AmateurRadio.com

After a lightning strike near his house took out a good portion of his shack, John, W5CYF, has posted a video bringing his viewers up to speed to on how his shack is coming along after he has started to get some new equipment to get back on the air. He seems to have a nice collection of radios. Shown in the video is a TenTec Century 21, and a Kenwood TS-520, along with some filters and an MFJ Tuner. In previous videos he described what happened with the strike. While you can never predict when a lightning strike is going to happen, you should still plan for it. Ground your station. I was the victim of a near strike myself. It luckily only fried a few switches in my old FT-901DM. After that, I started grounding the station. While it was unfortunate, we can all learn from this. Here’s the update from John.

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].

There are all sorts of ways to teach Morse Code. There’s the old Army way (check out these youtube clips: part 1, part 2). Then there’s the way the ARRL taught me back in 1978 — with cassette tapes. And today, students can download software that will teach them Morse Code with the Farnsworth Method and the Koch Method. It all works, so long as the student sticks with it.

How do you get a student to stick with it? First and foremost, by cultivating within him an affection for Morse Code. As Antoine de Saint-Exupery purportedly said, “If you want to build a ship, don’t drum up people to collect wood and don’t assign them tasks and work, but rather teach them to long for the endless immensity of the sea.”¹ But since so many things can thwart this affection (from discouragement to competing interests), sometimes you simply need to come alongside the student and encourage him. This is where cassette tapes and computer programs usually fall short. There’s nothing like The Personal Method — a real, live Elmer teaching you Morse Code.

Just ask my son! A few days ago I purchased a nifty Nye Viking Speed-X straight key and code practice oscillator to begin teaching him Morse Code. I hooked up my own Speed-X to it so that we could both key the oscillator — him on one side of the table with his new practice set, and me on the other side of the table with my own key. Thus equipped, we had our first lesson before bedtime Wednesday night.

I was surprised by how hard the bug bit him. At first he wasn’t so sure about the whole thing, but by the end of the lesson he was so excited he said he wouldn’t be able to get to sleep. He even told me that he wouldn’t enjoy his classical guitar lesson and horse-riding lesson quite as much the next day because he just wanted to have the next Morse Code lesson! The next morning, he woke me up by sending “GM” outside my door with this practice set. And later in the day, he started sending me code as went down the road, saying “dit” and “dah” like a true CW operator.

So to my fellow CW operators who know somebody that wants to learn Morse Code, I say let’s try The Personal Method. And to those of you who do want to learn Morse Code, try to find an Elmer who is willing to spend some time with you. If you can’t find one who can meet with you, hang in there with your cassette tapes or your computer program until you know enough code to work with an Elmer on the air. As the SKCC website says, “If you can only key at 3 words per minute, so be it.” There are SKCC Elmers who are eager to work with you (http://www.skccgroup.com/elmers.php). You’ll be amazed at how quickly you build up your speed, and you’ll enjoy the experience a thousand times more than by trying to learn all by yourself.

¹ This quote is all over the Internet, but I’ve yet to see any citation for it. If you know where Antoine de Saint-Exupery wrote this, please let me know!

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

How to pass the time while WSPRing

Leading up to last weekend the sunspots were at an all time high along with the solar flux......it seemed that the radio god's were smiling on us again!! I turned on the K3 on the weekend and it was kinda a  down, it seemed that 20 meters may not had been as hot as I hoped it to be. I then turned to WSPR and thought I would give that a go on 20 meters as well. I wanted to put this solar hot spot to the test.....so instead of setting the K3 on the standard  3 watts output I dropped it down to 500mw's. I gave it a go and was surprised at the good

Dipole at 500mw's

results. Now I had always wondered when using that low power and my SWR after the K3's internal turner on 20 meters is about 2.3 what the

actual power out on the antenna is??? Well according to VK1OD.NET who offers a great RF transmission line loss calculator I could get a good idea. So I punched in all the necessary information I was told my setup is about 95.23% efficient. Well I punched the numbers into Google and it came up with 95.23% of (500 milliwatts) = 0.47615 watts. So I was pumping out 476mw's into my European contacts on WSPR.

H900 on RX and dipole on TX 500mw's

Well I am some what of a gambling man so I dropped the power to 200mw's and that gave me an output of 95.23% of (200 milliwatts) = 0.19046 watts I was able to make some contacts with that power. I had also wanted to compare the ears of my attic dipole compared to my H 900 gain probe receiving antenna which is also mounted in the attic.
If you are a frequent user of WSPR then one knows it basiclly can run on it's own collecting data...so what does the ham do during this down time..........start building his KAT100 antenna tuner of coarse!!

