On the Web : August 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.
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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. |
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Solar X-rays
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The July "Harmonics" was an interesting read indeed. Let's play pick-up sticks.
In W2ORA's "Ramblings from the Old Radio Amateur", Joe mentions that the Philadelphia Inquirer newspaper lists 33 AM and FM broadcasters in the area. Check out Radio-Locator [ radio-locator.com ] that enables searches by location, call letters, program format and more. If you use a PDA, a version is accessible through AvantGo [ avantgo.com ]; as I travel throughout the State, it enables me to find the smaller stations at the shore, around Salem and Cumberland in the south and Warren and Sussex in the hilly northwest. It also is a very nice service when planning vacation trips to elsewhere in the country.
Joe also notes an article on lightning. I did an extensive compilation of
Internet sources for Radio
Netherlands' Media Network. I invite you to read through "Lowdown
on Lightning" [ www.rnw.nl/realradio/practical/html/storm.html ]
at your leisure. Subject areas include "Is Lightning Protection Worth
the Effort?", government research and studies, photographs and safety
precautions. I continue to update the compilation. Your comments and feedback
are welcome. Do look through the rest of Media
Network [ www.rnw.nl/realradio ] while you are on the Web site.
There is a lot of interesting information aboard this top-rated international
broadcaster's set of pages.
Bill, W2HOJ, tells all that DX heading maps and lists are no longer available from delphiforums.com/haminfo. Check out the Web site of our friend Tomas Hood, NW7US, who now writes the propagation column for CQ. While Tomas' own map pages and map server are being overhauled, Tomas provides a redirect to WM7D's Online Azimuthal Equidistant (Great Circle) Projection Map Server. These maps are quite something. Be prepared, however, to enter latitude and longitude in decimal degrees, W and S expressed as a negative, to two decimal places.
New 70 cm Repeater
There is a new 70 cm repeater in Philadelphia that has a very good signal around and beyond the SJRA membership area. While updating the repeater list available on the home page of W2XQ.com (download a ZIP file now [ w2xq.com/Assets/Files/w2xq_rpt.zip ), I found W3SBE on 442.55 MHz (PL 91.5). The antenna is 880 feet above mean sea level in Roxborough. Read more about it on the Society of Broadcast Engineer's Philadelphia Chapter Web site [ sbe18.org ], at the bottom of the home page. W2TAG can work it with an HT from the basement of his home south of the Red Lion Circle (US 206/NJ 70); I can use it with my HT at street-level in downtown Trenton.
Tornado Country!
On July 13, around 4:50 pm, an F1 tornado dropped out of a wall cloud and cut a swath through Burlington County's Brendan Byrne State Forest and New Lisbon Developmental Center just southeast of the Four Mile Circle (NJ 70/72). Luckily no one was killed and there was only two minor injuries to employees in a van when it tipped on its side. The next day there were many workers on the grounds helping to clean up the place, and that included countless personnel from the New Jersey Forest Fire Service with tools and equipment. While I was taking pictures for work, the DEP radios were blaring. A wide-coverage two-meter transceiver can listen into such events that involve DEP and Forest Fire personnel on the following frequencies:
Output Input Channel
159.1875 159.3000 Primary (All Services)
151.3250 159.3450 Fish and Game Service
159.4650 Park Service
159.3750 Forest Fire Svc (Tactical)
159.4150 159.2450 FFS (Division A)
151.4750 159.2700 FFS (Division B)
151.2650 159.4050 FFS (Division C)
159.2850 Air Net
AOL Instant Messenger
Do you use AOL's Instant Messenger (AIM)? There are advantages to doing so, including making side comments to W2MC or K2SMD while Jon or Shawn or another as net control of the SJRA swap net or the Monday night club net. You don't have to subscribe to America Online in order to have an IM address, and you can control who may chat with you. The fears of opening up your computer to the unwashed masses playing games and otherwise reeking havoc with your files are diminished. The program coding has been improved, in my opinion, so as not to be bothersome in slowing the computer's other operations.
But what happens if you are using a computer without the AIM software installed? Scenarios include (1) using a hotel guest computer, (2) a company or organization whose policy does not allow installation of any kind of chat or messaging program, and (3) network administrative passwords prevent you from installing software.
