Dah Dit Morse Code Trainer Smartphone App

Check Out The Blog Post Here.

LINUX In The Ham Shack!

Hey Gang! Do any of you listen to Podcasts? What about Podcasts related to Ham Radio and LINUX? Speaking of Podcasts, LINUX in the Ham Shack is a site on exactly that topic.

When you have a chance, check out the LINUX in the Ham Shack Web site. Russ K5TUX (and Richard KB5JBV now on hiatus) host an awesome site and their shows (Podcasts) cover many subjects, and yes, believe it or not, once in a while they even talk about LINUX and how it’s related to Ham Radio! Only kidding of course.

Episode #102 focused on QSSTV. Go check it out!

The ‘Snake’ Antenna

Check this link out. It’s an article by GM4ULS: The ‘Snake’ Antenna.

Ham Radio Kit Building Is On The Rise Again!

Over at the eHamStore, statistics are showing that there is a lot of traffic steadily hitting the kit building pages. Among Ham Radio operators, kit building is definitely on the rise again! As anyone who has built a kit knows, Ham Radio kit building brings a sense of accomplishment and personal satisfaction.

Imagine purchasing a kit, cobbling the parts together and sending out a CQ! When you hear another station coming back to you, it has to be a thrill. QRP or low power (5 watts or less) is a rather amazing and sometimes challenging way to work local and DX stations. But hey, we all live for the challenge, don’t we?

After building my first QRP kit (NORCAL 40) somewhere around 1985, I was hooked. One day, I brought that first kit over to a friend’s house and connected it to his Cushcraft A4S with the 40 meter add-on kit. We were both laughing hard each time I got a 599+ signal report from a stateside station. There’s nothing like a beam antenna to build up some ERP.

QRP continues to fun and challenging today. My latest Ham Radio kit is the Elecraft KX3. Now this kit requires no soldering; it’s designed as a modular kit which takes about 2.5 hours to put together. The end result is a truly amazing piece of Ham Radio gear. If you are not familiar with the KX3, take a spin over to the Elecraft site (see below). I am sure you will be rather surprised at its huge list of features.

There are a number of great sites to visit to find Ham Radio Kits. Here are a few to get your electrons flowing!

The eHamStore Kits A Variety Of Kits To Review

CanaKit  Canada – High quality electronic kits & modules

Carl’s Electronics  electronic kits, robotic kits, test equipment & more

Communication Concepts  HF/VHF/UHF amps, LP filters, broadband RF transformers

Crystal Radio Kits and Parts

Elecraft  Innovative Electronic  Kits

EMTECH  QRP kits and more

Etherkit  Devoted to open source hardware

Fox Delta Amateur Radio Projects & Kits  Excellent website by Dinesh, VU2FD

Hendricks QRP Kits

NorCal 40A  by Wilderness Radio

Oak Hills Research

Ramsey Kits – Headquarters

Small Wonder Kits (NN1G)

Ten-Tec  Worldwide reputation for excellent radios and kits

The ‘Rock-Mite’  Simple CW transceiver for 40 or 20 meters

YouKits Technology  Quality, well designed kits … check them out!

Which kits have you built? Do you work QRP? Why not tell us about your experiences!

Go kit plans

Go kit plans.

Vintage ARRL Video – “Enjoy The Flicker”

Vintage ARRL ham radio movie. Converted from 16mm film to video tape many years ago, and now from that ancient VHS to digital. Enjoy the flickering screen, and especially the funky organ music backgrounds! heavy focus on Morse code, which of course is no longer a requirement.

From the desk of Russ, KH6JRM:

Many thanks to KF5OEF for finding this little gem. This vintage film takes me back to the days of my old HW-101, the D-104 mike, and the trusty 40 meter dipole strung between two pine trees near the old sugar plantation in Honokaa (along the Hamakua Coast of Hawaii Island). When I worked cw (which was most of the time), I used an old J-38 key (which I still have). Things seemed simplier and more civil in those days 36 years ago. How time flies. Amateur Radio is still fun, despite the few obnoxious operators I run into on 75 and 20 meters. Thanks for the memories! Aloha de Russ, KH6JRM.

Things To Know Before Getting Your First Two Way Radio

 

A two way radio differs from a broadcast radio in the sense that it can receive as well as send messages and it can be used for communication between two people. Two way radios are available in several different configurations. Configurations include hand held radios, mobile radios and stationary base radios.

Radios can either operate in a full duplex mode or a half duplex mode. In full duplex, two way radios can be used to both send and receive voice or data at the same time over different channels or frequencies. In half duplex, two way radios can be used for either sending or receiving voice or data over a single channel.

