AmateurRadio.com

I have a Toshiba A300 laptop in which most of my blogging is done on. The only trouble it gave me was  for some reason the HD failed. Not a problem it was sent in for repairs and came back with a new HD and it's been fine ever since. The operating system is the 64 bit Vista. Now this is another story  I found it took forever to boot up. I am talking about 3-5 minutes to get to the point were I was able to use the laptop. It would also stop and think every so often and I would just have to sit and wait. Shutting down was no problem that was done in under 30 seconds. To remedy this problem I tried just about everything and it just did not seem to do the trick. On the home P.C I have WinXP and have had no troubles with it at all. It runs smooth and does not get hung up. These are the only two Windows operating systems I have had really any exposure too.  As for the Laptop I was either going to re-install Vista, try loading XP or do the radical and go with Linux!! I was not sure how XP was going to work out on the laptop and figured Vista was just going to act the same way.  So that idea was put  on the back burner, I noticed on the Internet that Linux Ubuntu
could be loaded on my laptop along side Windows. Kinda have two OS's on one machine. Now I am not a fan of doing this for the long term and I don't think it is meant for that. It was a way of  test driving Ubantu 11.10 and see how I liked it and how the laptop liked it. An installer called Wubi allows you to install Ubuntu on a Windows machine.  If  you don't care for Linux it can be removed also using Wubi. If you want to go ahead and install Linux Ubuntu using Wubi just follow the step by step instructions   found on the Internet. There was no need for any fancy computer whiz bong knowledge it was similar to installing any windows program. Before you know it Uantu was up and running and each time I started the laptop I was asked if I wanted to load Windows or Ubuntu?? The first thing I noticed was it sure did load  faster than Vista and that was a BIG plus. For a few days I gave Ubuntu a test drive. I had only done things the Windows way so the desktop and how programs were launched took some getting used to.  I kept reading "take time to get used to Ubuntu it's not Windows" I went to YouTube to check out some tutorials on the operating system to learn more. This was were I thought I ran into my first Ubuntu troubles. At YouTube I was greeted with the messages "Adobe flash is required to view YouTube" The flash upgrade was painless and was a matter of just clicking on a link. The needed update was downloaded and installed then YouTube was up and running.  After playing with Ubuntu for a weekend it was time to take the plunge and remove Vista and do a perminant install of Linux Ubuntu on my laptop. There are step by step instructions for this as well on the Internet.  So after a week what is my impression of Ubantu....it's loads in 20 seconds compared to Vista's 3-5 minutes. It comes complete with a word processing program, spread sheet, a power point type program, workspace switcher were you can have four windows going at once and switch between them. You can run windows programs by using a program called wine. I have not venture down this road yet. One thing I did notice was it eats up the laptop battery time but there is something out there in Linux land to help that along. As times goes on I will continue to learn more. Have not tried it yet with any ham radio programs but my laptop was never used for that.

The way of the future?

I was doing some reading in the November issue of CQ and in the U.S the incandescent light bulb will "somewhat" come to an end as of January 1 2012....hmmm not to far away eh! Maybe a pre New Years Eve resolutions should be to get out and grab up the incandescent lights before they are gone. Not all is lost there is a reprieve for the tri-light, the appliance bulbs and get this flamed shaped chandelier bulb???? Light bulbs from 40 watts to 150 are soon to be no more!! Up here in Canada as of 2012 the light bulb will still populate the store shelves, for at least the time being anyway. As for the VE3WDM household we have gone (well almost) compact florescent (CFL) for about 4 years. Now back then these puppies were not cheap and well to be honest they have come down in price but not a whole lot. So how many of you ham's out there are into the
CFL thing??? Now since I have had them for some time now I do want to clear up some myths and truths about these types of lights. One of the myths is they just don't last long....well for 4 years I have not changed one CFL!!! Oh and believe me we do not live in the dark here either. I get my exercise up and down stairs turning off lights that somehow just get left on???  They do take some time to get to full illumination that is an annoying truth and if the room is cool it's even longer. There are some newer ones out there that are supposed to be "instant on" I have seen these CFL's in action and  they are not at all like our friend the incandescent light were we are used to poof and there is light.  Another myth....well for my home is that they cause RFI. I have not found this to be the case my rig (Elecraft K3,K2) does not show any S meter change if the lights are on or off. It's the Plasma TV here that kills me!!! Another truth is they do cast a "different" type of light from the light bulb, you do get used to it. The CFL market now offers cool white, warm white and reading lights so they have come a long way. I have not had a chance to test these as my darn CFL's wont burn out!!! Here is a myth and a truth combination, the myth is you will save on your hydro bill each month.....the truth is not until you have paid for the out of pocket cost of the CFL's!! Speaking of cost I did say in the opening paragraph that our household has "almost" gone CFL. In our bathroom we have a vanity light that is just great. It takes what is called 6 fat Albert 40 watt bulbs. I still have the incandescent ones and this past weekend replaced them all with......you guessed it with the BAD incandescent ones. Why you ask???? well for 6 it cost me 12.00 to go with CFL fat Albert's your looking at 96.00!!!! It sure would take a long time to get that money back in hydro savings.

