Surfin': Guarding the Coasts With Our Radios

This week’s Surfin’ explores how ham radio operators can help the US Coast Guard. 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.

time to fire FCC Chairman Kevin Martin

Yesterday, "Bush-appointed Federal Communications Commission Chairman Kevin Martin rammed through a 3-2 partisan vote to remove the longstanding "newspaper/broadcast cross-ownership" ban that prohibits a local newspaper from owning TV and radio stations in the same market. Witness yet another shining moment: the Bush administration serving up a wholesale giveaway to the largest media corporations in the most corrupt process imaginable."

Read the rest of the story here and complain to your representatives here and here.

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.

Surfin': Twoer, Not Tower

This week’s Surfin’ exposes one of WA1LOU's favorite radios. 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.

XO Marks the Spot

Here is the deal of the century! Yeah, I know the century is not even 7 years old, but this is one of the best deals I've seen in a long time.

For a mere donation of $399, you can give a laptop computer to a child in a developing country, receive a second laptop for the child in your life, and get a $200 tax deduction! (This deal is only good in the US and Canada and ends on December 31.) The Give One Get One program is part of One Laptop per Child (OLPC), whose mission is to "empower the children of developing countries to learn by providing one connected laptop to every school-age child."

The laptop, known as the XO, includes a bundle of hardware and software features that make it a versatile computer and not just a toy. Since the XO runs on Linux, ham radio Linux applications can be run on it, too.

If you sign up for the Give One Get One program (like I did), you will help a child in a developing country join the computer age and you can give a laptop to a young ham to help him or her join the Amateur Radio computer age. If you need more convincing, read David Pogue's review in The New York Times and for more information, check out The OLPC Wiki.

(Thank you, Harv Nelson, AI9NL, of Harv's Hamshack Hack fame for cluing me into OLPC.)