Been busy lately doing a web redesign on the Amateur Radio Association of Nebraska’a web site. If you are interested, take a look at http://w0wwv.org.
I think it turned out pretty good. Now on to getting ready for this years field day.
I have been looking for a way to record events at our association meetings and while working on projects. I finally found what I was looking for. I recently purchased a Creative Labs VADO HD 3G Pocket Video Recorder.
Creative labs description:
“See it, shoot it, and share it–all in high definition. Creative Lab’s third generation Vado HD Pocket Video Camera (Black) makes it easier than ever to record outstanding video in 720p high-definition quality. Featuring a new, ultra-stylish design, the Vado HD is slim enough to fit in your pocket, yet its 4 GB memory capacity holds up to 120 minutes of widescreen HD-quality video. With instant one-touch recording and included Vado Central 3.0 software, you’ll be watching, sharing, and editing outstanding video with ease.”
So far so good. I have taken several videos for this blog and ARAN’s website at http://w0wwv.org and am learning to edit them with Microsoft’s Movie Maker software. The HD camera included is an added bonus. I have been using it to document my projects and it works a lot better than my Droids camera.
Let’s face it, like or not the majority of us depend on our computers in Amateur Radio. From controlling our Rigs, to logging, to DSP, we couldn’t do a lot of the neat things we do without them.
So if you are using a computer and it is connected to the Internet, we have to deal with Viruses or Malware. The majority of the infections we see these days are the malware kind. I am not sure why the distinction was made, but Malware is usually someting that infects your computer when you visit a web page. We used to joke that if a computer came in with malware on it, the user was visiting too many sites of the kind that they didn’t want there spouse to know about. We can’t say that anymore. A lot of the malware we have seen the last 6 months, has come from visiting legit sites. The web sites are accepting ads from nefarious business people without realizing it. These ads contain the malware.
So what is the Amateur Radio operator to do to protect his or her computer. We all know that most of us are working on a tight budget. We have tried many of the free anti-virus software available and they all seem to work to some degree. Lately, we have been using Microsoft’s Security Essentials http://www.microsoft.com/security_essentials/.
It is free for personal use, and seems to work well. It also appears to have less of an effect on the performance of your PC.
If we could just get these people to write good legitimate code for Amateur Radio use instead of this stuff, we wouldn’t need Anti-Virus software. Until then, you need to be vigilant and keep your Anti-Virus updates current and your OS updates current also.
I stumbled a crossed this page this evening on Space Today Online.
What an amazing history the Amateur Radio community has with space. It is incredible what “non-professional” engineers can accomplish. Maybe we just need to turn over the Manned Space program to the Amateur Radio community. I have a pretty good feeling they wouldn’t throw away all the accomplishments and sacrifices made by the engineers at NASA over the last 5 decades. Just Saying….
As president of the Amateur Radio Association of Nebraska the responsibility of rebuilding our Severe Weather Spotter Network partially falls on my shoulders.
Like most Amateur Radio groups over the past several years our members have aged and are less inclined to be available for these types of activities. 
We have been working on bringing new younger members into the association for the past year, but that takes time. While we have been successful in getting 5 -10 new licensees, we still don’t have enough to take on all of the Storm Spotting roles.
So I appointed a committee to contact hams in surrounding counties and identify the ones that are willing to help out. Then the committee will appoint a team leader in each county that will be responsible to coordinate that counties spotters.
We will see how it goes. If any of you have been through this and have any ideas for us, I would appreciate hearing from you.
On Sunday, ARAN put in it’s first of 4 new repeaters in our network. We are replacing some old equipment including the duplexers.
At this site we replaced the duplexer and the repeater. We are using new Bridgecom repeaters with Cat 400 controllers. This site was using 2 antennas with the Tx antenna at 60 feet. With the duplexer, we are now at about 180 feet.
The range now is a lot better than it was. Kind of fun getting in the middle of this, haven’t done this type of work before.
Windstream, the local telephone company in Hastings and the surrounding areas suffered a malfunction in some of it’s switching equipment located in Lincoln, NE yesterday. The area was left without 9-1-1 service for most of the day. Here is a quote from the Lincoln/Lancaster 911 Center:
quote:
“Julie Righter, Communications Manager for the Lincoln/Lancaster County 911 Center, verified Thursday evening that landline telephone service to 911 had been restored. Cellular service into 911 was still not operational at that time. Until 911 services was fully functioning, it was suggested to continue to use the seven digit numbers listed below to access emergency services. Those numbers remained active until all service was restored.
The public could also go to local fire stations and Ham radio operators were posted at many major intersections in Lincoln to deal with emergency situations.”
Hastings/Adams County Ham’s help was not requested, but it does highlight the need for planning for situations like these not just severe weather.
I am not one to use the terms role model or hero lightly. In today’s world, those terms are thrown around so easily and applied to Hollywood celebrities and sports figures, it demeans the use of the terms.
We all have them however. In my life, other than my father, one of the most influential people in my life was also one of the most humble and unassuming persons that you would have the fortune to meet. I am refering to my uncle Ray. He never married, never had kids, didn’t get rich and wasn’t a powerful politician.
He did however make a difference in everyone’s life who meet him. He was a prolific letter writer. If you were lucky enough to get one of his letters, you knew right away that it was written by someone who had a unique insight into how humans related to each other. He had an incredible memory and used it to record and pass along some of the most interesting “Tall Tales” that were told on the Great Plains of America.
As a testament to his enduring friendships, two weeks after he passed away, I received a phone call from the VA hospital were he had been. On the other end was a WWII friend of his in his 70’s who had driven across the country by himself to see his old friend one last time. I invited him over to my house and he spent several hours that evening telling us stories about my uncle and his selflessness that endured him to all of his buddies in the service. As was his custom, my uncle had never bragged or related any of these stories to us in the years that followed the war. Even in his death he taught me invaluable lessons about friendship.
So you are probably asking what this has to do with Amateur Radio. Well the other day I was out working on a new console for some of my radios. I came upon an old Hallicrafters S-38 that my uncle had given me. You see he was a Radio Corpsman during the war. I was always amazed at the old S-38 and it got me interested in electronics and although Ray was never a licensed Amateur, he encouraged me to get my license.
So one of my next projects will be to restore the old S-38 and get it working like new again. Then every time I fire it up, I can honor one of my first role models and I am not ashamed to say one of my hero’s.
I administer the IRLP Nodes for the Amateur Radio Association of Nebraska. We have two up now and plan to add more.
I stumbled upon K6IB’s neat IRLP Control Software last night and installed it on the two nodes we now have up. Neat stuff, this is what I love about Amateur Radio. Hams helping Hams.
When you have time, slip over to http://w0wwv.org and in the right column you will see an IRLP Status box. If you click on the link, you can view the real time status of our nodes.
Thumbs up to Brent – K6IB http://k6ib.com for this great contribution.
I am not a pack rat per se. I will go along and get busy, take on too many projects and the next thing you know, I can’t walk a crossed the office. Then when it finally gets bad enough, I spent a few hours cleaning and organizing most of it. Some stuff gets put in a box for later (which I never get to).
I know it affects the quality of the projects I do. Most of the time I can’t find things, I loose parts, etc. So here I am, today and this weekend I am going to once again clean the Office/Ham Shack. Wish me luck!
If you have any ideas on how I can break myself of this bad habit, please share. I will probably write it down or print it out and promptly lose it under a pile of papers, but I will probably post it here so maybe some of the other Hams out there with my sickness might be motivated to better organize their shacks.