Category: radio

WorldRadio… online


WorldRadio has been my favorite amateur radio periodical. QST, DX Magazine, CQ, and QEX didn’t compare to what WorldRadio offered (at least to me). The Aerials column by “Kurt N. Sterba” and the QRP column by Richard Fisher (KI6SN) were the first columns I turned to. Next was the Rules & Regs by John Johnston (W3BE) – always interesting (and straight forward) interpretations of what the FCC says right looks like. But the BEST column is HF Mobile by Lee Cobb (W6TEE). Lee’s column was a constant source of motivation for my mobile setup.

Then WorldRadio decided to close up their print operations…. and me a lifetime subscriber. I was not happy. But today their first online issue came out…. and you know what? It looks pretty darn good in color. And if I want to, I can always print the articles out to read if I don’t want to read them on the computer (sometimes I’m old school like that).

The downside – Lee announced this was his last column. I hope WorldRadio can find someone who does 1/10th of the job Lee did. Thank you Lee for your years of HF Mobiling columns… you will be missed.

Working in the shack


I spent some time this afternoon trying to get the shack a little better organized. I mounted two power strips on the wall behind my desk to help organize my power cables. I also mounted the console for my Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station directly above my computer monitors for easy visibility. I use Anderson Powerpoll connectors and West Mountain Rigrunners for my power distribution. Things were looking a bit like a rat’s nest, so I shut everything down, unplug all the connectors, rerouted them in a more coherent fashion, and replugged everything in. I also added in my West Mountain PwrGate and hooked in my 12v deep cycle marine battery. The PwrGate keeps the marine battery charged and automatically switches to it should there be a drop in the 120v house power. I still need an UPS for my computer running the Weather Display software and UI-View32.

Also added a lamp to the desk to help me see what the heck I’m doing.

Finally, I fired up the IC-7000 just to make sure it was still working and had a nice QSO with VE6CQ operating from Calgary, Canada.

Freeze Your Keys

Feb 14, 1400Z-2200Z, Leavenworth, KS. Kickapoo QRP Amateur Radio Club, W0EBB. 5th Annual ‘Freeze Your Keys’ Winter Operating Event. 14.280 14.060 7.280 7.030. QSL. Gary Auchard, 34058 167th St, Leavenworth, KS 66048. w0ebb@juno.com

a brasspounder’s cafe


Check out the wonderful blog of JJ8KGZ. Leo is in the process of assembling an Elecraft KX1 and has also started to share the joy of kit building with his son. Although I am sure there are many non-Western hamblogs out there, this is probably one of the first I’ve really explored and quite enjoy. I’ll be looking forward to Leo’s next post.

Ubuntu 8.10 – fresh install

Yesterday I finally turned my dual-boot (Windows XP and Ubuntu) into a full fledged Ubuntu 8.10 box. The install went generally well. A little initial problem getting the wifi working (but I attribute that to my wifi network, not Ubuntu) and then a bit of tweaking to get my networked drives mounted permanently as well as configuring to print on a printer hooked to a Windows XP box and a network printer. I always forget that I have to install Samba before I configure /etc/fstab and make directories under the media folder. Once I realized my mistake, I was off and running. The printer setup was also fairly easy, having saved my settings from before.

I’m still keeping my Dell laptop on Windows XP for now. It has my MS Outlook which I still haven’t moved to Ubuntu’s Evolution. My ham computer is also still on Windows XP because I’m not yet willing to make the jump to a Linux based ham world.

I’ve said it before and am still convinced that I won’t need to give Microsoft any more money. When it is time to move my remaining boxes off of Windows, I won’t be looking back.

APRS… weather and beacon


As I mentioned earlier, I’ve got the data from my weather station being sent out via APRS. You can see the latest data here … although I like my Weather Display Live page better.

For my APRS station I am using a Yaesu 2M (packet-ready) transceiver, a Kantronics KPC-3+ TNC, and a computer running UI-View. I opted not to push any of my APRS traffic via the IGate, I’m only looking at what I can see via RF. And I can see quite a bit. I’d wonder if I’d want to put my station into digipeater mode – but with all the APRS traffic around here, there is no need. In fact, I cranked the radios power output down to 5 watts to try and not add to the APRS congestion. I’ve got over 30 stations just within 20 miles as you can see here.

UI-View is working well and was fairly easy to setup. I enjoy at looking at a lot of the vehicle APRS hits in Kansas City… there is quite a bit during the commute hours.

The weather page has returned…


After a few years hiatus, my weather page is back with a face lift.

I purchased and set up a Davis Vantage Pro2 weather station when I was in Iraq this last time. It was useful there even through I didn’t use it with APRS. My intent was to bring it back and setup here – that’s what I did back in August. But I could never find the software that came with it to interface it with a computer. It has been great having the Vantage Pro2 with its wireless display terminal. I’d set the terminal in the kitchen and could always get a peek at the weather when I got up in the morning. However, it had always been my intent to find the software, interface the weather station with a computer and then pump the data into APRS.
In the past I’ve used Weather Display – which is a great software package for being able to suck in all the data collected by your weather station, display real-time data, and look at data trends and historical information. Weather Display has a web page creation feature which works well, but is not as slick as Weather Display Live. So once I got the weather station talking to my computer, I also was able to get Weather Display Live working and hence my new and improved weather page:www.ni0l.com/wx/wx.html… there is also a link in the navigation bar above [Weather in Leavenworth, KS]

New blog!

Ok – I’ve been getting re-energized in my amateur radio activities and thought I’d use a new and improved hamblog to help maintain the momentum.