PlanetHam.org

Engineering content can be a little dry sometimes. To add some spice to this world of precision, Agilent commissioned Rand Kruback to create his artistic view of some common EE terms and phrases. These cartoons should lighten your day!

Brought to you every few days while I’m downunder, remember normal homebrew activities resume mid October.

End of update.

Two new emergency radio repeaters are now up and running in the Wood River Valley and Sawtooth National Forest. They're filling the gap in emergency response that was desperately lacking according to amateur radio operators.

I was driving return to my our home while I got an shor message from YB2DX, OM Hans. He said [off course in Indonesian] : pak Jon, ada kbr berita baik bhw YE2AA JIDX Contest 2007 SSB telah mendapat Juara 3 World, 2 Oceania, 1 Indonesia. Ada sertifikatnya utk Operator, sy siapkan kirim utk Anda. Pse qth lengkap? Tks.

Great! Thanks OM Hans, finally we've got the paid, hi hi...... For me joining with YE2AA and operating on the best ham shack in Indonesia [I believe] was to admired and honoured. I still remember working with YB0NDT, and YB3TD and some crews from Purwodadi!

Thanks again OM Hans for sharing the fun. Hope next time we could arrage the good moment on a contesting activity!

This Iedul Mubarak holiday all our family got gathered in our kampoeng. Celebrating the Iedul Mubarak after finishing a full month for fasting days (Ramadhan fasting), it's so nice gathering will all the family.
As traditionally we've visited to one another and this year we must go to Purbalingga, almost 300 kms west to Klaten, our homeland.
Making a long journey will be boring, especially if we were the driver. Imagine you should be consentrate to the road than the other maybe have fall sleep :)
I've installed my Alinco DR535 with BRC double band antenna on my car roof. And it looks get the good performance. I could open the repeater and talking on the local easily with Lo Power.

A good moment was when I logged at Klaten repeater (146.720Mhz) somebody called me, it was YC1LZ, wait for a minute. He said also portable at Klaten. As you know that YC1LZ, OM Gunarso is a good friend, active on the Orari-News reflector, maintain the CARI, Indonesian Callbook On-Line and also active on APRS.

Soon I replied him and propose a kind of eyeball, though I haven't taken a bath {sorry OM Gun}. Along with my oldest son, Iqbal, finally I could find him with his great family after some search and pounce, hi hi.... it looks like I need some GPS on my car now!

Got great shake hand and took some photos! It's nice meeting! Thanks OM Gun for the nice moments.

I believe that I missed some good contest such as Oceania DX and EU sprint, but I got the better one: eye ball with good friend and and the nice family.

START-OF-LOG: 2.0
ARRL-SECTION: DX
CALLSIGN: YB2ECG
CATEGORY: SINGLE-OP ALL LOW RTTY
CLAIMED-SCORE: 10370

Due to Iedul Mubarak holiday I could not join on the whole contest periode. Actually I was well prepared to join this great contest, though got some problem with MixW, it can not decode any rtty signal so I must reinstall it and re-run, and composed the new macro and it solved.
20m as I predicted was good and get some opportunity working on 15m.

Average rate: 4.3 QSOs/hour
QSO YB OC DX Pts DXCC CQ States
20m 97 0 4 93 287 15 9 0
15m 7 0 3 4 18 5 5 0
Total 104 0 7 97 305 20 14 0
Score: 305*34 = 10370 points.

Comparing last year result it looks much worse but stil got the fun. Log consists a lot of JA's, thanks OMs.

Hope next year will be better.

While in Melbourne I caught up with the convener of my favourite shed. Ralph, (ex) VK3ZZC, pictured here in front of said shed. In all the years I've known Ralph, he's always had numerous impressive projects on the bench. Increasingly his shed has been filled with highly desirable test equipment from times' past. Ralph has a keen eye for the value in things thrown in the dumpster and has

It may just be me, but it seems to me that the “Rules and Regulations” and “Aerials” columns in World Radio magazine cover the exact same material over and over.

Case in point, I just picked up the May 2008 issue that they were handing out at Dayton. The title of the Rules and Regulations column is “How Do They Get Away With It?” and what they’re talking about getting away with is hams at Field Day using privileges they’re not supposed to have. I swear that this column runs every other month.

The Aerials column is just as bad. Kurt N. Sterba, a cutesy pen name that I’m getting really tired of, tries again to convince everyone that antenna tuners really do tune the antenna and not just simply match the impedance at the end of the feedline to the 50-ohm output of the transceiver. Is it just me, or does this column run every other month as well?

Of course, the issue wasn’t all bad. I really liked the QRP column, “Sweet Sounds of 40 Meters Through NB6M’s ‘Tin Ear.’” This is a great little construction project that uses seven transistors to create a tunable, direct conversion receiver. One notable feature of this receiver is that it does not use a variable capacitor. Instead, it uses a variable inductor, made from a soda straw, to tune the receive frequency.

Just had a welcomed email:   Dear steve: Your invoice is attached. Tracking information is on the “Shipping & Handling” line. Thank you for your business. Sincerely, FlexRadio Systems   The attached PDF Invoice indicates an expected delivery date of Friday Oct 10th! I already have a LapTop loaded with much of the needed software, a Toshiba Satellite AMD 2.0GHz Turion 64 X2 Dual-Core Model [...]

Get it at http://www.papays.com/opdx.html

Learning The Morse Code

There are three words that help you to learn morse code:

PRACTISE, PRACTISE, PRACTISE To help you get the practise, here is Gary Bold's free teaching software for learning morse (PC only, Windows 95/98 and above systems).

It can be downloaded here 550 kilobytes (kB)- (Last updated: 04/02/2008)Its just like learning to ride a bicycle. It’s far better to learn the Morse symbols by sound, and not sight! It is not a good idea to memorise a written table. Get an experienced Morse operator to send characters to you with an audio oscillator, saying each symbol after it’s sent. You want to recognise the symbols by their sound. Tapes are available which will teach you to recognise the symbols by their sound.