There are various things that you should  take into account with two way radios prior to making a purchase. Generally handheld or HT two way radios are very compact, are light weight and are very affordable. Two way radios are available in different styles and are used for a large number of applications. Two way handheld radios have a push to talk button which makes it very convenient to use. Two way handheld radios are available with either rechargeable batteries or replaceable batteries. Handheld batteries are usually made of nickel and cadmium or lithium ion.

Two way radios operate in different ranges. The range specifies the distance that can be used in a two way communication. Two way radios can operate over short ranges or longer ranges depending on various factors like the frequency, terrain, output power, etc. Most two way radios operate in a “line of sight” manner. That is the antennas of two way radios must “see” each other. This just means that they cannot work well in hilly areas and in places where there are large obstructions such as city buildings.

Two way radios today come with a large number of features. Two way radios can use repeaters to help with communicating over longer distances and in areas where line of sight communication is not possible. Some two way radios also provide an option to use the computer in conjunction with a terminal node controller or TNC. The TNC converts the digital data from the computer to analog data which is then transmitted / received by two way radios. Packet radio networks have been around since the 1980′s and are used to communicate with Amateur Radio stations locally and worldwide.

Another thing new users must know about two way radios is that they may or may not require licenses to operate. When toy like two way radios are used as a personal radio within the home for example, there is no need to apply for a license. In addition, radio controlled toys do not require a license.

However, most two way radios do require some form of a license. Operating  Amateur Radio equipment does require a license from the country you live in. In the U.S. the FCC controls all Amateur Radio licenses. All business or commercial radios in the U.S require licenses issued by the FCC.

Two way radios operate on different “channels” or frequencies. Since these “channels” are open anyone can listen to the communication or intercept the messages being sent. To prevent this to some degree, radios come with privacy codes of sorts. Most two way radios and police scanners include the ability to scan the channels and automatically detect these so called privacy codes. Therefore there is no such thing as a truly “private” channel.

Today, entry level Amateur Radio equipment can be purchased for as little as $50 to $75. One of the most popular introductory two way radios is the BAOFENG two way radio because of its included options and its very low cost.

Shopping online offers you the advantage of performing price comparisons, reading customer reviews and selecting the best deal before you make your purchase. When purchasing through eBay, as opposed to most other online stores, you are offered buyer protection. And if you should make your purchase with PayPal, your purchase is usually doubly protected.

So stop by and visit The eHamStore For All Of Your TWO WAY RADIO needs. There are no hidden fees and no sign ups are required.

Do You Shop For Ham Gear On eBay?

YET Another HT From China

Yup! You guessed it, it’s another HT from our “friends” in China. There’s been a lot of chat about these radios. It would satisfy my curiosity if someone could point me to a site to break down the differences between this growing list of Baofeng Transceivers.

So far I have heard of the UV-3R 5R 5RA 5RB 5RC 5RE and now the UV-B5 B6. Does this mean they can’t get it right or the improvements are coming at a fast and furious pace?

This one, the UV-B5 is supposed to be the very latest in a long line of Baofeng UV-X series of Dual Band HT transceivers.

If you want to look deep into the details and get a full analysis of the performance of the new BAOFENG UV-B5 / UV-B6, take a spin over to:
HANS PD0AC’s Blog here: http://bit.ly/12Cq6fC
Find it on eBay here: http://bit.ly/132PDds

What are your thoughts about these Chinese “wonders”… Thanks!

Oracle Virtual Box and KB1IOQ’s Ubuntu Remix For Ham Radio Ops

Since I have plenty of time on my hands now, I have taken up experimenting with various LINUX distros again using the very cool Oracle Virtual Box software. If you are not familiar with this stuff, simply put it’s like running an operating system within an operating system. In this case, I have installed Oracle’s VIRTUAL BOX software under UBUNTU.

Once Virtual Box is up you can install any O/S in it (that I have run across to date). That is, as long as you have enough hardware on your system to run it effectively. I recently found out about KB1OIQ – Andy’s Ham Radio Linux CD. So, naturally I had to give it a go.  The installation under Virtual BOX was typical and ran flawlessly unlike some distros (such as Fedora release 18). Andy explains the basic hardware requirements for installation on his SourceForge page  As the case with other distros, you can create a LIVE CD and run his software that way without disturbing the current OS located on your system.

In summary, if you like to experiment with different distros of LINUX you may want to try out Andy’s software. As long as you know how to burn a .iso file to CD then the LIVE CD is the least invasive way to give it a go.

Please comment if you decide to try out Andy’s distro and more specifically what you liked about it!