PlanetHam.org

The season has almost come to a close.  I just finished the last ride in Wompatuck.  See Everyone next year. It is time for preparation for the fall sweepstakes

Bill

Welcome to LCWO.net - Learn CW Online!

At LCWO you can learn Morse telegraphy (CW) online in your browser. You don't need to install a program on your computer, and you always have your personal settings available, from any computer on the globe with an internet connection. You can also easily track your progress by means of different statistical functions.

Sign up for a free account (or use username "test", password "test" to play around) and start learning or improving your CW today
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ARRL Headquarters will be closed in observance of Labor Day on Monday, September 1. ARRL Headquarters will reopen Tuesday, September 2 at 8 AM Eastern Daylight Time. We wish everyone a safe and festive holiday weekend.

At LCWO you can learn Morse telegraphy (CW) online in your browser. You don't need to install a program on your computer, and you always have your personal settings available, from any computer on the globe with an internet connection. You can also easily track your progress by means of different statistical functions. Sign up for a free account (or use username "test", password "test" to play around) and start learning or improving your CW today

Ian waters G3KKD has been involved in ATV for 60 years and in this video he reflects on how ATV has changed. . From Call signs that ended in /T, and TV cameras that used Photicon tubes.

Welcome to Handiham World!

Photo: Pat, WA0TDA, with headset microphone

Here we are, a day late with your weekly edition of Handiham World. Yesterday in the very early morning hours we experienced a real fireworks show in the sky over Courage North: a lightning storm that dropped buckets of rain. When I awakened and wandered over to the computer, I quickly discovered that the Internet connection was not working. That, of course, meant that I could not produce your weekly e-letter as usual. It turned out that our T1 line had failed and that a representative from the service provider had to make repairs. By the time the repairs were completed in the afternoon, I had already gotten on the road and my only window for producing the content had closed.

Nonetheless, I did want to say a few words about the week at Handiham Radio Camp. Overall, we had a very successful week. In typical Minnesota fashion, I would describe the few problems we ran into as, "could be worse".

Several days were rather windy, limiting our waterfront activities. When the wind died down, we were able to get two pontoon boats out onto the lake for maritime mobile operation. One of the boats was equipped with an ICOM IC-718 station, which was operated on 75 and 20 m. Both boats also operated on our 2 m simplex Echolink node frequency, allowing campers to connect to virtually anywhere through the worldwide network of connected stations.

Another project was the handiham remote base HF station. This went even better than I expected, with Lyle Koehler, K0LR, doing the engineering work to set up a Lenovo computer with the Kenwood software necessary to host the remote base and to connect and set up the Kenwood TS-480 radio and all associated pieces of equipment. We even managed to do a "dry run" of the system in our Extra Class Seminar, where campers were able to check it out and test the accessibility features of both the Kenwood radio and the software. Although I intend to write more about the wonderful TS-480 in some future edition, I do have to say that we are thrilled with Kenwood's attention to accessibility features. Likewise, the control software that users will run on their home computers to access the remote base is very accessible with screen reading programs like JAWS. Once the campers had a chance to do some hands-on with the station, Lyle and I transferred it to its permanent location in an attic room above Courage North's dining hall. The reason for this location is that it puts the radio in close proximity with the necessary computer networking equipment and also allows us to keep the antenna a bit further away from other antennas that are installed at Courage North. Bill, N0CIC, helped Lyle and I get the antenna into the air in flattop configuration. Bill is truly an expert with a wrist rocket slingshot that he has modified for wire antenna installations! The antenna is a G5RV that will tune 80 through 10 m. As with other G5RV installations, we found that we had to add additional coaxial cable to make the antenna tune in the phone band on 75. We have decided not to use the internal tuner on the Kenwood radio. Instead, we have installed an LDG auto tuner designed to tune instantly as soon as its senses RF. This removes one complication for users, who won't have to bother tuning an antenna.

The remote base station now enters what we are calling a "beta one test phase". A few tech-savvy users will operate the station and provide us with feedback about any problems they run into. In mid--September, Lyle and I will return to the station location to iron out hardware problems, should any crop up. We also plan to put the computer on an uninterruptible power supply and a surge protector at that time. Based on what we discover during beta testing, I will write a user manual. Of course all of this will take some time, but we will give you frequent updates in your Weekly Handiham World.