The ideal method to learn Morse is by use of a computer. Morse code training programmes are available –– see below for one of them.

Learn them at the same time–if learned later, they take a long while to become as familiar as the symbols. Learn each symbol at a speed of about 12 – 14 WPM, with long gaps between symbols. The gaps will close as you advance. When you have learned the symbols you can practice from a tape at varying speeds or at dub Morse classes.

An International Space Station Expedition 17 ARISS school contact was planned with participants at Scuola Media Statale Donato Forlani, Conversano, Italy on 07 October 2008

I collected the following SDR links of interest during the past few months.

SDR--

• N6TV's Adding an SDR to an SO2R Station (link).
• Got User Interface? (link).
• Cognitive Radio Shows Great Promise (link).
• Cognitive Wireless Technology (link).
• Ettus Research (link).
• Five Below: Medium Wave and Tropical Bands DXing With the Perseus SDR Receiver (link).
• FlexRadio Systems | Software Defined Radio (link).
• F4DAN | Software Defined Radio (link).
  
• GNU Radio | The GNU Software Radio (link).
• HamSDR | Amateur Radio & Software Defined Radio (link).
  
• High Performance Software Defined Radio (link).
• K2WS SDR-1000 Webpage (link).
  
• M0KGK SDR Page (link).
• Phil Covington | Software Defined Radio (link).
  
• Perseus SDR Home Page (link).
• 2006 Software Defined Radio Technical Conference and Product Exposition (link).
• SDR Forum (link).
  
• SDR Transforms Amateur Radio (link).
• SRL QuickSilver QS1R VERB (link).
• TAPR (link).
  
• Tower of Babel technology nears (link).
• WebSDR on 20m, 40m, and 80m (link).

73 from the shackadelic.

Registration remains open through Sunday, October 26, 2008, for these online course sessions beginning on Friday, November 7, 2008: Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level 1 (EC-001), Radio Frequency Interference (EC-006), Antenna Design and Construction (EC-009), Technician License Course (EC-010); Analog Electronics (EC-012), and Digital Electronics (EC-013). Each online course has been developed in segments -- learning units with objectives, informative text, student activities and quizzes. Courses are interactive, and some include direct communications with a Mentor/Instructor. Students register for a particular session that may be 8, 12 or 16 weeks (depending on the course) and they may access the course at any time of day during the course period, completing lessons and activities at times convenient for their personal schedule. Mentors assist students by answering questions, reviewing assignments and activities, as well as providing helpful feedback. Interaction with mentors is conducted through e-mail; there is no appointed time the student must be present -- allowing complete flexibility for the student to work when and where it is convenient. To learn more, visit the Continuing Education course listing page or contact the Continuing Education Program Coordinator.

Larry Caruso, K1LGC writes on PRA625 list: It's that time of year again. The Pentucket Radio Association will be at the Parker River National Wildlife Refuge Headquarters this Sunday, October 12th from 1500Z to 2000Z for National Wildlife Refuge Week. The weather looks promising; partly sunny with highs in the 70s - a nice fall day. If you missed us last year, we set up similarly to a Field Day operation by stringing an antenna and feedline from a tree to a flagpole and running over to a transceiver set up under a shelter outside the Refuge Headquarters. There will be several other Refuges on the air at this time we might be able to contact. In the process we promote the National Wildlife Refuge System to all we contact and encourage folks to get outside, to visit a refuge near them! The Refuge Headquarters building is located at 6 Plum Island Turnpike, Newburyport, MA. We will begin set-up at 9:00 am (1300Z). I could use a couple hams to help me set up. This should go pretty smoothly, especially since you've all practiced at the NEARfest on Friday and Saturday! I will be bringing an easy-up shelter, radio, antenna, feedline and tuner. Also a 6' folding table and a couple chairs. If last year was any indication, this event is fixing to be a great time once again. The bands should be active and we should be able to make lots of good contacts. [...] Hope to see you all there. Bring your families and spend some time perusing the displays in the headquarters building. Then head for the refuge, which is just a short drive up the road. There's lots of nice walking trails and beaches to explore; you never know what you'll see. The refuge is home to hawks, deer, foxes and other four-legged critters. It is also a major stop-over area for migrating waterfowl. Bring binoculars and/or a camera so you can take home some memories.

The 75th year of the ARRL Sweepstakes contest is this year

I will again hoist a team effort during the Phone contest week-end
Mark those calendars for

November 15 - 17

ARRL November Sweepstakes (Phone)

This week-end I am heading to The Paris Texas Hamfest where I will purchase a few more items to complete the build of my new 75 meter Bi-Square antenna

I will have a Shack familiarization open house early either late this month or a week before the Phone week-end

If you have not yet played in this great contest and are interested in joining our team simply send me an email !

73
Steve
KG5VK

Aside from family duties during my recent visit to Melbourne, I also caught up with some ham radio identities from near and far. VK3ASE runs a very professional operation which transmits high quality AM on 160m and 80m often on Saturday nights. Dave has a full studio full of ex-ABC equipment including a desk I used to use myself many years ago. His transmitter for 80m includes an exciter he

Oct 9-15, 2008 -- Norfolk I -- VK9CNC -- QSL: VK2CCC Buro -- Source: LY1F (Sep 26, 2008) -- By LY1F; focus on low bands; QRV for Oceania DX CW contest (Oct 11-12); holiday style operation

Jun 19-Jul 5, 2009 -- San Andres and Providencia -- 5J0M -- QSL: W1JJ Direct -- Source: K7BV (Oct 7, 2008) -- By K7BV fm San Andres I; HF + 6m, w/ focus on 6m Es

Between 2-4 October I and my birdwatching pal Lennart visited Ottenby on the Swedish island Öland. Ottenby is the most famous place in Sweden to watch migrating birds. We saw enormous masses of geese in windy and not so warm weather conditions.

This ornithologist is counting migrating birds at the southernmost tip of the Öland island.

This is a Cormorant in Grönhögen nearby Ottenby. Photo by Lennart Jalmarsson. More photos from our visit can be seen here and here.

