AmateurRadio.com

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tnDoq9sRZpk

It’s great to see exposure for the FUNcube project in the major world media. Congratulations to the FUNcube team!

I thoroughly enjoyed G4VXE’s post about his experience downloading AO-73 telemetry. Has anyone else been playing around with this?

I found myself in the unenviable position of having to place a small parts order from one of the larger electronics distributors. Often you find a decent price on the component, only to get hit by an outrageous shipping charge. I usually try to wait and group my items so as not to be hit too hard.

Here’s the little item I needed, a little 1mW Digi XBee for a project I’m working on (similar to this):

Here is the pricing for one, shipped to the northeastern U.S. via USPS:

• Digi-Key: $19.00 + $2.92 shipping = $21.92 *
• Mouser: $19.00 + $4.99 shipping = $23.99
• Jameco: $24.95 + $2.43 shipping = $27.38

The more expensive option (Jameco)  is almost 25% more than the cheapest (Digi-Key).  Sometimes it’s worth shopping around a little bit.

Have you found a good (and inexpensive!) source for electronics components?

* I did a little research and found that Digi-Key will give you free shipping if you mail in an order form with a check or money order:

When a check or money order accompanies your order, Digi-Key pays all shipping and insurance (our choice for method of shipping) to all addresses in the U.S. and Canada.

Received this e-mail today from Daniel DO7FOX of QRZCQ:

We’ve been online for two years now! The first day was 2011 Oct 10. We are about 60500 users now and still growing fast!

Some sizes and numbers:

– Calls in database: 2.536.181
– Call views: 14.333.826
– Logbook QSOs: 22.726.374
– All time QSOs processed: 172.480.731
– Monthly visits: 950.000
– DX-Cluster spots with or from our users: 58%
– Video views: 137.995
– Users with picture: 18.237
– DX-Cluster spots via web interface: 69.845
– Max users on DX-Cluster via web interface: 119
– Forum posts: 401 (not much)
– Stream posts: 1.274
– XML lookups: 309.067 (closed test)
– Database queries per second: 2.462
– DX-Cluster spots in database: 8.289.618

Some future dates:

– Date when the site becomes unreadable due to ads: never 😉
– Date when the online log should start (still coding): aprox. Jan 2014
– Date of next 3rd birthday: 10 Oct 2014

And, unfortunately, 6 users went SK (known) since the site started. May the Ether be with them.

To celebrate this birthday, 100 new registered and activated users will get premium for free. The period for 100 premium will start in few hours.

Please help us grow, use the “Invite” function in your account and please invite your Ham and Swl friends. All you need is their call and email.

Thank you very much for the faith given us everyday by using our site!

Please visit us again and take a look! If you forgot your password simply try to login with your call and last password you remember, then use the simple ‘password forgotten’ function to recover your password.

You can visit QRZCQ to sign up at http://www.qrzcq.com

Have you given QRZCQ a try? What’s your opinion of it?

Wayne Green, W2NSD, died Friday, September 13th at the age of 91.

This from his blog:

Wayne Green passed away this morning in a peaceful, painless transition from this life on Earth. An eternal optimist, and one who loved to share his neverending zest for life, he was a friend to many and will be missed greatly. Wayne was not afraid of dying and was very much ready to embark on his next great adventure to the afterlife.
73,
W2NSD

Wayne’s contributions to Amateur Radio simply cannot be overstated. As a former editor of CQ Magazine and founder of 73, he helped to inform the views of an entire generation of ham radio operators in the United States and beyond.

Rest in peace, my friend.

And the winner of 500 free full-color QSL cards is…

Fabio IZ8FTW
Italy

Congratulations to Fabio and thank you to everyone who entered. Keep a lookout for more great giveaways! As always, thank you to KB3IFH QSL Cards for generously sponsoring this contest. Don’t forget to check out Randy’s website the next time you need new QSL cards! Past winners of the QSL card giveaways include Stuie VK8NSB, Mel MI0MSR, Jyoti VU3BGI and more!

73 Matt W1MST

AmateurRadio.com is offering a free prize drawing!

With the help of our generous sponsor, KB3IFH QSL Cards,
we’re holding a giveaway for 500 free full-color photo QSL cards.
This is a US$75 value and open to all licensed hams worldwide.

Read the rest of this entry »

Art Bell, W6OBB, photo courtesy of QRZ.com

Radio legend Art Bell, W6OBB, has announced that he will be returning to the air via satellite and Internet streaming starting Monday, September 16, 2013. His new show will be carried by SirusXM Channel 104 Monday through Thursday from 10pm to 1am Eastern time. The new show will be called “Art Bell’s Dark Matter” and will explore the paranormal and unexplained, according to a SiriusXM press release and his website.

At his peak in the late 1990s, Bell’s show Coast To Coast AM had nearly 15 million listeners and was syndicated on 500 AM/FM stations. Since his surprise retirement in October, 1998, he has left and returned to the air a number of times. His most recent hiatus from broadcasting, over 6 years beginning in July, 2007, was the longest break Bell has had from regular broadcasting. Coast To Coast AM did continue after Bell’s retirement, but I honestly never found the new hosts to be as enjoyable — probably because Bell is so talented.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pSm-eYaQJa8

Working overnight shifts in the 1990s, I would enjoy listening to Bell’s show. I enjoyed the sometimes bizarre and almost always intriguing topics he would cover. Listening to the show in the car at 2am had a bit of a spookiness to it. It’s hard to explain.  Maybe someone else can comment on why Bell was so successful.  I can’t be the only one here who listened to his show on a regular basis.

If you’ve never had the chance to listen, you can hear random shows from Bell’s career on a show called Somewhere In Time which features a random show from Bell’s broadcasting career.

I don’t have SiriusXM service, but I may just have to take advantage of their 30-day free trial to hear if Bell still has the radio magic he had 20 years ago.