VA3QV -

I found a reference to this story on a tweet from KE9V Jeff Davis (thanks Jeff) and thought I would share the article with you.

I’m not that impressed with the ham speak at the end as a few of the terms seem to have an 11m sound to them but I guess thats how the reporter deciphered them…

The article itself is fantastic though…

Ham radio: A fading hobby … until emergencies hit – OrlandoSentinel.com

Posted using ShareThis

Also concidering that this week (or is it next week) there is a big hamfest in Orlando I would have to say that any press is good press…

73bob

VA3QV -

The title says it all….

Take a -20 deg C day (with the wind chill) and add in poor band condition on the lower bands and 5 QSO Parties on the higher bands and you get a day that was not really QRP Friendly…

My point was proven when I had trouble checking into the 2RN Traffic Net at 1345 from home with 100w…  How much trouble would I have had with 5 w from the park.  Granted I would of had less noise on RCV but would anyone of heard me???

So sanity took over (for a change) and I decided to stay at home where its a bit warmer…  Radio took a backseat to a good movie on the TV for today at least.

I did manage to Control the Ontario Phone Net at 1600 EST on 3,742 but the band was still not cooperating as much as I had hoped but with the help of a few relays everything got done that had to be done…

Lets see if the evening gets any better…

73bob

AD7MI -

I found out today that the primary designer of the off center fed antenna, also known as a Windom antenna was a member of the National Guard and a founder of an early version of the Army Amateur Radio System (AARS) back in 1923. The gentleman’s name is Loren G. Windom. His individual initiative helped push the development and success of the AARS.

JJ8KGZ -

Hi Chas, I’m alright.  I have never been away from this blogsphere

Been actively writing bunch of articles or  diaries on my another weblog in Japanese or SNS.   We, ham radio operators have to be much more active on the air than writing fiddle-de-dee on the internet, but current band condition and my poor antenna don’t allow me to do so…Ooops, it’s a good excuse!

I got a VX8D to try APRS, which some of my friends had said that it was fun.

http://aprs.fi/?call=JJ8KGZ-7&mt=m&z=11&timerange=86400

But I guess that as long as there aren’t number of stations who install APRS into their shacks or cars, my VX8D has to sit on the shelf especially  in my region called ‘Tokachi’  whose square-meter is twice as wide as prefectures near Tokyo.

Besides, my friend  Shin JA1NUT volunteers to  get on the air and controls some SKED QSOs with my CW buddies in Japan and the frequency around 7.026Mhz is now very lively. I think you can hear some of their signals around 1300z if the condition permits.

I’m going to check in the SKED tomorrow night which will be Monday morning with your local time.

Anyway, I’m doing well and enjoying “Radio” somehow!

CU on the air sometime, Chas.

de JJ8KGZ

VA3STL -

I am sure we have all come across someone whose enthusiasm for a subject was so infectious it encouraged us to get more involved in that area.  It could have been a parent, friend, a club member or an elmer.  Well, if you have regularly listened to the Soldersmoke podcast you will found Bill Meara’s enthusiasm for homebrew amateur radio equipment quite infectious.  Whether its his discussion of a double side band rig, a QRSS beacon or using LTSpice to understand a circuit, after listening to Bill I often find I want to get to the workbench and melt some solder.  Well, there is now not only the podcast and the blog, but there is also Soldersmoke the book.  I recently finished reading my copy and here is a brief review of Bill’s book.

The book has the subtitle “A Global Adventure in Radio Electronics”, since Bill’s occupation for a while has been as a US diplomat, with assignments in the Dominican Republic, USA, the Azores, the UK and most recently Italy. So the chapters naturally fall into describing the ‘radio adventures’ in each of these countries.  However, Bill uses the first few chapters to describe his youth, his early steps into amateur radio and electronics.  Followed by his brief period of absence from radio, when he joined the military and went through his basic training, eventually ending up in the special forces.

His entry into amateur radio will resonate with many readers I am sure.  Although experiences will not be identical many readers will have similar stages in their introduction to radio, learning CW, passing exams, reading the magazines and dreaming of equipment, joining clubs and having an elmer.  Besides the personal history which is captivating, Bill adds to each chapter technical sections, usually denoted in bold text.  With these sections the reader is led through a breadth of ideas, starting with with the fundamentals of electricity and moving on to other deeper topics such as the coverage of semiconductor principles, mixer operation, balanced modulators and amplifier loads, for example.  These are all dealt with in a conceptual manner with minimal or no mathematics.  It is with these descriptions Bill tries to explain some principles to give an intuitive understanding of what is going on in electronics.  Indeed, this desire to understand and have a clear intuitive understanding is something that Bill describes as a personal goal that he had from an early age.  He gets full credit here for wanting to know the details on how everything works, even without having a formal education in electrical engineering.  These technical sections I did enjoy, often checking how it matches my own understanding (I do have a technical education which makes me admire his attempts even more).

