Personal Log 10.24.20

Among the myriad of things & events that I've been involved w/ these last 6 weeks I've managed to spend some time (usually very late night/early morning) editing songs for some CD releases in the near future.

The more I progress in these projects the more I want them to be about other people & drawing their gifts & talents out; you might say I'm heading in the direction of music producer over music performer. My heart lies squarely in helping other people develop their talents & confidence. So I've been pretty focused in getting as much done as I can get done…

Anyway (& completely unrelated), last night I had just crawled into bed after an exhausting editing session & was mentally sketching out some ideas for a CB radio ministry in my area. As I shared before, I feel led to get back into amateur radio & use it for the Kingdom. The past couple of months have been rather quiet on CB here in SW MI w/ the sole exception of hearing the occasional trucker colorfully broadcast the driving habits of those around them...

A funny thing happened this morning though; I was completely worn out when I woke up but I just felt in my spirit to turn on my CB, so I grabbed my Uniden PRO401HH handheld & went outside where I discovered something that I had completely forgotten about: skip.

For those unaware, skip is this (from cbradiomagazine) = skip (or DX) is a name we use to describe atmospheric conditions that allow for radio transmissions to travel long distances. These conditions can bounce signals from state to state or even from country to country. ... Skip is a big part of the CB radio hobby and there are tens of thousands of operators across the U.S.  

I think it has something to do w/ solar cycles but skip can last a few minutes or a few hours, perhaps even days but this morning skip was happening & my handheld CB came alive. Virtually every single channel had people on it: I heard a couple of guys broadcasting out of Orlando, FL & it was like they were a block away… there was another guy saying, “Vote for Joe! Vote for Joe!”… another conversation between two men in Kansas regarding plywood… a conversation in Spanish… some Cajun guys in Louisiana talking about “something”…  a guy in Minnesota talking about fishing early that morning & what kind of Winter they're expecting… & lastly one guy simply repeating the words, “yellow, yellow, yellow, yellow” over & again, that was kinda weird… 

It was the most entertaining hour I've had in quite some time.

I finally went back inside because the skip was drifting, I was hungry & it was cold but it was such a great experience hearing that cross section of America. After this morning, I now know that CB radio is in no way, shape or form, dead. It may not be that active in my area (yet) but I think that's about to change.