I’ve written before about Ham Radio at the Hands-On Museum. Well, today has been a pretty good day for this project.

First, I got an e-mail saying that we received the Ten-Tec Omni VII transceiver (the rig pictured in the header above) that we ordered. Then, about a half hour ago, I received an e-mail from Ann, the museum’s development director. She worte:

“I guess we got the grant — a check for $3,000 arrived today!”

The grant that she’s referring to is the one we requested to help us put up a tower at the museum.

Thanks, ARRL!

wa1lou’s LaCie

Daily, Retrospect runs automatically to back up my Mac at 2 AM to two 160-Gbyte SmartDisk external hard drives. I inherited one of the drives, so I put it to work and on even days, Retrospect backs up to drive “A” and on odd days, to drive “B.”

Problem is that some days, depending on what projects I am working on, Retrospect cannot do a backup because there is not enough space on Drive “A” or “B.” When that occurs, I delete some of the project files from my Mac and when 2 AM rolls around, Retrospect can do its thing.

This occurs about once a week and has gotten old fast, so every once in awhile I consider buying a larger external hard drive. That once in awhile occurred again last week and when I checked online, I was amazed how low the prices for hard drives have fallen. So I bought one: a LaCie 1-Tbyte external hard drive that includes a slew of interfaces including Firewire 800, which is the interface I was after. (The SmartDisks only had Firewire 400, while my Mac supports both 400 and 800.)
The LaCie arrived yesterday and I connected it to my Mac last evening. When I made the connection, my Mac asked me if I wanted to use the new drive with Time Machine to do backup. I clicked positively and my Mac informed me that Time Machine would do a backup on the hour.

I finished some work, then went downstairs to clean the litter boxes and walk the Pies. After I finished my sanitation assignments, I returned to my Mac to see how the backup was going. A progress bar indicated that there were over one million files to backup and that Time Machine was about one-third of the way through.

The Harmonic phoned and I talked with her for a half hour or so, then I checked my Mac again. The progress bar was nearly at its end and less than a minute later, the progress bar disappeared and the initial backup was complete.

I was impressed! Firewire 800 is fast. I expected that the initial backup would take the better part of the evening, but I estimate that it took no more than 90 minutes.

By the way, the new hard drive (specifically a LaCie 301827U d2 Quadra) is soundly constructed and not much bigger than the SmartDisks. It includes a bundle of software that I have not explored yet.

This blog update shares the news that my HPDRS Phoenix prototype is a big step forward today

The initial ‘test’ code has been downloaded to the fpga! This is a first for me, and I’m still smiling

If you have been following recently, you will know that I’ve just purchased a new JTAG programmer (disguised as fpga development environment). The screen shot below, shows the programming window, following the download of the ‘Test1.pof’ file. LED1 on Phoenix lights, proving code has loaded and running.

The next screen shot, shows the Quartus 8.1 IDE. Note from version 8.0, it is no longer necessary to apply for a license to run this software. It’s now completely hassle free, I can’t remember how many times I’ve had to request another license, and it’s great that this is a thing of the past. Free download, but it is big, over 1Gb. (so go to bed during the download).

Below, shows the Phoenix prototype plugged into Atlas, with the LEDs on as expected. The next phase is to check transmit and receive functions of the board, with a fixed frequency. Phil has implemented code for 12Mhz, in this release of test software. So the next thing to do is to plug an Ozy and Janus into Atlas, and start testing. This will have to be something for the weekend, as I’ve run out of time.

Finally, a close-up of the Phoenix board, the missing parts are for the 1Ghz oscillator, still to be constructed.

Cumbria is forecast for bad weather this weekend, this means lots of time in the shack, so I should be able to make further progress

End of update.

Sven, SA0ASN is the proud owner, since 1948 (!), of this old German WW II VHF aircraft radio, FuG 16 manufactured by Lorenz A.G. in the beginning of 1940´s. The radio, still like a new one, is built up by modules and sub-modules and it is a radio engineering masterpiece. Photos and videos are here. In March this year Sven showed his other German aircraft radio, the FuG 10.

