In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Matthew Nassau M0NJX, Andy Mace 2E0IBF and Chris Howard M0TCH to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature is an interview with Ham Radio Author Don Keith N4KC

• Congressman Calls for FCC Action
• LIDS - The 'Less Involved Data Society'
• Morse code: A staple in the Navy IW toolkit
• Available UK Amateur / Ham Radio Call Signs
• Ham Radio Foundation Course for iOS and Android
• Australian Pico Balloon PS-58 Receives Contacts
• Ham Radio Tower Dispute
• SARL Leap Year Challenge

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at info@icqpodcast.com.

In this episode, Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Leslie Butterfield G0CIB, Edmund Spicer M0MNG, Matthew Nassau M0NJX, Andy Mace 2E0IBF and Chris Howard M0TCH to discuss the latest Amateur / Ham Radio news. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature is an interview with Ham Radio Author Don Keith N4KC

• Congressman Calls for FCC Action
• LIDS - The 'Less Involved Data Society'
• Morse code: A staple in the Navy IW toolkit
• Available UK Amateur / Ham Radio Call Signs
• Ham Radio Foundation Course for iOS and Android
• Australian Pico Balloon PS-58 Receives Contacts
• Ham Radio Tower Dispute
• SARL Leap Year Challenge

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at info@icqpodcast.com.

Amateur Radio Weekly is curated by Cale Mooth K4HCK. Sign up free to receive ham radio's most relevant news, projects, technology and events by e-mail each week at http://www.hamweekly.com.

Connecting the bits and bobs

Bring out your cables

AF1 Audio Filter making crowded band operations pleasurable

CP1 Directional Coupler sending off 20dB attenuated signal to the frequency counter

Frequency Counter fed by the CP1 directional coupler.

W1 Power Meter sending its measurement off to the computer

Richard Carpenter, AA4OO, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from North Carolina, USA. Contact him at aa4oo@hamradioqrp.com.

This coming weekend will host the "Midwinter 630m Operating Activity", an event that will have the 630m band no doubt sounding very crowded.



Not only will there be a dozen or more U.S. experimental stations in operation, but also six Canadian stations working crossband with other amateurs in both the U.S. and Canada.

Hopefully you will be able to participate as well, by listening for the 630m Canadians and then give them a call on their HF listening (QSX) frequency. Although specific HF QSX frequencies will be part of their CQ, the list below will provide further details regarding where and when the Canadians will be transmitting.

This event should be particularly interesting for amateurs from the central states eastward, as well as the southern states. For the first time, a mid-continent Canadian station will be on-the-air for both nights.

Mitch, VE3OT, will be looking for crossband contacts from his London, Ontario location and looking at the results of his past few weeks of CW beaconing, his 630m signal is being well-heard throughout the eastern half of the continent. For the north-easterners, VO1NA in Newfoundland will be also looking for two-way crossband contacts.

The last time this event was run, dozens of two-way crossband contacts were completed between the 630m Canadians and amateurs on HF. Canadians on the west coast worked as far as KH6 to the west and W3 to the east. With even better propagation looking very probable this coming weekend, the crossband activity could be very exciting!

Canadian Station Schedule

In addition to the crossband activity, the numerous U.S. experimental stations are also seeking your reception reports. These can be either sent to the individual stations (via their qrz.com info) or to myself, for forwarding and posting in the event summary. Several of the old high-powered Californian Maritime stations will also be in operation on CW, just below the 630m band.

More information regarding the weekend's event can be found here in the initial announcement as well as on the ARRL News page here.

As in past events, many of the participants will be found on the ON4KST (2200-630m) Chat page, allowing realtime updates to keep you in the loop ... the more the merrier.

If you are getting ready for the arrival of the 630m band in the U.S., this weekend's event offers a good opportunity to get a 'feel' for the band as well as to participate in the two-way activity with the 'VE' amateurs ... we hope to work many of you this weekend!
Steve McDonald, VE7SL, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from British Columbia, Canada. Contact him at ve7sl@shaw.ca.

I was prompted to write this because of the latest poll on eHam.  It's about smart phones and Amateur Radio apps.  Of course, it devolved from being anything useful into a bunch of curmudgeons blasting the topic to smithereens.

"What do you need a smart phone for anyway? I detest them, they are the mark of the Beast - the Devil's plaything, they are everything that is wrong with society! I use a real radio that has knobs ...... remember what those are?"  I am paraphrasing, of course.  ;-)

And so on, and so on, and so on.  Sigh - heavy sigh.

It's a tool, guys ...... just another tool in the Ham radio arsenal, get it?

I have a pre-owned (sound so much better than "used") Samsung Galaxy S3, which I recently picked up on eBay.  It's my first personal 4G cell phone. (I know, forever behind the times.)  Even though it's an older model, it's in excellent shape and I'm familiar with the S3, as my work-issued cell phone used to be an S3.  For work, they recently upgraded me to an iPhone 5s, which I don't like (or use) - but this post is not about that.