One interesting aspect of radio camp is simply hearing from campers whether or not they enjoyed the week. Spontaneous comments are always more accurate because they come from the heart -- at least that's my theory! I heard over and over again that people were having fun and they were wondering when the next camp would be. Several commented about the transportation to and from Camp, which we have to admit was not the best this year. Unbeknownst to us, the bus company that serves the nearby town of Bemidji, Minnesota, changed their schedule. That meant that we did not have a bus service that would serve campers on Wednesday. The alternative, airline transportation from the Twin Cities, nearly doubled in price from the previous year. Clearly we have to figure out some better options for 2009. Of course airline transportation is getting expensive no matter where you go or what your airline of choice happens to be simply because fuel costs are being passed on to the traveling public. I suspect that the high cost of diesel fuel also was behind the change in the commercial bus schedule. Fuel and travel costs are likely to have an impact on other amateur radio activities like ham fests and conventions. Amateur radio operators are problem solvers by their very nature, so it will be interesting to see how hams solve this problem! Anyway, we are looking at a somewhat different camp schedule in 2009, and we will have more information at a later date.

When you get a large number of amateur radio operators together in one place and ask them to program their radios, you find out pretty quickly how many of us need a little bit of help. Radio camp always involves things like hidden transmitter hunts, operating on unusual simplex frequencies, and then returning radios to their former state so that campers can use them as usual when they get back home. It sure is easy to forget how to run a radio when you don't change the settings all that often. I have fond memories of an emergency training exercise conducted at my local radio club where almost none of us could program every function on our portable radios that was needed for the exercise. It certainly reminds me that I need to pick up my radio from time to time and go through at least a few of the basic procedures.

Well, I am supposed to be on vacation, so I am going to make this a rather short newsletter.

Patrick Tice
wa0tda@arrl.net
Handiham Manager

John McHugh, K4AG, coordinator for Amateur Radio at the National Hurricane Center, WX4NHC, posted this message this morning:

From Weaver’s Words, August 27, 2008:

Michigan Affiliated Club Coordinator Dan Romanchik, KB6NU (that’s me!), will present a Webinar titled Kit Building.  This Webinar will be on Monday, September 22 at 8 PM. This online session will provide an excellent introduction to kit building even for hams who are convinced kit-building is beyond their ability.

Great Lakes Division members will receive an official invitation to the Webinar shortly. It will be hosted on Atlantic Division Director Bill Edgar’s (N3LLR) Webinar system that is graciously made available for Great Lakes Division use. Additional details of the Webinar content will also be
distributed in coming days.

This will be a Web version of the kit-building talk that I’ve given to several clubs in the area. Although this is being organized by Jim Weaver and primarily being promoted throughout the Great Lakes Division, I don’t see any reason why others can’t also sign up for the webinar.

Blurb in one of the broadcasting trade newsletters this morning:

DNC seeks free radio for candidates

As part of its campaign finance reform agenda, the Democratic National Committee this week ratified a platform calling for "free television and radio time" for politicians. There's also a nod in the document to potential public service obligations and a renewed effort to fight for more diversity in media ownership.

I realize that our campaign finance system is broke and only leads to candidates finding ways to fudge. Fudge to the tune of millions of dollars. I know things about the Federal Election Commission--the body that is charged with keeping national-office campaign finance on the up-and-up and distributes those wonderful taxpayer contributions--that would curl your hair.

But you tell me: do you have access to about all you want to know about the candidates. With Fox News, CNN, CNN Headlines, MSNBC, CNBC, NBC, CBS, ABC, Fox, CSPAN, CSPANII, PBS...the initials go on...do you really not have plenty of opportunity to see who the candidates are and what they say? And that does not even get into print, radio, or...whooooo!...the Internet.

So now, we need FREE radio and TV time to allow the candidates to tell us what they intend to do and why they are the ones deserving of our votes?

You know, I might be all for free radio and TV time--if the government also mandated free newspaper space, magazine space, Internet web coverage, billboards, text messaging, sandwich boards, skywriting...

No! What am I saying? Of course I'm not in favor of government-mandated free access for candidates on any level. If the people want to see more of the candidates, they'll demand it and the media will have to give it to them. Simple as that.

What's your opinion?

(PS: I am absolutely and unequivocally in favor of increased minority ownership of media. But I think government's role there is to enforce any discrimination laws that prevent minority investors from having the same chance anybody else has to acquire media outlets.)

Don Keith
www.donkeith.com
www.n4kc.com

NCJ, The National Contest Journal is what everyone interested in radiosport needs to have in their shack. Filled with the latest news from the contesting world, NCJ is the voice of radiosport. Whether you are new to contesting or are a seasoned pro (or somewhere in the middle), you will find something in NCJ just for you.

