AmateurRadio.com

How many friendships have you developed through ham radio? If your answer is like most hams, it is many, probably even too numerous to recall all of them.

Just recently I’ve had some happenings that caused me to stop and ponder this very question. When I think about it, the number of people I’ve met and developed close friendships with is countless, spanning both time and space.

Several of those friendships started back when I was in Junior high school. Ron, K8OEY, and I met through an older ham, Leo, W8AJM, who knew both of us kids, and he knew we were both interested in electronics and were “ham wanta be’s.” So, Leo invited us out to his place so we could meet and get acquainted. From that meeting, Ron and I became best friends; we were inseparable. Leo was our Elmer. He first gave me my novice exam and a few months later he gave Ron his test too. Ron and I built all kinds of electronic circuits and kits, and yes, we even blew-up a few too. We remained friends over the years right up to Ron’s early death a few years ago.

In my 7th grade year, I switched from the public school system to the Michigan School for the Blind (MSB), located in Lansing Michigan and about 75 miles from my hometown of Sturgis. So, I lived on the campus of MSB most of the time, except for vacations. I lost most of my eyesight at age 8 from a pretty rare illness called Stevens – Johnson syndrome. I still had some useable sight, but I was really struggling in school because of my poor eyesight, and the medical and educational experts felt it was best if I switched to the School for the Blind. I was strongly opposed to this change; after all, my friends since kindergarten were all in Sturgis, and I didn’t know anyone at that “stupid school for the blind!” Besides, I wasn’t blind! This is an important part of my story because almost immediately I met several other kids at my new school who were also interested in electronics and becoming hams. Soon, I was fitting right in with my new pals, my “ham wanta be” buddies. We formed a study group led by one of the guy’s Dad. His name was George Woods, but we all just called him Woody. Woody and his son, Gary, lived near the MSB campus; so, it was easy to get over to their house. Woody was ahead of the rest of us, and he took and passed his novice exam first. Then, he held study sessions a couple times a week in the evenings to help the rest of us prepare for our Novice tests.

We all studied hard, the electronic theory, the rules and regulations, and oh, yes, the code. For most of the guys, the code was the easy part. Later, some of the guys developed code speeds of 40 words per minute and even faster. Over a few months we all passed our novice license exams and were officially real hams, no longer just ham wanta be’s! There was Ron Iser, KN8KLR, his Brother, Ronnie, KN8MEW; Ken Filter, KN8KIC; Gary Wood, KN8HLX; me, KN8HSY, and our Elmer, Woody, KN8HBX. We got to be really good friends, a tight little group. Woody let us use his Hallicrafters S-88 receiver and Heathkit AT-1 transmitter, running all of about 20 watts if we were lucky. Eventually, we all got our own gear. Together, we had quite a variety of receivers and transmitters, a Heathkit DX-40, Hallicrafters SX-71, Globe Scout, some military surplus gear like the BC-348, ARC-5’s, and even some homebrew gear. We strung antennas out our windows, and even tried loading up bed springs and window screens. As kids, we were up for trying anything, which also explains how we ended up blowing up a few pieces of gear too. Those old PI output networks would attempt to tune more than what was good for them! Those days were back in the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, and many of us who were members of that little group are still friends to this day, well over 50 years later.

After high school, we all went our separate ways, but we still stayed in contact on the air and through the grapevine we developed as graduates of MSB. I went on to attend Eastern Michigan University and then, into the business world, and eventually on the graduate school at Arizona State University for my MBA and Ph.D. degrees. All along the way I met new ham friends. Ham radio was the one unifying thread. No matter where you go if you are a ham, you can almost always find other hams who quickly become your friends.

