Ham Radio High Jinx

I have been much more active in ham radio the last couple of years. My activity has been accelerating this last year in particular. I have purchased a quad band radio that has allowed me to branch out and start communicating on 6 meters as well as 2 meters and 70 centimeters. I haven’t got an adequate antenna to use the 10 meter capability of my radio though. I don’t have a place to mount one on my vehicle if I did have one. 10 meter antennas are longer and more massive than the shorter wave antennas like 6 meters and shorter.

I live in a two bedroom apartment on the ground floor. I have not figured out a way to put up an antenna indoors. Consequently, my vehicle is my radio shack. That is a major reason why I haven’t ventured into HF activity (that’s 10 meters and longer). I am building a little low power (5 watt) radio that will transmit CW (Morse code) on 40 meters. When I say building what I should say is that I am carrying around the kit of parts in my pocket. I need to carve out some time and start assembling it.

When I have built it, I should be able to put up a simple antenna and get on the air. That is, if I learn to send and receive Morse code. To that end, I have been attending a class every Friday night and practicing as often as possible in between. I am beginning to be able to copy code if I listen to it over and over. I expect to start getting a lot better at it soon. I’d like to have my little 40 meter Pixie (the radio I was talking about) built by then. I have a little over a month before the class is over. I am drawing the line in the sand here and publicly stating that I intend to have it built and tested by the end of the CW class.

A Long Time Between Posts

A lot has happened here since I wrote the last post. Shortly after my last post, my iMac died. I have been borrowing Pam’s laptop for almost a year now. I am still happy with my iPhone and my iPad, they just don’t replace a computer entirely (yet). Maybe at some point they will. I’m not going to hold my breath though.

I have added a little ASUS Transformer T-100 to the menagerie. It runs Windows (*shudder*). I call it my radio since I bought it primarily to run Ham radio software. I named it Elmer as that is what Hams call a Ham that helps new Hams find their way around the hobby.

Hams seem to prefer PCs to Macs. I finally gave up on trying to swim upstream. I have found one or two hams that agree with me. They use PCs for their shack and the Mac for everything else. I have also noticed a preference for Android over iOS among Hams. I have nothing against Android. I just like the way that my iPhone and my iPad and my Mac all integrate so well with one another. I also have a considerable investment in iTunes products (apps, music, video,etc.)

Enough for today. I am going to attempt to make blogging a daily habit. We’ll wee how long I last this time. Until next time, enjoy life.

A Joyous Day

Thursday Pam and I bought new iPads. I worked all afternoon getting them set up and now I am using mine to write a blog post with Fargo. It is nine o’clock and I have to go to work in the morning. I still need to exercise. That is going to cut this session short. I will come back and see if it is worth posting sometime later. In the mean time, I am going to see if I can use my iPad to watch Netflix at the gym.

I got Netflix installed and found the password and went to the gym and exercised. The new iPad looked and sounded great. I took it to work the next day. It was exciting to have access to my personal stuff all day. I still need to get the ssh tunnel set up through the firewall again. The new iPhones arrived a little after seven thirty. I tried to sit and watch TV with Pam but I was so tired that I went to Bed at eight twenty four.

Today, we went to the Grand Opening of the new wing of Lowe Mill. It was a lot of fun but Pam over did it and ended up being exhausted by the time we got her to leave. We went to Rosie’s for an early dinner. Then we came home.

After we got everything arranged from the shopping trip I sat down to activate the new iPhones. I got them both backed up and got Pam’s setup. Then I started getting mine setup. It is still working as I write this. I am very excited.

I’m going to go ahead and publish this. If I don’t, I probably will let it sit for a couple of more days. It has been several joyous days in a row. I’m a very lucky man.

Can We Build a Better News Infrastructure?

Dave Winer said that we can build a better news network (please read his post for exactly what he said).

I commented:

The problem is that most people are just listening to figure out when it’s there turn to talk. They aren’t paying any attention to the substance of what the other person is saying. I think the abbreviation tl;dr is indicative of how that same principle translates into the print medium. I have lost all confidence in the news organizations in this (or any other) country. I feel less informed about the world than I ever was before the digital revolution. I can talk to someone on the other side of the world individual to individual but when the media is involved it all boils down to who stands to gain financially and who has paid whom the most to get their spin broadcast. I would like to see the internet give rise to a better news system as you advocate. What can we (users and developers alike) do to help bring this to life?

After struggling with getting links to this blog posted to Facebook and Twitter (manually, I am having trouble getting my process down to use Radio3), I discovered that Dave had replied to my comment:

Right now, the answer is simply to post using a tool like Radio3, which can post to the corporate networks as well as to the open Internet. So we get a chance to use your links to bootstrap a new open network. You sacrifice nothing, your posts still go to your current subscribers. That’s the outline of the plan.

I haven’t got Radio3 set up to post to Facebook through my corporate firewall so I am still figuring out the process to get this to work while I’m at work. Perhaps I should just refrain from posting while I’m at work. Any way, thanks for the response, Dave.