AmateurRadio.com

Hi, AmateurRadio.com subscribers!

I’m Gary Pearce KN4AQ, and I produce videos for and about Amateur Radio at www.HamRadioNow.tv. I’ve just released Episode 137, with a pair of DXpedition talks from the Charlotte Hamfest: the 2013 Wake Atoll K9W operation, and last month’s FT5ZM Amsterdam Island mega-DXpedition. Maybe you worked these guys? Check out what’s behind the signals you heard.

Episode 136 (embedded above) is a talk I had with CQ Editor Rich Moseson W2VU on what’s happening up there. If you’re a CQ subscriber, you know it isn’t good. Print editions have been late, with the December issue being the last one most of us have received (January is “in the mail”). CQ-VHF, Popular Communications and WorldRadioOnline are being discontinued, with some of their content being absorbed in an expanded ONLINE ONLY section of the main CQ magazine called CQ-Plus. CQ will still be a print magazine, but only the online version will have the CQ-Plus content. These were painful but necessary steps to keep CQ afloat financially.

HamRadioNow is a tv show with sort of an identity crisis. Sometimes we’re a talk show, with interviews either on Skype or at hamfests. Sometimes we’re a “documentary unit” with field-produced programs about almost anything in ham radio. And sometimes we shoot forums and seminars, like the two DXpedition talks in Episode 137, and all of last years TAPR Digital Communications Conference.

We’re really a shoestring operation – just me and a few friends helping out. But even shoestrings cost money, so you’ll see me begging for contributions from viewers who like the show. Watch first, and if you like it, send a few bucks. In those 137 episodes are really about 170 programs (some of the episodes have two or more full-length programs that just seemed to go together). The programs are hosted on YouTube (www.Youtube.com/HamRadioNow) and Blip.tv (www.blip.tv/HamRadioNow). Blip used to port us to iTunes, but they just stopped, so we’re looking for a new route there. Until then, downloads are only by whatever software you can jeep to lift stuff from YouTube (against their wishes, but it’s fine with me). Our official web site is:

http://HamRadioNow.tv

We’ve been doing this for just over two years, so that’s more than one show a week. More to come, and we’ll try to announce each new one here on AmateurRadio.com.

73, Gary KN4AQ

It’s always easy to point a finger at others when you encounter noise while scanning the bands. More than often it is yourself who has to take the blame. In my case the switching power supply from my shack laptop is producing a lot of noise and artifacts, especially below 7 MHz. For a long time I had the plan to operate the laptop from my linear power supply and recently I got serious about it. A DC-DC step-up converter was bought for a mere US$7 and the following video shows initial results are very encouraging. The unit runs very cool so I am going to box it up and see if it can handle long operating periods.

Next up: isolating the USB connection. Stay tuned.

Earlier this week the Wall Street Journal published an article about the growing prevalence of RFI from unlikely sources.  They quoted Tom Thompson, WØIVJ, of Boulder, Colorado:

Radio hobbyist Tom Thompson of Boulder, Colo., last year tracked a signal using a homemade contraption. After knocking on the suspect’s door, he traced it to ballasts on marijuana grow-room lights. He says he built a filter that the grower agreed to use.

Tom, a retired NOAA electronic engineer, created an entire web page devoted to the grow light ballast filters. According to his page, these ballasts are switching power supplies for high-pressure sodium or metal-halide lamps.

He goes on to describe the problem in good detail:

Typically the light fixture is removed from the ballast by about 25 to 30 feet.  Since this length is about a 1/4 wavelength on 40 meters, it makes a good “antenna” for 40 meters so the RFI may be strongest on 40.  I have heard radiations from these systems up to about 1/2 mile away.  Also, since the “antenna” is so low to the ground, the RFI is mostly vertically polarized which is important when tracking it down.

Check out his page to see how he built a filter that he says reduces the RFI by about 30dB. That’s some good ol’ ham ingenuity!

OK, now this is a pretty cool service.

My friend Clint Bradford, K6LCS, has opened a website where he is offering to program almost any HT you can think of for $35. The website is called HamRadioProgramming.com.

The process is very straightforward. You mail him your radio, he’ll program up to 60 memory channels of your choice, and he ships it right back via USPS Priority Mail. Don’t know the frequencies outside your immediate area? Clint will look them all up and program them in. Pretty darn slick.

