On the Web : November 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 2006 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 newer beta Google map looks very good.

Breaking News

For those who came late, do you subscribe to our RSS (really simple syndication) news feed? Those SJRA members who do so had early warning information on Hurricane Rita as it pounded ashore in southwest Louisiana after scaring Houston. We had written and posted an early edition of our October column on w2xq.com with the information on where to turn to on the 'net. Keep the broadcasting information handy, as the new methodologies are working... and we are now dealing with tropical storm beta.

If you like our free 50-144-440 MHz repeater listing, the RSS news feed told of the availability of a new edition posted for download on 28 October. There weren't any significant changes over the summer, so this is the first update since July.

Of note, Bill Ferguson's humongous BEARS network now has its own domain of wa3bxw.com and those coming to the old page will be forward after a warning notice. I continue to do the Webbie chores for Bill on this one, and I expect that there will be repeater site pictures in the near future. The Vermont repeater listing now cover the state, and there is a new 440 voice at the lowly height of 4000 feet on Mount Ellen off US 17 in the Green Mountains.

Locally, I note that N2GBK-442.400 Lawrenceville (covering most of the state with 100w at 800 feet) is now full P/L encode-decode (hooray!) and K2KDV-442.150 Camden is working so well that I can key it from Trenton with my VX-5R HT on 2 watts.

Have I piqued your interest to be alerted to what's new? Dial up the RSS Help page at trsc.com/rss_help.html, pick a news reader (if one isn't in your browser), and have at it.

Software

There's a new gunslinger... err... browser in town and it isn't too shabby so far as we can tell in our early looks at the package. It is based upon the open-source code that Mozilla, Firefox and Netscape live upon, but this browser has some interesting twists. It is called Flock -- flock.com -- and it available for all three platforms. Bookmarks may be posted for all Flock users to see and share; I've already found a couple of interesting Web sites in this process. Blogging is built-in, and there are features I haven't yet explored. The browser is about a month old, so the user group is quite active. Take a look and have fun.

Firefox has moved its next browser release from version beta to RC1 -- Release Candidate 1 -- in anticipation of a final release of version 1.5 in December. In our opinion, RC1 is sufficiently clean and stable to warrant recommending its use now. The add-ons I use work, and the software will automatically disable those that haven't been upgraded yet. In doing so, it will also monitor and automatically update the plug-ins as soon as the third-party vendors make good on conforming to version 1.5 requirements. Why upgrade? Version 1.5 is faster than the current 1.07 version, has more security incorporated, has RSS integrated and a Find bar that finds text as you type without covering up anything. Read about the new Firefox at getfirefox.com and see if it is right for you. The popup blocking stopper and tabbed browser window features along make this browser light years ahead of Internet Explorer.

There's a spate of Microsoft Office work-alike products appearing on the market. Gates' Office is terribly expensive and there are alternatives. Thinkfree -- www.thinkfree.com -- has been around for about three years, runs on Mac, Linux and Windows and costs $50. Buy it once, and download any or all platform versions; online file storage is also available. With the company's sale to a Korean firm, a new version is being released now. Open Office -- www.openoffice.org -- is free, available for multiple platforms, but requires X/11 installation for the Mac; a better solution for the Mac is NeoOffice -- www.neooffice.org -- and it is marvelous. NeoOffice read a Powerpoint presentation someone sent me without hesitation, has read different versions of spreadsheets on hand, and writes a file out to PDF without requiring the Adobe software. Neoffice is also free, and is now our "office" package of choice. Anyway you look at it, in this writer's opinion there is no reason to spend $300 to $500 for Microsoft Office.

If you use a computer to do e-mail, you undoubtedly have an address book. If it is extensive and the fixed disk fails, the restoration of the data is at best annoying and at worst impossible. I lost data on an OS conversion and a PDA failure this year (and it took weeks to rebuild) but never again. I am now using a Web-based contact manager, calendar and task list that tightly integrates with Outlook and similar programs. Several club members have signed up with Plaxo -- plaxo.com -- after looking over the material, the service is free and you might find it useful.

KH2D.net

Jim Kehler has a marvelous cynical attitude that just sits well with me. In designing his Web site he discusses browsers and concludes "if you're using WebTV, I'd suggest you seek psychiatric help immediately." More to the point, KH2D discusses amateur radio and pulls no punches.

"Geek Gear" describes the credit card HT with a whopping 300 mw -- and no speaker! An HT has a PTT switch in a position guaranteed to give one carpal tunnel syndrome. Another company has introduced a halo for the serious 6m DXer to work real skip DX. And so it goes.

But KH2D's "Opinions" is superb."What's Wrong With Ham Radio? It's Brain Dead!!" describes hams as divided into two groups. "Thoughts on Contest Manners - Or Lack Of" deals with brain-dead contesters who fail to check if the frequency is in use, and there's a "lovely" discussion on Echolink and it not being ham radio. Jim Kehler's writings make for interesting reading. Give it a try.

Yaesu VX-5R

This HT is one of the most popular units sold by Yaesu in recent years. I was looking around for programming options and ran across a number of resources. File these under "for reference":

VX-5R Mods, Reviews, Software, Manuals and Diagrams
www.ham.dmz.ro/yaesu/vx-5r.php
VX-5R Belt Clips
www.dslextreme.com/users/rdashoff/VX-5r.htm
www.mresoftware.com/vxclip
home.comcast.net/~sllewd/store.html
SMA to BNC Adaptor
www.wa3hrl.com/smabnc
Yaesu ADMS Software
www.rtsars.com
TTL -> USB Cables
ttl2usb.com
KC8UNJ Software (Mostly Yaesu)
kc8unj.com
Yeasu Modifications (VX-1/5/7)
home.comcast.net/~sllewd

Odds and Ends

The Usenet news groups are somewhat difficult to access when compared to other Internet services. However, there are hundreds of topical newsgroups -- messages -- grouped by subject areas and that includes a cluster under the umbrella of rec.radio. Buying and selling equipment on the Internet is a popular activity, and the oldest for radio people is rec.radio.swap. Now you can find all of the rec.radio forums in a Web browser interfaces. Simply dial into RadioBanter -- www.radiobanter.com -- and have a read of all there is to offer in rec.radio. Coverage includes amateur radio, broadcasting, citizens band, satellites and much more.

Learn all about "The Surface Of The Sun" at www.thesurfaceofthesun.com wherein the author describes a 21st century model of the sun base. The theory is that the sun is not just a ball of gas, but has a solid, electrically conductive surface composed of iron ferrites beneath the liquid-like plasma layer of the photosphere. The photographs are astonishing. Have a read.

Find cell phone towers and review cell phone coverage at cellreception.com; the Web site uses Google Maps to plot locations. The downside? I can't find data to indicate the carriers operating off each tower.

In Closing

Thanksgiving is a time to be with the family, and enjoy the company. Grab a camera and perhaps an audio recorder. Your children or grandchildren grow up too quickly, and then move on to their own lives. To you and your family, I wish you all a happy Thanksgiving.

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Revised 5 November 2005

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