Cancel a reservation of Mt. Whitney Permit last night

As I mentioned yesterday, I canceled a reservation of overnight permit for Mt. Whitney on September 21 and 22.
I have been checking the availability.  However, I have not seen it was back to the reservation yet .... Or it might be gone already...

Anyway, I will prepare hiking to Mt. Whitney coming August this year.

Plan to cancel a reservation of Mt. Whitney overnight permit tonight!

I went camping this memorial day weekend and I did not have time to update the blog.
As I mentioned in the previous post, I plan to cancel a reservation of Mt. Whitney tonight some timer around midnight in pacific time (PDT/USA).

The reservation I currently have is September 21 to September 22.  It is an overnight permit.

I am not sure when it will be available on the reservation site.  Last year, I could not see it right after the cancellation and I was not sure when somebody took it or not.  But I just let the readers know a permit will be canceled tonight.

Smart hiking ~ optimize walking pace with heart rate (1)

Running device

Garmin fenix 3 HR

Optimize walking pace during hiking

I think I mentioned a couple times about pace management based on heart rate for hiking, especially mountains over 9,000 feet where many people start getting some symptom of high altitude sickness.  Some people knows I posted about this topic many times in my Japanese page.  I also published a kindle books to talk about this idea.

Here is the link to the book on Amazon in the United States.  Although this is in Japanese .....

Originally, I would translate the same contents as I wrote in the Japanese edition and publish it in English.  However, I decided re-organize and modify some contents for English edition.  It may take longer time to publish, but I believe the contents can be much better for readers.  As a promotion, I will start a series of posts about this topic on this blog as a project.

By the way, I plan to cancel one of my reservation for Mt. Whitney Trail in September early next week, probably late Tuesday night in PDT/USA.  I am not sure when the reservation date would back to the reservation site.  The date is September 21/22, 2018 overnight permit.  People who is looking for the permit, it is better to watch the reservation site to get the one.  Last year, I also did cancel a reservation, however, I could not tell when it came back to the reservation site.

Physical Health Checking ~ Colonoscopy

I am basically healthy and I usually did not see doctors except cases I got injury last a several years.  However I am over fifty years old now and I guess it might be a time to have physical health checking now.   Thus, last March, I saw my primary physician.

Colonoscopy

Colonoscopy is one of them.   Some people told me they also did colonoscopy and found some "tubular adenoma" which might turn into cancer.   Since insurance can cover this screening, I also took this screening last week.

Originally, the primary physician referred this the end of March.  However a date I can make an appointment earliest was May 8.   It seemed to be very popular and needed to wait some time.   Before screening, people needs to clear inside colon, they need to follow the instruction including restricted diet, such as no seeds, no vegetable skins, no red color foods / beverages.  A day before, people cannot eat any solid food at all and start drinking medication to clear colon.

Actually the most hard part is probably to drink the medication and water a day before and 5 hours before the procedure.   Then stool becomes thin yellow liquid after the second one.

The procedure itself is probably very easy and no pain at all.   It is not anesthesia, but using a  medication make people sleepy.  In my case, I fell into sleep completely and I did not remember at all.  Actually a doctor explained the summary after the procedure, but I did not remember at all.   I think that is the reason the hospital asks a driver take me home other than driving by myself.   In the United States, it is typical not stay hospital overnight for this procedure.  Therefore people need to go home after that.

The result was the doctor remove 6 polyps and 5 of them are "tubular adenoma" which may trun into cancer.   I am glad to have this screening!!   The doctor suggested to have another screening about 3 years from now.   According to the doctor, they are nothing wrong now, however, to minimize the risk of colon cancer, it is better to take them out.

That is my experience to share in this blog!  I guess it might be good to check this if you are older than 50 years old.

SDRplay RP1A ~ SDRuno

SDRuno

SDRuno

SDRuno is a software which is working with SDRplay and a PC will be a receiver.   The software can be download from a web site and it works on Windows.  I just tried this software on Windows 10 PC.  There are pre-configured setups for Amateur bands which are covered with SDRplay.   We can see entire each band in a single display to see if there is any signal in the band.   So we do not have to scan frequency to see if there is any station in a band.   This is pretty nice for me.