Local affiliates of the Amateur Radio Relay League prepared for Punky, watching a pseudo-storm that packed 125 mph winds and torrential rains edge toward the Connecticut coast since Sept. 29. Half a dozen operators armed with laptop computers and sophisticated radios relayed emergency messages across the state from the Winchester Center Fire Department headquarters on Newfield Road, pressed into service as the Region 5 headquarters of Connecticut's Amateur Radio Emergency Services. Punky, named for District Emergency Coordinator David Hyatt's cat, had bite. By 4:15 p.m. Saturday, with eye of the storm still miles from Bridgeport, the Connecticut River surged past its banks and cut the state in half. You wouldn't have known it, with sunny skies, a calm breeze and temperatures near 60 degrees, unless you were there: it was, of course, a drill.

Saturday 4th October was the 51st anniversary of the launch of Spunik 1. To commemorate this the amateur radio satellite RS-30 appears to have made a special transmission

Members of the Clipperton DX Club, Gerard F2VX, Alain F5LMJ, Jean-Louis F9DK and Vincent G0LMX will be active from Thimphu using the special callsign A5100A between November 7-17th. Activity is to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Kingdom of Bhutan

Bill Moore, NC1L, ARRL Awards Manager, reports: "A 67-page booklet, 'Ethics and Operating Procedures for the Radio Amateur' by John Devoldere, ON4UN, and Mark Demeuleneere, ON4WW, is available for free download from the ARRL Web site

The first NASA spacecraft to image and map the dynamic interactions taking place where the hot solar wind slams into the cold expanse of space is ready for launch on October 19th.

British Prime Minister Gordon Brown has reshuffled his cabinet, and the news was dominated by the high profile appointment of the controversial Peter Mandelson as Business Secretary. But there were some interesting changes elsewhere, notably the creation of the new role of Minister for Communications, Technology and Broadcasting

The program, which runs in Windows, has already received rave reviews, being hailed as the 'best teach-yourself-Morse' program yet seen

A Penn Township man's renewed effort to erect a 53-foot ham radio tower at his home is facing another challenge from neighbors. Charles Mills (W3YNI) of 60 Regola Drive, who faced opposition from nearby residents, was reissued a permit in September by the township after making some modifications to the original plan for the tower in his back yard. Some neighbors initially appealed the issuance of a permit in March, feeling the tower was not properly screened. That appeal was upheld when the zoning hearing board ruled the first permit invalid. Another appeal was filed last week after the permit was reissued. John Ducar, a neighbor who lives at 4 Oakridge Drive, did not want to comment on the appeal other than to say, "We filed an appeal because we feel the township has not performed its duty in protecting the local community." The appeal could possibly end up on the agenda when the zoning hearing board convenes Nov. 11.

The Framingham Amateur Radio Association is putting on a General "crash course" for all amateurs in the metrowest and central Massachusetts areas (and beyond) on 10/18/2008 and 10/25/2008 from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM each day. No text, no fee; Techs and Novices welcome. The course will be held at the club shack at 123 Union Avenue, Framingham, MA, or GPS coordinates Lat 42.28148 N Long 71.41855 W. Park in the Library parking garage on Lexington St, then walk away from the library, down the alley between the Danforth and the parking garage, and enter through the double doors at the bottom of the stairwell. Talk-in on telephone at 508-879-8097 and W1FY repeater at 147.15+ (no PL). --Thanks, wma.arrl.org

Not much activity in the Spartan Sprint, both on the air and from my end. Called CQ on 20m and thought I heard NM7T call, but QSB took the signal down to inaudible so no qso. Worked a few on 40m, W7OM was very strong. Kinda like the qrp UT5 station I worked from K5ZG's one contest, told him he was 10 over 9 and he replied, "4el yagi".

John K5TUX has announced at the Linux in the HAM Shack project website: Episode #001 of Linux in the HAM Shack has been recorded and edited. We’re just about to go live with it. We do hope you’ll take the time to download and listen to our introductory podcast. Also, please drop us a line and [...]

Oct 5-12, 2008 -- Belize -- V31BG -- QSL: VE7ISV -- Source: VE7ISV (Oct 6, 2008) -- By VE7ISV; mainly SSB, perhaps some CW

This year was a great teacher and an exercise in patience despite band conditions. Forty meters paid the best dividend this year in terms of Qs and multipliers. The concentration of 7-land Qs (Table 1) suggested at least one good hop to the north and southwest on the low-band into Saturday evening. I was hopeful our ionospheric playing field would improve going into Sunday morning. However my Q-index (Table 3) trended downward and fell significantly on day two.

On the other hand, it was a real struggle on 20 Meters (Table 2) in terms of Qs and multipliers as my less than optimal signal competed against an A-index of 14 both days. Marginal performance for low-power, low-profile operations as QSB wrecked havoc for operators on the receive end. Consistent repeats indicate difficult conditions here and there.

Forty meters produced 62 Qs while 20 Meters returned 10 Qs for a total of seventy-two. Even my multiplier count was down significantly from last year despite search and pounce techniques. Additionally, using VFO A/B technique did not infuse my score with needed Qs and multipliers as well. Fifteen meters factored out of the compete-against-self equation early Saturday afternoon. The solar flux indice of 67 with A- and K-index trending upward seriously dented my focus.

I continued reading HF Antennas For All Locations written by Les Moxon between calling CQ. I'm reading about waves and fields.

My total score is 4,536 raw points without adjudication. But, this is 'how' contesting goes at the absolute bottom of Cycle 23 wherein the value of the A- and K-index increases in conjunction with maximum usable frequency (MUF). Above all, keep your eye on the prize, and continue improving the station.

Contest on.

The latest addition to the expanding DXpedition and/or DX QSL card collection arrived on Saturday afternoon. And I like the retro style with its large red P40W lettering, very cool indeed. A stand out QSL card.

I'm turning my direction toward the Pacific and the following King Henry Six QSL cards went out this morning. Additionally, I've worked each station on at least three different bands in most of the major DX contests as well.

