Archive for the ‘Uncategorized’ Category
Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 319
February 17th, 2024 | 
Author: 
US Senators introduce Amateur Radio Emergency Preparedness Act
Legislation would prohibit HOA rules that prevent or ban Amateur Radio antennas.
Senator Roger Wicker
Skeptics question disappearance of Alabama radio tower
Commenters speculated that WJLX had failed to maintain its AM site over time.
RadioWorld
A venture into the world of Meshtastic
An Open Source, off-grid, decentralised mesh network built to run on affordable, low-power devices.
M0AWS
Nominate your favorite Open Source software for the Amateur Radio Software Award
Promoting software projects that enhance and adhere to the spirit of Amateur Radio.
Amateur Radio Software Award
Photos from Hamcation 2024
Mike (VE3MKX) shares photos from Hamcation 2024.
SWLing Post
Homebrew SBITX Receiver
Ground bounce, hallucinations, and wisdom.
KK4DAS
2023 Great Shakeout after action report
Highlighting the utility of the Winlink system for emergency management.
Winlink
A most unusual vertical antenna for 20m
One way to eliminate radials is to deploy an antenna that doesn’t need them
Ham Radio Outside the Box
Automating antenna rotator control with Cloudlog and Tampermonkey
The magic lies in the custom JavaScript injected into the Cloudlog webpage.
DK1MI
Video
A highland SOTA
A hike to a bare highlands SOTA in Western Norway.
LB4FH
The coolest mobile Ham Radio shack
This car is loaded down with several Ham Radios and antennas that Scott Farrell (KE4WMF) has managed to fit inside of his 2017 Volkswagen Golf GTI.
KI5IRE
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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 318
The first Amateur Radio station on the Moon is now transmitting
The JAXA Ham Radio Club (JHRC), JQ1ZVI, secured Amateur Radio license JS1YMG for LEV-1, which has been transmitting Morse code on 437.41 MHz.
ARRL
Someone stole a Jasper radio station’s 200-foot tower
“We’re down here and the tower’s gone.”
AL.com
AMSAT CubeSatSim beta release
The official release of the new Beta CubeSatSim hardware and software is finally here.
AMSAT
Exploring SATNOG
A revolutionary approach to satellite ground stations.
N1JUR
Visiting VOA Site B
K4RLC tours the Edward R. Murrow Transmitting Station.
QRPer
Common CW abbreviations
A list of common abbreviations used in CW communications.
VE3IPS
FOSDEM 2024 videos now available
Synthetic aperture WiFi RADAR, GPU DSP acceleration, and more.
RTL-SDR
Will large satellite constellations affect Earth’s magnetic field?
It will coat the stratosphere and ionosphere with metal aerosols at levels never seen before.
Hackaday
Magic Band Revealed
Jim Wilson K5ND recently completed the third edition of the book Magic Band Revealed.
K0NR
Taking the hiss out of QO-100
Even though the signals are mostly 59-59+15dB the background hiss is very pronounced and gets very tiring after a while.
M0AWS
Those darn wall-wart power supplies
It takes some of the legal liability burden off manufacturers if their product is powered by one of these adapters that isolates the somewhat dangerous 120 VAC from their equipment.
Radio World
Video
Radio Interface Board – Sneak peek
A pre-production sample of the DigiPi Hat from ELEKITSORPARTS. This is the first solder-less way to hookup your dual-band rig to a Raspberry Pi.
KM6LYW
Ham Radio Magic Tarp Antenna
As stealth as they come.
HamJazz
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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 317
Neighborhood Watch utilizes GMRS
Sponsored by the Sand Canyon Volunteer Council and Tehachapi Valley CERT team in conjunction with the Tehachapi Amateur Radio Association.
Tehachapi News
DLARC preserves Ham Radio & More radio show
Ham Radio & More was a radio show about Amateur Radio that was broadcast from 1991 through 1997. More than 300 episodes of the program are now available online.
DLARC
FreeDV January update
Applying Machine Learning (ML) techniques to quantise Codec 2 features.
FreeDV
Radio Orienteering Cyber-Coach
The Cyber-Coach will answer any question related to Radio Orienteering.
Open ARDF
Amelia didn’t know radio
That Earhart and Fred Noonan failed to reach Howland Island on their 1937 around-the-world flight because of radio problems has been said before—but little has been written about the specifics.
U.S. Naval Institute
CATS Mobile Transceiver
70 cm CATS mobile transceiver, with integrated GPS.
cats.radio
114 digital voice nets (PDF)
Various nets taking place on EchoLink, AllStarLink, IRLP, and more.
ROC-HAM
YLISSB celebrates 61 years on the air
The YLISSB operates on 14.332 MHz every day of the year.
