AmateurRadio.com

I started up my APRS gateway this morning and noticed an unusual symbol on the screen. I clicked on it and discovered that WE7U had posted an object to mark the epicentre of a minor earthquake measuring 3.6 on the Richter scale that occurred about 20 miles to the south of here at around 2300z last night.

It was felt in nearby Workington and even across the water in Dumfries and Galloway with some people describing it as “scary”. We were completely unaware of it. But now I know what happened, I recall that just after we had gone to bed I heard a noise from the attic like someone was up there and stood heavily on the rafters. I said to Olga “did you hear that?” and she said she thought it was a heavy vehicle passing on the A66. So that was how the earth moved for us.

I apologize for being even more grumpy than normal but I haven’t had much sleep. Olga and I were woken up at around 1 in the morning by a lot of noise outside. It was a group of young people who had apparently been having a party in the house opposite. Despite the fact that the temperature was heading for -7C and the girls, according to Olga who was looking out of the window, were none too warmly clad, they were not simply saying goodbye but continuing an animated conversation. Someone decided the party must be carrying on outside so they switched on a car’s headlamps and turned on the stereo very loud. Because of the way the houses are crammed together here with virtually no front gardens this was taking place right below our bedroom window. After ten minutes we were both getting very angry. It isn’t often that Olga uses the f word about people.

I felt like calling the police, but the chances of them actually making an appearance before the miscreants had slept off their hangovers was pretty remote so we discarded that idea. Olga went downstairs and turned on the lights to try and make it obvious that we had been disturbed. I went into the shack, switched on the K2 and sent a 10W dit on 30m, which switched on the security lights of the nearby neighbours that have them. This did appear to have the effect of making the tiny minds think “gosh, other people live around here and oh my, it’s after 1 in the morning, perhaps they are trying to sleep and our noise has disturbed them!” because shortly afterwards the group dispersed and peace and quiet resumed. But neither of us are good sleepers and it took a while before we calmed down enough to sleep again. Hence the foul mood this morning.

It has sometimes been a bit annoying that I can’t go on any band except 80m after dark because of the problem with security lights. But on this occasion it turned out to be useful. If only I knew that the thoughtless young people had touch sensitive lamps by their bedside I might even have been tempted to try a bit of all-night WSPR!

What a useless courier company UPS is. I ordered something from Martin Lynch on Tuesday afternoon and was informed that it had been shipped an hour later by UPS. At 7.45 on Wednesday morning the UPS tracking site showed the package had arrived in the depot at Carlisle and was marked as in transit for delivery that day. I waited in all day and nothing arrived. Later that evening I checked the site again and found the message at 6.45pm: THE PACKAGE WAS MISSED AT THE UPS FACILITY, UPS WILL DELIVER ON THE NEXT BUSINESS DAY / DELIVERY RESCHEDULE. The delivery date was changed to today (Thursday.)

So I waited in all day today and still no UPS man. Again I checked the UPS tracking site this evening and the same message had been added, this time at 7.48pm. The delivery date is now rescheduled for tomorrow (Friday.)

We have had poor weather conditions and the roads have been icy but FedEx called as usual around lunch time to the neighbour across the road who has a regular delivery. And Interlink Direct called to pick up two packages of items I’d sold on eBay the shipment of which I’d arranged online yesterday. (Tip: use the code XMAS10 to get £5 off a delivery before Christmas.) So I don’t think that’s a valid excuse, really.

I wonder what the chances are that I will actually receive my new toy tomorrow? I just hope that when it does arrive I don’t find they have lived up to the other meaning of their acronym: United Package Smashers.

Yesterday I began assembling the Foxtrak-M APRS tracker kit. After installing all the resistors I began adding the capacitors and found that I only been given 4 0.1uF capacitors instead of the 5 needed. I noticed that this was actually a mistake in the packing list, which stated 4 of these parts, so I turned to the computer to send an email to Dinesh so he could correct the mistake in future kits.

Whilst I was logged in to my Google account I checked the blogs I am following and read an interesting entry from PE4BAS about trying PSKMail. I noticed he had a gadget in the right hand column that said he was on the air around 18.100MHz (that’s cool, I must try to set up something like that in KComm.) From the frequency I guessed Bas was on PSK31 so I switched on the K3 to see if I could spot him. I couldn’t, but I did see some DX including a Japanese station.

