PlanetHam.org

Come and see the IU Booth at the IU Student Involvement Fair September 9th 11am to 2pm at the IMU. You can sign up to join the club, find out about how to get your Amateur Radio License, and probably even talk to someone via the radio!!!

Tom Kinahan, N1CPE writes on MRAS-Leaders: The following new courses have been added to the Massachusetts Emergency Management Agency's training calendar: Hazmat Awareness at Mass Highway District One on September 26, 2008 Incident Command System 100 at Maynard MRC/Elderly Housing Community Room on September 27, 2008 Incident Command System 400 at DelValle Institute - O'Neill Room on October 23, 2008 NIMS-700 / ICS-100 at Bedford Police Department on October 4, 2008 Visit our web site at http://tinyurl.com/ypzh5y for more details.

Nov 1-Dec 15, 2008 -- Antarctica -- FT5YI -- QSL: F4EGX -- Source: F5NQL (Sep 8, 2008) -- By F4EGS fm Terre Adelie, Base Dumont d'Urville; 20m; spare time operation; begin and end dates approximate

Since work have blocked blogger access, a new method needed to be found.


Posted with LifeCast

SB DX @ WW BARF80.ORG (Cleveland, Ohio) Thanks to the Northern Ohio Amateur Radio Society, Northern Ohio DX Association, Ohio/Penn PacketCluster Network, AB5K & the AR TelNet Clusters...

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Hanna Passes Up Eastern Seaboard ARRL - Hartford,CT,USA Amateur Radio operators in the Carolinas and northward were prepared for the storm. According to ARRL North Carolina Section Manager Tim Slay,...

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Local Ham operators prepare for Ike Tampa Bay's 10 - St. Petersburg,FL,USA Amateur radio operators are already in place down in the Keys. Here, locally, they are getting prepared for Ike as well....

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SB PROP @ ARL $ARLP037 ARLP037 Propagation de K7RA ZCZC AP37 QST de W1AW Propagation Forecast Bulletin 37 ARLP037 From Tad Cook, K7RA Seattle, WA September 5, 2008 To all radio amateurs SB PROP...

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ARRL, Amateur Radio Gears Up for Hanna, Ike ARRL - Hartford,CT,USA While Hanna currently remains a tropical storm, we must ensure that all Amateur Radio preparations are in place in case the storm...

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Clearwater, Fla. - For Jim Carter, being a Skywarn Spotter is more than a hobby. "The primary mission for Skywarn is to protect life, limb and property," said Carter. Local Ham operators, including Carter, are preparing for Hurricane Ike now. By now they know the drill. "Actual storms, tornadoes, hurricanes. We help track those storms along with the National Weather Service," said Carter. They are able to track the damage from out in the field. "We start moving, actually, the minute the EOC opens up," he said. Ham operators can inform the National Weather Service about downed trees and power lines in addition to other damage. "We're in the middle of it and we do anything we can for safety," added Carter. Carter has been a ham operator since 1993 and remembers the storms of 2004. "Everything from trees, down to roofs taken off," he said. "A lot of heavy rain and flooding." Ham operators have historically played an important role in crisis communication. "The first sets of distress calls from the Titanic were heard by radio amateurs back in the 1900s," explained Carter. "The worst thing I've ever seen is basically a house cut in half by a tree."

Members of the Pentagon Amateur Radio Club (PARC) will activate special event station K4AF on Thursday, September 11th. Activity is to commemorate the 7th anniversary of the attacks that occurred on the Pentagon, the World Trade Center and over Pennsylvania in 2001

The GB7DE D-star system now has an operational internet Gateway. This forms a major part of the GM D-Star network across the central belt of Scotland

The UK regulator Ofcom has supplied the figures for the total number of Amateur Radio Licences issued as at 31st August

Since the DXCC Annual List has not been published in print for many years, a point of clarification may be needed to help explain how the list works

This may prove to be a good time to say a final 'goodbye' to all of our readers (in advance), as this week is the week of 'The Big Bang'

