International Ham Radio News & Opinion.
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Accessed on 26 September 2020, 1545 UTC, Post 1646.
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International Ham Radio News & Opinion
LHS Episode #369: The Weekender LVII
25 September 2020 | by Russ K5TUX | Leave a Comment (0)
It’s time once again for The Weekender. This is our bi-weekly departure into the world of amateur radio contests, open source conventions, special events, listener challenges, hedonism and just plain fun. Thanks for listening and, if you happen to get a chance, feel free to call us or e-mail and send us some feedback. Tell us how we’re doing. We’d love to hear from you.
73 de The LHS Crew
Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at russ@bluecows.com.
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LHS Episode #368: Remote Operation Deep Dive
21 September 2020 | by Russ K5TUX | Leave a Comment (0)
Welcome to the 368th episode of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this deep dive episode, the hosts discuss several ways to operate your station from a remote location or unattended when necessary and legal to do so. The options include remote desktop operation, network audio forwarding, hardware to physically separate your radio from your head unit via network and much more. Thank you for listening and we hope you find this episode entertaining and educational.
73 de The LHS Crew
Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at russ@bluecows.com.
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Hunting For NDBs In CLE260
20 September 2020 | by Steve VE7SL | Leave a Comment (0)
| ZQT-263 Thunder Bay, ON (ve3gop) |
It’s CLE time again!
‘CLE‘s are ‘Co-ordinated Listening Events, and NDB DXers around the world focus their listening time on one small slice of the NDB spectrum.
This time the hunting ground is the slice from 260.0 – 269.9 kHz and 440 – 1740kHz.
Propagation on MF has been excellent this past week and hopefully will continue to be good.
A worthy target for listeners in North America is ZQT – 263kHz in Thunder Bay, southern Ontario, on the western shores of Lake Superior. ZQT has been logged from coast-to-coast but it’s a challenging target. Listen for ZQT’s upper sideband on 263.392kHz with your receiver in the CW mode.
When tuning for NDBs, put your receiver in the CW mode and listen for the NDB’s CW identifier, repeated every few seconds. Listen for U.S. NDB identifiers approximately 1 kHz higher or lower than the published transmitted frequency since these beacons are modulated with a 1020 Hz tone approximately.
For example, ‘AA‘ near Fargo, ND, transmits on 365 kHz and its upper sideband CW identifier is tuned at 366.025 kHz while its lower sideband CW ident can be tuned at 363.946 kHz. Its USB tone is actually 1025 Hz while its LSB tone is 1054 Hz.
Often, one sideband will be much stronger than the other so if you don’t hear the first one, try listening on the other sideband.
Canadian NDBs normally have an USB tone only, usually very close to 400 Hz. They also have a long dash (keydown) following the CW identifier.
All NDBs heard in North America will be listed in the RNA database (updated daily) while those heard in Europe may be found in the REU database. Beacons heard outside of these regions will be found in the RWW database. These databases have recently been re-vamped and are slicker than ever before!
From CLE coordinator Brian Keyte (G3SIA), comes the following CLE info:
Hello all,
Here’s our chance to forget all the current problems for a while – and get close and personal with OUR HEADPHONES! (?)
These are the final details for this weekend’s Coordinated Listening Event which uses some challenging frequencies.
Any first-time CLE logs will also be very welcome, however modest.
Days: Friday 25 Sept. – Monday 28 Sept.
Times: Start and end at midday, your local time
Target: Normal NDBs (not NAVTEX or amateur beacons)
QRG: 260.0 – 269.9 kHz
plus: 440.0 – 1740.0 kHz
Please log the NDBs you can identify that are listed in those ranges plus any UNIDs that you come across there.
North America has a modest number of active NDBs in both ranges.
For Europe listeners there are LOTS of targets in the hf range, but they are mostly well to the east, many of them also competing with strong Broadcasting Stations.
Australia has a few NDBs in both ranges.
You can find details of the beacons in these ranges, lists and maps, if you go to http://www.ndblist.info/cle.htm and click on the ‘CLE SEEKLIST’ link.
If you are disappointed by having very few likely targets, you could maybe listen instead via a remote receiver located nearer to the action?
See kiwisdr.com (previously available via sdr.hu) and please also see the important footnote below.
Send your final CLE log to the List, preferably as a plain text email, not in an attachment, with CLE260 and FINAL at the start of its title.
Please show on EVERY LINE of your log:
# The full Date (or Day no.) e.g. ‘2020-09-25’ (or just ‘25’) and UTC (the day changes at 00:00 UTC)
# kHz (the beacon’s nominal published frequency if you know it)
# The Call Ident.
Other optional details – Location, Distance, etc. – go LATER in the same line (or in footnotes) Any extra details about new UNIDs, especially strong ones that may be near to you (maybe their approximate direction, etc.) will help us to discover more about them.
