Taking a break…
February 19th, 2009
… from radio in general for a while; I’ve simply been too busy with school, work, and other activities to even turn the radios on.
Work, school, etc
September 1st, 2008
I’m about to be insanely busy for the next few months– full time work at my regular daytime job, plus part time work at Camp Randall and Kohl Center– plus I’m taking Calculus I and Spanish II at MATC this semester. I’m hoping to fit in more work on 6m and 10m (maybe) if time allows, but I’ll likely be too busy to write much about it.
You can reach me on Facebook, if you’re so inclined.
Social Bookmarking
August 3rd, 2008
I’ve been using del.icio.us to maintain a list of bookmarks for some time now. I read a bunch of different blogs and news sites that cover a lot of different topics, many of them at least somewhat related to amateur radio, emergency communications, and/or homeland security. One of the cool functions del.icio.us offers is an RSS feed containing any combination of the tags I’ve used to “mark” bookmarks as I save them to my list. You can now see the links I tag (and save to del.icio.us) as I browse, under the heading “Reading List” on the right side of the page. It’s not quite updated in real time, but usually within a few minutes of me adding a link.
I’m using the reading list a handy way of sharing things I’m reading that you might be interested in, without having to post an article that says nothing more than “hey- go read this about -whatever”. As you’re clicking past, I hope you find it useful.
If you haven’t used del.icio.us (or any other social bookmarking site; there are several that work pretty much the same way), here’s an introduction to how it all works.
More playing around on 6m
July 28th, 2008
I admit it, I’ve given up on antenna building– it’s not that I can’t hack up a dipole, because I do know how to do that. I’ve given up because it’s just too much work. Call me a card carrying member of the internet generation if you like, I just don’t have the motivation and time anymore. So when it came down to it, I got online and ordered a MFJ 6m twinlead jpole from AES and had that puppy shipped to my QTH.
As always, antenna placement is a problem. Today, I said to heck with it and nailed the end of a spool of string to a softball, pulled out a bunch of said string, tied one end to the jpole, and threw it up into a pine tree in front of my apartment building. I probably could have placed it higher, but my front yard is apparently a breeding ground for mosquitos who think Deep Woods Off! is just yummy. I had no problem getting to the local repeater, and after scanning for a few minutes I could hear a repeater on 53.73Mhz that wasn’t on my WAR listing.
After listening a bit, I discovered that the repeater I was hearing was the KQ2H repeater system in New York. I was able to get into the repeater, but so was the eastern half of the US at the time. I also made a few calls on 52.525 simplex; although I could hear that someone else was there, I couldn’t make out who. Which is OK– now I know the antenna works and I have a means for getting it into an operational position. Next time, I’ll see if I can get the jpole into the top of the tree instead of only halfway up.
Which brings up a few thoughts I’ve had rattling around about amateur radio in general– the first being, why does “everyone” say that the first radio you buy should be a 2m(/70cm) radio? I know, there are way more repeaters on 2m and 70cm, but that doesn’t mean you talk to more people. I’ve taken my dualband HT to work and let it scan the local repeaters for days. 80% of the time there’s just nothing there. I drop my callsign out, and no one responds (even though I know there are people who scan the local machines all the time). Yes, I use 2m for ARES/RACES, and I used 70cm for storm tracking when I was doing that– so having that radio isn’t a wasted resource. But that radio (lately) is just a tool for doing something, rather than something to have fun with.
I didn’t buy a 6m radio to talk on the local repeaters. I bought a 6m rig for those days and nights when the band, due to -insert propagation type here- just freakin’ opens up. I don’t wish 6m was congested (like that’s gonna happen), but I do wish more of the techs in the world would check it out– part of the mystique of ham radio (for me) is that you can talk to people in far away places. I’m wondering if maybe we should be selling new hams on the 10m and 6m bands more, and the 2m and 70cm bands less– higher VHF and UHF are used for things like public safety because they provide reliable communications, which is a good thing– but it’s not usually all that exciting.
Transition to Digital TV
May 3rd, 2008
Digital TV isn’t technically a ham radio subject, but since it involves RF I consider it related. And, I like new toys. So, I signed up for the coupons the government’s offering for upgrading analog TV’s. I received my coupon a couple of weeks ago, and this week went in search of a digital TV box. I live near a mall, so I didn’t have to go very far; I also had a couple of other consumer electronics related things to look for, and Best Buy was on the way home from work, so that’s where I went shopping.
They make it easy; in front of the department full of HD TV’s (most of which wouldn’t fit in my apartment, much less on my credit card) was a display of Insignia Coupon Eligible Digital TV Converters for $59.99. There’s only one eligible model. So no, you don’t get a lot of choices, unless you want to drive around to different stores checking out what features each retailer’s box includes. (I didn’t shop around.)
Included with the box was a power adapter, an RF cable, an audio/video cable, a remote with battery, and a short & sweet instruction manual. I was pleasantly surprised that I didn’t need to buy anything else to make DTV work. (I will need to do some additional cabling to get my analog DVD player to coexist with the DTV box, as my TV only has a single coax RF input.) Channel programming was automatic, and simple; I did have to set my local time zone using the setup menus. With DTV, I have an onscreen channel guide that shows what’s on now and what’s on next, closed captioning, text, the ability to change the aspect ratio, access to the second audio program, and content access controls.
My antenna (if you want to call it that) is a 4-foot length of speaker wire alligator clipped to my window blinds—so if you have an antenna that barely works now, you may be surprised at what DTV does for you. Using analog, my local channels were generally pretty clear except for channel 3 (which was usually quite snowy). I often had ghosts, and got an occasional burst of audio static. With DTV, I get all of my local channels with no snow and no ghosts.
I also have some extra channels now. Instead of analog 3, 15, 21, 27, 47, and 57, I now have 3-1, 3-2, 15-1, 15-2, 21-1,21-2,21-3,21-4,21-5,47-1,and 57-1. Each broadcaster has slightly different programming available; your mileage here will vary. NBC 15-2 has weather, and WHA (PBS) has different programming on –2, -3, and –4 depending on the time of day. WHA also simulcasts Wisconsin Public Radio (including HD radio) when they’re not showing TV programming on each of those channels. DTV 3-2 carries My Madison TV14, which on broadcast is only available on DTV. As they say, check your local listings.
So, what’s the verdict? Yes, making the change is worth the effort. The sound and picture are better, even on my old TV. There are still times when there’s nothing on—TV is still TV—but by adding one small set top box I was able to increase my options and make my TV useful for a while longer. If only upgrading amateur radio equipment was so easy.
Coupons are available online at https://www.dtv2009.gov/ .
