AmateurRadio.com

Picture from nextdayreprap.co.uk

Jason, NT7S has just posted an article entitled “3D Printed Enclosures” on his blog. As a ham with a drawer full of unboxed projects who has often spent hours searching for suitable enclosures for a project and only finding ones that are either a wee bit too small or miles too big, the idea of being able to make my own custom enclosures is very appealing.

I had heard about 3D printing before, but thought it was either an April Fool spoof gone wild or one of those blue sky ideas that never become reality. My (admittedly cursory) searching has so far failed to turn up any articles that explain how it works, who makes 3D printers or what they cost. (However the site from which the picture was taken, nextdayreprap.co.uk, looks like a good place to start.)

My Motorola Milestone 2 (which I think is known in some places as a Motorola Droid) has started acting up. I’ve had it more than a year now so it is out of warranty.

A couple of days ago I picked it up one evening and it was stone cold dead. Pulling the battery made no difference so I dropped it into the multimedia base and when it came to life it showed the battery was at 0%. The phone sleeps in the multimedia base so it is always fully charged and there is normally 60% left by the evening unless I’ve been running some GPS applications, which for just this reason I don’t. How odd.

The next day after a full charge the phone appeared to be OK. A couple of hours later I scrolled to the page where the Gmail app lives and its icon had changed to a box with a gear wheel in front of it. When I tried to run it I got a message “Application not installed.” Even odder.

I tried the tech support guy’s standard fix which is to switch it off and then switch it on again. To my relief this did the trick. The Gmail icon was back again and the app seemed to be working normally. Until this morning.

When I got up I was surprised that the phone wasn’t winking its green light at me to show there was email waiting. Had no-one at all commented to my blog? After breakfast I turned on the shack PC and lo and behold there were 4 messages in my inbox. The phone still showed nothing. Eventually I checked the account settings and every one of my Google accounts had the “Synchronize Gmail” setting turned off. How very peculiar.

I turned sync on again and the phone is checking my mail as normal. But I just wonder what it’s going to do next?

Ever since I began writing articles about my hobby of choice–amateur or “ham” radio–for my ham radio web site and several others, people have been asking me when I was going to do an amateur radio book.  The truth is, I have just been too darn busy to even think of such a thing. And I also knew, in my heart of hearts, that it be would difficult indeed to get any kind of decent book contract for such a niche book.  I presented my idea of a half-fiction/half-nonfiction book to the ARRL and they passed, so that confirmed my feelings. If they had no interest, I doubted anyone else who published books would either.

Fast-forward to July 2012.  Things have changed, both in my personal life and in the wild and woolly world of big-time book publishing.

Don Keith N4KC has just published his new book of short stories, articles, advice, and more about ham radio.

First, I retired from my 60-hour-a-week day job back in May.  And as I shuffled through the articles I had in the can, several more I was working on, and a few still in my head, I realized I was closer to a book than I had thought.  And I truly believed I had something that would be different and could find a readership.

Secondly, as I investigated Kindle Direct Publishing at Amazon.com for the re-issue of a couple of my previous now-out-of-print books, I realized that I should absolutely pull the ham radio book together for that outlet–Kindle and some other e-book readers–at least.  Amazon has become a real threat to traditional publishing companies–especially when it comes to e-books–as the old-line publishing houses struggle to figure this newfangled thing out.  At the very least, it gives me the opportunity to make my book available at a very reasonable price to those interested in amateur radio.  No, I don’t make much money at the price I set, even if I actually sell some downloads of the book, but that is not really the object anyway.  As I have said many times, and not totally facetiously, if I wanted to make a fortune writing books, I would write pornography (See FIFTY SHADES OF GREY).

Then, as I considered other options, I realized that Amazon offers a truly unique opportunity for works like this one that allows me to offer the book in a traditional paperback format with minimal investment up front.  Remember, I’m retired, on a fixed income these days!  Amazon’s is a print-on-demand deal, but they seem to have it down to a science.  I ordered some copies as soon as I got the book and cover uploaded and accepted for publication.  The very next day I got the email that they were being shipped that day. Wow!

Again, this was with very little upfront cost and minimal hassle.  Now, the paperback will be available not only via Amazon.com, but through major distributors, for order by libraries, and even in many European markets. We will see how good the print job is, but believe me on this: the major houses don’t necessarily produce the highest quality book any more either.  They have to cut where they can to make a profit and printing, binding, and warehousing is a big drain on them.

