Category: radio

QSO with the Charolette Discovery Place Science Museum



Had a QSO with John (WB2NHQ) – he’s a retiree from IBM and a transplant for the Finger Lakes area, growing up on a dairy farm. Now he enjoys spending his free time at an amateur radio station that the Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society (MARS) set up at Charlotte’s Discovery Place Science Museum – read more below:

By Bob Southworth KI4YV see note below

The Amateur Radio Education Center has been a dream since the late 1970’s when the Discovery Place concept was being developed. Due to budget constraints, Discovery Place Museum was opened in 1981 without the Amateur Radio Education Center.

Those working on the project back then, and I know I will miss some, were Regan Rowe W4FHI, Bob Thomas N4BX, Ervin Jackson N4BIG, and others at this writing. They did however instill in Discovery Place planning, the need for a Ham station at this facility. They were promised that the next addition would include the station and now the dream has been realized.

In 1987, Ervin Jackson N4BIG, attended a meeting of the Mecklenburg Amateur Radio Society urging the club to support and foster a Ham station in Discovery Place. That same year Discovery Place announced their planning of a sizable addition to it’s facilities.

Bob Southworth KI4YV, planning retirement, contacted Freda Nicholson, Executive Director of Discovery Place, offering his services in the preparation of a feasibility study for incorporating an Amateur Radio station in the new building. Freda assigned Bob to working with the newly selected architect as a consultant for the radio room. A committee with our club president Wilton McAllister WB4PCS, Karl Boxer AB4BI, and Bob Southworth KI4YV, was appointed by our Board of Directors. Since Bob was available during working hours, he worked with the architect and reported back to the rest of the committee, which would periodically report on progress made and the time schedule, to our Board of Directors. Bob visited several Amateur Radio Exhibits on the east coast for ideas and mainly to find out what did not work. Several club members visited similar installations and reported to the committee.

Working with Discovery Place, a three stage program was established. Stage one covered the design of the station, purchase of equipment, and installation. Bob chaired responsibility for stage one. Stage two was the fund raising and promotion of the project. Ervin Jackson chaired this stage which started upon approval by Discovery Place of the final plans and specifications, letting of bids, and acceptance of contracts to build. Stage three was recruitment and training of volunteer Amateur Radio Operators to operate and display the station to the general public. This stage will be a continuing operation as long as the station exists. Originally Bob Southworth chaired this responsibility.

The station was opened on November 1, 1991 with a Special Event station. The Special Event started at noon and lasted 24 hours, until noon November 2nd. Approximately 300 stations were worked and QSL cards and certificates about Discovery Place were sent out.

The goal is still to keep the station open from 10 am to 4pm Monday through Saturday and 1 pm to 4 pm on Sundays. At first this goal was achieved by a lot of work by Bob Southworth, David Lewis K1CBB, Bob Darke W4MHF, and Gary Fitzner KY4D. A complete staff was then trained and assigned to keep the station open everyday except Thanksgiving and Christmas. We are still looking for retirees to operate the station during working hours, and other Hams for weekend duty once a month.

The station visitation varies from day to day, some days being very crowded and others very light. Several foreign Hams have visited the station, and almost every day we have a visit from a Ham from our local area or around the U.S. Many come to operate the station, just bring a copy of your license, sign our operator book, and operate a top quality station with your own callsign and privileges. You meet the most interesting people at the Amateur Radio Education Center.

There were two early programs presented. One was for a Boy Scout Troop. We talked about what Amateur Radio was about, how they could become Hams, what Hams did during emergencies. Then we talked to several Hams around the United States. The other special program involved a group of foreign students and showed Amateur Radio involvement in international emergencies. A demonstration of working overseas stations followed to say hello to several foreign stations.