For me, the book got very interesting at chapter three, where he talks about his return to amateur radio after having been posted to the Dominican Republic and reading a copy of 73 magazine in a hotel lobby .  Here on in it became interesting in two ways for me.  First was the characters that he encounters (either face-to-face or through radio and the internet).  People who would help him with parts, setting up antennas or working with him on the podcasts. It showed the human side of amateur radio, the camaraderie or the ‘brotherhood’ as Bill calls it, which you seldom read or hear about in the technical books or magazines on amateur radio.  Here it reminded me of the book “Hello World” which recounts the contacts that Jerry Powell, W2OJW (SK), made through his QSL card collection.  This friendship across the world between individuals of different cultures and languages, whose common interest in radio and electronics leads to almost automatic friendship is enjoyable to read about.  Indeed, Bill spends the last chapter discussing this “brotherhood without borders”.

The second aspect that I personally found interesting was Bill’s description of his homebrew projects.  Reading how projects evolved and moved into new projects was illuminating.  People build things for different reasons;  the technical challenge, perhaps a need for that item of equipment, or just that it seems like fun project to build.  Whatever the reason, it is interesting to read an individuals account why and how a project comes about, as well as the technical challenges.  Bills seems to me to be a very economical homebrewer and radio operator. He does not buy lots of the latest radio gear, he still happily runs a Heathkit HW-8 and Drake 2B, but what he does have he uses with good effect.  His construction of a 17m DSB rig is an interesting story which is recounted in chapter 5 (which describes his Azores adventures), mostly through the inclusion of a trail of  e-mails he sent at that time to the QRP-L mailing list.  The evolution of a project is something you do not usually read about in QST or QEX,  but maybe see in a blog or two.  It is interesting to read from a technical perspective. What circuit elements worked and failed and why were certain design choices made?  This is good information for other homebrewers.

The book is self published (HBR Press) through Lulu.com and I was pleased with the quality of the printed book, which is paperback.  Because it is self published it lacks the polish that a publisher would have added; a little more proofreading (there are some typos) and possibly some more editing.  For me an editor may have tightened up the transitions from the main narrative into the bold technical sections and added figure captions.  But these are minor quibbles. Anyway, this is a ‘homebrewed’ book and so we can expect a little ‘roughness around the edges’.

There is some nice dry humour in the book, similar to what you hear in the podcasts.  There are quotes throughout from authors I have also read and respect, such a Steve Wozniak, Richard Feynman (a long time hero of mine) and Clifford Stoll.   If you enjoy the podcasts then check out the book. Pick up a copy , read it and put it on your bookshelf alongside your technical books and consult it when you need a burst of enthusiasm. I highly recommend the book. Price is $19.99 at the time of writing this.

Finally, here is a video of Bill himself talking about the book and reading an excerpt.

W8TN - This has been an especially snowy winter for us. In December I think I spent about 4 HOURS shoveling snow or blowing the powdery snow off the driveway (and doing that with my broken leg and cane was a challenge to say the least!) The leaf blower worked rather well up to about a 3-inch snow fall as long as it was very cold and the snow was dry. However, we did get one snow of a little over 12-inches and that was just too much to shovel. Thankfully my neighbor (the contractor who built our house) came over and plowed the driveway with his 4-wheeler.

Right after that, Tim, KC8UHE, was by the house and mentioned that he had a 4-wheeler that he only used for hunting and now that hunting season was over, I was welcome to borrow it. Tim made that offer on a Wednesday afternoon and we were aware that another big storm was due the next day. So, on Thursday morning I drove to Charleston and bought a snow blade to fit Tim's 4-wheeler. I then picked up our utility trailer and went to Tim's and loaded the 4-wheeler. Back at our house, our son, Darren, KC8QGV, came and installed the blade. It began snowing while he was doing that and by the time the blade was installed we had over an inch and Darren gave it a test drive.