Weekly IOTA News - compiled by OPDX

The Irish Radio Transmitters Society's web site has an excellent article on Good Operating Practice by ON4WW

The rare Blasket Island Group with IOTA reference EU-007 will be activated this coming week by a team led by Dave EI9FBB

The 17th annual Rally of the Cork Radio Club will be held at the Montenotte Hotel this Sunday, the 14th of September 2008

The Vienna International Centre Amateur Radio Club 4U1VIC will be on the air during the Worked All Europe DX Contest (WAEDC), September 13-14th

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

Coimbatore Amateur Radio club is organizing the Radio Sport event AMATEUR RADIO DIRECTION FINDING (ARDF) or FOX HUNT on Sunday, the 12th October 2008 in Coimbatore. This is the 8th such event conducted by our club from inception.

All HAMs and SWLs are eligible to participate in this event. The Fox hole (Amateur Radio Station) will operate anywhere within the radius of 30 KM from the city center. Fox Hunters i.e., other licensed amateur operators will have to locate the FOX with the help of the tone, which the Fox will emanate at regular time intervals. The tone will emanate continuously for one minute at every five-minute interval on 144.100 MHz.

The operator to reach the Fox first is declared as winner of the contest. A Rolling Shield and Shield for the members to the first three winning teams will be awarded.

We have organized this fox hunt on Sunday, the 12th October 2008, for our members and other amateur radio operators. The contest will start at 9.00 am and end by 12.00 noon.

We request the Hams to enroll themselves for the event before 30th Sep 2008.

Thanking you,


Source: (R R Balasundharam VU2RTF) Organizer – VIII VHF Fox Hunt 2008

TypeWorld Wide Contest. All stations can be worked Date Third week-end of September. In 2008 it will be the 20th and the 21st of September starting Saturday at 13:00 UTC until Sunday at 13:00 UTC; No time off, stations may work 24 hours.

CategoriesA) Single operator High power (+150 watts) All Band SSBB) Single operator Low Power (150 watts max) All Band SSBC) Multi operator single transmitter High power (+150 watts) All Band SSBD) Multi operator single transmitter Low power (150 watts max) All Band SSBE) SWL.

All operators can use packet cluster
Bands and modes - 10/160 meters (no WARC) SSB
Exchange - Signal report (RS) followed by the CQ zone number
ScoringQSO Points0 points for qso with stations of the same country1 point for qso with stations of another country but in the same continent3 points for qso with stations of another continent Multipliers DXCC entities + WAE and CQ zones are multipliers. Stations can only be counted once for multiplier credit Final Score Final score = total QSO points x total multipliers Miscelaneous Station may be worked once per band.Mode is SSB only, no cross mode contacts.No repeatersMaritime mobile and aeronautical mobile stations do not count for QSO or multiplier credit.Logs-Logs must be sent before the 15th of November to the Log Manager, mailto:francoik8wej@

Logs will be follow IARU standards: date, time (UTC), RS(T) received andRS(T) transmitted.
Duplicate qsos not marked as dupes and removed from the final score will be penalized.
Logs will be submitted using standard Cabrillo format. Most all of the commercial contest logging software supports Cabrillo format. (see softwarebelow)
Log files must be named with your callsign.

E-mail your log with your callsign plus SRT in the subject line (Forexample: IK8WEJ SRT) to the Log Manager: mailto:francoik8wej@

PrizesFirst, second and third place awards for each operator category will be presented at the 6th International DX Convention, Salerno 2009.Penalties-A two QSO penalty will be issued for duplicate QSOs not marked as dupes or for busted calls.

