It seems that the comment feature on my blog was inadvertently turned off. I don’t know how this happened but it is now corrected. If you wanted to comment on recent postings, please come on back!
Sorry for the inconvenience. Thanks to Hans PD0AC for pointing this out.
73, Bob K0NR
Lots of stuff spewing forth that needs to be reported.
ARISSat-1 was supposed to be launched from the International Space Station this week, but it has been postponed. I have this vision of one of the astronauts rolling down the window on the station and chucking the satellite overboard. It probably doesn’t really work like that. 
Astronaut Doug Wheelock KF5BOC will attend the Dayton Hamvention. as the guest of ARRL and AMSAT. Wheelock made a great video that highlighted his amateur radio activity on the ISS.
The ARRL reports that there is a Spectrum Management Bill being developed in the House Energy and Commerce Committee. H.R. 607 would reallocate existing amateur radio spectrum of 420-440 MHz for other uses. It seems silly for Congress to put a specific frequency range into a bill as they are in no position to understand the impact.
One of our local Scouts, Jake W0JAK, is the star of a YouTube video on how to solder.
I just re-discovered the excellent ham radio videos by Randy K7AGE. These are great tutorials on various topics, so check them out here: http://www.youtube.com/user/K7AGE
When I wasn’t looking Amateur Radio Newsline disappeared from my podcast feed. Apparently, they had to change servers to solve a technical problem. If you are missing ARN, go resubscribe using iTunes or other podcast software.
73, Bob K0NR
I recently commented on the ARRL Log Book of the World when they turned on support for the VUCC Award. This was a long time in coming and is a great addition to the program.
About a week later, I was poking around my qrz.com page and found that there are 32 QSOs sitting there waiting for me to confirm them. What? QSOs on qrz.com? It seems that they have added a “logbook” feature which supports keeping a log of radio contacts and verifying these contacts with other radio amateurs. I participated in the ARRL January VHF Sweepstakes and some of the contest participants uploaded their log to qrz.com, which caused these QSOs to show up in my logbook.
So now there are at least 3 online amateur logbooks available: eQSL, LoTW and qrz.com. So far, I have only paid attention to LoTW, uploading all of my contacts made since 2002. I have ignored eQSL since these contacts do not count towards ARRL awards. Yes, that does mean I am old school and think that DXCC, VUCC and WAS from the ARRL are the real deal and anything else is an imitation. CQ Amateur Radio is accepting eQSL confirmations and has a decent awards program, but I haven’t focused on any of those yet.
You can see what is going to happen…the amateur population will split across these different logbooks and it will be difficult to transfer “credit” between them. You’ll have a mishmash of confirmed QSOs that include the good old paper variety and several different electronic logbooks.
I am not sure what to do about this but I’ll probably just focus on LoTW. What do you think?
73, Bob K0NR
Happy Easter!
A few posts back, I wrote about podcasts worth listening to. I want to draw your attention to two additional ham radio podcasts:
I just stumbled onto the radio contesting site radio-sport.net. It has probably been there for decades and I am late to the party. It is worth checking out if you are into contesting.
I went through the entire day without thinking about buying an iPad. To quote Joey from Friends, “its all a moo point.” Even if you do want an iPad, why would you buy the first implementation, given Apple’s track record? There will be a better one coming along soon enough. Take a look at the Fake Steve Jobs blog.
The high-powered think tank at the Fi-Ni Report has published some brilliant work:
73, Bob K0NR
This is the usual “catch up” posting, when I don’t have a specific topic but try to share some interesting things flying by on the internet.
I came across this article about poor passwords being the biggest computer security problem (as opposed to viruses and worms). OK, maybe so. Using passwords like “password” and “xyzzy” may not be the best approach. (If you recognize “xyzzy”, that says something.) How about we come up with a new approach to computer security that doesn’t require me to have 23 different passwords, all of which need to change every 3 months? And then the security guys get grumpy if we actually write these down.
I had another gosh darn mf &$%$# meltdown on my notebook computer, but fortunately everything was backed up using Carbonite. Unfortunately, it took 14 days to pull the data back off Carbonite onto my new netbook computer. That download time seems a bit excessive, don’t you think? I don’t know what the problem is with Carbonite but it is not just me..do a little googling binging on “carbonite slow restore” and you’ll find lots of unhappy customers. Or check out the reviews on Amazon.com. I have taken Carbonite off the Bob’s Preferred Vendor List. Don’t use them.
From the Maturing Market Department, MFJ buys Cushcraft amateur antennas. We’ll probably see more of this.
I already mentioned the Colorado 14er Event, which is tomorrow morning (Sunday August 9th). We will have quite a crew on Pikes Peak…including an HF station, most likely on 20 Meters SSB. Look for us around 14.260 MHz with callsign K0YB.
