On the Web : January 2007

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.

Fourmilab

If you have been active on the Internet in the past decade, there is probably no doubt that you seen "Earth View" at www.fourmilab.ch/cgi-bin/uncgi/Earth/action?opt=-p. This static image shows the current gray-line image showing the entire plant in day and night. First on the Web in 1996, there are now a number of overlay options including NASA's Visible Earth, topo map, cloud cover and weather. If that is all that you have seen on this Swiss Web site, I recommend you plan another visit to the pages by John Walker (founder of Autodesk and co-author of AutoCAD). There is much to see.

Select the "Science / Astronomy and Space" link from the menu on the left side of the screen, and take a look at all of the marvelous software. If you have no interest in the stars, page down to the bottom of the page for the Windows Screen Savers. The Earth Screen Saver shows the Earth with the correct illumination. You can view the Earth from the day side, the Moon, the night side or at a given altitude at any location described by latitude and longitude. Grayline, anyone? In the first days of January, friends K2UBG and KB2M tell me of strong Australian signals on 75/80 m at sunrise into daylight, easily worked with exciter power and no-gain dipole antennas. Another friend in Pittsburgh tells of fabulous longwave reception from European and North African broadcasts on spacings of 9 kHz starting at 153 kHz; the K-indicies were 0 for a number of days.

What time is it?

Computer clocks are quite inaccurate. Why fuss over the correct time? If you are an active contest operator or use a logging program for logging HF QSOs and DX contacts, you probably want to ensure that the clock is correctly set. If you're not in the log of that DXpedition, and you ask the QSL manager to check the log, a misstated time can put you many entries ahead or behind your actual date and time of the contact. Additionally, computerized contest entries match off on the day and time.

When installing a new copy of Windows XP/SP2, silly me, I read the help files when it came time to pick the time zone. I discovered a surprise. Whereas Windows XP has support for Network Time, it automatically updates the time only once a week. If the computer is not powered on and not connected to the Internet, the time correction attempt is skipped for another week, and another and... well, you get the idea. XP isn't clever enough to run the time check when you do sign on to the net. Windows XP does not have any configuration options to control the frequency of clock setting; updating the clock more frequently is a manual excercise by drilling down through the Control Panel. So what do you do?

One alternative is to run a third party application to set the computer clock. Over the years Tardis — www.kaska.demon.co.uk — remains one of the most stable programs in the shareware stable of software. There are caveats when using the HTTP protocol to set the computer clock — www.maths.tcd.ie/~dwmalone/time/tardis.html — and setting the update to very short intervals of time. The results of a search using "set computer clock atomic XP" will show a variety of solutions, but we like the relatively simple solution of modifying the registry. The instructions are within the page at www.worldtimeserver.com/atomic-clock. There is a danger in using RegEdit, and you can bollix the computer. If you are not comfortable editing the registry, don't do this. But the advantages of this solution are significant: there is no extra program to run at startup, and resources are conserved. In any case, neither I nor any member of SJRA can be held responsible if you break something.

We have more information on time and clocks at our bookmarks page of mysite.verizon.net/trscons/bm_time.html. Updates and additions to the links shown are welcome; use the e-mail link at the bottom of the page.

Quickies

Glenn Hauser on his "World of Radio" syndicated show #1342 mentioned that the Voice of Mongolia dropped 12015 due to severe co-channel interference, and instead wil be streaming that audio via the Internet. In my search for the Voice of Mongolia Web sites, I found all the ".mn" links were broken. However I found a "new-for-me" audio links page for broadcasters around the world at dxworld.com/sw_live.html. I haven't yet compared it to our listings at mysite.verizon.net/trscons/bm_bc_audiovisual.html but it is nearly always instructive to take a look to see what we missed.

Are you interested in world news but are tired of the CNN and FNS slants on the stories? I have 170 press agencies from around the world listed on our bookmarks pages. Have a look at mysite.verizon.net/trscons/bm_news_press_agy.html and read the accounts directly from the sources.

Late night television (in my opinion) is a bore, and I've taken up listening to old radio shows on CHML in Hamilton, Ontario. There are a variety of different shows each night. Have a listen on 900 kHz — I just use a small portable radio — or via the Internet on www.900chml.com.

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Revised 7 January 2007

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