AmateurRadio.com

The Aurora Borealis as seen from Maine in early August. (Rachel Moseson photo)

Standing with my family, watching the sunset on top of Cadillac Mountain in Maine’s Acadia National Park, my Blackberry buzzed to tell me I had a new e-mail. It was an alert from spaceweather.com about an impending geomagnetic storm, including a notice that the aurora was likely to be visible later that night in upper latitudes. Viewing, it said, would be best starting around local midnight.

We didn’t know if our location at around 44 degrees north latitude was “upper” enough, but we figured that a dark mountaintop with a 360-degree sky view might give us an edge. We returned around 11:30–the only people up there – and saw what looked like a thin white cloud to the north in an otherwise cloudless sky. And it was lit up, as though reflecting lights from a city or a stadium beneath it. Only thing was, the ground beneath the “cloud” was dark. We figured out the best settings on our cameras to photograph this cloud in the middle of the night and were amazed to see that what looked white to us looked green to the cameras!

I quickly shot a picture with my phone of the image on the camera’s monitor and sent it to Chip, K7JA, whom I knew had seen auroras in Alaska and asked him if that was what we were seeing. By the time he texted back a “Yes!”, the answer had become obvious to us as parts of the cloud began to brighten and shoot out rays of light above and below the main area. Then the cloud began to expand vertically and the whole thing started drifting to the west. Directly overhead, the “carpet” of the Milky Way was clearly visible, and–this being a week before the peak of the Perseids–every few minutes, a meteor flashed by. It was truly a magical evening … that the four of us enjoyed in total solitude. No one else, it seemed, knew about the celestial show going on over their heads.

“The benefits of geekdom,” I joked to my daughter. “If I wasn’t on spaceweather.com’s e-mail alert list, we wouldn’t have known about it either.” She responded, “Not too many people even know there’s such a thing as ‘space weather.’ ”

So… is there a ham radio connection here? Did I turn on my 2-meter FM rig and work Alberta off the aurora? No. First of all, Au doesn’t “work” effectively on FM, and secondly, I was too entranced by the visual aurora to even think about radio.

But this aurora resulted from a coronal mass ejection from the sun, an event which affected radio communications here on Earth as well as touching off visible aurora overhead. Such solar events are common in a rising sunspot cycle and have touched off speculation in the popular press about “killer flares” that could fry electronics here on Earth and cause billions– maybe trillions–of dollars of damage to our telecommunications infrastructure.

These “killer flares,” along with speculation at the other end of the solar spectrum that we are heading toward a period of decades with no sunspots, were the subjects of Dr. David Hathaway’s talk, “The Sky is NOT Falling,” at the Huntsville Hamfest a few weeks later. Hathaway is a solar physicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville and one of the nation’s leading authorities on the sun, sunspots and solar-earth interactions. The crux of what he talked about–in terms of “killer flares,” the “death of sunspots” and his newest predictions about Cycle 24–are reported on this issue’s news page, so I won’t repeat them here. But the audience was another demonstration of the benefits of geekdom.

“I like coming here to talk,” said Hathaway. “Hams actually understand and appreciate what I’m talking about.” Fortunately for those of us who are not solar physicists ourselves, Hathaway is a lively and engaging speaker, and able to explain exceedingly complex matters of solar dynamics in terms that a well-educated ham can understand. The flip-side, of course, is that we hams like to hear what Dr. Hathaway has to say. And it is a testament to our collective interest in the science behind the art of radio communication that arguably the nation’s leading expert on the sun and sunspots is willing to give up part of his weekend once a year to come talk, unpaid, to an audience of hams. The appreciation and respect are mutual.

Young Hams…

The Clark family at the Huntsville Hamfest, including dad Mark, W4CK; mom Laura, KJ4HCU, son Will, WB4SCK; and daughter Sara. Will and Sara built working code oscillators at the hamfest's youth lounge.

