Ham College episode 49 is now available for download.
General Amateur Radio Exam part 20. More on modulation. Coaxial cable loss explored.

1:07:03

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George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at [email protected].

In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Edmund Spicer M0MNG and Ed Durrant DD5LP to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is Peanut the Dstar App.

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• Student Promotes Ham Radio
• Bloomington South School on the Air
• Public Consultation on Electromagnetic Field Regulations
• PocketRxTx v3 Released
• Geoffrey Starks Sworn in as FCC Commissioner
• Nominate for CWops Award

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to our latest edition of The Weekender. In this episode, the hosts discuss the usual blend of hedonism mixed with some upcoming amateur radio contests and special event stations, interesting Linux distributions, open-source events and news, interesting discussion and much more. Thank you for being a listener. We appreciate each and every one of you!

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

courtesy: NOAA

Last weekend’s CLE240 saw mediocre propagation for North America and European listeners alike.





It seems that our monthly CLE schedule continues to be synced with the Sun’s monthly rotational period that has been regularly lining us up with the same massive coronal hole, elevating earth-directed solar wind speeds now for several months.

Several CLE participants in the USA commented on the lack of any propagation into BC, further fueling my long-held belief that BC seems particularly sensitive to any geomagnetic activity in the auroral zone to our north. The auroral activity always seems to dip further to the south here for some anomalous reason, as listeners just a few hundred miles to the south or southeast see far less absorption than is observed here.

With a few exceptions, the main effect of these conditions is to largely kill the normal east-west propagation path and just allow single-hop signals from the south or the SE/NW to dominate. Typically, the path to the Pacific is not affected and can often be enhanced.

As a side observation, this past weekend was also the CQWW 160m DX contest and, as one left-coaster commented, conditions were the “worst seen in 10 years”. One would expect to see much better conditions and a much quieter Sun at this point in the solar cycle!

With fingers crossed for better propagation during the next CLE, here is what was logged over the three-night listening event from my location here in BC’s Southern Gulf Islands using a Perseus SDR and an Inverted-L antenna resonated to 400 kHz:

26 05:00  385     QV            Yorkton, SK, CAN
26 07:00  385     OCC         Yakutat, ALS
26 09:00  385     MR           Pacific Grove, CA, USA
26 09:00  385     EHM         Cape Newenham, ALS
27 07:00  385     CPZ          Chaparrosa Ranch, TX, USA
26 07:00  386     SYF           St. Francis, KS, USA
26 09:00  386     HAU         Helena, MT, USA
26 06:00  388     OK           Preston, OK, USA
26 07:00  388     MM          Fort Mc Murray, AB, CAN
26 07:00  388     JW           Pigeon, AB, CAN
26 06:00  388     CDX         Somerset, KY, USA
26 06:00  389     YWB         Kelowna, BC, CAN
26 04:00  389     TW           Twin Falls, ID, USA
26 07:00  389     CSB          Cambridge, NE, USA
26 07:00  390     HBT          Sand Point, ALS
26 11:00  390     AES          Northway, ALS
26 04:00  391     TK            Telkwa, BC, CAN
26 11:00  391     GXD          Nacogdoches, TX, USA
26 07:00  391     EEF           Sisters Island, ALS
26 06:00  391     DDP          Dorado, PTR
26 09:00  392     ZFN           Tulita, NT, CAN
26 05:00  392     PNA           Wenz, WY, USA
26 05:00  392     ML            Charlevoix, QC, CAN
26 08:00  392     FMZ          Fairmont, NE, USA
26 10:00  393     UKS           Kosrae, FSM
26 04:00  394     RWO         Kodiak, ALS
26 07:00  394     DQ            Dawson Creek, BC, CAN
26 07:00  395     YL             Lynn Lake, MB, CAN
26 04:00  395     ULS           Ulysses, KS, USA
26 07:00  395     5V             Drumheller, AB, CAN
26 07:00  396     YPH           Inukjuak, QC, CAN
26 05:00  396     CRS          Corsicana, TX, USA
26 05:00  396     CMJ          Ketchikan, ALS
26 07:00  397     ZSS            Saskatoon, SK, CAN
27 12:00  397     SB             San Bernardino, CA, USA
26 10:00  398     YOD         Cold Lake, AB, CAN
26 06:00  398     3D            Cumberland House, SK, CAN
26 11:00  399     ZHD         Dryden, ON, CAN
26 11:00  399     SRI           Pribilof, ALS