The following local Hams not mentioned above participated one way or another in getting the station on the air. If I missed some one please forgive me since I know there were some that did not get their names on the roster for work details. The following we thank: Ralph Eubanks, Cathy Roberts, Mark Roberts, Jeffery Blythe, John Chaney, Clyde Weddle, John White, Andrew Hawkins, Bob Helms, James Bishop, Lionel Bryson, G.R.Sumrall, Karl Boxer, Ervin Jackson, Bob Southworth, David Lewis, Timothy Slay, Bob Reed, Gene Ribas, and Ted Goldthorpe.
Come on down and visit the station!

Bob KI4YV

Pictures of some of the stations now in Discovery Place.

Now Ten Years later, A Year 2000 Update
Amateur Radio Education Center

By Bob Southworth KI4YV see note below

Well the restructuring has taken effect and guess what? Amateur Radio is still here and will be here in the future.

The restructuring will now see a number of Hams, that have never operated anything but a hand-held FM radio, move into a large new spectrum known as HF radio. The opportunities are almost limitless. While many opportunities were available in the VHF and up spectrum, few took advantage of them. I personally blame the amateurs of General class or above for not introducing new Hams to those opportunities that were available to them. Let us not repeat this failure at this new juncture in Amateur Radio.

To that end, we at our Discovery Place Amateur Radio Education Center are making major changes in selection of operating modes available. Here are some things we are doing:

We are installing a totally digital operation bay:
The transceiver is a Ten-Tec Pegasus operated by computer.
The necessary computer controlling the Pegasus and running the programs has been installed.
Purchase and install programs to run PSK31, AMTOR, ACTOR, RTTY, and High Speed CW.

Upgrading the APRS Facility so we can use better maps and more easily track selected mobile units.
Improve and add to our computer slide show presentations about various topics.

Install access to the internet so we can:
Review specifications of new equipment coming on the market.
Test drive shareware to see if it does what we want.
Download data and programs that we can use in the radio room or at home.

These are a few of the improvements, but our main purpose is to introduce new operating opportunities to all amateurs and provide stations for those who have antenna and other deed restrictions at home.

Another reason for purchasing the Pegasus was the possibility of remote operation of the unit. The continued construction of buildings around Discovery Place will eventually deteriorate the operation of the station. With these new buildings come also more pagers, cell phones, and computer hash.

One of the projects of the future is experimentation of operating the Pegasus via wire and/or microwave links. We will be working with Ten-Tec staff to find the requirements and best methods. At present, Ten-Tec sees no problem when interfaced with a proper modem, and currently produced modems should do the job. Meetings with Discovery Place staff have determined the Nature Museum could be used for the equipment location operated remotely from the radio room at Discovery Place.

Exciting things are happening !! Come and be part of it and let us show you a whole new world of operating adventures.

Editor’s note:
Bob Southworth KI4YV has been our very active station manager since the beginning. Bob was there when our Board of Directors needed lots of encouragement that the station would happen. Without him it would not have happened. It has always been our commitment to provide good volunteer operators, any amateur license class holder is welcomed to operate at Discovery Place.

Mac Wood W4PVT has been our station personnel manager for many years. If anyone can spare some scheduled time each month to play radio and explain to people what we do, talk to Mac. If you cannot find time to volunteer, come visit as often as you can, bring your license and help us keep the finals warm. A warning however, talking with kids who have minds like sponges can be addicting.

Discovery Place Website

Lunchtime QSOs

Had two QSOs during lunch – the first with 6W8CK – a station in Senagal – my first African continent contact!

The second contact was with W7PAQ (Frank) in Montana.

From his QRZ.com entry:
I was a systems engineer with IBM for 30 yrs. I joined IBM in ’66 and worked on the very early IBM 360s. My first IBM computers were an IBM 7094II and IBM 7074 at the Univ. of Penna. Physics Dept where I was a scientific programmer for 3 years. After retiring from IBM I spent 10 yrs with InfoShare as the CTO (part of AtlantiCare Health System) in Egg Harbor Twp, NJ. Resident of Cherry Hill NJ for 31 years before the xyl and I retired and moved into the Lolo Mtns of western Montana.

