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This Week in Amateur Radio News for Thursday 31 May 2018
TWIAR News Feed
/////////////////////////////////////////// via HACKADAY: This Mostly 3D-Printed Discone Antenna Is Ready For Broadband Duty Posted: 31 May 2018 05:44 PM PDT https://ift.tt/2L3u1e8 For hams and other radio enthusiasts, the best part of the hobby is often designing antennas. Part black magic, part hard science, and part engineering, antenna design is an art. And while the expression of that art often ends up boiling down to pieces of wire cut to the correct length, some antennas have a little more going on in the aesthetics department. Take the discone antenna, for example. Originally designed as a broadband antenna to sprout from aircraft fuselages, the discone has found a niche with public service radio listeners. But with a disk stuck to the top of a cone, the antennas have been a little hard to homebrew, at least until [ByTechLab] released this mostly 3D-printed discone. A quick look at the finished product, resembling a sweater drying rack more than a disc on top of a cone, reveals that the two shapes can be approximated by individual elements instead of solid surfaces. This is the way most practical discones are built, and [ByTechLab]’s Thingiverse page has the files needed to print the parts needed to properly orient the elements, which are just 6-mm aluminum rods. The printed hub pieces sandwich a copper plate to tie the elements together electrically while providing a feedpoint for the antenna as well as a sturdy place to mount it outdoors. This differs quite a bit from the last 3D-printed discone we featured, which used the solid geometry and was geared more for indoor use. /////////////////////////////////////////// South Africa Gets 100 kHz Band at 5 MHz Posted: 31 May 2018 05:44 PM PDT https://ift.tt/2LFbm9L South Africa telecommunications regulator Indepdent Communications Authority of South Africa (ICASA) has included a shared 100 kHz wide band at 5 MHz (60 meters) of 5,350 to 5,450 kHz in its just-published National Radio Frequency Plan 2018, at a maximum power of 15 W EIRP. The band is being made available on a non-interference basis. In addition, ICASA allocated a single channel at 5,290 kHz for the 5 MHz propagation research project. The National Radio Frequency Plan 2018 is a nearly 300-page document that covers the entire radio frequency spectrum. South African Radio League (SARL) President Nico van Rensburg, ZS6QL, said the SARL had worked with ICASA to get the new allocation. “Clearly, our persistent interaction with ICASA has paid dividends,” he commented. “This is, however, not the end of the road as, in the new band plan, power on 5 MHz is restricted to the WRC-15 agreement of 15 W EIRP. Continue to use 5,290 kHz for WSPR and await the announcement of the 60-meter band plan before operating on the new allocation.” /////////////////////////////////////////// Eagles Guitarist Joe Walsh, WB6ACU, Promotes Amateur Radio in Media Announcements Posted: 31 May 2018 05:44 PM PDT https://ift.tt/2xt1n4b Legendary rock guitarist Joe Walsh, WB6ACU, of the Eagles is featured in a just-released set of ARRL audio and video public service announcements promoting Amateur Radio. ARRL will provide the 30- and 60-second PSAs to Public Information Officers (PIOs) to share with their Section’s television and radio stations. The ARRL Media and Public Relations Department also will provide these announcement files directly to interested television and radio outlets. The announcements are available for downloading from the ARRL website for members to use in promoting Amateur Radio at club meetings and public presentations, such as ARRL Field Day June 23 – 24 (PSAs specifically for ARRL Field Day also are available). Walsh, who visited ARRL Headquarters last year for taping, wanted to deliver two main messages in his PSAs: get involved in Amateur Radio, and become a member of ARRL. The messages highlight the tremendous service that radio amateurs provide to communities, and convey how ARRL advocates on behalf of Amateur Radio on a wide range of legal and political issues. /////////////////////////////////////////// Hamvention Forum Videos Now Searchable on YouTube Posted: 31 May 2018 05:44 PM PDT https://ift.tt/2sB5FkD Videos of some Hamvention 2018 forums are available in the