AmateurRadio.com

The North Texas Balloon Project is going to be launching mission number 19 tomorrow, at about 8:30am central time. The balloon will have a few payloads attached with different sensors and a 10 meter beacon aboard. It’s expected to go up to 100,000 feet, which will take approximately 90 minutes and return by parachute in about 50 minutes. A recovery team will track and retrieve the balloon using it’s on board APRS. All the particulars for mission 19 can be found on the group’s website. There is also information on their past flights as well. Below, I found a nice little video for a 2009 flight they did. This kind of thing is still on my bucket list to do. Maybe I should take the time this winter to start planning something out. Do some research and get some stuff together for it. And if I wasn’t already going to be running around Upstate NY all day tomorrow, I would be trying to listen for this on 10 meters and watching on APRS.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

Sometimes I just come across some real cool videos when I’m not trying. This is one of those times. It’s surprising how many good videos are on YouTube and just don’t make it to my suggestion area on the front page of my profile. I think YouTube needs to work on that algorithm. From the description in the video…

This video describes the microphone preamp and equalizer that I designed in 1999 to use with my Astatic D-104 microphone with my ham radio. The D-104 suffers from two issues when used with modern ham radios – impedance mismatch and non-ideal frequency response. The circuit addresses both of these issues. The video briefly describes the circuit, it’s frequency response, and demonstrates the bass and treble adjustments using an oscilloscope and signal generator.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

After only 78 views on the website yesterday, I figured I should step up my game. One aspect of Ham Radio that I started to look at was Digital Amateur TV. The analog version, while still around, I’m sure is fun, but digital seems more my speed, being a Ham and a Geek. So here are a few things to kind of wet the appetite for Amateur Television. One is a simple link to a website in the Netherlands, with all kinds of information on digital amateur television. It’s in English, so don’t worry about busting out your Dutch to English dictionaries or Google Translate. There is also a nice site from a group in Ohio with some great info. I saw the link for this a while ago in QST, I think.

The other is just the guys from Ham Nation talking about Amateur Television. Now I haven’t seen this episode yet, but it’s one that I really should sit down and watch. So, here ya go.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

There was a lot of news coverage for then Hurricane Irene and what people should do and not do during the storm as well as get ready. Kim, my YL, and I did what we needed, to get ready and we felt pretty set and ready to ride out the storm. But as luck would have it, there really wasn’t that much to ride out where we were. We got lucky.Most of the damage from Irene was in other areas. Flooding and power outages were the main things. But there was a mudslide up in Troy, N.Y. that occurred because of the storm. But here at my home QTH, we saw mostly small limbs down. When I went out to check this morning, it was just a bit messier from the wind we had last night. But still nothing major on our end.

All through out, Kim, my daughter and I were inside from about 6pm Saturday night till about 6:30pm Sunday evening. All that time was TV, movies and news about the storm, except for a few hours I got on the local repeaters and helped out Tom, N2SQO with a Skywarn net for WX2ALY, the National Weather Service station in Valatie, N.Y.

So here is the video from our little “walkabout” on Sunday night during a break in the storm.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

The main thing most people are talking about on the local radio shows and TV morning shows is Hurricane Irene. Giving updates, information on being prepared and of course comparing it to other past hurricanes. Kim and I are pretty much ready, we’re going to get a couple coolers to keep perishables cold should we lose power. Needless to say, here is some video of the storm from NASA TV.From the NASA YouTube Channel:

From almost 230 miles above the Earth, cameras on the International Space Station recorded new video of Hurricane Irene, which is strengthening as it takes aim on the southeast Bahamas, and possibly, the Eastern Seaboard of the United States. The video was captured at 4:08 p.m. EDT on August 23, 2011, as Irene moved west-northwest.

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday on AmiZed Studios and hosts a podcast called The Kim & Rich Show with his fiance’ Kim Dunne.

I’ve seen a couple of stories about this video already, so I figured I would post it too, and get Randy a little more traffic to the YouTube video. Randy headed to Petaluma, CA, and hung out at the TWiT Brickhouse with Bob Heil, K9EID and Leo Laporte, W6TWT, for the first day of the new Ham shack in the Brickhouse Studio.While Randy was there, he of course recorded some video and shared it with everyone else. There was also a special event station on the air for the open house, which I talked about last week. I’m curious if anyone who reads me, also worked the special event? If you did, please share in the comments. I would love to hear how it went. But now, Lights! Camera! ACTION!

73.

Rich also writes a Tech blog and posts stories every Tuesday and Thursday on Q103, The Rock of Albany’s website, as well as Amateur Radio stories every Monday thru Friday here on AmiZed Studios.

Jumping out of a fully working airplane from 13,000 feet is not exactly my cup of tea. When I stand to high on a ladder I get a little woozy. But this guy jumped from an airplane and using 70cm Amateur Radio Television, shared ti with other Hams. Mark, AF6IM, strapped on a parachute, and a 427 MHz ATV transmitter hooked to a helmet cam and jumped from an airplane to land safely while he transmitted, using a Drake mini-modulator with foldable dualband J-pole, that he released after his chute opened and he floated down to the ground.

As you can see from the video below and the info Mark gave about the jump, the Drake can act as a transmitter when an antenna is hooked to it, but the signal was weaker then expected and only worked when he got to about 2000 feet. He said he may try a linear or use a 5 watt Videolynx ATV transmitter next time he does it.

Mark was transmitting on 421.25MHz or cable tv channel 57, and the recieving station was using a 3-element 70cm UHF antenna connected to a Sansui TV set with built-in VHS deck set to catv channel 57. Improvements are being looked at from what was learned from this jump, and another may be in the future.

If you want to find out more, you can visit the Parachute Mobile website.