AmateurRadio.com

I think I narrowly avoided a battery fire or explosion in the shack this morning. For the last 18 months or so I have been using my old HTC Touch 2 smartphone as my 2m APRS iGate (I hated it as a phone.) All that time it has been sitting in the desktop cradle talking to my Kenwood TM-D710 TNC via a Bluetooth connection and providing a 24/7 gateway that is silent (unlike my PC) and uses less power.

This morning Colin M0XSD sent me an APRS message and I took the phone out of the cradle so I could use its keyboard to reply. I noticed that it felt quite hot. After about 5 minutes conversation the battery died. Having been on permanent charge that should not have happened.

My dead Touch 2 battery – can you see the bulge?

I took the still warm Li-Ion battery out of the phone and noticed there was a distinct bulge on both sides of the casing. So I suppose that it was on the way to exploding or catching fire. Unfortunately the phone won’t work with the battery removed and powered only from the desktop cradle. So my G4ILO-2 iGate is off the air. I will think again about the wisdom using a permanently-charged smartphone as an iGate in the future!

Series Six Episode Five of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

•     Pat Hawker MBE G3VA Silent Key
•     Ham radio club to celebrate Legion birthday
•     The VK0RTM 6m beacon on air
•     Shortwave radios banned in Zimbabwe
•     Beijing jamming BBC World Service
•     St Patrick's Day special event
•     Amateur radio association raising funds
•     UK amateur radio licences fail to expire
•     Review of Amateur Radio Exam Questions
•     WSPR on the Raspberry Pi
•     Mariana Islands

Your feedback and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) reviews Android Apps for your tablet.

Series Six Episode Five of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

•     Pat Hawker MBE G3VA Silent Key
•     Ham radio club to celebrate Legion birthday
•     The VK0RTM 6m beacon on air
•     Shortwave radios banned in Zimbabwe
•     Beijing jamming BBC World Service
•     St Patrick's Day special event
•     Amateur radio association raising funds
•     UK amateur radio licences fail to expire
•     Review of Amateur Radio Exam Questions
•     WSPR on the Raspberry Pi
•     Mariana Islands

Your feedback and Martin Butler (M1MRB & W9ICQ) reviews Android Apps for your tablet.

JT65-HF-Comfort, the fork of JT65-HF that I mentioned a few weeks ago, has now been made into a public beta. There is now a project page at http://abcsolutions.de/jt65hf/. There is also a forum at http://jt65hfcomfort.iphpbb3.com/. If you use JT65-HF then you should really join the forum in order to have an input to the changes being discussed.

Series Six Episode Five of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, mailbag  and Martin (M1MRB & W9ICQ) reviews Amateur / Ham Radio Apps for your Android Tablet.

• Pat Hawker MBE G3VA Silent Key
• Ham radio club to celebrate Legion birthday
• The VK0RTM 6m beacon on air
• Short-wave radios banned in Zimbabwe
• Beijing jamming BBC World Service
• St Patrick's Day special event
• Amateur radio association raising funds
• UK amateur radio licences fail to expire
• Review of Amateur Radio Exam Questions
• WSPR on the Raspberry PiMariana Islands

The following are a few of the 365 Ham Radio apps found in the Google Play store. Most are free, however if the app is chargeable it will cost less than £10 and will have the adverts removed.

• EveryCircuit
• 555 Calculator
• Ohms Law Calc       
• ElcalcZs
• RF calculators
• RF Pad Calculator
• Resistor Color Code
• Alldatasheets
• Digi-Key
• Equivalent Resistance
• Circuit Simulator
• Capacitor Buddy
• UK Band Plan
• ISS Detector
• HF Beacon
• NCDXF Beacon
• Grid locator
• QRZDroid
• Morse Code Trainer

The ARRL web site reported on this Notice of Apparent Liability for Forfeiture from the FCC. That’s government talk for “we are fining you.”

In case you are wondering how you can get fined by the FCC, here’s the sequence of events that resulted in a $10,000 fine for this person:

• Get a Technician License and then let it expire.
• Repeatedly transmit on 14.312 MHz, interfering with licensed radio amateurs.
• Have FCC agents track the signal to your house
• When the FCC agents enter your house to inspect your radio station, leave the transmitter sitting on 14.311 MHz.
• Tell the FCC agents that you will remove the microphone from the transmitter and only use it as a receiver.

Hmmm, why does 14.312 MHz sound like a familiar frequency?

73, Bob K0NR

I had an all-day session on the JT modes today. Actually, almost all of today’s contacts were on JT65A. I did listen for JT9-1 signals a few times but most of the time I only saw stations I had already worked before.

I put out a CQ call on 15m JT9-1 and Joe Taylor K1JT came back to me. I’ve decoded Joe’s WSPR signals numerous times and I’ve exchanged several emails with him but I had never had a radio contact with him until now, so that was a nice surprise.

Then it was back to JT65A. The contrast in activity was extreme. There were so many stations active I couldn’t find a space to call CQ, so I had to wait and pounce on new stations that called.

I must say that when using JT9 I miss the infrastructure that has been built up around the JT65A mode – the reverse beacons, the auto-spotting to PSK Reporter so you can see how far your signals have got, the JT-Alerts when you decode someone you’ve worked before. I especially need the B4 alerts. My memory is so bad I can’t remember the calls of stations I’ve worked before so I have often called people who I have worked only a couple of days earlier. I guess that due to the lack of new stations they probably don’t mind too much!