Planet Ham

Esta tarde después de comer me he subido un ratico al cuarto de radio.En 20 mts no había spot interesantes salvo por el de Marion a quien no escuchaba y alguna estacion especial europea.

Today I went to a memorial service for a local villager who died of Parkinson's Disease after years of failing health. The church was full. This poem entitled "He Is Gone" was said at the end and I found it profoundly moving.

You can shed tears that he is gone

Or you can smile because he has lived 

You can close your eyes and pray that he will come back

Or you can open your eyes and see all that he has left

Your heart can be empty because you can't see him

Or you can be full of the love that you shared

You can turn your back on tomorrow and live yesterday

Or you can be happy for tomorrow because of yesterday

You can remember him and only that he is gone

Or you can cherish his memory and let it live on

You can cry and close your mind, be empty and turn your back

Or you can do what he would want: smile, open your eyes, love and go on.

It was written in 1981 by David Harkins. See http://www.poeticexpressions.co.uk/

It has been a while since I wrote about the new APRS client for Windows and Windows Mobile being developed by Lynn, KJ4ERJ and known as APRSISCE/32 but it has been coming on apace with new versions being released almost every day. Many of the improvements probably won't mean much to anyone who doesn't know anything about APRS. But one of the more recent and quite revolutionary developments has been the chat window, which allows you to carry out a two-way text chat conversation with another APRS user.

Instead of the primitive edit box found in most APRS clients in which you would have to type your messages in 64-character chunks due to the limitations of APRS messaging you can now type just what you want and APRSISCE/32 will split it up and send it as separate messages transparently. It also takes care of ensuring the parts are displayed in the right order at the other end. You can also view the entire conversation in its own window - useful if you are having conversations with two or more people when you are tired late at night and lose track of what you are saying to whom!

You can chat with anyone, anywhere in the world. True, at the moment most of these conversations are being conveyed over the internet not RF, which will inevitably incur the complaints that "it's not ham radio." But they could just as easily use RF. The only problem is that for most of us an adequate APRS RF infrastructure to support worldwide messaging doesn't exist. But the more people are attracted to the mode - and even the hobby - by cool developments like this, the more likely it is that an effective infrastructure will be built. In many parts of the world you could certainly link up across town on VHF like this.

Regular digital modes are fun. But is there any reason why the only way to have a contact is for two people to have sole occupancy of a frequency and one sends to the other, then the other replies back, repeat until finished, the way contacts have been made ever since Marconi first picked up a morse key?

I was in the shack making a few adjustments to the Echolink software configuration. The K3 was on 30m APRS with the speaker volume turned down to almost inaudible. Suddenly, at about 1410 UTC, I heard a buzzing type of interference. I looked at the TrueTTY waterfall and saw there were interference bars every 50Hz right across the screen, strong enough to prevent anything from being decoded.

50Hz is the mains frequency here in the UK. With a sinking feeling my immediate thought was that one of the neighbours had discovered a new way to make the HF bands unusable. Then I remembered that Lynn, KJ4ERJ had posted a screenshot of similar interference only the day before in an APRS forum. I checked back, and sure enough the interference Lynn had seen in Florida was exactly the same.

I don't know what it is, but I don't think even my neighbours are capable of generating interference that could be heard across the Atlantic. It's still going strong 30 minutes later. I haven't seen an HF band wiped out like this since the Woodpecker fell silent back in the '80s. Well, at least I've got Echolink!

Gracias Javier, EC7DZZ.

Gracias a EA1GAR.

Vi segnalo che ho aggiornato il mio sito HF Archive con quattro nuovi impianti “sardi”:

Rai - Raiway Centro Onde Medie Sassari
Stazione Costiera IDC Cagliari Radio
Radiofaro NDB ALG Alghero
Radiofaro NDB CAR Capo Carbonara

L’indirizzo web e’ sempre: http://www.mediasuk.org/archive

Greater Cincinnati Amateur Radio 2010 Hamfest

Sunday September 19,

8am to 2pm

Diamond Oaks Career Development Center
6375 Harrison Ave
Cincinnati, Ohio 45247

General Chairman: Stan Cohen, W8QDQ (513) 531-1011. (Stanco49@ Zoomtown.Com)

Vendors: Contact Tom Denham, K8VOE (513)779-3951. ok8voe@arrl.net)

This Is the 74th Anniversary.

ARRL Forum, 1936 Net, Hidden Transmitter Hunt.

Good Food, Free Parking, Flea Market (Setup Begins @ 6am),

Commercial Vendors

Hourly Prizes,

For Further Information And Directions Please go to : www.gcara.Org

Come And Enjoy The Fun!!!!

Admission only $6.00 at the gate

View Larger Map

Today I converted my earth electrode antenna with elevated feed wires into a full "in the air" loop for both 500kHz and 136kHz. As might be expected, tuning is now very sharp as there is no longer a 50 ohm earth resistance in circuit dampening the Q. At first I found matching and tuning impossible until I decided to match the loop with a step-down transformer (3.5:1 on a 3C90 core) and separately do the tuning. This works a treat and it is now a simple matter to tune the loop either for 500kHz or 136/137kHz.