Talk about rapid technological change and its effect on society and the media!  Broadcast radio, TV, the Internet and telephone communications are not the only things evolving at a dizzying pace.  Include the anachronistic business of book publishing in that mix, too!

Realistically, will tons of booksellers and all the Barnes & Noble stores order a box full of the books each?  Or will hundreds of thousands of libraries order up a couple dozen copies each?  Of course not.  The big publishers do have sales staff to encourage that sort of thing. But a) no big publishing house was going to do a contract for RIDING THE SHORTWAVES: EXPLORING THE MAGIC OF AMATEUR RADIO and b) even if they did, it would be somewhere near the bottom of the sales staff’s sample case, so c) Amazon’s various self-publishing options are perfect for this kind of book.

By the way, if you have any interest in the dynamic and rapidly growing hobby of ham radio–believe me, it ain’t your weird uncle’s past-time any more!–then you may want to stop by Amazon.com and take a look “Inside the Book,” read the description, and maybe buy a copy or two…for yourself or someone you know and want to spark the interest in our amazing hobby.

See, right there in that last sentence, I did more publicity for RIDING THE SHORTWAVES than the big publishers do for most of the books they print up and ship out!

73,

Don Keith N4KC
www.donkeith.com    www.n4kc.com 

Unfortunately I was unable to attend the Dayton Hamvention this year.  It was on my list of things to try to accomplish for 2012, but since I’m heading out west to Pacificon in October, I needed to save my pennies for that adventure.  The Dayton Hamvention will be moved to my “things to accomplish list” for 2013.

As you may know from my recent blogging, I do own the brand new Elecraft KX3.  I described this little rig in a recent podcast as “ultra-lite, ultra-portable, ultra-awesome” and the KX3 certainly lives up to all of these fine attributes.  While I’ve owned my Yaesu FT-817 for about 4 years, I really love the larger display of the KX3 and of course all the updated features certainly don’t hurt either.

The Yaesu FT-817 was first released in 2001 and an updated FT-817ND model was made available in 2004.  The 817 is based on the main circuit board design of its bigger and more powerful brothers, the FT-857 and FT-897. 

As I stated, I purchased my 817 back in the 2008 timeframe and used it for portable operations and carried it along with me on hiking and backpacking trips.  I became hooked on SOTA or Summits On The Air in the fall of 2011 and this became my main radio for that purpose.

While I’m perfectly happy with my KX3 and have already used it on one SOTA adventure, I was (like many) thinking, hoping, expecting, anticipating Yaesu to unveil it’s new QRP portable offering at the 2012 Dayton Hamvention.  However, the Dayton Hamvention is over and there was no announcement or news of any kind from Yaesu regarding their future QRP/Portable offering.  I’m wondering if the boat has sailed and left Yaesu high and dry? 

With Elecraft announcing the KX3 at the 2011 Dayton Hamvention and opening the KX3 up for orders in late December 2011 and beginning to ship orders in the Spring of 2012, the 2012 Dayton Hamvention would be the perfect place to announce a new QRP offering from Yaesu.  Well…that is if a new offering was planned.

Of course, Yaesu is big enough and perhaps powerful enough not to necessarily need to leverage an event like the Dayton Hamvention to announce a new QRP rig.  Also, there is absolutely nothing wrong with the FT-817.  While it may be over 10 years old, the old dinosaur is still kicking and screaming and loved in the QRP community.  As I stated I do own one and I plan to keep it….for now!  

So why do I even bring this up?  Well I do have an interest in QRP operations and an updated offering from Yaesu would be great news for the hobby.  However, I don’t view this as doom and gloom.  I figure Yaesu will update their aging line of 817’s, 857’s and 897’s when they feel the time is right.  However, I just wonder if that time is NOW!

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK   

Hello AmateurRadio.com readers! I am Neil, W2NDG, a resident of the North Shore of Long Island in New York. I am a recent ham (August 2011), but a life-long techie and a shortwave listener since 1973. I will be posting from time-to-time here and wanted you to know a little about me first.  I write mostly on my own sites, which can all be reached through the landing page at neilgoldstein.com.