Apparently, RadioShack is in the process of rebranding itself to be simply The Shack, according to Engadget.com. Interesting development….how much “radio” stuff do they really carry anyway?
73, Bob K0NR
Lots of interesting things spewing forth from the internet these days:
Jeff KE9V articulated a compelling vision of web-based (“cloud computing”) ham radio logging. This caused a lively discussion among some readers (read through the comments on Jeff’s blog). I found the idea interesting but I am inherently suspicious of the notion of “cloud computing”. (“I give you all my information and trust that you’ll do the right thing with it.”) As I read through the comments, I realized that what interested me was the idea of having all these logging programs playing well together and with other applications such as Logbook of the World. Right now, this is mostly a pain. That seems to imply we need well-designed standards that define how the software interoperates, whether it exists on my PC or in the cloud.
Jeff also had a great post about narrow-minded thinking. Reminds me of my previous post about Religion and Ham Radio.
The Fi-Ni Report had a hilarious piece about a ham that puts a small VHF/UHF vertical on top of a 100-foot tower: Ham Claims New Tower is Not Overcompensating.
On a more serious note, it seems that some folks are concerned that the proliferation of radio communications towers are killing off certain migratory birds. This is the first time I have run across this issue, which surprised me a bit. A little Googling Binging on the web finds quite a few articles about it. It seems that the birds fly into the towers or guy wires, especially at night.
I found this spoof of Apple by The Simpsons on You Tube. Pretty funny….unless you are an Apple Fan Boy.
Scot, K9JY, publically admits to buying an Apple computer. One of my daughters has also turned into a Mac fan. I tell her, “Sure, if you want the silly computer to just work, buy a Mac. If you want to dig in and learn all about configuring networks, troubleshooting software problems, understanding file formats and becoming a real computer user, then get a PC. If not Windows, then Linux.”
In case you haven’t heard, the 40th Anniversary of the Apollo 11 Moon Landing is coming up on July 20th. There is a really cool site (http://www.wechoosethemoon.org/) that is recreating the events in real time (40 years later). Check it out. What a reminder that we can accomplish amazing things if we commit our hearts and minds to it! Unfortunately, it is also a reminder that it is easy to sit on our butts for 40 years and not accomplish much in space.
73, Bob K0NR
I’ve been playing the “social networking” game online for a while now, primarily on linkedin, twitter and facebook. Linkedin has turned out to be quite useful from a work/professional point of view as it has enabled me to connect with people I have worked with in the past and lost contact with. I try to keep it professional and not let much personal and hobby stuff leak onto the site. See my linkedin profile here.
I’ve commented on twitter in a previous post. These little tweets of 140 characters seem to have some usefulness but it has to be carefully managed. Mostly, I follow people that tweet interesting technology or ham radio comments, and I try to do the same in return. I don’t think very many people care to hear about the minutia of my day such as when I leave for work and when I do lunch. You can follow me at www.twitter.com/k0nr , if you’d like.
I had registered on facebook a while ago but pretty much avoided it until recently. I was concerned that my college-aged daughters would accuse me of stalking them. And they did Lately, though it is clear that facebook has migrated from being a college kid thing to being a mainstream tool. Heck, even my mom is on facebook now. I use this mostly for family and close friends and try to keep the ham radio stuff from bleeding over there…otherwise I run the risk of all of my family blocking me .
I tend to think that facebook has the right formula, since its “status update” is about the same as a tweet from twitter. But facebook also threads status updates and comments from other users and has a more robust set of privacy options. Also, you can share photos and other applications on facebook. You can do some of this with twitter but it seems like more of a pain to do. Facebook does have some annoying advertisements but they are generally tolerable.
Anyway, that’s how I am handling these super whizzy social networking things. How about you?
73, Bob
I’ve posted a few items about the Acer Aspire One netbook (with SDD and Linux) which have generated some positive comments. See Sweet Little Acer Aspire One PC, More on Netbooks, and My Tweaks to the Aspire One Netbook. One thing I’ve noticed is that the Thunderbird email client has a nasty habit of losing a critical file and tossing out all of the email messages. Because of this, I’ve taken a bit more care to backup the email messages and address book (which you should be doing anyway).
Here’s the simple procedure I use to back up the critical folders on the Aspire One onto a USB thumb drive.
Exit all applications
Insert a USB flash drive into one of the USB ports (File Manager should automatically open. If not, open up File Manager manually.)
Click View and select Show Hidden Files. Some of the files we want to copy are hidden, so this let’s us see them.