I am active in the BSA and serve as Unit Commissioner and Eagle Board Chair for Mullan District.

The house sits up at 4700′ and is 1.5 miles up a forest service road with 7 major switch backs. We usually have our Jeeps in 4×4.

… and eham.net:
– Year born: 1941
– I am originally from… Philadelphia PA
– Previous calls: N2PAQ
– My marital status is… Married
– XYL/Kids/Grandkids: Jane/2/0
– I got interested in ham radio because… Ham in our Scout Troop taught me Morse code in ’54
– My favorite thing to do in ham radio is… Because? Chase DX..challenge
– My equipment consists of… Kenwood TS570 and 440. Yaesu FT897 Kenwood TH-D700G Yaesu FT5100 Yaesu VX=7R
– I am a member of the following ham radio clubs… Hellgate ARC
– I am most proud of the following accomplishments in ham radio… 313 DXCC, WAS< WAZ Alexander the Great Award Worked All Africa - The funniest thing that ever happened to me on the air was... Contacted XE1/NP2AQ (my old call was N2PAQ) and we both had problems with the calls - The biggest pileup I ever heard or busted was... YA and P5 - I would like to try the following new things in ham radio in the next 10 years... Satellite - When I'm not on the radio, you can normally find me... 4x4 in my Jeep with APRS. Deep space photography with my 11" Celestron telescope Unit Commissioner and Eagle Board Chair Boy Scouts of America

I checked with findu.com – and it looks like Frank has a weather station connected to his APRS. You can find his location here and weather readings here.

Frank mentioned he had a group of Scouts that he was working with this weekend to earn “Frost Points” – you earn a Frost Point for every degree below zero the tempature is when you are sleeping outside. I’m curious as to how many Frost Points will be collected this weekend!


I also asked Frank about his weather station – sounds like he has a nice setup:
I have a Peet Bros. wx station with a weather picture (displays 7 measurements plus wind direction). The Peet 2100 unit then feeds via a serial port Weather Display software running on one of my PCs… Every 15 minues (user controlled) Weather Display produces a text file that UI-View is looking for. UI-View32 then sends the wx report via rf and the internet. The internet address is one of 4 Tier 2 servers that I connect to.

Pretty simple setup.

Only issues I have are 80M seems to get into the wx unit (even with the filter) and I get 80mph wind gust readings. My Carolina windom is right above the coax from the outside wx station. Snow got here before I could move the antenna forward and away from the feed line from the wx station.

The Weather Display program crashes if my PC gets too busy and can’t service the serial port. It usually happens when I run a backup program or heavy graphics. I have run 24 days without rebooting or crashing…of course I was also away at the time.

I had the Peet Bros. heated wind speed and direction unit, but it would fail about every year because of the heated elements..so they recommended the non-heated version which so far even in all the snow and -5F seems ok.

I also send a wx report to about 5 of my neighbors with a daily summary and then a weekly summary…all from Weather Display.

If you need more info let me know and tnx for the contact

73 Frank

On the same wavelength

December 04,2005
BY JANNETTE PIPPIN View stories by reporter
DAILY NEWS STAFF

NEWPORT – When the National Weather Service opened its office in Newport 12 years ago, head meteorologist Tom Kriehn was quick to get to know the area’s amateur radio operators.

Kriehn knew they would be a valuable asset in providing severe weather information from the field.

“They have a long history around the country of working with the National Weather Service,” he said.

Not all storm spotters are hams but the combination of a spotter trained in communications is an ideal situation for forecasters, who count on real-time reports to help warn the public of severe weather such as tropical storms and tornadoes.

“The best spotters you can get are those who are also communicators; people in the field who can communicate back to us in a hurry,” Kriehn said.

That makes the ham radio community a big part of the Skywarn program, a network of people that report severe weather to local NWS offices.

To show its appreciation to the amateur radio operators in its 15-county operation area, the National Weather Service office in Newport participated in the SKYWARN Recognition Day held Saturday around the country.

