From: John from Detroit
Date: Mon, 3 May 2010 09:07:17 EDT

K6LHA wrote:
There have been a great number of civilian fixed station equipments that
have been designated as "military" (by the addition of a sticker/label)
as far back as 1953 without any special tests, physical or
electronic, without any changes or additions in appearance. None of
these were intended for field use up to about 1980 or so, therefore they
would not have undergone full environmental testing. Consider them
"COTS" (Commercial Off-The- Shelf) equipments as described by Hans.

Let me put it this way.

If you are going to design a product for the military, (And you must
admit military contracts are the "800 pound gorillas" in the business).

Since I've actually designed military equipment, last one being the
AN/ASM-416, a test set, I just don't see that "gorilla" label.
Specifications are sometimes tough to meet and nobody can talk their
way out of it (as salesmen or executives do) to project overseers.
You either meet specifications or you get fired. I always met spec.

I don't think I could define military contract work because so many
hams just haven't done it and they are all full of misconceptions.
It is just WORK. If you like it you get paid for the fun. If you
don't like it then you probably wouldn't have gotten high enough
on the totem to be in a design position.

And by simply tweaking a tuning slug it will work as well on the ham
bands.. and the device is not "Classified" in and of itself.

The MAJORITY of military contract work is NOT classified. Hasn't
been for decades. The major 'classified' category is "company
private" which is common, very common to all corporations, amounting
to not jabbering company stuff to workers in other companies. Yes,
I've been vetted by the FBI and a bunch of other alphabet soup
agencies up to Secret with a background check (actual interviews
in-person) for Top Secret. Missed a "Q" clearance completion
because my work assignment change to another group. ['Q' was a
classification involving nuclear things]

Forget the Hollywood BS about security clearances, drama, and
that phony baloney. I live near "Hollywood" and very, very few
of those were actually involved in such national secrets. The
only ACTUAL encounter close to me was the Lockheed "Skunk Works"
at Burbank airport (now renamed "Bob Hope"), at Building 82 just
off the Hollywood Way and Winona intersection in Burbank, CA.
Drove past it for years and years without knowing it was THERE
all the time since WWII days. A mile and a half from my
house of 37 years, I had to find out its location from a book,
a biography of Ben Rich, successor to legendary Kelly Johnson,
read several years after Lockheed pulled out of Burbank.

Why not market to hams as well?

Ahem...Collins Radio tried that but it wasn't profitable.
Hallicrafters went bust long ago. National Radio quit the
ham market long ago. SGC in Washington state markets HF
SSB transceivers mainly to private boat owners but isn't
pushing for the ham market. Face it, HF radios are NOT in the
market spotlight anywhere except to hams and the Big 3 in
Japan have that tied up nice and tight. The market for NEW
radios is at VHF - UHF - Microwave, strong emphasis being at
1 GHz for cellular telephony...both cell sites and mobliles.
Its been that way for over two decades.

Now, I do admit that the military has some classified stuff that I'll
likely never set eyes on..

Not that much. When I was stationed in Japan my battalion had
full run of everything but the Crypto room in the sub-basement
of the Far East Command Hq building...and guys who manned that
were battalion personnel. The reason so few see things is
because it isn't publicized and it has no "action" by itself.

To see a 1962 booklet produced by the Army on one big station:
http://sujan.hallikainen.org/Broadca...phabetSoup.pdf
http://sujan.hallikainen.org/Broadca...s/My3Years.pdf
Both are about 6 MB file size and the second one is my photo essay
of a 3-year assignment at the same station 1953-1956. Good contrast
between essentially WWII gear and better stuff working 15 years
after WWII was over.

[on KWM-2s] Perfectly
good ham radios were being totaly reduced to their atoms because they
were part,, Mind you just part, of a classified communications system.

No, no, no...MARS wasn't used for "classified" comms in Vietnam. I
can
assemble a list of what was used - there's plenty of sources of
history
on that other than ARRL publications. BTW, the KWM-2 came in two
flavors: Full-frequency range for maritime market, limited range for
the ham market. AN/FRC-93 designation was for the maritime market
KWM-2.

Never mind that they were a part you could buy over the counter at Ham
Radio Outlet.. they were still part of a classified system so they were
blown up, drilled, shot, flamed, run over with tanks and otherwise
redced to powder.

Then visit Davis-Monthan AFB (?) to see square miles of "perfectly
good
aircraft" that haven't been recycled for their aluminum, outdated
engines or outdated internal mechanical, hydraulic, electrical
systems.