At this point I've used the snow blade 4 times including the 2+ inches of heavy wet snow we had today (see photo - click on photo for larger image.) Twice I've also plowed the driveway for the neighbor on the other side of our house. This tool is totally the "berries." I'm going to have to buy one before Tim needs his back for hunting!

NT7S -

I’m very pleased to report the first (to my knowledge) completed Willamette transceiver which was born in Europe. Vincenzo, IZ5GVP sent along to me a couple of photos of his very nicely constructed Willamette. He reports that it works well and that he’s considering modifying it to operate on the 30 meter band. Three cheers for Vincenzo!

AE5X -

Dave K4TWJ (SK)

In one of Dave Ingram K4TWJ’s last columns for CQ Magazine, he does a great write-up of AA1TJ’s Code Talker. Also mentioned in the article are well-known QRPers W1PID and W1REX.

CQ Magazine always has timely info and doesn’t seem to suffer from the months-long lag of other magazines – radio & otherwise – of having such lengthy lead times.

The same issue already has the Fort Tuthill 80 with a photo and brief description.

Dave will be missed by many. Whoever replaces him has some huge shoes to fill.

 .

.

VE3MPG -

Got up this morning and checked VE3EN, Kevin’s SolarCycle24.com site and the sun is alive a well. Kevin has called them “popcorn” sunspots – they are popping up all over the north quadrant of the sun. There’s even an aurora watch for this evening and tomorrow. Here are a couple of images courtesy of SolarCycle24.com .

Kevin says:

“C-Class flare activity - C-Class flares are now taking place around rapidly growing Sunspot 1045. There is some polarity mixing within this region and there could be a chance for M-Class flares. Any earth directed CME's could trigger Geomagnetic Storming and Aurora.

Sunspots are now starting to pop up in many areas on the visible solar disk including a fast growing cluster which is now producing C-Class flares. This region will probably be numbered 1045 on Saturday.”

This spot will probably given number 1045 later today.

Dust off those 10 meter antennas – conditions are improving. 

Links:

Space Weather Prediction Center

SolarCycle24.com Daily Report

Scientists warn solar activity could hit London 2012 Olympic Games

Smart dust could give early warning of space storms

DX World of Ham Radio - Following on from their trip to Morocco [see below] the 5C team plus new members IC8ATA, IK8GQY, IK8BPY, IS0AGY, IW2NLC and IZ2GRG will be operational as TS8P & TS8P/P between April 27 to May 4, 2010. They will be active during this time from Djerba (AF-083) and Kuriat (AF-092). All bands/modes + 6m. QSL via IK7JWY.

DX World of Ham Radio - 5C2J (IK7JWX) 5C2L (I8LWL) 5C2SG (IZ7ATN) 5C2P (IK2PZC) 5C2W (IK2DUW) & 5C2Q (IK2GPQ) will be active from the cities of Agadir and Essaouira between March 16 – 23, 2010. See attached thumbnail in above post for details.

G4ILO - It was a beautiful morning, the sun was shining from a cloudless blue sky and it felt warm, although the temperature was just above freezing. Olga and I decided to go to Keswick, which is one of my favourite places in the entire world, and where I'd live if property prices weren't astronomical. Though being a conservation area in a national park and surrounded by mountains it is probably one of the worst locations for ham radio imaginable.

I thought we would go for a stroll through the town and have a coffee and a look in the shops, which we did, but I also spent rather a lot of time standing around being bored while Olga looked at clothes. I loathe shopping, and would buy everything possible - including groceries - online if I could. If I decide I need something I generally purchase the first thing I see that will do the job. Olga has to examine every possible candidate and then agonizes over the decision for hours. Consequently we rarely buy anything for the house requiring a joint decision as I have usually lost interest in buying anything after my first couple of suggestions have been rejected.

In Keswick we saw very little evidence of any damage caused by the November floods - unlike the devastation that occurred in our home town Cockermouth. We walked down to the lake, where I took this picture using my phone, since I wasn't carrying the camera. The ducks and geese are very tame and you can walk right up to them. I'm sure they would take food from your hand if you had any.

G3XBM - Trying to do a small PCB for the XBM80-2 80m micro-transceiver using the Sprint Layout 4 PCB layout package I hit a problem: wanting to use a single sided PCB for low cost I did a groundplane fill. Then I wanted to connect certain pads to this. I cannot see how to do this! Several people have offered advice, but nothing seems to work: any attempt just results in a new clearance area being created. In the end I gave up and filled in the ground as another track and join it to the pads manually. The resultant draft PCB (1 inch square)  is shown here. I have not built it on a PCB yet, so this is only a suggestion. An SMT version could be half the size - i.e. VERY tiny indeed.