Select My Disk (over on the left side of File Manager). Then drag the .thunderbird folder over to the USB drive, which will copy the files onto the USB drive. This may take several minutes depending on how many files you have.
Also drag the .mozilla folder over to the USB drive, copying the Firefox bookmarks and other settings
You can copy any other folders that you want to back up
Click the eject drive icon on the right side of the USB drive indicator (left side of File Manager). This closes down the USB drive and prepares it to be removed.
If you ever experience a loss of email information, simply insert the USB drive and drag the .thunderbird folder back onto the Aspire’s main drive (My Disk).
Remember, you don’t have that much SSD drive space on the Linux Aspire, so be sure to delete unneeded email messages and other files.
73, Bob K0NR
Things have gotten quite busy at work, which is why I haven’t posted anything recently. The spare time I have has gone towards getting ready for Hamcon Colorado, as I have signed up to do two presentations and a few other tasks. Here’s some items that are worth mentioning that spewed out of the internet.
I haven’t seen the new Star Trek movie yet but Saturday Night Live did a skit relating to it. Also, the classic Shatner “Get a Life” skit is out on youtube. Both of these can be viewed here.
Speaking of youtube, the Society for Geek Advancement (huh?) has a video that features all of your favorite geek celebrities. Is “Geek Celebrities” an oxymoron?
The FCC posted some recent enforcement letters concerning amateur radio cases. Go Laura Smith! Included in this list is a nastygram to the idiots at Xcel Energy which is having trouble tracking down power line noise problems in Northglenn, Colorado. As the ARRL section Technical Coordinator, I had some involvement in this incident — all I will say is that it’s difficult to tell whether Xcel is incompetent or just irresponsible. Hard to say.
Speaking of the FCC, they have really gotten caught with their pants down in their analysis and handling of Broadband over Powerline (BPL). Thanks to the ARRL for keeping after them and getting the suppressed FCC documents via the Freedom of Information Act. Here’s a good article about it from an non-ham-radio source, ars technica.
K3NG raised the question of whether it is possible to have a useful amateur radio web site without the trolls and misfits. It seems that qrz.com is attempting to rise to the challenge. Good for them.
I stopped by the DTV.gov site that has information concerning the migration to Digital TV in the US. I was surprised to find that they added quite a bit of detail about when TV stations are switching over. Also, they have an interactive map that gives you estimated TV signal strength in dBm at an arbitrary location. (Yes, real live technical information !)
From the Amateur Radio Fun in the Mountains Department, there is a group planning to create a packet radio link that extends the length of the Appalachian Trail (The AT Golden Packet Annual Event). Sounds like fun to me.
73, Bob K0NR
Here’s some things I found spewing forth from the Internet:
When Charles Simonyi was operating amateur radio station NA1SS from the International Space Station (ISS), I was looking around for the right frequencies to use, including doppler shift. I came across a really good web site on contacting the ISS. Check it out if you are interested in the topic.
According to Amateur Radio Newsline, the Indy cops that got in trouble for using ham radio gear for tactical communication were using modified Yaesu FT-2800 2-Meter Transceivers. With these radios opened up, they can operate outside the ham band on adjacent VHF frequencies. According to ARNewsline:
Some conversations were heard in the VHF police bands, at the bottom of the 2-meter band and on frequencies assigned to the MURS radio service.
MURS stands for Mult-Use Radio Service, an unlicensed radio service defined by the FCC. There are 5 MURS channels available: 151.820, 151.880, 151.940, 154.570 and 154.600 MHz. These unlicensed channels would be a convenient location to hang out without the potential of interfering with anything important. However, a modifed amateur radio transceiver is not certified for use per Part 95 of the FCC rules.
I have not found any other information on the VHF police frequencies being used. Some departments maintain their licensing for VHF channels after adopting the newer 800 MHz radios. Modified amateur radio equipment is not certified for use on police channels. It sounds like these police officers were also using the low end of the 2-meter ham band. Even if they are licensed, it would be an inappropriate use of the frequencies. And a dumb one….of course someone is going to hear them and figure out what is going on.
You may have heard about Stephen Colbert from the Colbert Report getting his viewers to vote for his name on the new ISS module. It seems that he got the most votes but NASA declined to name the module after him (like that was going to happen). They came up with the alternative of naming a treadmill after him….all in good fun. The video is available on the Comedy Central web site.
On the K3NG Report, there was a funny post about the demise of phone operation on the ham bands, which is caused by the lack of testing for phone operating skill during the licensing process.
On the KB6BU Ham Radio Blog, there is an interesting post about the HP-35 calculator…a classic electronic product and an elegant design. The IEEE named the HP-35 and Hewlett-Packard Company as the recipient of the Milestone in Electrical Engineering and Computing award.
73, Bob K0NR