I was going to post this to twitter, but it’ll be longer than 140 characters, so I thought I’d put it here.

With Yaesu having began to advertise their C4FM and hopefully demoing it at Dayton in 5 weeks (from this post), and Icom having now 21,900 “registered users” worldwide (note that registered users ≠actual users, as I’ve heard via a twitter/D-Star user that people can register without actually owning any D-Star equipment).

Kenwood, based on their recent QST ads, appear to be ready to unleash another HF rig on us.  No telling what their plans are, but they could single-handedly destroy D-Star or C4FM by going with the competing technology.  They could also exacerbate the status quo by bringing out their own digital voice/data technology.

Of course, Kenwood probably doesn’t want to get in between Icom and Yaesu by siding with one of them.  And I’m not sure if Kenwood wants to add another proprietary-feeling digital mode.  They may just be waiting this one out for a winner.

Or maybe we’ll get lucky and Kenwood will figure out a way to build radios with FM, D-Star, and C4FM.  :)

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Now that I’m done cussin’ at the software (which was doing what it was supposed to, I just didn’t realize that), I have some time to reflect.

First off, 15 and 20 meters were awesome.  10 meters stunk for me – lots of calling from CA, but nobody was hearing my 25 watts from Ohio.  40 meters looked good as well.  More on that in a second.

I netted 960 points in 40 QSOs.  Two new DX – Cuba and the UK.  One #WATwitter – @VA5LF.

I started on 20 and got several.  Went to 10 (I think I got one Q there), went to 15 and tore it up.  Back to 20, found a few new.  Jumped to 40.  On my 3rd QSO on 40 my rig quit.  Just quit.  I thought it had folded back (like it had high SWR).  So I turned the rig off and back on.  The rig lit up for a split second before dying again.  Tried it again, same result.  Again.  Again.  Put my hand on the heat sink on the back.  I did NOT yell “ouch!” (or anything of the sort).  It was warm, but not hot.  Did the same to the power supply, and the same result.  I unplugged everything and took the rig over to the bench and removed the covers.  Nothing looked burned or bad, but I couldn’t see in the finals.  Figuring that’s where the problem would be, I uncovered the finals.  Nothing.

So I replaced the bottom cover and moved the rig aside and got the power supply.  I tried to pull a pass transistor off the back, but after trying to pry it off with a knife I realized it was soldered on.  So I replaced the screws on the pass transistor and plugged it back in to try and put a load on it.  After plugging it in at the bench and turning it on, the transistor that I was trying to pry popped from the location I tried to pry it from.

So at least I know I have a bad pass transistor.  Maybe two.  The rig condition is unknown.  I’m going to get a battery and hook the rig to it and see if the rig runs.  I honestly don’t want to hook my Astron PS to it, as I don’t want it to blow if there is something wrong with the rig.

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I recently co-instructed a technician class (one of four or five sessions) and this is a few resources for the students as well as any new ham.  I am going to try to keep this up-to-date.

First off, I think all new hams should read this article by Chris Seright KE5ZRT.  He does a great job of what you should do now that you have a license.

Second off, the stuff below is a laundry-list of clubs, emergency groups, nets, and other items of interest to new hams.  It is specific to Clermont County and the Cincinnati region.  This is not all-inclusive!

Local Cincinnati Clubs

Milford Amateur Radio Club (we’re teaching this, so they get the plug!) (Facebook) (Twitter)

Other Cincinnati Clubs (Courtesy of WARN)

Local Cincinnati Emergency Groups

Clermont Amateur Radio Emergency Service

Weather Amateur Radio Network (Twitter) (Facebook)

Queen City Emergency Net

Hamilton County ARPSC

Traffic Networks

Tri-State Area Traffic Net

Ohio SSB Net

Other Local Nets

Milford Amateur Radio Club Weekly Net – 9:00PM Local Sunday 147.345

OH-KY-IN Tech Talk Net – 9:00 PM Local Wednesdays 146.67

Ham Twit Net (Ham Radio Operators on Twitter) – Echolink W5RAW-R #387265 0100 UTC Thursdays
(in Cincinnati, winter 8:00 PM, summer 9:00 PM)

Maps and Band Plans

ARRL Band Plan (the legal band plan)

ARRL Band Plans (the Gentlemen’s Agreements)

Grid Square Map – Google Maps – PDF - printed copies available at most ham radio retailers

CQ Zone Map – ITU Zone Map – better printed copies available for free at most ham radio retailers

Podcasts

The Practical Amateur Radio Podcast – great operating resources, the author talks about different ways to have fun with radio

Amateur Radio Newsline – Amateur Radio News

Ham Nation – weekly feature show on the TWIT network featuring Bob Heil and Gordon West

Resonant Frequency Podcast

Linux in the Hamshack Podcast – for those interested in Linux

Major National Clubs

ARRL

ARRL Great Lakes Division

ARRL Ohio Section

Other Web Resources

QRZ – call lookup for QSL info, bios, etc.  Also forums, other related.

eHam.net – Forums, news articles

Local Ham Radio Retailers

R&L Electronics – Hamilton

Universal Radio - Reynoldsburg (near Columbus)

AES – Cleveland

DX Engineering – Akron

Note: there are several others that ship and take ordering over the Internet – Google is your friend here, as is QST or CQ magazine.

