AmateurRadio.com

No it’s not what you might think.  I did NOT get an e-mail from Elecraft telling me that my KX3 is on its way.

But I did find a slip in the mail asking me to come to the Post Office to sign for a package.  I checked out the tracking number and it’s the Lithium Ion battery that I got via eBay.  I know I have to be very careful charging it and all; but the smaller size and lighter weight will be a whole lot nicer than carrying around that sealed lead acid battery.

There is also the provision for using the internal battery holders; but I always get the heebie jeebies about batteries leaking and making a mess.  I don’t use them in my PFR3A. I did have them in my K1; but ended up taking them out.  When using internal batteries in the K1, you had to use a different speaker other than the original stock one.  It was smaller to accommodate the space that the batteries took up and I didn’t like the way that it sounded.  My K2 is always used with an external source.

Yes, it would be a lot more convenient to use the internal battery holders while out on a day hike; but the idea just doesn’t sit right with me.  Silly, I know; but what can I say?  I have repaired too many circuit boards in my day where the copper traces were eaten away from leaky electrolytic caps.  My brain knows the likelihood of that happening inside a KX3 are probably close to nil; but I still feel that I don’t need to tempt fate.

So for in home shack use, I rely on my Astron RS-35 power supply.  Yes, I know that a 35 Amp power supply is way overkill for QRP.  But it’s a fantastic analog power supply and I’ve had it for years.  I’ve even repaired it myself a couple of times.  I like to think of it as an old car with a carburetor that I can service myself, if need be.  Way easier than dealing with a switching power supply. 

I had my fill repairing those back in the days when I was in the photo industry.  The Broncolor studio strobes that I used to repair had switching power supplies.  They were good; but did they ever generate RFI!  I suppose that switching power supplies are a lot better than they used to be; but I know for a fact that my Astron generates no RFI at all – period.  As long as it delivers stable DC Voltage, it will be at the bottom of my bench.

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

Introduction:

• Tornado season has begun in Texas! Check out the videos at kcares.info

Announcements:

• The donations for the LHS to Dayton Hamvention fund have stalled. If you’d like to see LHS return to the Hamvention this year, please make a donation in the next week or two. All donations will go toward the cost of the booth in the vendor exhibition hall. If we fail to raise enough to attend, then the funds will go toward the expenses of producing LHS.

Topics:

• Richard’s Linux Adventures
  • Thank You Kubuntu, for once again obliterating Richard’s boot sectors.
  • Russ suggests using dd to perform what is essentially a low-level format of the drive. For example,

    dd bs=1m if=/dev/zero of=/dev/sda

    NOTE: This will totally erase your hard drive! Use caution!

  • Matthew, KC8BEW, in the chat room, suggests using Spinrite to repair a hard drive.
  • Richard declares that Debian is the Jesus Christ of Linux distributions, as it raised his hard drive from the dead, at least temporarily. It was the only distro he found that managed to install grub on the drive.
  • Richard also declares that Linux Mint sucks… at least for him. Audacity caused 100% CPU usage, spell check didn’t work, and it crashes.
  • Also discussed: CentOS, Scientific Linux, Fedora, PCLinuxOS, Xubuntu, lubuntu.
• Richard is writing an ebook on the National Traffic System.
• Russ again suggests Richard try Debian, but Richard says it won’t let him install Firefox. Maybe there’s a hardware issue? (Perhaps memtest might find a memory error? -Ed.)

Donations:

• We received several donations from visitors to the Dalton Hamfest and the KARC Hamfest. Thank you to our ambassador Ronny (K4RJJ) and to everyone who stopped by our booth at those events.
• Russ hoped to interview Roy, KK4ATD, our ambassador to the RARSfest last week. Apparently, the LHS booth was a great success.
• If you’d like to be an ambassador for LHS at an event, email us at [email protected] and visit the Ambassadors link on the web site.

