AmateurRadio.com

EA3GCY sells a range of QRP kits including single band, single PCB, SSB transceivers for 20m or 40m.  These look easy to build and test and good value for money. Currently there is a 5% off offer running too.

See http://ea3gcy.blogspot.it/2013/03/iler-20-4-5w-qrp-ssb-monoband.html .
See http://ea3gcy.blogspot.it/2013/01/iler-40-4-5w-qrp-ssb-monoband.html .

He also does a CW kit and other accessories. Look out for the ILER range.

Sunspot number for Dec 27th 2014 has fallen to 92 and 10m propagation is forecast to be “fair”.  Although we’ll still get good days, we must now expect sunspot numbers to gradually decline as the years go by towards the next sunspot minimum. Usually the decline downwards tends to be faster than the climb after the minimum, although many are predicting that the next maximum (cycle 25) will be miserably low.

See http://www.solen.info/solar/  .

See also http://sc25.com/ .

See also http://www.swsc-journal.org/index.php?option=com_article&access=doi&doi=10.1051/swsc/2012008&Itemid=129 .

A warm Christmas wish to everyone celebrating this holiday. Over here in Taiwan it is business as usual since December 25 was axed as a day off many years ago. Nevertheless, we do have some Christmas cheer and we will save up the rest for Chinese New Year next February.

Like many of you, I also haven’t had much radio time lately. Life is busy with my three full time jobs (father, housekeeper and teacher) and both the sun and local noise haven’t given me much pleasure when turning on the radio. But I did get a new toy and have been playing with it for the last two weeks. My always lovely wife was so nice to purchase some telegraph keys in China on her last trip there. The one I’m playing with now is this beauty….

a NOS D-117 straight key from the Tianjin City Xinxing Communication Devices Factory. All shiny and very heavy: almost a kilogram. Unfortunately the box had been taped over, but after carefully peeling away the paper the stamped on date of packing was just visible and it read 1973. So I got a real piece of history in my hands as it was made during the cultural revolution. Even after 41 years the spring was still as stiff as a board. After keying with it for only a few minutes I could already feel my wrist getting sore. 24 hours of compressing the spring helped a bit, although my elmer and QSL manager PG2W would still find the tension too high. As faith would have it, my first on-air QSO with this key was with BG3FB who happens to live in Tianjin City, the place where the key was made 41 years ago.

So how do I like this key? It’s a joy to operate. Solid as a rock and if I bring the spring tension further down (and reduce my heavy pounding a bit) even the last bit of sliding will be gone. In overall performance I rate it just below the Junker key; you can’t beat German excellence. A keeper and if you can get your hands on one I recommend it heartilly.

A couple more days till Straight Key Night and the SKCC January Celebration. So get those straight keys and bugs out and start practising. 73!

X108 HF Radio Second run

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u_WWYBp1aJs

HamRadioTweets is a service that was originally developed and operated by Bruce Sutherland KO4IN. The idea behind his work was inspired by conflicts overseas, it was meant to be a proof of concept on how to get your message out if your government restricts your internet access.

Mr. Sutherland originally created the software as a means to send messages over satellite such as the International Space Station and others that have on-board APRS Digipeaters. I am however getting ahead of myself.

Sometime in late 2014 I had begun learning to write software in ruby, an interpreted programming language, I had quickly found how easy it was to work with sockets allowing me to interact with servers on the internet. I wanted to merge my programming with my love for ham radio. This is when the APRS-IS network came to mind.

I wrote a small ruby gem allowing me to interact with the APRS-IS network, I could see all traffic on the network and filter it in any way I saw fit. Naturally I thought I could add some type of service to the APRS network. There was already a ruby gem that simplified posting to twitter so I figured an APRS to twitter gateway would be a good way for me to hone my new found skills.

After a little research I found that Mr. Sutherland had already developed an APRS to Twitter gateway and even presented it at a computer security conference known as Defcon, However to my dismay I found that it had been offline for some time with what seemed to be no sign of a return. I wasn’t able to find any source code for the software, all I knew was that it had been written in Python.

I thought to myself, if he can write it in Python then I can write it in Ruby. After just two short hours of work I found myself with a simple test server that did exactly what I wanted it to. It would register itself to the APRS-IS network with the callsign designator ‘TWITR’ this would allow anyone from any APRS gateway send a message to twitter by sending it to that callsign.

Later I had contacted Mr. Sutherland and asked him for permission to take over the website and development, which he greatly obliged to and gave me full access to the domain. I began running the server 24/7 on November 23rd of 2014 using the code that I published as an open source project.

The service is back online and available for Amateur use, I plan to continue development in my free time while working on additional services that we could add to the APRS network.

Website: http://hamradiotweets.com
Twitter: http://twitter.com/hamradiotweets
Software Source Code: https://github.com/KR0SIV/APRS-to-Twitter-Gateway
Github Repository: http://github.com/kr0siv

Last week, BBC’s Panorama programme did a frightening documentary on factories used by Apple in China and on their tin supply chain in Indonesia. If such poor conditions are used by Apple, many other products will be produced in even worse conditions. As a user of Apple products I am appalled.

See Panorama, Apple’s Broken Promises .

Of course, we in the West milk the low costs that such poor working procedures/conditions permit. With time, conditions will improve and the West will look to other low cost manufacturing areas for our low cost products. Sadly, our greed feeds this process.

Frighteningly, other products we buy are probably made in places that are far worse.

Andrew G6ALB tells me of a friend in the automotive industry who visited a Chinese supplier where he found workers using ordinary sun glasses to protect eyes from welding gear. After 6 months  the workers were totally blind. So they just got fresh workers to replace them!

Thanks to Steven G7VFY for most of this information.

UPDATE 1740z:  Sadly many (most?) of our electronics components will be made in sweat shops in the Far East. It is very hard to get away from this problem.

From Steven, G7VFY comes news of a very simple 10m DSB transmitter from the blog of KA7OEI. This is an experimental very low power transmitter. It is unlikely to be of use in serious applications, but the range might surprise some.  On 10m, the antenna is efficient and on a clear frequency it has the potential to get a long way. Over 1000km would not surprise me on a totally clear frequency. After all, 1mW (or so) is about 53 if a 100W signal was 59+12dB. On 10m such signals with 100W are very possible.

See http://ka7oei.blogspot.co.uk/2014/10/the-pointless-10-meter-dsb-qrp.html .