Riding the Radio Waves By K4SAC

Contesting, Dxing, and Ham Radio in general

July 3, 2009

Cloud computing and Ham Radio

by @ 3:25 pm. Tags:
Filed under software

Looking at different ham radio blogs, I came upon a cool concept by KE9V, Jeff  about using the cloud for ham radio logging.

Looking at his proposal initially, I scoffed, as an IT person, “cloud computing” is the current “buzzword” in IT.

But keeping an open mind, I began to consider his thoughts carefully, especially in light of some of the comments that were made in reference to his post…..

As Jeff points out, at one time logging was a legal requirement for hams, and many of us have our paper logbooks (ARRL and Radioshack comes to mind) to fall back on. I know I have quite a few paper logbooks.

Then I transitioned them to computer. Oh man, I remember what a pain that was……it tooks me weeks and weeks of data entry to get everything into myelectronic logbook. The good thing is, that it forced me to review my logs and send out some old QSLs that had been forgotten by the wayside.

Unfortunately in one case, 9N1MM, the QSL manager for him had died and his XYL had just destroyed the logs…so it was too late for that QSL…..

but I have faithfully kept up my logs in electronic format, making multiple backups to ensure I never have to go through that horrendous exercise again.

Electonic logs did a lot for me, helped me track awards, helps me send logs to contest sponsers easier and helps me keep stuff for uploading to LOTW easier.

But then Jeff comes up with this radical idea, to put a logbook app into the “cloud” where you can reach it anytime.  Good idea as long as you have internet access.  As Jeff states, think of Gmail, Yahoo, etc and you get the concept of “cloud computing.”

The intriguing part of his concept to me, was his thought, that the ARRL should adopt that as a project.

I have always supported the LOTW, but for differing reasons, the adoption rate of LOTW has been very small as compared to EQSL.cc

The main reasoning for that has been the security required by the ARRL, it is difficult for foriegn hams to get registered. I think this cloud computing concept could potentially hold the key to getting a wider adoption of LOTW.

As Jeff so aptly points out “Their servers could issue a token that matches a certificate when you log in so that your contacts auto magically matches up via their LoTW database. No more uploading a signed file that was generated by another program to get award credit, it would all be seamless to the end user.”

I agree. The technology is present now to make it easier. For instance if you have a wordpress blog, for certain plug ins you have to have a key generated by WP so that you can “turn on” certain features. Why couldn’t ARRL generate the same key for the LOTW and incorporate that into a “cloud logbook.”

Of course there will be some hams, that no matter how easy it is made, just the fact that the ARRL is part of it, will cause them to not use it.

That should not deter devlopment of this.

If the ARRL or some other party were to take this project up, I would like to see it be an open-source project, so APIs and other plugins can be devloped.

Read Ke9V’s post and some of the comments, I would love to hear some of your comments here as well.

What are your thoughts on this?

73, Jack K4SAC

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June 30, 2009

Individual Impact

by @ 6:57 am. Filed under Uncategorized

Normally I keep this ham radio blog strictly about ham radio.

Today, please bear with me as I want to make a post about a foundation that I think does extremely good work worldwide.

The Jolkona foundation is a foundation that was started up by Microsoft employees to involve the younger, less affluent people in the world of philanthrophy.

Adnan Mahmud, a program manager at Microsoft Research, started the Jolkona Foundation with his wife, Nadia Khawaja, a University of Washington graduate student.

In the Bengali language, Jolkona means a drop of water. The site offers ways to invest in projects around the world, share with friends and see “proof of their impact.”

The aim of this foundation is show accountability for your donations and to actually show you that your money is going to help someone, not going to support the foundation.

Their theory is “There aren’t as many people who can write seven-digit checks, many more can write two-digit checks.”

Many times we think that philanthropy is only for the rich. I realize that especially in these tough economic times that you may not have any extra spending money, but if you do, please think about using Jolkona. A small donation will go a long way and you can actually see who you are helping.

The website is http://www.jolkona.org/

73, Jack K4SAC

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Field Day 2009

by @ 6:31 am. Tags:
Filed under Field Day

Field Day 2009 is in the can.

This FD was a warm one. We had heat index advisories out for both days, with the heat index reaching between 110 and 115.

Even with taking breaks and cooling down we had 2 members that got heat exhaustion which caused us to shut down operations for a few hours.

But we managed even with the shutdown to still get over 500 Qso’s …..

I wish that FD was later in the year, like during the fall.  Of course then it would be too cold in the mountains for those people I guess.

Operators this year were K4SAC, AA4RL, K4RMW, and KY4COE.

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June 25, 2009

Field Day 2009

by @ 7:15 am. Filed under ARRL, Field Day

Once again here in the United States, Field day 2009 is once upon us. Beginning at 1800 UTC Saturday and ending at 2100 UTC Sunday. Field Day 2009 will be held June 27-28, 2009.

