AmateurRadio.com

 This morning I received this email from KK4HSX saying that (certainly in the USA) Amazon is already selling wifi connected slow cookers called “Crock Pots”. Not sure if this is a stateside generic term.

It’s already here. Behold,the Crock Pot you can monitor and control with you phone.

http://www.amazon.com/Crock-Pot-Wifi-Enabled-6-Quart-Cooker-SCCPWM600-V1/dp/B00IPEO02C#

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Landwade was the site of my first “over the horizon” optical tests. The tests were successful, but predate my stroke by some time. I remember well being surprised at the reception when “on beam”.

We go here each year about this time for a delightful walk of about 1.5km calling at the small private church (locked these days). The church is surrounded by seas of snowdrops and aconites at this time of year. Landwade is very quiet at all times. It is in Suffolk but was in Cambridgeshire until 1994. It has been occupied since Roman times, but consists of a few farms, a hall and the odd cottage these days.

I have updated one of my other blogs.
See http://eachurches.blogspot.co.uk/ .

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

I’m back up and running on HF after getting purchasing a very lightly used KX3 from Elecraft to replace my smoked radio! The radio arrived last Wednesday and I was back on the air that night. I’ve made a few casual contacts using various digital modes. I even worked K1N late in the week with 12 watts with CW on 20M. While not truly QRP, it does show that you don’t need a kilowatt to bust a pileup!

Also a notable contact was with KN0WCW/2 – that’s KNOW CW – the club call for the FISTS CW Club NA Chapter. Cody was the operator of the night from 2 land. I was slightly embarrassed even answering his call…my CW is rookie level at best, even with the great keyer on the KX3. I couldn’t get the /2 to come out right no matter what I did! Cody hung in there with me and we had a nice QSO. I didn’t keep him too long so he could log some more. Good job there Cody!

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

An amateur band at 40MHz would be really useful as I suspect the F2 MUF has been in this region several times in the last few years. There are a very few beacons around 40MHz (UK and Denmark only I believe) but wouldn’t it be good to have even 100kHz around this frequency? Sadly it is very unlikely, but I would happily lose 100kHz at the top of 10m in exchange.   It would also be a very useful Es band.

Somehow I can’t see this happening, more is the pity.  The world of radio science would really benefit. This would have been so much more useful than 146-147MHz recently released to UK amateurs by NoV.  I know a handful of UK amateurs are trying narrowband DTV but the 2m band is mainly Japanese “black boxes” and is mostly white noise in most areas.

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

Steam coming off the water down at the lake

The little motor in the antenna

Today is supposed to be one of the coldest days this winter and up to this point we have had some very cold days! This morning I went out to get our food shopping done and going from the car to the market it was so cold it took your breath away. We live in a condo and in the underground garage the temp was -7C, most of the time it's well above 0C but not today. The temp this morning without the windchill was -22C and the weather is forecasting later later today with the windchill it  will drop to around -40C!! Today is a good time to stay indoors and play radio. The MFJ 1788 seems to have no problem in this cold weather. As a matter of fact the colder the weather be better the SWR, the little motor that operates the large capacitor has no problems in this weather. This afternoon I'm hanging out on 20m at the QRP watering hole of 14.060 calling CQ and listening. I was calling on 15m and it really did not seem like the band was open I then moved up to 20m. Since I was calling CQ I checked the Reverse Beacon Network and noticed that on 15m I was spotted by F5MUX from France. This is the first spot EVER for me from my new location being spotted  outside of the U.S. Well it's getting late in the afternoon and I was skunked on the bands today…..oh well maybe later this evening!
Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Click for bigger image.

The Tenner is a very simple CW rig for 10m. It produces about 500mW output and has worked across the Atlantic on many occasions. Offset RX-TX seems to work out at about right, although no special circuitry is employed. This simple circuit just works. Although I used an “at hand” SBL1, any double balanced mixer is likely to be OK. Although I did not try it, a homebrew DBM would be fine.

http://homepage.ntlworld.com/lapthorn/tenner.htm

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

AmateurLogic.TV Episode 75 is now available for download.

Building the Northwest Digital Radio DV3000 D-Star Hot Spot. A new device with new capabilities. Tommy and George’s Radio Shack bargain shopping. Capital City Hamfest Go Kit competition, JLO and Don Wilbanks. Peter installs Cinnamon Linux.

1:15:05 of ALTV Fun

Download
YouTube

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].