On the Web : April 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.

Quickies

Belatedly, the VE test info page at k2ax.com/vec has been updated. The SJRA-sponsored VE exams continue on the 4th Tuesday of the month throughout 2008; no test session in December. Directions, a map, et al are available. Please give the Web address to those you hear asking about VE exams.

I noticed that a few sunspots are showing up in the solar images I have on our References page at trsc.com/references.html. Recent writings suggest the solar cycle minimum has passed, and now propagation on the HF bands should be improving. In poking around some of the astronomy links (mysite.verizon.net/trscons/bm_astronomy.html), I found a an interesting one-stop page of solar images gathered by NASA. That page is called the Sun-Earth Connection Media Viewer, at ds9.ssl.berkeley.edu/viewer/flash/; it requires the Flash plug-in, a minimum of version 6.

Two months ago we mentioned KN4LF's LF, MF, HF and 6M propagation page, but that page address has changed. The new URL is www.kn4lf.com/kn4lf6.htm. Has anyone evaluated the forecasts? Your comments are welcome.

It has been almost four months since I consolidated my e-mail accounts through Google's Gmail. The additional spam filtering offered by Google outweighs, in my opinion, the fact that Google indexes the e-mail. If spam bothers you, go back to the January 2008 column (on w2xq.com) and have a read.

Cell phones, continued

Last month this column had a reminder about the New Jersey hands-free cell phone law. This month, a friend sent me a long e-mail with the topic "5 things you never knew your cell phone would do." I can't determine the original source of this information, but I found the tips interesting reading. One item: "did you lock your keys in the car?" If your car has remote entry and and the remote and spare keys are home, hold the cell phone a few inches from the car door and have the person at home press the remote's unlock button. It might just save you calling a locksmith or road service. Read the Web version of this column on w2xq.com for all five tips.

In Closing

On a personal note, at work, as I sat down to work on some computers, a chair with casters skidded away from me and I bounced off the tile floor. That didn't work very well and this column is short while I mend and attend to some medical matters. As someone else said, "I'll be back."

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Revised 8 April 2008

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