KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

KB6NU's Ham Radio Blog

Vintage Radio

Notes: Rotterdam museum, parts data, precision CW

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While I’m in the shack, I take a lot of notes. Some of them I actually follow up on. Some just get tossed. Below, is a collage of notes, with a bit of explanation/review of some of them:

notes-20150317

Rotterdams Radio Museum. There are lots of YouTube videos that feature the Rotterdams Radio Museum. I kind of like this particular one, as you can imagine the music coming out of one of these beauties.

parts.io. Need to find parts or part specs? Try parts.io.

Precision CW. Ernst, DJ7HS, offers a free CW training program and a program for sending and receiving coherent CW. Rather than trying to explain it here, please read Ernst’s article on the subject.

dlvr.it/7gRg1L. N8XYM’s page has a lot of information about D-STAR, MOTOTRBO, and the like.

746PRO memory program. The program found at this link can be used with the 756Pro, 756Pro2, 746, and IC-910 rig in addition to the IC-746PRO. I have had my IC-746PRO for more than ten years now, but never really took advantage of the memories because I didn’t have a good program to do so. This should fit the bill.

There are a bunch of other random notes on these scraps of paper. The upside-down list of callsigns on the piece of paper in the upper left-hand corner, for example, is a list of check-ins to the Extra Elmer Net that meets on Monday evenings. The ZS6BKW antenna is a refinement of the G5RV antenna. At any rate, now that I’ve scanned these notes, I can finally throw away the scraps of paper.

Amateur radio in the news: WA6ERA Citizen of the Year, Kid’s Day at the Science Factory,

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WA6ERAUnselfishly Coming to the Service of the Community. When the Lake Arrowhead Communities Chamber of Commerce holds its annual awards gala on Feb. 28, there will be four honorees: the Outstanding Citizen of the Year, the Outstanding Volunteer of the Year, the Outstanding Business of the Year and a Lifetime Achievement Award. The Outstanding Citizen of the Year for 2014 is a humble man, one who is a driving force behind the Central Mountain Section of the San Bernardino County Emergency Communications Service but who also prefers to stay in the background. Tracy Lenocker, WA6ERA, the Mountain Division chief, has had his amateur radio license since he was 14 years old. When he joined the Forest Service’s off-highway vehicle (OHV) program, he became active in amateur radio because communication out on the dirt trails was difficult, even with Forest Service radios.

Wi-fi the old way. “Joel from Las Vegas, you’re on with Liam Riley.” That’s not really how it went, but Joel and Liam, a 7-year-old Corvallis resident, did enjoy a brief conversation Saturday morning over the airwaves of the Valley Radio Club of Oregon’s amateur radio station, which operates from a corner of the computer room at the Science Factory children’s museum in Eugene.

Antique radio collection on display. Art Hoch’s passion for radio will be on display at the McPherson Museum through March 30. “When I was a little kid, before television, we had an old radio by the window,” Hoch said. “It had to be there because the antenna needed to be outside. I spent more than my share of time listening to old radio programs.” The display includes 30 radios of different sizes, ages and types. Hoch said the most common are tube radios. These used vacuum tubes, which were a common component of electronics until the development of transistors in the mid-1900s.

Classified ads you may have missed in the January 2015 QST

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For a while there, the classified ad sections in ham magazines were getting kind of sparse. After all, it makes little sense to sell your used gear   through a classified ad in QST when it’s cheaper and quicker to sell that gear online. Lately, though, I’ve been noticing that the classified ad section in QST has been growing. In the January 2015 issue that I received the other day, there were nearly four columns of ads.

There are a lot of  cool products, services, and organizations who advertise there. Here are some that you might want to look up in the January issue:

  • Antique Wireless Association (AWA). I belonged to the AWA for a while, and found them to be a great organization. I enjoyed getting their newsletter, and they run a museum in upstate NY that I’d like to visit one of these days.
  • Southern Appalachian Radio Museum. I used to have a friend who lived in Asheville, NC, where this museum is located, and I have actually visited this museum the last time I was in Asheville, which was at least five years ago. I enjoyed my visit then, and I’m sure the museum’s gotten even better since then.
  • HamRadioKids.Com. This is the first time I’ve seen the ad for HamRadioKids.Com. According to their website, “Ham Radio Kids.com is a program of Albert Partlow Science Foundation. Our mission is to support the science departments of small and underprivileged schools.” It certainly seems like a mission worth supporting. I just wish they had more “case studies” on their website.

These are the ads that caught my eye this month. If I’ve left off one of your favorites, please comment below.