It was an informal opportunity for the radio operators to gather and for the meteorologists to say thanks.

“No matter how good the technology is, nothing beats a pair of human eyes to tell you what is going on,” said meteorologist Hal Austin, who is also a ham radio operator.

Austin said spotter reports provide information on everything from hail size and wind damage to flooding and tornados. It corroborates and details what is being seen on weather service radar.

“It helps us confirm what we think is going on and helps us get that information out to the public,” Austin said.

For the ham radio operators, it’s an opportunity to put the skills they know to use to help others.

“It’s an opportunity to be able to help out, to help our neighbors and everyone in the area,” said Eric Christensen of Greenville.

Christensen was presented with a certificate of appreciation for developing a Skywarn Web site for the Newport district. Bill Sanford, the Skywarn emergency coordinator for the Newport district, was recognized for providing the weather service office with technical assistance in updating its ham radio equipment.

Ken Ball of Morehead City accepted a certificate on behalf of the entire Skywarn network for the area.

Ball, who has had his ham radio license for 14 years, said there’s a public service aspect to amateur radio that extends beyond just storm spotting.

Ball said radio operators are a major part of emergency response and disaster recovery efforts as well because they are often the only communication available when phones and other conventional communications go down.

It was seen recently during the catastrophic Hurricanes Katrina and Rita and right here at home several years ago when Hurricane Isabel disabled communications in Carteret County’s down east communities.

Ball said ham radio operators provided communication between down east canteens operated by the Salvation Army and response workers in other parts of the county.

Bernard Nobles, section emergency coordinator for ham radio operators in North Carolina, said amateur radio is the back up communication for public service agencies such as emergency management offices in the state, the National Weather Service, and groups like the Salvation Army and Red Cross.

Contact staff writer Jannette Pippin at jpippin@freedomenc.com or by calling (252) 808-2275.

QSL card from Bob (WD4CNZ)



I’m enjoying the QSL card from Bob (WD4CNZ) I received in the mail today… what a neat design.
Here’s Bob’s info from QRZ.com:
Occupation: Teacher of Horticulture Ham Radio interests: DX’ing, ARES, island collecting, DX-peditions Awards sponsored by this station: DX DOZEN, GIANT STEP AWARD, SPECIAL TRIBUTE, MILESTONES AWARD (details via callbook address–OK since ’77) Age: Young at heart 10X#: 43270 Springbok#: 291 Fondest memory of ham radio: helping my Elmer’s daughter-in-law to get her ham license and pass the exam just before he died of cancer–he told me that I had repaid a debt of honor! Favorite bands: 10, 15, 20M (whatever is open and wherever the DX is!) ALWAYS WILLING TO STOP AND CHAT WITH ANYONE WHO CALLS ME AND AM ONE OF THE LAST STATIONS THAT STILL QSL’s 100 percent. 73 es DX de Bob WD4CNZ


A few more eQSL cards



This gentlemen was running the famous PSK-31 Warbler at only 3 Watts! His web site URL is shown on the card above and I decided to check it out. What it lacks in multimedia animated Flash whoop-dee-doo, it makes up in content. Bill has some serious talent – enjoy his version of the introduction to Money For Nothing with more of a amateur radio flavor (note to Sting – you have some competition!). Looks like Bill is the QRP (low power) guru.


I chatted briefly with Bob – he was helping steer me towards finding National Weather Service stations during SKYWARN Recognition Day.

Amateur Radio Station NN3SI

From The Smithsonian: Natural Museum of American History web site

For nearly a century, amateur radio operators (HAMs) have energized the airwaves around the world. Exploring radio science and technology, providing emergency communications, or simply “calling CQ” to chat, HAMs are part of radio history. At the Museum’s HAM radio station, NN3SI, visitors learn about radio while they watch and talk with volunteer HAMs operating the station.

The unusual call sign, NN3SI, comes from the station’s origin in the Museum’s bicentennial exhibition “A Nation of Nations.” The FCC assigned a temporary call NN3SI for Nation of Nations-US zone 3-Smithsonian Institution, and later granted a request to make the call permanent.

