I need to figure out how to plan my vacations around my Amateur Radio hobby. This is a perfect example of Hams getting together to commemorate a historical event and doing it in a great vacation location.
The family loves to go to Branson, since there is something to do for everyone. In fact we went twice last year.
Anyway this looks like a fun event. Read More here….
Ok, maybe it should be called Stupid Ham Tricks. Here is one thing that I have done that many of you have already thought of. But I thought I would share it anyway. You can call me slow, just don’t call me Shirley.
I created an alert for may own call sign. Yes I know that is probably obvious to most of you, but I run two computers here, my work computer and my Ham computer. There have been a few times 
when I have called CQ or answered a CQ and had to flip over to my other computer on the KVM switch I use and have gotten distracted. Eventually I remember and switch back, but the party on the other side has had to wait or just given up on me.
So now when they respond, I hear my call sign announced in that oh so monotone male voice and it brings me back to reality.
If you are new to DM780 just click on tools->Alerts and add a new alert and enter your callsign in the text box.
If anyone else has some more Stupid DM780 Tricks to share let me know.
The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) and its more than 160 Member-Societies that represent countries around the world will celebrate World Amateur Radio Day on April 18. The theme for this year’s celebration is Amateur Radio: The First Technology-Based Social Network.
Long before the Internet and smart phones, Amateur Radio operators have been talking, texting and sharing for decades. But unlike those commercial services, Amateur Radio continues to attract people world-wide by providing international communications for free. And because it does not need pre-established supporting infrastructure, these radio-savvy “amateurs” can reach out to friends in every corner of the world, as well as into space.
For more Info check this article on ARRL’s Website.
Finally ordered a Lazy Dog LD-1B SDR receiver today. I have another SDR I am working on getting built, but in the meantime I bit the bullet and purchased this on pre-assembled off course.
I love building kits and projects, but sometimes it’s just fun to plug something in and have it work. So we are going to start playing with this one. I will write up a good review of it when I have a chance to test it. This will give me a chance to compare WinRad and PowerSDR also. So check back soon.
According to NASA/Marshall Solar Physics predictions sunspot cycle 24 will probably be the lowest maximum in nearly 200 years.
I got back into Amateur Radio at the right time didn’t I 🙂 I realize it isn’t all bad, I have made contacts as far away as South Africa and Japan the last couple of weeks. So I don’t really have a right to complain.
Talking to some old timers, I have been told stories of operators tuning up a lawn chair and making contacts around the world on 10 meters. Guess I will have to wait until the next cycle.
I was surprised to read tonight that Groklaw.net will cease publishing new articles on May 16th of this year. What does this have to do with Amateur Radio. A lot actually.
Groaklaw was formed by Pamela Jones when SCO filed a lawsuit against IBM for its contributions to Linux the Open Source operating system not copied from but functionally similar to Unix.
It was a full attack on Linux and the Open Source Community. It took many twists and turns over the years and Groklaw was there to cover it all and accumulate evidence about the development of Linux and other matters that were important to the Open Source Community. Well PJ has decided that Linux has won and her services will no longer be needed, so she will be closing shop on the anniversary of starting Groklaw. I wish her well and hope to see her someday in her red dress. (You have to check out really old posts on Groklaw to understand the red dress) I learned an awful lot about the American Legal system by following her posts and also some things about the seedier side of American Business and the news media.
What does that have to do with Amateur Radio? Well several things come to mind. Many of the software innovations that we have in Ham Radio today run on Linux. IRLP is just one of the major ones I can think of off the top of my head. This blog is running on a Linux server. Many of the major Amateur Radio sites run on Linux. Your phone probably is running on Android which is derived from Linux.
Also the open source community is really an evolution of Amateur Radio isn’t it? Before there was Collins, Heathkit etc. There was a community of Hams working together to develop our hobby. When major corporations go after communities like that, we need to stand up and defend them, just like we would defend our hobby.
