AmateurRadio.com

Behold… mechanical beauty

N3ZN ZN-QRP Iambic Paddle (sporting my new call sign)

I re-entered the amateur radio hobby in the summer of 2015 after a bit of a hiatus.  To get my General license in 1996 a Morse code proficiency test was required.  At that time I had purchased a cheap MFJ practice key and a used version of the ubiquitous Bencher BY-1 paddle.  My Bencher was in reasonable shape but I just never became comfortable with it.  It always felt a bit imprecise to me and I wasn’t happy with the width and size of its paddles.

Read the rest of this post

Richard Carpenter, AA4OO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from North Carolina, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

While the astronauts and cosmonauts on the International Space Station conduct experiments nearly 250 miles above earth, John Brier, KG4AKV, is on a mission of his own closer to home. The Raleigh, North Carolina ham hopes to fulfill a personal goal: have a voice QSO with a member of the ISS crew.

Brier hasn’t always been active since becoming licensed at age 15, but his interest was renewed two years ago after listening to a school radio contact through the ARISS program. Later, he successfully received a satellite image from the space station and began making contacts through SO-50, an easy-to-work voice satellite. He developed a keen interest in satellite communications, especially with the ISS.

“I listen to them talking to schools almost every month and I really like receiving the slow-scan TV images they send out a few times a year,” he says.

Brier has an active YouTube channel where he features videos of his satellite work. He also started a blog about communicating with the ISS, including hints for receiving slow-scan TV signals from space.

Even if he isn’t ultimately successful in making a two-way contact, he won’t be too disappointed. “I enjoy just receiving them, too,” Brier says.

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

What is the proper (and most efficient) technique for creating Morse code by hand, using a manual Morse code key? Ham radio operators find Morse code (and the ‘CW’ mode, or ‘Continuous Wave’ keying mode) very useful, even though Morse code is no longer required as part of the licensing process. Morse code is highly effective in weak-signal radio work. And, preppers love Morse code because it is the most efficient way to communicate when there is a major disaster that could wipe out the communications infrastructure.

While this military film is antique, the vintage information is timeless, as the material is applicable to Morse code, even today.

 

More about Morse code, at my website: http://cw.hfradio.org

Thank you for watching, commenting, and most of all, for subscribing. By subscribing, you will be kept in the loop for new videos and more… my YouTube Channel: https://YouTube.com/NW7US

See my Video Playlist for related Morse code vidoes:

 

 

 

 

Visit, subscribe: NW7US Radio Communications and Propagation YouTube Channel

It’s a call-in talk show about ham radio!Ham Talk LIVE! Episode 3
w/ Gary Pearce, KN4AQ
Ham Radio Now

Thursday, 3 March 2016
9:00 PM Eastern Time (02:00 UTC)

Listen to this episode LIVE (and to all previous episodes) in the player below:
[spreaker type=standard width=620px autoplay=false show_id=1607081]

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

The South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club has two meeting nights each month. The fourth Wednesday of each month is our "official" business meeting, where we take care of all the normal matters that come before any Amateur Radio club. 

                                                                    Designed by Dave Hackett KD2FSI

The first Wednesday of each month is our informal "Operating Night" meeting.  This tradition was instituted by our founding and current Club President, Marv K2VHW.  His idea was to have an evening set aside where the older members of the club could meet with the newer Amateur Radio ops and engage with them about some radio or operating related topic.


Marv has been down and out with some back troubles, so at our February meeting, Ron N2LCZ. our Recording Secretary, suggested that for the March operating night, that we should do an NPOTA activation. The Washington-Rochambeau National Historical Trail (TR23) runs right in front of our meeting place, the South Plainfield CERT Building, which is on the corner of Hamilton Boulevard and New Market Avenue - Hamilton Boulevard is part of the trail.

We are, quite literally, only about 25 feet or so from the roadway, and the Trail.  Our meeting place was originally a gasoline filling station that was converted by the South Plainfield Police Department into a satellite Community Policing Building.  When the SPPD took over the mantle of Emergency Management, they generously offered use of the building to the South Plainfield CERT/RACES team.  SPARC is allowed to use the building for its meetings.


So last night we got together to put NJ2SP on the air.  Dave KD2FSI set up some equipment, his Yaesu HF transceiver and ran some coax out to the screwdriver antenna on his van. Power was provided by a Werker deep cycle battery. We started out on 20 Meters, where unfortunately, we had a close to S9 noise level.  Even so, we made QSOs from the West coast to Suriname.

When 20 Meters dried up, we switched over to 40 Meters where the background noise level was slightly lower, but the incoming signals were much louder. And that's where the bulk of our 51 QSOs were made. We were busy for the better part of an hour.

The best part about it all was that neither Dave or I made the QSOs.  I sat there as a logger and "QSO Coach" (and control operator) while some of the other members of SPARC, who have no regular access to HF took over. It was not hard to tell that they had a blast and after one or two QSOs, they were behaving like HF veterans.