Dipole on RX dipole on TX 200mw's

H900 on RX dipole on TX 200mw's

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

So again, I am looking in the QST, and I found that West Mountain Radio is offering a new RigBlaster. Sweet! I love their products. So I read on and notice something is missing from the info on the website and in the QST ad. Does it support Mac?

Now I have been a convert from PC for about 4 years now. My very first computer was a Commodore 64, which I then upgraded to an Amiga 500. I have been and will always be an Amiga user at heart. For me, Macs are the closest thing to a main stream Amiga, other than an Amiga which are pretty expensive nowadays. But you can read more about that as well as listen to that on the Amiga Roundtable podcast that is produced here at AmiZed Studios.  So now that I am a Mac user, I want the full experience. Ham Radio included.

I have an older Macbook Pro in the shack for my main machine. I do have a small PC, but it’s slow and I built it for an entirely different use. So it wouldn’t be practical to use that. But with the release of the RigBlaster Advantage, which looks to be an awesome product I would use in a heart beat on my Mac, I don’t know if it’s Mac compatable. Yes, Macs 90% of the time work with everything, but it would be nice to have that little bit of info to know that it will, without having to go hunt for a driver, like I did for my USB to serial interface I got. It works perfectly, but it would have been nice if I knew I had to go download them from the chip maker since they weren’t included on the disc I was given with it.

I was going to buy a RigBlaster Data Jack Plug and Play for my Mac, when i was told by the gentleman from Quicksilver, that it wasn’t supported on Mac. So I got a NoMic. When I got home and did some checking, I discovered it can work with Macs. I admit, this is more a pet peeve then anything, but still. It would be nice to know. I mean, there has to be more than one person at West Mountain with a Mac. OK, so I shall finish my rant here and just say that it would be nice to have that info from the manufacturer directly, instead of getting anecdotal evidence from a Google search.

But in case you’re wondering, here’s a link to the specs on West Mountain’s website.

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].

A few months ago, my friends at the Oxford and Harwell clubs both asked if I could come and give a talk to them. It’s something that I enjoy doing – it’s always good to meet people and if in some small way that I can encourage them to try something new or take a deeper interest in the hobby, then I’m delighted. What could I talk about though?

I decided to base the talk around the VHF/UHF column that I write for Practical Wireless in which I aim to cover as many aspects of VHF/UHF as I can and perhaps encourage people to look at their VHF/UHF radios in a different way.

I presented the talk for the first time at the Oxford club on Tuesday evening and I think it went ok! If as a presenter you enjoy it, it’s generally a fair sign! It’s always interesting to hear different perspectives from people.

– A first reaction from one attendee, ‘VHF? Is there anyone on it these days?’. It was fun explaining that yes, there really is!

– Another interesting suggestion was that the introduction of CTCSS on VHF/UHF repeaters had led to a decline in activity. I explained that although to use many repeaters you need to send a CTCSS tone, you don’t have to have CTCSS Decode on. So, if another repeater comes up on your frequency, you can still hear it. That’s certainly how I set my rigs up, although it sounded like not all rigs allowed this. I’d be surprised if CTCSS’ introduction had singularly led to a decline, but I’ve been surprised before….

– A very interesting discussion and heartfelt plea from an attendee about the RSGB’s VHF/UHF awards and how poorly supported they are. Obtaining QSL cards, on 432MHz in particular, apparently, had proven very difficult. But the member in question said that details of the RSGB’s VHF/UHF awards had not featured prominently in Radcom for many moons – did the society still have a commitment to them?

An interesting and enjoyable evening – thank you, ODARS! And I’m looking forward to visiting Harwell in a couple of weeks – and I’ll try and tweak the talk a bit by then!

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

George visits the Twit.tv studios and interviews Randy Hall, K7AGE. Tommy visits the Huntsville Hamfest. Jim builds an Audio Isolation Interface. Peter shows us the DATV QSO Party.

George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].

Via an article on the Southgate ARC site, I noticed that the UK Six Metre Group had published a commentary on the new bandplan for 50MHz as agreed at the IARU Region 1 conference held in August 2011 in Sun City, South Africa.

The main new feature of the bandplan is that the majority of beacons will move from the lower portion of the band to the segment between 50.400 and 50.500, although synchronised beacons will share a segment from 50.000 to 50.030. Also, the new CW segment sees a ‘Future International Calling’ frequency at 50.050 and an Intercontinental Calling frequency at 50.090.

EME has a segment from 50.310 to 50.320 and MS from 50.320 to 50.380

A WSPR frequency is established at 50.401 plus or minus 500Hz with a beacon exclusive band from there to 50.500.

Digital Voice gets a mention in the top section of the band for the first time.

The new bandplan is set to take effect from 1st January 2012, although beacons have until the end of 2014 to move. See the bandplan here

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