Please make your log useful to old and new members alike by ALWAYS including your own location and brief details of the equipment and aerial(s) that you were using.
We will send an ‘Any More Logs?’ email at about 19:00 UTC on Tuesday evening so you can check that your log has been found OK.
To be included in the combined results your log must arrive at the very latest by 08:00 UTC on Wednesday 30 Sept.
We hope to complete making the Combined Results within a day or two.
Good listening
Brian and Joachim
———————————————————————
From: Brian Keyte G3SIA ndbcle’at’gmail.com
Location: Surrey, SE England (CLE coordinator)
———————————————————————
If you are interested in some remote listening – maybe due to local difficulties – you could use any one remote receiver for your loggings,stating its location and with the owner’s permission if required.
A remote listener may NOT also use another receiver, local or remote, to make further loggings for the same CLE.
These listening events serve several purposes. They
- determine, worldwide, which beacons are actually in service and on-the-air so the newly-re-vampedRxx online databasecan be kept up-to-date
• determine, worldwide, which beacons are out-of-service or have gone silent since the last CLE covering this range
• will indicate the state of propagation conditions at the various participant locations
• will give you an indication of how well your LF/MF receiving system is working
• give participants a fun yet challenging activity to keep their listening skills honed
Final details can be found at the NDB List website, and worldwide results, for every participant, will be posted there a few days after the event.
The NDB List Group is a great place to learn more about the ‘Art of NDB DXing’ or to meet other DXers in your region. There is a lot of good information available there and new members are always very welcome. As well, you can follow the results of other CLE participants from night to night as propagation is always an active topic of discussion.
You need not be an NDB List member to participate in the CLEs and all reports, no matter how small, are of much value to the organizers.
Remember – ‘First-time’ logs are always VERY welcome!
Reports may be sent to the NDB List Group or e-mailed to CLE co-ordinator, Brian Keyte (G3SIA), whose address appears above. If you are a member of the group, all final results will also be e-mailed and posted there.
Please … give the CLE a try … then let us know what NDB’s can be heard from your location! Your report can then be added to the worldwide database to help keep it up-to-date.
Have fun and good hunting!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at ve7sl@shaw.ca.
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Sponsors for the Homebrew Heroes Award for 2020 Announced
15 September 2020 | by Frank K4FMH | Leave a Comment (0)
Ridgeland, Mississippi— September 15, 2019 — The newest sponsor of the Homebrew Heroes Award Program is the QSO Today Podcast, hosted and published by Eric Guth 4Z1UG. “I am most willing to pitch in. Thanks for this kind of ham radio activity. It’s the kind of thing that is needed to shed light on the heroes who push the boundaries of this great hobby of ours.”
Steering Committee Chair, Frank Howell K4FMH of Ridgeland MS, welcomed the new sponsor with “Eric’s coming on board with a first class soldering station for our 2020 Hero expresses his commitment to our vision for this program. We welcome other sponsors who share his enthusiasm.” Eric 4Z1UG is also the host of the recent QSO Today Virtual Ham Expo which is being continued twice per year after the highly successful launch.
QSO Today Podcast
All sponsors for the 2019 Award are continuing for the 2020 cycle.
Jason Chonko of Siglent Ltd said, “We would love to sponsor the program again for 2020! Siglent will again give an SDS1202X-E oscilloscope to the Hero for 2020. Hans Summers’ use of that instrument to diagnose and redesign a circuit for his popular transceiver was a perfect use case for our test equipment.”
Kaitlyn Franz of Digilent, a National Instruments Company, added “This Award Program is so much in sync with what we are doing at Digilent that we are definitely interested in sponsoring again!”
Richard Stubbs of MFJ Enterprises responded with, “We are in for the Homebrew Hero Award for another year. MFJ was founded and continues to innovate on the basis of homebrew design, manufacturing and availability of parts for this community. Mr. Jue was an original pioneer in successful homebrew design with the CW filter kit back in the 1970s.”
Heil Sound founder Bob Heil K9EID complemented the other continuing sponsors by saying, “This program was so necessary that Heil Sound is on board for the long haul. We will donate key parts for great audio work by the 2020 Hero winner.”
George Zafiropoulos KJ6VU of the Ham Radio Workbench podcast, said, “Jeremy Kolonay KF7IJZ and I are more than happy to continue our sponsorship again this year. The Award is a great activity to highlight people who contribute the homebrew arts and science that our show emphasizes.”
This year’s Hero for 2019, Hans Summers G0UPL, has benefited from sponsor donations a great deal:
The sponsor prizes that get absolutely DAILY use are the Siglent ‘scope and the Heil headphones which sound great on my QCX kits. I have also made good use of the MFJ antenna analyzer and the Analog Discovery2 puck. The Benchduino PCBs did get here but I have not had much chance to think about what to do about them yet but they will be great with the Digilent AD2. These products have been a real benefit to my workbench.
