… 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.

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From InformationWeek;
link to original CNN article here.

The FCC has approved a new nationwide alert system that will send text messages to cell phones to alert Americans when an emergency, disaster, or attack occurs…

Sounds like this will take some time, since according to CNN the agency that will issue the messages hasn’t been created/decided on yet. I like the idea; I’ve been using Google Alerts and Yahoo! Alerts for some time now for severe weather related messages on my phone. More ways to receive information are always a good thing.

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Here are some upcoming events that I plan on attending; if you’re going to be there and happen to see me, stop and say hi.

• March
  • 20: Dane County ARES/RACES meeting, UW Space Place, 7:00pm
  • 25: NWS Storm Spotter Training, Fitchburg Community Center, 6:30pm
  • 28, 29: AES Superfest, Milwaukee WI (Not sure which day I’m going, depends on work.)
• April
  • 26: Crazylegs Classic (running, not helping with comm support)

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Long power outage a wake-up call to be better prepared (cnet)

I’ve just emerged from a brief visit to the 19th-century (via a storm-driven 36-hour power outage) and among all my other experiences and impressions during this odd weekend, none was more powerful than an extremely visceral understanding of just how fragile our modern infrastructures are.

Oddly, there was no Internet connection, and after a cursory check to see why, I realized that our power was out, a condition that had taken my Internet service and home phone–which comes in via Comcast cable–down.

…once home, my cell reception was extremely intermittent, far worse than usual, a condition that made it impossible for me to get online via Verizon’s EV-DO…

Hmm. No power, no cell phone, no internet connection, not safe to drive… but that’s California, you say. They have bad stuff happen out there all the time. (Which seems to be true, if you watch the evening news.)

However, in the past two days in my neighborhood (Wisconsin) we’ve had unusually high temperatures leading to fog… which led to the pileups described here More than 100 vehicles involved in I-90 pileups; two dead, 50 injured. We also had thunderstorms, hail, and tornadoes associated with the same weather weirdness that brought the fog.

I’ll admit to slacking a little lately, due to being busy with school and the holidays. I think now might be a good time to make sure I have my gear in ready mode. Tornadoes in January? This could be an interesting year….

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I’m still happy that the morse code requirement was (finally!) dropped. That action was about 20 years overdue. I also still question the timing (at the bottom of a solar cycle), but I’ll take the access to HF without complaint. Have I made any contacts on any of the HF bands? Nope. I’ve needed a new microphone for my IC-735 for a while now, and haven’t found one at the same time I had money for one. (Hopefully soon.) I also haven’t learned the code yet; it’s easy to say that it only takes 15 minutes of practice a day, but finding the 15 minutes is hard with two jobs and school competing for time. (I am still fiddling with receiving CW and RTTY with help from a computer.)

As far as getting people interested in ham radio, someone needs to produce a 25 watt 10 meter mobile rig that sells for $149.95 at Wal-Mart. Then they need to convince Hannah Montana to get licensed and on the air, and endorse the rig.

(You heard it here first.)

I didn’t get to do as much in the area of emergency communications in 2007 as I’d hoped. Classes had to take precedence over meetings and nets once school started again. I might try to participate in Field Day this year, since I’ll actually have battery power to work with (I have a deep cycle marine battery, but I’m still working on powerpoles for everything). The state ARES conference was again scheduled on a Saturday when the Badgers were playing at home, so I missed that again… sigh.

So what about 2008? I’m making a trip to AES to get a microphone within the next couple of weeks, so I can experiment on 10 meter phone. I’d like to say this is the year I’ll get going with the code, but I have Spanish and Trigonometry to worry about this spring. I’ll be at the next Dane County ARES/RACES meeting (17 January 2008), so I can get updated and official, as well as the next Midwest SSTRC meeting (21 Jan 2008). Other than that, I’m going to be busy with school until May, so the best I can do is make it a resolution for 2008 to get on the air a little more. Best I can do for now!

Happy New Year, all!

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