A total waste of thousands of dollars worth of hardware that could have
been sold, without danger of compromising the classified system at all
since this was just a part.

WAR by itself is a TOTAL waste of lives and property. What else is
new?

Regardless of the tales from over 35 years ago, MARS was NOT handling
"classified" material into/out-of Vietnam. The classified material
was encrypted by a small group of personnel and could be sent over
very ordinary radio circuits using very ordinary radios.

First operational in 1989, the AN/PRC-119 (manpack version SINCGARS)
can be captured and reverse-engineered to try to find its built-in
encryption system for decoding intercepts. Won't help anyone. The
digital voice and data modulation uses a long long key and the carrier
hops at a 10 frequencies per second rate over a 30 to 88 MHz span.
"Hopsets" (colloquial) are generated at battalion Hq level for all
that encryption-hopping key information. It is difficult as heck to
INTERCEPT enough message data to attempt a decrypt attack on it.
ITT Fort Wayne, IN, has manufactured over 300,000 SINCGARS radios
since 1989 (ITT press release some years ago). What are you going to
do with a VHF radio that doesn't even have a tuning knob on it?

73, Len K6LHA

On May 3, 7:11�am, "Michael J. Coslo" wrote:
On May 3, 7:52 am, K6LHA wrote:

some snippage

A generalized statement like that indicates no experience with adverse
environments. �One can "perform" like a champ at room temperatu
re in a
residence environment but try it below freezing or in a vehicle that
has been in +118 degrees F all day (interior is MUCH hotter).

Since this has become a "can you top this" sub-thread, I'd like to add
that
the WHERE I experienced +118 F temps was at Kern County Airport #7,
Mojave, CA, the same old ex-USMC airfield where Scaled Composites is
located (maker of Space Ship 1). A 1.6 GHz R&D radio was being
flight- tested at the time with me sweating at the ground station as a
reference point for the airborne avionics. It worked and we got
data. It was the first generation of three and had lots of circuitry
that surprised me by keeping on working.
�
I haven't been involved in Mil spec testing. I was involved in Cable
Television testing, in which we cycled between extreme temps - don't
remember the exact temps, so I just used "extreme". We did immersion
tests in salt and fresh water. We did vibration testing. Neat device,
it was a sort of mini-system, we sent signals through it, and tried to
run to failure. Shake and Bake, we called it. After a month or so
without a failure, we'd give up. Some equipment was used by the Navy,
so the testing method must have meant something. note, we tested all
the models this way.

Sounds like the 'orphan' RCA Corp. division of the West coast over in
Burbank, making CATV systems, mainly repeaters for cable TV systems.
RCA bought the facility (and many people) from Collins Radio (their
effort
to expand but to little avail). Cable things had to sit outside 24/7
and endure
all that nature could bestow on it. Sometimes the cable engineers
would
come over to EASD in Van Nuys to use the environmental test equipment
there for bigger arrays.

So while mil-spec testing is great if the equipment needs it, I have
no trouble at all with accepting - and paying for - equipment that is
tested to a level of ruggedness more in line with Amateur needs.

I'll accept that. Anecdote: In 1964 I built a SW BC receiver for my
father so
he could listen to Radio Sweden on their HF BC transmissions and not
disturb me in the workshop. He died in 1975 and I put the homebuilt
on a
top shelf in the workshop then. 'Standard' construction, aluminum
chassis, no
special techniques of its time. Come the January 1994 earthquake in
nearby
Northridge and it vibrated off the 6 1/2 foot shelf to fall on the
concrete slab
floor of the workshop. Fell on one corner and did lots of damage in
bending but the six all-glass tubes all survived to test good. Tuning
capacitor jammed
shut, one IF can broken, two big tears in the speaker. Thin plywood
cabinet
useless to repair. One ceramic tube socket cracked.

Since then I've taken pains to keep small things on high shelves
secured and
bookcases screwed to studding in this wood-frame residence. If small
things are not fastenable, I've made a small "fence" around it to
limit movement. Wood-frame buildings survive better in quakes than
brick structures since they have a natural flexing under vibration.
Another caution was to keep a "fall area" free such as books falling
off cases. That's paid off in two subsequent small
earthquakes, no damage.

73, Len K6LHA

From: N2EY
Date: Sun, 2 May 2010 12:32:32 EDT
On May 1, 1:43 pm, John from Detroit wrote:

K0HB wrote:
Better in what way?
Better in that it's more advanced..

