AmateurRadio.com

With propagation on 10m being so good I have been trying to make some contacts using the Albrecht AE2990AFS multimode handheld using a whip antenna. No luck so far, however.

One annoying aspect of the Albrecht is that it tunes in 10kHz steps since it is essentially a CB radio. There is a step control that lets you choose 1kHz or 50Hz tuning steps, but this only works within one 10kHz or 1kHz range. You can’t tune the whole band in these smaller steps. Not only that but the clarifier control (better known to hams as RIT) shifts only the receive frequency and doesn’t have a centre detent so you can never be sure you are calling a station on his exact frequency.

An eBay seller of the Super Radio SS-301 – which seems to be the same radio as the Albrecht under another name – claims that the clarifier works on both TX and RX. So there is presumably a modification that would make the clarifier work like a VXO. But I’m darned if I can find any details of it. Has anyone made such a modification to this radio?

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

Of the three support-points for my wire antenna, one of them has caused me some concern. The end of the longest span of my New Carolina Windom is attached to a rigid, unguyed 12 foot steel mast by a very short length of rope — not nearly long enough to stretch and absorb the shock that a wind-whipped wire might induce in a good storm. Furthermore, this 12 foot mast is set in a small 3′ tripod without any reinforcement below the roof. Obviously this isn’t good enough for a heavy load, but I’m hoping it will suffice to support one end of a 42′ wire. As a precaution, I’ve built a shock-absorber into the system:

This is a spring that I bought at the local hardware store. I didn’t do any calculations to select the thing. I just went through the drawers and handled all the likely-looking springs they had. This one felt about right when I pulled on it. I tied it into the 3/32″ braided dacron/nylon rope with a loop long enough to match the length of the spring when fully extended. The electrical tape is to prevent chafing for as long as it stays on.

The spring is strong enough that on a calm day it doesn’t stretch at all, but it still has plenty of give if the wire gets to whipping around. Will it help this antenna-system weather the storms we get out here in western Minnesota? Time will tell!

Todd Mitchell, NØIP, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Minnesota, USA. He can be contacted at [email protected].

  Last night while on the radio searching out once again T32C my PowerSDR showed a pileup off the T32C frequency. Well over I went and sure enough it was a pile up but not for T32C it seemed to be for 3XY1D in Guinea. Hmm I thought never worked that part of the world so maybe I will give it a go. Then out of nowhere came (in CW) "phoney" very loud and over all the traffic. But not just once..... every 10 to 15 seconds!! Then in  CW came a response "NO" to which the reply was "yes phoney".  This ruined it for me as I would guess many others. Now the call did sound funny but I looked up the call and there is a DXpedition there for October and November. As I QSY'd along the band never finding T32C but possibly finding 3XY1D. I had not been given a chance to work him because of an operator who some how was given the "DXpedition gold enforcement badge". What is worse.....an operator pretending (maybe) to be someone they are not just for the joy of forming a pileup....or......an operator who deliberately (for sure) transmits over others knowing he is doing so....or both? Two wrongs don't make a right!

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

Introduction:

• Who has a drawl?

Announcements:

• Richard has been reading about Ubuntu 11.10, “Oneiric Ocelot”, due to be released on October 13th. Our hosts hope to have some sort of review in the near future. Richard is also considering trying KDE. (The version of Ubuntu with KDE as default is Kubuntu.)
• Look for another episode of Richard’s Radio Adventures in the near future. It’s recorded mobile, and Richard wonders how to reduce the road noise with Audacity. Russ offers some advice on training the noise removal plug-in for Audacity.
• Richard did not make it to the Belton hamfest this year, but maybe next spring. He’s looking forward to attending the Texoma Hamarama, October 21 – 22, 2011 at the Ardmore Convention Center, 2401 North Rockford Road, Ardmore, OK.
• Richard is recruiting hams for the Kaufman County (TX) ARES group. Please visit the KCARES website for more information.
• Richard re-tells the infamous badger story. Speaking of badgers, you can find the Kiss My Badger tee-shirt, and a lot of other good stuff, at the LHS store.

