Tag: periodicals

A bit of fun

—–Original Message—–

From: AD7MI
Sent: Saturday, March 14, 2009 10:34 AM
To: ag1yk
Subject: Pilot line question

Steve,
I enjoyed your contribution to Hints & Kinks and have tried to get it to work. Here is an additional idea that has worked for me – add a bit of peanut butter on the acorn. The first time I tried this without the peanut butter, the squirrels seemed to ignore the acorn with the line affixed to it. I tried the peanut butter and that got their attention – although I had some peanut butter on the zip tie and the squirrel, in his attempt to get the peanut butter, bit through the zip tie. My real question is what type of line did you use for the pilot line? The line I’ve tried seems to be to heavy for the squirrels here – they get the acorn and line up about half way and then drop it… it looks like the line is too heavy, causing the squirrel to drop it. A lighter line might work better? What kind did you use?
Thanks again for a great tip!

73 Scott AD7MI

—–Original Message—–

From: AG1YK
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 2:46 PM
To: ad7mi
Subject: RE: Pilot line question

Scott,
Glad to hear you enjoyed the article. As to your problem, I think it is more a matter of motivating the squirrel more. I have found, after years of experimentation, that squirrels go squirrelly for orange. I had one get so excited that he ran up the tree so fast he went right off the top and continued up into the air. Luckily the wind was blowing right and he drifted across the yard and landed on the far side of the other tree I wanted to put my antenna in. I was able to pull the support line through both trees in one operation.

Really, try orange.

73,
Steve Sant Andrea, AG1YK
Assistant Editor, H&K, QST
—–Original Message—–

From: AD7MI
Sent: Tuesday, March 17, 2009 8:34 PM
To: AG1YK
Subject: RE: Pilot line question

…and all this time I thought squirrels were color blind. I will give orange a try! 🙂

Strategic Communications

The title of this post is a little misleading. As I mentioned before, I am attending the Army’s Command & General Staff College (CGSC) here at Fort Leavenworth, Kansas (… I bet you thought I was out here in Kansas just for the nice weather). One of the new requirements we have as students at is to egage in “Strategic Communication”. Wikipedia defines strategic communications as: communicating a concept, a process, or data that satisfies a long term strategic goal of an organization by allowing facilitation of advanced planning. Our requirements as students to engage in strategic communication does not exactly line up with that definition, but I think it gives you an idea of where the Army is headed. The bottom line is the Army wants to develop officers who are familiar and comfortable in dealing with the media in order to get the Army’s “message” out. In the past the military has been traditionally media shy (understatement), either making heavy use of the “no comment” or deferring to our public relations officers. No more. The Army recognizes this is the new media age and those that get their story out first, in a clear and understandable fashion are likely to better garner public support… both domestic and international. Okay… so back to school. My requirements, as related to strategic communications, are to: (1) participate in an actual media interview (television, print, or radio), (2) speak to a community group, school, or other organized gathering of citizens, (3) write professionally by submitting a letter to the editor, Op-Ed piece, or article for publication, and (4) participate in a reputable blog about their military service.

#4 is pretty easy. I think I can figure out how to blog.

#3 not too hard. I can either repurpose one of my existing papers and send in to a newspaper or I can try to be original and maybe send something in to ARRL.

#2 is a bit harder. What I have decided to do for that is put together a presentation of amateur radio operations by military members who are deployed… kind of a DXpedition in a Combat Zone. I have a lot of information on amateur radio operations by folks in both Afghanistan and Iraq and I can use my own experience as well. Then I have to find an amateur radio club to give the talk to. Ideally I need to have all of this complete by the end of March.

…and #1. That is the hardest, in my opinion. Knowing the challenge of this particular requirement, our instructors are allowing us to get credit if we are able to call and get on a radio talk show. This interpretation makes the requirement a little less severe. Now I have to find a radio talk show to call. There are several here in the Kansas City area that I am scoping out:
KCUR: Up To Date
KMBZ: Shanin & Parks

I also found some great advise on how to be prepared before I call at both NPR and KCUR.

Wish me luck.

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.

Best Operating Practices

I recently received a care package from the XYL containing recent issues of my favorite amateur radio magazines: WorldRadio, CQ, QST, as well as the FISTS newsletter. One of the QST column’s mentioned ON4WW’s website and his tips for good amateur radio operating practices. I’d like to highlight them – they make great sense and if everyone observed them, would make our quality radio time just that much more enjoyable.

