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It was a nice surprise to have an e-mail last week from Fred, PA4YBR explaining that a new version of the WinDV DSTAR software is available for download.

I grabbed a copy and have been playing with it in conjunction with my DVAP Dongle. Like the previous version, v1.1.3 works well and has some useful new features. If you’ve got GPS on your rig, you can pass that into the network and have your location shown on http://aprs.fi and there’s also an interface to ircDDB which I have to admit, I’ve not explored yet.

I like the fact that WinDV allows you to set up connects from the software, rather than fiddling around setting callsigns on the (in my case) IC-E92. There’s more debugging information than in the current DVAP Tool as well.

WinDV works with DVAPs and Hotspots too. I definitely recommend you check it out – you can download it here

Through some reorganization at work in the past two months, I have suddenly gained ready access to a lab full of RF test equipment again.  Two years is a long time to go without. Apologies for the cell-phone photograph of the screen.

I took the W1GHZ 1152-MHz LO board over to have a look at it during lunch.  I’m seeing -11 dBm at 1152.007 MHz.  I am a bit dubious of the last digit of the frequency (even at 300 Hz RBW) but I’m sure there’s a frequency counter around somewhere.  Anyhow, I need to put a MMIC (or two) on the transverter board.  That should be a nice evening project along with the W6PQL preamp kit that showed up today.

Welcome to Handiham World!

One of the movies I remember enjoying was “The Perfect Storm”. A huge storm barreled up the Eastern United States seaboard and all the conditions aligned to turn it into a real disaster. Everything that could go wrong did go wrong.

This week seems a lot like that here in the ham shack. My main Windows computer suffered a failure and the Windows installation could not be repaired without a complete reinstallation. Although I regularly back everything up, reinstalling an operating system is still a huge and very disruptive process. Although you may have documents and the files you have created preserved, you have to reinstall all of your applications. That means all saved settings, passwords, usernames, the lot of it. So I am operating here on an old computer with limited resources. I cannot retrieve all of my old email and many contacts have disappeared. It is a huge mess and it will take a long time to get back to anything like an efficient office day.

But is it a perfect storm? Well, consider that yesterday I had to attend some staff training at our main office at Camp Courage. A thunderstorm had passed through several days before, knocking the W0ZSW remote base offline. That problem was fixed easily enough by restarting the rig control computer and setting the BIOS to always turn the machine on following a power failure. Turning to my main office computer, I found that it had been fried. So now my main office computer and my main home computer on which I produce all audio podcasts, do all audio editing, all my home email, the web publishing, and nearly everything else having to do with my computing life, all both down for the count.

Add to that the fact that we are into the busy season at camp and Courage Center, like other healthcare providers, is worried about an impending State government shutdown, and you can see that this is quite some storm!

So today’s e-letter will have to be shorter. I will do my best to catch up, but ask that emails and phone calls be kept to a minimum.

I know this is disappointing, so to cheer you up, we will hear a special presentation by Matt Arthur, KA0PQW, later on in the audio podcast version of this week’s e-letter. Matt sent me an audio lecture on sporadic-e propagation, and this is a perfect time of year to learn more about it and then look for some sporadic-e yourself!

Letters

Anne, K1STM, wrote to let us know that TIPSnet is in summer shut down mode and will return on September 13. The final TIPSnet for this past season was yesterday, June 21.

Editor’s note: I have lost a considerable amount of email. I am not sure when it will be recovered. If you have sent me something and it does not get acted upon, that is the reason. Please send only urgent email to [email protected] until further notice.

Troubleshooting 101: No column this week

Maybe if I ever figure out my computer problems, I’ll write about that, HI!

Send your ideas about troubleshooting for possible inclusion in this column to:

We’ve all seen the neat projects on the web where someone uses a power supply taken from an old PC.    There is something simple about the project, yet so insanely useful and versatile.

I have not seen many that were as “polished” as the power supply project here.  This is from the blog “TG’s Electronics Exploration”.  The project is laid out in a way that will give you multiple power options as well as a digital readout.  Most of the power supply projects I’ve seen are relatively simple hacks where the basic simple values of a PC power supply are used (5 volts, 12 volts, etc).  This has many more options.

I really like how clean the layout is as well as the LCD’s.  The other really neat thing about his – the work isn’t wasted if the power supply eventually dies on you.  It is relatively easy to move all the electronics to a new supply.

The project page can be found at:

http://tgbuilds.wordpress.com/projects/diy-bench-supply/

The next website we will talk about comes from a sit I visit on a regular basis.  Not ham radio, but plenty of electronics information and kits – ladyada.net.  I used to run a hackerspace in my area.  We did a few projects to get people soldering.  One neat project was a “TV be-gone”.  Simple device where you build it, put it in a container (I, of course, used an Altoids tin) and use it to turn off TV’s.  Great when you’re somewhere where a TV is on, loud, and nobody is actually watching the thing and you can’t even carry a conversation with the guy next to you.  Simple enough project.

This site goes into several questions I get from potential hams when I teach radio classes, including:

What is a power supply?

Why use a power supply?

What’s inside a power supply?

AC/DC theory.

A really neat primer geared towards those that may not understand anything about all those wall warts that are drawing tons of power when not used!  I almost passed this up, as I know enough about power supplies to get me through what I need for my projects.  I found it a neat article that allowed me to probably explain it easier to those that aren’t technically inclined.

Check it out at:

http://www.ladyada.net/learn/powersupply/index.html

Now, if you have any links to great projects or informative sites, please leave them below.

Series Four Episode Thirteen of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Urgent notice to South Africian amateur radio licensees 
• Ethiopian Amateur / Ham Radio Society back on the air
• New shortwave frequency for Commando Solo 
• International Museums Weekend
• SatNav Jamming
• Powerline to pollute Cumbria 
• Council of Europe recommends RF free zones 
• US Amateur / Ham Radio 60m under threat
• ARRL VHF/UHF advisory committee seeks input
• Ham Radio in NY Times Podcast
• DXpedition to Palestine 
• 21 MHz band Aussie radar
• NZART Amateur of the Year 
• Norwegian Radio Amateurs provide emergency comms 
• Amateurs help NASA to receive solar images 

Your feedback, US Hambrief report from Chris Matthieu (N7ICE) and Martin talks about the Joys of Electronics.

Series Four Episode Thirteen of the ICQ Podcast has been released. News Stories include :-

• Urgent notice to South Africian amateur radio licensees 
• Ethiopian Amateur / Ham Radio Society back on the air
• New shortwave frequency for Commando Solo 
• International Museums Weekend
• SatNav Jamming
• Powerline to pollute Cumbria 
• Council of Europe recommends RF free zones 
• US Amateur / Ham Radio 60m under threat
• ARRL VHF/UHF advisory committee seeks input
• Ham Radio in NY Times Podcast
• DXpedition to Palestine 
• 21 MHz band Aussie radar
• NZART Amateur of the Year 
• Norwegian Radio Amateurs provide emergency comms 
• Amateurs help NASA to receive solar images 

Your feedback, US Hambrief report from Chris Matthieu (N7ICE) and Martin talks about the Joys of Electronics.

I happened to logon to my eQSL account the other day – I’d recently configured my logging program, Winlog32 to automatically upload QSO records as I make them. I hadn’t logged into eQSL for quite a while, but I noticed that I’d qualified for eDX100 (100 countries confirmed on eQSL) and ePFX300 (Over 300 prefixes confirmed on eQSL).It was fun getting the certificates back – I’m not at all into the whole awards / QSL part of radio at all – but since all I had to do was press ‘Apply for award’ then that’s ok!Funny wording on the certs though…..