On the Web : July 2006

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 soggy 2006 Field Day is now a flooded memory, and the clock is counting down to June 23, 2007, on the Web version of this column. I didn't get out to the FD site to say hello to the gang. While the club members were bailing out water, anchoring tarps and sitting out thunderstorms, the weather in northern Vermont was wonderful. My wife and I spent a long weekend with our 18-month-old granddaughter, enjoying clear blue skies, temperatures in the mid-70's and low humidity. Interestingly, I didn't hear a single conversation on area repeaters about Field Day, not on Friday, Saturday or Sunday. We paid for the nice weekend weather on Monday, driving home in heavy rain.

On July 2, at 8:14 p.m., a very close lightning strike reached down from a line of thunderstorms. A surge protector blew up, emitting a light show. Smoke curled out from behind the computer, and lights went out. I was lucky; the Macintosh and the external firewire drives seem to be OK. The strike apparently came in on the Comcast cable line and jumped to the telephone lines. A VCR ejected its tape and the clock froze in time, a cable TV distribution amp burned out and a Belkin router quit. All the cordless telephones in the house failed, and I am still checking other electronics. This is the second time the house has been attacked by lightning, and it is the second time that all the damage came through the grounding systems. For the second time a UPS did not completely stop damage. In my opinion, unplugging radio equipment and disconnecting antennas in advance of thunderstorms is not sufficient protection. The ground wires also must be removed from the radios and power supplies. Your comments and feedback? We'll compile your tips for a future edition of "On The Web".

Six meter is alive! Stan, KC2HDR, tells us that the 50 MHz band has been opening virtually daily this month of July. Europeans are plentiful, and Stan recently added Puerto Rico, Costa Rica and South Africa to his collection. After sunrise, look to Europe. Midday, point the antenna towards the Caribbean. It's far different now than I remember from the 1957-58 IGY when only EI2W and CT1CO were the two mainstays on from Europe.

Area repeater news. Last month I wrote about the 145.150 (PL 91.5) repeater callsign change. The longtime call K2BU, in Tabernacle, is now off the box. The new call is K2AX. On July 8, the coordination for relocation finally came through, and on the 14th the repeater was moved to Winslow.

Are you involved with a repeater? ArtSci, a long-time publisher of its repeater mapbook and other ham publications, is overhauling their mapbook and asking for updates:

"We are preparing our database for use in the New Edition of the Repeater Mapbook. See the listings at:
www.artscipub.com/repeaters"
"Repeaters on the new MAPS will be pulled from the database. In many cases we will need to limited the number of repeaters on each map. We will pick the repeaters that have been updated over the older listings."
"ALL repeaters will be presented in the state by states listings."
"If you want to update a current listing, enter all the data as a NEW repeater. Re-enter ALL valid current data. We will remove duplicates after a few days."
"After the data is reviewed by our staff, it will be included in the repeater listings AND you will be able to edit the repeater data anytime!"

Web address update. If you have visited the Camden waterfront, you have no doubt seen the Battleship New Jersey at anchor south of Adventure Aquarium (formally the New Jersey State Aquarium). Tours of the ship includes the radio room, and hams keep the HF and VHF/UHF bands busy. Peter Greene, N2LVI, tells me the link on the SJRA Web site should be updated. The Web address is now www.nj2bb.org.

Computer stuff

Do you use the marvelous Google Earth program to "fly" around the world and look at the globe from space? When the program was last updated a few weeks ago, the upgrade was released for Linux users. Windows and Mac users already had access to the program. Kudo to the Earth developers for expanding the OS coverage. Beside the work on code under the cover, the Earth interface is cleaner and a larger image is displayed. As always, this graphics program will not run on a conventional 56k dialup line. DSL or cable, please, to earth.google.com.

Microsoft has a controversial campaign against XP OS software counterfeiting that includes a piracy alarm called Windows Genuine Advantage Notification. The software performs a "phone-home" validation check by contacting Microsoft servers and, if the copy does not check out, it repeatedly reminds the users to upgrade to a properly licensed version of Windows. Even if the licensing check is sucessful, the software connects once a day to ensure the software continues to operate properly. There has been a firestorm of controversy, and some users complain the software interferes with normal computer operations. In June 2006 a French developer has released a program to remove the WGA software, calling Microsoft's intrusion spyware. Read www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsid=6296 for the whole story.

Microsoft is not the only vendor to be crucified on the "phone-home" cross. A fews weeks after the WGA removal software came to light, a Mac developer found that the latest Mac OX 10.4.7 ugrade causes the OS to check with apple.com every few hours. Apple touts this as a security feature to ensure that a Dashboard widget you downloaded is the same version as the widget featured on apple.com, but no further details were available. Conspiracy theorists wonder how long it will be before Apple tracks use of Spotlight (the built-in search tool) or attempts other nasty things. Read this story at www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsid=6393.

Microsoft and Yahoo have opened connectivity between their respective instant messaging products for the first time. MSN Messager is rebadged as Windows Live Messenger. The release of beta software occurred on July 12. Read this story at www.techworld.com/security/news/index.cfm?newsid=6436. Undoubtedly this move will force a round of upgrades to Trillian (Windows), Fire (Mac) and other third-party multi-program chat clients.

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Revised 10 July 2006

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