Archive for 2008/11


Links, Links, Links

Just more links:

KC1XX.Com
This site is a description and chronology of the Amateur Radio Station owned by Matt Strelow. The station is designed for competition in the multi-operator multi-transmitter category of high-frequency DX contests, and makes no compromises for other categories or types of contests. Few will want to duplicate a station like this — [...]

Yet Another Museum Display Idea

As I was going to the museum yesterday, another idea for a display hit me. Perhaps we could do something with antennas. The display could explain the different types of antennas (dipoles, verticals, beams) and why some are longer and some are shorter (the concept of wavelength).
If we had a computer screen big enough and [...]

This Weekend on the Radio at the Hands-On Museum

This weekend, I spent several hours at the museum getting the station up and running (and playing around a bit. On Saturday:

I brought a keyboard, mouse, and power cord and got the computer all hooked up. It seems to be running OK, but since I forgot to bring the password with me, all I could [...]

I’m Tired of Pessimism

About a month ago, I wrote a column titled “Let’s Get on the Maker Bandwagon.” Basically, it says that Makers are the kind of people we want in ham radio, and it would be a good thing if ham radio (meaning the ARRL) had a presence at the Maker Faires. Also, I noted that if [...]

New Ham Mag

Ham-Mag bills itself as “the first e-magazine for amateur radio operators. Better yet, subscriptions are free.
There’s one catch. At the present time, it’s only in French. An English-language version is planned, though. In fact, I’ve just volunteered my service to help out in some way with the English version.
Here’s what the website has to [...]

The Vagaries of My Random Wire

A couple of years ago, my 40m dipole came down when an ice-laden tree branch fell on it and broke one of the elements. Since I didn’t want to be off the air, I threw up an 85-foot random-wire antenna. After playing around with it for a while, I actually got it to tune [...]

Working With the Museum is Great!

It’s such a pleasure to work with the people at the Ann Arbor Hands-On Museum. Here another example—a professionally-done version of the ham class flyer:

WA2HOM News

We operated from our new station location yesterday, Saturday, 11/22/08. Thanks to Jim K8ELR, Pat W8LNO (who’s now our head crimper), Michelle KD8GWX, Ovide W1GXE, and Steve WB8WSF for helping out.
Of course, we had some problems. For example, something’s fishy with the antennas. The SWR on the 40m antenna was 3.0:1 at 7.000 MHz and [...]

NASA Tests First Deep-Space Internet

This is from the Association for Computing Machinery’s latest TechNews. You’re not going to be running any cables out to Mars. This link is going to radio….Dan
NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) engineers have successfully tested the first deep space communications network based on the Internet, using the Disruption-Tolerant Networking (DTN) protocol to transmit dozens of [...]

I Guess I’m a Better Ham Radio Operator Than I Am a Politician

The results have been posted in the Great Lakes Division Vice Director election, and I was defeated again:
1,218 – Gary Johnston, KI4LA
1,205 – Daniel Romanchik, KB6NU
1,155 – John Meyers, NB4K
Oddly enough, there were actually fewer votes cast in this election with three candidates running than three years ago when there were only two of us [...]