Today is going to be my first RTTY contest. I’ve never done RTTY before last night. Fortunately, one of our Milford Amateur Radio Club members, Bill WS6K helped me (and others) out by creating macros and doing some how-tos. We talked through the setup on the club 2m repeater, and he even kept with me after my HT died, and my second HT had a dead battery, so I hooked my second HT to my little Astron power supply which caused a lot of hum on my signal.

So we got things working and tested. Hope to put a lot of people in the log today.

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On February 9, 2012 I gave a presentation about Weak Signal Digital Modes like JT-65, WSPR, and QRSS. The presentation can be seen on Slideshare.

Links and Resources

WSJT Website

JT-65 HF Software

JT-65 Google Group

WSPRNet

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It seems like I had time at one point in my life.  Unfortunately, that was then, this is now.

I just pulled up NetNewsWire.  It has been a while, probably 3 years.  Over 300 news items.  NetNewsWire is a great program for RSS feeds on OS X.  Maybe other platforms, I don’t know.

I used to follow a lot of photography, blogging, NASCAR, and other news feeds.  While I’m still interested in those things, I don’t do a whole lot of photography (it’s a hobby that I’ve not had a lot of time for), and I haven’t been following NASCAR nearly as much.  The blogging stuff started seeming more about blogs to make money.  I’m not making money on this blog, nor my other (siliconcreek.net).  This one is all hobby, and siliconcreek is part work (it has probably served me well as a marketing tool).

Part of what made NNW so hard to keep up with is many of the people/organizations I was following post for money, and others were news.  They post daily (or so).  It can get annoying when someone stretches for content.  Maybe daily postings work well to make money on AdWords or get you great ranks in search engines, but I can tell when an author stretches for words.  The interest fell.  I stopped using NNW and removed it from the dock on my MacBook Pro.

I can also find some really interesting stuff that seems refined.  In fact, this morning I started my computer day reading about a flood in 1941.  It was a long post, but it was so interesting  I couldn’t pull my eyes from it!  The author of that blog doesn’t appear to post on a schedule – he did 7 posts in November, 37 in December, and 17 so far in January.  I looked at another blog, two posts, it just started, but it looks interesting. I looked at another one, the last 5 posts go back to August – many contest and EME results. The posts aren’t long, but it is good to see others on the air, even if it is modes I don’t operate (I currently operate SSB and FM only, but that’s going to change… someday!).  I saw another that included several steps of building a kit radio – very interesting, but like the rest, posts aren’t to a schedule.

And there is NO PART OF ME that wants to try to get these guys to get on a schedule.  Forget that!  I don’t post on a schedule, why should they?  And they, like me, don’t always get their posts to twitter.  And twitter, well, I have hundreds of tweets in my timeline.  I can’t keep up.  I’ve adopted a “dip in and out of the stream” attitude (thanks Connie for the idea!).  I will on occasion look back, but generally what happens when I’m not watching gets ignored.

So I decided last week to clear NNW and start finding these guys’ blogs and put their blog RSS feed into NNW.

The clearing part feels good, man!

So I’m going to start reading the infrequent posts of some of the friends I’ve made on twitter and Google+.  I will eventually add that as a blogroll here.  Baby steps.

Now if you don’t mind, I’m going to start adding things to NNW.

EDIT: it appears I’ve selected a theme that doesn’t make it easy to find the RSS feed.  It is http://www.ac8jo.us/feed .  I will be fixing that sometime soon!

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Jeff Davis, KE9V did a great post about mailing list etiquette.  That was a subject one day this past week on my 2m repeater this past week after a pissing match developed on the HTX-HF_TECH group.  I highly recommend reading it.  You can find it right here.

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Yeah, this is a week late, but I saw a tweet (above) that jokes about how many resolutions are broken, so I figure I should start late and think about this a bit and ultimately post it a week after New Year’s Day so I can think about this.

This year I want to do the following (in no particular order):

• Use some of the digital modes like PSK
• Activate at least 4 parks in POTA
• Work at least 4 SOTA activations
• Get at least 15% of the way to a DXCC
• Get my WAS
• Work at least 10 special event stations (this may be something like 13 Colonies or Route 66, which sounded like a lot of fun as I heard guys spot them on our local repeater)
• Help with at least 3 volunteer events through CARES (Clermont
• Be more active on the Ham Twit Net and find another net to be active on (not including WARN, although I will be active on WARN)
• Learn CW
• Build a portable multi-band antenna
• Post at least one video per month on using Linux apps in the ham shack

I’m going to look for a goal tracking website/app/something that I can update periodically (monthly, perhaps) and hang on my site.  I’ll update this post when I do that.

