AmateurRadio.com

Yesterday Olga and I set up a new weather station in the garden. It is a Nevada WH3080 SOLAR. It took a while for me to figure out how to put it together but I got there in the end with a bit of help from Olga (who took the radical step of reading the instructions!)

The sky is always blue in Cumbria!

We had a bit of trouble mounting the weather station in the garden. The manufacturer supplies two large hose clips (you can see them in the picture) which are not the ideal hardware for attaching a pole to another pole. But they did the job, if not very elegantly.

There were no problems receiving the weather station on the control panel sitting on the shack PC 10m away. This Nevada weather station transmits on 868MHz so no interference from or to 70cm amateur transmissions. No problems with the software either, not with EasyWeather nor with Cumulus which is what I will be using.

The software setup went so easily that I couldn’t see how it was working. When I plugged the display console into a USB port the PC went “ding dong” to acknowledge a new USB device had been connected but I couldn’t find the new device anywhere. I expected it would appear as a serial port in Device Manager but no new ports were added. I didn’t have to specify a COM port in either program either. How the console talks to the weather software is a mystery. I’m not planning to write my own software to process the weather data but I’m still curious as to how the software gets the data.

Using the example web pages provided with Cumulus I set up a Cockermouth Weather page very easily. Cumulus creates a wxnow.txt file which APRSIS32 uses to generate an APRS weather object. However I have just noticed that Cumulus can send updates to the APRS network directly. That would be a simpler way of doing it, but that way the weather object would not get transmitted to the local APRS network. I’ve since discovered an issue when using APRSIS32 to generate a weather object via a converse mode TNC, but hopefully Lynn KJ4ERJ the author of APRSIS32 will come up with a fix for it.

I made it to the Dayton Hamvention this year, after a multi-year absence. Due to that four-letter word known as work, I was not able to arrive until really late Friday night. That left all day Saturday and the half day on Sunday to partake of the event.

Bob K0NR discovers the cover photo for the spring CQ VHF

I’ll start with the obligatory dig at Hara Arena, repeating my tweet:

Hara Arena continues to be everything that I wish it wasn’t.

Check out the posts by Jeff KE9V and Steve K9ZW about their impressions of Hamvention.

I spent some time helping out at the HamRadioSchool.com booth in the north hall. Wow, what a positive response we got from that effort. Stu W0STU’s Technician and General Class books have really hit their mark, finding a good balance between covering the material to pass the FCC exams while also helping students to really get it. We heard quite a few instructors stop by and say “This is what I have been looking for!” If you are teaching a ham radio licensing class, you need to check out the HamRadioSchool.com books….and the companion web site and iOS apps.

One of the high points of the weekend was discovering the poster-size front cover of Spring 2013 CQ VHF with my mountaintop photo on it.  Joyce K0JJW took a great shot of me operating from Mt Sneffels last August (Colorado 14er Event and SOTA), so it was an excellent complement to my article: “A Little Mountaintop Operation”.

So I leave Dayton, thinking about the highs and lows for the weekend. There was not much new that really caught my attention. (Disclaimer: I am sure I didn’t see everything there.) I am still looking for an FT-950 with 2 Meters, an Android HT and a D-STAR radio from Kenwood, Yaesu or even Alinco. Also, there is a real trend of vaporware instead of products. I’ve gotten really jaded about this. If a company can’t quote price and delivery, then it doesn’t exist in my world.

As K9ZW pointed out, much of the fun of Dayton is being with great people: some old friends (like my bud Denny KB9DPF) and some new ones, too.

How was your Hamvention?

73, Bob K0NR

A new batch of QSLs arrived from the bureau today. This is a selection of the most colourful ones.

For one reason or another, I’m a bit late starting my bicycle portable trips this year. For one thing, the weather hasn’t been great. I went to get my bike out a couple of days ago and found that it had a (not so slow) puncture. Amazon came to the rescue with a new inner tube!

So it was today that I set out with a rucksack on my back containing the FT817 and a 50MHz whip (thanks again Ian, MW0IAN). I had a great ride along the banks of the Thames, around 13 miles in total. I stopped a couple of times to get the rig out and have a listen. Typically, the band was flat – just the GB3RAL and GB3BAA beacons audible – which I guess wasn’t bad going with a whip, down at river level.

And even if there was no propagation, I love being by the river….

Episode #105 Audio (Listen Now):

Introduction:

• Our thoughts go out to the victims of the Boston Marathon bombing. We hope that the perpetrators or caught quickly and dealt with appropriately.

