Category: default || By jt3y

Now, in a special investigative report you'll see only at Tube City Almanac (mainly because it's not all that investigative or special), our crack research team has determined that PittGirl, author of the popular Burgh Blog, is from the Mon-Yough area ... in fact, PittGirl is actually "NorwinGirl"!

(SFX: Needle scrapes across record in jukebox.)

The signs have been there all along. Her fascination with Westmoreland County police blotters. Her trips to the Giant Eagle on Route 30. Her references to living "16 miles from downtown."

Lately there have also been several mentions of the Homestead High-Level (OK, the "Homestead Grays") Bridge. Your Honor, we all know that no one who's a native of the Mon-Yough area uses the Parkway East if they don't have to. I'd like to introduce as Exhibit A this report from Google Maps which indicates the distance from Pittsburgh's City-County Building to the North Huntingdon Town House.

Note that "16 miles" from the City-County Building puts us in the vicinity of Penn-Lincoln Memorial Park, across from the former Hi-Way Tux Shop.

(SFX: Gasps of amazement. A woman in the gallery screams.)

Now, ladies and gentlemen of the jury, I submit Exhibit B --- last week's photo of the sign outside Berks ("Berks! Berks!") Mens' Wear in Norwin Shopping Center.

I say that PittGirl is a Trib-subscribin', Kerber-Dairy-ice-cream-eatin' kind of lady who knows how to get from Markvue Manor to Harrison City without using Route 30.

I suppose there's a chance she's also Penn-Trafford Girl or even Hempfield Girl ... maybe Murrysville Girl ... but Dr. Pica Pole, director of the Tube City Online Research Laboratory, says there's a "74 percent probability" that PittGirl is from North Huntingdon or Irwin. (There's a "100 percent probability" that I just made that up.)

Join us, PittGirl. You know that underneath your worldly and street-smart exterior, there's a big-haired girl who wants to drink iced tea from the carton and walk around the Mon Valley wearing stone-washed jeans with high heels.

Off-stage, I can hear the other freaks shouting "One! Of! Us! One! Of! Us!"

. . .

P.S.: Did anyone else notice that thing started out as an "investigative report," segued into a courtroom scene, and wound up as a bad horror movie? Talk about your hack writing.

. . .

Dot's Not All: At the invitation of Alert Reader Bill, on Saturday afternoon I visited White Oak Park, which is along the border with (crashing piano chord) North Huntingdon! That's where McKeesport-based Two Rivers Amateur Radio Club was holding its Field Day festivities.

Sponsored each year by the American Radio Relay League and other amateur radio groups from around the world, Field Day is a test to see whether local clubs and other "hams" are capable of getting on the air and staying in communication in the event of a major catastrophic emergency.

Along with a portable power plant loaned by AT&T (Cingular Wireless) and members' tents, camping equipment, and portable antennas the club had established a successful base within a few hours Saturday morning near the water tower on Carpenter Lane and was operating on four different radio wavelengths. One member was making better than one contact per minute with operators in the U.S. and Canada.

There's a perception that hams are all laboriously clicking out messages in Morse code on telegraph keys with antique radios. Several Two Rivers operators were using Morse on Saturday, but mainly to conserve bandwidth and to punch through atmospheric noise --- code has a way of cutting through the static.

Otherwise, the Field Day set-ups were modern, using computer-controlled receivers and loggers and digital signal processing.

Special thanks to Vickie Petrulis, N3XBX, and Chuck Gessner, KC3ET, for their hospitality; if you're interested in amateur radio, the club meets the third Tuesday of each month, except August and December, at McKeesport Area High School on Eden Park Boulevard.

. . .

Stay Tuned: I should have said "most hams" are using modern equipment. I'm using junk. I was talking to someone from the club using the rig in my car when the microphone crapped out in mid-sentence. That's embarrassing, to say the least.

When I got home, I got about 100 feet of steel bailing wire and strung a simple antenna from the back porch to the end of my property line. Then I connected a couple of old 1970s-vintage shortwave receivers and listened into Field Day activities for a while. Total cost of the receiving set-up: About $10.

Well, it was like trying to catch butterflies with a bulldozer. I'll post a few audio excerpts for you tomorrow and you can see what I mean.