Think I should include something else?  Words of wisdom?  Think 15% to DXCC (which for me is 12 more DX stations) is too wussy?  Leave me a comment!

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I recently purchased a Heil headset for my old Ten-Tec Omni C.  For those that have one, you already know they don’t come with a PTT switch!  I’m too cheap and broke to buy one of the nice Heil ones (to go with my used Proset Micro Dual) (not that I think the Heil ones are overpriced – they’re $26 in the latest ham store catalog I received).

So I found a piece of scrap 2×4 and had an extra momentary switch lying around.  Sounds like a PTT footswitch to me!

The first part was to drill a few holes – one for the switch and one for the wire out back.

Note: in the second picture, there are two additional holes.  Those are from nails or screws in this scrap 2×4′s past life.  You can ignore those.

The next part was to feed the wires through.  I used a piece of #14 wire to help with this.

Next, obviously was to solder the switch.

Finally, the wires were gently fed back through the hole, tested for continuity (open while the switch was not pressed, and shorted when the switch was pressed) and quickly tested with the radio into a dummy load.

That’s it!  Granted, it doesn’t look as polished as some of the manufactured models out there, but since I don’t feel like dropping $26 on a nice footswitch right now, this will do.

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Two years ago, I moved into a suburban tract home in a subdivision near Batavia, Ohio.  The subdivision is nice, the house is nice, but not long after moving in, my 2-year-old Apple Airport “died”.  By “died” I mean that I could not connect wirelessly at random times.  So I replaced it with a Linksys… which did the same thing.  So I replaced it less than a month later with a Netgear.  It seemed to work fine for a while, close to a year, and then it did the same thing.  However, over time I ran a few network drops and added a radio room in the basement that included a computer.  I found that at times the switch still worked but the wireless was out, but some blue LEDs on top were frozen.  So I thought the radio was flaky.  I went and bought a Linksys WRT-54G, a WAP/Router that I thought would be absolutely bulletproof (and is known throughout the amateur radio community to be a great product).  I even decided to stick it to that Murphy guy and bought the extended warranty from Micro Center.

And the same problem happened again. Similar to the Netgear, network access was fine through a wired connection, but unavailable via Wifi.  But this time I noticed that I could get wireless back by changing channels.

Not willing to believe that this WAP was dead, I started looking for patterns.  The pattern SEEMED (operative word) like it was a cordless phone.  So I jacked up the transmit power from the WAP after loading it with DD-WRT.  That seemed to work for all of a few hours.

Still with the thought of it being interference from a cordless phone, I took the advice of N8FM via twitter to get a Wifi Spectrum Analyzer.  I ordered a Ubiquiti AirView2 spectrum analyzer.  After getting it and setting up the software under Fedora Core Linux on my Macbook Pro, this is what I saw:

The first thing I noticed was the clearly-defined frequency range.  Not a lot of movement there.  The second thing I noticed was the strength.  These signals were stronger than the WAP that is 30 feet away on a cabinet in the kitchen with NOTHING between the computer and the WAP.  If that’s a cordless phone from my neighbors and still that strong through two exterior walls, I’m not going to have neighbors too long!  That would be enough 2.5 GHz radiation to cook their brain – microwaves run at 2.5 GHz!

So I too the computer to an upstairs bedroom and still noticed the strong signals, just not so strong.

I returned to the family room to let things monitor, and just happened to notice that I have a Samsung soundbar that has a subwoofer with a wireless connection.  I immediately ran upstairs, grabbed the laptop, and brought it downstairs and placed it next to the subwoofer.  I unplugged the soundbar and subwoofer and the signals were gone!  I plugged the subwoofer back in and observed signals running up the spectrum.  I plugged in the soundbar and the signals picked a random location to stop at right in the bandwidth for channel 1, right in the WAP’s channel!  Clearly the soundbar doesn’t look before transmitting.  It also doesn’t have a channel selection switch or a wired subwoofer option.  In fact, from observing the signals on the analyzer, it looks like the soundbar starts checking frequencies going down the spectrum, the subwoofer goes up the spectrum, and where they meet, they stay.

Anyway, after running the spectrum analyzer for a few minutes, it looked like the image below:

(note that it looked like this after running it for several minutes longer, at least 15 minutes) but the screenshot had a box in the middle of it, so this is what it looks like after a few minutes… they look very similar, which is good).

So the moral of the story is that:

1. Samsung soundbar (model HT-WS1G) is junk.
2. If you really think your neighbors’ cordless telephone (that you don’t really know they have) is interfering with stuff in your house, you’d do well to go through the troubleshooting steps methodically to avoid looking stupid – I’m glad I never mentioned this to my neighbors because it wasn’t them!.
3. Any source of interference can be found with diligence and good tools.

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