Days of Summer

So many projects, so little time! I have to keep reminding myself that amateur radio is a hobby and not a profession. I've got three main projects in the hopper.

My experimentation with AREDN continues to be quite fun. I was able to join the beta team, and I got to flip roles from my day job in Information Technology. Instead of being the project manager, I was a dreaded software tester! The AREDN team put together a thorough set of test cases. Running these resulted in finding a number of bugs, some minor  and some pretty good ones. There are some really neat new features, the most exciting being the new ham only channels - frequencies that aren't shared with public or commercial users. I'm going to use the software on two $95 off-the-shelf commercial radios to create a 15km link to provide data to a homebrew D-STAR repeater. I really love using amateur radio to solve other amateur radio challenges! If successful, I'm planning on introducing AREDN to our area's emergency management leadership. Being a volunteer firefighter, I've already got an "in" to talk with that team. Bringing them a solution they don't already have, and one that is already working, will be interesting.

On HF, I've got a 160m antenna I need to get up. I keep hearing that I'm missing out by never going below 80m. My buddy Fred, KC9REG, gave me a 160m antenna that I still haven't gotten up. I need to get this done before winter!

Finally I need to get my Icom 2820 installed in a new-to-me truck. I haven't installed a radio in such a new vehicle before. There sure is a lot of plastic molding now! After reading numerous blogs and Ford truck forums, I've got a plan. Surprisingly I found that there is a simple way to get wires from the engine compartment into the cab. And there's just as easy of a way to get coax from the bed into the cab. We've got an upcoming boating vacation, and I'll want the radio for the trip. This is one of those must-do projects!

All in all a fun time for me and ham radio.

Latest on AREDN

The beta test period for the latest release of the Amateur Radio Emergency Data Network (AREDN) firmware is underway. The project released information on the beta that includes details on the new functionality. Some of the new items that are quite exciting include support for 3.4GHz where US hams have no commercial competition, the ability to use low-cost TP-Link hardware, and the ability to use ham-only channels in the 2.4GHz band. For as little as $100 you can have two mesh nodes running to play with...at $50 a piece, you can have a neat little experiment in your neighborhood. If you're at all interested in data networking and digital communications, take a look at the AREDN project.

ID-880H in the jeep

Tonight was a successful ham radio night....the 880 I bought from fellow ham WC9V was installed without incident in my daily driver jeep yj. I'm using a 1/2 wave antenna mounted on the spare tire rack. Finding a suitable antenna mounting position on a jeep is no easy task. My usual plan of drilling a hole and installing an nmo mount was to going to work. It's going to be nice to be back on DSTAR and the local repeaters during my commute!

Don't ask, just do

I was out running errands over lunch and I had my VHF radio scanning the local ham repeaters. It was almost noon, which meant it was time for all of the talking controllers to start telling me the time. It's a bit annoying - some of these systems only transmit to tell the time, as their users have either passed away or moved away. Even more annoying to me was the fact that none of their clocks were synced to an accurate time source. And then one of the repeaters started rebroadcasting the NWS severe weather outlook for this afternoon.

What may be annoying to me is experimentation and fun for others. I'm sure that the repeater builder that did the NWS radio interfacing had a good afternoon, weekend, or even week of experimentation to get it all to work. And the ham that programmed his custom macros into his controller probably had a hoot getting it all setup and customized.

I got to wondering...are all of these automated and retransmissions legal? This led me down one of my favorite rabbit holes - www.repeater-builder.com. There I found this posting from WA6ILQ, The article is about weather radio interfacing to repeaters....but the fun part is near the bottom where he quotes an old ham about don't asking for permission...just go do it.

> The words were "Don't even (expletive deleted) THINK about it".
> As in don't make that (expletive deleted) phone call, don't write 
> that (expletive deleted) letter. Just build your wondertoy and use 
> it - but do it carefully, and cleanly (as in spectrally clean), and 
> make sure that you have your technical and legal arguments worked 
> out well in advance. Make sure that you aren't doing the A, B, or C 
> that the FCC forbids amateurs to do. If the FCC does't like your 
> brand new wondertoy or it's effects or emmissions they will send a 
> certified and return-receipt-requested cease-and-desist letter telling 
> you to stop doing it. At that point you stop doing it and send a 
> registered and certified and return-receipt-requested letter back  
> the next day (call in sick to work if you have to). In that letter 
> you say "I received  your letter on date (X) and at time (Y) 
> and at time (Y+5 minutes) I shut off the offending transmitter and I am sorry, 
> I didn't realize it was illegal and my thinking was (yadda yadda yadda) 
> and (yadda yadda yadda) and (yadda yadda yadda) and how can we resolve this?".
> (and you thought that those creative writing classes in college and 
> university were a waste of time...)

Words to live by. In ham radio, don't ask, just do. And who am I to complain? I can always update my scan list. I'm glad I'm a part of a hobby that lets this stuff happen!

Skunked at the park

Daughter #3 needed a ride to the big city and then picked up 2 hours later. Rather than adding extra miles to the jeep, I took along the kx3 and end fed portable antenna. A quiet spot was found at Maxwell Park and up went the antenna in a white pine. That was the end of the success for the night though as I got skunked - not a single contact. I did fight with the antenna a bit. I didn't bring the counterpoise wire and so that meant the coax and me were the ground. The bands seemed awful. Maybe everyone was out enjoying the nice weather, or that solar flare yesterday was worse than I thought. Don't worry...I'll be back!