AmateurRadio.com

I have found that the USB world has not really taken over ham radio yet, sure there are some USB devices out there but not many. If you are like me you have more serial cables that you do ports on your computer. Most if not all new laptops only have USB ports. As for PC's they may come with a total of one.  There are the USB to serial converters but I find them to be a bit fussy at times to set up and get good communication going. Last year I came across a product called Edgeport from Digi international   these units can take up to 16 serial cables and with only one USB cable going to the PC. I have the 4 port model and found it on Ebay for about 60.00. Over the past year I have found this unit to work great. You can have all serial cables communicating at the same time. I have never noticed and troubles or slow downs. This is a great solution for the shack with multi serial cables and not enough ports on the PC. If you need it for portable use such as field day it's great as it gets it's power from the USB port so no external power source is needed.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Most modern tranceivers can be controlled by computer, I don’t have to tell that. But the majority of them are using serial ports for control, and most modern computers don’t have those ports anymore. That’s were most radioamateurs have a problem, they buy a unknown brand of USB to serial converter from which drivers are already obsolete and don’t work on Windows Vista or Windows 7. The consequence is lock-ups and irritation, then the endless search for non existing drivers begins.  At the end of all this many radioamateurs give up hope to ever get their radio connected to the computer. Though it doesn’t have to be that difficult if you choose the right converter or modem. Following my own experience and many others the best are those who have the FTDI chipset on board. They will install flawlessy and are very stable. Now since I needed to install my ZLP electronics modem again because of a computer crash I had the opportunity to make a small video. Unfortenately for the english readers I have a Dutch Windows Vista version so I guess it is worthless for international readers. Anyway, the ZLP has a FTDI chipset inside and it is like advertised plug&play. I hope to encourage people to try again to control you transceiver by computer. This gives you many opportunities to do all kind of things which you normal do by pushing knobs on the radio. Think about the DX cluster, you see a call that you like to hear or work and one click on the call gets you on the right frequency. You have unlimited space for storing all  kind of frequencies and click once you’re there. You can scan all those stored frequencies or just scan part of a band or several frequencies on all kind of bands. Radio control by computer is a thing you really need when contesting. Even the newest WSPR version with frequency hopping makes use of it. And there are so many other things you can do with it. I like to control my Yaesu FT817 with it as it is famous for it’s extended menus, on screen everything is clarified and much easier to control. Best program to use is Ham Radio deLuxe, but there are others less populair as well. Most contest software is working with it. Good luck with controlling your transceiver!

USB to serial converter install video (Dutch)

Bas, PE4BAS, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Groningen, Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].

A new programming software has been released for the Baofeng UV-3R. At the moment you can download it here. I used BitZipper to open the rar file.

This software is claimed to be for the UV-3R MkII with the dual frequency display but it works with my MkI as well. I took the precaution of reading from the radio before modifying and writing anything: some people who didn’t do that with the old program experienced problems.

The new program is easy to use. Interestingly, it has two options for frequency range, one of which limits the range to the ham bands 144-146MHz and 430-440MHz. I assume that is to get approval in some countries that don’t allow radios that can transmit out of band. There is also a column called Name for each channel, though I couldn’t type anything in there. Perhaps a newer model will allow you to have channel names as well.

I discovered a bug with setting the priority channel, though it’s kind of hard to explain. You choose the priority channel from a drop-down list of channels that have been used. If you haven’t used all the channels between channel 1 and the priority channel then the radio will check the channel corresponding to the position in the list of the one you selected instead of that actual channel number. I wanted to make channel 20 the priority channel butthe radio started checking channel 14 because 20 was the 14th filled channel in
the list! To use channel 20 as the priority channel I had to select channel 26, which was the 20th one in the list.

I don’t know what would have happened if the channel I’d picked was one that didn’t have a frequency programmed into it – and I’m not going to risk finding out!

I ought to mention that the cross-platform multi-radio supporting memory management software CHIRP supports the UV-3R as well. Not sure about the UV-3R MkII though.

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

This week amateur radio came through again, responding to the tsunami disaster at Wasabi Island.  Wasibi Island is a little-known island in the south Pacific inhabited by about 300 people which suffered a devastating category nine tsunami two weeks ago.  Wasabi Island is also a rare DXCC entity, having been in the top 15 most wanted DXCC entities list for nearly two decades.

The Pileup DX Society reacted quickly to the disaster.  Bob Peters, president of the esteemed society, assembled a crew within days of the disaster.  ”After hearing about the disaster we called up our top donors and within hours we had a team assembled.”  The Wasabi team was luckily able to quickly book commercial flights into Chile and charter a cargo ship in Santiago.  They landed on the beach on Wasabi Island three days later.  Within hours they were on the air with many amateurs in North America and Europe working the phone and CW stations on 20 meters, bagging the rare DX country.

