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eHam.net News

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Radio Amateurs Take Part in Black Bear Festival:

Posted: 03 Jun 2016 05:52 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/36903


For the sixth year, hams from the Bayouland Emergency Amateur Radio Service
amateur radio club operated a special event station from the banks of Bayou
Teche in Franklin. The station is a public event that helps spread the news
via ham radio concerning the activities at the Black Bear Festival. Ham
radio operators from nine or 10 different states and Canada called in to
talk and await a special QSL card that will be sent to each one.


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Tinylily Mini: Morse Code: Paris In the Mint Box:

Posted: 03 Jun 2016 05:51 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/36902


[Rob Bailey] likes to build things and he likes ham radio. We are guessing
he likes mints too since he's been known to jam things into Altoids tins.
He had been thinking about building a code practice oscillator in a Altoids
Smalls tin, but wasn't sure he could squeeze an Arduino Pro Mini in there
too. Then he found the TinyLily Mini. The rest is history, as they say, and
1CPO was born. The TinyLily Mini is a circular-shaped Arduino (see right)
about the size of a US dime. most of the pads are arranged around the
circle and there is a small header that takes a USB programmer. A small
rechargeable battery can run the device for a long time. If you've ever
written Morse code software, one challenge is to compute the actual sending
speed in words per minute (WPM). If you are doing a serial port, for
example, the speed is easy because the sent elements are the same length.
However, with Morse code, some things are very short (like an E, for
example) and some are much longer (like a zero). In fact, the code tries to
reflect the frequency certain letters occur. E is the shortest character
and the most common in English texts. You might think [Samuel Morse] was
responsible for this, but his original code was only numbers. The idea is
you would get numbers and look them up in a code book. Presumably, some of
the codes would have been single letters forming an early coding like
ASCII, Baudot, or EBCDIC. [Alfred Vail] expanded the system to include
letters and other characters and assigned lengths based on the examination
of type cases at the local newspaper. That code also used dots, dashes, and
long dashes, but it is almost recognizable as the Morse code in use today.


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Massive Rehearsal Planned for Northwest Mega-Quake, Tsunami:

Posted: 03 Jun 2016 05:50 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/36901


PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) - Imagine a devastating earthquake and tsunami have cut
off Pacific Northwest coastal communities. Phone and internet service have
collapsed. Ham radio operators living on the stricken coast fire up their
radios, contact emergency managers and report on the magnitude of the
disaster so that no time is wasted in saving lives. This is the kind of
scenario that will be rehearsed during the second week of June in a massive
earthquake and tsunami readiness drill that has been developed by the U.S.
government, the military, and state and local emergency managers over the
past few years to test their readiness for what - when it strikes - will
likely be the nation's worst natural calamity. The June 7-10 exercise is
called Cascadia Rising. It is named after the Cascadia Subduction Zone - a
600-mile-long fault just off the coast that runs from Northern California
to British Columbia. "This is the largest exercise ever for a Cascadia
break," said Lt. Col. Clayton Braun of the Washington State National Guard.
Braun has been a key planner of the doomsday drill, which is being overseen
by the Federal Emergency Management Agency. Federal officials say about
20,000 people will be involved in the disaster drill, representing various
federal agencies, the U.S. military, state and local emergency response
managers across the Pacific Northwest, Native American tribes and emergency
management officials in British Columbia. One main goal of the exercise is
to test how well they will work together to minimize loss of life and
damages when a mega-quake rips along the Cascadia Subduction Zone and
unleashes a killer tsunami.


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Amateurlogic 91 is Released:

Posted: 03 Jun 2016 05:53 PM PDT
http://www.eham.net/articles/36900


AmateurLogic 91: Hamvention 2016 - Part 1,
'Party on Darth' has been released. Part 1 of Tommy and George's Hamvention
2016
adventure. Recorded before a live audience
at the Icom booth on Friday, May 21st.
Fishing Tales with Darth? Michael Kalter, W8CI on what's new at
Hamvention.