King Henry Sixs--

• KH6LC
• KH6MB
• KH6NF

Many thanks to each for providing that KH6 multiplier during most DX contests. Shaka!

QSLing is pure ham radio joy.

In March 2008 Tony VK3TZ operated in the CQ World Wide WPX Contest from Vanuatu. His callsign for the contest was YJ8TZ.*****

Many consider 1930 to 1980 as the "golden age" of American radio technology. A time of extraordinary innovation driven by pioneering engineers and entrepreneurs, this 50 year span saw the introduction of rigs that would become famous throughout the world. The newest addition to the ARRL Library, 50 Years of Amateur Radio Innovation -- Transmitters, Receivers and Transceivers: 1930-1980, highlights theses treasured favorites in a way that has never been seen before.

The KY1N Memorial List Scheduled Amateur Radio Volunteer Examinations - CT MA ME NH RI VT 10/06/08 Rev A Jim, WW1Y, Editor Date Time Contact Location Phone 10/08/08 19:00 Bruce Anderson, W1LUS Billerica MA 978-851-2886 10/09/08 19:00 Louis Mester, W1CH Providence RI 401-263-6045 10/09/08 19:00 Kevin Cellini, N1KGM Trumbull CT 203-268-5015 10/10/08 18:30 Ralph T Stetson III, KD1R Burlington VT 802-878-6454 10/11/08 09:00 Don Tarbet, KD1XU Bangor ME 207-327-1453 10/11/08 10:00 Bruce Anderson, W1LUS Deerfield NH 978-851-2886 10/11/08 09:00 Ben Fleck, K2LYE Falmouth MA 508-540-2583 10/11/08 09:00 Steven Ewald, WV1X Newington CT 860-594-0265 10/12/08 12:00 Bob Quinn, WV1A Gloucester MA 978-283-4660 10/14/08 18:30 Wilburn A Scott, WA1YNZ Presque Isle ME 207-455-8333 10/14/08 19:00 Lawrence Polowy, KU1L Thomaston CT 860-283-4089 10/15/08 19:00 Robert E Moreland, KA1ZMF Milford CT 203-934-4059 10/16/08 19:30 Louis Harris, N1UEC Canton MA 508-668-0858 10/16/08 18:00 Bryce Rumery, K1GAX South Portland ME 207-799-1116 10/16/08 18:30 John Ruggiero, N2YHK Worcester MA 508-982-0617 10/18/08 09:00 Bill Wade, K1IJ Marlborough MA 617-699-3670 10/18/08 09:00 Bob Jones, WB1P Slatersville RI 401-333-4787

The Taunton Area Communications Group and the Whitman Amateur Radio Club will join forces on Saturday, October 18, 2008 during the 51st Jamboree On The Air (JOTA) at Camp Norse in Kingston, Massachusetts. Annawon Council BSA will be hosting the Covered Wagon Derby. Cub Scouts from Sachem District will take part in several Scout activities which will include Amateur Radio and JOTA. Last year KC1TAC and WA1NPO put over 130 Cub Scouts on air. This year we hope to expand to greater numbers by opening a second station for Boy Scout Troops and Venture Crews. Don Burke, KB1LXH and Paul Moss, KB1MTW will be joined by other local hams and Scouts to operate KC1TAC and WA1NPO from 0800 until 1500 local time. Don, KB1LXH reports: It is out hope to put every Scout on-the-air that wants to speak. We have two to four HF stations and multiple 2M stations to operate from. Last year's condition were not good for HF, so we opened up 2M rigs and made several contacts over the region. That is the plan again for this year. We have tentative arrangements to talk to the surrounding Scout Councils. They are Cape and Island, Narragansett, Boston Minuteman, Old Colony and Annawon just to name a few. We are still looking for other Scout groups and Amateur Radio Stations that would like to be added to our contact list. We will also be operating on the World Scout Frequencies 80M: 3.690 & 3.940 MHz, 40M: 7.090 & 7.190 MHz, 20M: 14.290 MHz and 17M: 18.140 MHz.

So, the information embargo has been officially lifted as of this weekend when we let our extended families know, so I am pleased to announce...

I'm going to be a father.

We've known since July, but we decided to wait until we got out of the first trimester before telling anyone outside of our close family. The due date is mid/late March, the gender is unknown (and unimportant), and Mom is doing well.

Jeff Atwood, who also recently announced that he's going to be a father turned me on to this quote from A Heartbreaking Work of Staggering Genius which sums up my thoughts exactly:

His brain is my laboratory, my depository. Into it I can stuff the books I choose, the television shows, the movies, my opinion about elected officials, historical events, neighbors, passersby. He is my twenty-four-hour classroom, my captive audience, forced to ingest everything I deem worthwhile. He is a lucky, lucky boy! And no one can stop me. He is mine, and you cannot stop me, cannot stop us. Try to stop us, you pu**y! You can't stop us from singing, and you can't stop us from making fart sounds, from putting our hands out the window to test the aerodynamics of different hand formations, from wiping the contents of our noses under the front of our seats.

We cannot be stopped from looking with pity upon all the world's sorry inhabitants, they unblessed by our charms, unchallenged by our trials, unscarred and thus weak, gelatinous. You cannot stop me from telling Toph to make comments about and faces at the people in the next lane.

It's unfair. The matchups, Us. v. Them (or you) are unfair. We are dangerous. We are daring and immortal. Fog whips up from under the cliffs and billows over the highway. Blue breaks from beyond the fog and sun suddenly screams from the blue.

My wife says we may be doing the headphones-on-the-stomach thing. If so, I'm starting on the above early and totally playing PSW, SolderSmoke, and tuning around 20 Meters. BWHAHAHAHA...

Voting for the 3rd quarter Best Shack contest is now open through October 20. Our 3rd quarter contestants are W1DXH, KC6RCM, N4TB+W4JA, WA3MKB, and IK3STG.

