AmateurRadio.com

This afternoon Hanz, W1JSB and I met at the Franklin Falls Dam. Our plan was simple… lift a half wave wire with a kite and work some DX on 20 meters. We managed to work Belgium and the Ukraine… but it wasn’t all clear sailing.

We sat at a picnic table several hundred feet above the river. A stiff breeze lifted the kite about 80 feet into the air. We attached the far end of our 33 foot wire to a loop in the middle of the kite string. We connected the near end to the Par matchbox and then to the rig… an HB-1B running 4 watts. It wasn’t vertical, but it was a respectable sloper.

After a few calls, I worked ON8VP in Belgium. Peter gave me a 559 and we finished a quick exchange. His signal was strong, and I have no doubt that had the wire been vertical, I would have been stronger to him. But I was pretty happy to make a contact.

Next, I heard UY6IM in the Ukraine calling CQ. As the wind faltered and the kite lowered, Roman answered my call and gave me a 559. Then it happened.

The kite dropped below the hillside and most of the wire lay on the ground. Roman couldn’t hear me send his report. Fortunately, he didn’t hear me swear either. Darn it… (OK… Dam it.) Hanz raced down the hillside to recover the fallen kite. Right away it lifted into the sky again. By this time Roman was calling CQ again. I answered… gave him a 599 and called it quits after he acknowledged the report. Right after that, the kite dropped once again. It was frustrating.

Hanz wanted to give it a try, so I ran down and tried to get the kite airborne once again. No luck. We packed up. Of course, as soon as we did, the wind came up again. The experiment was fun, but I think I’ll stick with trees.

Jim Cluett, W1PID, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Hampshire, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Pat Tice, WA0TDA, is the manager of HANDI-HAM and a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

Introduction:

• Russ flies solo on LHS! Well, almost. Harrison, VE2HKW, fills in as co-host.

Topics:

• What’s in a name? Russ talks about the philosophical ramifications of the phrase “Linux distribution”, and referring to Linux vs. GNU/Linux. Richard Stallman prefers using GNU/Linux to refer to the operating system, and Russ seems to agree, but feels it doesn’t go far enough. Share your thoughts via the usual communication channels.
• hamqth.com is an alternative to QRZ.com for callsign lookups, and has an application program interface (API). Russ has programmed the gnorman bot in the LHS IRC channel to access hamqth.com. While in the chat, enter “.qrz some_callsign”, and gnorman will return the info.
• Another application that uses the hamqth.com API is QtLog. It’s mostly in German, but there’s enough English to allow you to use the program. It seems to require that you have a MySQL server running on the same computer. It also supports HamLib for rig control. You can use Google Translate to translate the website.
• Harrison offers an overview of oscilloscopes, including what they are, the controls, and how you might use one in your ham shack. There are several instructional videos available on W2AEW’s YouTube channel. (You can learn more about Alan, W2AEW, on his QSL.net page. There are also software-based oscilloscopes, like xoscope. Of course, you’ll need a hardware interface to the computer’s sound card.

Feedback:

• Please make a donation to our Dayton Hamvention fund, like these fine people: Paul G. (annual membership and 2 donations), Ron E. (yearly membership), Jeremy H. (monthly membership), Scott P. (monthly membership), Bill A. (monthly membership), Bill H. (monthly membership and donation), Gary U. (monthly membership), John K. (yearly membership), and Jerome S. (donation). Thank you, all!
• Gary (KE2YK) expresses his appreciation for Richard’s screencast Introduction to JT-65.
• Brian (WB4ES) sends his best wishes to Richard.
• 100th episode audio feedback from Claudio of the Linux Basement podcast.

Contact Info:

• Contact Harrison at [email protected].
• 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 (1-909-547-7469), or record an introduction to the podcast.
• Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
• Sign up for the MAGNetcon 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.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
• Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

• “Fraud” by Jonathan Coulton from the album Artificial Heart.
• “Down Today” by Jonathan Coulton from the album Artificial Heart.

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

Hot news. I’ve just had an email from Joe Taylor K1JT informing me that a new version of WSJT-X, v0.6 r3045, has just been made available for download from the WSJT home page.

