While there are so many thing I could post about (vacation, new radio, new antenna project), I decided to talk about my current favorite. 
My 1st software defined radio (SDR) project! Like so many others I have started with a Softrock Lite II. This radio comes as a kit and requires you to assemble it. The instructions for assembly took a bit to understand but now looking back they are well thought out. While my normal method is to do all the parts at once, their instructions have you move from each stage of the circuit to the next. In the end it helped the learning process of how this radio works. The picture to the right is the $20 receiver in a enclosure ready to go.
My overall goal has been to get a SDR setup and connect it to the Internet. SDR technology makes it possible that all listeners can tune independently, and thus listen to different signals; this is in contrast to the many classical receivers that are already available via the Internet. This would not only allow others to monitor HF from my location, it would also be my permanent PSK31 monitoring station. For the past year this job belonged to my primary HF radio, the Kenwood TS-2000. While it is great for that, I have to take off the monitoring if I want to work someone else. It will also allow me to monitor several bands at once. Currently I have one SDR radio at 20 meters (14mhz). My plan is to grow this and expand to other bands. The sound card I am using is a high quality ASUS Xonar D1.
The other key to this project is the software. That is provided by Pieter-Tjerk, PA3FWM via his website at http://www.websdr.org. While his software is very complete and works well, it is missing a little bit in the looks department. That isn’t any problem at all. I would prefer the software to work vs look!. So, my next plan is to integrate the HTML into my website change the look and feel. After the is complete I will work to get the other bands up, a better antenna and a pre-amp.
I found this great website while searching for repeaters near my vacation spot. RepeaterBook.com, the North American Repeater Directory. Their website is loaded with tons of great features including advanced search, map of near-by repeaters and more. Their website says their primary source of information are coordinating councils (the same as the ARRL Repeater Handbook), the Internet and HAMs who submit listings. I did some searching and found most of the information for my local area to be current and correct.
One of their great features is their mobile website. Their website uses the W3C Geolocation API (same as my mobile wx radar site) to discover your location. Once found, it provides a list of repeaters near your current location. You can also filter the search results by band or limit the search radius. It says it is for iPhone, but it worked great on my Google Android phone too.
Best part of this website? It is all free – yep that is right. They offer the information for free but do request donations. So check out their website.. RepeaterBook.com
I was given the opportunity to speak and present at the Denton County Amateur Radio Association’s monthly meeting. The topic? My favorite mode of operation in Amateur Radio – PSK31. It was developed and named by Peter Martinez (G3PLX) and introduced to the wider amateur radio community in December 1998. It is exceptionally well suited to QRP or compromise station configuration (think HOA/CCR, like mine!). To learn more about PSK31 you can view the presentation that was given. I have also included some links to other sites with more info.
Thanks to everyone who attended!
Links:
http://aintel.bi.ehu.es/psk31.html
“PSK31 Official Homepage”
An excellent source for background information
http://www.qsl.net/wm2u/psk31.html
Good source of additional information and links to most of the free PSK31 application software
http://www.arrl.org/psk31-spec
Good reference material and links
http://www.smallwonderlabs.com/
Good source for kits and technical information
I have completed work on a simple but effect weather radar page. The overall goal of this page is to provide useful radar images to the SKYWARN community. I say useful because you need to be able to zoom (down to street level) and get radar without any ads or extra stuff. It is a simple, easy to use page that will detect your location from your IP address. You can also enter a lat/lon that you want to center on. Click submit and you are on your way to radar images that refresh every 5 minutes. If you view the page on a smart phone (iPhone, Blackberry, Android) it will ask for your GeoLocation and center the radar over your current position. The coding is in PHP and the radar feed is from wunderground.com. Please give it a spin and let me know what you think.
KD5QLM.com/wx
I am back on the air! The fence was repaired but the antenna was a total loss. Not a big deal – I was lucky to have a spare in storage. With some help we manged to get the new dipole up in 1 hour.