For example, the R-390 and R-390A were designed way back in the early
1950s, and one of the requirements was a digital frequency readout.

Not quite. The "digital frequency readout" was done for several
reasons. Collins Radio was heavy into a LINEAR FREQUENCY tuning
scheme using permeability tuning rather than variable capacitors.
This is witnessed in the predecessors which used a combination of
LF to HF receivers having straight-line scales in addition to
the rotary dial around the main tuning knob.

Linear frequency tuning was also adopted by the consumer radio
manufacturers, particularly for auto radios having automatic seek
systems that appeared in the very late 1940s and early 1950s. It
was advantageous to the cheap servo systems used there. Such
"signal seeking" tuning would disappear for quite a while until
solid-state tuning systems (much cheaper) would appear in 30 years.

The (LF) R-389 and (HF) R-390 series were required to tune a
wider band of frequencies with relatively the SAME sensitivities
across the whole span of tuning. That was unlike the older
systems which had a large disparity of sensitivity due to ganged
variable capacitor tuning in previous multi-band HF designs. The
TUNING RATE was linear on all bands of the 390 series, advantageous
to the R-391 "Autotune" version of the basic 390 series (Collins
was big on "Autotuning" everything they could back in the 1950s
and 1960s). Using the common mechanical turns-counter of machinery
('Veeder-Root'as an example of type) offered a great physical
advantage in the 390 series since it did away with the space
needed for a straight-line indicator. The gear-cam-geneva-wheel
mechanical coupling could be fitted in easier than that long
(sometimes rotating on axis) scale. All of the permeability-tuning
L-C circuits could be adapted to track straight-line tuning easier
than using (bulkier) variable capacitors. There was physical
space to incorporate the "Autotune" servo system (R-391) without
undue change of the R-390 physical structure. That the 390 series
was "digital" is like saying a whole lot of metal-working equipment
was "digital" in the 1930s because they used Veeder-Root counters
having decimal digit indication.

Main Source: Collins Radio "Final Engineering Report" 15 Sep 53,
submitted to U.S.Army Signal Corps, contract W36-039-SC-44552,
scanned by Al Turevold, WA0HQQ on 18 Apr 99.

I suspect that the use
of ham gear in military applications came about only when nothing else
was available at the time.

In the historical sense, the word "ham gear" should be replaced by
"commercial users" especially in the period 1910 to 1970. Before
the commsats, before the transcontinental microwave relay network,
before the self-pumped fiber-optic-laser lines, the ONLY long-
distance comm paths for commercial use was HF. SSB on HF was
pioneered commercially from the early 1930s onward (Netherlands
being the first to introduce voice and TTY service 24/7 to
Netherlands Antilles). MARS was never an integral part of the
worldwide military tactical communications of the USA.
The AN/FRC-93 is a KWM-2 by virtue of its label, nothing else,
was used by MARS stations for morale purposes...much like a Zenith
"Trans-Oceanic" portable receiver procured for troops during WWII.
A difference was that this Trans-Oceanic was actually painted
olive drab. :-)

Remember too that a lot of ham gear and components (such as the PTOs
developed by Collins) were originally developed for military
applications and then used for ham stuff.

That seems anecdotal and subjective. Resistors, capacitors,
inductors, fastening devices, blank chassis and cabinets, et al
were all developed by INDUSTRY standards, not just military. Rack
cabinets came from the telephone infrastructure. Teleprinter code
format came from the computer industry. Collins "mechanical" (
magnetostrictive) filters were done first for the microwave radio
relay frequency multiplexer market. Modern USA amateur radio
design owes almost everything new to innovative Japanese
communications equipment designers. The US Army went to VHF
voice for short-range communications IN WWII and kept doing that
until now. Long-haul communications of the US military and
government is over the DSN (Digital Switched Network) which can
use any comm path or relay method plus is compatible with the
standard telephone infrastructure. USA submarines use ELF for
Alerts and nuke subs don't have any OOK CW capabilities.

Cellular telephony developed all by itself, by the telephone
industry, owing nothing technological to the military. Roughly
100 million cell phones are now in the USA alone. Digital
television owes nothing to any military yet the USA switched over
entirely in TV broadcasting to DTV (the first and second NTSC
systems did not come from military requirements). CB on 11m
(roughly 5 million users) owes nothing to the military. FM
stereo broadcasting owes nothing to the military. Medical
electronics communications owes very, very little to the
military in technology. All of those are RADIO applications.

