AmateurRadio.com

Looks like the folks at American Radio Supply are giving away a Baofeng UV-5R. They’re a sponsor of our site and I’m happy to see them offering this kind of opportunity. If you’re in the market for a new HT, skip on over and check out this little radio! Looks like the contest ends January 31, 2013 at midnight (Eastern time) and is open to licensed U.S. hams.

Do you own a Baofeng UV-5R? Have you used one? If so, what do you think of it?  How does it compare to some of the other inexpensive HTs on the market?

Prince Edward Island, in Eastern Canada, is a popular vacation destination for New Englanders. Just about 11 hours by car from Boston, it’s within easy range and offers immense beauty and a special kind of charm.

I’ve been going there since I was a child and have many great memories. The red sand beaches are unforgettable and despite it’s northern location, the ocean water is the warmest on the east coast north of the Carolinas.

Well, needless to say as I was browsing vacation accommodations, this place caught my attention! Purchased in 2002 by California attorney Ken Widelitz, K6LA / VY2TT, the ham radio shack at the 4-bedroom, 3,000 square foot PEI DX Lodge features some amazing amenities including an Elecraft K3, ICOM 7800, and ICOM IC-756 PRO III.

Oh, and did you notice the antenna farm?  There are five towers: 30 feet, 84 feet, 140 feet, 145 feet and 150 feet.

They’re all yours for the duration of your stay. Amazing!

If you’re interested, check out the reservations page for rental rates or contact Ken at [email protected].

Is this the Chinese mobile radio at a good price point ($275) people have been waiting for? The specs list a detachable head, cross-band repeat, 50/40 watts, 758 memories, AM aircraft receive, wide-band FM receive, and 2013 FCC compliant. Ed’s site even mentions that it’s Part 90 certified.

Here is the text of Ed’s e-mail:

After the dismal performance and high price of Wouxun’s dual band mobile radio, I’m excited to share information about the AnyTone AT-588UV. I have been testing this radio for a couple of weeks and I’m impressed. I think this will be the Chinese dual bander that takes the market.

It’s computer programmable and the control head separates from the radio via a CAT5 cable. This radio is easy to manually operate because there are no sub-menus and there are matching controls for the left and right sides. Either side can be set for VHF or UHF or both the same. It has dual receive (two signals at once) and when transmitting, you can set the off side to be muted if desired. Unlike the Wouxun, with the AnyTone, you can scan one side while monitoring the other side. It only takes a couple button pushes to set up cross band repeat. And unlike the other brand, this cross band repeat actually works! It has AM Aircraft receive plus 220-260 MHz receive (sorry NO 220 transmit).

The company has given me this timeline for availability. They plan to produce a small run at the end of September and hopefully full production by the end of October. I suggested they make a larger test run because I’ve found nothing major that needs improving. I’ve made a few suggestions for firmware changes which they quickly approved. This company is interested in producing a good product. When the AT-588UV is available to purchase, I will send an announcement to this mailing list.

The owners manual is not yet available but I have a list of the various functions. I will post this information and the programming software on my web site as soon as I can. This will take you to that location.

Best Regards,
Ed Griffin

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So, what do you think?  Will you be in for one of these?

Which would you choose, this radio or a Yaesu FT-7900R ($350) or Icom IC-208H ($345)?

An interesting news item popped up on the ARRL website last week.

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) has expressed public support for a .radio top-level domain name. Under the proposal as put forth by the European Broadcasting Union (EBU), registration will be available via the EBU to all eligible radio representative organizations and broadcasters, Internet radios, radio amateurs, radio professionals and their respective representative organizations, as well as companies providing radio-specific products and services in order to create a worldwide radio community.

The IARU supporting comment:

The International Amateur Radio Union (IARU) welcomes dot-radio, the Internet Top Level domain that the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) proposes to create for the global radio community.Created in Paris, France, the IARU has been the watchdog and spokesman for the world Amateur Radio community since 1925 and counts with over 160 members from many different countries and territories.

The IARU believes that the dot-radio proposal to be submitted by the EBU could provide an unique opportunity to standardize Radio domain names on the Internet.

The use of a specific global online name such as dot-radio can help create a unique space worldwide, a place where the global radio community can gather.

Am I the only one who thought to themselves, “what does this have to do with Amateur Radio?”

What does the European Broadcast Union, a group that represents the interests of broadcasters (especially on radio spectrum issues), have anything to do with ham radio? Anyone? I can hear the crickets chirping….

What does it mean to “standardize radio names on the Internet”? How about “a place where the global radio community can gather”? I mean, is anyone feeling like this sort of thing is missing on the Internet?

Has anyone had any trouble getting their callsign domain name in .com, .net, .org, or .co.uk? From an Amateur Radio perspective, this whole thing seems like a solution in search of a problem.

