Announcing the 2011 Fall TechFest

Sponsored by the 285 TechConnect Club

Saturday, Nov. 5, 2011: 9:00 a.m. – 3:00 p.m.
Check in: 8:00 – 8:45 a.m.

Schedule of Workshops
(order and topic may vary)

9:00 – 9:50 Amateur Digital TV – Dr. Glenn Adams, NØGNR
10:00 – 10:50 DX-pedition : Zimbabwe – Roger Krautkremer, KØYY
11:00 – 11:50 VHF Contesting – Bob Witte, KØNR
12:00 – 12:50 Lunch (on your own)
1:00 – 1:50 SDRs as Panadapters – Frank Ivan, KØFEI
2:00 – 2:50 Antenna Tuners – Larry Benko, WØQE

Registration
Space is limited! Please e-mail k0nnc@arrl.net to pre-register.
Cost $10.00 (cash only at the door).
Includes 2012 membership dues for 285 TechConnect Radio Club, NAØTC

Where
The Inter Canyon Fire Department Station #1.
The address is 7939 South Turkey Creek Road, Morrison, Colorado
For complete info, download the TechFest flyer from the NA0TC web site.

73, Bob K0NR

Leo Laporte first caught my attention when he hosted the cable TV show, The Screen Savers, on ZDTV. He has a great way of talking about technology topics, using his own personal knowledge and leveraging his team of bright techies. Recently, he has been focused on creating the TWiT Network, named for the flagship netcast, This Week in Tech. (TWiT calls the shows netcasts, not podcasts.) Leo saw the opportunity that came with the technology shift to streaming audio and video over the internet as an alternative to conventional radio and TV broadcasting.

There are a number of ham radio podcasts out available, although many have struggled to stay current. The phenomenon of podfading is very real, since it is a real challenge to produce interesting content week after week, month after month. See my previous posts on ham radio podcasts here and here.

The TWiT network has been expanding, moving from audio to video technology. Loic Le Meur shot a very interesting video of Leo touring his new studio which is still under construction. This gives a good idea of where Leo is headed with TWiT.

I often wondered whether TWiT would try doing a ham radio netcast. According to this press release, the answer is YES.  Leo has tapped Bob Heil, well-known ham radio dude and founder of Heil Sound to lead HamNation. Leo recently interviewed Bob on the Triangulation show. (Watch this video, really good.) Bob Heil is an excellent choice for HamNation—he has the passion and knowledge of a real ham radio enthusiast. His first guest is scheduled to be legendary Joe Walsh, ham radio operator (WB6ACU) and screaming guitar player for the Eagles.

This could be a really good thing for the amateur radio hobby, so I wish them well.

- 73, Bob K0NR

One of the main uses of an iPhone is to load completely useless apps that you can use to annoy your friends. As a service to the nerd techie community, I have reviewed all available most some of the free (or at least cheap) apps available for the iPhone platform and selected the top six useless but fun apps.

Here they are:

FreqCounter (Author: Tang Peng Lab, Cost: Free) A clever little app that displays the time domain waveform of the phone’s microphone audio, displays the sound level and calculates the frequency of the waveform. This is my favorite of the list.

Sound Check Tone Generator (Author: Joe Voelker, Cost: Free) A simple app that generates audio tones (just sine waves).

Tone Generator Pro (Author: Performance Audio, Cost: $0.99) This is a tone generator that can create sine waves, square waves, triangle waves and sawtooth waveforms. Also does white and pink noise and frequency sweeps.

Nerd Noise (Author: Brian Shumate, Cost: $1.99) This app produces some really important, but of course, useless sounds: computer modem tones, Morse code, RTTY, MFSK, telephone busy signal, dial tone, etc. This is a MUST HAVE for the true techie.

Piano Free (Author: Better Day Wireless, Cost: Free) One of those piano keyboard apps.

Cowbell (Author: CTS MobileSoft, Cost: Free) Makes a cowbell sound. Because you always need “more cowbell”!

Just to be clear, some of these apps might actually be useful. Or maybe not. Your mileage may vary.

- 73, Bob K0NR

Added 6 May 2011:

At no extra charge, I decided to add a 7th app:

SpectraSound (Author: Francois Guilleme, Cost: $1.99) This app shows the time domain waveform from the microphone plus the FFT spectrum of the signal. This is a fun way to look at the frequency content of an audio signal.

The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) recently launched a survey of time/frequency users. See the ARRL announcement here. This is a pretty simple survey asking about how you use WWV, WWVH, time.gov, etc. If you use these services, you should probably fill out the survey.

Along the way, I realized that NIST offers a time widget that can be embedded into a web site. It looks to be very handy and well done, so here it is:

I don’t know if I’ll keep this around or not, but I wanted to see if it would work

- 73, Bob K0NR

As the year 2010 comes to an end, I feel compelled to write something really insightful and meaningful as we log another trip around the sun. Perhaps some brilliant insights for the coming year? Or predictions of future technology breakthroughs?

Instead, I am writing this.

This is a mishmash of my thoughts about amateur radio at the start of 2011:

• Tech License Class: One of the most fun and rewarding ham radio things I did this year was help teach a couple of Technician License Classes. There is nothing like engaging with newbies to the hobby to give you a new perspective on how cool amateur radio really is! I have a great set of teammates that made this class fun and successful: Stu W0STU, Paul AA0K and Joyce K0JJW.
• Next Challenge: The challenge we see right now is helping these newly licensed Techs get engaged with amateur radio, so they don’t drop out. My belief is that the Technician License is a beginners permit that only enables a person to get started in the hobby. We are cooking up some fun activities to keep them going.
• Public Service: We have a good thing going with the local fire district and the RACES group in our county in terms of real engagement on emergency communications. This is fun, rewarding and a good thing for our local community.
• Dayton Hamvention: I am going to skip Dayton (again) this year. Instead, I’ll attend the International Wireless Communications Expo (IWCE), a trade show centered on land mobile and mobile wireless communications. For me, it has an interesting mix of emergency communications, land mobile, data/voice convergence and test & measurement topics. Oh, did I mention that it is in Las Vegas?  I suspect that it will be a better venue than Hara Arena
• ICOM IC-9100: I have been patiently waiting for this rig to move from vaporware status to reality. Maybe it will happen this year?
• Keep On Writing: I find that writing is good therapy, so I will keep that on the list for 2011. Mostly it will be this blog and the FM column for CQ VHF magazine.
• Operating: It seems I don’t actually get on the air as often as I’d like, certainly not for the casual ragchewing QSO. Operating events seem to be a good way for me to get some air time: VHF Contests, Colorado 14er event, Colorado QSO Party, maybe an HF contest or two.
• D-STAR: I haven’t been spending much time with D-STAR lately and I want to increase the focus on it. D-STAR falls into that dorking around with new technology category where experimenting with it and learning about it is the main activity.  The technology continues to grow in adoption…arguably slow in real terms as the analog modes have such a huge installed base.
• APRS: Oddly enough, I have been messing around with APRS again, mostly thinking of it as a tracking tool for hiking and other outdoor activities. Maybe we need to look at bridging APRS with D-STAR location data?

Amateur radio is clearly my #1 hobby interest, and by a wide margin. But it is primarily a hobby (yes, with a public service hook to it…at least for me). It is important to keep it in perspective and not let it turn into another job. I already have one of those.

What are you going to be doing in 2011?

73, Bob K0NR