73, Len K6LHA

On May 4, 9:35�am, John from Detroit wrote:
You ask for examples of earlier digital readout
(pre-1980) stiff, and then agreed that many hams
used Surplus Military
hardware..

The discussion was about amateur gear being "more advanced" than
military radios. I gave the example of the mechanical digital
dial on the R-390 and R-390A receivers, which were designed in the
very early 1950s. (IIRC, the ARR-2 receiver was even older). Similar
mechanical-digital dials didn't appear in manufactured amateur gear
until the 1960s (the NCX-5) and didn't become common in amateur
equipment until the late 1970s.

The bigger point is that those who set the requirements decided, way
back in the late 1940s and early 1950s, that the complexity and
expense of a frequency readout such as used on the R-390 was justified
for a military HF receiver.

Likely the digital stuff I saw was ex-military.

Of course - which proves what I was saying: that the applications are
very different.

It must be remembered that the resouirces available are very different
as well. For example, cost isn't usually as big a factor in military
radio equipment as it is in amateur radio equipment. A receiver like
the R-390A, when new in the 1950s, cost the taxpayers a couple of
thousand dollars (it varied with the contract). The most expensive
amateur receiver of the time, the Collins 75A-4, cost about 20-25% of
that. Not many hams could afford a new 75A-4 in its day; even fewer
could afford an R-390.

Was the 75A-4 "more advanced"? In some ways, yes - it has passband
tuning, a product detector and notch filter, all of which the R-390
family lack. The mechanical filters in the 75A-4 are more suited to
amateur operation as well. OTOH the 75A4 has an "analog" dial despite
using a PTO, and is not general-coverage.

Different job, different resources, different tool.

Of course the radio amateurs of most countries have the option of
homebrewing their own rigs, which can be a real cost-saver. (See my
QRZ.com bio for a current example, and the K5BCQ HBR website for an
earlier example.)

73 de Jim, N2EY

How can you tell if you are a real Ham

1. When you look at a full moon and wonder how much antenna gain you would
need.

2. When a friend gets a ride from you and remarks that you have a lot of CBs
in your vehicle, it turns in to an hour long rant on how ham radio is not CB
radio.

3. When someone asks for directions, you pause, wondering if long or short
path would be best.

4. When you can look at a globe and be able to point to your antipode (and
you know what an antipode is).

5. Your cell phone ring tone is a Morse code message of some kind.

6. You have accidentally said your Amateur Radio call sign at the end of a
telephone conversation.

7. Your favorite vacation spots are always on mountain tops.

8. You notice more antennas than road signs while driving your car.

9. You have driven onto the shoulder of the road while looking at an
antenna.

10. Porcupines appear to be fascinated with your car.

11. If you ever tried to figure out the operating frequency of your
microwave oven.

12. When you look around your bedroom of wall to wall ham gear and ask: Why
am I still single?

13. The local city council doesn't like you.

14. You think towers look pretty.

15. Your family doesn't have a clue what to get you for Christmas, even
after you tell them.

16. Your HF amplifier puts out more power than the local AM radio station.

17. The wife and kids are away and the first thing that goes through your
head is that no one will bother you while you call "CQ DX" a few hundred
times.

18. When you pull into a donut shop and the cops there on their coffee break
ask if they can see your radio setup.

19. You refer to your children as your "Harmonics".

20. Your girlfriend or wife asks: "You're going to spend $XXXX on what?

21. You actually believe you got a good deal on eBay.

22. When you see a house with a metal roof, and your only thought is what a
great ground plane that would be.

23. You have pictures of your radio equipment as wallpaper on your
computer's desktop.

24. Every family vacation includes a stop at a Ham radio store.

25. The first question you ask the new car dealer is: "What is the
alternator's current output"?

26. You buy a brand new car based on the radio mounting locations and
antenna mounting possibilities.

27. You have tapped out Morse code on your car's horn.

28. A lightning storm takes out a new Laptop, Plasma TV, and DVD Recorder,
but all you care about is if your radios are okay.

29. Your wife has had to ride in the back seat because you had radio
equipment in the front seat.

30. Your wife was excited when you were talking about achieving that
critical angle, but very disappointed when you finally did.

