AmateurRadio.com

Can you say road trip?  I love to promote what others are doing in the hobby of amateur radio.  Please do me a favor and visit, bookmark and subscribe to the brand new blog site of Connie Bird, NR4CB.  Connie is about to embark on a summertime journey that most of us can only dream about.  Connie’s blog site is titled Are We There Yet?  The site will serve as her written journal as she travels over 6000 miles through two countries, two Canadian provinces, one district (DC), twenty-three states and as many ham radio QSO’s as she can manage.

When I was a teenager, my uncle (K5SOR) and I would embark on similar journeys as we traveled and explored the western US.  It was on these trips when I realized I truly wanted to one day call Colorado home.  Of course, this was well before my time in amateur radio.  But I do recall my uncle working CW mobile and while camping he would typically throw a wire in a tree and check into his HF nets. 

Again, please visit Connie’s site.  Bookmark and subscribe to the RSS feed.  Her journey will begin in late May/early June.  She plans to kick things off by presenting a forum titled “On Air, Online, and Eyeballs: The Social Side of Ham Radio”, at the Atlanta Ham Fest on Saturday, 2 June.  She then plans to travel up through the eastern portion of the US making her way up to the Boston area for her brothers wedding taking place on Field Day weekend. Of course it doesn’t stop just there.  She hopes to operate as a guest operator at W1AW and onboard the USS Yorktown later in the summer. 

I would personally like to thank Connie (in advance) for sharing her experiences and her journey with all of us.  Of course, I also wish her the best of luck and very safe travels.  You may also follow Connie on Facebook and Twitter.  Perhaps I can convince Connie to take 30-45 minutes out of her journey and provide the listeners of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast an update later this summer.

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK

Jerry Taylor, KD0BIK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. He is the host of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast. Contact him at [email protected].

Alinco DJ-G7

There are many reviews on the internet already about this cracking little 23cm-capable transceiver. In fact, it's the only 23cm handheld currently manufactured, which begs the question when will the Chinese fill the obvious gap in demand?

Alphanumeric display

Rob Law, MW0DNK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Anglesey, Wales. Contact him at [email protected].

I had a surprising and slightly emotional experience on DV mode last week. I was in QSO with a mobile station who temporarily lost the repeater for a couple of seconds. Not unusual, but get this - instead of vanishing permanently in to vast digital abyss, he came right back as the system re-synced and locked-up. This happened again and he was re-acquired and all was well. Remarkable.

No longer will your beautiful, eloquent, flowing QSO be 'bumped' abruptly and permanently off the air by a random mobile station the other side of the world 'pinging' his local repeater for a few milliseconds. You can now even QSY to a 'chat' module and not hog the repeaters of an entire nation while you discuss your passion for North Korean tractor parts for three hours.

The advent of DCS reflectors, hand-in-hand with the German DV-RPTR boards shipped all over the world, is going to save the mode from extinction, no less. Witness the used D-STAR radios in the graveyard of Ebay as testament to the disillusioned DPlus users.

If only they'd have waited.

The DV-RPTR unit in its housing

*UPDATE 24th April 2012: Looks like the Dplus system has been suddenly revamped to include the routing information with the voice packets in the same way as DCS. Shame it took seven years of dysfunctional communications and a rival system to prompt this. I'll be staying on the DCS system - but enjoy whichever system you use and enjoy the mode!
Rob Law, MW0DNK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Anglesey, Wales. Contact him at [email protected].

Brought to you by Don Keith N4KC, fellow blogger and Ham Radio wordsmith extraordinaire.

http://www.eham.net/articles/27962

Oh, to have the writing talent of Don N4KC or Jeff KE9V or Woody K3NG, fine writers one and all.

I hope you enjoy the story, I did!

72 de 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].

Nobody would doubt that the RSGB initiative to bring a new crowd of entry-level operators into the hobby was a 'good thing'. The young, the old, dabblers and people of varying abilities are able to enter the hobby with nearly all the operating capabilities of an advanced licence holder. Ten Watts on nearly all the bands really is 'enough to work the world'.