The station participates in special events. During the dedication of the World War II Memorial on the National Mall, station operators made many contacts and taught children visiting the Museum how to spell their names in Morse code. Over the years, operators at NN3SI have logged contacts with HAMs in all parts of the world and with astronauts and cosmonauts in orbit.

The station operates on a range of frequencies from 3.5 to 450 MHZ. Licensed HAMs planning a trip to Washington, D.C., can sign up to operate the station during their visit.


Smithsonian Secretary S. Dillon Ripley (at left), ARRL President Harry Dannals and operator Joseph Fincutter inaugurate station NN3SI in July 1976.


Volunteer operators Stan Schretter (at left) and Don Sylvain making contacts during the 2004 Memorial Day weekend.

… I sent an email an asked how I’d go about arranging an appointment to be a guest operator at NN3SI and got the following response:

From : Carl Lagoda
Sent : Thursday, December 1, 2005 8:52 PM
To :
Subject : Re: NN3SI

Hello Scott:
You are certainly welcome to visit NN3SI and , while there, operate the station as a guest operator. We only ask that you present a photo ID to identify yourself. As you probably already know, the station is located in the National Museum of American History. I suggest that you enter the building by the Constitution Avenue entrance. NN3SI is in an exhibit called “Information Age”. The duty operators are there between 10am and 3pm with time out for lunch. Since the station depends on volunteer operators, we do not have continuous coverage so that you may not find an operator on duty. If you could name a specific date and time for your visit, we will try to have someone there for you. Regards de Carl w3cl

Maybe I can take a quick trip up to D.C. in late December when work slows down a bit. I think it would be really neat to be a guest operator at the Smithsonian’s amateur radio station! 🙂

What is an eQSL?

From the eQSL FAQ page:
Clever hams were sending electronic QSL cards by e-mail years ago. Back then, that was the only way to send them.

But e-mail is not a very easy way of exchanging cards. So, in 1998, we created the first eQSL exchange and called it www.QSLCard.com, and it has attracted a huge following. Our system does not use e-mail at all. So you really don’t “send” eQSLs. Instead, it stores your log in a large database. When another user uploads his log, we look at all the log entries that “match”, and allow you to display and print eQSLs from those matching log entries.

In April, 2000, we converted the entire system to a very robust and high tech database-oriented system and renamed our site www.eQSL.cc, the Electronic QSL Card Centre.

We are now the ONLY exchange for electronic QSL cards, with 56.0 million eQSLs from 302 countries currently online.

And, since virtually all of our technology is covered by patents pending, you can be assured that this will continue to be the place to maintain your online eQSL log!

——————————-

So far I’ve received the following QSL cards through eQSL:



Some amateur radio operators will only use eQSL as a method to exchange QSL cards – other won’t use it at all. I will admit, it is a little unsatisfying receiving an eQSL as compared to receiving an actual QSL card in the mail.

A Few Interesting Ham Radio Blogs

From The KØNR Weblog
One of the recent trends on the Internet is the use of Weblogs (commonly called “blogs”). Some of these are on-line journals; some are related to a particular topic or point of view. I’ve spent some time searching for ham radio related blogs and have come across these:

* KB6NU’s Ham Radio Blog http://kb6nu.com/
* Long Delayed Echoes (KE9V) http://ke9v.net/
* Hamblog (a shared blog with multiple contributors) http://www.hamblog.com/
* The Future of Radio (ham radio index) http://futureofradio.typepad.com/the_future_of_radio/ham_radio/index.html
* Amateur Radio and Scanner Blog http://wa3fkg.blogspot.com/
* Shedberg (Scott Hedberg KD7PJQ) http://www.livejournal.com/users/shedberg/
* W2LJ’s Blog – QRP and Amateur Radio http://w2lj.blogspot.com/
* K7VO Ham Radio Blog http://k7vo.blogspot.com/

Let me know what you find out there in the blog-o-sphere.

