I don’t have a cell phone, but I think this is pretty cool. By going to this website, you can create a CW ringtone.
(Thanks to Ralph KB8ZOY for this tip.)
I don’t have a cell phone, but I think this is pretty cool. By going to this website, you can create a CW ringtone.
(Thanks to Ralph KB8ZOY for this tip.)
From the radiokits Yahoo group, here’s another source for radio-related kits: Transtronics. I’ve just ordered two kits from them:
This from Allen G Pitts, W1AGP, the ARRL’s Media and PR Manager:
Got a presentation to make about Amateur Radio? Looking for a video to get things started – or maybe as a stand-alone for a booth? Better yet – how about putting it on a local cable channel?
I have your answer!
It’s available at http://p1k.arrl.org/files/Hello-Movie.wmv and you can freely download it too. Or go to the www.arrl.org/pio page and scroll down to “Hello Video Files Hello – 4 minute mini-presentation” in Windows Media and also MPEG formats for Apple via the League’s public relations page.
For cable and broadcast, there’s DVD or even full DV copies available by writing me [at [email protected]] and telling me where you are going to show it.
I’ve seen this video and do think it is a good piece to start off a presentation about ham radio. I hope to use it next time I do a presentation.
About a half hour ago, I fired up the 2m rig and called “KB6NU listening.” Right away, I got a response from a friend in our club. “Good morning,” he said, “How are you today”? He didn’t give his callsign, but I knew who it was from his distinctive voice.
“I’m great,” I replied, “but you should give your callsign to be legal.”
“I’m sorry,” my friend said, “I thought you only had to id every ten minutes and at the end of a contact. Almost immediately, a third station broke in confirming this.
Of course, I had to confirm this. I went to the ARRL website, which has the text of Part 97. Sure enough, Part 97.119, Station Identification states:
(a) Each amateur station, except a space station or telecommand station, must transmit its assigned call sign on its transmitting channel at the end of each communication, and at least every ten minutes during a communication, for the purpose of clearly making the source of the transmissions from the station known to those receiving the transmissions. No station may transmit unidentified communications or signals, or transmit as the station call sign, any call sign not authorized to the station.
Note that nowhere does it require that you identify at the start of a communication.
There’s more there, and I’d suggest that you have a look. There are other station identification requirements that you probably should know. For example, when operating a special event station, you must not only identify with the special event station call, but also your own call once every hour.
You learn something new every day….
I seem to have a knack for developing ideas for websites that sound like a good idea, but in practice don’t seem to pan out. You’d think I’d just quit, but I’ve come up with yet another idea for a website that sounds like it might be fun to do—namely the Ham Radio Story Project.
This website was inspired by the Story Corps, which was itself inspired by NPR’s National Story Project. Basically, the idea would be to capture personal stories of how amateur radio has touched lives, either the lives of amateur radio operators themselves, or of the people that we serve.
The stories could be written or recorded. To help me collect stories in audio format, I’ve purchased a small, hand-held digital recorder.
I think that I also have a great story for the first bit of audio. At the USECA hamfest last weekend, I got to talking with a guy, who, as it turns out, was one of the first technical coordinators for ARROW, my club here in Ann Arbor. He told me a great story from back in the early 70s of how the ARROW repeater was causing interference to the AAPD mobile radios. That’s all I’ll say so that I don’t give the story away.
So, start thinking about what kind of story you’d like to tell:
Send me an email, and I’ll put you on a list, so that you’ll be one of the first to know when I get HamRadioStoryProject.Com up and running.
About a year and a half ago, I published a blog entry that described how to build board with surface-mounted parts using a toaster oven. Well, thanks to Mike WB8ICN and the Flying Pigs QRP Club mailing list, here’s another, perhaps simpler technique.
This new method is found on the website of the Electronics Research Group (ERG), a company run by Cash Olsen, KD5SSJ, to sell a bunch of ham-related kit, including a spectrum analyzer and small function generator. Olsen’s method uses solder paste applied with a syringe (he’ll sell you a syringeful for about $6), a coffee cup warmer, and a small heat gun.
You apply the paste to the pads, position the components, then put the board on the coffee warmer. This gets the solder paste to start melting. At this point, you start with the heat gun, slowly bringing the board up to the point where the solder paste “reflows.”
I wish I’d have used this method to make the SMD CI-V interface. While I got the thing to work, the parts moved around while I was soldering them. I think this method would have been easier and produced a nicer looking board.
I might just try using this technique to build a simple DMM calibrator from the Maxim 6126 ICs that I’ve had for a while. The 6126 is a high-precision voltage reference that comes in an eight-pin SO package, which has a lead pitch of only 25 mils.
UPDATE 12/11/06: Another idea for holding down surface-mount components to a PCB that has been floating around the QRP mailing lists is to use a product called Blu Tak or something similar. This stuff is a re-usable adhesive normally used to put posters on walls.
Apparently, you use a small amount of it on the ends of a component to hold it down while you’re soldering the leads. Then, you simply pop it off.
I don’t know that there’s anything magical about Blu Tak. It seems to me that any similar product would work just as well. Another correspondent mentioned a product called AllStick, and I just checked my office supplies drawer, and I have something called HoldIt. I’m definitely going to try this next time I make something with surface-mount parts.
From Jeff N1ZME via the Ham Radio Help Group:
There is a great program simply called Meter (that you can use to design custom meter scales). It can be found at http://www.tonnesoftware.com/. I have used this program with good results. This program is designed just for designing meter scale/faces for just about anything.
The site also has free software for helping you design filters and amplifiers.