First reports on 136kHz with the QRSS3 beacon suggest the signal is about 6dB stronger, which is a great result. The loop is wound with quite thin wire (1-2mm diameter), so a higher efficiency is possible with thicker wire, but with even sharper tuning.

LATER: Attracting any attention is turning out to be a serious issue with real QRP on 136kHz. Even with alerts on my blog, the LF-reflector and the GQRP Yahoo groups it's hard to get that many people taking a listen/look. With uW ERPs I'm beginning to think that I'm never going to be able to get much further than my present best DX of 62km.

Actualizado el log de YJ0VK, hoy dia 2 de setiembre a las 00.00z con un total de 3946 qso´s.

73´s,Luis
EA1CS

Col a través de su web solicita archivos de sonido para completar la tabla del Dxcc que os muestro en el siguiente enlace.
Si dispones de alguno de los que faltan para completar en CW/SSB serían muy apreciados para completar este importante trabajo.

La dirección de correo:
dxworld.news@gmail.com

73´s,Luis
EA1CS

The ‘Associação de Radioamadores do Litoral Alentejano’ invites everyone to participate in a special Amplitude Modulation (AM) transmission commemoration, using the 80, 40, 20, 10 and 2m bands, on Sunday, Sept 19, 2010.
Frequencies and periods:

3.685 MHz - from 0600 to 0800 UTC
7.1 MHz - from 0800 to 1100 UTC *
14.286 MHz - from 1300 to 1400 UTC
29.075 MHz - from 1400 to 1500 UTC
144.575.0 MHz - from 1500 to 1600 UTC

*alternative frequency is 7.143 MHz

De Dxing:
OJ0W será el indicativo que OH3SW utilizará desde Market Reef del 12 al 22 de setiembre 2010 en bandas de HF trabajando los modos de Cw y ssb.
Qsl vía h. call.

73´s,luis
EA1CS

Animación de la NASA sobre la evolución del huracán.

Todo tipo de información en Wunderground.

2 setiembre 2010, actualización:
Situacíon a las 15.00z 30.9N y 74.8W.
Huracán de categoría 4 Earl sigue el enfoque de la Costa Este se espera que mantenga la fuerza y pasará cerca de los Outer Banks el jueves por la noche para luego ir por la península de Delmarva viernes por la mañana. A continuación, se debilitará a su paso por Cabo Cod viernes por la tarde. Probablemente tendrá impacto en Nueva Escocia , Canada, pero ya como una tormenta tropical aunque fuerte en algún momento del sábado.

Nueva 425 Toolbar
La estoy examinando y me parece interesante y funcional.

73´s,Luis
EA1CS

De Southgate Amateur Radio Club:

Randy N0TG, informa:
Las fechas de la operación se han modificado ligeramente debido a cuestiones de logística:
21 de octubre al 29 de 2010.
Desafortunadamente, Murray, WA4DAN, ha tenido que retirarse de la DXpedición, debido a los conflictos comerciales. Fue el organizador original y ha estado involucrado en toda la planificación ya que a principios de 2009.
Gary Bartlett, VE1RGB, ha sido admitido como 4ºoperador . Gary es un experto operador de CW, competidor activo de concursos, experiencia en el manejo pileups, y una gran formación técnica. Además, una ventaja es que Gary ya había operado desde la isla de Sable.

Los indicativos son:, CY0/AI5P, CY0/N0TG y CY0/VE1RGB.

De Dx World:

Steve VK6IR VK3FY y Chris se encuentran en la etapa de planificación para ir a la isla Heard, en febrero de 2013. El número de operadores se limita a 13. Se espera que la activación será de 14 días, mientras que los viajes hacia y desde la isla tendrá 14 días en cada sentido. Los costos pueden ser del orden de USD $ 400-500K. Chris, explica VK3FY se han iniciado negociaciones con los propietarios de buques y una solicitud ha sido remitida al departamento gubernamental pertinente en lo que respecta al permiso de aterrizaje.

A couple of months ago I acquired a Kenwood TM-D710 dual band FM transceiver with APRS as it was the best solution to the problem of how to operate an APRS gateway without losing the ability to monitor for voice contacts on 2m when you do not have the space for two widely separated antennas. I have been quite pleased with the radio but rather alarmed at the number of reports of loss of sensitivity due to the failure of one or more of the IF filters. I asked on the Kenwood Yahoo group whether this was just a faulty batch of filters affecting radios of a certain age or a generic problem that was likely to affect any TM-D710 eventually and  was directed to this explanation in the blog of Tasos, SV8YM.

It has been a long time since I read such a well written explanation of a technical phenomenon and I'm sure you'll find it interesting, especially if you own a VHF radio with 455kHz IF filters. In fact I'm sure many of you will find other articles of interest in this blog. I've added it to my regular reading list.

If it's spotted on the cluster network, with hamDXCluster you will see it on your iPhone or iPod touch.
LINK

Leaving soon for Elba Island (source)

toolbar powered by Conduit

Grant Amateur Radio Club

146.730 mhz – Brown County Ohio – PL 162.2 hz

Join us at our 17th Annual Ham Fest!