Click here to Vote

You can enter the “Best Ten-Tec Shack Contest” one more time this year. The rules of the contest are simple: Present us with your photograph of your ham shack. The centerpiece of the picture should be a Ten-Tec HF transceiver. We will pick the 5 best pictures of those submitted each quarter and place them on our webpage, and then in the last two weeks of each quarter will open up the voting so you decide which one is the winner. Financial value of equipment is not important, neatness and user-friendliness of the radio equipment is the primary consideration.

4th quarter contest photos may be submitted now. Send an entry picture along with your name, callsign, address, phone number and email address to contest@tentec.com. Deadline is December 15, 2008 for the 4th quarter. On December 15 we will post the next 5 pictures and then open up the voting on this page.

BONUS CONTEST FOR 4th QUARTER! IN addition to the “Best Shack” contest, we are opening up a separate contest for the WORST shack. Shack a mess? Equipment trashed? Dirty? Send us your photo and describe what we’re seeing and we’ll do the same prizes for 1st, 2nd, and 3rd place just like the Best Shack contest.

Quarterly prizes — 1st place, $100 Ten-Tec gift certificate. 2nd place, Ten-Tec polo shirt. 3rd place, Ten-Tec Coffee cup.

Sven SM5LE is putting new clothes on my dish. The cloth is a very expensive aluminum mesh contributed by Sven. This add-on will hopefully improve the dish gain by 1 dB.

Sven with his favourite tool, a glue pistol!

Mesh close-up view. Sven is now working hard in assisting me to put my station into operation and maybe my first EME qso will take place in the ARRL EME contest on 18-19 October.

At $1,600, this kit is a little on the expensive side for most amateurs, but it’s an interesting indication of where things are going….Dan

Colorado Electronic Product Design, Inc. Introduces New Digital Radio Kit

Boulder, Colorado - August 29, 2008 –

Colorado Electronic Product Design (CEPD) introduces a digital radio kit consisting of three configurable printed circuit boards.

The Digital Radio Kit (DRK) is intended to aid in the development and test of algorithms and signal processing applications including:

• Digital radio, modulator/demodulator development
• Software defined radio
• High speed data acquisition and signal processing
• Audio data acquisition and signal processing

The system combines a PCI card, an FPGA signal processing card, and a down converting digital radio card. All three cards have connectors allowing them to stack, forming a digital radio system. The kit will operate in standalone mode or the PCI card can be attached to a computer.

The standard configuration for the digital radio card is the 75MHz to 150MHz band. The digital radio card is capable of transmitting and receiving RF signals. Filters, Low Noise Amplifiers, and mixers are socket-ed to simplify frequency changes. The card includes a frequency synthesizer LO and mixers for up and down conversion for transmitting and receiving. The card utilizes a 13-bit, 210 million samples per second (MSPS) analog-to-digital converter (ADC), a 14-bit, 400 MSPS digital-to-analog converter (DAC) and an audio codec.

I swapped some e-mail with these folks, and they assure me that with some component replacements, the DRK will cover HF frequencies. There is more information, including a block diagram, at http://www.cepdinc.com/DRK.htm

The shack is still in disarray but there is light at the end of the tunnel.  The acorns are raining down like hail, so the leaves are not far behind.  It is time to wrap up the shack re-assembly before leaf raking(and contesting!) season arrives in earnest.  I need to keep the leaves from carpeting [...]

As a flight instructor and Army Air Corps veteran, Jack Sieger earned the credentials to be called "Ace." During World II, Mr. Sieger piloted supplies to the Allied front lines over the China-Burma-India "hump." Jack L. "Ace" Sieger of Whitehall died Monday, Sept. 29, 2008, in his home. He was 88. Ace Sieger also had an international reputation as an amateur radio operator, whose call sign was WB3DPA.

Michael Chen BD5RV provides more information on the XV-1 (formerly CAS-1) Amateur Radio satellite

Experimenters in the south Donegal area are meeting up on Monday 6th October in the Mill Park Hotel in Donegal Town. The intention is to set up an active club called Donegal Amateur Radio Club in this area

The 2008 AMSAT Space Symosium in Atlanta, Georgia is just weeks away, October 24-26. This promises to be a very interesting symposium with presentations scheduled on a wide range of topics from the simplest operations with an HT to some of the latest ideas on digital communications

Weekly IOTA News - compiled by Tedd Mirgliotta, KB8NW

Due to the lack of interest in setting up amateur radio stations in schools in South Africa on October 8, the project has been cancelled

The Radio Amateurs' Emergency Network has published this report on the recent call out of RAYNET groups to provide communications on behalf of South East Coast Ambulance

An explanation for a strange property of noctilucent clouds - thin, wispy clouds hovering at the edge of space at 85 km altitude - has been proposed by an experimental plasma physicist at the California Institute of Technology (Caltech), possibly laying to rest a decades-long mystery

This week, Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU features Digital Television in his Surfin' column on the ARRL website and mentions an Amateur 8-VSB digital TV transmitter, But what is 8-VSB?

Version 0.4.0 of the General Astrodynamics Library has been released

The presentation given by Sir Martin Sweeting G3YJO at the International Astronautical Congress (IAC) in Glasgow is available on the web

A look back at events that made history this week - compiled by the Summerland Amateur Radio Club of Lismore, NSW

This Week: Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, sets the record straight about APRS.

Have ordered a new radio for the K9ZW shack. With Flex-Radio offering a decent discount on their Flex-5000 line of Software Defined Radios (SDR) the plunge to order has been taken. The version I’ve selected is the Flex-5000A with optional Antenna Tuning Unit (ATU) and optional second receiver (RX2).     I’ve been interested in SDR radio from my start [...]

I've just spent three and a bit days helping my step-mother to get on to email for the first time in her life. I thought I'd make a note of the problems she had as it might be useful for others on the same path. She's a highly motivated user, with a great desire to live in the world of email and be able to look things up on the web, but while she's seen people using computers, she never has

Engineering content can be a little dry sometimes. To add some spice to this world of precision, Agilent commissioned Rand Kruback to create his artistic view of some common EE terms and phrases. These cartoons should lighten your day!

Brought to you every few days while I’m downunder, remember normal homebrew activities resume mid October.