This was on my 80/40/20/15/10/6m dipole, which my K3 ATU managed to tune to a 1.0:1 match. I decided to see how well I could hear the DX on the magnetic loop so I shut down the K2 which was running HF APRS and groped around the back to disconnect the loop, plug it into the K3 and tune it up on 17m. What a difference resonance makes! The DX signals were noticeably stronger on the magnetic loop than the dipole, stronger enough to surely make a difference given that signal strengths were marginal in any case.

Using 40W to the attic mounted magnetic loop I worked FG5LA (Guadeloupe) and then, after several tries and witnessing some of the kind of bad mannered operating that makes me think it might be best to stay off the radio at weekends, JI1FGX/DU9. KComm said this was not a valid call, so after the contact I fired up the Lazarus development system and had another attempt at rewriting KComm’s callsign validation routine. KComm still thinks the contact is with Japan not the Philippines so that is something I still have to look at.

I could of course have tried to work these DX stations using the K2 and 5W but I doubt if I would have been successful. This made me think that it would be handy if there was an easier way to switch the magnetic loop between the K2 and the K3 than groping round the back of the rigs and unscrewing the plugs. In my junk box I had one of those die-cast coaxial switches that are intended to switch one radio between two antennas. In theory I could use it to switch one antenna between two radios, but would there be sufficient isolation on the disconnected port that I wouldn’t blow up the K2’s front end while running 100W from the K3?

To find out I connected the antenna switch between the K3 and the magnetic loop controller and connected my QRP wattmeter to the other input. While transmitting a 40W carrier I observed no movement at all on the QRP wattmeter on its 1W FSD scale so I think the isolation between the two ports is good enough. I got the drill and fixed the switch to the wall so I can now change the magnetic loop between the K2 and the K3 at the turn of a switch.

And that was Sunday’s ham radio activity in the G4ILO shack!

Observant readers may have noticed a change in the “strapline” in the header logo of my blog. It now reads “My position on amateur radio.”

The new strapline reflects more accurately what the blog is currently about. If you haven’t already realized, it is also a play on words. “My position” alludes to my present interest in APRS which is the subject of many of my postings. But it also makes it clear that this is an opinion blog; that I use this blog to express my thoughts on various ham radio related matters, to give my point of view without any obligation on my part for that view to be fair, balanced or uncontroversial.

So don’t expect any changes to the content, other than a gradual evolution as my interests move from one thing to another. I expect that I will still occasionally write on topics related to stealth ham radio operation, but I feel I have probably pushed things about as far as they can go in my present situation. Now it’s just a matter of waiting and hoping that I don’t experience the Final QRN that puts paid to my radio activities for good.

Yesterday I received a comment in the site guestbook from Murray Greenman, ZL1BPU, which says: “While I appreciate your ad-hoc publicity for ZL2AFP CMSK, it would have been much better if you had asked permission to use my screen-shot on your blog site! While web pictures and text are widely plagiarized, that doesn’t make it right to do so. Copyright still applies and the image is still mine.” I have removed the image and inserted a comment directing the reader to this posting in its place.

Since I am on holiday at the moment and did not intend making any blog postings I will leave it to readers of the blog to lead the discussion on this issue. But I would just like to say that part of my career has been made publicizing software. I have always found software authors to be glad of the publicity and have never, until today, received a complaint about using their own images to this end. It is not always possible to take your own screenshots. In this case, I was unable to try the software on the air because of its insistence on using the default soundcard and I thought that it was more interesting to readers to see the live screenshot made by ZL1BPU than a blank one made by me.

As to the question of whether I should have asked permission first, I wonder if ZL1BPU understands what blogging is about? Part of the motivation for writing about some new development in a blog is to be one of the first, and if you have got to write an email asking permission and wait for a reply then it’s likely that others will pip you to the post. It’s not like writing an article, which may take several days to prepare and where time is not of the essence. Blogging is a bit like tweeting, but more verbose.

Finally I would argue that a screenshot is not an original work of art. I’m not depriving anyone of earned revenue by using it. Anyone can install the software and obtain one that is pretty similar. So why make an issue out of copying someone’s screenshot, particularly when the purpose of doing so is to give publicity to the software not to use it with any adverse intent?

I shall certainly think twice about giving publicity to any more new ham radio programs in my blog in future. Perhaps all of you bloggers who happily copy people’s QSL cards and shack photos to illustrate your stories about contacts should pause for thought as well. Ought this not to count as “reasonable use” – the clause in copyright laws that allows you to quote part of an article when referring to it?