73,
Bob K0NR

Electrical engineer, ham radio enthusiast (KØNR), VHF Columnist for QRP Quarterly and FM Columnist for CQ VHF Magazine

My favorite amateur radio blogs are:
* KB6NU’s Ham Radio Blog http://kb6nu.com/

… from his website
Who the Heck is KB6NU?

I got an e-mail from a guy who noted that he couldn’t find my name anywhere on this website. I looked and he’s right. So, here’s a little bit about me. I’m going to figure out a way for a link to this post to appear on one of the nav bars so that readers can find it more easily….

My name is Dan Romanchik, and I’m just a guy who’s having fun with ham radio.

I’m 50 years old, and have been a ham for 34 years, although for most of those years, I wasn’t very active. I have been very active since the summer of 2002, after I got the bug again after working some CW at our club’s Field Day. Since then, I have:

* made more than 4,000 contacts, mostly on CW,
* increased my code speed to almost 30 wpm,
* built a bunch of kits and other stuff (including an Elecraft KX1 handheld HF transceiver),
* worked a bunch of contests and have even garnered a few certificates from doing so,
* taught a General Class license course the past two years,
* become president of ARROW, a club that serves ham in and around Ann Arbor, MI, and
* been appointed Affiliated Club Coordinator for the Michigan section.

I’m no “super ham.” I don’t have a 120-ft. tower with a three-element 40m beam on it. I don’t own a $10,000 transceiver, and I haven’t yet been on a DXpedition. I am having a lot of fun, though.

…. my other favorite amateur radio blog is:

* Stan Horzepa, WA1LOU, and his StanZapples web site (http://homepage.mac.com/stanzapple/Menu1.html).

Stan has been a regular contributor to QST magazine and also put out a pretty good book on APRS. I enjoy reading his Friday column on the ARRL web site: Surfin’.

Got another QSL card!


This QSO was from Thanksgiving evening. WD9HZI (Albert) was waiting for the Rotten Apples Group Net. I heard Albert call CQ – I answered and he came back to me right away.


What’s A Rotten Apple?

The Rotten Apples started almost 20 years ago. The Founders use to check into the “Classroom Net”, which starts at 7am, then they started meeting on 7.238 earlier and having a “Round Table Chat”. Later on, they started to drop out of the Classroom Net, Joe WB2JKJ called them a bunch of rotten apples and after that the name stuck and the Rotten Apples Group was born – hihi. The Original Group (what we refer to as “The Original 43”) had a RAG Certificate that AL, W9QHN put together. They had to earn the “certificate” by confirming three (3) QSL’S with other RA’s and to him. When Al died, the rest of the Original “43” Rotten Apples decided to discontinue the certificate in his memory and that’s where that saga ended. And now the saga of the “Drivers Permits” begins…

The Driver’s Permit Award: Donn WY5I got his drivers license after a 10 year injury. To celebrate the occasion, Donn received a RAG Driver’s Permit, then Leon, one of the other founders wanted one, then another and so on and so on, and the “Driver’s Permit” came about. NOW, to qualify for a Rotten Apples Group “Driver’s Permit” you must check in to the Rotten Apples Group between 6am-7am est. OR 7pm-8pm est. (these are the Official RAG Hours on the air) on a regular basis for a few months to indicate that you will be a faithful Rotten Apple participant. All “EARLY BIRD” check-ins will be accepted only if they stick around and check into the regular RAG sked hour. You will then receive a Driver’s Permit and a special welcome and that’s it. Everyone who checks in is already a member of the Rotten Apples Group but Driver’s Permits are given out as an Award to those stations who have become faithful Rotten Apple check-ins. It is really not like an Membership Certificate. This is no membership requirement, this is not a club and there is no dues. This is just a GROUP of guys and some gals that meet everyday on 7.238mhz. There are lots of visitors on the RAG morning and evening sessions, they come & they go never to be heard again.