End of update.

Yeah, a good sort of trouble.   Over the summer I had Backup woes, with a Laptop Hard Disk bitting the dust, a iMate unit getting roughly unmounted when the power flickered, and some chaos when after restoring from TimeMachine I found my automatic backups were not working right. Much is better now, but I’m in trouble [...]

After a tour of the Golden State of California last weekend, the State QSO Party circuit heads back East to Pennsylvania, as its 67 counties will be front and center on the contest bands this weekend. Check out the story and find out what counties might be the toughest to grab on the air.

Ed Muns W0YK wasn't completely happy with his sleep management or his bandplan strategy as he reviewed his P49X log, but the top flight RTTY operator has the high claimed score for the 2008 CQWW RTTY contest so far. While it's short of the D4B world record, Muns leads by well over 2 million points.

My spouse's notebook computer died a few weeks ago, about 1 year after the 1 year warranty expired. This was not very satisfying. I also had my notebook PC die this past year, so it is starting to look like notebooks are disposal devices. Funny, my desktop PCs just keep on going year after year without a problem. This probably has something to do with the abuse that notebooks get being carried around from place to place.

So if we are going to end up replacing these things every few years, I got interested in lowering the cost. There are a number of compact "webbooks" that typically run Linux on the Intel Atom and use a solid state drive (no spinning hard disk). We settled on the Acer Aspire One, which is $329 from Amazon (free shipping). This computer has a 1.6GHz Atom N270 Processor, 8GB solid state drive, 512MB DDR2 SDRAM, 802.11b/g, Ethernet, three USB 2.0, VGA output, 1.3 megapixel camera, SDHC and multi-format media readers. I popped an 8GB SDRAM card into the expansion slot and it now has 16 GB. It uses the Linpus Linux Lite operating system. (Some webbook models are going with WindowsXP, but I think these minimalist machines are better off with the small footprint of Linux.) The only thing I wish it had was a good-old dialup modem for those rare times when you are stuck without a decent wireless connection. (I'd trade that for the VGA display output.)

It comes ready to run with Linux and the key applications already loaded. For web browsing (Firefox), email (Acer Email) and writing (OpenOffice), it is ready to go. I did decide to load Thunderbird for email (instead of the supplied Acer Email application). This machine is configured like an appliance with not much thought of how the user will add applications. However, a little fiddling around on the web and the use of my (cough) extensive (cough) knowledge of Unix commands got Thunderbird loaded.

So far, this computer has exceeded our expectations. It is really compact, has a great display and is easy to use. What it does, it does well. However, it is NOT a full-size, full-featured notebook computer. For the intended use of internet communications, email, web, basic document creation, it works great. I am hoping that the simple design, with no hard drive, with also last a little longer. Did I mention that this thing boots fast? Go, Linux.

I can't get it out of my wife's hands. Trust me, I've tried.

73, Bob K0NR

This is a pass along from a list e-mail by W4ZV. If you like hearing the recollections of folks from their novice days, here is a trove of stories. THAT should be good for killing time.

Computers have been running many amateur radio programs since the birth of the P.C. I have always tried to keep reasonably up to date with most software and recently decided to give my Intel Dual Core 3800 some new hardware which was to be some more Ram memory and a HD Graphics adaptor.

I compared the required hardware on the net where I got a good insight into the specifications available as well as the costs. Once I new what I wanted, I set off to my local shop and came away with both. 1 gig of ram memory(DDR) this was to compliment the existing memory, now doubling up to give 2 gigabytes of ram memory.
The graphics adaptor is a NVDIA 9600 GT 512 Megabytes HD card, I fitted it and with both items installed correctly the computer should give excellent performance.

With the new hardware installed i decided to back up my logs/data and then I formatted the C: drive completely wiping it clean ready for a fresh install.

The re-installation takes some time but is well worth it once all software/drivers are updated giving fast and reliable performance for a long time, whilst running all my favorite radio programs.

Here the mother board is exposed displaying the dual core processor(3800), the creative sound card used for all radio software and the ram hidden under the harnesses.

The NVIDIA GT 9600 512MB Card before the installation.

It's that time of the year when contesters are kept busy and the Grumpy Old Men are grumpier: The start of the contest season. I'll get to the Grumpy Old Men part in a bit, but first the part of the contesters.

There are contests every weekend of the year, but the more well-known (or "bigger") contests start taking place around now and continue for the next few months. I imagine this has to do with worldwide propagation or something, but to tell the truth I've never really looked into why the "big contests" alll start right about now.

The good news is that for contesters, there's usually something "big" every weekend. Last weekend I participated (or "played around", as I like to say) in the CQ WorldWide RTTY DX contest. In this contest, any station can work any other station, so even if the band conditions aren't very good (in my opinion, they were awful Saturday, though they improved to merely lousy on Sunday) you can usually find lots of stations to work within your own country. Of course, the way scoring works you get more points for working stations outside of your own country, and even more for working stations outside of your own continent, so that's what you try to do, when you can.

The RTTY (pronounced "Ritty") in the name of the contest means that you can only use Radio TeleTYpe mode to make contacts. Originally, this mean that there was an actually mechanical teletype connected via some specialized equipment to a radio, but now, most RTTY enthusiasts use their computer sound card with a fairly simple connection to their radio, along with an encoding/decoding program on their computer, such as the very popular MMTTY. What's really nice about these digital mode contests is the amount of automation that can be done by your contest logging program. As I've mentioned before, I use N1MM's contest logger, which has some really terrific features for handling digital contests, even for casual contesters like me. For example, as with all contests, the exchange of information between stations is structured, with little or no change between contacts. (For this particular contest, nothing at all changes.) The N1MM program allows you to set up your exchange sequences such that once you've gotten the other stations callsign, the exchange process is almost entirely automated. The operator then needs to hunt for stations, adjust the radio to make sure that there's "clean copy" (meaning that you can read the information being sent), and then just do a few mouse clicks or keyboard presses (all configurable) to complete the contact.