“The island is devastated” informed team leader Tom Biznosky over a satellite phone call.  ”There’s no power on the island and no clean drinking water.  Luckily we brought generators, and plenty of fuel and water, so we can easily operate the stations for the next two weeks.  Sleeping conditions on the island have been awful, so we’ve been shuttling operators to the ship where they can get showers and sleep in air conditioning.”

The disaster conditions have made things difficult for the team.  ”The island has been flattened, so it has been very difficult to find any trees to string up dipoles on the lower bands.  On top of that, one of our 12 linear amplifiers which were donated stopped working.  The 10 meter phone station has been running barefoot.” said Biznosky.  ”But despite the setbacks, out team remains in good spirits.”

Amateurs are asked to stay clear of the Wasabi island frequencies as all stations are operating split.  Amateurs should go between 5 and 50 kilohertz above the Wasabi Island transmit frequencies when making their calls.  Look for Wasabi on all bands, on CW, phone, PSK and RTTY.  QSL direct to the QSL manager shown on the Pileup DX Society website (click on Wasabi Island disaster).  Donations to support the operation may also be made on the website.

For those who have followed my adventure over the past couple of weeks through this blog post and especially this one.  The wait is over…the FCC has fully approved, granted and the ULS database shows KD0BIK as an Amateur Extra. 

I won’t say this wait has been easy, but at the same time I won’t say I was ever worried I would be denied the license upgrade.  I knew I had done nothing wrong to end up on any sort of list and knew once someone manually reviewed my application against the information the FCC was watching for, all would be sorted out.  Which actually was exactly what happened in the end with the help of the ARRL.

As with life, the things that don’t kill or injure us….do make us stronger.  I have a much, much better understanding of not only the FCC ULS system, but also the ARRL/VEC process and will turn this negative into a positive and share what I’ve learned with others on an upcoming episode of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast. 

Finally, I really can’t say enough great things about the ARRL.  The information they shared with me in the form of knowledge about this entire process and their reaching out to the FCC on two different occasions mean so much to me.  I hope I never need to seek their assistance again in a matter like this.  But I know they are there, not only for me…but for all licensed amateurs in the US. 

OK…well 20m sounds like it might be hot today.  I just worked a VK on JT65.  Let’s see what other wonderful DX I can round up.

Oh…and one more thing.  My paperwork to become a VE will be emailed to the ARRL later today.  I look forward to serving along side the other many fine VE’s and give back to the hobby of amateur radio. 

Until next time,

73,
Jerry  KD0BIK/AE 

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].

The FSDXA who are putting on the forthcoming T32C expedition plan things enormously well. Even when you plan and plan again, things go wrong. And so it is that their container with 6 tonnes of equipment is stuck in Tarawa (T30) and not where it should be. A boat has broken down, but despite promises, it has proved impossible to get the container to T32. The container has all the equipment required for the station so this is a significant setback. However, Yaesu have sprung to the rescue by lending 10 FT450s which can be hand carried. Lightweight linears, masts, aerials and computer equipment all need to be carried by the expedition operators. Knowing the group as I do, I am confident they will make a success of this. Read the full story at T32C.com

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

Just kidding!

It has always been a dream to power everything in my shack with sunlight. Unfortenately solar panels and batteries are too expensive at the moment and you would only do such a thing when no other power source is available, like in the new shack from fellow blogger VK2TPM Peter. A good inspirator is VK5SW Rob, he has his solar powered station in the Australian bushbush. But for the average hobby radioamateur his equipment is too expensive I think, look at the size of the batteries! Those are very expensive for shure. In a previous post I wrote I bought a cheap 1,8W solar panel. It’s not sufficient to charge the 7Ah battery actually, it’s just topping it when you’re not using it. If I would have my antenna tuner connected all the time the battery will be below the 12,4V that it needs as minimum supply within 2 hours or so. I measured the current that the tuner takes when just connected and it’s 430mA. That would be P=U*I > 12,4*0,43=5,3W you see that I need a panel that is much larger. As I want to supply the W5OLF TX as well with solar in the future I even need some more power and a bigger battery. I found a nice package including regulator at this german shop, it’s reasonable priced and delivers 30W at a sunny day. Together with a 45Ah car battery I think that will do. They also got all kind of other handy things to connect to your solar installation. Like a fluorescent lamps – potential transformer, a idea for the new shack, imagine free solar powered light in your shack. I like that idea. Unfortenately if you look at the costs of all these nice gadgets you better switch on your light from the mains, till now it will save you money. I think to power my future shack with sunlight the solarpanels need to be a lot cheaper. 

Bas, PE4BAS, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Groningen, Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].