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Well tonight was the first SSB leg of the new RSGB CC Sprint contest on 80m. Great fun :) It takes a bit of getting used to as once you have called CQ on a frequency, you have to give away the frequency to the person you worked! It levels the playing field rather nicely. A few of our members took part and the challenges are now set for the next leg!

The Federación de Radioaficionados de Centroamerica, FRACAP (Federation of Radioamateurs of Central America), will host the XLVIII FRACAP 2008 Convention in Tegucigalpa, Honduras, October 3-5, 2008. FRACAP is a federation of six national Amateur Radio organizations from Central America: Club de radio aficionados de Guatemala (CRAG), Club de radio aficionados de El Salvador (CRAS), Federación de clubes de radioaficionados de Honduras (FEHDECRA), Club de radio experimentadores de Nicaragua (CREN), Radio club de Costa Rica (RCCR) and the Liga Panameña de Radioaficionados (LPR).

With maximum sustained winds of 90 mph/150 km per hour, Hurricane Gustav made landfall on the southwest peninsula of Haiti on the afternoon of August 26. Over the next few days, its path is projected to take it along Cuba's southern coast and then northwestward into the Gulf of Mexico. For storm information specific to your area, including possible inland watches and warnings, please monitor products issued by your local weather office.

The St Louis County ARES® Emergency Coordinator had urged the group's members to participate in the National Night Out events in their local communities. He felt that it was a good opportunity to promote ARES and Amateur Radio in general. I live in Florissant, a suburb of St Louis, and I was fairly sure that at least a few events were planned there. When I heard that there was going to be a block party practically on my doorstep, I jumped at the chance. I dropped a note to the local Neighborhood Watch block captain and asked her if it would be all right for me to set up and demonstrate an emergency Amateur Radio station. I will admit to being a little surprised when she said yes.

Five operators: AD6E, G3KHZ, K6HFA, CT1AGF, and W5GAI will operate from three islands in Papua New Guinea during October. They have room for one more operator if you want to make the trip. See their web site HERE for more information. They may do 160-M on the trip but since it will cost $1,500 to transport the 160-M amplifier and antennas to that location and back, they are asking for donations via a PayPal link on the above web site to help fund that band. If you don't use PayPal you can send your donation to W5GAI. They plan to operate from these IOTA locations: OC-008, OC-181 (P29VLR), OC-041 (P29NI), and OC-025.

Have you given up trying to work any DX at the bottom of the Sunspot Cycle (except on the low bands?) Do you ever turn the rig to 15-M or 10-M at all? Well, JQ2UOZ set a challenge for himself. The challenge was to try to work DXCC at the bottom of the sunspot cycle running just 500 milliwatts to a dipole antenna on the 17-M band or higher frequencies. He began this quest on November 25, 2006, and as of August 4, 2008, he has reached 100 countries! Nothing short of WOW! Check out his web page HERE and his Challenge stats HERE. Read through some of the stations he worked - it even includes BS7H!

The ARRL Continuing Education Program offers Emergency Communications training courses to prepare radio amateurs to serve our communities in time of crisis when other communications systems fail. The ARRL Emergency Communications training program includes three levels of courses. In order to keep the material in the Level 3 course accurate and up to date, we will be revising the Level 3 curriculum. Dennis Dura, K2DCD, ARRL Emergency Preparedness and Response Manager, will be developing the new content. We expect the fully updated course to be available in the first quarter of 2009.

Registration remains open through Sunday, September 7, 2008 for these online course sessions beginning on Friday, September 19, 2008: Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level 2 (EC-002); Amateur Radio Emergency Communications Level 3 (EC-003R2); Antenna Modeling (EC-004); HF Digital Communications (EC-005); VHF/UHF -- Life Beyond the Repeater (EC-008), and Radio Frequency Propagation (EC-011). Each online course has been developed in segments -- learning units with objectives, informative text, student activities and quizzes. Courses are interactive, and some include direct communications with a Mentor/Instructor. Students register for a particular session that may be 8, 12 or 16 weeks (depending on the course) and they may access the course at any time of day during the course period, completing lessons and activities at times convenient for their personal schedule. Mentors assist students by answering questions, reviewing assignments and activities, as well as providing helpful feedback. Interaction with mentors is conducted through e-mail; there is no appointed time the student must be present -- allowing complete flexibility for the student to work when and where it is convenient. To learn more, visit the Continuing Education course listing page or contact the Continuing Education Program Coordinator.