Antenna

 Since this is just a receiver, I just using a copper wire in a room as a temporary antenna to check each amateur band.  I cannot receive really weak signals, but I still can see some activities.   Due to sun-spot number is really low now.  Higher HF bands are really quiet.  I cannot see much activities on 20m / 15m and 10m.   I still see some activities on 40m and 80m with the temporary antenna.

I guess if I have a better antenna out side of my house, then I could hear more stations.  Probably, I will set a better antenna some time soon.

Since the current antenna is not very good one, therefore I only hear very strong signals which are probably coming from somewhere not far.  Even though, I think there could not be so many station I expected.   When I did amateur radio, there are so many stations on 40m band.

Anyway, this is really nice device to listen amateur bands, what each band looks like. 

Software Defined Radio (SDR) ~ SDRplay RSP1A

SDRplay RSP1A

Software Defined Radio (SDR)

A several weeks ago, I mentioned this in a posting.  Finally, I bought RSP1A.

After I resumed Amateur Radio, one of things I am really interested in is "Software Defined Radio".  This is really a new thing that did not exist when I was really actively doing Amateur Radio more than twenty years ago.   That days, a general coverage receiver was so expensive and I did not have one when I was student.  However this product is a little above USD $100 ($119.95 is my purchase price) and it will cover 1kHz to 2GHz with all mode (AM/FM/CW/SSB ...).  This is really reasonable price to play!

The basic idea is using A/D converter to sample RF signal to digital and all rest of signal processing is done by a computer (PC) through USB interface.  Then the PC will be a nice receiver.   Actually, many Amateur Radio from major vendors are using this technology nowadays.

Good to know what the other amateur bands look like 

Although I resumed amateur radio, I only have a cheap Chinese radio "BAOFENG" which only can cover FM on 2 m / 70 cm bands.   I do not hear many stations in my local area.  I just wonder if there are many stations in the other bands.   When I was active in Japan about 30 years ago, there are so many stations in any bands.  I really want to know which band would be better band to find out many stations here.   However to buy HF radio and set up a large antenna require a lot of money.  So that I want listen some bands before I actually setup them.  That is one of motivation.

The other interesting area is to see spectrum and water fall display with this.   Some of nice HF radio has this feature.  However all radio I tried in the past did not have such feature.  I am really interested in what it looks and how it works.  The software for this product has this feature.

I just got it.  So I will post something related this product!  I think it will be fun!

Garmin Forerunner 645

Forerunner 645

Forerunner645 is available!

I have not checked Garmin web site for a while and I found out Forerunner 645 is available. The price is USD $399.99.  The feature is probably between Forerunner 935 and 735.  Battery life is shorter than Forerunner 935.  Forerunner 645 is up to 7 days as a smart watch,  14 hours with GPS.

Overall, it is probably good enough for regular running and hiking purpose.   Major difference between 935 and 645 is "Training Stauts" and "Training Load" features that fenix 5 also has.

I have fenix 3 HR which does not have those features, but I do not believe they are really important features.  It is probably "nice to have" features.

Based on the price, price for Forerunner 735 is reduce to USD $349.99.  So 735 is attractive for price point of view. 

The other feature I found is this has "Garmin Pay".  It seems that it is a similar feature like "Apple Pay".  Garmin watch really becomes "smart watch" now.  For most of people, Apple watch might have more "nice feature", however for runners / hikers, I guess Garmin watch is probably better due to longer battery life.

For now, fenix 3 HR is probably good enough for me and I do not plan to replace any new product.  However, people who look for a GPS watch, it is probably worth to look around the new products.

Diet (weight loss) project (3) ~ weight trend

Weight Trend last 2 weeks

Weight Trend last 2 weeks

I have been measuring my weight for two weeks.   To keep a similar condition, I measure after dinner before training.