31. During a love making session with your wife, you stop to answer a call
on the radio.

32. Your wife says "have a good time" when you tell her that you are going
on a "fox" hunt.

33. Talking about male and female connectors makes you feel excited.

34. You dream of big, comfortable, knobs, but not on women.

35. You always park on the top floor of the parking ramp, just in case you
might have to wait in the car later.

36. When house hunting, you look for the best room for a radio shack and
scan the property for possible tower placement.

37. When house hunting, you give your realtor topographical maps showing
local elevations.

38. The real estate agent scratches his head when you ask if the soil
conductivity is high, medium, or low.

39. You have Ham radio magazines in the bathroom.

40. When your doorbell rings, you immediately shut down the amplifier.

41. Fermentation never enters your mind when "homebrew" is mentioned.

42. Instead of just saying no, you have said "negative".

43. You have used a person's name to indicate acknowledgement.

44. You become impatient waiting for the latest AES catalog to arrive.

45. You have found yourself whistling "CQ" using Morse code.

46. You always schedule the third weekend in May for vacation.

47. You walk carefully in your back yard to avoid being clothes lined.

48. You have deep anxiety or panic attacks during high winds or heavy ice.

49. You and the FedEx/UPS men are on a first name basis.

50. You really start to miss people that you've never seen.

51. Your exercise machine is a Morse code keyer.

52. You walk through the plumbing section at the hardware store and see
antenna parts.

53. Your neighbors thought you were nuts when you ripped up your lawn to
bury chicken wire.

54. Your next door neighbor thinks that your wife is a widow.

55. Your wife has delivered meals to your Ham shack.

56. If you sold all your Ham radio equipment, you could pay off your
mortgage.

--
73, de Hans, K0HB
--
"Just a boy and his radio"
--
Proud Member of:
A1 Operators - http://www.arrl.org/a-1-op
MWA - http://www.W0AA.org
TCDXA - http://www.tcdxa.org
CADXA - http://www.cadxa.org
LVDXA - http://www.lvdxa.org
CWOps - http://www.cwops.org
SOC - http://www.qsl.net/soc
TCFMC - http://tcfmc.org
--
Sea stories here --- http://k0hb.spaces.live.com/
Request QSL at --- http://www.clublog.org/logsearch/K0HB
All valid QSL requests honored with old fashioned paper QSL!
LoTW participant



--- news://freenews.netfront.net/ - complaints: ---

On 7/31/2010 11:49 AM, Radio KØHB wrote:
How can you tell if you are a real Ham

1. When you look at a full moon and wonder how much antenna gain you
would need.

Actually, I wonder if I'll ever figure out why the Hunter's moon isn't
in hunting season.

2. When a friend gets a ride from you and remarks that you have a lot o
f
CBs in your vehicle, it turns in to an hour long rant on how ham radio
is not CB radio.

I never let it go for an hour; five minutes tops. I tell them that I
work for the IRS and it's all classified equipment used to identify
unregistered money, and definitely not CB gear.

3. When someone asks for directions, you pause, wondering if long or
short path would be best.

Depends on the person asking, doesn't it? How soon do you want to see
them again?

4. When you can look at a globe and be able to point to your antipode
(and you know what an antipode is).

Ah, but do *you* know how it's pronounced?

5. Your cell phone ring tone is a Morse code message of some kind.

I prefer the alert signal from "Our Man Flint".

6. You have accidentally said your Amateur Radio call sign at the end o
f
a telephone conversation.

What can I say? The Sixties were very good to me!

7. Your favorite vacation spots are always on mountain tops.

My favorite camping spots are on mountain tops. My favorite *vacation*
spots come with DXCC call letters and a four-element beam up at 32 meters
!

8. You notice more antennas than road signs while driving your car.

Actually, I notice more attractive women than road signs while driving.
Hey, I can always get another antenna ...

9. You have driven onto the shoulder of the road while looking at an
antenna.

True, but it was the antenna on a State Police Cruiser and I was looking
at it in my rear-view mirror ...

10. Porcupines appear to be fascinated with your car.

I've never been able to tell: I won't get near enough to figure out
which end the eyes are at.

11. If you ever tried to figure out the operating frequency of your
microwave oven.

I can't bring myself to learn that much math. Do you think the dried-out
Mac 'n Cheese affects the SWR?

12. When you look around your bedroom of wall to wall ham gear and ask:
Why am I still single?

..... or look around your cellar full of boxes, and wonder why none of it
is in the bedroom anymore.

13. The local city council doesn't like you.

Why sure they do! I'm the reason they got their last raise!