November 6, 2010

Each year in November the Grant Amateur Radio Club holds it’s yearly hamfest! Please join the exciting activities and visit the indoor vendor areas and flea market. Try some of our great food and visit with other hams for a great day! We hope to see you there!

Over $2000 in prizes will be given away!

1st Prize – Yaesu FT-857D all band all mode
2nd Prize – Yaesu FT-7900 dual band mobile
3rd prize – Icom IC V80 2-meter handheld
4th prize – Yaesu FT-250R 2-meter handheld

Check back soon for additional information! Door prize drawings from our vendors will be held throughout the day

GRAND PRIZE drawing at 2:00

Food will be served all day!

8:00 am – 2:00 pm

Talk-in: 146.730 — PL 162.2
(PL tone should be off)

Location: A.B.C.E.O.I. Building
406 West Plum Street
Georgetown, OH 45121

Admission: $2.00 per person
Advance tickets are available!

Vendors and Flea Market: All tables are free!
Advanced table reservations required.
Contact: Rodney WD8CTX at 937-446-2338 or by e-mail at wd8ctx@juno.com
Vendor Setup: Friday 5:00-10:00 pm. and begining Saturday morning at 5:30 am.

License Testing will begin at 10 a.m. Anyone wishing to test should try to be on time.

For more information: phone: Rodney at 937-446-2338

View Larger Map

Many years ago Jack Hum G5UM attended the Cambridge club and talked about VHF. During the talk he mentioned a gramaphone disc being made recording the very last night of operation on 56MHz in the London area in the 1940s. Does anyone know what happened to this most historic recording?  This would be a wonderful item of ham history if it could be located.

As of this moment, it's looking like Hurricane Earl might only give coastal NJ a glancing blow. Current computer models are showing the Cat. 4 hurricane remaining well off shore, with only tropical storm warning posted for the immediate coast.

Earl se desplaza hacia la costa de Carolina del Norte, como huracán de categoría 3 Earl se dirige al noroeste a 17 mph. Earl se ha debilitado respecto al día de ayer, pero sigue siendo probable que su máxima aproximación a Ultraterrestre Bancos de Carolina del Norte como un huracán de categoría 3 la madrugada del viernes. Earl es probable que debilite a un huracán de categoría 2 en su máximo acercamiento a Massachusetts viernes por la noche, y se espera que llegue a Nueva Escocia, Canadá la noche del sábado por la mañana como un huracán categoría 1. La tormenta tropical Fiona está dirigida hacia el noroeste de Bermuda y el recién formado la depresión tropical Nueve se convierta en tormenta tropical Gaston para el jueves, y podría amenazar a las Antillas Menores el martes.

73´s,Luis
EA1CS

El 31 de agosto de 2010, el Gerente del Refugio en Fish & Wildlife Service EE.UU. (FWS) notificó a la Radio Expediciones Inc equipo que van a recibir un permiso para llevar a cabo la DXpedición a Jarvis Island (KH5). La selección de un equipo para visitar Jarvis es el paso más reciente en un largo proceso que comenzó en junio 2009 con la visita de los miembros del equipo de radio Expediciones de gestión a la oficina de Honolulu FWS.
La administración de la Isla Jarvis Refugio de Vida Silvestre se lleva a cabo de acuerdo con objetivo fijado en el Plan Integral de Conservación, que finalizó el 24 de septiembre 2008. Puedes leer este plan de aquí.

Durante el primer semestre de 2010 el personal del FWS elaboró un proyecto;
Determinación de compatibilidad para Operaciones de Radio Amateur en la Isla Jarvis Refugio de Vida Silvestre. Este documento contiene las normas y restricciones para expediciones en Jarvis. Al mismo tiempo Expediciones Radio Inc presentó una primera solicitud del permiso y, junto con el dueño del "MV Braveheart", se reunió de nuevo con el personal de gestión refugio en abril para discutir los planes, las limitaciones y opciones.

Debido al tiempo requerido para establecer la reglamentación de las operaciones de radioaficionados en el Refugio, la fecha de selección tarde, y el tiempo requerido para programar y preparar el Braveheart MV, la expedición se ha aplazado un año hasta el 2011 de noviembre. Noviembre sigue siendo el mejor mes para visitar Jarvis Isla desde el punto de vista de propagación, con la mayor combinación de aperturas previsto para Europa en ambos 160/80 y 12/10 bandas metros.
Los miembros de la lista de distribución de correo electrónico recibirán mensajes adicionales durante los próximos meses sobre los planes, incluyendo detalles acerca de cómo el proyecto cumplirá con las numerosas restricciones impuestas a las operaciones de radioaficionados en Jarvis.

It’s always a good day when that 5×7″ envelope arrives from the W5 buro. Nothing rare in this batch but some nice cards for sure.

 .

.

.

Also in the mailbox was the National Contest Journal from the ARRL. I wish every day was this nice…

.

.