The ARES E-Letter August 26, 2008 ================= Rick Palm, K1CE, Editor http://www.qrz.com/database?callsign=K1CE>, =================================== ARES reports, other related...

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Dear Cook County ARES Members and Friends: Please join us tonight... Wednesday, 27 August 2008, at 9:00 PM CDT... for the monthly Cook County ARES Net on the SARA Repeater (146.88 MHz, offset...

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The Stafford Fire and Rescue Department has honored 31 county volunteer ham radio operators for their assistance over the past year, particularly during the tornado strike in southern Stafford in May. Assistant Fire Chief and Emergency Manager Gerald Jaskulski presented certificates of appreciation Aug. 16 during an award gathering at Perkins Restaurant, on Warrenton Road near Interstate 95. He praised the amateur operators for relaying information, particularly when other communications were hampered. Eleven of the hams received recognition for assisting in spreading the word on the Skywarn Radio Net about possible tornados in the Stafford area during the night of May 8. Twelve were honored for their response after the south Stafford tornado touched down on May 9.

Details of this year’s British Wireless for the Blind Fund’s (BWBF) annual fund raising event for radio amateurs have been revealed. The 48-hour on-air Transmission 2008 weekend is set to kick-off on 20 September - with a brand new category for the under-18s

Hurricane Gustav is currently making its way through the central part of the Caribbean basin and has passed through Dominican Republic and Haiti and will be affecting the island of Cuba in the next few hours

The upsurge of interest in QRP operation has resulted in the formation of the Home Counties QRP Circle who are holding their first meeting in Stevenage on 21st September

WINMOR, an HF digital protocol designed for use with the Winlink 2000 network, will be unveiled at the upcoming ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference in Chicago, September 26-28

Weekly IOTA News - compiled by the Deutscher Amateur Radio Club

The Federal Communications Commission announced that the cost of an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will increase 60 cents, from $11.70 to $12.30

On 23-24 August the Tyresta National Park near Stockholm did arrange a short course in archaeology with focus on the Stone Age about 6,000 to 10,000 years ago in the area. It was a very fascinating experience for all of us twelve participants to learn and dig and find very old traces from the Stone Age. Pictures and short videos: 23 August 24 August. Sorry, text and talk in Swedish only.

Ron Sparks, AG5RS, sent us this very cool picture. My kids take great delight in shooting those tiny red laser pointers out the window, and as described in SolderSmoke we actually built a simple laser communications system. But so far we haven't achieved the kind of "beam shooting into the sky" effect pictured here.

Here are Ron's comments.:

"It was interesting for you to mention the lunar laser reflector. It had a very special impact on my life. You see, I grew up in Texas at about the midpoint of the 600 mile line between NASA Clear Lake and the McDonald Observatory in the Davis mountains and was in High School when Neil Armstrong walked on the moon. I had the pleasure to visit both NASA and McDonald at that time and had direct contact with some of the people responsible. I have actually put my hands on the controls for the laser in the attached photo. More importantly, the control box was opened up for me so I could see all the gizmos inside."

Check out the website: The Lunar and Planetary Institute

The website has some interesting info on the width of the laser beam when it reaches the moon, and how they use the data to measure the distance. Sounds vaguely QRSS-ish:

"Laser beams are used because they remain tightly focused for large distances. Nevertheless, there is enough dispersion of the beam that it is about 7 kilometers in diameter when it reaches the Moon and 20 kilometers in diameter when it returns to Earth. Because of this very weak signal, observations are made for several hours at a time. By averaging the signal for this period, the distance to the Moon can be measured to an accuracy of about 3 centimeters (the average distance from Earth to the Moon is about 385,000 kilometers). "

On August 11, the Federal Communications Commission announced that the cost of an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will increase 60 cents, from $11.70 to $12.30. Now that notice of the increase has been published in the Federal Register, the increase will take effect in 30 days, September 25, 2008.