The weight on April 18 was 77.4 [kg] / 170.64 [lbs].  Then my weight on May 3 was 75.4 [kg] / 166.23 [lbs].  Overall the maximum weight during this period was  77.4 [kg] / 170.64 [lbs].   So I lost 2 [kg] / 4.41 [lbs].

What I ate is probably pretty consistent in this period and I ran 7 ~ 12 km / 4 ~ 7 miles every other days.  Other than that, I walked around 10,000 steps (average).

Based on this my life style, the trend is that I am still losing weight.  Therefore, I will continue to monitor the trend until it will saturating.

Finding from data

 On April 23, I went to a buffet for lunch and I ate too much.  The weight of the day was 77.0 [kg] / 169.76 [lbs].  A day before was 75.2 [kg] / 165.79 [lbs].  The day I skipped breakfast and that was probably the reason my weight is lower.   This data indicates, amount I ate is directly related to my weight.   After a few days, on April 27, my weight is 76.8 [kg] / 169.32 [lb].   It took a few days to back to normal.

The deep drops are a similar reason, it is just due to how much I ate.   That is really short term value.  However, overall trend is probably still dropping.

Stop running due to injury and colonoscopy next week

I probably got a minor injury on my left leg.  It is not really serious.  Therefore, I stopped running since April 30.  I may need another week to take a rest.  My weight might increase if I do not change how much I eat.  I am trying to reduce amount what I eat to see what happens.  Also, next Tuesday, May 8.  I will have colonoscopy and I won't be able to eat a day before.  So I guess my weight may decrease May 7 and May 8.

Mt. Whitney Permit 2018 ~ still available in Early / Late season

Mt. Whitney Trail in June

It seems that all available dates are gone except early / late season, in May, June and October.  The first 2 days, I still see some available date in July, August and September.  But after May 3rd, almost all summer time dates were booked.  Now the choice is either early or late season.  Or people may continue to check the reservation site to find out any cancellations.   If people do not mind to go to the visitor center to find out any permit in the last minutes cancellations.

Personally, early season is not too bad if people have a skill set to travel on snow.   I went there in June once, it was not bad at all.  The parking lot had enough space and the trail is relatively quiet.  During summer time, the parking lot is usually full and need to park on the road for most of times.  I also went there in October.  It was not too bad, either.   However that was before snowing.  I probably prefer early season since snow is probably stable and it might be easy to hike in my opinion.

Anyway, I made reservation for different weekends and I will going to cancel them later.  I only need one, but I am not sure which date is better for me.   I will make decision within a months and I will announce in my blog before cancel, probably a few days in advance.  I am not sure when the reservation is back to the site.  Last year, I canceled on of reservations, but I cannot see it was on the site.   It might be gone right away or might be back a couple days after....

Mt. Whitney Permit 2018 ~ It is not too late!

Night at Trail Camp

As I posted yesterday, there are many available dates on the reservation site.  I frequently checked site yesterday, it seemed many dates kept showing up including many weekend slots in July, August and September.   I reserved one of them yesterday.

As of this morning, 9:30am (PDT) on May 2,  I still see many available dates.  They are day permits and overnight permits.   I think there are more day permits than overnight permits.  Only problem I can see is that it is hard to book consecutive days especially on weekends.  Otherwise, there are still many open dates.

I am not sure how many dates are remain, but it is worth to watch the reservation site to find a good date for you.   Once you find out one, it is better to book right away.  They will be gone in a very short time especially weekends in summer time.

At least I got a permit for this season!

Mt. Whitney Permit ~ Unconfirmed reservations are back to the reservation site!

Chance to find out a permit!

Today is May 1st, all unconfirmed reservations from Mt. Whitney Lottery were canceled and back to the reservation site randomly today.   I watched the reservation site and showed some dates.  However they disappeared in a short time.

Since it is random, it is probably better to check the site frequently if you still looking for a permit to hike Mt. Whitney this summer.

The reservation site is  http://www.recreation.gov/

I think it is probably the best period to find out the permit.