overwhelming show of support. Where people will gladly stand in line for 12 hours to donate blood or a reporter notices that a search dog has a minor cut on its foot and within hours tens of thousands of dog bootys are donated. Oklahoma is a harsh environment. We can have blizzards in the winter and months of triple-digit temps in the summer. Our weather to say the least can be extreme. February 2011 in Nowata drives this point home. 10 February 2011 Nowata recorded a temperature of -31 degrees and 15 inches of snow on the ground. Just seven days later on 17 Feb Nowata reached 79 degrees. That is 110 degrees in just 7 days. When has that happened where you live? From wildfires to drought, floods and hailstorms, dust storms to microbursts, we have it all. Over the years we have learned time and time again that if we don't stand together we don't stand at all. 

With my neighbors recovering from our most recent storms I feel as though I have let my people down. I got my amateur radio license in April 2013. Wow has it been 10 years already? The following month, May of 2013 Oklahoma was once again struck by tornadoes, including the Newcastle-Moore Tornado that took out two elementary schools and took the lives of 7 children and a few days later the El Reno Tornado which had a base of 2.6 miles and was the largest tornado on record (The El Reno tornado was classified by its 300 mph wind speed as being an EF5 but because it hit farm fields and struck very few buildings it was downgraded to an EF3) The path of the El Reno tornado could be seen from the International Space Station

After the May 2013 storms, I would work my normal 12-hour shift and then I would go to different areas like Bridgecreek, Moore, Newcastle, El Reno, and Shawnee and operate radios for several more hours. This went on for several weeks. Now due to my back issues, I can't go help out at all. So if you are in good health then savor and appreciate it for one day it could all be taken from you.

My heart, thoughts, and prayers are with all of those affected by the recent storms. To learn how you can help please visit: American Red Cross Tornado Relief Also anyone anywhere can text REDCROSS to 90999 to donate $10 to Red Cross Disaster Relief which helps people affected by disasters of all types including this week's Oklahoma tornados. 

As always you can leave any thoughts or comments in the comments section below or you may contact me directly at Aaron@K5ATG.com

72

Aaron K5ATG

Oklahoma from fence parts

A while back my neighbors had this dog that would not tolerate the wooden privacy fence that was between our properties. Every time I went out to the back yard that dog would just start tearing up the fence so that he could see me better. It seemed like every day the neighbor was removing the fence parts that the dog broke and was putting up new boards. I went up to the neighbor and asked if he would just toss the broken fence boards over to my side of the fence instead of tossing them in the trash. With the broken fence parts that he gave me I was able to make the great state of Oklahoma. 

It is not to scale and it is not meant to be. I just laid it all out freehand. As always feel free to leave me any comments in the comments section below. Don't forget to follow so that you may receive notices when I add more to this blog. You may contact me at Aaron@K5ATG.com

'72

Aaron K5ATG

Aaron the Great

    My callsign is K5ATG and I feel that I have an interesting and fun little story behind it. Way back in the 1990's my wife and I was walking around a mall just chilling and getting out of the house for a bit. At the time you could not walk five feet without someone asking you to fill out a survey. There was this one guy that just would not leave us alone. He was about as fun as a splinter in the eye. My concern was that I did not want the company that was doing the survey giving out my information.  The last time I had filled out a survey, my mailbox was filled up daily by Fingerhut catalogs, remember Fingerhut? This guy guaranteed that his company would never ever commit a such dastardly and evil act. 

    My wife who is much more tolerant of people than I am finally gave in and had me fill out the stinking survey. I don't even remember what the survey was even about. Probably about how do I feel about some jabroni bugging me about filling out a survey. The 1990s had a lot of crap about expressing your feelings and such. Anyway since I was told by my wife to feel out the survey, I decided to express my feelings in a subtle way. I filled out the survey, however, in the name part I put my name as Aaron The Great. I showed my wife but the survey guy never caught on. 

    About a month later I was watching tv and my wife came in and threw several envelopes at me. She did not know if she should yell at me about it, or laugh her but off. Every one of the envelopes was addressed to Aaron the Great. That was proof that the jabroni's company gave out my info because that was the only time that I used that name. The next few months I was getting everything from address labels to credit card offers for Aaron the Great. At least I thought that it was some funny stuff. Here was are nearly 30 years later I still get stuff in the mail for Aaron the Great. 

    In 2013 I got my amateur radio technician license and my FCC-issued call sign was KF5VBV. A year later I upgraded to general class and threw my luck into the wind and checked the little box on my license application for a new random callsign. My luck ran out as I was given the call sign KG5EYK. It was not a very good call sign in my book. So I decided to get myself a vanity call. A lot of the ones that I tried to get were already taken. I was discussing it with my family and someone said try K5ATG for Aaron the Great. So I checked it and no one was using it, it was easy to say and remember and it had a nice story behind it. So I became Aaron the Great. 

    As always you can leave any comments in the comments section below or you can contact me directly at Aaron@K5ATG.com 

 72/73

Aaron K5ATG