ON3JT - I finally bought a networkdrive to be used in my home network. My wife was complaining that all pictures were on the pc downstairs (my shackcomputer) and she want to see them also on the pc in the living room. Time to share the data. But I needed a NAS style disk, not just some [...]

WSPRnet -

In addition to experimenting on the 1750 M and 600 M bands, I'm also active on the Broadcast Band, DXing with hi-tech crystal sets that I have built from scratch.
Building sets of any type is fun, but there's something special about a radio that gets all of its power from the antenna its hooked to. No active devices nor any
external power from batteries or the mains.

I also like to experiment with High Voltage. I've built several Tesla coils, including my 3 KVA input coil which can emit multiple 4 foot streamers! Have a look at:

http://www.hurontel.on.ca/~weazle

73, J.B.

MyHamShack.com - Well after so much procrastination, I have done it. I passed my Extra class today and am finally at the top. Sixteen years of procrastination and it"s done. Should have done it a long time ago.

W2LJ - as snowstorms go .....

I woke up this morning to find that everything outside was covered with a white, puffy blanket of snow. From the second floor of the house, where our bedroom is, it looked worse than it turned out to be. I got dressed and headed outside to clean the cars off and shovel, so that my wife Marianne could leave for the hospital, where she is a dialysis nurse.

I took a yardstick out in the back yard, found a clear, undisturbed spot and measured only about three inches (7.5 cm) of snow. I'll take that any day compared to the 6-14 inches that they were predicting. Of course, it hasn't quite stopped yet, and unless heavier snow bands come through, I can see us only getting another inch or two, max.




Some friends that I have in Virginia, whom I keep in touch via Facebook (gasp! ..... yes, Facebook!) have informed me that they have gotten over 20 inches of heavy, wet snow. Last night, the meteorologists on the local news, were explaining that the reason the snow was delayed in our area is that our air was so relatively dry; and that radar showed that it was already snowing, but that the snow was actually not making it to the ground. And I guess they were right, because unlike Virginia, our snow was not heavy and wet, it was very light and powdery. It was really not that much of an effort to clear using the snow shovel. Of course, the toughest part was clearing out the end of the driveway, where the snow plows had left a wall of snow. But even that wasn't so bad compared to other snow events we have had.

Anyway, even though the snow is tapering off, I will not be participating in FYBO from outside. The winds are quite gusty (up to around 20-25 MPH) and there is a lot of blowing snow, which makes it difficult to see at times. Not an ideal situation. If it weren't for the winds, I'd have it not too bad, as the patio table is cleared off and would provide a nice operating platform. Instead, I will give up the X5 multiplier (it's only 25F outside) , for the X2 multiplier as it was 57 degrees down in the basement the last time I checked.

73 de Larry W2LJ

ON3JT - I came acros the site of IK0VVE with a wonderfull description of a MEPT. MEPT stands for Manned Experimental Propagation Transmitter and is usually very low power. He uses a crystal oscilator but I find them pretty expensive. So I Looked around the net for programmable oscillators. Those are even more expensive and in the most cases you [...]

WSPRnet -

It's mounted 4-5m above ground.

http://de8msh.blogspot.com/

Let's see what happens...

VK4VCC - Again, very quiet from me but hopefully that will change over the next month. I am currently "downsizing" the shack. I had too much clutter in the shack and half of it I wasn't using. I was trying to create a SO2R type station but have now decided to keep it simple.
I have either sold or still selling the following items;Yaesu FT-920SteppIR BigIR with 80m loading coilArray Solutions PowerMasterTop Ten Band DecodersTop Ten DX DoublerDunestar Auto BandPass Filters
All I plan on keeping is the Yaesu FT-950, one of the Array Solutions PowerMasters, power supplies, OzSpid rotator and tower. Chelsea and my main focus will be on the higher HF bands (20-10).
I'm looking at getting a Cubex Quad MkII (3 band) shipped in from the US. I've sent the email off to see what shipping costs will be.
Steve VK4VSP, my brother, will be borrowing the Icom IC-706MKIIG with all the accessories.
I'll be getting a quote shortly from the concretors so I can get the tower up. It will be great if I can get everything sorted for the CQ WPX contest.