From my Twitter feed: ham radio apps, pirate radio QSLs, and more

January 7, 2013 by Leave a Comment

KC8GRQ:
My “Amateur Apps” presentation was a big hit at the #hamr club meeting last night. Its available for anyone to use.http://t.co/VRd0PLIf

This looks like a good presentation. I might suggest that we give it at our club.

jilly:
Shortwave QSL Cards – Pirate & Clandestine Radio #pirateradiouploaded to flickr mostly 1990′s erahttp://t.co/X66OZx9T

SWL QSL card fun

AlanAtTek:
Woo-Hoo! 275,000 views on my little YouTube channel about ham radio, electronics and test & measurement.http://www.youtube.com/user/w2aew

Alan does great videos.

Filed Under: Computers, QSLs, Software

Amateur radio videos: Arduino, K6H, British humor

December 12, 2012 by 1 Comment

More ham radio YouTube videos:

Ham radio Arduino beacon. A simple ham radio morse beacon comprising a Barbones arduino, and a keyed oscillator. Sources of all info except the oscillator are in the credits and clip. You can key any simple oscillator the same way.

Working K6H Special Event Ham Radio Station On The Set Of “Last Man Standing” I haven’t yet watched this show, but I think it’s pretty cool that they were able to operate from the set.

The BBC on Ham Radio – 1950s Style. Here’s some vintage Tony Hancock and the “The Radio Ham”. To be honest, I couldn’t watch this all the way to the end, but you might find it more humorous than I did.

 

Filed Under: Computers, Special Events

From my inbox: Morse Code, WWV, Raspberry Pi

December 11, 2012 by 2 Comments

Here are three interesting items that I found out about by reading my e-mail:

  • Original Morse Code with Phillips PunctuationMorse Code Chart, including Phillips Punctuation. At right is a chart, showing the American Morse Code with Phillips punctuation. According to the book, A treatise on telegraphy, published in 1901, “The Phillips punctuation has superseded the Morse for punctuations, and and is much more complete and systematic. Except for submarine telegraphy, the Morse code for letters and numerals and the Phillips code for punctuation are used throughout the United States and Canada.” Click on the image for a larger, more readable chart.
  • At The Tone is the first comprehensive audio survey of NIST Radio Stations WWV and WWVH: two legendary shortwave radio broadcasters whose primary purpose is the dissemination of scientifically precise time and frequency. Offered here publicly for the first time, the set represents a huge cross-section of the stations’ “life and times,” including recordings of obsolete formats, original voices and identifications, special announcements, format changes, “leap seconds,” and other aural oddities from 1955 to 2005. Produced, compiled, and edited by Myke over a 20-year period (1992-2012), At The Tone is alternately strange and mundane, monotonous and compelling, erudite and obscure. Recommended for fans of The Conet Project, The Ghost Orchid, and other radio-related ephemera.
  • Raspberry Pi 4 Ham Radio.  This mailing is for amateur radio operators using the Raspberry Pi in ham radio applications. Looks interesting, but am not sure I want to subscribe to yet another ham radio mailing list.
Filed Under: Computers, CW, Software, SWLing

From my Twitter feed – 11/27/12

November 28, 2012 by 3 Comments

Here are three items that showed up in my Twitter feed yesterday:

  1. Morse Code Plays a Role in New Spielberg Movie. Producer Steven Spielberg has used Amateur Radio or Morse code in three of his last four movies: Super 8 (2011), The Adventures of Tin Tin (2011) and Lincoln(2012). Members of the Morse Telegraph Club (MTC) — an association of retired railroad and commercial telegraphers, historians, radio amateurs and others with an interest in the history and traditions of telegraphy and the telegraph industry — played an integral part in the production of Lincoln.
  2. nanoKeyer

    The nanoKeyer is powered by open-source software running on an Arduino Nano.

    nanoKeyer powered by Arduino Nano. The nanoKeyer is an Arduino Nano based CW Contest Keyer Addon. It was designed specifically for use with the K3NG Arduino keyer open-source firmware adding many features and flexibility. The nanoKeyer is suitable as a standalone keyer or for keying the radio via the USB port by using the K1EL Winkeyer protocol from a connected computer and your favoured contest logging software. By means of the K3NG firmware it can be also used as a computerless keyboard keyer by attaching a PS2 keyboard to it.

    Someone tweeted me about this after I Tweeted about building a second WKUSB keyer. I think that if I had known about this before my purchase, I would have gone for this instead of the WKUSB. It not only purports to what the WKUSB does, the software is open-source meaning that you could actually fool around with it if you liked. You can find more information at the Radio Artisan website.

  3. Digispark. Talking about tiny Arduinos, check out this Kickstarter project. It’s amazingly cool. Unfortunately, it doesn’t look as though you can get in on this first production run.
Filed Under: Computers, CW

On the Internet – 11/26/12

November 26, 2012 by 1 Comment

WITCHWITCH gets a reboot. The world’s oldest digital computer was brought back to life by engineers at The National Museum of Computing in Buckinghamshire, England. The computer was first turned on in 1951 and uses 480 relays and 828 vacuum tubes called Dekatrons, which store ten discreet values. EETimes also ran a story on this computer.

First Visible LED Demoed 50 Years Ago. Since we’re doing history today, here’s a link to a Wired article marking the first demonstration of an LED that emitted visible light. The article notes, “In the February 1963 issue of Reader’s Digest, Holonyak predicted that the LED would eventually replace incandescent bulbs. Bold words from a man who worked for GE, a company founded by Thomas Edison.” We’re finally getting around to this 50 years later.