14. You think towers look pretty.

Only if they sway in the wind.

15. Your family doesn't have a clue what to get you for Christmas, even
after you tell them.

Mine doesn't have a clue until I give them the bill for what I already
bought!

16. Your HF amplifier puts out more power than the local AM radio stati
on.

If you're a real ham, you've already made a deal to use their towers
after they go off the air at night!

17. The wife and kids are away and the first thing that goes through
your head is that no one will bother you while you call "CQ DX" a few
hundred times.

..... unless you still run AM and have neighbors with cheap stereos.

18. When you pull into a donut shop and the cops there on their coffee
break ask if they can see your radio setup.

In my town, they ask if I can fix their _computer_ setup. They already
have plenty of spare radios.

19. You refer to your children as your "Harmonics".

Of course I do. Am I missing something?

20. Your girlfriend or wife asks: "You're going to spend $XXXX on what?

She did, but just once: I said "something that was here before you and
will be here the rest of my life." (This can have unexpected
repercussions. See #12, above.)

21. You actually believe you got a good deal on eBay.

I did! Of course, that was about a week after Ebay started ...

22. When you see a house with a metal roof, and your only thought is
what a great ground plane that would be.

Not quite: I wonder if there's any danger of electrolytic action.

23. You have pictures of your radio equipment as wallpaper on your
computer's desktop.

I have pictures of the gear I _will_ have someday, not what I have
_now_. Does that count?


24. Every family vacation includes a stop at a Ham radio store.

..... while the wife is supervising the kids on the rock wall at the
nearby YMCA. You have to _plan_ _ahead_!

25. The first question you ask the new car dealer is: "What is the
alternator's current output"?

I always ask if the warranty covers unexplained and early death of the
emission control computer. Don't ask me why.

26. You buy a brand new car based on the radio mounting locations and
antenna mounting possibilities.

Actually, I buy new cars based on whether they have computerized
emission control systems. Don't ask me why.

27. You have tapped out Morse code on your car's horn.

Only in front of my XYL's father's house.

28. A lightning storm takes out a new Laptop, Plasma TV, and DVD
Recorder, but all you care about is if your radios are okay.

Of course: radio are_IMPORTANT_!

29. Your wife has had to ride in the back seat because you had radio
equipment in the front seat.

No, she rides in the back seat so that I can't hand her the map.

39. You have Ham radio magazines in the bathroom.

..... In the same rack as my wife's romance novels.

40. When your doorbell rings, you immediately shut down the amplifier.

Didn't they teach you anything at Ham school? It's not an amplifier:
it's a medically necessary prescription diathermy instrument!

41. Fermentation never enters your mind when "homebrew" is mentioned.

Sure it does! That's what homebrew work parties are all about!

42. Instead of just saying no, you have said "negative".

..... only with cold-calls from telemarketers. It throws them off their pa
ce.

43. You have used a person's name to indicate acknowledgement.

True. I prefer "Ralph".

53. Your neighbors thought you were nuts when you ripped up your lawn t
o
bury chicken wire.

Yes, but they thought I was nuts anyway after I climbed the 52' Maple
tree to tap in a pulley.

54. Your next door neighbor thinks that your wife is a widow.

Not any mo I connected the back fence gate to my HV supply!

55. Your wife has delivered meals to your Ham shack.

..... and in return, she doesn't have to hear me say
"Salt-salt-salt-please-please-please during a meteor-scatter opening!

56. If you sold all your Ham radio equipment, you could pay off your
mortgage.

I already did, but I didn't tell anyone, so now I have much better
equipment, which I bought with the mortgage payments!

Bill, W1AC

On 7/31/2010 11:49 AM, Radio KØHB wrote:
5. Your cell phone ring tone is a Morse code message of some kind.


Actually... Back when I had a cell phone that let me program my own ring
tone.. IT was my call.

Now that I think of it when I get all my computers back on line.. I can
do a quick WAV of one of them sending my call in Code to another and
UPLOAD it to my phone as a ring tone.

--
Nothing adds Excitement like something that is none of your business.

Radio KØHB wrote:
How can you tell if you are a real Ham

I am a real ham based upon my responses to numbers 2, 4, 9, 14, 15, 17,
19, 20, 21, 23, 24, 26, 27, 36, 37, 41, 48, 49, 50, 52 and 55.

Regarding number 53: Chicken wire just doesn't last. I used roll after
roll of #14 and #12 copper.

73,

Dave K8MN