Old Heathkit Manuals Forced Offline

"Even though the company (Heathkit) stopped making and selling kits back in 1992, it apparently just sold the copyrights on its old manuals to another company, which is going around forcing any old manuals offline and demanding people buy them instead..."

Read all about it here.

Get Smart and my radio

Watched Get Smart last night. It has a couple of laugh-out-loud moments, but it is not a great film and I probably will not watch it again.

However, it does have a ham radio moment. In the chase scene near the end of the film, there is a two-way radio in one of the automobiles: a Yaesu FT-1802, the same model of radio that serves as my APRS home digipeater transmitter. The displayed frequency of the radio in the film was 143.910 MHz.

I had a choice of accompanying this post with a photo of the FT-1802 or a photo of Anne Hathaway and Steve Carell appearing in the film. I think I made the right decision.

Surfin': Radio Shack Historically Speaking

This week’s Surfin’ looks back on radio and electronic history via vintage Radio Shack catalogs.

Did you know that Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb that features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general? If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Bad link in this week's Surfin': Skimming the Code

This week's Surfin', Skimming the Code, has a bad link, which may be fixed by the time you read this. If not, the bad link is the word "tutorial" in the last line of the third paragraph. The link should be http://www.dxatlas.com/CwSkimmer/Files/Skimmerintro.pdf

By the way, the link was OK when I wrote the column, but Murphy changed it in the meantime!

And one more thing, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Where are the Sunspots? Are we in for a Quiet Solar Cycle?

So what's up with our Sun? Is it going through a depression? It seems as if our closest star is experiencing a surprisingly uneventful couple of years. Solar minimum has supposedly passed and we should be seeing a lot more magnetic activity, and we certainly should be observing lots more sunspots...

Read all about it here.

Surfin': Mastering the Keys of Amateur Radio

In this week’s Surfin’, visits the Web site of a master designer, builder and restorer of telegraph keys. After you read that, come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Surfin': Relive the Lives of Dead Electrical Dudes

In this week’s Surfin’, learn about all the dead radio and electrical dudes. After you read that, come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

we have met the enemy and the enemy is us

This morning, Bob Bruninga, WB4APR, (the "father of APRS") posted these wise words on the APRSSIG:

At the ARRL Technical Challenge Forum at Dayton, the ARRL
technology leaders were lamenting that HAM radio needs something
for youth to get excited about. Something like: "Look at how
kids have taken text-messaging as the be-all-end-all excitement
of communications! We need something like that in ham radio!
Why aren't we developing things like this?"

To which I jumped up from the audience and could not contain
myself and exclaimed! "We have! We have had local/global text
messaging and text email from a handheld since 1998 in APRS! It
is exactly what kids are doing today, but we have been doing it
for 10 years! But you know what? All the old fuds in ham radio
say 'How crude.  We need a keyboard.  No one is ever going to
communicate by punching buttons on the front of an HT'!" SO
still, only 1% of ham radio is even aware of this routine global
connectivity from a handheld that we have had for 10 years.

As pogo said, "we have met the enemy and the enemy is us."
Everyone keeps waiting for the "perfect dream" solution and then
they dream of all the things they could do. But you know what?
The perfect dream solution is always in the future. The few
instances in ham radio that really excell in actual needed
practical communications are those that ALWAYS take what they
have and just do the MOST with it, NOW!

Surfin': Still Exploring 900 MHz

This week’s Surfin’ continues the exploration of the 900 MHz/33 cm Amateur Radio band. After you read it, come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Surfin': Exploring 900 MHz

In this week’s Surfin’, visit a Web page that explores the 900 MHz/33 cm Amateur Radio band. After you read it, come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Surfin': Whispering on 30 Meters

In this week’s Surfin’, read about a new soundcard-based digital mode that will have you whispering. After you read it, come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Surfin': Leap Day and the Continuing Saga of the Kerosene Radio

In this week’s Surfin’, read about Leap Day hams and revisit the good, the bad, and the ugly side of innovations from the past. Then come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Surfin': Do Wild Radio Waves Cause Air Disasters?

In this week’s Surfin’, read about a blog that reveals the good, the bad, and the ugly side of innovations from the past. Then come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

Winter 2008, #104 issue of Packet Status Register (PSR) is now online

The Winter 2008, #104 issue of Packet Status Register (PSR) is now online. The new issue of my favorite quarterly contains the following:

• President's Corner


• HPSDR Project Status


• Minutes of TAPR Board of Directors Meeting


• DCC 2008 Plans


• NUE-PSK


• Beam Steering in Combat...


• FDMDV


• Click Once


• Preliminary Treasurer's Report for 2007

Read more here

Surfin': Finding More DX and VNAs

In this week’s Surfin’, we suggest other ways to find DX via the Web and how to obtain an excellent piece of test gear for the ham shack. Then come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.

buying the farm

I almost bought the farm yesterday.

I am driving to work on the interstate in the right hand lane at the posted speed limit (65 MPH), which is how I usually drive during the rush hour when there are a lot of frantic drivers on the road driving like maniacs. Another car in front of me is doing the same, meanwhile most of the other vehicles on the interstate are passing us in the two lanes to our left.

I notice the car in front of me momentarily swerve into the breakdown lane, then it swerved back into the driving lane after encountering the bumper strip. With that I decided to slow down and put more space between us. I am in no hurry, my exit is about a mile away, so I am not going to worry about adding an extra 30 seconds to my commute.

A tractor trailer passes me in the center lane. As it passes the car in front of me, the car begins to swerve into the center lane and the rear wheels on the right side of the tractor trailer catch the left front side of the car in front of me.

I can't believe my eyes, but I know that all hell is about to break loose 500 feet ahead of me and I hit the brakes.

The tractor trailer never stops. When the car hit its rear wheels, it probably felt like a flea bumping into an elephant.

On the other hand, the car careens out of control across the three lanes of the interstate, onto the center median, and comes to a stop on top of the man-made hill in the center of the median facing traffic at a right angle.

I lucked out and the car did not end up in my lap. There were no cars in the other as the car crossed the interstate, so everyone lucked out except the driver of the car that swerved into the tractor trailer's wheels.

My car came to a stop in the breakdown lane exactly across the highway from the car where it landed on top of the hill in the center median.

I had no cell phone to call in the accident. I was not going to try and walk across three lanes of traffic to see if the driver of the car needed help especially since other cars were now stopping along side the center median to offer assistance. So, I eased back into traffic and went to work.

Wow!

I don't know what caused the car to swerve as it did. The car had a red, white, and blue out-of-state license plate that I did not recognize. Had the driver been on the road too long and was falling asleep at the wheel? Or was the driver distracted using a cell phone or an iPod, consulting a map, putting on makeup?

I don't know and probably never will, but that close call provided me with an education and I promised myself that I will never be distracted using a cell phone, iPod, ham radio, etc., while driving in the future, and I will be even more alert of the other drivers around me.

Surfin': When Kenwood Was a Trio

This week’s Surfin’ exposes another of WA1LOU’s favorite radios: the venerable Kenwood TS-520. Read it here, then come back here to post your comments, if any.

By the way, Surfin’ is a weekly column published on ARRLWeb features Web sites related to Amateur Radio, specifically, and radio, in general. If you have any suggestions for Surfin’, please contact WA1LOU using the e-mail link to the right.