Feedback:

• Fab, co-host of Linux Outlaws, left a couple comments on the website expressing his gratitude for being on the show.
• Bob (W9YA) offers Russ some suggestions for entering the contact exchange information in YFKtest.
• LinuxCanuck left a comment saying he enjoyed the episode with Fab, asks for help getting the feed links on the web site to work, and offers some thoughts about Kubuntu.
• Roy, KK4ATD, the LHS ambassador to RARSFest, calls in to the show and describes the event. He’s also building a repository of ham radio packages for CentOS, called Hamux.

Contact Info:

• Contact Richard at [email protected], Russ at [email protected], or both at the same time at [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.

It has been a long time since I mustered up the time to post but there’s been a lot going on in West Cumbria and unfortunately most of it hasn’t had anything to do with radio. I did manage to get a day out last Sunday to the Norbreck Rally, thanks to Noel G4PEW for the driving, to help out with the club stand and pick up a couple of goodies for the portable enthusiast. I’ll post about them later when the work dust has settled.

You may remember that a while ago I bought a 2 element lightweight 50Mhz antenna that is currently sitting in a 95% completion state so that will need a bit of finishing off and talking about.

I also purchased a Prowhip 5 band fishing pole antenna on a bit of a whim, partly because I was going to make one and thought I wouldn’t have the time to do it this side of the summer and partly because it was so cheap I doubt I could have got the parts and made one up myself for much cheaper. It calls itself a multiband antenna but its really a 1/4 wave vertical in a fishing rod that will tune to 40m and a few higher bands with a tuner. More on that later.

The other thing I’m involved with is helping with the Workington club (MX0WRC) to try and help out some of the novices and non home brewers to make a simple 3 element 2m band antenna out of ‘stuff from a hardware shop’. There are some well established designs that work but the focus is on getting the guy’s and girl’s to make their own.

I’ll also be helping out with the Fred Whitton Cycle Challenge with the local Raynet group shortly so weekends are looking quite busy .So as you can see, plenty on the plate but no time to get on the air. Something is going to have to stop, my vote is work but I doubt the mortgage will get paid, mores’ the pity.

Assuming my final assignments are acceptable to my mentor, I’m finally done with my online ARRL course! “Introduction to Emergency Communication (EC-001)” began on February 29, and it officially ends next Friday, April 27. I wrapped it up tonight since next week is going to be pretty full.

When I signed up for this course I had no idea I would learn so much. I highly recommend it to every ham, no matter how long you’ve had your license. The text really is well done, the assignments are far from busy-work (they took me places I’d never gone before, and probably wouldn’t have gone had I just read the book), and if all the mentors are like the mentor I had (Sena Frank, NI1Y), you’ll receive sound advice and have a great time.

Now I’d like to take the next course in the sequence! “Public Service and Emergency Communications Management for Radio Amateurs (EC-016)” is free, I see. But I’ll probably take a week or two off before taking that on. You can learn more about these online courses at http://www.arrl.org/online-course-catalog.

I’ll end this post with the syllabus of the course I just completed, so you can see what is covered:

Course Syllabus for Introduction to Emergency Communication (EC-001)
Section 1: The Framework: How You Fit In

1. Introduction to Emergency Communications
2. Amateurs as Professionals
3. Network Theory and Design
4. Emergency Communications Organizations and Systems
5. Served Agency Communications Systems

A. Served Agency Communications Systems
B. Working Directly with the Public

Section 2: The Networks for Messages

6. Basic Communications Skills
7. Net Operations:

A. Basic Net Operations
B. Introduction to Emergency Nets
C. Net Operating Guidelines
D. The FCC Ruling on Drills and Employees

8. The Net Control Station
9. Net Control Station Operator Practices
10. The Net Manager
11. Introduction to the National Traffic System
12. Specialized Net Operations
13. Severe Weather Nets

Section 3: Message Handling

14. Basic Message Handling – part 1
15. More Basic Message Handling – Part 2

Section 4: What Happens When Called

16. The Incident Command System
17. Preparing for Deployment
18. Equipment Choices
19. Emergency Activation
20. Setting Up, Initial Operations and Shutdown