My Galaxy S3 is a great companion for portable QRP ops. It's works much better than the Motorola Droid 2 that I previously used. It has more system memory, so it doesn't lock up or lag on me, like the Droid 2 used to. I have the following Amateur Radio apps on it:

HamLog
SOTAwatch
Morse Trainer by Wolphi
QRZDroid
DX Cluster


HamLog is great! It's easy to use and has a lot of features. If I'm not in a pileup situation (ragchew mode, or even causal sprint operation), it's easy enough for me to type in my contacts. In a hectic pileup situation (think activating NPOTA or the Skeeter Hunt), where things are happening fast and furious, I get flustered a bit. I can start out logging on the cell phone, but inevitably, I end up getting fumble-fingered and have to resort to old school - paper and pencil.  If I'm near a wi-fi source (I have a very limited monthly data allowance, so my data connection is always off), it will even look up the names and QTHs of the operators that I am currently working.  I can easily export the log to an ADIF file, so that I can add my portable ops contacts to my main log on Log4OM.

SOTAwatch - turn it on and it shows you the current activations. Call signs, peak, frequency and mode. It has other features which I haven't even explored yet.

Morse Trainer - This is one of the best Morse Code trainers out there IMHO.  It will allow Morse to be sent as fast as 60 WPM.  I keep mine set to a speed of about 40 WPM and have it send regular words.  I try to listen to some code practice several times a week in my never ending goal to become an even more competent CW op. Boy, 25 WPM sure sounds easy-peasy after listening to 40 WPM for a while!

QRZDroid - QRZ.com in an app. Easy call sign look up.

DX Cluster - Very helpful in tracking NPOTA stations.  The only drawback with DX Cluster is that you can filter it for either all HF bands or mono-bands. It would be nice if I could filter say, 20 and 17 Meters in one shot. But, hey, if wishes were nickels, I'd be a rich man. Wish I was smart enough to write apps like these, then maybe I would be a rich man!

The bottom line is that a smart phone can be a useful tool to compliment and enhance your overall Amateur Radio experience. It's not a replacement or any other kind of bogeyman. It is what you make of it.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at w2lj@arrl.net.

I was prompted to write this because of the latest poll on eHam.  It's about smart phones and Amateur Radio apps.  Of course, it devolved from being anything useful into a bunch of curmudgeons blasting the topic to smithereens.

"What do you need a smart phone for anyway? I detest them, they are the mark of the Beast - the Devil's plaything, they are everything that is wrong with society! I use a real radio that has knobs ...... remember what those are?"  I am paraphrasing, of course.  ;-)

And so on, and so on, and so on.  Sigh - heavy sigh.

It's a tool, guys ...... just another tool in the Ham radio arsenal, get it?

I have a pre-owned (sound so much better than "used") Samsung Galaxy S3, which I recently picked up on eBay.  It's my first personal 4G cell phone. (I know, forever behind the times.)  Even though it's an older model, it's in excellent shape and I'm familiar with the S3, as my work-issued cell phone used to be an S3.  For work, they recently upgraded me to an iPhone 5s, which I don't like (or use) - but this post is not about that.

My Galaxy S3 is a great companion for portable QRP ops. It's works much better than the Motorola Droid 2 that I previously used. It has more system memory, so it doesn't lock up or lag on me, like the Droid 2 used to. I have the following Amateur Radio apps on it:

HamLog
SOTAwatch
Morse Trainer by Wolphi
QRZDroid
DX Cluster


HamLog is great! It's easy to use and has a lot of features. If I'm not in a pileup situation (ragchew mode, or even causal sprint operation), it's easy enough for me to type in my contacts. In a hectic pileup situation (think activating NPOTA or the Skeeter Hunt), where things are happening fast and furious, I get flustered a bit. I can start out logging on the cell phone, but inevitably, I end up getting fumble-fingered and have to resort to old school - paper and pencil.  If I'm near a wi-fi source (I have a very limited monthly data allowance, so my data connection is always off), it will even look up the names and QTHs of the operators that I am currently working.  I can easily export the log to an ADIF file, so that I can add my portable ops contacts to my main log on Log4OM.

SOTAwatch - turn it on and it shows you the current activations. Call signs, peak, frequency and mode. It has other features which I haven't even explored yet.

Morse Trainer - This is one of the best Morse Code trainers out there IMHO.  It will allow Morse to be sent as fast as 60 WPM.  I keep mine set to a speed of about 40 WPM and have it send regular words.  I try to listen to some code practice several times a week in my never ending goal to become an even more competent CW op. Boy, 25 WPM sure sounds easy-peasy after listening to 40 WPM for a while!

QRZDroid - QRZ.com in an app. Easy call sign look up.

DX Cluster - Very helpful in tracking NPOTA stations.  The only drawback with DX Cluster is that you can filter it for either all HF bands or mono-bands. It would be nice if I could filter say, 20 and 17 Meters in one shot. But, hey, if wishes were nickels, I'd be a rich man. Wish I was smart enough to write apps like these, then maybe I would be a rich man!

The bottom line is that a smart phone can be a useful tool to compliment and enhance your overall Amateur Radio experience. It's not a replacement or any other kind of bogeyman. It is what you make of it.

72 de Larry W2LJ
QRP - When you care to send the very least!
Larry Makoski, W2LJ, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Jersey, USA. Contact him at w2lj@arrl.net.