On the Web : June 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.		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

The 2005 Field Day Rules
The SJRA Field Day Site entrance is on Lower Main Street, Marlton, opposite the Indian Springs Golf Course.
GPS (Global Positioning System) coordinates are N 39° 53.162', W 74° 53.486', or use these maps.
Mapquest is almost a 'net standard, but the new beta Google map looks very good.

Field Day! Don't blink! You may miss the last full weekend of June. It's here... now! Go to the Web version of this column for our operating countdown clock and the map link if you don't have a GPS unit. K2AA members, friends, and guests will be descending upon Marlton's Field Day site.

Many thanks in advance to the local government personnel workers, supervisors and officials for the site preparation, including cutting the grass and making the grounds very comfortable.

Repeater coverage

Whispers tell me that the black boxes normally making noise on 145.29 MHz are close to being repaired. While that is good news, lightning and electrical aberations can put monkey wrenches into the best laid plans of the SJRA Board of Directors. Be prepared. To ensure radio coverage in K2AA-land, see last month's "On The Web" column -- http://w2xq.com/sjra/sjra_2005-05.html -- for alternative repeater suggestions and get the latest (May 26) edition of our regional repeater list via the link on the home page of w2xq.com.

Have you been hearing a slow speed code ID on 145.29 since early May? N3RG and I recognized the call as belonging to an old Frankford Radio Club member that moved to Florida some years ago. Well, the call was reassigned on 30 Dec 2004. Here's the rest of the story, as written to me by Bernie Berger (NY4Z and www.k2hr.net) on May 18:

Thanks for your email. The 145.290 machine here (K2HR) is located in mid to northern Manhattan on a site that is around 500 feet ASL which for Manhattan is not all that great (lots of much higher buildings around it especially going south). The repeater itself is a 100 watt omni directional system with a PL of 94.8. The intended area of coverage is the NYC metro area. The system has been around a while, but recently was linked to 224.700 in Carmel, NY (about 60 miles north of NYC). The id NY4Z is passing through the link from 224.700. Regarding the other NYC systems 446.275 and 224.440 are both in Manhattan as well. 224.440 is carrier access most of the time and when in PL the tone is 74.4. 446.275 is using a PL of 151.4 and is also located in Manhattan. All 3 machines are open and available for emergency and public service as well as casual communications. You are welcome to list them in your database and feel free to use them when in the area.

Software Notes. Now that you're burned out with Field Day, the heat index is 130 or higher, it is too hot to put up towers, and Jersey mosquitos have carried off your first and second born, perhaps it is time to turn attention to doing some work inside. I found some interesting software surprises while upgrading our home office.

Software compression in the DOS days was dominated by PKWare's PKZIP and PKUNZIP; in Windows, the dominant player appears to be WinZip. The Apple compression utility of choice is predominately StuffIt that produces a file name ending in .sit or .sitx; the corporate name recently changed from Alladin to Allume. StuffIt personnel have unsuccessfully tried to make inroads to the Windows market; a free Windows "Expander" program lets Mac users send compressed file packages to Windows users.

Now StuffIt has hit a home run. At the same time the Phillies released a DVD of their one and only World Series win, StuffIt has retired WinZip's pitching staff. StuffIt 9.0 does JPEG photo compression up to 30 percent and is a speeding rocket. My test case? The recording of a brown-bag lunch training session produced an audio file (size, %-compressed, time):

Original     148MB
WinZip 9      69  46% 9.0min
StuffIt-ZIP   66  44  2.0
StuffIt-SITX  45  31  2.5
Savings       21  14

Just look at the savings of file space! In this instance, SITX saved more than 20MB of space. As StuffIt 9 writes both SITX and ZIP files, there is no reason for PC owners not to switch to the SITX format in the archiving and shipping of files, or attaching multiple files within one package to an e-mail message.

I opted for the Windows PC Standard ($25) package without the extra goodies tieing into Microsoft Office; the Deluxe version ($40) automates everything. Your can order the product online from www.stuffit.com/win, or read the specs and buy the boxed product locally or by mail.

Other Software

Mention maps on the Web and I would suspect that Mapquest would often be mentioned by respondents. I wonder if there is a new challanger on the edge of town? Take a look at maps.google.com for some interesting and easy to use roadmaps. Look at the Web version of this column for the Google and Mapquest versons of the SJRA Marlton Field Day Site, and let me know what you think.

Do you need a humongous text editor? jEdit - jedit.org - continues to attract my attention. Multi-operating languages, multiple file inputs and outputs (not all ASCII text is equal...), cards, macros, and an uncountable number of features makes this program play King of the Hill. "Come get me if you can.

Browser Bookmarks Toolbar

Let's organize the bookmarks/favorites file. Ack! Not now! I'm still tabulating Field Day scores. The bookmark file is a mess. Add a new bookmark? Sure, lessee... Ctrl+D. Now where did the bookmark go? Wow, there it is the bottom of the list, three screens away. Anyone using a browser for a period of time has seen the classic neophyte approach to adding bookmarks. The beginner just adds the new one to the bottom of the list, and the list grows, and grows and grows.

I can't take on the task of bringing order out of chaos, but I can help in suggesting some global adjustments to the top of the bookmark file. Let's focus on the bookmarks toolbar that is displayed just below the location field.

The toolbar is an excellent spot to place often-visited sites, bypassing the need to dig through layers upon layers of menus. The object of the excercise is to make the links visible, to minimize scrolling by shortening labels, and to increase work effieciency. Here are some of my choices (your selections will be different) in my desired order:

Save This an offsite bookmark mgmt site
  www.savethis.com
Google
  google.com
Googlism
  googlism.com
Av audiovisual
  trsc.com/audiovisual.html
Wx weather
  trsc.com/links_weather.html
Plaxo
  www.plaxo.com
SuperPages the Verizon phone book pages
  superpages.com
Dictionary
  dictionary.reference.com
Refdesk reference/facts/news-of-day/almanac
  refdesk.com
Wikpedia free/good encyclopedia
  en.wikipedia.org

For your reference, the site explanation is italics. I recommend shorter labels, but not so short as to forget what the abbreviations mean.

And I have a few more entries on the toolbar, mostly related to Web authoring and domain lookup. The concept? These pages are virtually all one-to-many indesign. In this way, these pages go back to our original premise of beginning to bring order to the bookmark file. Apply your logic to choose the bookmarks you want included in your toolbar.

One entry above, Plaxo, is a marvelous contact management tool. Changing computer equipment and OS's here and at work in the past few months has led us to the fork in the road and the question "which way did he go?" Plaxo is tightly integrated with Outlook, and the update process is totally seamless. If you receive a Plaxo e-mail from me, please reply -- and you might like to review the Web site and join now, yourself. Even though I use a Mac, the updating of addresses via a Web browser is easy. My wife and I have secure access 24/7. No longer must I determine which computer has the current update. Oh yes, the service cost? Free.

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!

Do you want to ask a question or comment on something in these columns? I'm easy enough to find as mentioned in past months' columns. Don't forget that the current and past columns are posted at w2xq.com for your reading and review. The advantage? The Web links are live. You do not have to type in the URL's.

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Revised 11 June 2005

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