AmateurRadio.com

If you want to spark a conversation at your next social event, ask everyone the proper name for this symbol: #. Most North Americans will probably say pound sign or perhaps number sign. It helps to have an international audience, since a person from the UK will likely call it the hash symbol. Lately, the world of Twitter (and other social media) has made extensive use of # to tag keywords, referring to it as the hash mark used to create hashtags. A musician might claim that it is the sharp symbol from musical notation but closer examination reveals that the sharp symbol is quite different.

The AT&T engineers working on the original DTMF system adopted the name Octothorpe for this symbol. There are various explanations and anecdotes that have developed over the years concerning how this happened. Various forms of spelling show up in the literature (octatherp, octothorp, etc.). Doug Kerr’s story is particularly interesting and available on the internet (see below). There are US Patents that use the word “octothorp” to refer to the # symbol. Patent number 3920926 uses “octothorp” for # and “sextile or asterisk” for the * symbol. The term sextile never caught on at all.

For amateur radio usage (North America bias), I hear mostly pound for # and star for *. I suspect that will not change any time soon.

– Bob K0NR

Wikipedia entry for the number sign (#):  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Number_sign

The Symbol on the “Pound” or “Number” Key (#) is Also Called an Octothorpe

The ASCII Character “Octatherp”, by Doug Kerr

The post Don’t Pound My Octothorpe appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Above is a table that was made for me by Bert PA1B his blog can be found here .Shortly after reading my QRPp WSPR blog post Bert sat down collected my data and made the above table. It shows the calculated lowest possible power in milliwatts. Bert explained to me that the "calculated" lowest power, is the power that could be used (by my dinky antenna setup) to be received with an SNR of -29dB. From the above table it would seem that the 100mW's of power I was using for some contacts could had been considered QRO power! Bert thanks very much for your time and effort and bringing to light the power of QRPp.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Above is a table that was made for me by Bert PA1B his blog can be found here .Shortly after reading my QRPp WSPR blog post Bert sat down collected my data and made the above table. It shows the calculated lowest possible power in milliwatts. Bert explained to me that the "calculated" lowest power, is the power that could be used (by my dinky antenna setup) to be received with an SNR of -29dB. From the above table it would seem that the 100mW's of power I was using for some contacts could had been considered QRO power! Bert thanks very much for your time and effort and bringing to light the power of QRPp.
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Above is a table that was made for me by Bert PA1B his blog can be found here .Shortly after reading my QRPp WSPR blog post Bert sat down collected my data and made the above table. It shows the calculated lowest possible power in milliwatts. Bert explained to me that the "calculated" lowest power, is the power that could be used (by my dinky antenna setup) to be received with an SNR of -29dB. From the above table it would seem that the 100mW's of power I was using for some contacts could had been considered QRO power!
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

  As the long, dog-days of summer begin to come to an end it marks one of my favorite operating activities and that is the Colorado QSO Party.  While I’m not a native to the Centennial State, I am always proud to represent Colorado and this year marks the 140th anniversary of statehood.

The 2016 Colorado QSO Party takes place on  Saturday, 3 September beginning at 0400 UTC (7 AM to 10 PM MDT).  I have a few mid morning commitments which I need to take care of, but KDØBIK should be on the air shortly after the lunch hour. 

Perhaps it is naïve to anticipate better band conditions for next Saturday.  After all…..

But I for one will be giving it a solid effort from the basement ham shack located in grid square DM79np.  I hope to work you in the 2016 Colorado QSO Party. 

Until then…

73 de KDØBIK

P.S.  Episode 71 of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast will release Saturday, 27 August.  Thank you for listening!

Jerry Taylor, KD0BIK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. He is the host of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast. Contact him at [email protected].

  As the long, dog-days of summer begin to come to an end it marks one of my favorite operating activities and that is the Colorado QSO Party.  While I’m not a native to the Centennial State, I am always proud to represent Colorado and this year marks the 140th anniversary of statehood.

The 2016 Colorado QSO Party takes place on  Saturday, 3 September beginning at 0400 UTC (7 AM to 10 PM MDT).  I have a few mid morning commitments which I need to take care of, but KDØBIK should be on the air shortly after the lunch hour. 

Perhaps it is naïve to anticipate better band conditions for next Saturday.  After all…..

But I for one will be giving it a solid effort from the basement ham shack located in grid square DM79np.  I hope to work you in the 2016 Colorado QSO Party. 

Until then…

73 de KDØBIK

P.S.  Episode 71 of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast will release Saturday, 27 August.  Thank you for listening!

Jerry Taylor, KD0BIK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. He is the host of the Practical Amateur Radio Podcast. Contact him at [email protected].

Trevor Holyoak, KD7GHI, grew up in a house full of homemade gadgets that his dad made including clocks, a TV, and radios. He learned basic electronics from him, and practiced on a 150-in-one kit from Radio Shack.

“I watched him do CW and string wire antennas across the yard, and so I was aware of ham radio at a young age,” he said. “He built our first home computer, a Sinclair ZX81, from a kit and that got me started down a path that I’m still on today.”

Holyoak is a professional computer programmer and began creating Android apps on the side a few years ago.

“I got the idea to create the Ham Radio Podcasts app because I had already built a couple of other podcast apps for specific interests, and I discovered that there are a bunch of great amateur radio podcasts out there,” said Holyoak. “I put them all together in an app that makes it easy to listen to them. You can stream the episodes as you listen, or you can download them and listen to them later when you don’t have a data connection.”

A few of the twenty featured podcasts include 100 Watts and a Wire, ARRL’s The Doctor is In, Everything Ham Radio, Ham Nation, Ham Radio 2.0, Ham Radio 360, Ham Talk Live, and HamRadioNow.

Like many hams, Holyoak’s involvement in ham radio throughout his life has waxed and waned. “After a few years I became inactive, although I still kept a radio on hand in case of emergency,” he said.

It wasn’t until last year, when he was asked him to spearhead an emergency communications effort in his local area that he finally became active again. He is now very active and is currently studying for the General test. He purchased an all-band, all-mode base station and was recently elected as an officer for his local club.

“Since I’m currently a Technician, I mostly have been active on 2m and 70cm FM, although I’ve also been dabbling in SSB on 6m and trying to figure out how to reach someone on 10m with a end-fed long wire antenna,” he said. “I’m very interested in getting into digital modes on HF once I get my General license.”

Listening to the popular ham radio podcasts has been an easy way for him to get back up to speed quickly and learn about new aspects of the hobby.

“Personally, I most enjoy the podcasts that are in a particular technical subject that I’d like to learn more about,” he said. “Some of my favorites are ARRL’s The Doctor is In, Everything Ham Radio, and Ham Radio 360.”

The app is available free (ad-supported) on Google Play:
Ham Radio Podcasts

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