The Huntsville Hamfest was home once again to the annual presentation of the Newsline Young Ham of the Year award, of which CQ is a co-sponsor. This year’s winner is 11-year old Kaitlyn Cole, KS3P, of Harvest, Alabama (see profile on page 69). In addition to coming to the hamfest to receive her award, Kaitlyn was also there to work, running the youth lounge for other young hams and children of hams. Activities included a scavenger hunt, a foxhunt and a learn-to-build table, where kids (with adult supervision) learned to solder by building code oscillators. We were visited by one family (see photo) with two children who successfully completed this project. Activities like these are incubators of the next generation of young hams, especially when run by other young hams themselves. Speaking of which, we saw a very healthy number of younger adult hams at Huntsville, many of whom were accompanied by their own young children. It is clear that such efforts as the Young Ham of the Year award and hamfest youth lounges are having an impact and are helping to attract more young people into our hobby. I continue to be confident that ham radio’s future is in good hands. (PS to young hams: it’s OK if people think you’re a geek. Geekdom is cool. It opens doors to meeting top scientists and being the only one to know when to go look for an aurora!)

73, W2VU

Bob Heil, K9EID, of Heil Sound and Ham Nation fame sent me this e-mail which may interest clubs looking to expand their educational offerings:

Of interest to all clubs in the UK or actually just about anywhere,  I have been doing workshops for radio club meetings using SKYPE. This is a fantastic use of technology.   The club brings in a projectoror large TV driven by a computer connected to high speed Internet and through SKYPE we communicate two way.  It helps the many clubs – no matter the size to have fun, educational and entertaining programs for their meetings.Let all of your readers know that we are available to do this.  Address inquiries to me, Bob Heil   [email protected]  or Gordon West at [email protected].

1. Is it possible (i.e. cost-effective) to implement in the cpu some mechanism that intentionally disables it after a predetermined amount of usage?

2. Can such an implementation be made undetectible?

3. Do any cpu manufacturers actually do this?

A few months ago I wrote about some failing technology, now I got the feeling there is a conspiracy going on. After a succesfull restore of my Windows Vista OS and some radio software like WSPR, HRD, JT65HF.  And finally installing the drivers to communicate with the radio. I could not start the computer yesterday, fans were running but that was it. First I thought it was the videocard, but replacing it by a new one I already bought last year did not change anything. There were also no usual beeps from the bios and the LED which is normally blinking was not doing anything as well. So what could I do? I checked memory and all connectors, they were all ferm in place. I suspect the powersupply but what if I buy a new one and it is another problem? Well, I decided to bring it to the nearest computershop for examination so we have to wait. But now the strange thing…..a colleague from my job has exactly the same computer. He had  the same problem with the videocard in the warranty period. And believe it or not this morning I told him my computer had probabely died, he couldn’t believe it as he has exactly the same problem and experience with his computer since last weekend !!!! So that’s why I think this has to be a kind of insidious computer hardware conspiracy !!!

This time it isn’t about ham radio spectrum. But it is about something we use extensively in our hobby: GPS.

Browsing the Web today I noticed an ad from LightSquared, a Virginia company that’s in the process of rolling out a terrestrial broadband service in competition with the cellular providers.

So far, so good, right? Well, according to a recent article in The Daily Beast, the Obama administration allegedly pressured Gen. William Shelton to alter his testimony on Capitol Hill where he planned to raise Pentagon concerns about potential GPS interference, making them more favorable toward commercial broadband interests:

According to officials familiar with the situation, Shelton’s prepared testimony was leaked in advance to the company. And the White House asked the general to alter the testimony to add two points: that the general supported the White House policy to add more broadband for commercial use; and that the Pentagon would try to resolve the questions around LightSquared with testing in just 90 days. Shelton chafed at the intervention, which seemed to soften the Pentagon’s position and might be viewed as helping the company as it tries to get the project launched, officials said.

“There was an attempt to influence the text of the testimony and to engage LightSquared in the process in order to bias his testimony,” Rep. Mike Turner (R-OH) said in an interview. “The only people who were involved in the process in preparation for the hearing included the Department of Defense, the White House, and the Office Management and Budget.”