From my Twitter feed: Antique wireless, Nuclear Summit special event

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K7AGE's avatar @K7AGE
AWA GATEWAY available #hamradio antiquewireless.org/uploads/1/6/1/… pic.twitter.com/NoI7dkksmW

DIYEngineering's avatarDIY Engineering @DIYEngineering
Call for Hams and Hackers: Welcome ICE/ISEE-3 Home – ISEE-3, one of America’s most dedicated space exploration … ow.ly/2DSJMz

PD0MV's avatarPD0MV@PD0MV
#PD6NUKE – For All Ham Operators world wide pic.twitter.com/tmHZDuCQAOStory image

From my Twitter feed: Ecommin in CO, vintage radio, JT9

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RadioGeek's avatarKKØHF@RadioGeek
Ghostbusters-like crew of amateur radio operators help in emergencies denverpost.com/breakingnews/c…

This is one of the better-written newspaper stories that I’ve seen in a while….Dan

 

MrVacuumTube's avatarGregory Charvat @MrVacuumTube
For a good series on how to restore antique radio gear, see youtube channel ‘bandersontv’ and (@YouTube youtu.be/TnRP1BcwRRk?a)

I have some antique radios that need restoration…..Dan

TWIAR's avatartwiar.org @TWIAR
ARRL: Have a Great Time with JT9 dlvr.it/3ybncz #hamr

On the air this weekend at WA2HOM

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WA2HOM is our club station at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. I go down there nearly every weekend and operate for anywhere from two to eight hours. This weekend, I had a lot of fun down there.

This photo, from the Boy Scouts of America website, shows one Cub Scout sending code to another.

Late last week, I was contacted by a woman who was a Cub Scout pack leader, asking if she could bring some Scouts by. Silly question. Of course, she could! We arranged to meet around 1:45 on Saturday. Well, right on time, she arrived with three Cub Scouts in tow.

Fortunately, I had just made contact with Jim, K0JIM, and he had a really solid signal here in Ann Arbor. That’s important because it’s sometimes difficult for inexperienced operators to hear a weak signal or one that’s accompanied by a lot of noise. When signals are weak or hard to copy for any reason, the kids get frustrated.

We were doubly fortunate in that Jim was just great with the kids. He asked each their name and got them to tell him a little bit about themselves. And, none of the kids were mike-shy, so it was a good experience for everyone involved. In addition to having them talk on the air, I took them over to our Morse Code display and showed them how to send their names in Morse Code.

I really hadn’t planned to go down on Sunday, but after doing some things around the house, I decided to zip down there about 2:30 pm to check into the Rotarians on Amateur Radio net. It’s so much easier to do from down at the museum because of the beam antenna. I didn’t hear a peep on the net frequency (14287 kHz) at either 3 pm or 4 pm (2000Z, which is the time listed on the ROAR website), though, so I’m not sure what’s going on there.

When I’m at the museum, I’m usually also tweeting. (I’m @kb6nu on Twitter.) I tweeted that 20m sounded kind of quiet, and got a reply from @hamradioireland, EI2KC, suggesting that we give it a try. After agreeing on a frequency, I pointed the beam northeast and gave him a call. Unfortunately, the propagation didn’t cooperate, and we could barely hear one another. Even so, it was still pretty cool using Twitter to arrange a DX QSO.

Tuning around after my short QSO with EI2KC, I found a couple of interesting nets. The first was the Collins Collectors Association Net on 14263 kHz. I could really only hear the net control station, but it sounded as though everyone checking in was running some kind of Collins gear. It was interesting to listen to, but not being a Collins operator, I didn’t check in.

Around 4 pm, I started looking for the ROAR net again. I never did find that net, but I did find the Heathkit Net on 14293 kHz. According to the Web page Heathkit Resources, the net starts at 2030Z, but I’m guessing that it really started at 1930Z.

Since I have a bunch of Heathkits—several that I still use regularly—I did check into this net. They’re a great group of guys, and I will definitely be checking into this net again. Who knows? It may even spur me to get my HW-101 back on the air.

From my Twitter feed: SDR, Hallicrafters, digital voice

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KD4E_73
Just found this resource:http://t.co/wlqb30CF Coverage down to 50mHz is possible with one type & down to 22mHz with another.

Wish I had the time to play with these things…..Dan

w7dtg
W7DTG: Another boatanchor receiver demonstration Hallicra…http://t.co/QXZn29Pe

 

Ham_Radio_News
Amateur Radio – FreeDV – Digital Voice Software for Amateur Radio http://t.co/u01JTDMa #hamradio #hamr #dx#swl

I’m still not sold on digital voice, but if it were easy to set up, like say PSK-31, I’d give it a try, at least….Dan<

On the Internet: W2AEW videos, Raspberry Pi programming, classic radio

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Here are a couple of Internet resources to start off the week:

W2AEW on YouTube. Alan, W2AEW, has a great selection of cool videos on YouTube. Some of the latest cover the basics of phase-locked loops, how to zero-beat WWV to check out a frequency counter’s accuracy, and a tutorial on resonant circuits. Good stuff!

Baking Pi – Operating Systems Development. This course, published by the University of Cambridge Computer laboratory, is a free online course that takes you through the basics of operating system development. The Web page notes, “[This course]  is aimed at people aged 16 and upwards, although younger readers may still find some of it accessible, particularly with assistance….I have tried not to assume any prior knowledge of operating systems development or assembly code. It may be helpful to have some programming experience, but the course should be accessible without.”

Classic Exchange. Mac, WQ8U, wrote to the Glowbugs mailing list, “The Classic Exchange (CX) is a low-key, on-air celebration of rigs of days gone by – particularly boat anchors. The latest CX Newsletter is available on the CX web site, as well as details for the next CX on September 16th (for AM and SSB) and September 23nd (for CW). Please enjoy the newsletter, spread the word and join in the fun during the next CX.”