After the install was complete, I promptly went to test it out. It tested out on 75m, 40m, 20m, 17m, 12m, 10m and 6m – but won’t tune on 15m. I figured we would try 20m since is my “golden band”. The 1st station was in California, but then the band opened up and I got VK5NE in Australia follow by YC3TKH in Indonesia! That confirmed the antenna’s performance on 20m. Over all I am very happy to be back on air. I will have to do some adjusting to get 15m back (maybe later!). See you on the air waves..
View of the stations seen with in the past 24 hours via PSKreporter.info
For a current view, visit http://bit.ly/ihTkXS
Last night shortly after midnight central time, I was awaked by the sound of the NOAA Weather Radio going off. It was a Severe Thunderstorm Warning for Denton County (where I live) issued by the NWS (National Weather Service). The warning stated:
“A SEVERE THUNDERSTORM WARNING REMAINS IN EFFECT UNTIL 1230 AM CDT
FOR NORTHWESTERN DALLAS.NORTHEASTERN TARRANT & S. DENTON
COUNTIES.
AT 1201 AM CDT.NATL WEATHER SVC METEOROLOGISTS DETECTED A
SEVERE THUNDERSTORM CAPABLE OF PRODUCING QUARTER SIZE HAIL AND
DESTRUCTIVE WINDS IN EXCESS OF 70 MPH. THIS STORM WAS LOCATED NEAR
ROANOKE.MOVING EAST AT 55 MPH.”
Shortly after the warning aired our power went out and torrential rain started to pour down. Seconds after the rain came the hail and very strong winds. I tried to go outside and view the size of the hail but the wind was too great to be outside. I checked in to the Skywarn Denton County ARES net on the local 146.92 repeater. KC5GOY was net control and was hard at work taking the traffic and logging the reports. The reports flooded in like the rain and hail. Once the winds started to die down I was able to size up the hail, it varied in size from pea up to 1 ½ inch. The hail pelted the car and coved the lawn like snow.
The storm went just as fast as it came, the winds went calm and it stopped raining. Next came the damage assessment. I could see that my privacy fence was knocked over, the posts snapped over at the base. Most of my neighbors has the similar damage or worse. Many trees where bent over like twigs and the roads littered with debris and port-a-potties (new neighborhood). I surveyed the neighborhood and found a house that was under construction. It’s 2nd story was completely destroyed and spread about the street. I called back into the Skywarn NET and provided the damage report. Others reported windows blown out, trees down and other structures damaged. Denton County had issues with their 911 and phone services and some local TV stations got knocked off the air.
After that storm the rest of the night was quiet. There was a second line of storms that came through, but it died down and turn into mostly rain. The Skywarn net was closed and I went back to bed around 3am central.
The next morning I found that not only was my fence damaged, my 102 foot 80 meter HF dipole antenna was damaged as well. The apex of the antenna was attached to the top of the roof and each end of the dipole extended down in a V shape to each side of the yard. The ends where secured with rope and tied to the privacy fence. Since the fence was knocked down the dipole was ripped apart. I have yet to get on the roof and look at the damage, but it looks like the dipole is beyond repair and will need to be replaced.
So for now, I don’t have an antenna for HF. The damage to my dipole will give me a good reason to get my 80 meter loop up soon. You can view the radar image of the storm at the NWS’s website: http://1.usa.gov/gdVvbU
A Dear friend of mine has blessed me with the opportunity of owning a piece of history. This item is a very rare radio that was created by The Hallicrafters Co in Chicago, IL back around 1958 for the US Government as a demo unit. Hallicrafter had hopped to win a new contract to build this military grade transmitter for the US NAVY, US ARMY or US AIR FORCE. Unfortunately, it didn’t help them win a contract and the project was scraped.