Software is changing the way hams operate, catapulting a classic hobby into the 21st century. Like almost everything else in electronics, radios are becoming processors with software that communicate via a small amount of RF I/O circuitry. Surely, then, the rise of software-defined radio (SDR) should come as no surprise. Digital signal processing (DSP) lies at the heart of SDR. Add to that the arrival of faster analog-to-digital and digital-to-analog converters (ADCs and DACs) and processors, and SDR becomes more viable for a wider range of applications. Simply put, software continues to push hardware aside, assuming more and more processing functions. SDR first showed up in military equipment, but it’s now used in most cell phones. It also is ideal for future public-safety communications by providing a way to deal with the myriad air interfaces and frequency spectra used by first responders in disaster situations. SDR techniques have even joined the mainstream, with services like ham radio adopting them as prices permit.

Okay, not the low band that is usually meant. I mean 80 meter CW, because that is as low as I can go. Last night while I was working on the antenna, I found that the wire going to the...

SB SPCL @ ARL $ARLX008 ARLX008 FCC Vanity Call Sign Fees to Increase September 25 ZCZC AX08 QST de W1AW Special Bulletin 8 ARLX008 From ARRL Headquarters Newington CT August 26, 2008 To all radio...

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SB KEP @ ARL $ARLK065 ARLK065 Keplerian data ZCZC SK65 QST de W1AW Keplerian Bulletin 65 ARLK065 From ARRL Headquarters Newington, CT August 26, 2008 To all radio amateurs SB KEP ARL...

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Fire and Rescue honors 'hams' MORE INFO The Free Lance-Star - Fredericksburg,VA,USA Those interested in participating in amateur radio should contact Curt Bar-tholomew, the group's emergency...

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West Pasco Happenings Tampabay.com - St. Petersburg,FL,USA Gulf Coast Amateur Club: 7 pm today at the Gulf Coast Amateur Radio Club Clubhouse, 6909 Tierra Verde St., Port Richey. All HAM radio...

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On August 11, the FCC announced that the cost of an Amateur Radio vanity call sign will increase 60 cents, from $11.70 to $12.30. Now that notice of the increase has been published in the Federal Register, the increase will take effect in 30 days, September 25, 2008.

This is a short post sharing the fact that my XLY and myself are about to embark on an Australian walkabout adventure. Normal homebrew activities will resume here in the second week of October!

I’ve had to promise no radio activities, no looking at antenna’s and definitely no knocking on doors of amateurs down under, I guess this is a fair deal as my long suffering XYL hardly ever sees my in between holidays, and we haven’t had one for 3 years. So progress in the shack has been great, but in the words of my wife, ‘there is a time, once in a while to get a life!’

Below is a picture of ‘Jimmy’ - on walkabout from the Pitjantjara Tribe, just to set the mood

We’ve nothing really planned and after a few days in Sydney we’re flying up to Cairns, picking up a hire car and driving back to Sydney over a five week period. We are looking forward to exploring this fascinating island continent, visiting exotic rainforests and coloured deserts, magnificent reefs, islands and harbours, see weird animals and plant life, learn about the Aboriginal Dream Time, Aboriginal art and see friendly Aussies who talk funny!

Well that just about wraps it up, so G’Day and I’ll be back in October

End of update

From the Boston Globe (Emaphasis Mine)

A junior at Needham High School posted students' schedules and identification numbers and teachers' classroom rosters on his Facebook account after hacking into an online student information system, school officials said yesterday.

The Hurricane Watch Net (HWN) will activate Tuesday, August 26 at 0800 EDT/1200Z on 14.325 MHz as Hurricane Gustav approaches Hispaniola. We will be disseminating the latest weather bulletins from the National Hurricane Center and passing real time reports from the affected area to WX4NHC at the Center to assist forecasters in their tasks. Plans are to remain active until the band goes out. Operations on Wednesday and beyond will depend on Gustav’s status and path, but will be published on our Web site. HWN net intentions, the latest on Gustav and other weather information is always on the site. -- Dave Lefavour, W7GOX, Manager, Hurricane Watch Net

WINMOR, an HF digital protocol designed for use with the Winlink 2000 network, will be unveiled at the upcoming ARRL/TAPR Digital Communications Conference in Chicago, September 26-28.