How to Listen to Real Spy Broadcasts Now. Lifehacker shows you how to dial in to numbers stations and the like. The article says, “The behavior of shortwave radio in the atmosphere makes it ideal for long range radio transmission. You can send messages on a given frequency all over the world, and most people who use shortwave radio use it to communicate with ships at sea and people in locations all over the world.”

Filed Under: Computers, Electronic Components, SWLing

Has Ham Radio Missed the Boat?

September 1, 2011 by 6 Comments

A recent article on the Computerworld website, describes a development by Georgia Tech computer science professor Santosh Vempala that envisions greater reliance on device-to-device communications using typical consumer phones after a disaster. This network, called LifeNet, uses free open-source software to allow consumer devices such as laptops, Android phones and battery-powered routers to form ad hoc Wi-Fi, peer-to-peer networks without relying on cellular towers or base stations.

This seems to me a perfect application of amateur radio. Someone should contact this guy to see how amateur radio might play a part in LifeNet.

The article goes on to say:

Keith Robertory, manager of national disaster emergency communications for the American Red Cross in Washington, said he has used robust peer-to-peer wireless systems in recent years that will forward a message through other radios. One that operates on the amateur radio band has a time-out feature built in so that the message does not keep repeating itself indefinitely. The peer-to-peer concept is sound, he said, but hasn’t been widely used.

Does anyone know what peer-to-peer networking the Red Cross guy is referring to? Why isn’t it being widely used?

Filed Under: Computers, Emergency Communications / Public Service

A VOIP Contest??

February 25, 2010 by 5 Comments

In my e-mail just now, I got the following:

Hi , Daniel

My name is Rick, and my call sign is XXXX. I’ve been a contester since 2004 when I became a ham, and I love it!

I wanted you to see this information from a friend of mine, Trippy, about a new contest that will be held in March of this year! I will be in it myself, and I hope to work you in it.

Please tell every contester you know about this new contest. I look forward to working you!

73,

Rick, XXXX
PS, contest letter and announcement from Trippy to you, is below

There were several problems with this e-mail. First of all, there was no attachment. Second, this was obviously spam. I don’t know Rick or Trippy, nor have I ever worked them on the air. Third, I just can’t excited about a CQ100 contest.

Here’s my reply:

Hello, Rick–

First, there was no attachment.

Second, as I hope you know, CQ100 isn’t really a new mode. It’s a computer program that simulates amateur radio contacts using the voice over Internet protocol (VOIP).

I’m not one of those OFs (old farts) who gets all hot and bothered about the use of VOIP in ham radio. I use EchoLink when it’s appropriate and feel that it does have a place in ham radio. Having said that, I just can’t get very excited about a “contest” that takes place over a VOIP network, especially one that you have to pay for! Operating a “contest” over VOIP is like shooting fish in a barrel.

If you’re having fun with CQ100, more power to you. I think, however, that you’ll have a lot more fun by actually radiating some RF energy of your own.

73!

Dan KB6NU

What do you all think?

Filed Under: Computers, Contests, Software Tagged With: , ,

New Amateur Radio/Linux Forum

November 26, 2009 by 2 Comments

From David, KG4GIY, via the ARRL PR mailing list:

As most of you know I dabble a little with Linux and other Open Source Software. A few of you know I occasionally scramble a few electrons and blog my thoughts on Linux and Open Source for the Linux Journal. What most of you do not know is that for the past month and change, I have been working as the guest editor for the Linux Journal’s January 2010 issue (on newsstands soon) focusing on Open Source and Amateur Radio.

Today, I flung open the doors at the Linux Journal’s virtual ham shack and I wanted to take a moment to invite you all to drop by and share your thoughts and maybe pick up a trick or two.

As anyone working with D-Star repeaters knows, Linux is an integral part of the gateways that connect them but there are many other aspects of the hobby that are also well represented and there are full development streams within the major distributions just for Amateur Radio. And you cannot beat the price.

So take a moment and stop by and leave your thoughts!

Thanks to everyone who has made this possible,

DAVID

Filed Under: Computers Tagged With:

Hams Aren’t the Only Nuts Who Restore Old Electronics

November 12, 2009 by 3 Comments


IEEE Spectrum is running a short article on a group of “vintage” engineers who are restoring a vintage IBM 1401 computer. The computer had been in storage, but there was extensive water damage, damage that took 10,000 man-hours to repair! Think about that next time you get your hands on an old Hallicrafters.

Make sure to check out the slide show at the end of the article.

Filed Under: Computers, Vintage Radio

CQ CQ CQ…Internet?

October 22, 2009 by 3 Comments

For some reason, the ARRL website is featuring an article on CQ100 and QSONet, a simulation of ham radio over the Internet. On the fpqrp mailing list, the overwhelming response was overwhelmingly, “Ugh.”

Now, I happen to like EchoLink and IRLP, which I think are great extensions to amateur radio, but I really don’t get this QSONet stuff. If you’re going to chat on a computer, why would you want to use something like QSONet, which is a complete simulation, rather than EchoLink or IRLP, which at least has some radio component? I guess that I don’t understand the desire to cloak computer chatting in amateur radio trappings.

If you’re going to do computer chatting, why not use something really cool like iChat, which has both a video and audio component? (I use iChat frequently for business and personal use.)

The author of the article just gushes about using the program, though. He even talks about working contests on the Internet. (The ARRL editor did, at least, add a note that “contacts made using CQ100 are virtual — not radio —contacts and cannot be used toward any ARRL sponsored contest or award.”)

The best comment, though, was from one of the wags on the mailing list. He said, “It’s like boasting about the medieval warfare skills you learned in World of Warcraft.”

Filed Under: Computers Tagged With:
«Older Posts