This is just a note to say hello again and I'm doing OK. I haven't posted anything in the past week or more for a couple reasons.

The first reason is the most important one. My internet and DSL connection has been spotty lately. I've had about 80 to 100 cut-offs over the past three weeks, where the DSL cuts off (and the internet along with it), and this is after I've had at least 7 tech visits -- to my house, the pedestal outside, and even the main pedestal in the middle of the neighborhood -- over the past 2-3 years.

The techs will sometimes try to install a new connector in my house's junction box, and claim it will solve the problems, because it has 'filters' in it. It doesn't fix anything. The company's AI bot / customer service reps will try to troubleshoot the line from their end -- it never fixes anything. Even a new drop line from the pole and pedestal outside to my house didn't improve anything for longer than a month.

The issue seems to be the phone company's infrastructure is decaying, and they aren't doing enough to keep it in good repair. The fact that much of their wiring is underground, and impossible to service, probably doesn't help. But I have friends who have cable and their internet connection also cuts off from time to time. Not as much as what I'm seeing, though.

I suppose 5G wireless is the only way to go?

Meanwhile, the pricing for my internet services has gone up by over 50 percent in the past 10 years, while the services I pay for have nosedived. I started getting outages right after the Pandemic hit, and it only got worse after that. I have written about this in blog articles before -- it's just that over the past month it's to the point that it's almost impossible to use the internet for longer than 15 minutes to an hour without it cutting off again.

So I'm going to be changing internet service providers over the next couple of weeks. I don't really have any faith in internet providers, being that my experience with internet companies has been so abysmal. But we'll see.

But when you have internet cut-offs and slowdowns, it doesn't make it easy to publish a blog, shop online, or do other things that have become necessary for modern day living.

NUCLEAR WINTER SHORTWAVE RADIO CONDITIONS

Otherwise, life has been fairly normal. The ionosphere appears to have entered Solar Minimum mode, being that the SW bands have been mostly dead here where I live. I know that in the Eastern section of the US and Canada there still is some SW activity, but here in the NW and regions north of 47 Degrees latitude it's already Solar Minimum. 

This morning when I tuned every SWBC and HF ham radio band they were all dead, dead, dead, except for two weak conversations on 17 Meters and a couple SW stations that were barely readable in the 31 and 21 Meter band (Marti, Radyo Pilipinas, North Korea, and CNR-1). 40, 20, 41, 25, 19, 15, 12 and 10 Meters were all dead.

That's the shakes, though. I am going to rig up a longer antenna, and I will run it outdoors, and see if that helps. My indoor antenna worked great during the early 2010's, and it was working well during the 'Peak' SW conditions in Summer and Fall of 2024, when I was hearing bicycle ham radio guys from Blackpool, UK and hams from the Orkneys, Pitcairn, Rarotonga, and similar places.

So it's not my antenna that is the issue. The ionosphere is fading. It is what it is.

My health is OK, my cat is doing OK. The weather is getting better. It's 75 degrees F outside right now. The trees are late, of course. They always used to be green by April 5th. Now they're just starting to bud in the hills. They'll probably be two weeks late, as it's been since 2018. Whether this is related to the reduced solar activity since the 1990's is a good question. It's probably due to other, meteorological factors.

But I'm still alive and kicking. I'm still playing the bagpipes, nearly every day. I still ride my bike at night, or in early mornings. I still work out with weights most days.

Life goes on.

Until next time, my friends.

Peace.

C.C., April 6th, 2026.