AmateurRadio.com

If you had to clean out all but three amateur radio and electronics related books from your bookshelf, which three would you keep?

What makes each of these three so useful to you?

Can’t think of three? At least tell us about one or two favorites.

With well over 4,500 daily readers worldwide (thank you!), I’m always so impressed by the answers we get here.

Here are the top 10 answers so far…

1. ARRL Handbook (7 votes)
2. ARRL Antenna Book (5 votes)
3. ARRL Operating Manual (2 votes)
4. Simple Wire Antennas (2 votes)
5. Experimental Methods in RF Design (1 vote)
6. Rothammels Antennenbuch (1 vote)
7. Grob Basic Electronics (1 vote)
8. TTL Cookbook (1 vote)
9. ON4UN’s Low-Band DXing (1 vote)
10. Vertical Antenna Classics (1 vote)

I first noticed these antennas a few months ago. They look interesting. I’m looking forward to getting my hands on one and trying it out.

Here is the press release…

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE:

British Antenna Company InnovAntennas Appoints First American Dealer

Glade Park, Colorado – January 23, 2012 – The full line of high performance HF, VHF and UHF amateur radio antennas from fast-growing British company InnovAntennas are now available to customers across the United States via Hamilton, Ohio’s R&L Electronics.

“Our customers have been hearing about the outstanding performance of InnovAntennas’ designs from their amateur radio friends overseas, reading about them in European journals such as DUBUS and from a handful of ‘early adopter’ American hams who couldn’t wait and purchased InnovAntennas products direct from the UK,” said R&L Electronics’ Roger Smallwood. “We are proud to be the first American retailer to represent this exciting new brand.”

InnovAntennas was launched in 2011 by Justin Johnson, G0KSC, after his hobby of designing antennas for his personal use led to a flood of requests to “make one for me” from amateur radio operators who recognized that Johnson’s designs outperformed they could buy in a store. Today, InnovAntennas is building antennas at a former boat factory in Canvey Island, England and selling its products directly via InnovAntennas.com and via a network of dealers in Europe, Australia, and now, the United States.

InnovAntennas’ highly regarded designs include LFA (Loop Fed Array) and OP-DES (Opposing Phase –Driven Element System) Yagis. Performance of GOKSC designs routinely top the charts in their boom-length class on the survey of ‘moonbounce” antennas –“EME-ers” are among the ham world’s most demanding operators –compiled by VE7BQH and available online.

InnovAntennas America’s William Hein said “We selected R&L as our first American dealer due to their commitment to customer service, deep inventory, high order fill rate, great history, product knowledge and enthusiasm for InnovAntennas’ approach to design and construction. We look forward to a long, productive relationship with the gang from HAMilton OH!”

R&L’s Roger Smallwood added “We work hard to have all ham radio products in stock and ready for immediate shipment. From a 50 cent connector to the thousand dollar radio, our customers will receive the same fast service at a great price. No one likes to hear that an item is out of stock or it will be drop shipped from the manufacturer. We already know InnovAntennas are high quality products and will be very well known in the USA in a short period of time. Our goal is to have it in stock when you are ready for it!”

Websites are going black on January 18th to save the Internet.

Join them by writing your senator and tell them you oppose PIPA.

In the past I’ve gone out of my way to avoid politics on this site. I think that it’s for the best because hams come from all walks of life, with as many differing viewpoints as numbers in our ranks.

Chuck Heath, K6ZIZ, sent me an interesting post on the ARRL Eastern Massachusetts Section site from November, 2005. In the piece, they detail some comments Gov. Mitt Romney made that seemed to disparage the work of hams in Massachusetts.

Governor Mitt Romney dismissed the role of Amateur Radio operators in emergency communications during a televised “town meeting” program last night on WCVB’s “When Disaster Strikes: Segment Two.” The program featured public safety and volunteer organization officials from across Massachusetts among its audience.

Host and moderator Natalie Jacobson asked an increasingly-agitated Governor Romney questions about communications interoperability, and communication without commercial power. Romney was next asked by Jacobson, “…so does it come down to ham radio?…”

The Governor replied in a disgusted tone, “No, we don’t need to deal with ham radio operators…”

The Section Manager seemed to take quick action to address it:

ARRL Section Manager Mike Neilsen, W1MPN sent a section-wide email today to all Eastern MA ARRL members describing the incident along with actions he and his staff were taking to mitigate the situation.

“[Romney's] attitude about us sets an unfortunate tone within the state’s executive branch,” wrote Neilsen. “As a former military officer, I see this as a failure in leadership. My immediate concern is our working relationship within the [Massachusetts Emergency Management Team] environment.”

Now, I certainly think this could have been taken out of context.  We all know how easily our egos can be bruised by comments such as these — even if they’re not meant to be hurtful or show a poor regard for the hours we spend serving our communities.  Nonetheless, it may be of interest to some and I thought it worth sharing.

Here are links to the original article and the WCVB-TV segment.  I was not able to play the segment (just seemed to load endlessly)  and hear for myself to judge the context.

Is this relevant to the presidential race? As a ham, does it influence your opinion of Gov. Romney?

UPDATE:

It appears that there was much talk about this news item both back when it originally aired in 2005, the last time Romney ran in 2008, and now in the 2012 presidential primary.

Here is a response that our friend Don Wilbanks, AE5DW, got when he contacted Romney for clarification back in January, 2008.

Dear Don: Thank you for following up with me on the responsibility of Ham Radio Operators. The exchange with Natalie Jacobsen was meant to imply that we need to strengthen our emergency response infrastructure, rather than demean the important role I recognize that Ham Radio Operators play around our country. I hope this will clear up any confusion. Again, thank you for contacting me.

First of all, I want to take a moment to thank the sponsor of this giveaway, Ed from Import Communications.  This isn’t the first time Ed has sponsored a giveaway and I hope everyone appreciates his generosity and ham radio spirit.  Anyone who has worked with Ed will tell you that he’s a great guy and full of integrity.  It’s a real pleasure to work with him to help him give away great stuff!

If you’re one of the 16 winners, please send me an e-mail (editor at amateurradio dot com) with your name, callsign, and mailing address and I will compile the list and forward it to Ed.

Without further delay, here are the winners of our December 2011 giveaway: Read the rest of this entry »

AmateurRadio.com is offering a free prize drawing!

With the help of our generous sponsor,
Import Communications (formerly Wouxun.us),
we’re holding a giveaway for a
Wouxun KG-UV6D Dual-Band HT
(KG-UV6D 144/440 version)
This is a US$175 value.
Enter now to win!
All licensed hams in the U.S. are eligible to enter

Read the rest of this entry »

A fellow blogger, Brick O’Lore, wrote me with a question that I don’t have a good answer for.  Would anyone care to weigh in on this?

I’d like to add a 2M mobile rig in my wife’s car. Sounds simple enough, but the trick is that I need something that is as small as possible and will have a really neat installation. I’d prefer to have a mobile rig that I can wire in (power and an antenna) and see the display (versus cobbling together something with an HT). A detachable  faceplate/remote would be fine. I want 2M to hit the repeaters – any other bands or advanced features would be a bonus, but not required. The car is a 7 year-old Audi A4 and there is very little room in the footwells. It does have a neat feature – a drawer under each of the front seats. So what’s small and installs such that it will score well on the WAF (Wife Acceptance Factor) scale?

My suspicion is that there are a lot of good choices — and none are going to be particularly “affordable.”  If you have a photo of your creative radio installation that might help others, send it to me (editor at amateurradio dot com) and I’ll attach it to this post.  I think that would be especially helpful.  If not, your insight and tips via comments are always very much appreciated!