YouTube Dayton Hamvention 2018 videos playlist. Among those available are the TAPR Forum, the SDR Forum, and the HamSCI Forum. — Thanks to George Byrkit, K9TRV /////////////////////////////////////////// via the ARRL: MARS Urging Members to Use Computers that are Isolated from the Internet Posted: 31 May 2018 05:44 PM PDT https://ift.tt/2sna8XY US Army Military Auxiliary Radio System (MARS) Headquarters is recommending that MARS members “migrate to stand-alone computer systems for [MARS] radio operations,” subject to the availability of a dedicated computer. “These computer systems (or their associated local area networks) should be ‘air-gapped’ from the internet,” Army MARS Headquarters Operations Officer David McGinnis, K7UXO, said in a message to members. “Although not a requirement for membership at this time, we will continue make this a condition of certain parts of our exercises.” McGinnis pointed to remarks by Cisco researchers in a recent Ars Technica article about VPNFilter malwa “Hackers possibly working for an advanced nation have infected more than 500,000 home and small-office routers around the world with malware that can be used to collect communications, launch attacks on others, and permanently destroy the devices with a single command.” /////////////////////////////////////////// Missouri tornado chaser wants his ashes launched into a twister Posted: 26 May 2018 02:35 PM PDT http://bit.ly/2KYAR4u Jim "Mad Dog" Sellars, by his own account, lived quite a life in Springfield, Mo., as an ice cream dipper, butcher, reserve policeman who once protected Elvis Presley, a telephone lineman, a twice-divorced dad with "exes" he felt lucky to have loved and as a 6-foot-7 power-hitting softball player. But perhaps most notably, for 30 years, before his massive heart and lungs went bad and confined him to bed, he was a man with an uncanny ability to read radar and chase down more than 100 tornadoes in a lifetime, while helping others to do the same. "He had a Ford pickup truck," said Sellars' older brother John, the director of Springfield's History Museum on the Square. "If he knew (a tornado) was going to set up somewhere, in Oklahoma, or Alabama, he would load up with a couple of people and go chase." Given such a whirlwind life, it was hardly surprising that Sellars, who died Tuesday in Springfield at age 64, would declare in the last line of his self-written obituary that he planned to go out in the same fashion. /////////////////////////////////////////// 'I'm a nerd, I know what I'm doing' (Minnesota) Posted: 26 May 2018 02:24 PM PDT http://bit.ly/2xi9MYe A Rochester man could face fines if he doesn’t submit plans for a building permit and ask for a zoning variance for his amateur radio tower. City officials say Dan Knutson hasn’t submitted plans for a building permit nor provided specifications for the about 58-foot tower holding multiple radio antennas on the roof of his home. Knutson contends the tower is structurally sound. It’s secured with aircraft cables and guy wires to control its fall should it collapse — which Knutson said would only happen if wind speeds were more than 100 miles per hour. “Everything’s better than it needs to be,” Knutson said. “I’m a nerd, I know what I’m doing.” However, Knutson hasn’t submitted anything to the city to verify the claim, said Randy Johnson, director of building safety. “We haven’t started our process in this department (regarding the tower) because he hasn’t submitted anything,” Johnson said. /////////////////////////////////////////// Ham kids build, learn tech skills (Ohio) Posted: 26 May 2018 02:16 PM PDT http://bit.ly/2LyCLKD Hamvention kids walked away from the fairgrounds May 18 with their own wireless Tesla speakers and digital clocks — built with their own hands. The amateur radio convention’s Youth Tech area, sponsored by Dayton Amateur Radio Association (DARA), provided a space for youth ages 9-18 to build their own technology kits. “The idea here is to teach kids skills such as soddering, which has been pretty much lost by recent generations — kids don’t grow up knowing how to do that anymore,” Jeff Ullery, Chairman of the Youth Tech Committee, said. “So it teaches them skills on how to soder and at the same time they get to build some kits that teach different principles.” |
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