Most modern tranceivers can be controlled by computer, I don’t have to tell that. But the majority of them are using serial ports for control, and most modern computers don’t have those ports anymore. That’s were most radioamateurs have a problem, they buy a unknown brand of USB to serial converter from which drivers are already obsolete and don’t work on Windows Vista or Windows 7. The consequence is lock-ups and irritation, then the endless search for non existing drivers begins.  At the end of all this many radioamateurs give up hope to ever get their radio connected to the computer. Though it doesn’t have to be that difficult if you choose the right converter or modem. Following my own experience and many others the best are those who have the FTDI chipset on board. They will install flawlessy and are very stable. Now since I needed to install my ZLP electronics modem again because of a computer crash I had the opportunity to make a small video. Unfortenately for the english readers I have a Dutch Windows Vista version so I guess it is worthless for international readers. Anyway, the ZLP has a FTDI chipset inside and it is like advertised plug&play. I hope to encourage people to try again to control you transceiver by computer. This gives you many opportunities to do all kind of things which you normal do by pushing knobs on the radio. Think about the DX cluster, you see a call that you like to hear or work and one click on the call gets you on the right frequency. You have unlimited space for storing all  kind of frequencies and click once you’re there. You can scan all those stored frequencies or just scan part of a band or several frequencies on all kind of bands. Radio control by computer is a thing you really need when contesting. Even the newest WSPR version with frequency hopping makes use of it. And there are so many other things you can do with it. I like to control my Yaesu FT817 with it as it is famous for it’s extended menus, on screen everything is clarified and much easier to control. Best program to use is Ham Radio deLuxe, but there are others less populair as well. Most contest software is working with it. Good luck with controlling your transceiver!

USB to serial converter install video (Dutch)

Just kidding!

It has always been a dream to power everything in my shack with sunlight. Unfortenately solar panels and batteries are too expensive at the moment and you would only do such a thing when no other power source is available, like in the new shack from fellow blogger VK2TPM Peter. A good inspirator is VK5SW Rob, he has his solar powered station in the Australian bushbush. But for the average hobby radioamateur his equipment is too expensive I think, look at the size of the batteries! Those are very expensive for shure. In a previous post I wrote I bought a cheap 1,8W solar panel. It’s not sufficient to charge the 7Ah battery actually, it’s just topping it when you’re not using it. If I would have my antenna tuner connected all the time the battery will be below the 12,4V that it needs as minimum supply within 2 hours or so. I measured the current that the tuner takes when just connected and it’s 430mA. That would be P=U*I > 12,4*0,43=5,3W you see that I need a panel that is much larger. As I want to supply the W5OLF TX as well with solar in the future I even need some more power and a bigger battery. I found a nice package including regulator at this german shop, it’s reasonable priced and delivers 30W at a sunny day. Together with a 45Ah car battery I think that will do. They also got all kind of other handy things to connect to your solar installation. Like a fluorescent lamps – potential transformer, a idea for the new shack, imagine free solar powered light in your shack. I like that idea. Unfortenately if you look at the costs of all these nice gadgets you better switch on your light from the mains, till now it will save you money. I think to power my future shack with sunlight the solarpanels need to be a lot cheaper. 

I usually meet fellow hams on air and then continue our contact via the web. Last night was the other way around and it was a bit embarrassing. I am member of FISTS, the International Morse Preservation Society. I am a bit of a loner, not much into clubs, but do enjoy meeting like-minded folk, so I joined them. FISTS is nice because it encouraged learning Morse code and using it on air. FISTS has some chapters and I joined the East Asia chapter, which is comprised mostly of Japanese members. I offered to help edit and proofread the newsletter and Nao (JO3HPM), the editor-in-chief, took up the offer. For the last couple of months we have had a pleasant exchange via e-mail.

So last night I decided to practise my CW on air and answered a CQ on 30 meters, 10118 kHz to be precise. You may have already guessed it: the CQ came from JO3HPM and 10118 kHz is the FISTS calling frequency in the 30 meter band. Totally oblivious to both facts I started the QSO and only after Nao alerted me who he was it dawned on me whom I was having a QSO with. After my embarrassment faded away we had a very enjoyable 20 minute QSO. I am still a CW beginner and rely on Fldigi as a decoding back-up if my decoding skills fail. But with Nao this was hardly necessary, as he decreased his speed and repeated the more difficult words. That is the spirit and makes being a member of FISTS all the more worth while.

The only other thing……please don’t tell the NCC I had this QSO, because the band allocation for 30 meters here in Taiwan is 10.13 to 10.15 MHz only. Don’t ask me why. 73 de Hans (BX2ABT)