On the Web : January 2005


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.
SJRA

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.
SJRA's home territory
Solar X-rays 
Geomagnetic Field 
Status
Status

N
3
K
L

The Wave

The Asia Tsunami that started with a level 9 earthquake at 200412261259 UT is just terrible. The sights and sounds and stories coming out of the usual media news source are repeated over and over again, making it difficult to grasp the magnitude of the disaster. The big Internet sites are playing games of "can you top this?" coverage, and cnn.com/tsunami teases visitors with background data and then charges premium rates to view its video files. My perspective is that MSNBC isn't playing such a game, but I'm not sure.

If you look overseas, there are other sources of information. Geoffrey Huntley of Sydney has assembled a huge Web site of video, photographs, satellite imagery, and other types of information. WaveOfDestruction.org is hosted by OzForces and ads are at minimum. The one downside is that the video download is done with BitTorrent, a little-used transfer protocol. Use a search engine to locate the appropriate BitTorrent plug-in for your OS (Windows, Linux, Mac) and browser. It is a high-speed transfer protocol that downloads the file(s) from multiple sites simultaneously and reassembles same on the receiving end.

I checked "My.NewsPaper.Links" at trsc.com/links_media_newspapers.html and found that all English language newspapers in the affected countries were indeed publishing in the days following the quake. The stats: Bangladesh (5); Cambodia (2); India (14); Indonesia (3); Malaysia (2); Maldives (1); Myanmar (2 - but in this closed country there is no mention of the disaster); and Thailand (4). In Africa, Somalia has no online paper, but there is Kenya (2) and Tanzania (1).

And if you get tired of the Weather Channel or the cute little clouds on some other television screens, you might try these government weather stations in the affected areas. I came upon the Maldives almost by chance, and then I poked around a bit. Go to the bottom of "My.Weather.Links" page at trsc.com/links_weather.html#ww and get the other forecasts from India, Kenya, Sri Lanka and Thailand.

Traveling New York With Repeaters

On our Christmas trip north to the home of our of our new (and first) grand-daughter, daughter and son-in-law, I did some repeater sleuthing. The data will be entered into the listing on w2xq.com in the near future; watch for the announcement on the RSS news feed (you do subscribe, don't you?), check the home page periodically, or ask me directly (see below).

Around Albany I had the chance to chat with N2JVE, Mike, who owns the 146.67 (PL 100.0) repeater in Chatham (on the SW side of Albany). The dual listing of 146.67-KC2CLR-Albany is incorrect; the latter only had the repeater on the air for a short time, then moved from the area. N2JVE also monitors the 444.1 (PL 100.0) WA2PVV Chatham repeater; it fills in where Mike's .67 machine is shadowed.

W2BEJ (Tony) and N2JVE told me the rest of the NY story. Three linked systems just about cover the entire state except for the northern area above Glen Falls... and that's being worked upon. Each system, I believe, stands alone. I don't think it is yet possible to link all three systems together. The first stop is KA2FWN users.adelphia.net/~ka2fwn to cover virtually along and around the NY Thruway from Albany to Rochester. N2HLT www.expage.com/n2hlt covers the Finger Lakes Region and tosses in the northern tier of PA counties for good measure with more than a bakers' dozen worth of systems. The third and last stop is the huge WA2JPQ www.wb2jpq.com Buffalo Interlink System that covers the western end of the New York... and one repeater SW of Ann Arbor, MI, for extra points. Hint: look at this Web site for the fancy programming showing repeater status and linking, including IRLP and Echolink.

And what about the Hudson Valley run from Albany to NYC along US 9 or the NY Thruway? This time I spoke to KQ2H, Alex, the owner of the repeaters found (and written about) on a previous trip. Alex told me of his Manhattan repeater on 449.225 (PL 107.2), and that picks up very nicely at the junction of the NY Thruway and NY/NJ 17 (north of Mahwah). The "225" signal was useable both ways (45 w in the car) until I reached the channel 52 tower on US 1 in Lawrenceville; I drove down US 1 from New Brunswick (NJTP exit 9) upon learning the NJTP had a 20-mile backup at the crunch point below exit 8.

And to wrap up the NY story, W1SJ told me that the www.nerepeaters.com covering the New England states has a sister site for NY at www.nyrepeaters.com. W1SJ is also the keeper of the Vermont repeater council list, and he is a stickler for accuracy, judging from the measures he takes as described to me in a few conversations.

The DX Jungle

Sidney Poitier had it easy as a teacher in "The Blackboard Jungle" (1955) as all he had to do was keep a bunch of bratty school kids in line. The DX jungle is much worse these days with growth of networks that spot the DX pileups, tune the radio, turn the antenna and log the contact. The hoards that descend instantantaneously on the poor foreign operator give the station on the receiving end of the masses no quarter. Partial calls, last letters, tail ending, yuck. So what is the SJRA member to do? The basics of chasing DX have not changed over the years. Good information is the key.

The North Jersey DX Association, aka NJDXA at njdxa.org, centered in the Morris County area, serves as the W2 QSL Bureau for incoming cards, but the organization is much more than a card sorting organization. The Web site's home page prominently features NA2M's DX Tips plus options of subscribing to the two newsletters, DX News and DX Chat; the latter subscriptions are available from the bottom of any page on the site. Focusing on NA2M's work, the research is huge. At the time this writing goes off to Ted for his spit and polish, well, maybe just polish, the number of DX events by month count up like this: January (20), February (12), March (5) and April (1). There are about 30 updates to QSL information — including one very annoyed N6BP who is receiving cards intended for N4BP, manager of C6AKQ — and it would seem that participation in the ARRL's "Logbook of the World" (LOTW) program is a must if you are chasing the DXpeditions. Information can be found at www.arrl.org/lotw.

Atomically Precise: The words "atomic clock" might bring to mind large, expensive, and power-hungry mechanisms used by the government and the military. But scientists at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have created an atomic clock about the size of a grain of rice that soon could make your cell phone more reliable.

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!

And this is an ongoing reminder about the 18th annual Winter SWL Festival. If you have an interest in listening to the radio spectrum from long wave to satellite and points in between — medium wave, shortwave broadcast, utilities, scanning, history — this gathering of the clan may just be the ticket to brighten up a gray March weekend. An average of 225 persons from around the world attend each year. Dial up the details at swlfest.com and have a read and look at pictures of past years. About 40 percent of the attendees are licensed, so bring the HT. Last year there were licensing exams and a foxhunt.

Do you want to throw stones, ask a question or comment on something in this or past months' columns? I'm usually easy enough to find via radio at least in commute times, via e-mail, monitoring my Internet Relay Chat Baudwalking "room" or Instant Messenger, or, horrors, the telephone. Happy New Year!

---
Get newsfeeder HELP! Newsfeed help - Add RSS URL W2XQ - Keep up to date with breaking news, info as it happens!
Links open in a new browser window.
Revised 9 January 2005

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

Go to the top of the page.spacerGo to previous page.

This page's URL : http://w2xq.com/sjra/sjra_2005-01.html