AmateurRadio.com

Announcements:

• Happy New Year!
• The Mid-America GNU/Linux Networkers Conference (MAGNetcon) will be May 6-7, 2011 at the St. Louis Union Station Marriott. If you know anyone that might be a sponsor, exhibitor, or speaker, please let us know. Application forms are available on the web site.
• Donations are now being accepted to send LHS to the Dayton Hamvention 2011, May 20-22. Please click on the Donate button on the website.
• Donation received from Charles (no call sign given). Thank you, Charles!
• The podcast RSS feed lost it’s title after a podPress upgrade. This has been fixed.
• We’ve been informed of a RSS feed problem for some podcatchers that use the XML tag. Joe, K1RBY, emailed us about this problem when using gPodder, but a solution has yet to be found. Anyone else see this problem? Let us know! (Ed. Note: The problem has been fixed and will be detailed in episode 54.)
• Look for new episodes of Resonant Frequency in 2011!

Topic:

• An interview with David Freese, W1HKJ, the primary author of fldigi.
• Dave, now 72 years old, has been licensed continuously since 1957 and is retired from the U.S. Coast Guard. He had been maintaining gMFSK, a Gnome multimode HF terminal program, and decided to create fldigi to prove he could still write code. He started with UNIX, then MINIX, and has been with Linux since the beginning. He’s been writing ham radio programs since the 1970′s. His software will run under Linux, Windows, FreeBSD, OSX, and Puppy.
• flpuppy, aka digipup, is also available from Dave’s site. This is a version of Puppy Linux with fldigi, a logbook, and a geodesic calculator already installed.
• Other developers are Stelios, M0GLD, Leigh, WA5ZNU, and Skip, KH6TY.
• Much of the underlying code in fldigi is from the original gMFSK program, in particular the modem code. Other modes have been added since, along with the GUI.
• Dave says there are about 2500 users of fldigi and he spends 50 hours per week on coding and support.
• Other projects Dave is involved with include:
  • NBEMS (Narrow Band Emergency Messaging System), consisting of fldigi, flarq, flwrap, flmessage, and flrig, all using the Fast Light Toolkit.
  • flwkey for sending Morse code via the winKeyer chip.
  • A computer-aided transceiver (CAT) program that controls the Kachina 505DSP transceiver.
• Dave describes how he came to develop fldigi using C++ and FLTK.
• More features of fldigi:
  • Version 3.21 of fldigi, now in alpha test, will have the capability of sending and receiving weatherfax. It will also have an embedded browser that will work with all the PSK modes and RTTY. It has a built-in log book that stores records in ADIF files.
  • While not designed specifically for contesters, fldigi is adequate for casual contesters.
  • Fldigi will generate Cabrillo reports for many contests.
  • The online documentation is quite extensive, at about 140 web pages, with many illustrations. There are sample screenshots of the waterfall display for various modes and audio samples of them.
• Much of the modem code in DM780 is from fldigi.
• Rick Ellis wrote code that allows the N1MM logger to display the waterfall.
• Gary, WB8ROL, “Mr. Olivia”, modified fldigi for his own purposes, calling it fldigirol.
• More cool features of fldigi:
  • Many of the controls in fldigi have different reactions to left-, middle- and right-click. For example, rolling the mouse wheel over the macro buttons will scroll them!
  • The mouse tab in the waterfall configuration allows you to customize how the waterfall reacts to mouse wheel movement. You can also change the rig frequency by dragging in the waterfall.
  • Dave recommends turning on the control hints feature (tooltips). Click Configure, User Interface, General tab, check “Show tooltips”.
  • Dave describes the “QSY” and “Store” buttons.
  • Dave talks about how to use the Reed-Solomon Identification (RSID) features.
  • The “SPOT” control allows you to search for specific strings in a PSK signal, such as “CQ CQ” or “de”, allowing the program to automatically post “spots” on the PSK reporter site.
  • Dave then discusses the “Map It” macro feature.
• To keep up with the alpha test group, you can subscribe to mailing lists on the Berlios alpha test web page.
• Dave offers kudos to Ed, W3NR, who answers 95% of the problem reports, and Rick in Michigan who is the principal man for audio interfacing issues.