This is a must-have update which now includes spotting of JT9 signals decoded to the PSK Reporter website. (Tip: This needs to be enabled in Settings.)

Still to come are rig control – which I will hazard a guess will use hamlib – and integration with VK3AMA’s JT-Alert. Hopefully this will encourage current users of JT65 on HF to try the new JT9-1 mode which is 2dB more sensitive than JT65A and occupies less than 10% of the bandwidth.

Thanks Joe for giving us these great programs.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

For those of us that chase awards, be it DX, Summits, Islands, etc...  we have all heard about the costs of expeditions and in many cases we individually choose to support those  that interest us the most. Costs for expeditions to rare places like Bouvet or Peter I can approach $400,000 or more. Those expeditions require ice class ships, helicopters and tons of equipment. Even a jaunt to rare IOTA qualifying island can run into the tens of thousands of  dollars. Major expeditions have found ways, other than greenstamps in envelopes, to fund their adventures, e.g,  by  offering online QSL requests for a fee and by just making it easy to contribute by accepting PayPal. Often times we will read what the cost per QSO was as the expeditions try to recoup their costs.

This brings me to the costs of my recent trek to the top of East End Summit in Arizona which qualifies for the Summit on the Air (SOTA) award. I was able to fit this into a business trip so it's hard to allocate travel costs to the expedition. I did rent a car to get to the trailhead and some food to eat on the trek and water to drink, none of these costs were outrageous. However, there was a huge expenditure that is worthy of mention and that is burned calories.. Using my "Lose It" app, I burned approximately 2,500 calories on my trip up and down the mountain. Given that this activiation took place on a weekday, the QSO's were limited with 18 QSO's made. So I propose a new measure of expedition economics, and that is, calories per QSO or C/QSO. With the numbers above my C/QSO ratio for this trip was 138.9 to 1. So to help reimburse me for my costs, it might be more appropriate to send me a pastry with the QSL request rather than a green stamp.

So the next time you need to drop a few pounds, maybe you should try the SOTA activation diet, it can burn a lot of calories.
Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

It took its time getting here, but the Iler 40 QRP SSB transceiver kit from Spain has finally arrived! Opening the package confirmed my expectations that this is a very high quality kit indeed.

Iler 40 kit contents

The printed circuit board is top quality and screen printed with plated through holes. Quite a contrast to some kits of UK origin that look as if the board has been etched and drilled in someone’s garage.

The components of each type are individually bagged. The CD containing PDF manuals in both English and Spanish has a custom colour printed label. A quick glance inside showed that the assembly instructions have been professionally produced and are of the a similar standard as the manuals for kits by Heathkit and Elecraft – if not better. Javier has even included data sheets for all the active components making this the most fully documented kit I’ve ever encountered. I’m going to enjoy building this.

It’s going to be a while before I can get started, though. There are some major home improvements going on at the moment chez G4ILO and with all the hammering and sawing I’ll have to wait for a peaceful and relaxed atmosphere. I also need to print off a copy of the 39-page assembly manual so I can cross steps off as I go along – and as you may have read our printer doesn’t want to play ball.

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].

Computers have the ability to raise my blood pressure to dangerous levels, but nothing causes quite so much stress as printers. Like most home users I suspect we are not heavy printer users. But we always seem to end up throwing away a little-used printer (usually with a full cartridge of ink) because of some alleged problem with the print cartridges.

We have an HP Photosmart 2575 All-in-one printer. We have had it for several years. In that time I would estimate that it has used no more than 4 sets of print cartridges. The cartridges installed are full and genuine HP products, not cheap refills. But whenever we try to print a message comes up: “Ink Cartridge Problem. Remove and check color cartridge.”

We have removed, checked and cleaned the colour cartridge. We have  removed, checked and cleaned the black ink cartridge. We have cleaned the contacts. We have done this over and over again and still we get the same damned message.

The stupid thing about this is that the printer will still make a perfect colour copy. So I know that it is perfectly capable of printing. But I can’t print from the computer no matter what I do. Grrrr!

Julian Moss, G4ILO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, England. Contact him at [email protected].