Special Event Callsign 9V1F1 Southgate Amateur Radio Club - Enfield,England,UK Approval has been given by the iDA for Singapore Amateur Radio Transmitting Society (SARTS) members to use the callsign...

Learn more about radio at http://wd9t.com

Calling All Radio Amateurs Southgate Amateur Radio Club - Enfield,England,UK BWBF fundraiser, Fiona Fountain said: “We are really keen to hear from amateur radio clubs and individuals interested in...

Learn more about radio at http://wd9t.com

The CCAFMA amateur radio club is seeking information and, we hope, a picture of former member John Forest Miller, who lived in Mayville in the 1960s. Mr. Miller's call sign was K2HE and when he passed away it became the club's station call sign. We have a memorial plaque bearing his call and would like a short bio and a picture to place with it at the repeater site which is at City Hall, Jamestown.

Do you want to learn about Contesting? Have you ever wanted to brush up on your contesting skills? Are you new to Amateur Radio and want to get involved with the exciting and fast-paced action of contesting? If the answer to any of these questions is yes, then welcome to Contest University UK

An International Space Station Expedition 17 ARISS school contact has been planned with participants at Schulehaus Feld 1 Richterswil, Switzerland on 30 August

SARTS members will use the special callsign 9V1F1 to commemorate the Formula 1 Races which will be held in downtown Singapore from September 26th to 28th

Mid-week was the winner with Thursday being the best day. Saturday and Sunday were generally poor, but 6V7L in Senegal proved very popular

Nasa has confirmed that laptops carried to the International Space Station in July were infected with a virus known as Gammima.AG

Patrick Lindecker F6CTE has written a useful paper on Automatic Digimode Identifiers. It describes the use of identifiers for digital transmissions to enable the receiving station to automatically determine which mode is in use

Korean broadcasting companies face sanctions for their commentators’ inappropriate or racial comments during the coverage of Olympic Games in Beijing

A team of German operators will be trying to raise money for a children's cancer charity during their forthcoming DXpedition to Montenegro

I recently constructed the Bitx20 kit and so far, despite willing help from the Yahoo! group, I've failed to get it working. It's hard debugging a densly packed circuit board, so I decided to build a duplicate transmitter chain ugly style as you see here. This is most instructive for me. It's laid out pretty much as the circuit diagram and I can easily measure at any point. The Bitx20 is a

In the midst of the all my computer chaos I’ve also started another project - building a Nixie Tube Clock kit. What are Nixie Tubes?  They are a Cold Cathode Display Tube harkening back to the Cold War.  For the most part most Western Countries dropped Nixie Tubes in the Early to Mid 1970s, but the [...]

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.

We don't really cover rap music here at SolderSmoke, but we make an exception for this one. More than 400,000 downloads so far.

I am planning a trip and have been checking some of my weather resources that I provide links to on www.HamRadioResources.com . One that I start with gives me a really nice three day overview of severe weather threats. You probably get this information from your local TV weather. But here is probably where THEY get their information from! Click here to view the site. It’s from the Severe Storms Forecast Center in Norman, Oklahoma. The upper portion of the website gives you plenty of information on current happenings. But scroll down a screen or so. You will see three maps. One for today. One for tomorrow. And one for the next day. Double click the day’s map you are interested in. Then mouse-over the hot links to show the % probabilities for each type of severe weather threat for that time period.

Forecasts generally are not all that accurate more than three days out. I start here to see what is comming a few days ahead of time. Then as the threats get closer I use other tools. I will cover them later.

Enjoy this one and stay safe! You can use these resources for ham radio SkyWarn operations…

Jon Kreski, AB9NN
Owner
www.HamRadioResources.com

20 Meters was booming in at lunchtime today. I heard and worked (very briefly) G3RGD, Ray from Birmingham, England. He gave me a 559 and them moved onto W8FU. Ray was loud into NJ. I don't know what he was running; but he was 599+. It's not often that I hear an English station so loud.

I heard a lot of Europeans - this was all around 1700 UTC or so at the lower end of 20 Meters. EA4s, G3s, SM3s, etc. Maybe the sunspots are coming back?

Which has me thinking portable antenna set ups again. Today, I was using the Hamstick and I'm seriously considering using the NorCal Doublet more. I dragged the 20 foot Black Widow crappie pole out of the basement and stuck in the back of the car. Below is what I used to support my Buddipole back in the day when I had one.


