AmateurRadio.com

I was at a church meeting the other night and I happened to have my HT clipped to my belt, although it was somewhat hidden under my shirt. The bottom of it was showing when I sat down on the couch and a friend of mine asked me, “dude, is that a pager??” A pager. Right. I unclipped the Baofeng UV82-1 and showed it to him, and he asked if it was a ham radio, to which I said yes. Then he proceeds to ask the standard questions (he knew I was into ham radio because of my Facebook posts, so he didn’t guess this on his own)

That small conversation got me to thinking about the fact that most people have heard of ham radio, but they know little more than just the term. The main question I am asked when someone sees my HT is “hey, can that thing talk around the world?” Most people don’t understand the difference between HF/VHF/UHF or at least they aren’t aware that ham operators can use the higher frequencies.

Ham radio isn’t one of those hobbies that is chosen by people who wake up one Saturday morning and say,” hey, I think I want a radio license.” Most people are introduced to it by another ham operator. My exposure came from an older gentleman who has now gone Silent Key, whom I actually met over the CB Radio. (Yes, I worked CB when I was in high school and college) Had I known what ham radio was back then, I would have definitely studied for my license earlier than I did, but as it is now I got my first license at the age of 20.

So this older gentleman, whose name was Nelson, brought up the topic of Ham Radio one day, so I asked him what that was. After he explained it, we decided to study together and take our tests. I got my callsign of KC5HWB in July of 1994, and he got his just a couple of weeks later of KC5JMY. Back then the Denton Club was very active, which I believe it still is, and we worked those machines up in Denton and Lewisville areas. The main repeater I was on during that time was the N5GEJ repeater at the Texas Instruments plant in Lewisville on 145.170MHz.

So how did you hear about Ham Radio? Who do you have to thank for finding this cool hobby for you?

As I type this on my tablet, it is -2F (-19C) outside. The furnace is running its little heart out and I just can’t wait for the next utility bill. On second thought, instead of complaining, I’ll just be happy that it’s warm inside! Although I do get tempted every now and then to dream of what Amateur Radio goody that I could buy with the money that is literally going up in flames.

A little bird brought to my attention that congratulations are in order, as a milestone has been reached. Charles Moizeau, W2SH is celebrating his 80th birthday. Chas, as he is affectionately known, is a fellow New Jersey QRPer. He is very active and very successful in the QRP Fox Hunts. Charles is also quite active in NAQCC activities as well as being a regular check in in many QRP CW nets. Happy birthday, Charles, with wishes for many more!

Speaking of the Fox Hunts, last night was a success as I managed to work both Foxes. The surprise of the evening was working Dale WC7S in Wyoming on 80 Meters. Dale was at ESP levels for most of the night. I could tell where he was, but that was about it. Towards the end, the band started going long and Dale’s signal grew stronger. With less than 15 minutes to go, Dale actually approached 599 levels (I confess that I turned my AGC off, so that I could hear him better. I know ….. risky move!) and I was able to sneak into his log.

The QRP ARCI Fireside Sprint is this weekend. I might give it a go. I have never participated in it before, as it is an SSB sprint. But I do have a microphone for the KX3, and the weather outside is supposed to be less than stellar, so maybe I’ll try something different.

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

There is a bug in the new QRZ.com logbook. I cannot add an entry in the log, so a pop up message appear that told me something is wrong. I sent QRZ.com an email and they will try to fix the problem.

What about the new log book of QRZ.com? It looks good and what I like most: it shows the worked DXCC (countries) I started the QRZ.com log book in October 21 , 2009. 127 DXCC, while my own record is 130 since I started after a very long period of absence in 2008. Never mind, I am no real DXCC chaser after all.

This morning I was WSPR-ing on 6 meters, for perhaps winter Es. But no spots on 6 meter today.

The little project I have to homebrew an Azimuth and Elevation rotator has moved on a little. After spending countless hours researching the project I came across a couple of really useful resources. Firstly the Radio Artisan website has simply done the hard stuff with the codes and secondly Anthony Stirk, M0UPU has made a shield / board for easy interfacing.

I’ve ordered a board and will see what I can do with it once it arrives. Next weekend is SOS Radio Week so I’ll be hamming it up at St Bees Lifeboat station so I doubt I’ll get a chance to do anything but we’ll see.

I recently came across this iPhone app that generates Morse Code ring tones called…wait for it…Morse Code Ringtone. I’ve used some other methods for generating Morse ring tones but I’ve found this one to be particularly easy to use. The app costs $1.99 so it is quite affordable.

Well, there is one thing that is kind of tricky: actually getting the ring tone onto your iPhone. It appears that Apple has not made this very easy for app programmers, so it is a little tricky to do. The method I found to work is 1) use the app to create the ring tone on the iPhone 2) email it to my computer 3) save it somewhere on the computer 4) import it into iTunes using “File” “Add File to Library”. At this point, the ring tone should appear in iTunes and will be transferred to your iPhone the next time you sync.

After playing around with Morse Code tone and speed, I found that I really liked the sound of a 700 Hz tone sent at 30 wpm. My code speed is a somewhat reliable 15 wpm, so 30 wpm is well above my normal copy speed. Still, I like the sound of this quick burp of CW. I set up these short Morse bursts to indicate various messages:

CQ CQ  - default ring tone
TXT    - text message
VM     - voice mail
MAIL   - email message

You can play these ringtones by clicking on the name above, or do a right-click to download them to your PC. Windows Media Player can play these files, but it gave me an error when I tried it. I just clicked through and it worked fine.

But you should really get the app and create some ring tones of your own.

73, Bob K0NR