Stations not following the Contest Rules or submitting logs with an excessive dupes and or busted calls will be disqualified for this event and will not be allowed to participate in the event for the following year. All decisions of the contest committee are final.SoftwareLogging for this event can be done by using one of the following contest software programs. Select CQ WW DX SSB as the contest template.CT by K1EA (http://www.k1ea.com/)NA Logging (http://www.contesting.com/datom/)OH2GI Ham System (http://www.kolumbus.fi/jukka.kallio/) Super-Duper by EI5DI (http://www.ei5di.com/) TR Log by N6TR (http://www.qth.com/tr) Writelog (http://www.writelog.com/)

Source: http://www.strangeradioteam.com/

I’ve noted before that one of the disadvantages of using a Mac in the shack is the lack of software. Fortunately, Tom, DL2RUM, has come to our rescue. His programs, RUMLog and RUMTrol, are really great programs. Oh, and did I mention they’re free?

About a week ago, I decided to get RUMTrol working. Instead of kludging together the USB-RS232 converter, followed by the RS232-CIV converter I built a couple years ago, I decided to purchase to but a USB-CIV cable. After reading some positive comments online, I bought the Radio Shack 20-047 Scanner Programming Cable. Unfortunately, it took quite a bit of futzing to get this to work properly.

First of all, I had to get the proper driver. Without this driver, RUMTrol couldn’t even see the port. A guy on the Ham-Mac mailing list pointed me in the right direction for this driver, which I downloaded from the FTDI website (www.ftdichip.com).

At this point, I could program RUMTrol to send data to the radio, but it wasn’t reading any data from the radio. I tried a bunch of different settings, but without any success. The frustrating thing about all this is that the radio seemed to be sending the data (at least that’s what I took the flashing lights on the cable to mean), but the computer wasn’t receiving it.

I posted a query to the RUMSoft bulletin board, and after a few go-rounds, Tom, DL2RUM, was able to set me straight. The problem seemed to be my choice of baud rate - 300 baud. My thinking was that if I could get it to work properly at the slowest baud rate, I could then jack up the baud rate so that it would work faster.

Wrong! I never did get the received at 300 baud, but after DL2RUM suggest that I set the baud rate to 9600 baud everything started working. I’m puzzled, but happy.

50 Ohm Impedance Matching -  is it something Mystical, the Magic solution to all feedline woes, or simply a bunch of Codswollup? Perhaps it is a bit of all of these! The average Radio Amateur’s gear is all nominally rated to use 50 Ohm coax feedline, matched to a 50 ohm feed point on an antenna. What is [...]

The rainfall total from Tropical Storm Hanna, in my little corner of South Plainfield, was 4.5 inches.

No winds above 30 MPH - so no broken limbs or felled trees or major damage in our immediate neighborhood. No power outages, either - power remained on throughout.

73 de Larry W2LJ

Tropical Storm Hanna made its way up the East Coast of the United States, making landfall on the North/South Carolina border at 3:15 AM (EDT) Saturday, September 6. The storm produced tropical storm-force winds gusts, with some locations experiencing sustained tropical storm-force winds. Amateur Radio operators in the Carolinas and northward were prepared for the storm.

Using the The IOIo Beam To Work Satellites and also 144MHZ SSB DX During A Contest. /Portable
Hope you enjoy the video.

My challenge for the past several weeks has been to check the band changes for multi-single entries.  The rules specify “One other band may be used during any 10-minute period if the station worked is a new multiplier.”  The multi-single rule is one of the most complicated in the contest.  It requires people to make decisions on stations to work in real time.  For example, is this XY100ZZZ a new mult or not?  It’s expected that there will be mistakes.  Thus the reason we check the logs!

Unfortunately, the WPX contest rules for 2008 did not require entries to indicate which QSOs were made on the “run” band and which were on the “mult” band.  K1EA (with help from KR2Q) did a great job in the log checking software of having the computer determine a best guess for which QSOs are run or mult.  Even so, there are cases where it requires human judgment to determine what was actually going on.  That has been my job.  I probably spent 80 hours just on confirming or helping the log checking software do the right thing.

The problem for computers is that they require a very specific definition of what 10 minutes means.  E.g., when the clock starts, which QSOs are being checked by which clock, and so on.  Our log checking this year assumed the clock started when a QSO was made on a new band.