Contact Info:

• Contact Richard at [email protected], Russ at [email protected], or both at the same time at [email protected].
• Listen to the live stream every other Tuesday at 8:00pm Central time. Check the LHS web site for dates.
• Leave us a voice mail at 417-200-4811, or record an introduction to the podcast.
• Sign up for the LHS mailing list.
• Sign up for the MAGNetcon mailing list.
• LHS merchandise is available at the SHOP! link on Web site. Check out the Badgerwear or buy one of the other LHS-branded items at PrintFection.com/lhs or Cafe Press. Thanks!
• Thanks to Dave from Gamma Leonis for the theme music.

Music:

• “Which Road Takes Me Home” by Fatblueman from the album “Back to Winnipeg,” courtesy of Jamendo.

Welcome to Handiham World!

Today it is time for adventures in “troubleshooting”.

Learning how to troubleshoot problems in your amateur radio station is one of the most important skills you will ever develop. The reason is that most of the time you are going to be the only person available to do anything about a problem that crops up. After all, you are the owner and operator of the station and are likely to be the one who discovers the problem in the first place. Amateur radio is a technical activity, and it has always been my feeling that a healthy curiosity about what makes things work contributes to our ability to learn how to troubleshoot problems logically. Of course fixing a problem is different, since you may not have the necessary parts at hand, be able to climb a tower yourself, or be able to replace a part that you cannot see or reach inside a piece of equipment. Still, there is a great deal of satisfaction to be had in knowing how things work and being able to figure out why they are not working at the moment.

For example, the day before yesterday I noticed in a routine check of my HF antennas that the end-fed wire and the Windom were both delivering plenty of signals, but the ground-mounted Butternut vertical out in the backyard was dead silent. There was not even a trace of the usual noise or static. I know from experience that when an antenna returns this kind of result, there is usually a break somewhere between the transceiver and the antenna, usually a connector or feed line problem.

So, how does one proceed with this kind of a problem? A consideration is whether or not any changes have been made recently in the configuration of the equipment in the ham shack. In other words, if you have recently installed a new antenna tuner or replaced a switch or some other component in the antenna and feed line system, you might want to consider the possibility that things were either not connected correctly or that a connecting cable in the shack is intermittent. Frankly, the first thing to consider (for me, anyway) is some kind of operator error. Did I disconnect something to run a test and then forget about it? Did I forget to flip a switch? Am I sure I pressed the right button on the automatic antenna tuner? I tend to like to eliminate “indoor” problems like these before pulling on my boots and winter gear and trudging out into the backyard, which happens to be full of snow this time of year.

Since I have made no changes to my equipment configuration here in the ham shack, and have triple-checked that I am operating the automatic antenna tuner and rig correctly, I guess there is nothing for it but to make an expedition out to the backyard. I know from experience that most of my antenna problems in the past have been weather-related in one form or another. After all, the antennas and their components are outdoors and can be damaged by ice, moisture intrusion, wind, and ultraviolet exposure. Since this particular symptom of the vertical antenna suddenly going completely silent is not something that happened gradually, I am going to be looking for a break in the feed line, and my prime suspect is going to be at the feed point near the base of the vertical.

A check of what can be seen at the feedpoint shows the connection to be intact. Next, it is time for a continuity check, so out comes my 30+ year old clunker Radio Shack VOM. This thing has been on more troubleshooting trips than I can remember, including trips up towers and many Field Days! The way the vertical’s feedpoint is configured is going to result in a dead short at DC. This is normal, because there is a copper coil across the feedpoint between the center conductor of the coax and ground. Thus, the “normal” condition is for the ohm meter to read a DC short when connected between the center of the coax and the braid. I pulled the coax off the back of the LDG tuner and checked for the expected DC short. The coax was open! This indicates a most unfortunate problem, a break somewhere in the feed line system between the feed point and the ham shack. Further troubleshooting will have to wait until the ground is clear of snow and thawed because the feed line is buried underground and in January in Minnesota the ground is like concrete.

Sometimes troubleshooting is like that. What you have to do is logically narrow down the possibilities so that you can focus your efforts on the part of the system where the fault most likely lies. In some cases, circumstances or conditions will not permit you to troubleshoot to a final conclusion or make repairs until those conditions or circumstances change. So I guess I am without my vertical antenna unless I run a second feed line over the snow and out to the antenna. A better bet is probably just to switch all of my operations to the remaining two wire antennas and to make use of the two Handiham remote base stations from time to time.