Random shack with random goodies.

For the second time this year I took inventory of the ham shack, I am a firm believer of " if you don't use it lose it" I find it very interesting how one gathers equipment and accessories and some acquire  more dust than operating time. So once again it was time to put some "stuff" up for sale and see how they move. We have a great online swap net here in Ontario and I have had very good results using it. Over the summer I made about 900.00 with moving idle equipment. This time around with adding the Alpha Delta DX-33 antenna to the attic it made other antenna's redundant and thus up for sale. I have seen folk's (not just hams) hold onto things until they are worthless....it's just a waste. There are always others who can put to good use things I am just holding onto. Along with the antennas and some other things up to this point I have made 400.00 ham bucks!!

  Last night while on the radio searching out once again T32C my PowerSDR showed a pileup off the T32C frequency. Well over I went and sure enough it was a pile up but not for T32C it seemed to be for 3XY1D in Guinea. Hmm I thought never worked that part of the world so maybe I will give it a go. Then out of nowhere came (in CW) "phoney" very loud and over all the traffic. But not just once..... every 10 to 15 seconds!! Then in  CW came a response "NO" to which the reply was "yes phoney".  This ruined it for me as I would guess many others. Now the call did sound funny but I looked up the call and there is a DXpedition there for October and November. As I QSY'd along the band never finding T32C but possibly finding 3XY1D. I had not been given a chance to work him because of an operator who some how was given the "DXpedition gold enforcement badge". What is worse.....an operator pretending (maybe) to be someone they are not just for the joy of forming a pileup....or......an operator who deliberately (for sure) transmits over others knowing he is doing so....or both? Two wrongs don't make a right!

Getting started

Well as most have heard Apple came out with their new iPhone last week. I was looking forward to the new iPhone 5 and disappointed when it was revealed as the 4S. Seems funny to me Apple let the iPhone 5 rumor build when in fact they planned the 4S.  It was just released here in Canada this week, there were folk lined up hours before electronic stores opened awaiting their new iPhone. As for Julie and I we bailed on the iPhone frenzy and picked up some months ago the iPhone 4. Our iPhone 3S's had seen better days and it was time to upgrade. So that brings me back to the new iOS 5 that Apple released last week. I checked it out and it will work on our iPads and iPhone 4 as well. There is improved features for text messaging, I would no longer have to dock to iTunes to get updates, improved camera,  a storage area called iCloud, some minor changes in the email and calender...these are but some of
the new things with iOS 5. Off I went to iTunes to get the update all went smooth....so I thought. I then restarted my iPhone and ALL my purchased app's were GONE.....all music......GONE and email......GONE!!!!!

All better....thanks Apple care

A few years back I took the best online course and today I have found nothing that compares. It was an ARRL propagation course it involved interaction with a mentor who was assigned to you. It had fantastic course material, as well as hands on projects. Before enrolling  propagation  was like a foreign language to me. By the end of the course with the help from the mentor, course material and the reviews I began to fully understand how important propagation was and also understood terms such as CME, A and K index, Flux, Solar wind and so on. I was able to put it all together and make sense of things when it came to ham radio and propagation. To this day I still refer to the notes and course materials to clarify things. There were many online course's that were offered. Some courses that still interested me were antenna modeling and RFI....so it was off to the ARRL site to find it. The only coarse's that was offered were public service and emergency communications. I emailed the ARRL asking if any of the other courses were available below was my reply.

Hi Mike,
 
You are correct-- we now offer only emcomm courses online.  
We had to take down our old online course platform and 
have not re-invested in redeveloping the other courses 
to re-launch them on the new platform.
 
However, we are looking at ways to re purpose the content 
from those courses. The first effort is to publish 
an "Introduction to Antenna Modeling" course book 
utilizing the material from the course you mention.

 It seems to me that  a "course book" is the new online course replacement when (and if) it comes out. The propagation course formate was very good and can't be replaced with a book. Seems to me the online learning was just not a priority when the ARRL web platform was revamped......well I'm one disappointed ARRL member.

On Sunday afternoon it was now time to figure out why the lights in two rooms were flickering. Also along with the lights my two Astron power supplies would let out a deep hum now and then as well. I began by turning off the circuit breaker to the upper rooms to see what all this circuit breaker fed. I then went to each outlet to see if there were any loose wires. I came across a box that had many neutrals tied together and another group of hots tied together. They seemed to have no evidence of burning or overheating and all seemed to be very tight with the wire nut holding each set together. I still gave both  wire nuts a few good turns and put all the wires back into the box. I then went down again to turn on the circuit breaker and see if the problem was fix....low and behold the problem was gone and has never returned since. So even though the wires did not seem loose they must had been just enough to cause the lights to flicker. It's time to go back to radio fun!!!