AmateurRadio.com

The rumors have been circulating for some time now, that something terrible has happened to the Lost Island DX Society (LIDS). The Fi-Ni report was last heard from on Sept 18th of last year, reporting on the 3rd Annual Talk Like a Pirate Contest. Previous to that, their comprehensive Field Day report was a bit confused, openly questioning whether Field Day is actually … Continue reading …
Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Six Episode One of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. The latest news, listener mailbag and Australia update from Ed Durrent VK2JI and Martin reviews antennas.

• Library receives Ham Radio books
• Attracting newcomers to Ham Radio
• Amulti-purpose portable satellite station
• End of the World Station contacts OSCAR Satellite
• GB3JB - Off-The-Air
• Irish radio amateurs get new MF allocation
• DL50FRANCE
• Higher power trial in Australia
• Tasmanian bushfire disaster
• Counterfeit Icom exploding battery alert
• Mayor visits amateur radio station G100RSGB

Ed Durrant VK2JI tip

FreeDV.org - http://www.freedv.org

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Thanks to some excellent support from JT-Alert’s author, Laurie VK3AMA, I now have my alerts fully working and have gone back to JT65A with renewed vigour. I was getting a bit frustrated as many DX stations that I could decode clearly were not returning my calls. Is there something wrong with my setup? Perhaps it was just because it was the weekend and busier than usual so that others whom I couldn’t hear were replying to the same call and the DX couldn’t decode any of us. A few times the station I called replied to someone else.

I still managed to work several DX stations on 10m and 15m using 30 watts of power. Best contact of the day was with KC2WUF who said that he was running 3 watts to an attic dipole. (Actually he sent “3W ATIC DP” but I got the message!) It’s a pity I wasn’t running QRP this end as it would have been good to have a 2-way QRP QSO attic to attic!

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

For some time now there has been a rumour of a new radio coming out from Kenwood.
In Japan Kenwood is anouning a new addition to the family of radios. They are saying the TS990S will be released Feb 2013.  It's a great radio with many features and great specs...but it comes with a very steep price tag.....9,138.78. I am just not sure how folks come up with the cash for rigs like this.

View of the TTF on the TS 990S

For more spec's TS 990S
Independent DSP filtering for each receiver
7 inch TTF display
3.5 inch TTF sub display
independent receivers
Updates via the internet

Below are some rigs with similar spec's and price tag to boot.
IC 7800
200 watts
independent receivers
7 inch TTF screen
12,500
FTDX 9000D
Has a TTF 6.5 inches
200 watts
Sub receiver
10,900
Yasue has 5 HF radio's under 2,000 and 9 rigs above, Icom has 4 rigs under 2,000 and 4 rigs over. (not including IC 7100 as it's not out yet) Kenwood has 5 under 2,000 and one above. Ten Tec 4 rigs under 2,000 and 2 rigs over. As for Elecraft 2 rigs under 2,000 and no rigs over 2,000 ( I did not include the kit rigs as with Ten Tec as well)  Lets not forget Flex radio they have 2 rigs under 2,000 and 3 over 2,000 this includes the just released 6500 and 6700 series rigs. The market for Amateur radios under 2,000 is fairly decent but that still is a steep price for a rig. Lets not forget with a lot of these radios there are extras that may have to be purchased to have the rig you want. So just as there are Roll Royce and Bentley's so there are also the high end radio gear and they must sell  or they would not produce them.


Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

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

• Library receives Ham Radio books
• Attracting newcomers to Ham Radio
• A multi-purpose portable satellite station
• End of the World Station contacts OSCAR Satellite
• GB3JB - Off-The-Air
• Irish radio amateurs get new MF allocation
• DL50FRANCE
• Higher power trial in Australia
• Tasmanian bushfire disaster
• Counterfeit Icom exploding battery alert
• Mayor visits amateur radio station G100RSGB

listener mailbag and Australia update from Ed Durrent VK2JI and Martin reviews antennas.

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

After seeing my post about the fun and games with the UV-5RA yesterday, Steve G1KQH kindly dropped me a note to say that there are two versions of the UV-5 software. One of these can be used with the UV-5R and one which may be used with the newer models.

These may both be downloaded from the Sinotel site, along with many other utilities

Thanks, Steve!

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

I did something new tonight. I had my first QSO on the 60 Meter band.

I saw an article on the ARRL’s Website that gave the frequencies for the centers of each “channel”, so I thought I would give it a go. Plus the fact that I wanted to do something other than take part in the NAQP.

So I called CQ on “channel 3”, which is 5.3585 MHz. I was answered by Dick W3ORU who was 599 plus into NJ. He gave me a nice report, also. We had a nice chat until the dinner call came. Dick gave me the lowdown on what I can expect to see on the band.

Definitely not used to the ” channel” concept, but I had a nice time, anyway. I am looking forward to more QSOs on 60 Meters.

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

Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].