AmateurRadio.com

Helge DF8LS has just published a web page showing how to send and receive email on HF using Winlink and the SCS Tracker TNC. I just sent an email to myself (isn’t this one of the signs of madness?) and it was received, so the instructions are obviously good!

A Winlink session on HF

Mention of Winlink seems to cause strong emotions in some quarters. Personally I think using ham radio to send and receive email is rather cool, even if it is too slow to use for today’s level of email use. It’s a pity more hams don’t activate their Winlink account, which is callsign @ winlink.org .

If you use APRS then you can also send and receive email by that means using a feature called APRSlink. The trouble is, I use it so infrequently that I forget the commands. It would be wise only to use it if the APRS channel is quiet like it is here.

I have spent the entire day on 15m, mostly using PSK31. The band has been pretty lively all day. I worked a number of Russian stations including UB3YL Katya from Orel. That’s her picture below. Pity about the corrugated iron roof shadow.

I made a couple of contacts into the Far East. One was with Yasuda JA1OTT, the other was with Chen BG9GYI.

Youkits TJ2B

Chen is a university student from Lanzhou. Chinese stations are becoming more common as more and more get on the bands. From the admittedly small sample I have managed to work Chinese hams form a different demographic from those from Europe or the USA. While your average EU or US ham is likely to be older than 60 (judging by those who tell me their age), Chinese hams seem to be mostly young people with an interest in technology.

It’s good, too, to see Chinese firms entering the ham radio market with QRP products such as the kits from Youkits (take a look at the new TJ2B SSB handheld!)

The eagerly awaited JT-Alert for WSJT-X has finally arrived! You can download it from the Ham Apps website.

This useful accessory will let you know if you have worked a station B4 or whether a station will fill a wanted band or mode slot. It sends spots of JT9 stations to the HamSpots website, providing a useful reverse beacon for the mode. It also logs contacts to  a few of the popular logging programs including MixW which happens to be the same log format used by KComm. Due to some nifty programming this new version of JT-Alert works with JT65-HF as well.

This new program couldn’t come soon enough for me as I have worked just about everyone who is on JT9 at the moment and it was getting tiresome doing manual log lookups. Hopefully this new program will attract some new participants to this amazing mode.

The front cover of the May 2013 issue of RadCom features an article about “Activating Wainwrights.”

Inside there is an excellent article by David G0EVV about the Wainwrights On The Air scheme (WOTA).

Today is the 88th Anniversary of the founding of the International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) which is World Amateur Radio Day. Didn’t you know that? Well neither did I until I worked CR5IARU on 20m PSK31. Not that I’d have known from working the station. I had to use QRZ.com to find out what the special call was all about.

Perhaps it’s just me but I thought the purpose of a special event call was to raise awareness of some particular event or anniversary. In pursuit of which the special event station should give out this information on every contact. But too often it seems to be taken as an opportunity to work as many stations as possible, contest style.

Another special call that I worked today on 20m PSK31 was HF2013TATO. When I asked the operator Jarek what the special call was for my request was ignored. So I had to go on the internet again. From what I could deduce, this special call is to raise awareness of the role of the father in the family. There may be more to it than that but my Polish is not very good. 🙂 But I do know that “tato” means “dad.”

If you were wondering why you hadn’t seen any more about the Iler 40 transceiver kit I bought then here’s the reason. First I was distracted by making contacts using the new JT9-1 mode. But I also decided to get a solder fume extractor so I have been waiting for that to arrive.

It’s probably a bit late in the game to start worrying about the carcinogenic effects of flux and lead solder fumes. But as the price of peace of mind was only £20 on eBay, I thought “better late than never” and decided to get one.

I was a bit surprised by how big it was. I was expecting something more the size of a 12 volt computer fan. But it sits nicely on the filing cabinet next to my drop-down workbench. I just have to think of somewhere to put it when it is not in use!

If you are a new visitor who found my site via my letter in the May Practical Wireless (PW) welcome to my blog!

What’s this all about? In the March 2013 issue of PW the editor Rob, G3XFD, happened to mention that he had just taken delivery of a new Elecraft K3 or, as he put it, “joined the K3 Klub”. He also mentioned the difficulty he had in using a morse key due to disability. I sent an email to Rob welcoming him to the K3 owners’ fraternity, and mentioned that he might like to try my simple logging program KComm written specifically for Elecraft radios which allows you to send Morse from the computer keyboard using a built-in capability that Elecraft rigs have.

Rob also wrote of his pending retirement once they had found a new editor to take his place, so I mentioned that it was a position I would have been interested in myself if circumstances had been different. I have been technical editor of a computer magazine, launch editor of a Linux magazine and had made a living successfully as a freelance writer for best part of 20 years so I was probably quite well qualified for the job. It would have been exactly the right move for me at that point in my career, something I would have enjoyed doing, I could even have worked from home, but my health disqualified me from serious consideration of it. I said as much in my email to Rob.

I forgot about the email until a few weeks later when I received an email from Rob asking permission to publish an edited version of it in the next issue of PW. I hadn’t expected that but agreed to it and also sent a picture of me in my shack. I was quite surprised when my letter appeared almost word for word as I had originally written it. I was even more surprised to find it was the star letter for that month! I hope you found it interesting. I’m sure the £20 when I receive it will be put to good use!