eHam.net News

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Vintage Radio: The Contributions of 'Amateurs' -- Giving Radio a Voice:

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 04:01 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36069


Last month we looked at Marconi and his pioneering work in the advancement
of wireless communications. In the early days of radio, prior to government
regulation, anyone with the knowledge could build a transmitter and go on
the air. Even after the first attempts at regulation, one could still do
this, the only rules being a mandate to yield to commercial traffic and to
remain silent for a five minute period at the top of the hour to allow for
distress traffic from ships at sea. In the days before what we now think of
as "broadcasting," commercial traffic was considered to be the handling of
messages between ship and shore stations, or between areas not connected
with wires, such as overseas. Everyone else was considered an "amateur,"
even if they were a professor at a university, or an engineer trying to
develop a new system. World War I brought further regulations prompted by
the military, who realized the potential for this new form of
communication. Eventually, licensing became the norm, with three types of
licenses issued: commercial, for handling messages for hire, experimental,
for research and development, and amateur, for others who wished to explore
the art as a hobby or outside of what was specified by the other classes of
licenses. Still, there were few limits as to what frequency to use or what
one could transmit over the air.


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Wagner Named Emergency Coordinator of the Year:

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 04:01 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36068


The Wisconsin Amateur Radio Emergency Service/Radio Amateur Civil Emergency
Service (ARES/RACES) named John Wagner the Dunn County Emergency
Coordinator of the Year for 2015 at their State Conference in October.
Wagner has leads as the Dunn County ARES/RACES Emergency Coordinator and
Assistant West Central Wisconsin District ARES/RACES Emergency Coordinator.
Wagner helps the ARES/RACES group keep on task as they serve many agencies
in Dunn County and beyond.


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NASA Captures Incredible Solar Activity on Our Sun in Stunning Detail:

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 04:00 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36067


At more than 90million miles from Earth, it is hard to believe you can
watch activity on our huge Sun in such incredible detail. But thanks to the
NASA Solar Dynamic Observatory (SDO) telescopic cameras we can watch a
magnetic field zip across the Sun's atmosphere.


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Homemade App Uses Morse Code to Send Messages On Apple Watch:

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 04:00 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36066


Users who want to send messages on their Apple Watch may have a new method
do so easily with a new homemade app. Since its launch, the Apple Watch has
allowed users to send messages either by dictating through Siri or by using
the wearable's pre-installed message responses and emojis. Patryk Laurent,
a cognitive scientist at the San Diego-based Brain Corporation, reveals an
intriguing new way to type and send messages on the Apple Watch using the
homemade app he created. The app simply makes use of only two characters,
the dash and the dot, which are similar to the ones used in Morse code. In
other words, users who have a good understanding of how the Morse Code
works should find that using the app is a breeze. "The idea of tapping out
messages in Morse code came pretty naturally when thinking about ways to
communicate subtly using the touch interface," said Laurent. "This way, I
would be able to send or reply to text messages without having to use
dictation - especially useful if [I'm] in a meeting or a seminar."


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In the K5P Log!

Posted: 28 Jan 2016 04:00 PM PST
http://www.eham.net/articles/36065


I've been listing for for the K5P DXpedition on Palmyra Atol for about 2
weeks. The team of operators have been operating from this tiny island in
the equatorial Pacific Ocean, about 600 miles south of Hawaii since January
12. They have been operating around the clock, and have been on all of the
high frequency (HF) Amateur Radio bands at one time or another. They have
been operating CW (Morse code) and voice as well as radioteletype (RTTY). I
have heard them a few times, but their signals were always very weak. In
fact, I only tried calling them a couple of times because their signals
were so weak that I didn't think I would hear my call sign even if they did
answer me. This afternoon (Monday January 25, 2016) I heard K5P quite
clearly on the 15 meter band (21.040 MHz) on CW. Was this my chance? I
heard the station give the K5P call sign (always be sure to verify that the
station you think you hear is actually the one you want to contact.) I
heard them sending the call signs of stations that they heard, along with
the signal report and then sending 'UP' meaning they were listening on a
frequency a little higher up the band. I found the pileup of stations
calling them about 2 kilohertz higher in frequency, and set my second VFO
for a frequency near where I heard other stations calling them, and set my
radio for split frequency operation. When I heard them complete one contact
and send 'UP' again, I hit the button on my radio to send my call sign at
about 25 words per minute " close to the speed they were sending. I tried
this several times, but did not hear my call sign coming back to me. I
decided I needed a bit of extra help, so I turned on the amplifier,
adjusted the antenna tuner for a 1:1 SWR and then tuned the amplifier.
Rather than the 100 watts from my Elecraft K3 transceiver, I was now set to
transmit with about 600 watts of power. Again I spent some time listening
to K5P, and also tuned around the pileup a bit to see if I could find the
station they were contacting. Suddenly I heard TU 5NN, and knew I had just
heard the station they were contacting. (TU means thank you, and 5NN means
an RST signal report of 599 " R of 5 means the station is
perfectly 'readable,' S of 9 means the signal strength is 9 on the radio's
S meter, and T of 9 means the transmitted signal has a pure sine wave
tone.) I quickly switched back to listen on the K5P transmit frequency and
hit the keyer memory button 1. I listened as my radio transmitted my call
sign, WR1B, and then immediately heard 'WR1B TU 5NN.' That's me! I hit the
keyer memory button to send 'TU 599 CT,' and that quickly it was over! Once
I had everything set, and found that station they had just contacted, it
probably took less than 10 seconds to complete the entire exchange! Wow!
What I thrill! I just contacted the DXpedition on Palmyra Atol, way out in
the Pacific Ocean. This will be a new one for me. I have never made contact
with a station on Palmyra Atol before.