One interesting thing about RTTY mode is that although you can hear the sound that the other station is sending, unlike CW (and certainly unlike any speech modes) it can't be decoded by ear. (Ok, I've heard that some really experienced guys actually can decode RTTY by ear. I sure know that I can't. Here's an audio sample, you can decide for yourself). The software used to help tune in the signal has a tuning aid to help you zero-in the signal, so you can use RTTY completely without any audio coming out of your speakers (or headphones) if you want to.

Anyway, I've played in RTTY contests before, and one big thing for me is that they are often a good place to pick up a new country, or a country that I've contacted before on a new band. My decision to participate in this contest was very last minute: I think I fired up the contesting software about 15 minutes after the start of the contest, spent a while configuring it, and then operated for a while on Friday night. I did some more operating Saturday afternoon, and again Sunday afternoon into early evening. I wound up on the air for around 12 hours or so, and made 257 contacts, with a score of just under 115,000 points. I was quite happy with my effort, which I think was decent for a low power station just "playing around".

One thing that I did was to set some "moving target" goals for myself to help keep going. Initially, I wanted to try to make at least 150 contacts, which seemed reasonable on Saturday afternoon. After I surpassed that, I decided that I wanted to break 100,000 points, and then, at the very end of the contest, I decided that I wanted to make at least 250 contacts. (Although I did succeed in that, I was getting a little frantic as I was about 3 contacts short of my goal with not long to go in the contest, and seemed unable to make any others. Fortunately, I managed to work a bunch of stations during the final minutes.) Setting these kinds of goals for me helps to make things fun. Unlike serious contesters, I "cheat" by setting my goals as I'm operating. I do this because I'm trying to keep things fun for myself. If I'd set out to make 250 contacts before I started Friday night, I probably would have gotten discouraged during the day on Saturday when things were going slowly and given up. So, I "cheat" and create goals that seem reasonable for the conditions and the amount of time I'm likely to have available. I'm not suggesting that this works well for anyone else, but it works for me.

This weekend is the California QSO Party contest, which is one of my favorite state QSO party contests. (As I've mentioned before, the goal of these contests is to make contact with as many stations within a particular state as possible, or for those within that state to make as many contacts in general.) Sharon and I had plans on Saturday (visiting a few wineries in the Hudson Valley in New York), so I only had a few hours to operate in the contest on Sunday. Unfortunately, the bands just weren't cooperating early Sunday afternoon, and after about an hour of operating, I'd only worked eight stations. Listening now (around 4PM EDT), things seemed to have picked up a bit, so maybe I'll try again in a while, but my initial attempts were not fun, so I stopped to work on some other things, including writing this.

So what about the Grumpy Old Men comment? It seems that as the contest season gets underway, the complaints start to flow into the mailing lists complaining about the contesters. Some of the complaints are legitimate, since unfortunately some of my contesting brethren do just plop themselves down on a frequency without ensuring that the frequency is not in use. That is just plain wrong, period. However, some of the complaints are made because "the contester was on the frequency that we use every day, and even though they were there first, they should move". Sorry, but that's not the way things work. We amateurs have a reasonable amount of radio spectrum to use. There's plenty of room for all of us if we cooperate with each other. We are fortunate to have these valuable resource to share. If we can't play nicely with each other, then the FCC might just decide to pick up our collective sandbox and give it to someone else.

Image via Wikipedia

I have used Firefox for a long time (back when it was known as Firebird before it was forced to change its name). It is a great browser and if you have not tried it and its tab browser feature then I recommend you give it a try. Although I have used, and still use other browsers, I do like Firefox and return to it regularly.

By the way, if you have only ever used Internet Explorer, you should really try other browsers. You may find one which is more enjoyable to use than IE. Besides Firefox, take a look at Safari, Opera, Sea Monkey or Amaya (these last two contain HTML editors too - I would go further and say Amaya is an editor first and a browser second).

Besides its price (free), speed and tabbed browsing (I cannot do without that), Firefox is popular because of the variety of plugins to enhance its features.  Plugins are modules that can give your browser extra features. Here are some plugins I use for amateur radio.

• Propfire: This is provided by N0HR and displays the current solar activity indices in the browser frame.  Right clicking on the indices also gives more detailed information including propagation forecasts and a graph of data.
• Haminfobar: This is a full toolbar that fits across the browser and includes an array of amateur and related information.  This has a wealth of information within it, plus RSS feeds can be added to it.  Content includes:
  • A search window
  • A drop down menu with links to key pages such as, DX info, QSL info, propagation, specific modes and forums to name a few.
  • A drop down menu that shows sites for equipment, world facts, radio magazines etc.
  • a UTC clock
  • Selected RSS
  • Weather info
  • and so on.
• HamLinks toolbar: Another tool from N0HR and it is very similar to Haminfobar, mentioned above, (not sure which came first but one looks to be a derivative). The content is slightly different, including links to AmateurLogic.TV, which is interesting to watch.  Propagation information is also included inline.
• Foxclocks: It is always useful to have a series of clocks with a series of times at locations around the world.  Foxclocks allows you to display the time at different cities/locations and provides a lot of ways to modify.  I usually display the West Coast of North America, Europe (UK), Far East or Australia.  Great for DXers or users of IRLP or DStar gateways.
• Google Notebook:  I use this for quickly collecting web information for projects.  It is more than a bookmarker as you can clip content too.  It is like an electronic scrapbook.  Great if you use different computers as your Google account means that you can access the same notebook once you are logged in.

• Twitterfox:  I am an infrequent user of the micro-blogging tool Twitter.  This is a nice plugin that allows you to see the Tweets (or posts) that the people you are following have made.  If you want to quickly find out which amateurs use Twitter (so you can select who you want to follow) then check the HamTwits webpage.

I hope you find some of these plugins useful, if you have not tried them before.  I am sure there are other plugins out there being used with amateur radio.  Please share what you use by posting details in a comment below.

      

The online grabber of Johan, ON5EX, provided instant gratification this morning. Right after I finished some modifications that I hoped would result in a Frequency Shift Keying signal on the 30 meter visual QRSS band, looked at the grabbers and found this. That's me. It is a kind of "upside down" FSK. Look along the bottom of the square wave and you can read the CW.

