AmateurRadio.com

Stories you’ll find in our January, 2015 edition:

K3LR: Contesting With the Big Guns
By Mark Haverstock K8MSH

Looking at the cover photo on this month’s TSM prompts the question, “Does this guy have enough antennas?” That’s a question that’s been asked hundreds of times by drivers on Interstate 80 who pass by the amateur radio antenna farm just east of the Ohio border. Tim Duffy K3LR says, “No. You can never have too many antennas!” Since 1987, Duffy has spent countless hours building his dream station, as well as collecting numerous contest awards along with the operators that make up the K3LR Contest Team. This is their story.

Monitoring Utility and Amateur Radio Transmissions with a DVB-T Dongle
By Mario Filippi N2HUN

With a small investment, any radio hobbyist can expand the reception capabilities of a DVB-T dongle to include long wave, medium wave and short wave frequencies. Creative individuals in the software industry have realized the potential of these diminutive, economically priced devices and have crafted programs that allow the dongle to function as multi-mode Software Defined Radios, when attached to a USB port of a computer.

Volunteer Interceptors: Listening for Terrorists
By Bob Patterson K5DZE

Any amateur, SWL or scanner monitor, who listens to a range of frequencies on a regular basis, soon learns what normally is heard over that range. These frequencies become the operator’s “radio
neighborhood.” Should a Volunteer Interceptor (VI) service be organized within the radio enthusiast community to monitor radio frequencies for possible national and international threats?

AMIKO A3 FTA Satellite Receiver
By Ken Reitz KS4ZR

If Apple made a Free-to-Air (FTA) satellite receiver it might look and perform like the AMIKO A3. In fact, opening the A3’s box, you might think you were opening a Mac; electronics manufacturers all seem to have taken a tip from Apple’s packaging concept. The Mac reference is a plus and a minus. Like a Mac, the A3 is modern in design, ruggedly built, and takes a little getting used to.

Why Go Digital?
By Cory GB Sickles W3UUV

Digital voice (and data) radios are certainly here to stay. This is one of the fastest growing and evolving aspects of amateur radio today. Although DV’s roots extend back more than 25 years, we’re still introducing new ways to communicate with ones and zeros, through methods that will eventually put analog VHF FM where HF AM is today.

Scanning America
By Dan Veenaman
Monitoring Digital Systems

Federal Wavelengths
By Chris Parris
A Year in Federal Monitoring

Utility Planet
By Hugh Stegman NV6H
More Russian “Numbers” Mysteries

Digital HF: Intercept and Analyze
By Mike Chace-Ortiz AB1TZ/G6DHU
Have PacTOR, Will Travel The High Seas!

HF Utility Logs
By Mike Chace-Ortiz and Hugh Stegman

Amateur Radio Insights
By Kirk Kleinschmidt NT0Z
Current Balun Bonus: Noise Reduction?

Radio 101
By Ken Reitz KS4ZR
The View Ahead, Through the Rearview Mirror

Radio Propagation
By Tomas Hood NW7US
Fundamentals: Radio Wave Propagation

The World of Shortwave Listening
By Jeff White, General Manager, WRMI Shortwave
Shortwave Listeners make their Voices Heard

The Shortwave Listener
By Fred Waterer
Change and Opportunity in the New Year

Maritime Monitoring
By Ron Walsh VE3GO
Marine Radio Traffic and Heritage

The Longwave Zone
By Kevin O’Hern Carey WB2QMY
Firing Up the Neophyte 1
(Formerly: A Cure for PPHD)

Adventures in Radio Restoration
By Rich Post KB8TAD
Back to the Future

The Broadcast Tower
By Doug Smith W9WI
This is a Test. This is only a Test.

Antenna Connections
By Dan Farber AC0LW
On The Road Again: Mobile Antenna Concepts

The Spectrum Monitor is available in PDF format which can be read on any desktop, laptop, iPad®, Kindle® Fire, or other device capable of opening a PDF file. Annual subscription (12 issues, beginning with the January 2015 issue) is $24. Individual monthly issues are available for $3 each.

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.