Section 5: Considerations

21. Operations & Logistics
22. Safety & Survival
23. ARES® PIO: The Right Stuff
24. Alternative Communication Methods
25. What to Expect in Large Disasters
26. Hazardous Materials Awareness
27. Marine Communications

Section 6: Alternatives and Opportunities

28. Modes, Methods and Applications
29. Other Learning Opportunities

Final Assessment

to the beautiful Spring that is upon us.  Celebrated with Amateur Radio by Jim W1PID:

http://www.w1pid.com/april/april.html

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

But in the same vein as the last post, sort of, as we’ve recently passed another anniversary (April 14th) ………

I am currently finishing reading Bill O’Reilly’s “Killing Lincoln: The Shocking Assassination that Changed America Forever”.

It is an extremely fast reading book.  I started it Monday, while visiting my Mom, who has been in the hospital this week (hence the pandemonium).  I should be finishing it very soon.  I wouldn’t consider it to be the definitive book on the subject, but it is definitely interesting. I would heartily recommend it.

Having it on the Kindle makes it that much easier to carry along.

I know this topic isn’t radio related in any way; but the authors do mention that Mr. Lincoln was addicted to the Internet of his day – the telegraph.  He spent much time bothering the Signal Corp for as much “from the front’ war news as he was able to get.  I’m willing to bet that were he alive today, President Lincoln would have been an Internet and cable news junkie – and who knows, maybe a Ham, too?

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

I don’t like to “steal” from my fellow bloggers; but I caught this on John N8ZYA’s blog. It is worth sharing with those of you who might not read his blog (You’re cheating yourself if you don’t! Just saying!)  This “independent movie” is about 45 minutes long.  It’s worth viewing to get an idea on how wireless was situated on seafaring vessels.

Now for the error as described in the post title. I didn’t work any of the Titanic Special Event stations due to some pandemonium that has been enveloping me over the past few days.  With this Saturday being a full week past the anniversary day, I doubt any of them remain on the air.  Oh well, centennial observances, like the tides, wait for no man.

Oh – before I close. This rule change to QRPTTF appeared on QRP-L today:

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Gang,
While QRPTTF is open to all QRPers, I have always seen it as a “QRP-L” function. This is where it is administered and the QRPers on this list are those I attempt to satisfy and respond to.

Response to having additional SOTA stations on the air for QRPTTF has generally been positive. However, I underestimated the desire of QRPers to go climb their nearby mountain or feature, whether a SOTA summit or not. A few want to make a camping trip out of it. SOTA began and is headquartered in the UK. There are numerous US chapters. Not all states/call districts have a SOTA chapter, mostly due to no or few summits to survey or activate over 500 feet high. SOTA guidelines state that the minimum “prominence” for a summit is 100M or 300 feet. Sounds good enough for me. Therefore, we will also use this definition.

RULE CHANGE
QRPTTF has been expanded from three to four categories and multipliers

STATION CLASS AND MULTIPLIERS:
X1 HOME station
X2 FIELD HILL station – operating on a hill from 3-300 feet above
average terrain
X3 SUMMIT station – operating from a “hill” or geological feature
300 feet or higher from the average terrain
X4 SOTA Summit – operating from a designated SOTA summit

I have received several emails from those wanting to operate from the largest darn “mountain” in their corner of the state, though not a SOTA summit, which in most cases will require a substantial effort. This rule change will allow you to do this and receive a X3 multiplier for the additional effort. In turn, operating from a designated SOTA summit is now X4.

This rule change has been updated on the website, rules and summary sheet
http://www.zianet.com/qrp/ or direct: http://www.zianet.com/qrp/QRPTTF/ttf.html

So for those of you who want to be a QRP “Mountain man” for the weekend, go
for it!

72, Paul NA5N

PS – Driving out to the VLA site today (54 miles from Socorro), it made me appreciate how we have to drive through or around three different mountain ranges, with numerous peaks from 9,000-12,000 feet. I always took them for granted. Not anymore. Average terrain here is about 4,700 feet, the VLA is at 7,000 feet.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

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