Hans Summers Hero 2019
The promotional partner is the ICQ Podcast where Martin Butler M1MRB and Colin Butler M6BOY are the proprietors. Frank K4FMH is a Presenter.
Martin Butler M1MRB in London UK, a member of the Steering Committee, said, “It’s been a fast year since the Homebrew Hero Award was conceived at Hamvention in 2019. The sponsors, especially with the addition of our fellow podcaster in Israel, Eric Guth 4Z1UG, have been tremendous assets in furthering our mission of identifying and rewarding those in the homebrew and maker space.”
Another Steering Committee member, Colin Butler M6BOY, furthered that thought. “It’s clearly in the sponsor’s interests for the homebrew community to grow. What has long been missing is this program, one whose focus is to lift up those Heroes out there who are pushing, educating, demonstrating and being successful in many different ways.”
The third Steering Committee member, Frank Howell K4FMH of Ridgeland, MS, concluded, “We have received and accepted the recipient of our 2020 Award from our anonymous Selection Committee. Martin, Colin and I are preparing for the formal announcement during October 2020. Stay tuned to our website at homebrewheroes.org for that forthcoming celebration and the ICQ Podcast for relevant news!”
###
For more information, press only:
Frank M. Howell
Contact page on Homebrew Heroes website
@frankmhowell (Twitter)
For more information on the Hombrew Heroes Award: https://homebrewheroes.org
Graphic Logo: https://homebrewheroes.org/index.php/about/
Frank Howell, K4FMH, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Mississippi, USA. Contact him at k4fmh@arrl.net.
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LHS Episode #367: Shot Across the Bow
14 September 2020 | by Russ K5TUX | Leave a Comment (0)
Hello and welcome to Episode 367 of Linux in the Ham Shack. In this episode, the hosts tackle some interesting topics from the death of IRLP to higher FCC fees for licensing, an FT-817 add-on project, open source from Huawei, patent trolls, flmsg, flrig, a controversial topic and much more. Than for listening and have a wonderful week.
73 de The LHS Crew
Russ Woodman, K5TUX, co-hosts the Linux in the Ham Shack podcast which is available for download in both MP3 and OGG audio format. Contact him at russ@bluecows.com.
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ICQ Podcast Episode 333 – Hams Celebrate Healthcare Heroes
13 September 2020 | by Colin M6BOY | Leave a Comment (0)
In this episode, Martin M1MRB is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Dan Romanchik KB6NU and Edmund Spicer M0MNG to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief and this episode’s feature is Hams Celebrate Healthcare Heroes.
ICQ AMATEUR/HAM RADIO PODCAST DONORS
We would like to thank Scott McDonald (KA9P), Annemarie Nugent (EI9KW) and DAVID LEBLANC (KF7JAF) along with our monthly and annual subscription donors for keeping the podcast advert free. To donate, please visit – http://www.icqpodcast.com/donate
– ARRL Board elects new CEO – Trans-Atlantic Opening on 144 MHz between the Canary Islands and the Caribbean – FCC Proposes Charging Amateur Radio License Fees – ISS 437.800 MHz Cross Band Repeater Activated – Brazil Proposes End of All Amateur Radio Exams – Six Metre Group AGM Goes Online – Battle of Britain 80th Anniversary – EURAO Party – Summer 2020: working on 80m and 40m bands
Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at info@icqpodcast.com.
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AmateurLogic 147: A September to Remember
12 September 2020 | by George W5JDX | Leave a Comment (0)
AmateurLogic.TV Episode 147 is now available for download.
Eliminate logging hassles. Emile shows how to integrate QRZ online logging with Logbook Of The World for a simple, quick single log entry across platforms.
Mike presents our friend Chip, K9MIT’s Enigma Machine.
Pull out those floppy disks and relive the days of early PCs and DOS. George goes old school DOS on the Raspberry Pi with Dosbox.
Announcing the AmateurLogic.TV 15th Anniversary Contest. This perfect QRP package includes the Icom IC-705 all band all mode transceiver and Utility Backpack, MFJ-2289PKG Big Ear Antenna package with tripod and carry bag, MFJ-4115 portable power supply, Heil Sound BM-17 headset, and the collection of Forrest Mim’s Engineer’s Mini Notebooks. Help us celebrate. Visit amateurlogic.tv/contest today for details.
1:15:14
George Thomas, W5JDX, is co-host of AmateurLogic.TV, an original amateur radio video program hosted by George Thomas (W5JDX), Tommy Martin (N5ZNO), Peter Berrett (VK3PB), and Emile Diodene (KE5QKR). Contact him at george@amateurlogic.tv.
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