My first professorial position was at the University of Texas at Arlington. Once again, I didn’t know anyone in Arlington. I went to a local Radio Shack store and ask if anyone was a ham or if they knew any hams in the area. Bingo! One of The fellows working in the store was a ham, and the customer he was helping was a ham. I introduced myself with my name and call, W7GPF. W7GPF was my call from Arizona, and I just moved to Texas and hadn’t filed that famous or infamous FCC Form 610 yet to change my address and get assigned a new call for the 5th call district. Anyway, we immediately struck up a lively conversation over something, probably antennas or the like. Anyway, One of the guys, Vern (I don’t remember Vern’s call.) invited me to their next ham club meeting. As it turned out, Vern and I were even neighbors; he lived just down the street from where I had just purchased a house. Vern invited me to attend the local ham club meeting with him. I was able, then, to meet lots of the other hams in the area. One fellow in particular came right up to me and said: “Ron, I’m Rick. I’m not a ham yet, but I’m working on it.” That fellow turned out to be Rick Hamilton who is now WB5VQW, and Rick and I have been ham buddies now for almost 40 years. We’ve gone to hamfest together, shopped the surplus stores together, and just this week Rick and his wife, Karen, who’s also a ham (WB5UFM), met with my wife and I to share some quality time together and talk ham radio and about the “good ol’ days.” Rick and Karen invited my wife, Palma, and me up to their FMCA’s Amateur Radio Chapter’s Rally/campout where I met up with several other ol’ ham friends from my days back in Arlington. We sat around the table and talked about how Rick and I managed to burn up something in one of my rigs and had to take it over to Bob to repair, and there Bob was sitting across the table from me. It was like those good ol’ days all over again!

A few years later, I moved from Texas to Louisiana where I accepted a position as Chair of the Marketing Department at Loyola University in New Orleans. As we were approaching New Orleans and getting close enough that I could hit the repeaters, I dropped my call on the one I was told was the most active repeater. Right away I have Wd5DWO come back to me. It was Althea. She welcomed us to New Orleans, and offered to meet us and help us get acquainted with the area. We actually met for lunch, and Althea became an immediate good friend. Over the next few weeks, she introduced us to many other hams that also became good friends.

A very similar thing happened when we moved to Kentucky, and I joined the faculty at Western Kentucky University. I was able to immediately connect up with the local hams here in Bowling Green, and they became our first friends, helping us get settled, answering questions about the area, and inviting me to join the local ham club, the Kentucky Colonels Amateur Radio Club. I’m also a member of the Princeton, Kentucky Amateur Radio Club. The guys in both clubs helped me get up my antennas and have become some of my best friends.

As you read this, I’m sure you can reminisce over very similar experiences. Like me, you’ve probably developed lots of good friends; some are probably even your very best friends and some you’ve known over many years. Whether you are a rag chewer, a DX chaser, someone who enjoys participating in nets, or a builder/experimenter, you can always find other hams that share your interest with whom you can develop close friendships.

Dr. Ron Milliman is a special contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Kentucky, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Check out the updated RadioKitGuide.com HERE

I now have 64 different sources listed.

Sorry it’s been so long since the last update.

 

Additions:

Re-Adding: 4 State QRP Group which got lost in a previous edit (sorry guys!)

AE9RB (Peaberry SDR)

Hans Summers (Ultimate QRSS Kit)

Jackson Harbor Press

Third Planet Solar (HW8 add-ons)

Midnight Design (SDR Cube)

Peebles Originals

R3KBO

SOTABEAMS

Steven Weber

Lots of changes too! Too many to list. -NEW- items or changed items are marked as such. I also did a general cleanup. After all of the moving around between editors, and Blogger, and Word things were looking a bit messy. Hopefully the next version will be more of what I originally wanted and be more database style and searchable.  I’m still verifying prices so they may not all be correct.

If you know of something that is missing please let me know in the comments.

RadioKitGuide.com

–Neil W2NDG

Neil Goldstein, W2NDG, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New York, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

and creating more work for a QRP friend, Steve Fletcher G4GXL, over at QRP-ARCI (as if he doesn't have enough to do already - sorry, Steve!).

But did you know that if you're a paid up member of QRP-ARCI, that you can get QRP Quarterly as a .pdf file, sent to you?  Yes. you can! And it's real easy to do - here's the actual snippet from the QRP-ARCI Website:


Personally, I think this is fantastic and I offer kudos to Steve and QRP-ARCI.  I already get QST, CQ and the K9YA Telegraph in digital format, and now I can get the "Best of the Best" in digital format, too.

