On the Web : June 2004

If you enjoy reading 'On the Web', your ham radio club can publish this column on an exchange basis with SJRA. Contact Ted, , for the exchange details.		Our contributions to the South Jersey Radio Association club bulletin "Harmonics" includes lengthy Web addresses. As the URL's can be difficult or a nuisance to type into your Web browser, the postings here should make it easier to get to the Web sites SJRA members are interested in. Look for the posting at w2xq.com at the time "Harmonics" is scheduled for delivery in the south Jersey area. Questions, suggestions or contributions are always welcome.
		Solar X-rays  Geomagnetic Field  N 3 K L

Venus in Transit

In the April edition of “On the Web” [ http://w2xq.com/sjra/sjra_2004-04.html ] I suggested putting a big red circle around June 8 to see the planet Venus transit the sun. I hope you had the chance to do so. If not, catch the follow-up stories starting with the review and photographs on Space.com [ http://space.com/scienceastronomy/venus_transit_040608.html ].

Better than Instant Messenger!

Many SJRA members on the Internet use one or more instant messaging (IM) programs to communicate one on one. AOL's IM and ICQ software have a disproportionate share of the marketplace, but there are other offerings too. It takes a multi-tongue program such as Trillian (Windows) and Fire (Apple) to talk to the several IM programs using only one product. Regardless of your program selection, many teeny tiny windows open if you "talk" to several people at once.

There is a better solution for the Internet. On Sunday and Monday nights the SJRA nets bring a bit of order to the chaos theory on 145.29 MHz. So too on the Internet the Internet Relay Chat (IRC) software and servers allow many to gather on a "channel" for all to participate in keyboard messaging and chatting... just as you do in IM. What is the difference? Unless you drop into an optional private message mode, all can see the typed statement and anyone may respond.

Unlike most of the IM programs, IRC programs do not have the flashing lights, cameras and action with display adverts and other annoyances stuffed in your face. Depending upon the IRC app, scripts can be written to alert the user when specific events occur — such as a call sign appears on line or in a DX call out or selected words appear on the screen — and optionally move the IRC application to the foreground. An alert might be a noise event, or simply the change of the color of the screen text brought forward.

In the simplest form the IRC app appears as a three-paned window application: messages, an input area for your typing, and users on the channel. There is a tiny bit of IRC vocabulary to learn, and one of the first words is "nick." You'll want to change your user nickname to something other than Guest.

So now you're on an IRC channel with a group of friends discussing amateur radio, politics, religion, sex, and the seven words George Carlin says that you cannot say on the radio or television. The phone or doorbell rings... you forgot to do that chore you promised that would be done before the better half came home, and you hear the garage door start to open... but you don't want to miss the discussion. IRC programs have logging capabilities. Simply set the program's default logging ON to start whenever the program launches to capture messages in ALL open channels and from any private messages. With logging on, so long as the computer is online and the IRC program is running, the log file will capture everything. (If you use AOL's IM, you already know that you cannot leave an message if the intended recipient is not on line).

(What happens in the worst case scenario and power is lost? Before restarting the IRC program, use a text editor to read the closed log file; clean up the garbage written to the end of the file and re save it.)

The roundtable aspects of IRC chat make its use, in my opinion, a better option than battling separate message threads from two or three users on an IM chat at the time time. (Yes, you can pull everyone into a group in the IM chat channel, but be honest. When is the last time you took the time and effort to do that?) Shortwave listeners around the world took residence in IRC more than a half-decade ago, and it has proven to be a good meeting place to share notes and compare reception conditions on several continents. Read our "how-to-get started" notes at trsc.com/irc_swl.html, check out that page's links for more information, and come look for me in my own channel "Baudwalking" — a carryover of the Australian magazine column name that I had been writing for — on the Starchat servers.

Questions? Just ask.

Have You Worked a New Country?

The other morning I overheard N2ASU mentioning working his first JA station. [ Congratulations, Craig! ] K2BL, Carol, was asking questions about Japan, temperature and climate, among them, and no one on the repeater could answer the questions. In the years B.C. (before computers) an atlas and World Almanac answered my basic questions, but the Internet now has such data right at the nearest keyboard. Try these easy-to-use comprehensive reference sites on for size:

A+ Country Reports
http://www.countryreports.org/

Countries of the World - 15 years of CIA World Fact Books
http://www.theodora.com/wfb/

NationMaster - Where Stats Come Alive
http://www.nationmaster.com/

World Atlas
http://worldatlas.com/

I also like Wikipedia [ http://en.wikipedia.org/ ], a surprisingly decent encyclopedia, that sits at the ready in my bookmark toolbar folder along with a reference desk book, thesaurus and dictionary. And don't forget to look at the embassy Web sites for virtually every country in the world.