Sun City in South Africa will host the next IARU Region 1 Conference in 2011

http://www.arrl.org/news/files/HandyReference.pdf

73
steve
KG5VK

December 05 - 07

AT2RS 

–

AS-NEW Activation
India
Andhra Pradesh South State Group
According G3GMA ==> AS-199(P)

–

Modes/Bands: SSB/CW on 80/40/20/17/15/12/10 - unfortunately NO 30m operation possible (special permit needed) due to Indian HAM laws.

Stations/Equipment: 2 Stations (probably occasionally 3rd) Elecraft k2/100, Elecraft K3/100, ICOM IC7000, Yagis,dipoles/verticals.

Operators: VU3RSB, VU3FRK (DL4KQ), 2 more Indian Hams.

QSL Route:
Buro/Direct W3HNK (Both Americas)
Buro/Direct DL4KQ (Rest)

–

Activation requires long voyage through/to Indian boondocks - start/end of operation may slightly vary

LINK

      

An Amateur Radio 2009 Year Planner has been sent to all Members of the European Parliament

Radio Ham Chip N2YO has had a lot of publicity for his Satellite Tracking website from a Venezuelan Radio Station and numerous Spanish Language Blogs

The New York Times website reports that astronaut Donald Pettit, amateur radio callsign KD5MDT, has created a video of the Auroral Borealis as viewed from the Space Station

There were nine Section Manager races this Fall, four of which saw no opposition. Election ballots were counted and verified on Tuesday, November 18 at ARRL Headquarters for the remaining five races

'CQ' magazine is calling on FCC Enforcement Bureau Chief Kris Monteith to move swiftly to name a successor to Riley Hollingsworth, K4ZDH, as Special Counsel for Amateur Radio, and to bring FCC enforcement back to the ham bands

Due to the poorest condx on the HF bands in 54 years during 2008, the clubs involved in the Roskilde 1658 Award have unanimously decided to prolong the award activities throughout 2009, until December 31, 2009

The Austrian OeVSV website reports changes to the Amateur Radio regulations, one of which means Amateurs will get access to all frequencies above 275 GHz

37 Latvian radio hams are licensed to use the special prefix YL 90 + usual suffix of the station to commemorate the 90th anniversary of the Republic of Latvia

Webster City Police Chief Mike McConnell has done something few people can lay claim to: talking to a person on the International Space Station (ISS). McConnell accomplished the feat in October when he made radio contact with space tourist Richard Garriott while he was aboard the ISS. McConnell was interested in contacting Garriott because both he and Garriott operate amateur radios (also known as "ham radios"). "Within the ham radio community it was big news that ham radio operator Richard Garriott was up on the international space station and we were aware that one of his main goals was to make as many contacts with other ham radio operators as possible," noted McConnell.

New Online (French and English) Ham Magazine!

Ok, the Flex-Radio works, but dang the computer side is giving me grief. I have it running reasonably well from a Toshiba Laptop running Vista (32 bit). Wanting to power up the system correctly, I bought an HP AMD Phenrom Quad Core desktop, loaded to the gills.   BUT I didn’t pay attention to the couched Windows 64 [...]

 

QRV between Jan 28 - Feb 4. QSL via CE6AMN. *Website above       

MARC will sponsor a VE Session on December 11th to give everyone one last chance to take exams before the fee goes up for 2009.

The session will begin at 6:00PM, in the same location as our regular monthly meeting. Walk In’s are welcome.
We have all Exams for all license grades available. The fee for 2008 is $14.00, cash or check payable to the ARRL/VEC. If paying by cash, exact change is greatly appreciated.

Licensed Amateurs who would like to upgrade need to bring a copy of their current license to be submitted with their exam paperwork along with picture ID. If sitting for your first license, bring picture ID. Contact Lyle Hamilton AB8SH with any questions via e-mail at ab8sh@arrl.net or by phone at 513-315-4032.