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Who’s up for some AmateurLogic.TV streaming Thursday evening. Tommy and George will be putting the Dayton Episode together. Begins around 6PM CDT, 2300 UTC.
The show won’t be released until next month, but you can get an advanced viewing as we put it together.
The stream is live now. Watch it here live:

Chat room is at www.amateurlogic.tv/chat

I’ve always enjoyed playing about with time. Accurate time is not really a fascination but I do like a clock to tell the time. The MSF 60khz time signal is one source and I have played about with that system with an Arduino and it works well, when there is a good signal for a whole minute. GPS time has always been a bit of a thing for me because you can set it to UTC and it’ll always show UTC and frankly there are a lot more libraries available to play with. GPS Tiny & GPS Tiny+ are two of those and this evening I ‘forked’ a sketch to use a cheapo off the shelf gps module to tell the time and date on a 16×2 LCD. Nothing spectacular but hey if I can do it then so can anyone. Here’s a short sweet video of it in action (near the window!)

sketch goes a little like this

#include <TinyGPS++.h>
#include <SoftwareSerial.h>
#include <LiquidCrystal.h>
/*
This sample sketch demonstrates the normal use of a TinyGPS++ (TinyGPSPlus) object.
It requires the use of SoftwareSerial, and assumes that you have a
4800-baud serial GPS device hooked up on pins 8(rx) and 9(tx).
*/
static const int RXPin = 8, TXPin = 9;
static const uint32_t GPSBaud = 9600;
// The TinyGPS++ object
TinyGPSPlus gps;
// The serial connection to the GPS device
SoftwareSerial ss(RXPin, TXPin);
// initialize the library with the numbers of the interface pins
LiquidCrystal lcd(12, 11, 5, 4, 3, 2);
void setup()
{
ss.begin(GPSBaud);
lcd.begin(16,2);
lcd.setCursor(1,0);
lcd.print("Tiny GPS+ Time");
delay(3000);
lcd.setCursor(1,2);
lcd.print("by Alex, g7kse");
delay(5000);
lcd.clear();
}
void loop()
{
// This sketch displays information every time a new sentence is correctly encoded.
while (ss.available() > 0)
if (gps.encode(ss.read()))
displayInfo();
if (millis() > 5000 && gps.charsProcessed() < 10)
{
lcd.print("No GPS detected");
for (int positionCounter = 0; positionCounter < 20; positionCounter++) {
while(true);
}
}
}
void displayInfo()
{
lcd.setCursor(4,0);
{
if (gps.time.hour() < 10) lcd.print(F("0"));
lcd.print(gps.time.hour());
lcd.print(F(":"));
if (gps.time.minute() < 10) lcd.print(F("0"));
lcd.print(gps.time.minute());
lcd.print(F(":"));
if (gps.time.second() < 10) lcd.print(F("0"));
lcd.print(gps.time.second());
}
lcd.setCursor(3,2);
{
if (gps.date.day() < 10) lcd.print(F("0"));
lcd.print(gps.date.day());
lcd.print(F("/"));
if (gps.date.month() < 10) lcd.print(F("0"));
lcd.print(gps.date.month());
lcd.print(F("/"));
lcd.print(gps.date.year());
}
}

Colorado’s first week to host the W1AW/Ø portable station in celebration of the ARRL Centennial events has come and gone.  This particular week was a busy week for me both at work and in the hobby of amateur radio.  In addition to working two shifts operating W1AW/Ø, I also presented the Summits on the Air program presentation to two area amateur radio clubs.  Yes…I also managed to keep my streak of at least one QSO a day alive.

As Colorado began hosting the W1AW/Ø portable operations, we also fell right into the middle of a weather pattern which almost like clockwork the heavy storms would roll into the Denver area from the west.  These storms produced all your typical spring storm weather scenarios including rain (lots of rain in some areas), hail (enough to bring out the snow plows), thunder bolts and lightning (all very, very frightening) and yes…tornados.   Tornados are somewhat rare in the metro Denver area, but this particular week we had sightings just about every day.

My first shift to operate W1AW/Ø was scheduled to begin at 0000z on Friday, (Thursday evening local).  The storms rolled through Denver right on cue with tornado sirens and flashing of lightning around the area.  Below radar image captured about two hours before my shift would start.

Thankfully the clouds parted just before the start of my shift.

On time, I began calling CQ on 20m.  There had been a short gap between operators and our fellow hams were ready to attempt to work Colorado.  Quickly I built a small pileup and began operating the strongest stations I could hear.  I’m really glad I spent many evenings operating just as my own callsign and sharpening my skills in working small pileups.

If you’ve been listening to the HF bands in the past week or two, you certainly know conditions have been poor with noise levels very high on the bands.  Of course the storms which had moved through Colorado certainly were not helping with overall conditions.

My friend Martin, W3MLK was my first contact and he was kind enough to run a few minutes of video/audio and posted on YouTube.  Martin’s QTH is in Delaware.   Thank you Martin for recording my audio.

Watch this video on YouTube.

Statistically speaking, my Thursday shift was far easier and a lot more enjoyable as band conditions were stronger.  I managed 348 QSO’s during my three hour shift compared to only 156 on Sunday morning (1500 – 1800z).  While I’m not sure how this compares with other operators, I enjoyed my time operating W1AW/Ø and representing the Centennial State of Colorado in the ARRL Centennial Event.  It was a lot of fun!

OK….it’s now time to get back to work.  My lunch break is over and this is another busy week in the office.

Until next time…

73 de KDØBIK

In this episode of Linux in the Ham Shack, your mild mannered hosts discuss ham radio self-education, elmering and Hamvention. On the Linux side of things, we look at installing drivers for a Yaesu radio, and take a live look at a Debian-based distribution known as SolydX. There’s also lots of feedback, and a surprise visit by our ol’ pal Richard. Chaos ensues!

73 de The LHS Guys

Disappointingly, there was not a lot of activity last night in the QRP ARCI Hoot Owl Sprint.  My guess would be that between the CQ WWPX Contest and Holiday weekend BBQs and other activities, that most folks were probably too pooped to pop.

I was on for approximately 2 and 1/2  hours, from 8:30 PM local time to 11:30 PM local time (0030 – 0300 UTC). I worked a total of 17 stations – mostly up and down the East coast.  I did work John N0EVH in Missouri and I did have a nice little QSO with Rumi LZ2R who was calling CQ USA from his QTH in Bulgaria.  He was running his K3 at 5 Watts and we were 569 both ways.  I think he was looking for counties, but I got the exchange needed for the Sprint, so as far as I’m concerned, it counts and it was by far my best DX for the night.

The last 1/2 hour, from 0230 to 0300 UTC was just me calling CW with no takers. That’s when I decided to pack it in for the night. The KX3 was plugging away calling CQ and I started nodding off a little bit. I’m sure if there was more activity, I would have stayed on until the allotted time was up, which would have been local Midnight (0400 UTC). But the rig automatically calling CQ over and over is kind of like driving down a long highway in the rain with the windshield wipers on. The constant rhythm of CQ with no breaks can kind of lull yout to sleep.

 According to Reverse Beacon Network, there is how I was being heard last night.

I spent just about all of my time on 40 Meters.  I did make one QSO on 80 Meters and three on 20 Meters, featuring the one with LZ2RS.  Other than that, everyone seemed to be concentrating on 40 Meters in the 7.030 MHz neighborhood. As far as antennas go, I was using mostly my 88′ EDZ on 40 meters and for my very brief foray into 80 Meters. On 20 Meters, I used the Butternut HF9V.

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

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