Surfing the Airwaves

I’ve been fascinated with radio since I was a kid. When the first satellite, Sputnik 1, was launched in 1957, I sat in front of a big old console radio that had shortwave bands trying to figure out how I could hear the signal. I never found Sputnik’s “beep-beep” but I did hear a lot of other interesting things.

I was fascinated with stations coming in over the airwaves, and spent hours listening to the BBC, Voice of America, Radio Moscow and even the Voice of Cuba. I would send reception reports to these stations and get unique postcards back, which we called QSL cards.  

My first QSL cards were from CHU Canada and WWV in Boulder, both time signal stations that transmit 24 hours a day. I still have those cards and it gives me a kick every time I see them.

I was fortunate to attend a high school that had a very active ham club. Back then, you had to pass the Morse code test and a very easy multiple-choice exam to receive a one-year nonrenewable Morse Code only Novice license. Our classes were held in the Language Lab after school. I quickly got my license.

The FCC rules were a little bizarre back then. Within a year, you had to pass a test to upgrade to a higher-class license. I upgraded in my tenth month to become a Technician class licensee, and quickly put together a Heathkit ham transceiver that allowed me to plug in a microphone and talk on the radio. And I’ve been doing that ever since.

I upgraded my license to General Class in 1976, which gave me access to many worldwide radio bands. Then, in 2014, I finally passed the highest-level license, Extra Class, in my fiftieth year as a ham.

This summer, I’ll have had a license for 60 years and I’m still just as fascinated with all things radio. Nowadays a lot of it is digital, with computers, the Internet and radios all connected in unique and interesting ways. I feel lucky to have found a hobby that has kept me interested my whole life!

My Weather Station on Apple Watch

Weather tracking has been a hobby of mine since childhood, and I’ve owned many weather stations over the years from Peet Brothers to Davis to now, happily, Ambient Weather.

One thing I’ve been looking for is a way to view my weather station stats on my Apple Watch. Thanks to a tip on a Weather Facebook group, I now have it! The myPWS app is working great.

In the first photo, the lower right temp is my weather station, while the upper right is my current location. Click on the lower right, and you see more scrollable info.

Apple Watch

myPWS scrollable display

Back on the Net: dits and bits

It’s been quite a while since I updated this blog, so a great time to post an update on some projects and interesting items I’ve bumped into on the Internet.

First, an update on a concept called White Rock Hams that we started over three years ago with a mention on this blog. It’s since turned into a real club with many activities and a pretty good following with over 30 members. We’re using groups.io for all of our messages and files, and hamclubonline.com for official club stuff. Both of these tools have been extremely useful in keeping members informed and active. You can follow all of our exploits at wa5wrl.org which is the vanity call sign we were able to snag from the FCC.

In Internet news, I am just about ready to pull the plug on Twitter. I was a very early adopter personally and helped get my Fortune 500 employer back then on board. Since Musk has taken it over, it’s become quite a dumpster fire and I’m not sure how much longer I can stand it.

I’m spending more of my time now on Mastodon. I like that it’s federated and non-centralized. Sort of feels more like the way the Internet was supposed to be in the first place. It’s not owned and run by a tight group of billionaires. If you’d like to join us, take a look at joinmastodon.org. Scroll though the servers and pick an interesting one, or just use mastodon.social like many folks do. You’ll find a lot to like, including authors you’ve probably seen previously on Twitter. And, if you’re a ham, choose mastodon.radio! Don’t sweat about the server choice, though, since they all connect together. Once you’re on, you can find me at @n5csu.

I’m getting a kick out of my hamclock running on a little inovato computer. This device has become a must-have for active hams that use the high frequency bands.

I’d like to give a shout out to the website blogs.radio, a great place to find updated blogs by ham radio operators.

That’s about it for now. I’m composing this using Word on my iPad via microphone for the first time, then pasting into WordPress. It’s so much better than my two finger typing.

73

My Greatest Hits Playlist

Wow it’s been a long time since I’ve updated this blog! Lots of things going on but wanted to post this in case a reader or two might find it interesting.

Several years ago, I spent a lot of time uploading my entire library of 175 music CDs to iTunes. I then ripped my few remaining LPs.

As I listened to my library over the years on my PC, iPhone or iPad, I began grouping tunes into a bunch of playlists. Three playlists were especially useful for grouping favorites: 3, 4 and 5 star groups.