Rules for the 2009 FD contest are here.

I thought I would revisit an earlier post I made about FD and write a bit about how Field Day began.

In 1933, The June 1933 QST announced that the second Saturday in June, for a period of 27 hours, starting at 4 pm local time, that hams would go into the “field” and set up portable stations.

W1BDI F.E. Handy said:
“The real object of this contest is to test ‘portables’ wherever they may be available.… If successful, we want to make it an annual affair.”

The scoring of that first contest was each QSO with fixed stations will count 1 point, contacts
with other portables count 2 points, and DX contacts count 3 points. Multiply QSO
points by the total number of ARRL sections, plus countries worked

September 1933 QST announced the winner of the 1st Annual Field Day was W4PAW. They made 62 QSOs and had 28 sections for a total of 1876 points.

1934 Field Day #2 is announced.

1936 Field Day was so popular that a second Field Day was held August 22nd-23rd of that year. The highest qso total for June was 143 and the highest QSo total for August was 136.

1937-Field day #5 is announced for June 19th-20th. The FD message bonus was added. The winning qso for this FD was 204 QSO’s at a rate of 7.5 qsos/hr.

1938- Field Day period goes from 4 pm Saturday Local time to 6 pm Sunday Local time.

1939- the first rule to include all station apparatus must fall within a 100 ft radius excluding antennas.

1940-The 100? rules is changed to 500?. Home stations are allowed to work FD.

1941- The ARRL inadvertently forces a nationwide start time by notifying the FCC of the Field day period and the FCC communication 73-D references a single start time for all ham stations for Field Day from 4pm EST June 7th to 6pm EST June 8th.

1942-1945 All Ham activity ceases.

1946-Field day returns and adds a VHF only category

1948- 11 meters (now the CB band) is added for a Field Day Band. FD is shortened to 24 hrs. Battery and Emergency power categories are added.

1949- Mobile category added to FD.

1950- The modern day FD classes are established. The circle is increased to 1000?

1951- To encourage home emergency power, a home emergency power class is added Class D while home stations off power mains are class E.

1957- Simultaneous starts return, starts 4 pm EST and ends 4pm PST the next day. Anyone can operate 24 of the 27 operating period. 10,000th ham participates.

1963-ARRL rules that a FD site can only use one callsign.

1968- Setup within the 27 hr period is mandatory and the start time is moved to 1900z. All home stations are moved to Class D.

1969- The setup rule is hugely unpopular so ARRL changes the rule so that if you wait to set up you can operate the whole 27 hrs, otherwise you can only operate 24 hrs of the 27.

1970- A free Novice station is allowed. Starting time is moved to 1800z.

1972- Battery results are listed separately.

1973- Repeater rule is waived for satellite contacts and a 50 point sat bonus is included for the first time.

1974- A 100 point bonus is added for making contacts solely by natural power. 15 minutes rule for band changes is instituted.

1975- the Explosion of SSB leads the ARRL to institute a 2X multiplier for CW contacts.

1976- 10,000 qso mark is broken by W1VV/1

1977- The natural power bonus disappears and techs are now allowed to operate the Novice station. The 2X CW rule becomes permanent.

1980- RST is replaced with category and class for the exchange. Setup time is changed again, nothing can be set up before the 24 hr period. natural power comes back as a 100 point bonus. Sat and FD message bonuses increase to 100 points.

1981- Due to the popularity of packet radio, a 100 point bonus is instituted for one packet QSO and the repeater rules are waived for qso’s through a digipeater. The Yankee Clipper Contest Club W2RQ turn in an impressive 11,201 qso total for Field Day.

1984- power multiplier is changed from 200 watts to anything less than 150 watts.

1993- Due to the influx of Technicians, a 100 point bonus is added for making 10 VHF/UHF contacts and a free VHF/UHF station is allowed class A and B.

1994- The modern FD record is set by K6CAB 15A by getting 3450 QRP QSO’s for a total score of 30,150

1998- Free packet station and bonus are eliminated, but RTTY/PSK31 are added as a 3rd FD mode. The 100 point bonus for VHF/UHF stations is deleted.

So that is the history of Field Day. We’ve come a long way Baby!

Credit: December 1999 QST


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June 16, 2009

Earthquake near Bouvet Island

by @ 3:07 pm. Tags: , ,
Filed under dx

USGS_Earthquake PRELIM: M6.0 20:05 6/16 54.4S 5.8E 156 km E of Bouvet Island BOUVET ISLAND REGION Z=10km US 2009hybe 33f06

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May 21, 2009

FCC and warrantless searches

by @ 11:19 am. Tags:
Filed under FCC

As most ham radio operators know, and as some pirate radio stations have found out, the FCC enjoys broad power to come into your house and “inspect” your equipment.

