AmateurRadio.com

A lot has changed during my ham radio career since I was first licensed in 1989. The logging was manual, you received your DX news via a weekly newsletter that you actually received in the mail and packet was all the rage. Thanks to innovation of the ham radio community, now several technical generations later, we enjoy a very different hobby than we did in those days.

Periodically, I peruse the app store on my iPhone to see what new cool ham radio apps have been developed. I will admit it has been a while since I've done that so this is probably old news to many of you. As I scrolled through the apps I came across an APRS application for the iPhone. APRS (Automatic Packet Reporting System), developed by Bob Bruninga WB4APR, combines packet radio technology with GPS technology to allow you to transmit your coordinates to a digi-peater that then posts your position on the internet. This allows others to know your location for any number of reasons, i.e., to follow progress up a mountain or simply for others to know that you are safe and to follow your progress to your destination. However, previously, to enjoy this functionality required a special radio with the GPS built in or a modification to add GPS functionality to your radio. However, with the apps now available you can accomplish the same thing with your iPhone. Of course you have to have cell service for the system to work and it can use up battery power, but the functionality can now be used without a radio.

So if you are a SOTA activator and have avoided the expense of getting a VHF APRS set-up, you can now accomplish the same thing with your phone. You can avoid battery degradation by only turning your phone on at intervals and allow the system to register your position, then turning it off again.

Very cool.




Mike Crownover, AD5A, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Texas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

 

I HATE painting..so we hired a painter

There has not been very much radio time here and I sure do miss the hobby time! I have been removing wall paper, painting.....well we have decided to hire a painter for the job as I HATE painting and take way to long to get it done. For me it would take about 4-6 days to get the job done. The painter is coming next Friday and ONE day and it's done.  Because we are downsizing to a condo it also means that certain things in the shack have to be downs sized as well. I have sold my DX-EE antenna, H-800 receiving antenna, LDG 6 position antenna

Getting ready to take the sub out

switch and my beloved sub-receiver in my Elecraft K3. The sale of these items netted me around 1,000 and will help with the new challenge of an antenna for the condo. Well now lets talk about the up and coming condo shack! There are going to be challenges but also some advantages as well. I am excited that this will still be a QRP shack and antenna challenged....BUT....I will have more height than I have ever had in the past and that is a huge plus!! Now that I will be in the city I am also going to have more noise trouble. This will for sure give my MFJ noise cancelling uint a workout.  We will have a balcony, in the summer will be great for sitting out and using the KX3 with
and at this point I am not sure if I want to have an antenna out on the balcony or not (like the MFJ magnetic loop antenna) I would like to have an antenna in the radio room and not outside as condo's are not antenna

The Sub is gone...:(

Room prepped for painting

friendly and it being outside the weather would take have an affect on it. .....Now a stealth wire antenna on the balcony is also an option. I just love these challenges!! Hey blog crowd any ideas about a stealth wire antenna from 10m to lets say 40m???????


Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

This morning I worked WB2SXY on 40 meter (7078 KHz USB) with JT9. 25 watts and my end fed antenna. After this qso I switched to 30 meters, and had a nice qso with EI7JK Dave from Kerry with CW (I was using 15 watts)

Paul Stam, PC4T, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from the Netherlands. Contact him at [email protected].

… there was Hugo Gernsback. Here are a few of his contributions:
– Established one of the first companies to sell equipment to radio amateurs in 1904.
– Founded the Wireless Association of America in 1909.
– Published two amateur radio oriented magazines: Modern Electrics in 1908 and The Electrical Experimenter in 1913.
– Initially proposed the idea of allocating 200 meters and down to amateur radio in 1912.

Why don’t we know more about Hugo Gernsback and his early contributions to the hobby? At what point did the momentum shift from Hugo and his Wirless Association of America to Hiram Maxim and his ARRL? … and why?

Hugo made a huge contribution to science fiction but it seems his contributions to amateur radio have been overlooked.

Scott Hedberg, NØZB, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Kansas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

… there was Hugo Gernsback. Here are a few of his contributions:
– Established one of the first companies to sell equipment to radio amateurs in 1904.
– Founded the Wireless Association of America in 1909.
– Published two amateur radio oriented magazines: Modern Electrics in 1908 and The Electrical Experimenter in 1913.
– Initially proposed the idea of allocating 200 meters and down to amateur radio in 1912.

Why don’t we know more about Hugo Gernsback and his early contributions to the hobby? At what point did the momentum shift from Hugo and his Wirless Association of America to Hiram Maxim and his ARRL? … and why?

Hugo made a huge contribution to science fiction but it seems his contributions to amateur radio have been overlooked.

Scott Hedberg, NØZB, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Kansas, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

Last year QRZ.com made accusations that callsign database sites HamQTH.com and QRZCQ.com stole QRZ callbook data, citing planted fake callsigns in the QRZ database appearing in their databases.  Both HamQTH and QRZCQ denied the claims.  QRZ appears to have recently upped the ante, having contacted at least one software developer, N3FJP, requesting him to remove HamQTH support from his logging program, claiming “Programs that facilitate the use of HamQTH.com are, in legal terms, are participating in “contributory infringement.”  HamQTH on Facebook continues to deny copying QRZ data, though it’s been noted that the site accepts publicly submitted data, so the possibility of QRZ lifted data exists.  HamQTH founder, Petr, OK2CQR, in a Facebook post quoted from a private email exchange QRZ founder Fred AA7BQ, “Your service does not offer anything to the amateur radio community that isn’t available elsewhere, which makes you a parasite, enjoying the benefits of the hard work of others.”  The comment struck me as ironic as Petr has no advertising on the HamQTH website and he also contributes to the community the free CQRLog logging program, which is open source software.  To people who know what Petr has done, he is hardly a parasite.  QRZ, on the other hand, generates revenue by hosting content others write.

Several times I have run comparison queries between QRZ and HamQTH and have yet to find any unique QRZ data in HamQTH query results.  I’m not saying QRZ data doesn’t exist in HamQTH, it’s just that I haven’t found it and I haven’t seen evidence that the copying, if it occurred, is prevalent.  On the Facebook thread it was mentioned that email addresses have appeared in HamQTH profiles that may have come from QRZ.

After the claims by QRZ last year, the QRZ callbook listings for HamQTH founder OK2CQR (1) and QRZCQ founder DO5SSB disappeared.  DK5TX claims his QRZ profile was repeated edited without his knowledge when he linked to his HamQTH profile page.  (OK2CQR’s QRZ callbook entry reappeared a few days ago.)

While I should be concerned about copyright infringement, I have difficulty siding with QRZ in this dispute.  The information in QRZ is mostly information in the public domain and user contributed profile information was created by users, not QRZ personnel, though they created the system to store it and charge for XML access.  Email addresses of active radio amateurs can be easily harvested on the Internet by anyone and collected in a database.  Furthermore, I find the alleged QRZ manipulation of database data in retaliation disturbing.  As I indirectly attempted to illustrate in this satire piece earlier this year, QRZ is considered the de facto amateur radio callbook these days, and essentially has a monopoly.  QRZ’s dominant position dates back to the times when government agency radio amateur database data was difficult to acquire and process, before the Internet became mainstream and online query tools to government data became commonplace.  With this monopoly comes a responsibility, beyond generating paychecks for employees, but a responsibility to the community.  In my opinion it’s time to get this data in more open databases, and on sites that are not concerned with web clicks and revenue or those that host forums with often vitriolic exchanges that do not reflect well on amateur radio.

(1) http://hamqth.com/news.php, Posting from 20 June 2012

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