Took this magical thing out camping with me a few weeks ago. Did as it was supposed to do during the 10 degree mornings without any issues, nice and hot!
And here’s a bonus pic of what I use to make the go-juice happen. Nothing fancy, and just works.
Time for some new gear. I found this little wonder about a month ago while investigating some options for making go-juice in the field.
It is similar to the standard pour-over coffee solutions that are out there, but it channels all of the hot water into a small perforated cup containing the coffee grounds. Thereby (in theory anyways) making the coffee stronger than what the other pour-over setups can produce. It also has the added benefit of coming apart and fitting inside a GSI Infinity mug.
And yes, I’ve found it to make a stronger cup of coffee, but with one major flaw.
All that space where the top of the cup and the bottom of the rocket meet allows for cooler air to get in and cool the coffee down quite a bit before it hits the bottom of the cup, resulting in some cold coffee! While I do hate boiling hot coffee, I still prefer it to be quite warm while drinking it. I’m planning on using this during the colder months, and if it can’t keep up with the air temperature of an air-conditioned apartment, it definitely won’t be able to hold up to the cooler outside air during the autumn and winter months.
I found a cheap solution to this issue. The top of the mug will fit the lid from a cream cheese container, with the lid being slightly wider than the cup. I cut a hole in the lid just a bit larger than the coffee pod on the Rocket. This allows the pod to sit in the cup, but not for the heat from the coffee to escape while waiting for the full drip to complete (which is usually a few minutes). Works like a charm and takes up a negligible amount of extra space in my camp kitchen setup.
I managed to find a smaller lid from a Starfucks cup I had kicking around with a straw cutout which also sits perfectly on top of the Rockets water reservoir and allows the snorkel to still do its thing. This allows for even more heat to be retained.
I’ll be fielding this during my usual autumn excursions coming up and will provide an update on this, should one be required.
Over the summer I had the chance to go camping on Main Duck Island in Lake Ontario. The place is rather inaccessible, unless you have a boat. Luckily, I do know someone who has a boat.
The trip out to the island was fun. I normally don’t get seasick, but I had a very light brunch before we departed and the choppiness of the lake didn’t play nicely with that. There was some talk about diverting to a closer island because of me tightly holding onto the bucket, but I told the skipper to keep on going. No point in turning back half-way to our destination.
We made it and I quickly got off the boat and kissed dry land (clearly I’m no sailor). We were told the island is a busy place most of the time, but when we pulled up to the dock there were no other ships in sight. We set up camp on some high ground near the dock.
We spent the next 2.5 days on the island, exploring what it had to offer. The island used to be settled for a time with a lighthouse, school, some homes and various other buildings. The lighthouse remains but is automated. Not much else exists except a few abandoned buildings and ruins.
I also brought an HT with me as well as my Arrow II beam to see what repeaters I could successfully hit from the island. Some good contacts were made across a number of repeaters. My Yaesu FT-70D was programmed with a list of repeaters that fall within 80km of the island. The results of my testing are below:
Near Lighthouse:
West Side of Island:
East Side of Island
The furthest repeater I was able to connect to was VA3LGA in Lansdowne, ON which, from the lighthouse at the northern tip of the island, is ~72 kilometers. Granted, this is mainly over open water, but has been my furthest VHF contact to date, excluding any packet connections to the ISS in orbit.
I had originally planned to see if I could do some satellite operations from the island too, but I had forgotten to load my UV-5R into my bag when we departed for Kingston.
All-in-all it was a nice and relaxing experience with some good testing thrown in. I am hoping to get back out there again next year with more transmitting capabilities.
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