My “three star or better” playlist now has 1,956 tunes, the “4 star or better” list is 1,477 songs and my 5 star playlist has 1,050 songs (71 hours of music without repeats).

When I didn’t renew my Apple Match subscription early this year, my entire iTunes library was not available anywhere except my computer! YIKES! I had no idea Apple Match would do that.

Luckily once I renewed with Apple, my entire collection of 5,944 songs was available again on both my iPad and iPhone.

But that got me to thinking. What if I had only a single playlist of maybe 10 songs? What would they be?

Over a couple of months, I tried to get to only 10 songs but just could not do it. The list expanded to 20, then 30…. now it’s at 34 songs I can’t live without. The list has remained stable now for a couple of months.

Once I migrated the handwritten list from my iPad to Excel, I was able to sort it several ways. As a 60s boomer, most are oldies for sure. Here’s the breakdown by decades, not exactly what I expected:

• 1960s: 8
• 1970s: 6
• 1980s: 3
• 1990s: 6
• 2000s: 9
• 2010s: 2

It was a fun exercise!

Okay, here’s my list. Perhaps this might trigger a fun musical memory for you.

Tech I Can’t Live Without: Tile

How often have you misplaced your keys? Your checkbook? Your wallet? And doesn’t this usually happen when you’re in hurry?

I’m in the same boat, but I’m here to extoll the praises of a clever piece of tech that has come to my rescue. It’s called Tile, and I can’t even count the number of times it has come through for us since its release in 2014.

At about 1.5 inches square, it’s easy to hang a Tile on your keychain, pop one in your checkbook and stash one in your wallet or purse. Load the Tile application on your Android phone or iPhone and you’re in business!

The Tile uses low power Bluetooth technology so that, if your valuable is misplaced, you can find it using the Tile app. The range is about 100 feet, and as you get closer, the concentric rings on the app’s screen get darker (like RADAR!)  When you initiate a Find, the app also instructs the Tile to initiate an audible alert. This really helps when your keys have fallen behind a couch cushion or under the driver’s seat!

If that Tile is out of range, the application will display the place it last “saw” it. You can then mark it as “lost” on the app. If any other Tile user comes within range, an anonymous message will be relayed back to you with its updated location (the other Tile user is not informed).  In a rural area, that might not help. but there a thousands of users here in Dallas.

Here’s another cool feature – let’s say you have your keys but can’t find your phone.  Not a problem. Click the button on any Tile three times and your phone will start playing the Tile tune, making it easy to find.

Until late 2018, there was one significant drawback to the Tile – the battery in each device would only last a year and was not replaceable.  That’s no longer the case, as the newest Tile models each have a user replaceable, inexpensive coin sized battery.

At $25 to $35 each, the Tiles are not inexpensive, but, for me, they are definitely worth the price! The Tile is a device I can’t live without.

http://www.thetileapp.com

 

 

 

 

White Rock Hams First Meeting Planned

This week, the informal White Rock Hams group will hold its first meeting at Verona’s Italian Restaurant, 9039 Garland Road, on Wednesday September 18 at 1130 AM.

All area hams, both experienced and newbies, are invited to attend.  For more info, visit whiterockhams.org

Hope to see you there and 73.

Update: We had a successful first meeting! A summary is posted on our website whiterockhams.org

 

Over 30 Hours without power and Internet…

… one day without cell phone service, and a 911 system that was unreachable.  Sunday June 9, a downburst thunderstorm with winds of over 70 MPH ripped through Dallas, taking out thousands of trees and knocking out power and telephone service for over 300,000 residents all day Sunday and Monday.

It was the longest outage in years for many of us. We learned a lot from this experience,  and I really appreciated the fact that my amateur “ham” radio equipment kept up my connections of the rest of the city.

As a result, a couple of hams, my XYL Leslie and I have been talking about how to to encourage more folks in our neighborhoods to get connected via ham radio. Toward that aim, we’re hoping to start an informal White Rock Hams group. The idea is to get a core group of hams in the White Rock Lake and east Dallas neighborhoods together, then recruit interested neighbors to join us.

For more info on ham radio, click on the Get on the Air!  link at the top of this page.