I will be taking a look at the hobby from a newcomer’s point of view, but also covering the areas where computers and amateur radio cross over. I intend to learn code and build some QRP equipment by the end of the summer, so follow along, and we’ll have some fun with all of this. I also have some interesting plans involving SDR that I hope to be able to share in the months to come. I want to try to appeal to those of you out there on a limited budget, and help you find what you need without breaking the bank. These are tough times for many of us, but it shouldn’t keep us from having a great time with amateur radio. I also have 3 (possibly more) family members currently studying for their Technician licenses, which should make things interesting. My first post is a research piece I did for my club (LIMARC) here on Long Island about kit sources for amateur radio.  So, 73s for now. See everyone soon.

Neil, W2NDG

You may remember back in September, I blogged about the news of the developer (Simon) of Ham Radio Deluxe selling to several US hams.  I followed one of the threads over on the QRZ forums until I basically grew bored of the hate and non-sense being discussed.  At that time (Sept. timeframe) no one really knew what was going to happen or when we would learn the fate and future of the HRD software.  While many had conjured up ideas of users receiving cease and desist letters, as I stated then (and what has been proven since) I didn’t think anyone had anything to worry about.

As the old year (2011) turned into the new year (2012) news began to surface about the plans for Ham Radio Deluxe.  The new owners (Rick Ruhl, W4PC Mike Carper, WA9PIE and Randy Gawtry K0CBH have since released two free updates (version 5.1 and 5.11) and offered users a $59.95 support plan which covers version 5.11 and version 6 at no cost.  Ham Radio Deluxe version 6 is scheduled to be available around the Dayton Hamvention timeframe of this year. 

I learned about HRD before I even earned my license and was using it with my Yaesu FT-897 as I tuned around the bands listening.  Once I got my ticket I used it to log my first HF QSO’s on 10 meters and have used it since.  The value of what Ham Radio Deluxe brings to me in the enjoyment of the hobby is certainly more than I can associate a cost to.  I’ve looked into alternatives for casual QSO logging, rig control and the digital modes and have found nothing that even comes close to beating HRD in its present form.

After watching the video below, I’m actually excited about the opportunity for HRD version 6 and beyond.  Some of the new features discussed will be an integration between N1MM logger and DM780.  This to me will be worth the investment to upgrade to version 6.     I do love N1MM logger for contest operations, but I rarely use anything other than DM780 for digital modes.  When I try to use other applications for PSK or RTTY, I’m like a fish out of water.  For that reason I don’t do a lot of true digital contest operations. 

If you haven’t already, please take about 52 minutes of your time and watch the video below which is made available by Gary Pearce, KN4AQ and his Amateur Radio Video News (ARVN) service. 

Watch this video on YouTube.

I’ve had no contact with any of the three mentioned owners and simply blog about this particular subject because I want to.  The opinions expressed are simply my own.  I fully understand and appreciate that not everyone will share my thoughts and opinions on this subject. 

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK

I’ve been thinking about buying an Amazon Kindle. But I’m not sure if it will really be useful for what I want or whether it will just end up sitting on a shelf like my Eee PC and other gadgets of the month.

I know that the real purpose of the Kindle is for reading electronic books purchased from Amazon.com. However I don’t see myself using it for that very much. What I am interested in is reading ham radio and electronics publications that are increasingly being made available in electronic format. Are these magazines viewable on a Kindle or do they use some proprietary format only supported by a special application that needs a PC or Mac?

One of the publications I’d probably use it for is CQ, as I’m not sure it is really worth the international postage. Then there is World Radio, which is only available in electronic form, which I have never read due to the inconvenience of having to use a PC to do it. Now ARRL is bringing out an electronic version of QST. I still look forward to the printed magazine landing on the doormat but I do pay quite a premium for that.

I’d be interested to learn from Kindle users what formats the device supports. A couple of months ago the back issues of the now defunct 73 magazine and Ham Radio were put online. I downloaded the Kindle application for Windows and was disappointed with the results. The magazines were available in Kindle format but it looked as if they had been badly scanned using an OCR system and half of the content was in Greek! The PDFs were huge files and looked more like a poor quality FAX. The best format appeared to be one called Deja Vue. I downloaded a reader for it. Does the Kindle support that?

My eyes might find it easier reading on a device that lets you zoom in and enlarge the font. Does the Kindle let you do that?

How well does the Kindle support PDF files? I expect I would use it for those a lot. With a Kindle could I read PDFs I’ve downloaded and stored on a drive on our network or a memory stick? I’ve often considered, for nostalgic reasons, ordering some electronic back issues of Radio Communication (now RadCom) from the years when I first got interested in ham radio, though so far I have always changed my mind when I see the cost!

So over to my readers. Your thoughts on this, if you would be so kind!