Announcements:

• The Tin Foil Hat show, a new member of the Black Sparrow Media network, is currently on hiatus. The podcaster, CafeNinja, is busy with life issues and will return to podcast as soon as he is able.
• Development of the LHS mobile application is likely to cease, though the application in its current form will be available for the forseeable future. If you have an iPod, iPad, iPhone or Android device, get the app FOR FREE in the relevant app stores.

Topics:

• Happy (Belated) Earth Day – 4/22/2013
  • http://www.earthday.org
  • http://www.earthday.ca/pub
• Potential US Border Crossing Fee that will affect Canadians entering the United States if implemented.
  • http://www.huffingtonpost.ca/2013/04/22/us-border-crossing-fee-homeland-security_n_3131960.html
  • http://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2013/04/22/us_proposes_border_crossing_fee_for_travellers_from_canada.html
• Interview with George Zafiropoulos, KJ6NU, of Sierra Radio Systems and Nick, N3WG, of Pignology
  • http://www.sierraradio.net
  • http://pignology.net
  • The hosts discuss several topics with the guests, including:
    • Building ham projects with new embedded Linux boards (Raspberry Pi, BeagleBone)
    • Remote station control hardware (rig control, audio, environment control)
    • The role of embedded Linux vs. traditional microcontrollers
    • Creating iOS and Android apps to talk to an embedded Linux system.
• A JavaScript exploit can usurp browsers with a bit of simple code. It can alter the destination of links on the fly. Later versions of certain browsers have fixed the issue but Chrome may be affected for some time because Google actually uses this “trick” as part of their suite of functions.
  • http://www.h-online.com/security/news/item/The-trick-behind-camouflaged-links-1828927.html

Feedback:

• New Twitter follower: @LinuxLeech. Thanks!
• New yearly subscriber to the show: Brian S. Thank you!
• No listener feedback this week. See the contact info below to let us know how you feel about anything you like.

Contact Info:

• Contact Russ at [email protected] or [email protected].
• Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time.
• Check the LHS web site for dates.
• Leave us a voice mail at 1-909-LHS-SHOW (547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
• Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
• LHS merchandise is available at the Merch link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection or Cafe Press. Thanks!
• Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

• “Carpe Diem” by Antarhes from the album Silaelin, courtesy of Jamendo.
• “Pain of Life” by Drunken Souls from the album On Verra Plus Tard, courtesy of Jamendo.

Summer arrived with a vengeance in Central New Jersey. Temperatures in the 80s (29C) with the higher humidity and stickiness that accompanies it. But it made for a great opportunity to head out to the park for some QRPing during lunch break. Besides the warmth, the skies were sunny and clear, with just a few white puffy clouds floating by.

Wanting to set up the fastest today in order to get the maximum operating time, I decided to go with the Buddistick on the magmount on top of the Jeep.  From the time I put the Jeep in park and turn off the ignition, I can be on the air in well under five minutes. Today was no exception.  The Buddistick is exceptionally easy to set up when using the top of the Jeep as a ground plane.  It goes together as magmount, two 11 inch arms, coil, and whip.  The whip gets extended all the way and the one coil setting works well for both 20 and 17 Meters.  The KX3’s autotuner gets a 1:1 match without breaking a sweat.

First up was Pertti OG2W in Finland on 17 Meters.  He was by far the loudest signal on the band and was a relatively easy catch even with 5 Watts.  From there, I went on over to 20 Meters and called CQ near the 14.060 MHz QRP watering hole.  To my delight, I was answered by fellow blogger, Greg N4KGL.  Greg was also using a KX3, but had his going to an Alex Loop.  Greg lives down in Panama City, Florida and started out at 559.  There was some QSB and at times the APF function on the KX3 was a big help.  Towards the end of our QSO, Greg was approaching 579. He was on lunch break also, and had to get going just as I did.

But as we all know, QRPing in the great outdoors can really be addicting, so I hopped on back over to 17 Meters for one last, quick listen.  Before I tore the station down and headed back to work, I was able snag Bob WP2XX down in the US Virgin Islands.

Three lunchtime QSOs – two DX contacts and a rag chew really made my day.  An added bonus was watching the RC Model airplane pilots doing their thing while I operated.  These guys are really good and I was treated to barrel rolls, Immelmans and vertical climbs as I worked the world with my radio.

I think tomorrow is supposed to have more of the same weather.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP – When you care to send the very least!