AmateurRadio.com

My son and I had another lesson this evening before bedtime. This time I dug out my paddles and my electronic keyer, since I was afraid that my imperfect fist at the straight key could do him damage.

My fears were well placed!

It turns out that in our first lesson I made my “dahs” much too long. This caused him some grief when I started using my electronic keyer since the “dahs” and the “dits” sounded too much alike to him, accustomed as he was to my goofy fist (which shall now be rectified ASAP!).

So we spent most of this lesson just fixing my mistake, getting my son to discern between perfectly proportioned “dits” and “dahs.”

I’m glad we caught my mistake on this second lesson and not several months from now! But I still feel bad for exasperating my son.

So to all you would-be Morse Elmers out there, learn from my mistake! Whatever quirks you may have in your fist may be exacerbated at low speed. So unless you have a perfect fist with a straight key, use your electronic keyer right from the beginning when teaching Morse Code.

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

Bob Heil, K9EID, of Heil Sound and Ham Nation fame sent me this e-mail which may interest clubs looking to expand their educational offerings:

Of interest to all clubs in the UK or actually just about anywhere,  I have been doing workshops for radio club meetings using SKYPE. This is a fantastic use of technology.   The club brings in a projectoror large TV driven by a computer connected to high speed Internet and through SKYPE we communicate two way.  It helps the many clubs – no matter the size to have fun, educational and entertaining programs for their meetings.Let all of your readers know that we are available to do this.  Address inquiries to me, Bob Heil   [email protected]  or Gordon West at [email protected].

Matt Thomas, W1MST, is the managing editor of AmateurRadio.com. Contact him at [email protected].

A letter written by fellow amateur Christopher Seright, KE5ZRT has been posted on several blogs and on social media platforms such as Facebook and Google+.  I’m sure most will agree when I say some of our fellow hams and some amateur radio clubs are not as tolerant to the the recent changes in licensing procedures and new hams in general.  This episode I read the letter Chris wrote along with a poem by Eddie Phillips, N4EMP.

I hope you’ll listen and share this information with others.  You can download or stream episode 47 of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast from MyAmateurRadio.com. 

 

Thank you for your time.

 

73 de KD0BIK

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].

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].