From: http://www.on4ww.be/OperatingPracticeEnglish.html

1. HAM LANGUAGE
Know the ‘Ham Language’. Get acquainted with the correct Amateur Radio Language. Don’t say ‘Radio four’, but ‘readibility four’. Master the phonetic alphabet, CW abbreviations, the Q code and the number code (73/88) as if they were a second mother language before getting on the air.
Always use the phonetic alphabet in a correct manner: A is Alfa, and not Alabama.

AD7MI: it always throws me when someone does not use the standard phonetic alphabet. But I will admit, with some DX stations where I have a hard time understanding their pronunciation, a substitution in the phonetic alphabet makes sense. I know the basic Q codes, but do need to brush up a bit.

Electric Radio – Celebrating a Bygone Era


I recently put in an order to AES for a few items I really didn’t need. Fortunately AES ships to APO addresses… while HRO does not. When stateside I prefer to order from HRO, having had great overall past experience with them. Quick delivery, no fuss, no muss. If I have a problem, I can call the store directly. I’ve also used HRO to give gifts (Father’s Day, Christmas, Birthday) to my dad, KD6EUG, and that has worked very smoothly. When I’m back visiting the folks in Sunnyvale, CA – I always try to stop by the HRO store there. It is near Fry’s Electronics – not far from Moffett Field. HRO also helped field the US Army Amateur Radio Society and the Baghdad Amateur Radio Society a complete radio setup, to include IC-7000, power supply, CW key, etc. HRO’s good people. However… they don’t ship to APO addresses, so I ordered from AES. Now AES will allow you to use a stateside billing address, but will send your order to the APO address. But here is the kicker – AES sends an invoice to your billing address… so the XYL gets it and finds out you have been ordering a bunch of stuff you don’t really need instead of saving money for our upcoming trip to Europe. But I digress. One of the items I ordered was the August 2007 issue of the periodical Electric Radio. What a wonderful little magazine! I’ve talked about other radio magazines in the past and lately I’ve taken a real shine to World Radio.

Electric Radio is a real jewel. Inside the front cover, the magazine states it’s intent upfront: Electric Radio is all about restoration, maintenance, and continued use of vintage radio equipment. So what does this have to do with me? I don’t restore or use vintage equipment. I wouldn’t know the difference between Collins, Drake, National, or anything other type of old, dusty metal cabineted stuff. Despite this, the magazine is still a joy to read. Page 2 talks about Electric Radio’s “Honor Your Elmer Contest” – how great of an idea is that?! Page 39 has an amazing article about the life of George Mouridian, W1GAC, SK. The magazine itself is the size of a church pamphlet with a nice sturdy color cover. The pictures inside are black and white – but what better captures the essence of classic radio than black and white photos. The gear is wonderful to see… massive tubes, huge dials, looks like some of the rigs could have easily of come from Dr. Frankenstein’s laboratory. I probably won’t subscribe and you may not either – but I do recommend you pick up at least one copy to have a look for yourself.

The Wayback Machine

I’ve really been enjoying Bill Continelli’s, W2XOY, web posting on the history of amateur radio entitled the Wayback Machine. Well written and very engaging.

I received a package from home containing the last two issues of CQ and the last issue of QST so I spent a good portion of last night reading through those. Also got a copy of the latest issue of DX Magazine – I always enjoy reading the articles about hams on exotic DXpeditions.

Listened to the Voice of Russia for a little while but couldn’t find any solid shortwave stations to listen to last night.

FISTS, the organization of the International Morse Preservation Society, has a great beginners guide to a CW QSO on their website.

Quick & Dirty: APRS WX Station?

I want to put together an inexpensive APRS WX station for my dad, KD6EUG, to install up at his cabin in Mi-Wuk Village, CA. There was an article in the July 2006 QST that talked about one solution. But the big price tag comes with the weather station itself.

Today I found a nice, inexpensive solution from TAPR, the T-238+MODEM2 Kit. Not only is it APRS ready, it also incorporates it’s own TNC. The weather station components that it works with, 1-Wireâ„¢ Weather Instrument Kit V3.0, and also doesn’t break the bank.

We’ll see how this project comes together. For the radio, I will use either an FT-1500M (ideal for the job) or an HTX-242 if I can ensure it’s capable of the task. I like the W3BW (see QST article) solution of using a gel cell with a trickle charger. Should the shore power drop out, the APRS weather station should function for quite some time.

Speaking of WX stations…. you can go here to see the weather at the home QTH.

Looking at the APRS activity around Mi-Wuk, I’m seeing the following nearby stations:

K6TUO-3: looks like a digipeater in Sonora, sponsored by the Tuolumne County Amateur Radio & Electronics Society (TCARES).
K6NFL: over in the town of Arnold, Dave has a very nice wx page.
KE6KYI: located in Groveland.