I know a lot of you prefer to have actual paper in your hands, but I like being able to have all four publications easily with me on my tablet. It takes up a lot less physical space, and I don't have to store back issues after the fact. And I've read so many books on my kindle and via the kindle app on other devices that swiping, enlarging, and dragging motions are almost like second nature to me now.

I suppose the fact that we save some trees in the process is a bonus too. Although, selfishly, I'm all in for the convenience! As far as storage goes, I have a dedicated USB memory stick where I already store back issues of the K9YA Telegraph. There's plenty of space on there for issues of QRP Quarterly.

Yes, I know there are downsides to digital formats of magazines. Of course, you need "juice" for the device's battery, and it's not as easy (or possible) to share or donate old issues to libraries or friends. But again, IMHO, these "cons" are minor compared to the "pros".  Whether we like it or not, it's more economical for the providers not to have to purchase paper, ink, binding, postage, etc. I would never say that actual paper publications will disappear forever, but this is (to use an overused phrase) "the wave of the future". And besides, if you're as old as I am (or older) who can forget the astronauts in "2001: A Space Odyssey" reading their news on a tablet like device.  Back in the 60s, when the movie came out, we all thought that would be so neat. That time is now, baby!

On another topic, remember how I mentioned in yesterday's post about FOBB that the weather forecast for Sunday would probably change between yesterday and then? It already has! Now it's looking like only clouds with no rain forecasted until well after FOBB 2015 is in the books. Looking better and better for heading out to Washington Rock State Park.

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].

So many projects, so little time! I have to keep reminding myself that amateur radio is a hobby and not a profession. I’ve got three main projects in the hopper.

My experimentation with AREDN continues to be quite fun. I was able to join the beta team, and I got to flip roles from my day job in Information Technology. Instead of being the project manager, I was a dreaded software tester! The AREDN team put together a thorough set of test cases. Running these resulted in finding a number of bugs, some minor  and some pretty good ones. There are some really neat new features, the most exciting being the new ham only channels – frequencies that aren’t shared with public or commercial users. I’m going to use the software on two $95 off-the-shelf commercial radios to create a 15km link to provide data to a homebrew D-STAR repeater. I really love using amateur radio to solve other amateur radio challenges! If successful, I’m planning on introducing AREDN to our area’s emergency management leadership. Being a volunteer firefighter, I’ve already got an “in” to talk with that team. Bringing them a solution they don’t already have, and one that is already working, will be interesting.

On HF, I’ve got a 160m antenna I need to get up. I keep hearing that I’m missing out by never going below 80m. My buddy Fred, KC9REG, gave me a 160m antenna that I still haven’t gotten up. I need to get this done before winter!

Finally I need to get my Icom 2820 installed in a new-to-me truck. I haven’t installed a radio in such a new vehicle before. There sure is a lot of plastic molding now! After reading numerous blogs and Ford truck forums, I’ve got a plan. Surprisingly I found that there is a simple way to get wires from the engine compartment into the cab. And there’s just as easy of a way to get coax from the bed into the cab. We’ve got an upcoming boating vacation, and I’ll want the radio for the trip. This is one of those must-do projects!

All in all a fun time for me and ham radio.

Michael Brown, KG9DW, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Illinois, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

So many projects, so little time! I have to keep reminding myself that amateur radio is a hobby and not a profession. I’ve got three main projects in the hopper.

My experimentation with AREDN continues to be quite fun. I was able to join the beta team, and I got to flip roles from my day job in Information Technology. Instead of being the project manager, I was a dreaded software tester! The AREDN team put together a thorough set of test cases. Running these resulted in finding a number of bugs, some minor  and some pretty good ones. There are some really neat new features, the most exciting being the new ham only channels – frequencies that aren’t shared with public or commercial users. I’m going to use the software on two $95 off-the-shelf commercial radios to create a 15km link to provide data to a homebrew D-STAR repeater. I really love using amateur radio to solve other amateur radio challenges! If successful, I’m planning on introducing AREDN to our area’s emergency management leadership. Being a volunteer firefighter, I’ve already got an “in” to talk with that team. Bringing them a solution they don’t already have, and one that is already working, will be interesting.

