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This Week in Amateur Radio News for Saturday 28 January 2017
TWIAR News Feed
/////////////////////////////////////////// New fee structure for South African Amateur Radio licences Posted: 28 Jan 2017 10:55 AM PST http://bit.ly/2kFa8kw The new fee structure for Amateur Radio licences has been announced, by ICASA. The fees for 2017 will come into effect from the 1st April and are as follows: .. 1 year licence R134.00 .. 2 year licence R256.00 .. 3 year licence R367.00 .. 4 year licence R468.00 .. 5 year licence R559.00 Please note, that any licence not renewed by 1 April 2017 will lapse and the licence holder will have to re-apply for a new licence, and this will be subjected to extra costs. No fees will be accepted after the 1st April 2017 ICASA has recommended that Amateur Radio licence holders apply for a 5 year licence. This equates to a current saving of R111.00. You will also save the yearly escalations. /////////////////////////////////////////// iHOBBY: Amateur radio - Fun with a serious side (Tennessee) Posted: 28 Jan 2017 10:51 AM PST http://bit.ly/2ke9rOf Amateur radio isn't just a hobby, as James Curtis points out. During a normal week, sure, it can be fun making contacts with other radio operators from around the world. But in times of emergency or natural disaster, when other types of communication may be put out of commission, "ham" radio operators can play a vital role in emergency communications. Ham operators played a key role in the response to Hurricane Katrina, and to flooding in Colorado in 2013, according to the American Radio Relay League website. /////////////////////////////////////////// Radio station created for Solar Eclipse 2017 (Illinois) Posted: 28 Jan 2017 10:51 AM PST http://bit.ly/2jIAJsY You may not be able to see in the darkness of the Solar Eclipse on August 21st, but local amateur radio operators are making sure you can hear everything you need. The FCC licensed Thom Beebe with a special events license for a radio station that will talk all things eclipse, with the call name W9E. “The license is good from August 17 after one minute after midnight until 11:59 pm on the 21st. So what we hope to be able to do is to be operating continuously throughout that entire time,” Beebe said. /////////////////////////////////////////// JVC-KENWOOD supports STEM education through new space-program fundraising initiative Posted: 27 Jan 2017 11:23 PM PST http://bit.ly/2jfITwN KENWOOD radios and technical expertise have been integral to the success of the Amateur Radio on the International Space Station (ARISS) program for over ten years and now, JVCKENWOOD and ARISS jointly announce a new fundraising initiative to expand ARISS youth education programs designed to interest young people in amateur radio in order to expand their engagement with STEM education. “JVCKENWOOD is proud of the work we’ve done in supporting the ARISS program and honored to play a part in ARISS’ new initiative to enable more students in elementary and middle school to engage with the space program through communicating with ISS astronauts. Their fund-raising campaign will go a long way towards developing a generation of youth who will pursue careers in engineering, science and math. We believe that the work ARISS does ignites a passion for STEM education, promotes greater understanding among nations and sparks the interest in young people in technology and space exploration,” said Phil Parton, National Sales Manager, Amateur Radio, JVCKENWOOD USA Corp. /////////////////////////////////////////// Communications - what was good, what isnt (Pennsylvania) Posted: 27 Jan 2017 11:23 PM PST http://bit.ly/2kcOpj0 Sometime in 1936, a person (or a family) likely somewhere in this area went to the local appliance store and bought a floor model Sears Roebuck, Chicago IL, Silvertone console radio. It’s a 10-tube model, the kind of radio that was the centerpiece of most Depression-era living rooms. I don’t know how many owners it has had, but at Christmas, my son, Peter, gave me one, so we are the latest owners of this historic communicator. (His hobby is restoring old tube radios.) It is an AM model, but with three tuning bands, it allowed you to receive “... short wave, police calls, amateur radio broadcasts, aircraft and ships-at-sea ...” That’s what the 1936 Sears ad said and there, pictured on it, was my radio. The advertising flier calls it “the biggest value in the radio industry today.” It describes the walnut veneer and its sweeping smooth lines. This was also a classic piece of furniture. /////////////////////////////////////////// via HACKADAY: Tesla Vs. Edison Posted: 27 Jan 2017 10:02 PM PST http://ift.tt/2jeBTva The phrase “Tesla vs. Edison” conjures up images of battling titans, mad scientists, from a bygone age. We can easily picture the two of them facing off, backed by glowing corona with lightning bolts emitting from their hands. The reality is a little different though. Their main point of contention was Tesla’s passion for AC vs. Edison’s drive to create DC power systems to power his lights. Their personalities also differed in many ways, the most relevant one here being their vastly different approaches to research. Here, then, is the story of their rivalry. /////////////////////////////////////////// US Naval Academy HFsat Coordinated for 15 Meter-to-10 Meter Transponder Posted: 27 Jan 2017 10:02 PM PST http://ift.tt/2kiUW9e The US Naval Academy has received IARU satellite frequency coordination for HFsat, a 1.5 U CubeSat with a 15- to 10-meter linear transponder with a 30 kHz bandwidth (uplink 21.4 MHz, downlink 29.42 MHz). The Mode K configuration is reminiscent of the old “RS” series of Russian satellites. The CubeSat will also carry an APRS digipeater on 145.825 MHz. HFsat is a project to demonstrate the viability of HF satellite communications as a back-up communications system, using HF radios found in a typical Amateur Radio installation or frequently used to support disaster and emergency response