I just can’t seem to help myself. I just keep taking on projects. Hopefully some of my older one’s will come together before I completely drown or they have to haul me away in a straight jacket.
Last fall during college football season, we had to be away for a weekend when my Cornhuskers were on tv. We have 3 VCR’s in the house, but I don’t think more than one works. So I looked around, running a computer business, I have lots of them laying around. I even had a couple of TV tuner cards sitting on the shelf that we took out of long dead Windows Multimedia PC’s.
So I thought what the heck let’s build a DVR. I did a little research and came upon Mythtv and looking further I found mythbuntu which is a Ubuntu distribution with Mythtv already rolled into the distribution.
So I took an old HP PC I had laying around with 1GB of ram and added a 1TB hard drive and a couple of Hauppauge WinTV PVR 150 cards in it and viola, we had a combo front end/back end DVR. We put that in the basement and then took another old HP pc and built just a front end that I put in the living room.
Well it went over real well and the kids really love it. Problem is the old PC that I used for the front end is big, bulky and noisy. So this evening, the XYL was trying to clean up in that room and finally had enough. I went in and discussed it with her and offered to build something new in a smaller size.
So I spent and hour or two researching and finally decided on a Shuttle XS35GT-804 It has 2gb of ram, a DVD Writter, 500GB HD and a dual core processor all in a what they call a 1 liter package. I got it for about $369.00. I added a wireless remote for another $20.00. I will load mythbuntu up on it and we should be good.
See what happens when you just want to record a football game!
This is a project I completed last year that combines Amateur Radio and Wood Working.
I had some old wood that I took out of the back of the garage many years ago and hung onto to use in a project some day. It was rough western yellow pine I believe. So I took it and ran it through a planer I have and then used the joiner to straighten them up. I then used a bisket jointer to join the boards together and finally used my table saw to cut them to the correct dimensions.
I put a roman ogee edge on the top and bottom and then finished it with some tung oil. I took some rails off of a studio rack that Ron WØSTX gave me and put them in the console.
I mounted a duplexer on the back and a MFJ powerstrip on the back along with a terminal bar for gounding.
I will post some pictures as soon as I get my equipment back in it. I have a couple of radios out for repair.
Overall, it works great and looks pretty good also. Best of all I made it with 80% recycled material.
Plenty of activity in the Ham Shack this weekend. Most of it not good. I am working on a project that I started back in January and had to put aside. I want to get it done for camping season, but I hit a road block. More on that later.
I was using my Icom 746Pro today. Looked away and turned back and noticed that HRD wasn’t
connecting to the unit. Turned around and looked at it, and it was off. So was the power supply. It is an older Astron RM-50A. The fuse was blown. While researching what type of fuse it is (which I am still not sure of) it became pretty clear that the rectifier had probably blew and I needed to repair it. So I have a RM-30A that I will swap and put in it’s place for now. Then I will have a post on the repair of the RM-50A. Looks like I might do some upgrades on it in the process.
The only thing that did go right, I had little to do with. This weekend one of our association members climbed one of our towers and installed a new commercial Larsen antenna on a local repeater. The wind this weekend caused the work to span over two days, but it is up and running again. We moved it up about 30 feet higher, so we have a lot better range on it.
Here’s to hoping this doesn’t portend to how this week is going to go.
I am working on a project this weekend. In the past I would open up some web pages for calculating resistor, capacitor, etc. I know, I should memorize the color codes, but at my age any new info I learn pushes something out the other side. So I try to reserve the grey matter for stuff that isn’t readily available.
So I have three tabs open on my browser just for resistance, capacitance and inductance. I 
thought I would take a look to see if something better was out there and I stumbled on Electronics Assistant: http://www.electronics2000.co.uk/assist/assist.exe on the Electronics 2000 website.
Really neat, covers resistance, capacitance, inductance, ohm law and many more items. I am glad to have it in my tool box, check it out.
Best of all, it’s free!