A summary of results for all participants can be found here, at the ndblist info site.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Welcome to the 268th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack! In this episode, we discuss several amateur radio, Open Source and Linux in the Ham Shack-y topics. Those include a special call sign prefix for Australia, the Amateur Radio Parity Act (again), vulnerabilities in APT, API vs. IP, PJON, Pat and so much more. Thank you for tuning in. We love you all.

73 de The LHS Crew

Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at [email protected].

This post builds on the RPi Zero W Cloudlog installation that I did in December with a RPi 3 that was destined to be used in the shack for something. I have long used a laptop to do most of the heavy lifting but have moved most of the clever stuff on to individual machines. The line up is growing but is a bit all over the place. I have….

• A RPi3 as a VHF SatNOGS station that runs nicely but needs a proper home (antenna ia indoors and a lash up)
• A RPi3 as a UHF SatNOGS station that is subject to loads of noise at the moment which needs a cure. It also needs a better home
• A RPi2 as a Flight Radar receiver

A spare RPi3 that was used as a media player in the lounge. Now redundant really as tech has moved on. This needed a new function. So I thought I would bring it into service as a shack server. Trouble is I have no expereince of servers and even the word makes me quiver. I tend to smile, nod politely (It’s a British thing) then retreat carefully to avoid uncomfortable conversation. Anyway it’s time to take the plunge a bit further. I have after all mastered the Cloudlog thing.

What distribution?

Normally I would run straight to Rasbian, but this time I made a detour through to DietPi. It’s a lightweight distribution that supports a few bits of software that are simple to install and configure. Perfect for the lazy, like me. The game is pretty much the same s every Raspberry Pi installation. Find a suitable SD card, burn the image to it and start the machine up. For this the recommendation is to hook up a screen and keyboard for the first bit until it’s all running then you can use SSH or whichever is your preferred method for getting into the machine once it is up and running.

 

What software?

Well Cloudlog for a start. That needed the webserver reinstalling. Guess what? DietPi had one. check the box and that gets installed. Then it was a simple fact of getting Cloudlog reinstalled. Job done and it took a lot less time this go. (need to find a log for this).

Next up was Pi-hole. I’m ok with a bit of advertising, people have got to make a living I suppose but I feel like I’m swimming in a sea of bollocks (figuratively of course, I couldn’t really visualise this literally and don’t want too). Pi-hole claims to reduce the adverts to a more normal level and stops my browser looking like a version of the $1m dollar website (if you can remember that). Something has got to change. Installation was again more simple that you might imagine. Check the box and let the installer do its thing. As I had no idea what I was doing I used the default installation but made the error of not pointing my DNS server to the installation in my router settings. Don’t forget to do that otherwise it won’t do a thing.

There is a nice dashboard that gets filled with clever stuff. Bottom line is that there are already fewer ads on all my devices. Ace!

So what happens now?

Not much really. If you would like to have a go with a really lightweight distro for your raspberry pi (or other sbc – they support all sorts) then give it a go. The easy installation of software make a big difference for dullards like me and avoids time wasting.

I have thought about plugin in a RTL-SDR as a server but don’t really have a need at the moment. Perhaps something for the PiKon telescope now that I have got the lens. We’ll see how the thing goes. One thing I would like is a really simlpe website that does one thing on a button press, but that is a whole new game and perhaps another post.

I’m going to start planning my SOTA activations now

Alex Hill, G7KSE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cumbria, UK. Contact him at [email protected].

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.