As you can see, it's a piece of angle iron, which I sawed off to a point on the earth end. Attached to it with two hose clamps, is a piece of PVC pipe. The Buddipole mast just slipped into the pipe and was held upright. Unfortunately, this pipe isn't a big enough diameter to allow me to slip the Black Widow in. I'm going to have to make a trip to Lowe's or Home Depot for a slightly bigger diameter piece of pipe. I hope I won't have to buy a whole big length of it for just the relatively short piece I need.

Here's another shot of it; but not in the ground. Not that great a photo; but you get the idea.


The only disadvantage that I can foresee is that I'll have to carry a small sledge so I can pound this thing into the ground. But the upside is that a doublet at 20 feet or so (probably set up as an Inverted Vee) should outperform the Hamstick on the car.

73 de Larry W2LJ

Well tonight was the first SSB leg of the new RSGB CC Sprint contest on 80m. Great fun :) It takes a bit of getting used to as once you have called CQ on a frequency, you have to give away the frequency to the person you worked! It levels the playing field rather nicely. A few of our members took part and the challenges are now set for the next leg!

The Federación de Radioaficionados de Centroamerica, FRACAP (Federation of Radioamateurs of Central America), will host the XLVIII FRACAP 2008 Convention in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, October 3-5, 2008. FRACAP is a federation of six national Amateur Radio organizations from Central America: Club de radio aficionados de Guatemala (CRAG), Club de radio aficionados de El Salvador (CRAS), Federación de clubes de radioaficionados de Honduras (FEHDECRA), Club de radio experimentadores de Nicaragua (CREN), Radio club de Costa Rica (RCCR) and the Liga Panameña de Radioaficionados (LPR).

With maximum sustained winds of 90 mph/150 km per hour, Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the southwest peninsula of Haiti on the afternoon of August 26. Over the next few days, its path is projected to take it along Cuba's southern coast and then northwestward into the Gulf of Mexico. For storm information specific to your area, including possible inland watches and warnings, please monitor products issued by your local weather office.

The St Louis County ARES® Emergency Coordinator had urged the group's members to participate in the National Night Out events in their local communities. He felt that it was a good opportunity to promote ARES and Amateur Radio in general. I live in Florissant, a suburb of St Louis, and I was fairly sure that at least a few events were planned there. When I heard that there was going to be a block party practically on my doorstep, I jumped at the chance. I dropped a note to the local Neighborhood Watch block captain and asked her if it would be all right for me to set up and demonstrate an emergency Amateur Radio station. I will admit to being a little surprised when she said yes.

Five operators: AD6E, G3KHZ, K6HFA, CT1AGF, and W5GAI will operate from three islands in Papua New Guinea during October. They have room for one more operator if you want to make the trip. See their web site HERE for more information. They may do 160-M on the trip but since it will cost $1,500 to transport the 160-M amplifier and antennas to that location and back, they are asking for donations via a PayPal link on the above web site to help fund that band. If you don't use PayPal you can send your donation to W5GAI. They plan to operate from these IOTA locations: OC-008, OC-181 (P29VLR), OC-041 (P29NI), and OC-025.

Have you given up trying to work any DX at the bottom of the Sunspot Cycle (except on the low bands?) Do you ever turn the rig to 15-M or 10-M at all? Well, JQ2UOZ set a challenge for himself. The challenge was to try to work DXCC at the bottom of the sunspot cycle running just 500 milliwatts to a dipole antenna on the 17-M band or higher frequencies. He began this quest on November 25, 2006, and as of August 4, 2008, he has reached 100 countries! Nothing short of WOW! Check out his web page HERE and his Challenge stats HERE. Read through some of the stations he worked - it even includes BS7H!

The ARRL Continuing Education Program offers Emergency Communications training courses to prepare radio amateurs to serve our communities in time of crisis when other communications systems fail. The ARRL Emergency Communications training program includes three levels of courses. In order to keep the material in the Level 3 course accurate and up to date, we will be revising the Level 3 curriculum. Dennis Dura, K2DCD, ARRL Emergency Preparedness and Response Manager, will be developing the new content. We expect the fully updated course to be available in the first quarter of 2009.

Registration remains open through Sunday, September 7, 2008 for these online course sessions beginning on Friday, September 19, 2008: Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level 2 (EC-002); Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level 3 (EC-003R2); Antenna Modeling (EC-004); HF Digital Communications (EC-005); VHF/UHF -- Life Beyond the Repeater (EC-008), and Radio Frequency Propagation (EC-011). 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.

The ARES E-Letter August 26, 2008 ================= Rick Palm, K1CE, Editor http://www.qrz.com/database?callsign=K1CE>, =================================== ARES reports, other related...