Feedback:

• Danny inquires about an easy-to-use distribution for a senior and computer novice, perhaps Linux Mint. Our hosts suggest Linux Mint and PCLinuxOS. Note that the Mint live CD does not include the codecs, but the DVD does. If you install from the CD, you can install the codecs later.
• Danny also asks if there is a way to ask the Mumble developers to support screen-reading software. Since Mumble isn’t a GTK-based application, it’s probably not well supported under Orca. You may wish to raise your concerns on the Mumble forum, or on IRC at irc.freenode.net, #mumble, or click the Live Chat Now button on the www.mumble.com website.
• Burt, K1OIK, left a comment regarding Episode 61 entitled “South of the Border”: “I’d like to go south of your borders!” We’re a little worried about you, Burt.
• Michael, KD8GIJ, asks for instructions on removing a dual-boot installation of Linux Mint if he decides he doesn’t like it. You can, of course, just wipe the whole drive and reinstall Windows. You may be able to boot the Windows install media and let it “repair” your installation. However, you don’t really need to remove grub; just make Windows the default and remove Linux from the grub menu. If that’s not acceptable, you’ll likely have to wipe and reinstall Windows to return it to the pre-Linux state.Other suggestions include:
  • install Mint as a virtual machine with Virtual Box.
  • use the Windows Ubuntu Installer (wubi) which will also allow you to uninstall Linux after testing.
  • install Linux to a flash drive and boot and run from that to try it out
  • make an image of the Windows drive before installing Linux, perhaps with PartImage or Clonezilla, and you’ll have an easy means of returning to the pre-Linux-install state.
• John “The Nice Guy” Spriggs, G7VRI, asks about a live Linux distribution reviewed in Episode 62 that contained software to run EchoLink. (I think he’s referring to Andy’s Ham Radio Linux CD). svxlink is the Linux-native EchoLink client, but it is CLI-driven. The Windows client does run well under Wine. You may want to look at qtel, another Echolink client. It’s an older application. In fact, svxlink is based on Qtel.
• John also wonders if the music played on the show is Creative Commons licensed. While most of the music is Creative Commons or podsafe, the music in Episode 62 is not CC or podsafe, but Russ did have permission from the artists to play them.
• John pointed out that the description tags in the podcast audio files were empty. Thanks, John, and rest assured that Russ will be adding descriptions as time permits.
• By the way John, please contact Richard at the email address below as you may be able to help him with some music for another project.

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.

Music:

• “Out of Sight” by White Light Riot from the album “Atomism,” courtesy of Jamendo.
• “Saving Lucidity” by The Way I Am, courtesy of Jamendo.

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].

So I was trolling YouTube again, (I know, it’s getting to be a habit..) and came across a nice video of a 20 something woman named Angelica, in Springfield, M.A. making her first Amateur Radio contact. Remember the first time you cracked a mic? Were you nervous or scared or excited? All three, or calm or just business as usual? Watch this video and you can see how she did on her first go of it. I think she did pretty well myself. And hopefully she enjoyed it enough that she’ll be getting a license of her own some day. I’m still trying to get the YL a little interested, but it’s a no go so far. The daughter though, she just likes to talk. Hope the duty cycle on my radios will be able to keep up with her. And without further ado, the lovely YL making her first contact.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, Albany’s #1 Rock Station website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

Rich Gattie, KB2MOB, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New York, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

For a great tutorial on waterproofing coaxial connectors, check out this post by Paul, AE5JU, over at K9ZW’s blog. I didn’t use Scotch 130C Coax Seal like he does since by the time I discovered its existence I was out of time to acquire it for this project. Next time!

[Update: After the helpful comments I received on this from VE3WDM and others at amateurradio.com, I’ve ordered some coax seal and plan to finish the job as soon as it arrives. What I’ve done here is better than nothing — certainly good enough until I can get the good stuff — but it doesn’t afford long-term protection.]

[Update: When I went to put on the coax seal, I discovered my nice pretty electrical tape already coming apart after less than two weeks! Use coax seal! Another thing I’ve learned about is “Magic Tape,” the self-amalgamating silicone tape you can easily find even at stores like Target and Walgreens. Some hams have told me it works great to put over the coax seal.]

What I did do was wrap the connectors with teflon plumber’s tape, then covered it with black 3M electrical tape. The teflon tape is intended simply to keep adhesive from gumming up the connector. I put several layers of electrical tape down and made sure to wrap the last layer up, i.e. toward the sky, so that the turns are stacked like shingles on a house with their seams pointed downward. Here’s a slideshow:

Click to view slideshow.

Todd Mitchell, NØIP, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Minnesota, USA. He can be contacted at [email protected].

Dr. Bob Heil, K9EID, is the founder of Heil Sound and host of TWiT.tv's Ham Nation which streams live each Tuesday at 6:00pm PT (9:00pm ET) at http://live.twit.tv. Contact him at [email protected].