The high point of the evening was when a visiting YL sat down and took over the microphone.  I scribbled out a brief script for her, so she would know what to say and she took off and hit the ground running.  40 Meters seemed like it was quieting down, but as soon as her voice went over the air, the dam broke loose and we had another pileup on our hands. Lee Ann has visited our club a few times and is deciding whether or not she would like to pursue obtaining her own license.

I am willing to bet that last night sealed the deal.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!



Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

The South Plainfield Amateur Radio Club has two meeting nights each month. The fourth Wednesday of each month is our "official" business meeting, where we take care of all the normal matters that come before any Amateur Radio club. 

                                                                    Designed by Dave Hackett KD2FSI

The first Wednesday of each month is our informal "Operating Night" meeting.  This tradition was instituted by our founding and current Club President, Marv K2VHW.  His idea was to have an evening set aside where the older members of the club could meet with the newer Amateur Radio ops and engage with them about some radio or operating related topic.


Marv has been down and out with some back troubles, so at our February meeting, Ron N2LCZ. our Recording Secretary, suggested that for the March operating night, that we should do an NPOTA activation. The Washington-Rochambeau National Historical Trail (TR23) runs right in front of our meeting place, the South Plainfield CERT Building, which is on the corner of Hamilton Boulevard and New Market Avenue - Hamilton Boulevard is part of the trail.

We are, quite literally, only about 25 feet or so from the roadway, and the Trail.  Our meeting place was originally a gasoline filling station that was converted by the South Plainfield Police Department into a satellite Community Policing Building.  When the SPPD took over the mantle of Emergency Management, they generously offered use of the building to the South Plainfield CERT/RACES team.  SPARC is allowed to use the building for its meetings.


So last night we got together to put NJ2SP on the air.  Dave KD2FSI set up some equipment, his Yaesu HF transceiver and ran some coax out to the screwdriver antenna on his van. Power was provided by a Werker deep cycle battery. We started out on 20 Meters, where unfortunately, we had a close to S9 noise level.  Even so, we made QSOs from the West coast to Suriname.

When 20 Meters dried up, we switched over to 40 Meters where the background noise level was slightly lower, but the incoming signals were much louder. And that's where the bulk of our 51 QSOs were made. We were busy for the better part of an hour.

The best part about it all was that neither Dave or I made the QSOs.  I sat there as a logger and "QSO Coach" (and control operator) while some of the other members of SPARC, who have no regular access to HF took over. It was not hard to tell that they had a blast and after one or two QSOs, they were behaving like HF veterans.

The high point of the evening was when a visiting YL sat down and took over the microphone.  I scribbled out a brief script for her, so she would know what to say and she took off and hit the ground running.  40 Meters seemed like it was quieting down, but as soon as her voice went over the air, the dam broke loose and we had another pileup on our hands. Lee Ann has visited our club a few times and is deciding whether or not she would like to pursue obtaining her own license.

I am willing to bet that last night sealed the deal.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!



Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

It’s often been said that amateur radio is a hobby consisting of many sub-hobbies.  This is true when you consider the different modes we use (like RTTY, CW, PSK), technical endeavors like equipment design and building, special operating techniques like satellite and moonbounce, different bands each with their own characteristics and fans like LF, HF, VHF/UHF, and microwave, and activity based sub-hobbies like contesting and DXing.  It’s multidimensional and there is often overlap between the various sub-hobbies.

Unfortunately there’s a detrimental sub-hobby that’s been around a long time, perhaps as far back as when there was spark and a new mode called CW was emerging.  It’s complaining about what everyone else is doing or how they’re doing it.

I was reminded of this on an unnamed social networking site that starts with the letter F and rhymes with the word crook.  Perhaps you’ve been there.  A poster in an amateur radio group couldn’t make sense out of people sending and receiving CW using computers, and quipped that operating this way was taking the “radio out of radio”.  Never mind that you can’t do this sort of operating without a radio.  The most vocal complainers in amateur radio tend to rant about amateurs who don’t operate CW, so it was ironic that this complaint was about people actually operating CW but not in a way that the poster and others like to do it.  As expected, the discussion was lively with many people lamenting over this operating method, and a lesser few defending it.

Any time I look an amateur radio activity, I ask a few basic questions:

1. Is someone getting enjoyment out of it?
2. Is it not harming anyone else and not detracting from anyone’s enjoyment of the hobby?
3. Does it positively reflect amateur radio, both within the amateur radio community and the general public, or at least not reflect negatively on the hobby?
4. Is it spectrally and resource efficient, and reasonable from an engineering perspective?
5. Is it consistent with the spirit and nature of amateur radio?

If you can answer YES to all of these questions, I see no reason to complain about the activity.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned over the years about amateur radio, it’s that if you’re more concerned about what others are doing, and not what you’re doing, and having fun doing it, it’s a sure fire way to be unhappy in amateur radio.

Anthony, K3NG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com.