For the 2009 contest, we will be changing the rules to follow those of the CQ WW contest.  We may even add a few additional words to make the band change definitions more specific.  We know this will help us with the log checking, but we also expect it to make the competition more fair since there will be less room for interpretation by each operating team.

 

SnapCircuits are electronics kits designed for kids (although adults have fun with them, too!). Components, such as resistors, capacitors, motors, transistors, and LEDs are mounted on plastic bases that snap together. The manuals that come with the kits describe a number of different circuits that are both fun and educational.

Now, for adults there’s littleBits. The website has a short video on the concept and this text:

littleBits is an opensource library of discrete electronic components pre-assembled in tiny circuit boards. Just as Legos allow you to create complex structures with very little engineering knowledge, littleBits are simple, intuitive, space-sensitive blocks that make prototyping with sophisticated electronics a matter of snapping small magnets together. With a growing number of available modules, littleBits aims to move electronics from late stages of the design process to its earliest ones, and from the hands of experts, to those of artists, makers and designers.

Stay tuned, design files, schematics and instructions will be online soon

Ambitious, no? I do like it that the designs will be open-source and the way the modules connect magnetically, but without more detail it’s hard to say how easy or difficult it will be to use these things.

There’s also a question of whether or not there will be processor “bits” and how these processors are to be programmed. I can’t imagine they haven’t thought of that yet, but there’s such little detail on the website, it’s hard to say for sure. If they’re smart, and Bdeir is an MIT graduate so presumably she is, they’ll adopt one of the small processor designs, such as the Arduino, that’s become popular in the maker community.

Anyway, they have a mailing list, that I just subscribed to, and hopefully there will be more details forthcoming soon.  I’ll update when I know more.

Call: KA3DRR
Operator(s): KA3DRR
Station: KA3DRR

Class: Single Op LP
QTH: CA

Operating Time (hrs): 4.0

Summary.

Band  QSOs  Op Time
---------------------
---80:--10-----1.00
---40:--28-----1.50
---20:--4------1.50
---------------------
Total:--42    
Mults = 24 
Total Score = 1,008

Club: Northern California Contest Club

Team: NCCC #3

SEC/IL QST080907 ILARES® HF Net September 7, 2008 The Illinois Section ARES® HF Net meets regularly on the 1st and 3rd Sundays of every month on 3905 KHz at 4:30 PM to test HF NVIS propagation...

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Just after noon on Friday, when Aiken's Makin' was in full swing, volunteers working in the Aiken County Emergency Services' communications trailer began handing out bright yellow fliers warning vendors that high winds and heavy rains may be heading into Aiken. Bob Besley had generated those fliers from the state-of-the-art trailer after spending much of the morning monitoring Hanna's progress and answering questions for worried crafters. An amateur radio operator, Besley was scheduled to be in downtown Aiken on Friday and Saturday to assist Public Safety officials with communications when dark gray clouds started to move in, and some vendors started to get a little panicky. "They really need to know what to do, because the wind could damage their tents and merchandise," Besley said. But the communications expertise Besley brought to the event did more than help the vendors; he was able to transmit information from Aiken Public Safety to the Aiken County Sheriff's Office and Aiken County EMS. The agencies use different frequencies, but Besley can monitor them and bridge the gap, said Lt. David Turno with Aiken Public Safety.

The South African Radio League Radio Technology in Action Symposium will kick off on Saturday 13 September with a debate by various club chairmen about the future of amateur radio

14 year-old Brittany Decker, KB1OGL, has been named Youth Editor of CQ Amateur Radio magazine

Pictures from Rosetta's encounter with the asteroid Steins are now available. The first images from Rosetta's OSIRIS imaging system and VIRTIS infrared spectrometer were derived from raw data Saturday morning and have delivered spectacular results

Simon HB9DRV has been adding new features to the popular free Ham Radio Deluxe program and plans to add ISS Robot 36 SSTV support