Learn more about radio at http://wd9t.com

Dear Cook County ARES Members and Friends: Please join us tonight... Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 9:00 PM CDT... for the monthly Cook County ARES Net on the SARA Repeater (146.88 MHz, offset...

Learn more about radio at http://wd9t.com

The Stafford Fire and Rescue Department has honored 31 county volunteer ham radio operators for their assistance over the past year, particularly during the tornado strike in southern Stafford in May. Assistant Fire Chief and Emergency Manager Gerald Jaskulski presented certificates of appreciation Aug. 16 during an award gathering at Perkins Restaurant, on Warrenton Road near Interstate 95. He praised the amateur operators for relaying information, particularly when other communications were hampered. Eleven of the hams received recognition for assisting in spreading the word on the Skywarn Radio Net about possible tornados in the Stafford area during the night of May 8. Twelve were honored for their response after the south Stafford tornado touched down on May 9.

Details of this year’s British Wireless for the Blind Fund’s (BWBF) annual fund raising event for radio amateurs have been revealed. The 48-hour on-air Transmission 2008 weekend is set to kick-off on 20 September - with a brand new category for the under-18s

Hurricane Gustav is currently making its way through the central part of the Caribbean basin and has passed through Dominican Republic and Haiti and will be affecting the island of Cuba in the next few hours

The upsurge of interest in QRP operation has resulted in the formation of the Home Counties QRP Circle who are holding their first meeting in Stevenage on 21st September

WINMOR, an HF digital protocol designed for use with the Winlink 2000 network, will be unveiled at the upcoming ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference in Chicago, September 26-28

Weekly IOTA News - compiled by the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club

The Federal Communications Commission announced that the cost of an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will increase 60 cents, from $11.70 to $12.30

On 23-24 August the Tyresta National Park near Stockholm did arrange a short course in archaeology with focus on the Stone Age about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago in the area. It was a very fascinating experience for all of us twelve participants to learn and dig and find very old traces from the Stone Age. Pictures and short videos: 23 August 24 August. Sorry, text and talk in Swedish only.

Ron Sparks, AG5RS, sent us this very cool picture. My kids take great delight in shooting those tiny red laser pointers out the window, and as described in SolderSmoke we actually built a simple laser communications system. But so far we haven't achieved the kind of "beam shooting into the sky" effect pictured here.

Here are Ron's comments.:

"It was interesting for you to mention the lunar laser reflector. It had a very special impact on my life. You see, I grew up in Texas at about the midpoint of the 600 mile line between NASA Clear Lake and the McDonald Observatory in the Davis mountains and was in High School when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I had the pleasure to visit both NASA and McDonald at that time and had direct contact with some of the people responsible. I have actually put my hands on the controls for the laser in the attached photo. More importantly, the control box was opened up for me so I could see all the gizmos inside."

Check out the website: The Lunar and Planetary Institute

The website has some interesting info on the width of the laser beam when it reaches the moon, and how they use the data to measure the distance. Sounds vaguely QRSS-ish:

"Laser beams are used because they remain tightly focused for large distances. Nevertheless, there is enough dispersion of the beam that it is about 7 kilometers in diameter when it reaches the Moon and 20 kilometers in diameter when it returns to Earth. Because of this very weak signal, observations are made for several hours at a time. By averaging the signal for this period, the distance to the Moon can be measured to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters (the average distance from Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers). "

On August 11, the Federal Communications Commission announced that the cost of an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will increase 60 cents, from $11.70 to $12.30. Now that notice of the increase has been published in the Federal Register, the increase will take effect in 30 days, September 25, 2008.

Software is changing the way hams operate, catapulting a classic hobby into the 21st century. Like almost everything else in electronics, radios are becoming processors with software that communicate via a small amount of RF I/O circuitry. Surely, then, the rise of software-defined radio (SDR) should come as no surprise. Digital signal processing (DSP) lies at the heart of SDR. Add to that the arrival of faster analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters (ADCs and DACs) and processors, and SDR becomes more viable for a wider range of applications. Simply put, software continues to push hardware aside, assuming more and more processing functions. SDR first showed up in military equipment, but it’s now used in most cell phones. It also is ideal for future public-safety communications by providing a way to deal with the myriad air interfaces and frequency spectra used by first responders in disaster situations. SDR techniques have even joined the mainstream, with services like ham radio adopting them as prices permit.

Okay, not the low band that is usually meant. I mean 80 meter CW, because that is as low as I can go. Last night while I was working on the antenna, I found that the wire going to the...