Others have also weighed in the potential conflict of interest in EBU’s application. Julien Mervyn Dedier filed this comment with ICANN:

Dot. Radio the Internet top Level domain that EBU proposes to create for the global radio community is not in the best interest of amateur radio operators worldwide. The International Amateur Radio Union’s (IARU) support for Dot. Radio by EBU does not reflect the views of all amateur radio operators globally.

Apparently he’s not alone in raising the conflict of interest concern. Kevin Murphy, editor of the domain name blog DomainIncite, wrote:

The European Broadcasting Union, which is one of four applicants for the .radio top-level domain, has asked to join ICANN’s Governmental Advisory Committee as an observer.

It is believed that its request is likely to be accepted.

The move, which comes just a couple of weeks after ICANN revealed its list of new gTLD applications, could raise conflict of interest questions.

While several GAC governments and observers are backing new gTLD bids – the UK supports .london, for example – they’re generally geographic in nature and generally not contested.

I’m not suggesting that there is some grand conspiracy here. There may be very valid reasons why IARU believes that this is fundamentally in our best interest. They just aren’t clear to me from the press release.

I e-mailed Mr. Ellam, the president of the IARU, a week ago for comment. I asked specifically for an example of how the approval of EBU’s .radio application would benefit the Amateur Radio community.  I ‘m still awaiting a reply.

I have a crazy idea. I want to run a ham radio technician class at the community center in my small town. I’ve never done anything like this before.

I told you it was a crazy idea.

I need your help.  I want to hear from people who have successfully run technician license courses.  I’m also looking to hear what DIDN’T work so I can avoid those things. I’m most interested in:

• How did you decide what book to use? There seem to be many good choices including the ARRL book and Stu Turner’s HamRadioSchool.com. There are also some free (and low cost) PDF texts available online.
• Did you use a specific curriculum, or did you kind of follow along with the book you chose?
• What multimedia did you use? Again, so many choices here including Andy Vellenga’s Ham Whisperer videos. I worry about putting them to sleep with PowerPoint.
• Was there just one instructor (you), or did you utilize several members of your club to offer other points of view?
• Did you let everyone in who expressed interest, or did you have some sort of selection criteria?
• How did you choose a venue for your class?  I’m thinking maybe the local fire station or community center.
• What did you find works best for a class schedule? I’m debating between running the class over two weekends versus one night a week for 8 weeks. Both have their pluses and minuses.
• What percentage of your students finished the class, and how many of those successfully licensed? I’ll be pretty depressed if I start with 15 students and only one gets their ticket.
• What’s the most important thing you wish you’d known before you did it, and what would you change because of it?

No reply is too short or too long. Address all of the questions, or just one. I appreciate any insight you can offer.

Despite widespread speculation that Wouxun would release a low priced mobile rig, it appears that the rig will be priced significantly higher than anticipated.

According to Ed Griffin of Wouxun.us, Wouxun has set a price of between $320-$330. He indicated that at this price the radio won’t be competitive.

I agree with Ed. At this price point there are better choices out there (and he indicated that he may have some mobile radio alternatives coming from Anytone and others).

After the unprecedented success of Wouxun’s HTs, this is a disappointment for sure.

Here is an excerpt from the email:

On June 21 I was informed that Wouxun would supply a small number of these radios to selected dealers (max of 10). At that time they also quoted a dealer costs that I thought was outrageous. The dealer costs was almost what I have always considered the retail price would be. In an email I told them sternly that with any dealer markup at all, the radio would not sell in the US and I would decline to purchase samples.

Wouxun response was that when full production began, the dealer costs would be lower. Since I’ve invested hundreds of thousands of dollars building a market for this company over the past few years, I decided I would not let others bring this radio to market before I did. I reluctantly placed an order for 10 radios, figuring I would sell them at costs, to get them to market.

After my order was shipped, Wouxun informed me that these sample radios must NOT be sold for less than $320-$330. They went on to say “If we found you or your dealer’s end price was lower this range without our permission in advance, then we will stop supplying this model to you.”

For the past two years, I’ve repeatedly told Wouxun that this radio must sell for no more than $250-$275 for it to be competitive with the big three Japanese companies. It appears this advice has fallen on deaf ears.

These pre-production radios lack some of the features the full-production radios will have. These will not be FCC Certified for Part 90 use. They will have narrow band capability but will not have the 2.5 kHz tuning step required for Part 90 radios beginning in 2013. The frequency range will be RX:136-174 & 350-480 and TX: 136-174 & 400-480. They did not indicate if any wide-band receive, such as 118 MHz AM, would be available on these pre-production models.

Although these radios may lack some of the bells and whistles we’ve expected, I imagine they will still be good dual band radios for the ham market. BUT, I still don’t feel they are worth $325.

If you’re a big fan of TWiT’s weekly amateur radio broadcast, HAM Nation, then you’ll want to note that the program is now on WEDNESDAY evenings at 8pm Central Time (GMT -5:00).