At the end of a flawless six-month mission, Jules Verne, Europe’s first Automated Transfer Vehicle, undocked from the International Space Station at 23:29 hours CEST

Celebrating 52 years, the Shelby Hamfest usually hosts between 8,000 to 12,000 attendees annually. It is one of the largest hamfest in the United States, and certainly one of the largest in the Southeast

AO-51 experienced a software crash on August 28 and command stations have been working to reload the spacecraft software

Clubs and Interest groups are invited to exhibit at the South African Radio League's RTA event and use the opportunity to promote their activities

40 Meters was wall to wall NA QSO Party QSOs; so I ventured down to 80 Meters, not knowing what to expect with the atmospheric conditions roiling all day.

Pleasantly, there was a major lack of QRN and static crashes. Maybe Autumnal conditions are starting to make their presence known on 80 Meters once again. That would be a welcome to me as I enjoy QSOs on 80 with regularity. The G5RV does a very nice job for me on 80 and I have no complaints. I don't seem to garner much DX with it; but I have no problems having nice ragchew QSOs on 80 Meters with stations I guess could be considered "local".

And so it was tonight. Calling CQ netted a nice QSO with Bill WA1ZFE who hails out of Norwalk, CT. Bill was also QRP, running 5 Watts out of his Kenwood TS-2000 to a loop antenna. Conditions were such that we were able to give each other RSTs of 589. We were going at it nicely, comparing Hanna weather notes when IT happened.

And by "IT", I mean unannounced contest stations blasting on an occupied frequency without even so much as a complimentary "QRL?" Nothing like inconsiderate contesters to bust up a good ragchew. I understand that since I was running QRP, they might not have heard me; but even that being said, there's NO reason to just start blindly transmitting without throwing a "QRL?" out there as a courtesy. Such as it was, even turning on the K2's tight crystal filters made copy go from sublime to almost impossible in a matter of seconds - they were indeed, right on top of us.

Now I know there are many A-1 op contesters out there who are a shining example to uphold. Unfortunately, there are also "some" out there who break the cardinal rule, "Listen first before transmitting." They're the ones who give all contesters a bad reputation. I certainly don't mind sharing the bands with fans of contests; but it would be nice if they listened before jumping in with both feet.

Heck, it would be nice if EVERYONE would listen before they transmit - contesters, ragchewers, traffic handlers alike. I wonder why that's such a difficult concept for some?

73 de Larry W2LJ

Yesterday, I installed a wireless router here. Now, I not only have wireless networking throughout the house, but the two birdies around 14.030 MHz are gone! I was living with them as I didn’t want to turn off the router while operating, but now that’s a moot point.

One thing I found kind of puzzling about the birdies is that sometimes they would be stronger than others. I guess that could be the result of different amounts of traffic on the net. Any thoughts?

'hit you on your way out the door, Hanna! Good bye and good riddance!

Hanna is beginning to leave our environs. A bit more rain is expected until Midnight; but it seems the worst is over (at least that's what various radar pictures are showing).

The winds are picking up on the backside of the storm. While 20 MPH gusts were intermittent before, it seems like a 20 MPH wind is about the norm right now with some higher gusts. A few minutes ago, I went out to check my rain gauge and it looks like a total of just just a skosh over 4.5 inches.

All in all, it wasn't a devastating storm. We've had some winter time Nor'Easters that were much worse. Back in 1994 (I think that was the year) we had a December Nor'Easter blow through and later it was called a "white hurricane". Those were much worse non-hurricane storms.

Tomorrow the forecast is for a very sunny Sunday with highs in the mid 80s. What a difference a day makes! Now maybe I'll head down to the shack for a bit to see what's brewing on 40 Meters.

73 de Larry W2LJ

*************** The ARRL Letter Vol. 27, No. 35 September 5, 2008 *************** IN THIS EDITION: * + ARRL, Amateur Radio Gears Up for Hanna, Ike * + Amateur Radio Operators Were Ready for...