ARRL
Video
Quartzfest 2024
A comprehensive video playlist of events at Quartzfest 2024.
K7AGE
What went wrong when I elevated my fan dipole?
To my dismay, when I checked the fan dipole antenna again, the SWR had gone beyond the tunable range of my automatic antenna tuner.
Johnsons Techworld
The Origins of Silicon Valley: Roots in Ham Radio
This talk focuses on the contributions of Amateur Radio to the development of a climate of innovation and collaboration in what has become Silicon Valley.
KM6LH
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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 316
Static on the airwaves
Understanding the drop in U.S. Amateur Radio operators.
KD0TLS
Ghostbusters fans warned of safety and legal risks with the use of Baofeng
Baofeng appears as prop along side proton pack in upcoming film, Ghostbusters: Frozen Empire.
Ghostbusters News
Setting up your Ham Shack Hotline
Are you ready to take your Ham Radio game to the next level?
N1JUR
World of Receivers and Transceivers
A collection of SDR receivers from across the globe.
World of Receivers and Transceivers
How to make your Ham Radio club as unappealing as possible
My list of things a club needs to do to make it as unappealing as possible.
Random Wire
AMSAT responds to planned decommissioning of IO-117
AMSAT stands ready to leverage our 55 years of experience in managing Amateur Radio satellites.
AMSAT
Getting to know GNURadio
Make a working receiver and more on your computer.
The Communicator
lofi air traffic control
Lofi music paired with air traffic control radio.
lofi air traffic control
Retevis Ailunce HD1 GPS first impression
Leaving the radio out in the elements unprotected for 3 days in -33F temperatures.
OH8STN
FCC will add vehicles for pirate radio enforcement
FCC to conduct annual enforcement sweeps of pirate radio in the five markets with the most pirate operations.
Radio World
ARRL January VHF Contest — 2024 blockbuster
Sunday was exceptional, bringing my score to 17,296.
K5ND
Video
Building a simple, inexpensive 2 meter dipole antenna
Using Christmas lights wire.
KI5IRE
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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 315
ARRL responds to FCC proposals
ARRL concluded that the FCC should also remove the bandwidth limits that apply uniquely to the data modes on the subject bands.
ARRL
In praise of old meters
There were two obviously burned resistors and a leaking battery—an easy repair to put this meter back into service.
Hackaday
SDU-X: Software defined data transmission with ultrasonic transducers
SDU-X uses two ultrasonic transducers mounted on 3D printed parabolic dishes.
RTL-SDR
open890
open890 is a web-based UI for the Kenwood TS-890S Amateur Radio, and features good usability, clean design, and high-speed bandscope/audio scope displays, among other features not available either on the radio itself, or in the ARCP remote control software.
N0RUA
144 MHz EME Newsletter
Since 2003 I’ve produced the monthly 144 MHz EME Newsletter focusing on 2m EME activity. The newsletter comes free of charge and is my personal courtesy to the Ham community.
DF2ZC
What’s new at DLARC January 2024
On January 1, 2024, content published in 1928 in the United States entered the public domain. But what about the Amateur Radio content?
Zero Retries
Investigating creeping ground fault
I decided to make a device that could monitor the residual current of my mains installation over time to see if the if it would uncover anything.
Dzl’s Evil Genius Lair
Top 5 Parks on the Air tips for activating a park
The top 5 tips to help you make the most of your park activations and ensure a successful and enjoyable experience.
N1JUR
Video
External meter display and tune button for Yaesu FT-991a
Build a Yaesu external meter display and tune button yourself with an Arduino NANO.
PA0LUX
Build a Ham transmitter with a Raspberry Pi Pico
Using only a few external components build a Ham Radio transmitter covering 0.5-30 MHz.
101 Things
Handheld spectrum analyzer review
The Jstvro spectrum analyzer covers 240-960 MHz on the first port and 15 – 2700 MHz on the second port.
Tech Minds
Meet the students using radio waves to contact the ISS
A high school club in Pennsylvania is making waves — radio waves, that is.
TODAY
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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 314
The ARRL Board is at it again
A newly proposed Code of Conduct, which I believe is the equivalent of a loyalty, confidentiality and obedience pledge to the League itself and not to the members that elect us.
KB6NU
Going on a social media diet
Leaving Twitter, investing in Mastodon.
QRPer
MeshCom 4.0
A project to exchange text messages via LORA radio modules. MeshCom modules can be combined to form a mesh network, but can also be connected to a message network via MeshCom gateways, which are ideally connected via HAMNET.
ICSSW
2023: The Year in Radio
Ham Radio in 2023 was a continual source of rejuvenation and energy.
