On the Web : January 2008

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.

John Fisher, K2JF SK

A long-time friend to me and amateur radio passed away in December 2007. John Fisher, K2JF, a Life Member of the ARRL and a long-time member of the Frankford Radio Club and the Gloucester County ARC, died due to complications of pnuemonia. First licensed in 1938, John worked as an RCA engineer, and was a DXCC card checker and VEC for the ARRL. Probably many SJRA members also knew John, meeting him at the GCARC hamfests and either taking license examinations or having QSLs checked for the League awards. As a DXer and contester, John had 342 countries and 5BWAZ confirmed, only needed North Korea for Top of the Honor Roll, and participated in three DXpeditions to the Galapagos Islands. It was fun to chat with John almost daily on the 147.18 Pitman repeater as I living in Burlington County traveled to and from Blackwood and later Penns Grove in the late 1960's into the mid-1970's (when I worked at the county community colleges). I extend condolences and sympathies to his family.

Shortwave Listening Convention in March 2008

The 21st annual gathering of the faithful at the Winter SWL Festival in Kulpsvile, just north of Philadelphia, takes place on March 7 and 8. If you have an interest in listening to stuff outside the amateur bands, from longwave to satellite, broadcasters and pirates, this is the place to be. It is about a half-hour drive from downtown Philadelphia to Exit 31 on the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike. You can attend just one day if your schedule prohibits taking a vacation day; the hotel has a discounted rate if you opt to stay overnight. All the details can be found via the Web site swlfest.com, and that includes the registration form. Early registration is preferred especially if you want to partake of the group meals on Saturday, but some persons who opt to come at the last minute and register on arrival eat elsewhere in the hotel or at a nearly establishment, then come back to the meal room for the post-meal activities. By the way, about 40 percent of the several hundred attendees from around the world have amateur radio licenses. Take a 2m 2m/70cm HT with you.

E-mail overload?

Are you struggling with large quantities of e-mail that seem to take forever to whittle down to find the few message that you actually want to read? Some of our e-mail addresses have been running on the Web since 1994, and despite the best efforts to brute-force cut the flow of spam and mailing from firms I've purchased items from, the number of messages awaiting me after a Christmas vacation was obscene. Over 2,000 messages took me about two hours to whittle down to the desireable e-mail. Sure you can sort by Sender or Message Title to group-tag and delete the Chinese and Russian language senders, and the those that sell Viagra or other pills, but the process is a nuisance. Rules do not work as delibrate mis-spelling of words break down the instructions to automatically route junk mail to the dead zone. So, what to do if you do not want to completely change an e-mail address and notify those persons and companies whose e-mail is wanted?

I am trying something different with Gmail which, in my opinion, does a good job ignoring the spam e-mails. Yahoo, Hotmail and Iwon aren't, in my opinion, following my instructions to ignore spam mail that's been tagged (your mileage may vary). Here's my schema. Gmail lets me collect up to five other POP mailboxes into the Gmail account. I can also list these addresses to be used on outgoing mail to have it appear qs coming from my domains of trsc.com, w2xq.com et al. Google's filters catch a huge amount of junk automatically and the remaining mail — reviewing 100 headers per page — lets me scroll down the page and use a mouseclick to check a box at the left margin. When I'm to the bottom of the page, I click on a "Report Spam" button and all the offending mail goes away and is blocked. A second of the page lets me tag and delete messages I don't want to read, but the sender is not blocked from sending future e-mails; such messages may be some from NASA, the ARRL, etc.

If this works as I expect, I'll only have to open one mail program — Gmail — to review, read, replay and send e-mail. For me, the additional benefit of the mobile Gmail application on my Blackberry lets me deal with mail no matter where I am; I don't have to wait to sit in front of the computer at the home desk. Questions? Comments on what you have tried to control the flood of messages? I'd like to hear what you do.

Quickies

Do you have your own Web domain and use Google's Gmail? If "yes", you may want to read an interesting story of domain name theft and recovery, and the way you can protect yourself from such an ordeal. Recommended reading: www.davidairey.co.uk/StaticPage.html.

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Revised 1 January 2008

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