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the solar cycle continues to depress my fellow hams.  I have remarked to others that we should be hoping for a new Maraunder Minimum as this might revert the effects of the global greenhouse pheneoma in increasing average global temperature.  The A and K indices were high.  I heard several reports of complete band failure instead of gradual fadiing or flutter during this past week.

One of my friends, KA1EUI, just finished some tower work.  You can review some of his photos, here. I need to get some towers, going.  I would like to get a beverage or two going for 75 meters DX phone as well.

N1EY

I have no idea what Twitter is, but ARRL is there. I don't see anything on their Twitter page that isn't on the news page of their big WEB site. I guess I'm to old to get it. See if you can and get it at http://twitter.com/arrl.

As of 6:35 PM EDT, the center of Hanna is over the DelMarVa peninsula. Heavy rain bands are falling over New Jersey; and as you can see, most of the state is colored yellow. Since the beginning, some 4 hours ago, about 3 inches of rain have fallen here in South Plainfield, at least in my back yard.

Strangely enough, just across town lives another SkyWarn spotter - Marv K2VHW. He has recorded about 1/2 to 3/4 of an inch more rain than I have received here.

Luckily, I live on the crest of a small rise and I am not experiencing any water problems to speak of - notwithstanding a leaky skylight here in the rec room. Many parts of Middlesex County which are lower in elevation are reporting moderate to major flooding of local roads and highways.

73 de Larry W2LJ

It has rained approximately 2 inches in the last 3 hours. More heavy bands of rain are expected until Hanna clears out sometime between 11:00 PM to Midnight. So far, winds have been very quiet; a lot more quiet than I expected. I would guesstimate no more than some 20 MPH gusts; and those not often at all. They will probably pick up on the backside of the storm.

On a lighter note, Jim W1PID went on another one of his QRP hiking adventures recently. For a recap, along with pictures of the awesomely beautiful New Hampshire scenery, please visit:

http://www.mv.com/ipusers/w1pid/piper2/piper.html

73 de Larry W2LJ

Just after noon on Friday, when Aiken's Makin' was in full swing, volunteers working in the Aiken County Emergency Services' communications trailer began handing out bright yellow fliers warning vendors that high winds and heavy rains may be heading into Aiken.

Approximately one hour ago, at 2:30 PM Eastern Daylight Time, the first of Hanna's rains have arrived in Central New Jersey.

Going out to do the grocery shopping this morning, the air felt like a sauna. This was truly a good indication of the tropical air accompanying the storm.

The radar image up top, courtesy of AccuWeather, shows the heavy rain bands across most of New Jersey.

SkyWarn has been activated, CERT is on standby and I have set out a rain gauge that will hopefully let me record total rainfall amounts that occur here in South Plainfield. Since it's a temporary gauge of my own design, I hope it doesn't blow away in the expected heavy winds to come. There have been accompanying rumbles of thunder occuring at random intervals. So I guess there will be no HF transmissions from W2LJ until they stop.

73 de Larry W2LJ

Just a reminder, as I just deleted several comments left with various political opinions, that as much as possible With Varying Frequency - Amateur Radio Ponderings Blog will remain politically neutral through this Presidential Campaign. Unless one of the candidates suddenly is found to have an Amateur Radio Position, a personal Amateur Radio Interest or secretly [...]

I'm in the prepping mode before the hour when NA Sprint CW livens our airwaves. My doublet is deployed and the supporting mast now extends toward the ionosphere. That is 33-feet of push-up fiberglass. Next is testing N1MM Logger. Followed by positioning my keyboard and Bencher paddles for an evening worth of ham radio fun.

NA Sprint CW 2008 Goal(s).

• 50 Qs.
  
• 900 points.
  
• Operate the entire 4-hours.
  
• Effectively QSY according to Sprint rules.
• Have fun.
  

I'm also on Northern California Contest Club (NCCC) Team 3 this evening. All the best to everyone and if you are not busy join the fun inside stadium Earth. It's Sprint time!

KB and contest on.