Although this story will be continued once the snow melts and the ground thaws out, it does put me in mind of an exceptional job of troubleshooting done by one of the members of my college ham radio club decades ago. If I remember correctly, a Johnson Viking Ranger transmitter was not working properly. Several attempts by various club members to figure out what was going on were unsuccessful. Finally one of the members decided to really devote some serious time to the problem and trace it down once and for all. Believe it or not, the fault was a broken wire underneath the chassis. In those days point to point wiring between tube sockets was common. Vacuum tube equipment was failure prone, and the most likely culprit was always the tubes themselves. In this case, a wire had broken inside the insulation, making the problem difficult to spot. Perhaps this short length of insulated wire was defective when it was manufactured and repeated heating and cooling of the transmitter as it was turned on and turned off ultimately caused the wire to open up inside the insulating jacket. The point of this story is that things like this sometimes happen, even to some of the most seemingly reliable and simple components in a system. I always admire the way engineers and technicians at NASA troubleshoot their way through complicated systems and come up with elegant and effective solutions to problems no one ever expected.

Next week: I replace my Internet router and configure EchoLink port forwarding. Will I ever be on EchoLink again? Tune in and find out!

Welcome to Handiham World!

Today it is time for adventures in “troubleshooting”.

Learning how to troubleshoot problems in your amateur radio station is one of the most important skills you will ever develop. The reason is that most of the time you are going to be the only person available to do anything about a problem that crops up. After all, you are the owner and operator of the station and are likely to be the one who discovers the problem in the first place. Amateur radio is a technical activity, and it has always been my feeling that a healthy curiosity about what makes things work contributes to our ability to learn how to troubleshoot problems logically. Of course fixing a problem is different, since you may not have the necessary parts at hand, be able to climb a tower yourself, or be able to replace a part that you cannot see or reach inside a piece of equipment. Still, there is a great deal of satisfaction to be had in knowing how things work and being able to figure out why they are not working at the moment.

For example, the day before yesterday I noticed in a routine check of my HF antennas that the end-fed wire and the Windom were both delivering plenty of signals, but the ground-mounted Butternut vertical out in the backyard was dead silent. There was not even a trace of the usual noise or static. I know from experience that when an antenna returns this kind of result, there is usually a break somewhere between the transceiver and the antenna, usually a connector or feed line problem.

So, how does one proceed with this kind of a problem? A consideration is whether or not any changes have been made recently in the configuration of the equipment in the ham shack. In other words, if you have recently installed a new antenna tuner or replaced a switch or some other component in the antenna and feed line system, you might want to consider the possibility that things were either not connected correctly or that a connecting cable in the shack is intermittent. Frankly, the first thing to consider (for me, anyway) is some kind of operator error. Did I disconnect something to run a test and then forget about it? Did I forget to flip a switch? Am I sure I pressed the right button on the automatic antenna tuner? I tend to like to eliminate “indoor” problems like these before pulling on my boots and winter gear and trudging out into the backyard, which happens to be full of snow this time of year.

Since I have made no changes to my equipment configuration here in the ham shack, and have triple-checked that I am operating the automatic antenna tuner and rig correctly, I guess there is nothing for it but to make an expedition out to the backyard. I know from experience that most of my antenna problems in the past have been weather-related in one form or another. After all, the antennas and their components are outdoors and can be damaged by ice, moisture intrusion, wind, and ultraviolet exposure. Since this particular symptom of the vertical antenna suddenly going completely silent is not something that happened gradually, I am going to be looking for a break in the feed line, and my prime suspect is going to be at the feed point near the base of the vertical.

A check of what can be seen at the feedpoint shows the connection to be intact. Next, it is time for a continuity check, so out comes my 30+ year old clunker Radio Shack VOM. This thing has been on more troubleshooting trips than I can remember, including trips up towers and many Field Days! The way the vertical’s feedpoint is configured is going to result in a dead short at DC. This is normal, because there is a copper coil across the feedpoint between the center conductor of the coax and ground. Thus, the “normal” condition is for the ohm meter to read a DC short when connected between the center of the coax and the braid. I pulled the coax off the back of the LDG tuner and checked for the expected DC short. The coax was open! This indicates a most unfortunate problem, a break somewhere in the feed line system between the feed point and the ham shack. Further troubleshooting will have to wait until the ground is clear of snow and thawed because the feed line is buried underground and in January in Minnesota the ground is like concrete.