Approval has been given by the iDA for SARTS members to use the callsign 9V1F1 to commemorate the Formula 1 Races which will be held in downtown Singapore, at night, from September 26th to 28th.

SARTS members may use the callsign from Aug 26th until Sep 30th 2008 (UTC).

Outward QSLing will be 100%. Members using this callsign will be responsible for printing the QSL labels and sticking them onto the QSL cards, which will be provided by SARTS.

Members using this special event callsign are required to maintain a computer log and submit a copy in ADIF format to a to-be-appointed co-ordinator.

In order to prevent confusion amongst DX stations arising from multiple 9V1F1 stations operating on the same band, in the same mode, at the same time, members are required to book their operating slots with Darryl 9V1DE. A timetable will be drawn out and will be published on the web. Booking of slots will commence after National Day.

This slot booking system will also facilitate distribution of incoming QSL cards.

Source : SARTS NEWS

A group of eight Korean operators (namely Kim/HL2CFY, Lim/DS2HRE, Kweon/DS2GXU, Kim/6K2GEN, Seok/6K2GDT, Cho/6K2FNN, Song/6K2BWA and Young/6K2ABX) will be active as either D9D and homecall/5 from Tok (Dok) Island (AS-045) on 13-18 September. They will operate CW, SSB, FSK and PSK31 on 80-10 metres with four transceivers, two amplifers and various vertical and wire antenna systems.

QSL D9D via 6K2BWA, others via home call.

The September/October issue of QEX is out, and it is full of theoretical and practical technical articles that you don't want to miss.

Not too long ago, a local hospital was in a dire emergency. It's phones and the phones in the area were not working -- and wouldn't be for a while -- and the hospital needed to contact a hospital in Tampa. There was a desperately ill child who needed to be flown to Tampa, but without phones, precious minutes would be lost while other means of contact were found. That's where the HAM radio operator who works with the hospital came in. The HAM radio operator contacted another operator in Tampa. That operator, in turn, called the Tampa hospital and connected the two hospitals over the radio waves. Often, people think of HAM radio operators as only being key figures at major disasters, such as earthquakes and hurricanes. But HAM radio operators, including those of the Charlotte Amateur Radio Society, are often working behind the scenes at many local events.

Dave Johnson, G4DPZ and Carlos Eavis, G0AKI of AMSAT-UK and the RSGB, respectively, will be presenting an "Amateur Satellite Operation for Beginners" presentation as part of the lecture stream at the Leicester Amateur Radio Show on Saturday 25th October 2008

The forthcoming Bath Foundation course run by Steve Hartley, editor of the Intermediate Manual, has featured in an article in the Bath Chronicle newspaper. This year's classes will be stating at on the 4th September, so there's still time to enrol

The Romanian Amateur Radio Federation's YO DX HF Contest takes place on the last weekend of August. Radio Amateurs from around the world are welcome to enter

The New South Wales Department of Lands has announced a Communications Facility Site Licensing scheme which may force some amateur radio clubs to shut down repeaters located on Crown land, or face huge increases in site licence fees

Joe, KK0SD, will be going on a trip that will pass through some rare grids. This is not a grid expedition and the main purpose is work-related travel

Tutul, S21RC and possibly 3 other S2 operators are preparing a DXpedition in December to St. Martin's Island (AS-127) located in Chittagong Region Group

The many friends of Pat McNamara, better known as 'EI9 Charlie Brown', will be saddened to hear of his death. Pat had been ill for some time and died on Tuesday last

Australian radio amateur Grahame O'Brien VK2FA got a big surprise after distributing a quantity of press releases to media outlets around parts of NSW promoting some upcoming foundation assessments

Heh, just a small gasp of air and a quick note where attentions have been. As mentioned in a previous post “Servers, Drivers and Time - Oh My!” a main server at work “caught the flu” and has been giving grief. The first wave of problems and repairs were followed by a second, and then a third.  Each more [...]

Ted, AJ8T, alerted me to this very interesting page.

