Friday, October 19, 2007

YouTube - ICOM Radio News

This is an interesting YouTube broadcast on Field Day. Check it out....
73,
Carl
W4UOA

Tuesday, October 16, 2007

WA0SAP returns to SSB


This morning's QSO on 7230 marked the return of Sap to SSB after an absence of several months due to antenna issues in his neighborhood. Welcome back, Sap!

He recently appeared on local TV in a story about emergency communications during their ice storm last winter. You can view the video report here following a local commercial.

CQ-WE

The CQ-WE radio contest will take place on November 10-11, which is about a month away!

More information about this radio contest, including official rules, location codes, log sheets, etc. is available at http://cqwe.cboh.org/
Birmingham, AL, (location code 'BH') was selected as the host location for the 2007 contest.

Mobile Antennas

Tony N5FNH is a frequent participant in our weekday morning QSOs on 7230 kHz. Today he remarked about photos of his mobile antenna installation. You can find his photos and commentary here. This is one of the topics available from Tony's home page.

On a related note, the November 2007 issue of QST has an article on page 30 titled A Comparison of HF Mobile Antenna Designs. The author K1OF reports on field strength measurements between two different vehicle types using three different antenna designs.

Thursday, October 4, 2007

Check out the the new IC-7700

IC-7700 brochure. Click the pictures below for a full screen image.









Wednesday, October 3, 2007

Marconi Clifden Celebrations

Thanks to N4OLN for this event notice --

On the 17th October 1907 Guglielmo Marconi sent his first commercial message from the then new station at Clifden, Ireland. This October in celebration of this historic event member of the Galway Radio Experimenters Club will be running a special event station from Saturday 13th to Wednesday 17th from Clifden. We have been issued the call sign EI100MFT for the event, MFT been the last call sign used on the original station. On the Wednesday we will be making a special linkup with the Marconi sister station in Glace Bay Nova Scotia. Part of this linkup will be an exchange of greetings between President Mary McAleese and Lieutenant Governor of Nova Scotia the Honourable Mayann E. Francis. We will also be honoured to have Princess Electra Marconi present as she is coming to Clifden for the festival along with an Exhibit from the Marconi Foundation in Bologna. The Galway Radio Experimenters Club will also be presenting a display of vintage equipment. More details on the festival can be
found at www.clifden.ie. Visitors to the station are more than welcome and if you would like to participate this can also be arranged.

Expected operating frequencies for EI100MFT CW 3.528MHz, 7.015MHz, 10.115 MHz, 14.045 MHz, 18.075 MHz, 21.045 MHz, SSB 3670 MHz, 7.065 MHz, 14.145 MHz, 18.145 MHz, 21.245 MHz.

Play on PropNET Weekend

Thanks to N4OLN for this event announcement --

Mark the "Play on PropNET" Weekend on Your Calendar

Play on PropNET is a two-day, worldwide event designed to promote PSK31 and propagation study on the 30 meter band. This event, scheduled for 0000 UTC October 6 -2359 October 7, will be on 10.1395 MHz. Simply download PropNetPSK, a free PropNET software program, configure it for your station and activate for the weekend.

PropNetPSK software will place the PSK stream at +1500 Hz (10.1410 MHz true). In normal operation, the software will cause your station to automatically ID at regular intervals (several times per hour) throughout the weekend. If your licensing authority requires that an operator be present whenever transmitting, switch to "Lurker" mode when you are away. This will allow your station to monitor and report anything that is heard, even if it isn't transmitting

PropNET uses the Internet as a reporting tool. Participants who are connected to the Internet (even using intermittent dial-up connections) will have their reports sent to a mapping system that will graphically display everything that is "caught" (a PropNET term for received). Transmitting stations will have their call signs shown on the map. Receive-only stations (Lurkers) will display using their 6-cipher grid-locator rather than call sign. Don't worry if you don't have an Internet connection at your station, as others will hear your transmission and report it to the Internet.

As an added benefit, all stations that report activity will have their activity added to an animated GIF file at the end of each UTC day. All worldwide activity will be captured to that animation and will be able to be played back at a later time.

All amateur and SWL stations worldwide are encouraged to participate for this first event of its kind. Thanks to the 30 Meter Digital Group for suggesting this activity and to the PropNET community of experimenters for supporting it. -- Ev Tupis, W2EV