KC8JC
Introducing QSOMate
A Ham Radio logging application for iPhone, iPad, and macOS Desktop.
MacHamRadio.com
Mini-whips: Junk, right?
The results were very surprising.
Real-World Amateur Radio
Everything you wanted to know about Zulu Time
Zulu Time is the military name for Universal Coordinated Time (UTC).
OnAllBands
AM or SSB are there ‘windows?’
A new voice mode appeared in 1947 when Wes Schum, W9DYV, introduced the first Amateur Radio SSB transmitter.
K9EID via AmateurRadio.com
Somaiya students’ Amateur Radio Satellite takes to the skies
Equipped with a voice repeater and digipeater, the satellite extends its services to the global Amateur Radio community.
HindustanTimes
Video
Demo of 3 Ham study sites
Demo of 3 Amateur Radio study sites in under 3 minutes.
Branvini Films
Salmon Run 2023
WA State QSO Contest from Samish Overlook.
WA7JNJ
Working the ISS Ham Radio Repeater with a Baofeng
My first attempt working the International Space Station Ham Radio Repeater.
W6IWN
The best Ham Radio videos of 2023
Top 10 list.
KB9VBR
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AM or SSB are there ‘windows’?
Amplitude Modulation has been used for voice transmission between Radio Amateurs for more than a century. A new voice mode appeared in 1947, when Wes Schum, W9DYV introduced the first Amateur Radio SSB transmitter, the Central Electronics 10A. By the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, competition for dial space began to “heat up” between the ‘died in the wool’ AM operators and the new, hard to tune in, Single Sideband operators. Eventually, there was a sit-down, face to face meeting, between some “Big Gun” SSB operators and long time, AM operators. Together, both groups decided on a ‘Gentlemen’s Agreement’, for AM dial space. For example, on 75 meters, they choose 3.870MHz to 3.890MHz as the “AM Window”. On 40 meters, AM around 7.290MHz. 20 meters, 14.268MHz; etc. These “windows’ were promoted by the ARRL and strongly observed by AM operators for a couple of decades.
During the 1980’s and 1990’s AM operations had declined, and many newly licensed SSB operators came to be. Many of them didn’t know AM even existed on the Amateur bands, as the AM Window concept was no longer promoted well, or not acknowledged. However, AM has seen a recent resurgence of popularity, in part due to the introduction of Software Defined Radio Transceivers, such as FlexRadio Systems lineup, the ICOM IC7300, Yaesu FT101DX, Kenwood TS890, Apache Labs Anan 80000DLE, etc. New and old AM enthusiasts have homebrewed Class E modulated solid state AM transmitters. In 2018, QST tested and reviewed the K7DYY AM (only) solid state, Class D transmitter, a near legal limit, AM only transmitter, with built in power supply, that weighs only 8 pounds!
With increased activity, some cross mode interference is sometimes unavoidable. It is always best to remember, NO ONE owns a frequency, regardless of mode. It is good practice to always check the tuned frequency, to make sure it is not already in use, by one, or more stations. Some AM Operators are crystal controlled and cannot easily change frequency. 3.885 MHz for example, is a popular crystal frequency used within the US phone band. With almost all SSB transmitters being frequency agile, would you give the 3885 kHz crystal controlled AM station a little leeway and move a few kHz, if he was there, first?
With the increased number of AM stations, there are now are a few other spots on the dial that AM operation can be found. Both SSB and AM mode users can avoid misunderstanding, or disagreement, if each party observes the AMATEUR’s CODE:
- AMATEUR IS CONSIDERATE
The Amateur is considerate, never knowingly operates in such a way to lessen the pleasure of others. - AMATEUR IS LOYAL
He offers his loyalty and encouragement to fellow amateurs. - AMATEUR IS PROGRESSIVE
Keeps his station efficient and well maintained. His operating practice is above reproach. - AMATEUR IS FRIENDLY
Offers kind assistance, cooperation and consideration for the interest of others. - AMATEUR IS BALANCED
Radio is his hobby. He never allows it to interfere with duties to his home or family. - AMATEUR IS PATRIOTIC
His station is always ready for service of his country.
Adapted from the original Amateur’s Code, written by Paul M. Segal in 1928.
In addition, please ask, “Is the frequency In Use?”
As always, with any mode, asking if the frequency is in use, first, will alleviate an initial misunderstanding. Please remember that the ham bands can change quickly, causing new interference. Acknowledge the changing band, and be friendly about it. I encourage everyone to join AMI: www.aminternational.club. Learn, appreciate, and enjoy AM operation. Lets all be courteous to each other and share our frequencies.