Sometimes troubleshooting is like that. What you have to do is logically narrow down the possibilities so that you can focus your efforts on the part of the system where the fault most likely lies. In some cases, circumstances or conditions will not permit you to troubleshoot to a final conclusion or make repairs until those conditions or circumstances change. So I guess I am without my vertical antenna unless I run a second feed line over the snow and out to the antenna. A better bet is probably just to switch all of my operations to the remaining two wire antennas and to make use of the two Handiham remote base stations from time to time.

Although this story will be continued once the snow melts and the ground thaws out, it does put me in mind of an exceptional job of troubleshooting done by one of the members of my college ham radio club decades ago. If I remember correctly, a Johnson Viking Ranger transmitter was not working properly. Several attempts by various club members to figure out what was going on were unsuccessful. Finally one of the members decided to really devote some serious time to the problem and trace it down once and for all. Believe it or not, the fault was a broken wire underneath the chassis. In those days point to point wiring between tube sockets was common. Vacuum tube equipment was failure prone, and the most likely culprit was always the tubes themselves. In this case, a wire had broken inside the insulation, making the problem difficult to spot. Perhaps this short length of insulated wire was defective when it was manufactured and repeated heating and cooling of the transmitter as it was turned on and turned off ultimately caused the wire to open up inside the insulating jacket. The point of this story is that things like this sometimes happen, even to some of the most seemingly reliable and simple components in a system. I always admire the way engineers and technicians at NASA troubleshoot their way through complicated systems and come up with elegant and effective solutions to problems no one ever expected.

Next week: I replace my Internet router and configure EchoLink port forwarding. Will I ever be on EchoLink again? Tune in and find out!

Welcome to the first Linux in the Ham Shack for the new year! 2011 is upon us and we wanted to present our listeners with a fantabulous new show. That’s what you’re going to get. We were able to entice the lead developer of FLDIGI, W1HKJ, to come on the program and give us his personal insights into this best-of-class Open Source amateur radio software.

Yes, we know we talk about FLDIGI a lot in our program. We try not to beat it to death. But if you use this program, there is so much information packed into this interview, you’re going to learn at least a dozen things you didn’t know about FLDIGI, even if you use it every day. So sit back, strap in, and join us on this thrill-packed ride into the dark and seedy innards of your favorite digital mode app. We were impressed; you will be too.

73 de The LHS Guys

Charles M0OXO laments the fact that England is 334th in the list of the most wanted 338 DXCC entities, in other words the fifth least wanted. Isn’t it a sad waste of a hobby not to mention the vast sums of money people spend on equipment and antennas if the main interest in making a contact is just to be able to tick off a new country? I guess that’s why I find DXing and DX blogs boring. I’d rather read about what people are building, new things that they are experimenting with or how far (even if it isn’t all that far) someone manages to work with a peanut whistle.

Many who know me in the New England area know I love to go to a park or an open field and play radio.  Often on the Appalachian trail or state or federal park.  Simple to do, tons of fun.  It is also a great opportunity to talk up radio for those that are curious.  When I operate, I often carry some brochures from the ARRL with my contact information so I can help them get in a class, if interested.

Field day, every time.  Go out, throw up your antenna in a tree and play.  It doesn’t get any simpler than that.  I’ve also worked the world on HF, 100 watts this way as well (OK, believe it or not, still no JA, but I’m working on it!!!).

Craig, VK3VCM has put up a great video (in HD too!!!) that goes over just how to set up and operate portable if you haven’t done so.  If you’ve been curious, this is a great introduction to portable HF operating, but also the new Kenwood TS-590.

I put all of my equipment in a go box and I’ll work on getting a post up with that rig setup soon.  I essentially plug in power and antenna and I’m off and running.

If you find any other great videos, post them below.

Big news today for Apple fans.  After years of speculation —  it’s here.  The Verizon iPhone. The cost?  $199 for the 16GB version.  $299 for the 32GB version.  Both require a contract, of course.  No word what the Verizon iPhone plans are going to cost or whether they’ll be different than other smartphone plans.

The new CDMA iPhone will be available to existing Verizon Wireless customers on February 3rd.  Everyone else will have to wait until February 10th.

Will you be switching?  Why or why not?

What are your favorite ham radio apps for iPhone/iPod Touch?