AmateurRadio.com

Series Seven Episode Twenty-Three of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Leslie Buttersfield (G0CIB) and Chris Howard (M0TCH).. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature is BABYSTAR - Standalone DSTAR Hotspot by Martin Rothwell M0SGL

• Small Scale DAB Trial Consultation
• 40th anniversary of ham radio satellite OSCAR 7
• Raspberry Pi HDTV Transmitter
• London Science Museum - New Exhibition
• Milestone shortwave contacts with Australia
• Beta Testers Sought for New Heavens-Above Android App
• IY, Italian Special Amateur / Ham Radio Event Prefix
• 91% pass rate for South Africa

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Series Seven Episode Twenty-Three of the ICQ Amateur / Ham Radio Podcast has been released. Martin M1MRB / W9ICQ is joined by Leslie Buttersfield (G0CIB) and Chris Howard (M0TCH).. Colin M6BOY rounds up the news in brief, and this episodes feature is BABYSTAR - Standalone DSTAR Hotspot by Martin Rothwell M0SGL

• Small Scale DAB Trial Consultation
• 40th anniversary of ham radio satellite OSCAR 7
• Raspberry Pi HDTV Transmitter
• London Science Museum - New Exhibition
• Milestone shortwave contacts with Australia
• Beta Testers Sought for New Heavens-Above Android App
• IY, Italian Special Amateur / Ham Radio Event Prefix
• 91% pass rate for South Africa

Colin Butler, M6BOY, is the host of the ICQ Podcast, a weekly radio show about Amateur Radio. Contact him at [email protected].

Ever since the spring when Moonraker supplied me with rubbish patch leads that just fell apart because the crimping was so poor, and a dual band VHF/UHF yagi antenna that had to be glued to fix one of the loose elements, Moonraker has not been my favourite supplier. They clearly did zero quality checks on the goods sold. I hope they have improved.

However they have some nice 10m radios at sensible prices including a 20W FM/AM unit for under £100 and a multi-mode 10m rig for under £150.

See http://www.moonraker.eu/ .

UPDATE 2200z:  Moonraker also supply PMR446 and LPD433 dual band transceivers. The latter band is within the 70cm amateur band, which is perfectly legal at 10mW with no amateur licence, here in the UK. On UHF, 10mW goes a long way from a local high spot. See http://www.moonraker.eu/professional-radio-and-446/pmr-446 . There are several to choose from.

http://www.moonraker.eu/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/602f0fa2c1f0d1ba5e241f914e856ff9/S/L/SL-02_big.jpg

Roger Lapthorn, G3XBM, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Cambridge, England.

I have been using LOTW as my online logging program for some time now and for the most part have liked using it. The logging programs I have on my PC are N3FJP's AClog and DXlabs log and both logs have made uploading to LOTW very easy with just the push of a button. For some reason I was on LOTW and I decided to search my log for possible fellow bloggers I made contact with. Low and behold it turns out that I contacted the following fellow bloggers…….W2LJ, EI9KC,AE5X and KL8DX. It's not many and may not be all but I sure was surprised that at some time in the past (some contacts were made before I got into blogging) I made on air contact with these fellow bloggers.



Mike Weir, VE9KK, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from New Brunswick, Canada. Contact him at [email protected].

Stu W0STU just posted an article on HamRadioSchool.com about the use of phonetic alphabets. I had previously posted a Shack Talk article on the same subject.

The “standard” phonetic alphabet is the ITU alphabet but I am starting to think that we might need to get a little more creative on our use of phonetics. Why not innovate in this area, just like we innovate on the technical front?

Towards that end, I was reminded of his phonetic alphabet listed over at netfunny.com:

        A  Are               N  Nine
        B  Bee               O  Owe
        C  Cite              P  Pseudonym
        D  Double-U          Q  Queue
        E  Eye               R  Rap
        F  Five              S  Sea
        G  Genre             T  Tsunami
        H  Hoe               U  Understand?
        I  I                 V  Vie
        J  Junta             W  Why
        K  Knot              X  Xylophone
        L  Lye               Y  You
        M  Me                Z  Zero

Even this creative alphabet can be improved on. For example, I think H should be Honor.

What do you think?

73, Bob

The post Twisted Phonetic Alphabet appeared first on The KØNR Radio Site.

Bob Witte, KØNR, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Colorado, USA. Contact him at [email protected].

After its’ trip to James M1APC, the TS940 arrived back here on Thursday. I had a slight fright when it arrived back, when it needed a reset on switch on. And indeed, each time you switch on, you have to hold the A=B and power it on, which resets the microprocessor.

It didn’t do that when it left James, so I can only assume that it got shaken up somewhere. Anyway, it’s simple enough to do that, so no problem. Other than that it is working really well!

I checked the transmitter output and that looks good – even on AM! I was listening to various US stations on 29MHz AM this afternoon and although signals were fading up and down, it sounded very nice. It also sounds good on SSB and I’ve been listening a little on 7MHz where signals were good.

I haven’t tried it on CW. I don’t seem to have a working external morse keyer. I was hoping to use my old Morse Machine MM-3, but that seems to have stopped working in the years since I used it last and despite a quick poke and a prod, I couldn’t persuade it into life. I’ll find a small external keyer somewhere soon, I’m sure. I hope so, as the receive seems quite good on CW. I was listening to W1AW/5 on 21MHz this evening when I didn’t really expect the band to be open. Copy seemed a bit better on the 940 than on my IC740 which is currently making my HF CW contacts.

But it’s great to have the TS940 back and it does have a very nice feel to it. Thanks James for all your help in getting it going.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].

After its’ trip to James M1APC, the TS940 arrived back here on Thursday. I had a slight fright when it arrived back, when it needed a reset on switch on. And indeed, each time you switch on, you have to hold the A=B and power it on, which resets the microprocessor.

It didn’t do that when it left James, so I can only assume that it got shaken up somewhere. Anyway, it’s simple enough to do that, so no problem. Other than that it is working really well!

I checked the transmitter output and that looks good – even on AM! I was listening to various US stations on 29MHz AM this afternoon and although signals were fading up and down, it sounded very nice. It also sounds good on SSB and I’ve been listening a little on 7MHz where signals were good.

I haven’t tried it on CW. I don’t seem to have a working external morse keyer. I was hoping to use my old Morse Machine MM-3, but that seems to have stopped working in the years since I used it last and despite a quick poke and a prod, I couldn’t persuade it into life. I’ll find a small external keyer somewhere soon, I’m sure. I hope so, as the receive seems quite good on CW. I was listening to W1AW/5 on 21MHz this evening when I didn’t really expect the band to be open. Copy seemed a bit better on the 940 than on my IC740 which is currently making my HF CW contacts.

But it’s great to have the TS940 back and it does have a very nice feel to it. Thanks James for all your help in getting it going.

Tim Kirby, G4VXE, is a regular contributor to AmateurRadio.com and writes from Oxfordshire, England. Contact him at [email protected].