"The CK722 holds a unique place in the history of the transistor. Introduced by Raytheon in early 1953, the CK722 was the first low cost junction transistor available to the general public. It was an instant success. Countless "build it yourself" articles were published in the popular electronics press and electronics/hobbyist magazines describing how to use the CK722 to build all types of devices such as radios, oscillators, electronic voltmeters, photoelectric alarms and hearing aids. Eager to learn about the exciting new transistor technology, the public responded enthusiastically to the CK722 - hundreds of thousands of these transistors were bought by experimenters, radio hams, engineers and others interested in this technology over the next few years. In addition, there is a sentimental aspect to this device. Many of the talented and dedicated professionals and amateurs who have been responsible for the tremendous rise of the electronics industry over the past four decades can still remember the time when, as a young hobbyist, they were able to scrape together enough money (maybe through saving allowance or cutting the neighbor's grass) to buy that first CK722 - can you still recall the smell of solder and the absolute delight of hearing a local radio station coming through "loud and clear" on the newly constructed one transistor radio powered by, of course, a gleaming, bright blue CK722? This webpage and book have been constructed to help preserve the special legacy of the Raytheon CK722."

Check it out:

http://www.ck722museum.com/

I decided to tune the Hi-Q down to 80 meter CW to see what was happening. That's a long trip from 20 meters, and the radio was pretty hot at the end. So I painted some tuning indicators on the...

I’ve written before about Tom Kneitel, K2AES, known to some Electronics Illustrated readers as “Uncle Tom.” I’m sorry to report that he’s passed. His stuff was always a lot of fun to read.

The Orlando Sentinel article points out that, ‘He was the grandson of Max Fleischer, the cartoonist who had a Miami animation studio that created Betty Boop and Popeye cartoons.” You learn something new every day.

Here’s the ARRL story on Kneitel.

It was a very busy ham radio weekend:

• Operated from the museum Saturday morning from 1400Z - 1800Z. The best DX was KL7WP/7 from Portland. I got a little excited when we first made contact because I was hoping to get the Alaska contact.

  We had two very cool visitors. The first was a little girl and her mother. We got the girl to send her name in Morse Code, and the kid really enjoyed that. The two seemed genuinely interested, especially when we told them that we were going to put up a station at the museum.

  The second was a middle school teacher from Oakland County. He was interested in the no-solder, code practice oscillator as something he could get his students to build.

• As if that wasn’t enough ham radio for me on Saturday, I got on the air that evening while waiting for Silvia to get home from work. I worked VK4TT on 20m CW and IK1RLI on 30m CW. There was quite a bit of activity on 20m, and I probably should have stayed there.
• To top off the evening, I worked K1FIR, another card to add to my collection of QSLs from stations whose callsigns spell words.
• Sunday morning, after a short QSO with KA1VRM, I went to help a friend with some tower maintenance.
• Sunday evening, the propagation gods once again smiled on me. I just worked 7X4AN, Med, in Algeria (a new one for me) on 20m and IW0GXY, Max, on 30m.

All in all, quite a good weekend for ham radio here at KB6NU.

I just finished reading an article on ARRL's website, "Ohio State Parks on the Air". I thought that this sounded like a wonderful idea that shouldn't be limited to just Ohio, but as the article eluded to, a National State Parks on the Air contest. I would love to operate QRP from the field while camping and competing. This would indeed combine both of my favorite hobbies, HAM Radio and the Outdoors (i.e. camping, hiking, backpacking, etc.). I know here in East Tennessee, there are several wonderful state parks for HAMs to operate from while camping or hiking. "Mountain Top Portable" comes to mind when I think about it.

Anyway, that article just seemed to strike my fancy and I thought I would share my thoughts with the Hamblogsphere. Other than that I don't have much else. I'm stuck in Alpharetta, Georgia on a Disaster Recovery exercise for work so I'm away from my stomping grounds. I tuned around last evening whilst in my room at the hotel. It appears there are several repeaters in Atlanta, GA and the surrounding area. I did find North Fulton's Amateur Radio League's website which has a pretty extensive listing of repeaters and nets in the area. I might try to catch some of them on the HT while I'm here. For those that happen to check this out from the Atlanta area, leave me some comments on the HAM happenings in this area. I would love to check them out while I've got off time in the evening.

So that's all I have for now.

73 de AJ4JD
Tim

P.S. All my buddies and friends on 147.360 and 145.470 back home, can't wait to ragchew with you all soon.