Now, when I first heard about it I thought to myself, if you’re smart enough to pass an amateur radio exam, shouldn’t you be smart enough to program an HT?

Well, first it’s not really about being smart enough. My first HT was a little Kenwood TH-27A and honestly, it wasn’t that hard to program. Things were different in the old days! 🙂 Fast forward twenty (plus) years, my Wouxun and Baofeng radios are a different story. If hadn’t purchased the programming cable, learned the software, figured out how to get the drivers to work with the radio, etc., I’m not sure my radios would have ever been programmed. In fact, I’ve never been able to program my Baofeng UV-3R because I couldn’t get the drivers to work. Could be just me, but it can be a real pain.

But, let’s say you’re not intimidated by learning new software and tweaking around with USB drivers. This service still makes a lot of sense for those who don’t do a lot of programming because you save the cost of buying those foolish programming cables. I have a different one for both my Wouxun and Baofeng radios and I think I paid $15 for each one.

If you want to save yourself a bunch of time, technical headaches, and the cost of a programming cable, take a look at what he’s offering. If you’re not interested, I bet you know someone who might be.

BuyTwoWayRadios.com released a flyer on Friday detailing some of the specifications for the Wouxun KG-UV8D.

At first glance, the specifications of the KG-UV8D above appear virtually identical to the Wouxun KG-UV6X (if someone can spot a difference, please let me know).

BuyTwoWayRadios.com has confirmed that they plan to offer the radio at $139.99 and will begin taking pre-orders this week. The KG-UV6X is $169.99 at Powerwerx (but also includes a dual-slot rapid charger at no extra charge).

Source: BuyTwoWayRadios.com blog via Brick O’Lore

What a relief to hike again. It warmed up to 45F today and I hit the trail. Down to the Pemigewasset River where I worked Spain, Poland, Norway, Germany and Greece.

I walked about a mile on the access road to the river along the snowmobile trail. Weeks Brook is still frozen. Soon it will be rushing with the spring melt.

Right in front of Shaw Cove is a sharp curve in the road. There’s a row of tall pine trees directly exposed to the southern sun. Even though two feet of snow covers the ground in most places, there is a bare patch at the base of these trees. I set up the KX3 at 5 watts with a 33 foot wire up to one of the pine branches. I spread a plastic bag on the ground to sit on.

I started out on 17 meters and heard Christian, LI8OM in Norway. He gave me a 449 and he was 599. This is not an ideal spot for propagation because there is a steep hill directly to the east… toward Europe. So I never expect strong reports here… but it was 55F in the sun and one of the few spots available to operate at this time of year.

Next, I exchanged reports with Serge DL1DGS in Germany. He gave me a 559 and I was pleased to work him again after a long time.

Shaw Cove is directly across from where I sat… and farther… the main flow of the Pemi. Both are frozen and probably won’t break up for a few weeks.

Now I switched to 12 meters and made three quick contacts with SZ7SER, a radio club in Greece followed by DL5LYM in Germany and SP7ASZ, Andy in Poland.

For a final contact I went to 10 meters and worked Oscar, EA1DR in Spain. I’d only operated for 15 minutes, but made six nice contacts. I packed up for the return hike up the hill.

This has been one of the coldest, snowiest and longest winters for several decades. One warm day is all it takes to raise my hopes for spring and summer adventures to come.

Over at Make, they’ve posted an interesting project showing you how to convert your $35 Raspberry Pi into a wide coverage FM transmitter.

This simple hack turns your Raspberry Pi into a powerful FM transmitter! It has enough range to cover your home, DIY drive-in movie, a high school ball game, or even a bike parade (depending on the stragglers).

The hack, called PiFM, uses hardware meant to generate spread spectrum clock signals and outputs them as RF energy on the Raspberry Pi’s GPIO (general purpose input/output) pins. The original creators report getting a range of 50m through heavy walls and multiple rooms.

Luckily, they include this helpful warning:

The Raspberry Pi’s broadcast frequency can range between 1Mhz and 250Mhz, which may interfere with government bands. We advise that you limit your transmissions to the standard FM band of 87.5MHz–108.0MHz (see Step 3) and always choose a frequency that’s not already in use, to avoid interference with licensed broadcasters.

Good advice, don’t you think? :-/