communication. /////////////////////////////////////////// via HACKADAY: A Simple Yagi Antenna For Your Wi-Fi Router Posted: 27 Jan 2017 10:02 PM PST http://ift.tt/2krnRXX When we take a new Wi-Fi router from its box, the stock antenna is a short plastic stub with a reverse SMA plug on one end. More recent and more fancy routers have more than one such antenna for clever tricks to extend their range or bandwidth, but even if the manufacturer has encased it in mean-looking plastic the antenna inside is the same. It’s a sleeve dipole, think of it as a vertical dipole antenna in which the lower radiator is hollow, and through which the feeder is routed. These antennas do a reasonable job of covering a typical home, because a vertical sleeve dipole is omnidirectional. It radiates in all horizontal directions, or if you are a pessimist you might say it radiates equally badly in all horizontal directions. [Brian Beezley, K6STI] has an interesting modification which changes that, he’s made a simple Yagi beam antenna from copper wire and part of a plastic yoghurt container, and slotted it over the sleeve dipole to make it directional and improve its gain and throughput in that direction. /////////////////////////////////////////// CIA Declassified Documents about Amateur Radio Available in Searchable Online Database Posted: 27 Jan 2017 10:02 PM PST http://ift.tt/2k3qsuL Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) reports about Amateur Radio in the former Soviet Union (including the Baltic States) and Warsaw Pact member countries have been declassified to a new searchable online database, the CIA Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) Electronic Reading Room. Documents include translations and assessments of Amateur Radio clubs, including Soviet DOSAAF (Volunteer Society for Cooperation with the Army, Aviation, and Fleet) groups; training; monitoring Sputniks; technology and equipment, and even QSL cards. All documents have been declassified and occasionally “sanitized” and made available to the public for the first time in this archive. Some of these documents were only available previously in a closed system at the US National Archives. /////////////////////////////////////////// via HACKADAY: Raspberry Pi SDR Posted: 27 Jan 2017 10:02 PM PST http://ift.tt/2k1zQg8 [Chris D] noticed that the excellent software defined radio (SDR) software gqrx will run on the Raspberry Pi now. So he married a Raspberry Pi 3, a touchscreen, an RTL-SDR dongle, and an upconverter to make a very nice receiver setup. You can see the receiver in action below. The video is a little light on build details, but there is a shot of the setup with the pieces labeled, and you should be able to figure it out from there. Of course, gqrx works with lots of different SDR devices so you might have to make adjustments depending on what you use (for example, many of the supported dongles won’t need the upconverter that [Chris] uses). /////////////////////////////////////////// New FCC Chairman Ajit Pai Offers Praise for H.R. 555, Other Telecoms Bills Posted: 27 Jan 2017 10:02 PM PST http://ift.tt/2kk0oc4 Newly designated FCC Chairman Ajit Pai (see below) praised the House action on H.R. 555 and other telecommunications-related legislation that cleared the chamber on Monday. “I want to commend the U.S. House of Representatives for passing a number of important, bipartisan telecom bills yesterday,” Pai said on January 24. “These bills will help bring greater efficiency to the Commission, provide consumers with greater protections, improve rural call completion, help Amateur Radio operators, and take several steps to promote public safety,” he continued, adding, “I look forward to working with Congress on these and other important issues as Chairman of the FCC.” /////////////////////////////////////////// via HACKADAY: Tiny Morse Code USB Keyboard Posted: 27 Jan 2017 10:02 PM PST http://ift.tt/2k2V8fd We’ve featured quite a few of [mitxela]’s projects here in the past, and many of them have the propensity to be labelled “smallest”. His Morse Code USB Keyboard Mk II adds to that list. It’s a Saturday afternoon project, with a few parts slapped onto a piece of perf-board, that allows using a Morse key as a USB keyboard. This project isn’t new or fresh, but we stumbled across it while trying to figure out a use for a Morse key lying in the author’s bin of parts. You can practise transmitting, by reading text and typing it out on the key, and then look it up on your computer to see if you made any mistakes. Or you can practise receiving, by asking a friend to punch it out for you. Either way, it’s a great way to hone your skills and prepare for your radio operators license exam. /////////////////////////////////////////// NPOTA Participation Leads to Inaugural Communication Detail for National Park Service Posted: 27 Jan 2017 10:02 PM PST http://ift.tt/2kbennt Jeff Dahn, KB3ZUK, of Rockville, Maryland, activated every available NPOTA unit in the Washington, DC, area during the year-long National Parks on the Air (NPOTA) program. That, and his prior DC-area law enforcement experience, gave him a leg up to snag a gig during the presidential inauguration and the Women’s March on Washington as a radio operator for the National Park Service (NPS). Dahn, an ARRL member, spent 32 hours over the course of 3 days as a volunteer, operating park service radios from NPS Headquarters. “I was invited to serve as a communications officer during the inauguration at the NPS Incident Command Post at their Headquarters facility as a direct result from participating in NPOTA,” Dahn told ARRL. NPS Eastern Incident Management Team Communications Officer Gary Shipley, N5GQD, said Dahn was a quick study. “He handled announcements, dispatching, trouble calls, and requests for assistance on four radio nets with ease,” Shipley said. “He also handled equipment issues. He provided timely and valuable assistance and his participation was key to the success of the mission.” |
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