AmateurRadio.com

We’re enjoying some wonderful weather here in the Lake District at the moment. Unfortunately I haven’t been able to get out on the hills for some radio activation. I’ve been plagued with back pain ever since I returned from Blackpool. But not only that, sometimes I have to go somewhere that is of interest to Olga.

Today we decided to take a drive down to visit Holehird Gardens, home of the Lakeland Horticultural Society. For Olga, who is if anything even more obsessed with gardening than I am with radio, this is like visiting a really big ham radio show would be for me. I have zero interest in gardening, but I do enjoy looking at a nice garden, and I enjoyed the day out as much as she did. In fact, we agreed we should visit Holehird more often.

I took along the little Jin Ma Tong JT-228 VHF radio because it is small, light and easily slips in a shirt pocket. The antenna was a short stubby helical. No sooner had we arrived than I heard Phil M0AYB/P calling CQ Wainwrights On The Air from the summit of Great Gable. Phil was rattling off the contacts, and soon heard my call. I was pleased to make a contact using 3W to such a small antenna especially as Phil was also using a stock rubber duck, though according to a panorama engraved on the slate behind me in the picture Great Gable was line of sight from where I was standing so it shouldn’t have been too difficult.

More was to come, as just after Olga had taken my picture I heard Derek 2E0MIX/P calling CQ WOTA from the summit of Hindscarth. I got in a quick call and Derek heard me first, so we had a quick chat. Hindscarth was not line of sight, I think, but Derek was using his SOTA Beam which made a big difference. I was well pleased to make two WOTA contacts using the tiny hand-held radio. I popped it back in my shirt pocket and carried it around for the rest of the afternoon but didn’t hear anyone else although several Wainwright summits were activated.

However I was too busy enjoying the wonderful warm weather and beautiful Holehird Gardens to worry too much about the contacts I missed.

What this proved to me is that you don’t need to be up on the fells to enjoy some WOTA fun. Come to the Lake District and bring a hand-held with you and you’ll be sure to make some contacts!

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.

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.

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.

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.)

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.