I used a fairly standard approach to get the FSK, but with a twist: I added the usual LED and a cap to the oscillator circuit. Now, on key down, the positive voltage from the keyer causes the LED to conduct, putting the additional cap into the circuit. But here is the twist: for the capacitor, I just used some of that twisted-up two conductor insulated wire that often comes with cheap old (mono) ear phones. In the old days this would have been called a "gimmick" capacitor. I started out with 3 or four inches. Using Spectran to monitor the amount of shift, I just cut off bits of the wire until the shift was at the desired 5 Hertz. I just clipped away at the wire until the shift looked about right.

The rig is now key down all the time, and even though power out is still only about 20 miliwatts, I have the final in Class A, so I actually had to put a heat sink on it. But there is still no need for a muffin fan, or liquid cooling or anything like that!

Five hertz isn't much of a shift. I think I can hear it, but barely. Shows up nicely on the grabber screens.

It was a lot of fun to start out with a vision of what I wanted the signal to look like, then actually make it happen.

I'm finally back on the air. Finished getting the 80m zepp back up in the tree in the front yard and strung over the house. Had to go up on the roof to accomplish the last part. One branch from a tree on the side of the house is preventing me from pulling the antenna to full height, but I will fix that soon with some sling-shot and rope Fujitsu. I also put back up the 40m vertical and connected it to the chain-link fence for a ground system. It works, but signals are down 2 s-units compared to the zepp.

It is nice to be back in radio-land.

Allthough Dayton 2008 took place in May this year, I think this is worth a blog post. The presentations of this years antenna and contest forums are online. Antenna forum Real World Antenna Patterns vs. Theoretical Computer Antenna Plots by W9RE and K9XV A New Approach for Measuring Complex Antenna Currents in a Vertical Array by W8WWV Multi-element Lowband Vertical [...]

Read comment (link).

Ham radio changed after FlexRadio Systems announced the Flex-1500 and Flex-3000 (link). I would consider both as difference makers and game changers. The Flex-1500 opens the door to the NexGen with its affordable price point. One can save the dollars needed for this software defined radio (SDR) within a short period of time. The Flex-1500 does not break the savings account. That's a difference maker.

Additionally, the Flex-3000 is a game changer for its price point as well and, small footprint in the shack. I'm wondering if the next wave of DXpeditions will consider operating a Flex-3000 in the near future? Match this SDR with a laptop and your footprint is substantially less along with reducing freight weight.

I'm looking forward to the innovations that will follow because of the nature of SDR open source coding. The Flex-1500 gives low-power, low-profile operators in densely packed suburban areas a lot of hope at reaching high frequency (HF) operations.

Read Jeff, KE9V's latest posting Flex-Radio Makes Big Move (link).

73 from the shackadelic.

BELTON, Tex. (Oct. 1, 2008) -- About 1,500 Amateur Radio operators and electronics hobbyists with items to sell or with money to spend will gather at the Bell County Expo Center in Belton on Saturday, October 4 for HamEXPO. Temple Amateur Radio Club (TARC) sponsors this twice-a-year techno-fleamarket. The doors open at 7:00 a.m., and the event ends by 1:00 p.m.

Sept. 30, 2008: Astronomers who count sunspots have announced that 2008 is now the "blankest year" of the Space Age. As of Sept. 27, 2008, the sun had been blank, i.e., had no visible sunspots, on 200 days of the year. To find a year with more blank suns, you have to go back to 1954, three years before the launch of Sputnik, when the sun was blank 241 times. "Sunspot counts are at a 50-year low," says solar physicist David Hathaway of the NASA Marshall Space Flight Center. "We're experiencing a deep minimum of the solar cycle."

The Dutch radio-pirate Eric van Willegen gave up his illicit broadcasts from high-rise apartments and ships at sea after being raided by the authorities for the 20th time. Eric has hired an old Soviet transmitter in Lithuania and is now rebroadcasting old tapes of The Wolfman Jack Show all over Europe and beyond

Hans van de Groenendaal, ZS6AKV, and Francois Botha, ZS6BUU, made presentations at the South African regulator ICASA's PLT Hearing held in Sandton last Wednesday and Thursday.

Episode 22 features part two of a tour of the Australian Army’s Signals Museum

The Caribbean National Wildlife Refuge Complex has selected and announced a team of operators to activate Desecheo Island (KP5) sometime between January 15, 2009 and March 30, 2009

An International Space Station Expedition 17 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at Scuola Media Statale Donato Forlani, Conversano, Italy on 07 October.

On Friday, we reported that RAYNET in Kent were in action following the failure of the ambulance service communications system. Raynet have issued the following update on the situation

It all started when Geoff, VK2KPK, in Australia spotted the e-mail address of Mike Bosch, ZS2FM, on their VK-VHF NET. VK2KPK e-mailed ZS2FM on Monday asking for his help to locate a lost amateur friend, Arthur White, who moved to the RSA many years ago..

One colourful web site is that of the Wanganui Amateur Radio Society Inc located on New Zealand's North Island. However, the exciting and interesting item on this website is the ability to 'tune in' to New Zealand's National System

Hannes Coetzee, ZS6BZP, reports that the expected solar activity will be very low. The geomagnetic field is expected to be mostly at quiet levels untill 11 October

Engineering content can be a little dry sometimes. To add some spice to this world of precision, Agilent commissioned Rand Kruback to create his artistic view of some common EE terms and phrases. These cartoons should lighten your day!

Brought to you every few days while I’m downunder, remember normal homebrew activities resume mid October.

End of update.

New are the Flex-3000 Portable 100w and Flex-1500 QRP radios. FLEX-3000™ Software Defined Radio An Affordable and Compact Software Defined Radio Built on the Same Solid Foundation of the FLEX-5000™ Family of Transceivers. They say dynamite comes in small packages and nothing could be closer to the truth. The new FLEX-3000 software defined radio, built using the same [...]