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Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 203
12 May 2018 | by 
Shortwave Trading: The West Chicago Tower Mystery
I recently stumbled onto the first evidence of shortwave trading at a site in West Chicago, Illinois and then used Federal Communications Commission (FCC) database research techniques to find two more sites.
Sniper In Mahwah & friends
2018 State of the Hobby Results
The results are in!
State of the Hobby
6m Moxon antenna
The SWR figures predicted are pretty much spot on, with a dip right around 51250.
NY4G
FreeDV 700D vs Analog Comparison
A comparison between Analog SSB and the new FreeDV 700D mode, over an HF channel (40m, late at night), with the same transmit power (~100W PEP).
Mark Jessop
Nixie LED Clock
I built an alternative clock using a 3D printer and laser cutter.
SparkFun
The Boris Beacon
A 1mW solar-powered HiFER beacon.
AA7EE
Radio receiver ‘listens’ for dark matter particles
We’ve built a radio that looks for a radio station, but we don’t know its frequency.
Futurity
Parity Act language inserted in National Defense Authorization Act
The bill now awaits House floor action. The Senate will begin its markup of the NDAA during the week of May 21.
ARRL
OLED GPS display on Arduino with a little C++
I’ve written a little code to read the $4.10 GPS and display a bit of info on a small OLED display using the excellent Adafruit library.
marxy’s musing on technology
Video
Receiving Radio New Zealand 15720khz in Santa Cruz, CA on a Hallicrafters S-38
What Radiohead sounds like from 6,500 miles away on a 62 year old shortwave radio.
YouTube
4m parrot repeater
Testing GB7FM 4m simplex repeater, fondly known as the Tring Parrot.
M0JCQ
One Response to “Amateur Radio Weekly – Issue 203”
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- Matt W1MST, Managing Editor
2018 State of the Hobby Results
IMO regardless of the results (I can’t see them) this Survey has no credibility. The Web site and the survey service they use are just too difficult to deal with. Anyone running their Web browser responsibly with full control over scripting will likely take one look at the mine-field of a Web site hosting the survey, and simply leave. This situation is like conducting a written survey using dirty paper with a foul odor. Expect an unreliable sample set.
There are layers and layers of Blogger scripting bloat to hack through and in the end, even after allowing the Sway CDN (I’m a U.S. Ham traveling abroad), I’m still getting errors from Sway. Even when I throw all caution to the wind and allow all the scripting bloat and numerous unwanted iFrames, in the end I still just get “Error” from Sway. I’m using the latest Firefox browser with full visibility and control over all scripting via the excellent uMatrix extension. I could use one of my VPN connections to emerge inside the U.S., that may get me past the Sway CDN and their Geo-Jailer, if that’s indeed what’s going wrong. But then I would need to wade through all the scripting and iFrame bloat layers again. Nah.