Browser access is easy (IE 5.5, Netscape 7.1, Mozilla 1.4). "AIM Express" is a free, full-featured browser app that runs on Windows 98/ME/2000/XP and Macintosh Mac OS X. Open the page www.aim.com/get_aim/express/aim_expr.adp?aolp= and click on the blue "Start" button. If "AIM Express" does not work properly, you can use the older "AIM Quick Buddy" — Java must be installed — on the page www.aim.com/other/quick_buddy.adp that has fewer features. If you make changes to your Buddy List while using Express or Quick, those changes will be saved and displayed the next time you launch the regular AIM program on your own computer.
Quickies
In August 2004 I found a Internet message board devoted to EchoLink, one of the two popular voice over IP modes. The chief operator is KB3GUN, and the site is nicely done. There are lots of topics to pick from, with options of private and instant messaging. Download file areas and more are within the pages. Take a look for yourself. You'll find WB2REM in there, and yours truly as well. You'll have to register at the EchoLink Radio Community Message Board [ www.echolinker.com ], but no worries. The required details are minimal.
What is EchoLink? It is one of several voice over IP (VOIP) technologies that can tie the Internet to a radio. Used on VHF-UHF FM repeater systems, it is yet another vehicle for those antenna-space-restricted radio amateurs to talk to other hams around the world. Read our introductory topical page at trsc.com/ref_repeater_linking.html. I will be happy to answer any questions I can. Further, Jim, WB2REM, on W2ZQ 442.650 PL 131.8 West Trenton, has been involved for years in VOIP, and he is just a few miles north of SJRA country.
Have you ever seen a call area map for Mexico? I had not until stumbling onto the new Web site for Mexico's IARU equivalent of the USA's ARRL. Grab the compass and look at Federación Mexicana de Radioexperimentadores' zone map [ www.geocities.com/fmre_ac/ZONAS_XE.html ]. With six meter openings popping up, some XE stations are being worked by SJRA's "big guns."
CQ Magazine Archives will soon be online at Buckmaster. Check out the details at hamcall.net/cgi-bin/cqcgi. Without a subscription you can view the first 5 pages of each issue. 1990 to 2002 are now online. Costs range from $5 (one day) to $45 (annual). While on the Web site, check out the DX spot service in trial at the moment. A nice array, there are band (by button choice) filters too.
Do you list amateur radio clubs on your Web site? Just with the club numbers in the ARRL sections SNJ and EPA alone, where does one put a stop in place? Aside from including 4 very-local clubs, I now refer readers to a very good by-state listing at Hamdepot [ hamdepot.com ]. And this site seems to go hand-in-hand with a new radio links site called "HamDrome" [ www.hamdrome.com ]. While the latter has a long ways to go to match sites like AC6V [ ac6v.com ], it nevertheless is worthy of your attention. You may find something on HamDrome that you will not see elsewhere.
WA3BXW informed us that he is adding a new repeater to the BEARS system in Bethany Beach, Delaware. This repeater should fill in coverage of the southern end of Delmarva. Watch w2xq.com/bears for details and availability.
And finally, all-news (and Yankee [ yankees.com ] baseball) broadcaster WCBS-880 [ wcbs880.com ] New York asks the political question "Have You Been Jib-Jabbed Yet?" [ wcbs880.com/topstories/topstoriesny_story_203080521.html ] Regardless of your political persuasion, these pages are for all. JibJab [ jibjab.com ] is breaking all kinds of records in this satirical look at the upcoming national election. Have a read as WCBS looks behind the scenes and takes you to the JibJab site. It is quite funny. [ And a listener comment — WCBS's signal on the car radio covers the South Jersey and the I-95 corridor east of Havre de Grace, Maryland, areas quite well. ]
SJRA Club Bulletin Exchange
Ted, W2TAG, is interested in doing a club bulletin exchange that would include "On The Web." If you have a friend in a ham radio club elsewhere in the USA, Canada or the world involved in a local radio club, please consider asking that person to read the this column on w2xq.com. Club bulletin exchange details with SJRA can be made by contacting
directly. Thanks!
TRS Consultants - Keep up to date with breaking news during the month! Newsfeed help.
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Revised 11 August 2004
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