But should that be the end of their radio adventure? I am wondering if there should be a nominal time limit that encourages the foundation licence holder to progress to the next level or the licence is rescinded. Does this sound harsh? Well, there are plenty of analogies - think of your teenager's moped licence.

Should you be able to remain aspirationally dormant at this level for life? Perhaps if you are visually impaired, for example, or face other similar restrictions, then this should be an absolute entitlement.

But has the proliferation of long term M3's and latterly M6's downgraded the quality of the hobby to some extent? For example, take two metres, with fewer of the 'older gentlemen of the air' as I like to call them, taking an active part in daily communications, has the lead example of how to behave been lost? I would say to an extent, yes. More senior operators still monitor two metres and will bemoan inwardly the way that newer operators seem to be making up their own rules of how to behave on the air without any mentoring or peer influence. Yes, I know there are examples of senior operators behaving appallingly, but I really would not want any young aspiring radio amateur to listen to some of the inane, irrelevant and wholly inappropriate conversations floating around the bands in my area - and we're in a comparative Narnia here in north Wales.

I admit to feeling my heart sink when I heard about a five year old girl passing the Foundation Exam recently. This is not an example of how clever the girl is, is it? Likewise the blood drained when I heard of the Belgians giving their novices fifty, yes fifty Watts to play with. Unless I've been reading this incorrectly, the RSGB have been reporting all this as 'good' news.

So where do we set the balance? Where is the incentive to learn, progress and perfect?

Suggestion: Foundation for five years, Intermediate for ten, Advanced for life. Too severe, or the only way to keep any credibility and dignity in the hobby?

Comments please.


Rob Law, MW0DNK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Anglesey, Wales. Contact him at [email protected].

My relatively new Sandpiper beam is now performing well after a shaky start. It's a misnomer to sell it as anything else other than an antenna kit, to be truthful. It really does arrive as a bag of bits and two rough photocopied pages of sketchy instructions.

It didn't help that the elements were supplied in the wrong sequence with a couple of 'wild card' elements from another antenna design altogether. Marc, the manufacturer, was extremely apologetic and helpful in sending me the antenna measurements straight away by email. However, it meant the additional purchase of a metal rule and measuring callipers from our local excellent ironmonger to get cracking.

After what seemed an afternoon of measuring and re-measuring, the beam started to take form. This involved discarding one element and chopping down another to size. In the initial construction the reflector ended up as the first director. What was supposed as a reflector must have come from a 70cm design. No wonder the thing worked better sideways.

But now, all is well. Coupled with my 1W Alinco DJ-G7 I worked Stoke on Trent (2E0DDD) simplex from a local Anglesey hilltop thanks to a slight tropospheric enhancement. It seems to offer the best combination of gain and beam width. This means your calls will be heard reasonably widely with enough gain (17.1dBi). You won't be losing out too much due to de-pointing either. Its size also means that it can be supported by a modest pole/guys or tripod without offering too much windage.

I think it's possibly the most optimal solution for hilltop and portable operating.

The completed 19 element 23cm Sandpiper yagi

Rob Law, MW0DNK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Anglesey, Wales. Contact him at [email protected].

I was on the radio now and then over the weekend with my hopes set on picking up some new DXCC's with the CQMM contest. I have very few of the South American DXCC's and it would had upped my total for the ARRL Jubilee. The news seemed good with rising sunspots,flux and lower solar wind....BUT....  for some reason the spots were all over my DXLab DXview world map but that's as far as it went. I heard nothing at all at this end. It just seemed to be one of those weekends with great conditions on paper but in the real world not so good. On Saturday I did make one contact PP1CZ Brazil (all ready have that DXCC) made it in with one watt with several repeats. That gave me a distance of 5088 miles per watt. Today the numbers look great again  sun spots (118) and SFI (148) but I did notice the Bz is at -15.5 that is the lowest I have seen it for some time now and once again the bands were dead.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].