AmateurRadio.com

I always like reading about the challenges that people set themselves in Ham Radio. Challenges come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Keith, G6NHU’s QSO365 project has rightly attracted a lot of attention.Here’s a fun one, too, that I read about yesterday. Nick, N1IC has set himself the challenge of making contact with each of the 50 states of the USA using D-STAR, in 50days. You can read about Nick’s progress hereI’m certainly going to look out for Nick on D-STAR. I won’t be able to help him with a new state, but it’ll be nice to say hello.

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

I always like reading about the challenges that people set themselves in Ham Radio. Challenges come in all sorts of shapes and sizes. Keith, G6NHU’s QSO365 project has rightly attracted a lot of attention.Here’s a fun one, too, that I read about yesterday. Nick, N1IC has set himself the challenge of making contact with each of the 50 states of the USA using D-STAR, in 50days. You can read about Nick’s progress hereI’m certainly going to look out for Nick on D-STAR. I won’t be able to help him with a new state, but it’ll be nice to say hello.

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

For my friends celebrating Passover, here are the four questions in CW. First the “intro” question:

And the other four questions, a bit faster (so you can get on with the seder):

Text to Morse translation courtesy of Learn CW Online. The first part is at 20 wpm, the main four questions are at 50 wpm. (And no, I can’t decode that by ear either.)

Happy Passover!

The player embedded here requires HTML 5, which means you’ll need a pretty recent browser. If you don’t have one, you can right-click and save the intro and the questions.

For my friends celebrating Passover, here are the four questions in CW. First the “intro” question:

And the other four questions, a bit faster (so you can get on with the seder):

Text to Morse translation courtesy of Learn CW Online. The first part is at 20 wpm, the main four questions are at 50 wpm. (And no, I can’t decode that by ear either.)

Happy Passover!

The player embedded here requires HTML 5, which means you’ll need a pretty recent browser. If you don’t have one, you can right-click and save the intro and the questions.

David Kozinn, K2DBK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

I was looking through the online scanner feeds available on RadioReference.com and found a list of the Top 50 Audio Feeds. Most of the large police departments can have quite a few listeners at one time, sometimes approaching a couple hundred listeners.

The single Amateur Radio repeater on the list caught my eye: the KE6RRI 147.435MHz repeater located near Los Angeles. The feed had 120 listeners which is pretty amazing for a ham repeater (for comparison, Chicago Fire Dept. had 40 and Las Vegas PD had 39 at the time). There was obviously something going on here that was attracting attention. So, of course, I tuned in.

Well, it’s quite the experience. Let’s just say that the conversations are colorful.

I remember as a newly licensed teenager that I was super-paranoid about following the rules. I’d stay well clear of the band edges for fear my signal might bleed over due to some malfunction. If the FCC said that I had to identify every ten minutes, I’d make sure to do it every five. Like Christian Slater’s character in the pirate radio movie Pump Up The Volume — I imagined those yellow vans conspicuously marked “F.C.C.” circling the neighborhood just waiting for the most minor of infractions as their signal to move in. Apparently, after spending a little time listening to the 435 repeater online, the folks on this machine don’t seem to worry too much about that.

There are two interesting interview segments worth listening to on The RAIN Report where Hap Holly, KC9RP, interviews Christina Holzschuh, KE6RRI, the current owner of the repeater: Part 1 Part 1 (14 min.) Part 2 Part 2 (14 min.)

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

Recently, I have created a second blog for D-STAR radio, particularly in the Ottawa area.

You can find it at http://dstarottawa.wordpress.com/ The focus is on D-STAR operations in the National Capital Region and activities of the Ottawa Amateur Radio Digital Group.

My personal blog here continues to be my main blog.

Alan Steele, VA3STL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Ottawa, Ontario. Contact him at [email protected].

I attempted to do a SOTA activation today, my second attempt, and I failed again.  Last time I didn’t make any contacts (despite calling CQ on several bands endlessly) and to add insult to injury my cook stove malfunctioned so I couldn’t cook lunch.  This afternoon I went out on a spur of the moment thing and realized when I got to the site that I forgot my battery.  I looked through the Jeep to find something I could MacGyver and only came up with a laptop battery, but I didn’t have a voltmeter along to figure what pins were what.  However all was not lost.  I got to hike up to the site and muck about as they say, go four wheeling with the Jeep through some nearby mudholes, and then take another hike to one of my favorite spots in Pennsylvania.  Perhaps the third SOTA activation try will be a charm.

Trail up to the site

One of the two towers near the site.  This is an old firetower now used by Carbon County, PA.  The cabin at the top was removed.

 

The other tower at the site owned by State of Pennsylvania.  Well built, though a bit bland by radio artisan standards.

A neat spot on a rocky peak about a mile away from the SOTA summit