According to radiomuseum.org, their notes state: AM/CW/SSB transmitter with continuous frequency coverage from 2.2-30MHz, crystal controlled VFO and space for 12 switch-selectable crystals, output 70-100 watts CW/SSB and 17-25 watts AM, crystal filter-type side band generator, VOX, full metering, CW break-in keying, selectable side band, speech processing, built in cooling fan, built in 2″ oscilloscope for monitoring of linearity of all stages between the side band generator and the final amplifier, this unit never went into production, only 3 hand-built working engineering prototypes were made as samples and given to the ARMY, NAVY and AIR FORCE for possible contracts, no contract was ever obtained.
Here are some more pics below, including a letter from Hallicrafter when the previous owner tried to get a schematic. They couldn’t find a copy, so they provided him with a draft manual.
This radio was the one given to the US AIR FORCE. It was saved from the scrap pile before it was trashed. It has been on a shelf more than it has been on the air, but I would like to change that. While I don’t know everything about tubes or the technology in this radio – it won’t stop me from learning! So here we go..
Today I was awarded by eQSL.cc with my 1st eWAS (Worked All States) award. The eWASaward has been established to provide an incentive to amateur radio operators around the world to make contact with amateurs in the 50 United States of America. In my award most of my contacts where on 20 meters via PSK31. This specific award is for mixed HF contacts, but I should have the contacts for more soon. I currently need 1 PSK31 QSL with a station Hawaii for eWAS PSK31. Then, 5 QSLs in any mode via 20 meters for eWAS 20 meters. I completed this award in under one year, while living under the restrictions of a home owner’s association and with a dipole antenna that is no taller than my one story house! Here is a link to view my eQSL.cc profile: http://www.eqsl.cc/Member.cfm?kd5qlm
Time for another Hamfest! The next one is the Cowtown Hamfest in Fort Worth. It is known as the “the original Hamfest in the Fort Worth Metroplex”. While I had GREAT success at Ham-Com (Plano Hamfest), there are still extra items laying around. I hope to clear out more tidbits in Fort Worth this weekend, renew my ARRL membership and get some great BBQ with friends.
The event date is this weekend,  January 14-15, 2011 at the Lockheed Martin Recreation Area, located at 3400 Bryant Irvin Road, Fort Worth, Texas 76109. Educational programs, and VE Testing, will be conducted through out Saturday. Talk-in is 147.28 tone 110.9.
Doors open Friday evening the 14th at 3:00 pm until 8:00pm. Saturday the 15th we open at 8:00am and close at 3:00pm. Lunch, Bar-B-Q sandwiches (the BBQ was GREAT last year!), is available Saturday at 11:00am. Morning coffee and snacks will also be available. Door prizes will be awarded through out the event. The main prize will be at the events end. Door prizes consist of (10) Icom IC-V8 sport 2MÂ FM HT, grand prize (1) Kenwood TM-V71A 2M/440 mobile.
They are in need of volunteers, best part – free entrance will be given in return for a minimum of 2 hours volunteer time! Volunteer by contacting Ken Bush at kb5ybi@dot11net.net or David Forbes at KC5UYR@compuserve.com. Cowtown Hamfest is sponsored by the Lockheed Martin Amateur Radio Club, W5SJZ and LMRA.
For more info check out their website at www.cowtownhamfest.org. Hope to see you there!
 
Happy New Year!
May your year be full of the things that bring you the most joy and happiness, whether it be family, success, a new job, or relief from pain — or some combination of all of the above.
I have finally converted to my new computer and updated my HamRadioDeluxe software to work correctly. It was missing a lot of settings and I just didn’t have the time to get it working.
I hope to becomes more active this year on this sight with various information and tips about ham radio. I also will post a how-to guide on some of my website scripts that do my real time logbook and QSL card slide show.
My 1st software defined radio (SDR) project! Like so many others I have started with a Softrock Lite II. This radio comes as a kit and requires you to assemble it. The instructions for assembly took a bit to understand but now looking back they are well thought out. While my normal method is to do all the parts at once, their instructions have you move from each stage of the circuit to the next. In the end it helped the learning process of how this radio works. The picture to the right is the $20 receiver in a enclosure ready to go.