Questions also arose as to what time was it in Japan. The many amateur radio Web link sites point to PC clocks of all kinds, but our favorite for the PC is the not-so-well known free Mapmaker's Sun Clock [ http://www.mapmaker.com/sunclock.asp ] screensaver. It shows the day-night terminator and has a customizable INIT file to tweak map settings. It is a quick review of who is in day and who is in night around the world, and more. Take a look.

Beyond BPL — more interference!

Unless you have been on a spaceship traveling beyond our solar system, you know about BPL. The FCC's attempt to allow media and the Internet to reach out and touch our pocketbooks via power lines is projected to reek havoc on the HF spectrum and beyond. Money talks, and the ARRL beats the anti-BPL drum in total frustration, winning a few battles but undoubtedly losing the war.

To add to the joys of HF operation, a few years ago I found a radar pulse below 5 MHz. [ I listen to the many African, Asian and Latin American tropical band broadcasters in that frequency range. For example, Ghana can be heard from as early as 3 hours before sunset, on 4915 kHz. ] It sounded a bit like the infamous Russian woodpecker, yet different, and there were clearly multiple signals in a restricted bandwidth above 4.4 and below 4.9 MHz or so. Research, and writing about it in the NASWA Journal — the club bulletin of the largest shortwave listener's club in North America — brought light to bear on a dark subject. Signals changed and shifted in frequency, to occupy less bandwidth, within a few months of publicity surfacing.

So what is it? I was surprised to learn that the HF Surface Wave Radar Oceanography system had been operating experimentally for decades. NOAA had been testing a system to look at weather and waves, and now there is at least one commercial application. It's ugly, but the FCC wouldn't respond to inquiries. On the IRC #swl channel (see above), "live coordinated" listening sessions determined that others with decent communications receivers in Norway, England, Netherlands, South Africa and Argentina could hear the HF radar pulses. So much for low power and short range. From this writer's perspective, the radar interferes with broadcast, aircraft and marine frequencies... and now the channelized 60m amateur band. Surprisingly, I could not interest some of the broadcasters in filing complaints through the UN — technically the band is a tropical, not an international, broadcast band and no protection is provided.

Further reading:

Codar Information
[ http://marine.rutgers.edu/cool/codar.html ] and, yes, that is Rutgers!
Codar Ocean Sensors
[ http://www.codaros.com/ ]
NOAA ETL Surface Wave Radar Oceanography
[ http://www.etl.noaa.gov/technology/instruments/surface/ ]
NOAA ETL Technology Transfer
[ http://www.etl.noaa.gov/technology/tech_transfer/ ]

eBay scam

Are you an occasional eBay user? Don't get fooled by very official-looking e-mail messages similar to this: "During our regular update and verification of the accounts, we couldn't verify your current information. Either your information has changed or it is incomplete. Please update and verify your information by signing in your account below : ... If the account information is not updated to current information within 5 days then, your access to bid or buy on eBay will be restricted. Go to this link below:.." These are sophisticated thieves loose out there, hiding URL's and gathering customer credit data from unsuspecting users. Just before I shipped this column to W2TAG we had no less than six like e-mails within 5 minutes arrive in the in-box; the culprits registered the domain www.ebay-customer-validate.info to gather the data to rip off your bank account balances.

The Bands Are Dead

You've had it with radio. Field Day has come and gone. Television summer offerings are horrendous and you don't feel like going out in the noonday sun. Let's cruise the Internet. The Internet Public Library will lead you to all kinds of interesting places. Click and hunt, and wander about wherever your interests take you. There are many things to read, listen to and watch. There are three gateways, and each seems to offer a different perspective into the library.

http://www.ipl.org (NA)
http://www.ipl.org.ar (SA)
http://ipl.ulis.ac.jp (As)

(30)

PS: Are you driving out to the SJRA Field Day site and do you have a GPS unit? (I readily admit that I can follow the GPS directions more readily than text.) KC2TN advises the coordinates are N39° 53.244', W74° 53.591'. Thanks, Joe! KC2HDR follows up with more GPS readings: the SJRA Field Day site's hospitality tent is located at N39° 53.309', W74° 53.439' at an elevation of 77'.

And are you trying to get to the Old Country Buffet to partake of a meal before the SJRA monthly meeting? The restaurant is located at N39° 55.415', W75° 02.576' at an elevation of 30'. Stan nailed both GPS readings for us on June 25. Thanks, Stan!

TRS Consultants - Keep up to date with breaking news during the month! Newsfeed help.

---
Revised 25 June 2004.

Read the previous month's column or the next month's column.