The FCC  doesn’t need a warrant to come in and “inspect” your ham equipment, although if they intend on seizing equipment, they need to work with the U.S. Attorney’s office.

One FCC official is taking that power one step furthur.

FCC spokesman David Fiske says that if you have a wireless router, a cordless phone, remote car-door opener, baby monitor or cellphone in your house, the FCC claims the right to enter your home without a warrant at any time of the day or night in order to inspect it.

The FCC’s power to inspect comes from Section 303(n) of the Communications Act of 1934, although it has never undergone a serious court test.

The FCC actually has a inspection document (click to read) which explicitly lays out it authority to inspect.

You might say ok, they can only inspect, they cannot use anything they see as evidence against me for anything else….well you would be wrong.

In  the 1987 Supreme Court Case New York v. Burger,  if inspectors should notice evidence of unrelated criminal behavior — say, a marijuana plant or an unregistered gun — a Supreme Court decision suggests the search can be used against the resident.

“Anything using RF energy — we have the right to inspect it to make sure it is not causing interference,” says FCC spokesman David Fiske. That includes devices like Wi-Fi routers that use unlicensed spectrum, Fiske says.

So make sure that if you hear that knock on the door and it is the FCC asking to inspect your equipment, you have to let them in to inspect it.

credit (http://www.wired.com/threatlevel/2009/05/fcc-raid/)

73, Jack K4SAC

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May 16, 2009

Mecca of Ham Radio……..

by @ 10:26 am. Tags: ,
Filed under hamfests

As I write this, Dayton Ham Fest is in full swing.

Dayton is one of the largest if not THE largest ham fest in the United States.

Unfortunately I will not be at dayton this year, I am as we speak knee-deep in a exchange migration.

I just wanted to post about Dayton, those of you that are going….revel in the sights, sounds and forums of Hamvention!

I really wanted to attend Contest University this year, but work had other plans for me.

Hopefully we will see some reviews from some of the ham bloggers that do go…..

Have fun……enjoy the hamfest!

73, Jack K4SAC

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May 3, 2009

Swine flu

by @ 9:27 pm. Tags:
Filed under CDC

This week has been surreal.

The news has been dominated by the swine flu health hazard down in Mexico, that has spread to many different countries worldwide.

The swine flu is kind of a misnomer. The actual name is H1N1. The CDC has a website here for information about the H1N1 Flu.

According to the CDC as of today, there have been 226 confirmed cases of H1N1 and 1 confirmed death in the United States.

According to the World Health Organization, there have been 898 confirmed cases world-wide.

The WHO raised the pandemic alert from a 4 to 5.

At what point does WHO consider a pandemic to have started? (from the WHO website)

Phase 6, as defined by the WHO pandemic preparedness guidelines. However, during both phase 5 and phase 6, national and local actions to respond to the outbreak shift from preparedness to response at a global level. The goal of recommended actions during these phases is to reduce the impact of the pandemic on society.

If you want to follow the CDC news on Twitter http://twitter.com/whonews

From reading the reports, I believe the peak has been reached and will start declining as the incubation periods pass.

73,

K4SAC

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May 1, 2009

FCC files petition for expedited rulemaking against towers

by @ 6:15 pm. Tags:
Filed under FCC, antennas

On April 14, 2009 the FCC in concert with bird organizations has filed a petition for expedited rulemaking to protect birds from towers

You can download the PDF here

Specifically, Petitioners request that the FCC undertake the
following actions:
· Amend the Commission’s regulations that implement NEPA, “consistent with Council on
Environmental Quality regulations and guidance,” to “cure deficiencies” and to ensure that only
Commission actions that have no significant environmental effects individually or cumulatively
are categorically excluded;
· Prepare a programmatic environmental impact statement addressing the environmental
consequences of its Antenna Structure Registration (“ASR”) program on migratory birds, their
habitats, and the environment;

Promulgate rules to clarify the roles, responsibilities and obligations of the Commission,
applicants, and non-federal representatives in complying with the ESA;
· Consult with the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service on the ASR program regarding all effects of
towers and antenna structures on endangered and threatened species; and
· Complete the proposed rulemaking in the Migratory Birds Proceeding to adopt measures to
reduce migratory bird deaths in compliance with the MBTA.

Read the full PDF and if you want to comment, comment by the dates below:

Comment Date: May 29, 2009
Reply Comment Date: June 15, 2009

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April 27, 2009

Google celebrating Samuel Morse’s Birthday

by @ 10:17 am. Tags:
Filed under cw, holiday

If you go to Google’s search page today 4/27/2009 , the logo is Morse Code spelling out Google.

If you click on the logo it takes you to a Google search page about Samuel Morse.

73,

Jack K4SAC

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