On HF, I’ve got a 160m antenna I need to get up. I keep hearing that I’m missing out by never going below 80m. My buddy Fred, KC9REG, gave me a 160m antenna that I still haven’t gotten up. I need to get this done before winter!

Finally I need to get my Icom 2820 installed in a new-to-me truck. I haven’t installed a radio in such a new vehicle before. There sure is a lot of plastic molding now! After reading numerous blogs and Ford truck forums, I’ve got a plan. Surprisingly I found that there is a simple way to get wires from the engine compartment into the cab. And there’s just as easy of a way to get coax from the bed into the cab. We’ve got an upcoming boating vacation, and I’ll want the radio for the trip. This is one of those must-do projects!

All in all a fun time for me and ham radio.

Michael Brown, KG9DW, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Illinois, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

This will be a very brief blog update.  The last time I updated my blog site was soon after the first of the year.  I provided (or tried to provide) an explanation to my long absence both on the bands, the blogosphere and the podcast airwaves.  I’m not going to go rehash that as you can read that posting here.    However, one thing I did mention in that posting was amateur radio was by no means the cause of my grief, it (among a few other things) just reminded me of it. 

Anyway, last night I had a bit of free time and decided to go down to my basement ham shack and switch on the computers, switch on the radios and see what was happening on the bands.  My Yaesu FT-897 was parked on 14.076 (right where I had left it almost a year ago) and much to my surprise everything still worked.  After syncing my PC clock (it was some 4+ minutes off) I fired up HRD, launched the JT65-HF software and the waterfall began filling up.  It was a good feeling answering my first CQ in almost a year. 

I’m not sure just how active I will be in the coming weeks or months.  My intention is to enjoy the hobby and see where things lead me.  Regarding my podcast (The Practical Amateur Radio Podcast), I really don’t want it to just fade away.   While it has been 14+ months since I released an episode, the site still gets a lot of traffic and I occasionally still receive emails asking what is going on.  But before PARP ever returns, I need to get engaged back into the hobby.  I’ve always said I was only at my very best podcasting about amateur radio when I was active and involved.

In closing, I want to thank those of you who wrote to me over the past year.  The words of encouragement really helped.  I can’t remember who told me this, but one of the comments or emails I received just simply told me that amateur radio would still be here when I was ready to come back.  Yep…that’s right! 

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK  aka Jerry

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].

There has been a lot of discussion lately regarding the upcoming ARRL's review of DXCC requirements regarding, amongst other things, the use of  "remote" stations. It seems that most folks are either dead against them or all for them, with little middle-ground. But one thing is for certain ... remotes are here to stay and are growing by leaps and bounds.

The biggest controversy seems to be whether DX worked via a remote should count the same as DX worked from one's home station. Many think that DX worked via a remote should still be countable for your DXCC credits but should be in a separate class or have a separate endorsement indicating such ... others see no separation is needed.

I guess a lot depends on how one views the DXCC program overall. Some see it as a competition against other stations while others view it is a personal challenge for one's own satisfaction and the only competition is with one's self.

For example, if a New England 160m amateur spends many years perfecting his system and struggles for those hard-fought Asian or South Pacific contacts, should these contacts be held in the same regard as the New Englander's 160m neighbour who works all of the Asian-Pacific with ease via a remote station on the west coast? Should both DXCC certificates be the same? There is also the question of remote stations "for rent" and the overall ethics or "legality" of such within the amateur radio service.

The only direct exposure I have had to remote station operation is hearing what was clearly an east-coast remote being operated by an amateur on the west coast, while working Europeans. No problem with that, however, the operator was giving his location as CN87, Washington state ... clearly deceptive, as many Europeans were delighted to think that they had just worked a new state in "7-land"!

I suppose that no matter how strict the "rules" for remote operations eventually become, there will always be those willing to play by their own rules, as is human nature.

The genie is out of the bottle and there is no going back. I think the ARRL has some tough decisions to make ... hopefully they will be well-thought out and not based solely on financial interests.
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].