 

Some lessons learned (or relearned) from 2 days without power

• Empty out your refrigerator’s icemaker before the ice starts melting!
• Have several one gallon bottles of water handy.
• Freeze two one gallon bottles of water; they can be used to keep temp cold in the freezer or moved to the refrigerator.
• Keep all backup batteries and portable emergency power units fully charged (set up a regular schedule to top them each off)
• Have several 12 volt fans
• Have a way to view over-the-air TV from a 12 volt source
• Stock extra batteries (AAA, AA, C, 9 VDC and D cells)
• Have non-perishable food on hand
• Remember that it takes more time to charge via solar panels than AC
• Have several flashlights on hand (the Coleman battery lamps worked great!)
• Install local TV station apps on all phones
• Load the power outage report app on phones (in Dallas it’s Oncor)
• Put our weather station on the UPS
• Since I use Anderson Powerpoles for most everything in the ham shack (and most every 12 volt device in the house), I need to add three additional cables
  • lighter plug socket to Powerpole
  • 12 volt Powerpole to 5 volt converter with USB connector
  • alligator clips to Powerpole
  • 12 volt TV to Powerpole
• Store emergency equipment together where possible
• And finally, research a gasoline generator… it’s time to get one!

 

 

A Blast from the Past

I just noticed my old Blogger account is still there; I used Blogger before I switched to WordPress in 2011.

Here’s a blast from the past: Dec 22, 2007. How times have changed!

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Web 2 Dot Oh

Wow… since I last blogged here, the quantity and quality of web 2.0 tools available to us have really exploded. Just this year, I’m become a regular user of:

• Facebook
• Twitter
• Grand Central
• Tumblr
• Jott
• Remember the Milk
• Iwantsandy

And then there are the new Google services I have come to rely on:

• Gmail
• Google Reader
• iGoogle
• Google Gears
• Google Maps
• Google Docs
• Google services for the Blackberry
• And the updated Blogger, of course

Firefox continues to get better and better, with some great extensions. I have also switched to Open Office and don’t miss Microsoft Office a bit.

I now back up my data over the Internet using Mozy and Quicken, and am putting my toe in the water with Open ID.

Lastly, there’s my Chumby, the first in a new breed of Internet appliance. It cycles through over 50 software widgets I’ve chosen, all the while streaming BBC.

What a great time to be online!

Moving the Ham Shack to Solar

After successfully getting my workshop solar system up and running, this fall I moved on to my next project, transitioning my ham station (what I call my “ham shack”) to emergency solar power. This turned out to be an interesting and fun project!

MC-4 connector

The solar power industry uses a unique cable connector called an MC4; after viewing a few YouTube videos, I decided to do it right and order a crimper tool specifically for that connector.  So, on to Amazon to buy the crimper, MC4 connectors and solar extension cable to add to my existing Renogy solar kit.

On the ham shack side, I had already purchased an Epic PWRgate power backup system from West Mountain Radio. A PWRgate device provides instant cutover to a battery backup if AC power goes down. The original PWRgate has been on the market for a decade; I’ve been very happy with mine, but couldn’t figure out how to introduce solar into the backup strategy.

This new PWRGate version introduced last summer makes that easy! It adds a solar controller that allows the backup battery to be charged by solar power during the day. At dusk, the PWRGate switches over to the shack 12-volt DC supply to keep the battery charged.

After learning the proper MC4 connector crimping technique and routing my new cable into the ham shack, I had to change the cable ends to Anderson Powerpoles. These connectors are a ham radio standard, and the PWRGate expects a Powerpole for its solar input.

Well, the solar cable is quite large (12 AWG), and required me to use 45-amp Powerpole contacts. I’ve always used the smaller 15 and 30-amp contacts, so back to Amazon to order larger contacts.

For my battery, I chose a 100 AH battery from Universal Battery Group.

I’m happy to report that, after two months of service in the shack, the system is working fine! During the day the PWRGate keeps my battery charged via my two 100-watt Renogy solar panels on the roof, then switches my battery back to a trickle charge from my Astron 25-amp DC supply.

The PWRGate has an RS-232 port to allow real-time monitoring of the system. In this screenshot grabbed on a sunny day, it shows the power supply bypassed (13.72 VDC), the battery at 13.08 VDC, zero battery charge current (since it‘s fully charged) and the solar panel producing 20.6 VDC. The final figure is the number of minutes in this state (fully charged), which is 224 minutes.

This new system should keep me on the air for some time when the power goes out!